Something just occurred to me:

The planes that dropped the atomic bombs flew alone, correct?

Didn't Japan have any planes that flew over the Pacific to provide defense in case of any attack?

They had radar, even if it wasn't great, so wouldn't they have at least scrambled planes to attack our planes carrying the bombs or at least attempted to shoot them down?

All seems too easy that a country at war would have no defense for an aerial attack.........

Combination of high altitude flying and the fact that a lone B-29 wouldn't exactly be a high-priority target. US was already air raiding plenty of other Japanese cities with larger groups.

Found this in an article:

https://worldwarwings.com/crucial-reason-why-the-atomic-bomb-missions-conducted-without-fighter-escorts/

Quote:Earlier B-29 raids on Japan were met with little resistance this late in the war. The anti-air guns were unable to target the high-altitudes that B-29s reached. Japanese fighter planes were also quite limited at the time due to lack of qualified pilots and low fuel reserves. Essentially, there was no aerial defense that Japan could put up against bombings this late in the war.

The 509th Composite Group conducted practice flights with B-29s over Japanese cities and found that lower numbers of bombers attracted little attention. So in the end, the less is more proved to be the right way to drop the atomic bomb without the need for a fighter escort.

(07-10-2022, 10:05 AM)BFritz21 Wrote: Something just occurred to me:

The planes that dropped the atomic bombs flew alone, correct?

Didn't Japan have any planes that flew over the Pacific to provide defense in case of any attack?

They had radar, even if it wasn't great, so wouldn't they have at least scrambled planes to attack our planes carrying the bombs or at least attempted to shoot them down?

All seems too easy that a country at war would have no defense for an aerial attack.........

Japan was essentially a destroyed country by the time the nukes were dropped. A total of 66 Japanese cities were bombed and destroyed (key word) during WWII. They just didn't have the resources to be combat the B-29 raids. On top of that, like you mentioned, their radar was quite poor and short range. They could usually provide an hour notice that bombers were incoming - that simply isn't enough time to scramble fighters. On the rare occasions that they did get fighters up, they rarely intercepted the bombers. The bombers flew very high, and at that altitude, could actually fly faster than the Japanese fighter planes. 

Again, on the rare occasions that they did intercept the bombers, the B-29 was an absolute tank and could sustain a lot of damage and keep flying. Many pilots felt like their attempts simply weren't doing anything. They had little chance to even intercept the bombers, and when they did, they had a very hard time taking them down. So, in short, they didn't have the planes to effectively defend themselves, nor did they have the pilots. Also, like George said, a single bomber wasn't viewed as a threat. They had no idea what those planes had on them.

"The Truth is out there."

(07-11-2022, 10:05 AM)KillerGoose Wrote: Japan was essentially a destroyed country by the time the nukes were dropped. A total of 66 Japanese cities were bombed and destroyed (key word) during WWII. They just didn't have the resources to be combat the B-29 raids. On top of that, like you mentioned, their radar was quite poor and short range. They could usually provide an hour notice that bombers were incoming - that simply isn't enough time to scramble fighters. On the rare occasions that they did get fighters up, they rarely intercepted the bombers. The bombers flew very high, and at that altitude, could actually fly faster than the Japanese fighter planes. 

Again, on the rare occasions that they did intercept the bombers, the B-29 was an absolute tank and could sustain a lot of damage and keep flying. Many pilots felt like their attempts simply weren't doing anything. They had little chance to even intercept the bombers, and when they did, they had a very hard time taking them down. So, in short, they didn't have the planes to effectively defend themselves, nor did they have the pilots. Also, like George said, a single bomber wasn't viewed as a threat. They had no idea what those planes had on them.

Makes sense........ thanks for the info to everyone in this thread!

Like I've said, I'm a WWII (and every other war) junkie, so I LOVE info like this!

WWII started a long running US military doctrine that has stood the test of time.. Absolute air superiority.. 
People love to whine about inflation this, inflation that, we spend too much on defense, blah, blah, blah
The truth is your standard of living and those of nearly everyone in the world today is a direct result of both air and naval superiority, but people tend to forget..That stuff cost a bunch of money and it has to be paid for by someone.
Now the US is pulling back from playing international policeman simply because we don't have to anymore. That entire gig of playing cop was to secure the high seas for shipping in exchange for other nations backing us and our policies. Butter for guns doctrine.. 
We'll still spend a BUNCH of money on defense so no other nation will ever have a chance of invading us and keep our technological advantages for the rest of your lifetimes and we'll still have most everything else secure for our own advantages. meanwhile most every other developed nation is losing population really fast. Europe, with the exception of France is sitting on a population bomb like Russia and China. Basically their baby boomers didn't have enough kids and the boomers are retiring like everyone elses and taking their wealth with them into retirement.
What's that have to do with Japan in WWII? Not much, but it was air superiority that changed everything for the US militarily.
Anyway..It was absolute air superiority that allowed the B29s to drop whatever they wanted on Japan at the time, but at the same time in 1945 we didn't have the manpower and artillery to outright invade Japan. It was attempt and probably lose the land battle or crush Japanese cities to oblivion with nuclear weapons.
Oddly enough nuclear weapons have given us all the most peaceful era in nearly all of recorded history.  Think of how much more brutal things would still be if the whole world were still lobbing artillery back and forth everywhere instead of just Ukraine. 

