Earlier quoted context omitted.
97 square kilometers? 97 kilometer radius ? tsk tsk Wikipedia…
So I read this as "within 15 minutes, land up to 60 miles downwind of the generator is obscured."
Wouldn't that require 240mph winds, though?
Steel worker reveals blocking view of U.S. aircraft on day of atomic bombing
31–40 of 46 posts
Re: Steel worker reveals blocking view of U.S. aircraft on day of atomic bombing
#32It's interesting to read Wikipedia's entry on this matter (claiming it was caused by a huge firebombing raid): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_an... "The delay at the rendezvous had resulted in clouds and drifting smoke from fires started by a major firebombing raid by 224 B-29s on nearby Yahata the previous day covering 70% of the area over Kokura, obscuring the aiming point."
Yep, one of the reasons Hiroshima and Nagasaki were selected as targets was because they were one of the few major Japanese cities that /hadn't/ been firebombed in the preceding weeks. People forget that the deadliest 24 hours in the Second World War was not either of the atomic bombings (which killed c. 120,000 people), but the firebombing of Tokyo, which burned down 12 square miles of a city which had average popul…
Also, Kyoto was one of the original targets but because of its cultural significance it was replaced with Nagasaki.
Re: Steel worker reveals blocking view of U.S. aircraft on day of atomic bombing
#33Re: Steel worker reveals blocking view of U.S. aircraft on day of atomic bombing
#34How much coal tar would you need to burn to block an airplane's view?
How good of a view do you need dropping a bomb with a 1.3 kilometer blast radius?
I would imagine a pretty decent one if you want any kind of precision when you're 10km up in the air. You need to take your own ground speed into consideration, as well as the windspeed as the bomb is going to be in free fall for around 3/4 of a minute.
Getting your ground speed would have been a real pain since you would have to have calculated it from your indicated air speed and guessed at the air density and winds aloft. Or you can time it by using fixed reference points below you... except those were being obscured and are still remarkably easy to get wrong when you're 10KM away.
Re: Steel worker reveals blocking view of U.S. aircraft on day of atomic bombing
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
How good of a view do you need dropping a bomb with a 1.3 kilometer blast radius?
I would imagine a pretty decent one if you want any kind of precision when you're 10km up in the air. You need to take your own ground speed into consideration, as well as the windspeed as the bomb is going to be in free fall for around 3/4 of a minute. Getting your ground speed would have been a real pain since you would have to have calculated it from your indicated air speed and guessed at the air density and wind…
You just need one reference point to measure your groundspeed, and you don't have to know what it is, you can just pick any arbitrary feature below you. With a known altitude, measuring the angular velocity of a ground feature gives you your groundspeed. There were mechanical systems available by the 1920s or 30s that could do this automatically, perhaps most famously the Norden bombsight: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norden_bombsight
Still, if you want to hit a target like this, you have to be able to see it, and see enough context around it to be able to recognize it.
Re: Steel worker reveals blocking view of U.S. aircraft on day of atomic bombing
#36Does the Trolley problem apply here? (i.e. diverting the enemy from your town, if you know it is likely they will just attack the next town over) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
Re: Steel worker reveals blocking view of U.S. aircraft on day of atomic bombing
#37Does the Trolley problem apply here? (i.e. diverting the enemy from your town, if you know it is likely they will just attack the next town over) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
I don't think so exactly, if you prevent the bombing on your city you're increasing the chance they get shot down, they get lost, they return to base, they run out of fuel etc etc.
Re: Steel worker reveals blocking view of U.S. aircraft on day of atomic bombing
#38Does the Trolley problem apply here? (i.e. diverting the enemy from your town, if you know it is likely they will just attack the next town over) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
No. This guy was saving his own life and there was no certainty the bomb would be dropped on someone else - or whom or how many.
Re: Steel worker reveals blocking view of U.S. aircraft on day of atomic bombing
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, one of the reasons Hiroshima and Nagasaki were selected as targets was because they were one of the few major Japanese cities that /hadn't/ been firebombed in the preceding weeks. People forget that the deadliest 24 hours in the Second World War was not either of the atomic bombings (which killed c. 120,000 people), but the firebombing of Tokyo, which burned down 12 square miles of a city which had average popul…
Also, Kyoto was one of the original targets but because of its cultural significance it was replaced with Nagasaki.
Thank goodness, though. The bombings were a bad idea, but at least they didn't bomb Kyoto!
Re: Steel worker reveals blocking view of U.S. aircraft on day of atomic bombing
#40Does the Trolley problem apply here? (i.e. diverting the enemy from your town, if you know it is likely they will just attack the next town over) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
Maybe we can see it as a type of market in which participants simply tried to keep bombers away from their own city, without considering the effects on other cities? Over time, competition within this macabre market would produce increasingly efficient and effective means of repelling bombers. If the cities had cooperated, rather than competing, maybe they would have not evolved such efficient countermeasures?
A competitive strategy could produce a net benefit for all the cities, because diverted bombers might be less likely to carry out an effective attack on their secondary target.
In fact, that's what happened in this case (assuming the smokescreen had an effect). By the time the bomber diverted from Kokura to Nagasaki, it was so short of fuel that it could only attempt one bombing run. Visibility was poor, and the bomb detonated off target above a valley, with the result that parts of the city were shielded. The death toll of 40-80,000 was 'only' about half that of Hiroshima, despite the bomb being more powerful
edit: The outcome could have been even better, because the orders for the mission stated that they had to clearly see the target. If not, they were to return with the bomb. Really, it sounds like they ignored these orders, perhaps because they didn't have enough fuel to carry the bomb back.