(07-15-2022, 03:12 PM)grampahol Wrote: Oddly enough nuclear weapons have given us all the most peaceful era in nearly all of recorded history.  Think of how much more brutal things would still be if the whole world were still lobbing artillery back and forth everywhere instead of just Ukraine. 

A lot of people do not realize that the Hydrogen Bombs we have today are as much as 1000 times more powerful than the simple atomic bombs we dropped on Japan.

A modern day full-blown nuclear war would ruin the entire planet and kill hundreds of millions of people.

It was in retaliation to the Germans bombing Pearl Harbor.

(07-15-2022, 04:17 PM)fredtoast Wrote: A lot of people do not realize that the Hydrogen Bombs we have today are as much as 1000 times more powerful than the simple atomic bombs we dropped on Japan.

A modern day full-blown nuclear war would ruin the entire planet and kill hundreds of millions of people.

Who are these idiots anyway that don't know hydrogen bombs are so much more powerful? 
Anyway, it is at least in theory hydrogen bombs that make thermo-nuclear war pretty darn impractical with the concept of MAD..Morons and Dumbasses... 
Who wants morons and dumbasses everywhere? OK, the republican party, but who else?

(07-16-2022, 01:31 AM)grampahol Wrote: Who are these idiots anyway that don't know hydrogen bombs are so much more powerful? 

Well me for one.

I knew they were a lot more powerful, but I figured maybe 50 to 100 times.  I have studied a bit on the damage caused by the atomic bombs.  I honestly can't imagine an explosion 1000 time more powerful.  It seems like it would crack the crust of the earth.

And there are hundreds of them all over the world.

(07-16-2022, 07:44 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Well me for one.

I knew they were a lot more powerful, but I figured maybe 50 to 100 times.  I have studied a bit on the damage caused by the atomic bombs.  I honestly can't imagine an explosion 1000 time more powerful.  It seems like it would crack the crust of the earth.

And there are hundreds of them all over the world.

You'd think lawn chairs would be selling like hot cakes.. That's what I'm doing if there's ever any advanced notice of a hydrogen bomb on the way..Sitting outside on a lawn chair and hope like hell I'm at ground zero.. 

(07-17-2022, 11:00 PM)grampahol Wrote: You'd think lawn chairs would be selling like hot cakes.. That's what I'm doing if there's ever any advanced notice of a hydrogen bomb on the way..Sitting outside on a lawn chair and hope like hell I'm at ground zero.. 

We live near WPAFB, so hopefully any attack would be a bright flash and vaporization for us before we even had time to process what was happening.  Good times 

On a not-unrelated note:  here's the Wikipedia page of the man who had the great misfortune to be in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki when both cities were bombed.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi - Wikipedia

(07-20-2022, 09:18 PM)Awful Llama Wrote: We live near WPAFB, so hopefully any attack would be a bright flash and vaporization for us before we even had time to process what was happening.  Good times 

On a not-unrelated note:  here's the Wikipedia page of the man who had the great misfortune to be in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki when both cities were bombed.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi - Wikipedia

im running around and setting up teddy bears in weird positions like Fallout

Just learned that director Christopher Nolan is making a biographical film about Robert Oppenheimer, scheduled to release early 2023. Will certainly be on the lookout.

All you guys interested in weapons of mass destruction check this out:

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

(07-16-2022, 07:44 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Well me for one.

I knew they were a lot more powerful, but I figured maybe 50 to 100 times.  I have studied a bit on the damage caused by the atomic bombs.  I honestly can't imagine an explosion 1000 time more powerful.  It seems like it would crack the crust of the earth.

And there are hundreds of them all over the world.

"The detonation was astronomically powerful—over 1,570 times more powerful, in fact, than the combined two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Tsar Bomba’s yield was 50 megatons: ten times more powerful than all of the ordnance exploded during the whole of World War II. The mushroom cloud was 25 miles wide at its base and almost 60 miles wide at its top. At 40 miles high, it penetrated the stratosphere."


"A Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bomber was designated to deliver the device from 34,000 feet. The bomb would be attached to a parachute to slow its descent to detonation at 13,000 feet, giving the bomber and its escort additional time to escape at least thirty miles away before detonation. Even so, the crewmen were told that they only had a 50 percent chance of survival (they barely made it.)"



Tsar Bomba
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/tsar-bomba-largest-atomic-test-world-history

Crazy Russians...