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hiroshima facts wrote in message . ..
"Geoffrey Sinclair" wrote in message ...

I suggest you go look up the various damage levels involved in the
different attacks instead of telling us you are "facts" when you are
supplying "thoughts". Someone decided to use 2km as the radius
to measure the lethality for the nuclear strikes but a much larger
area for the conventional strikes, skewing the results.

OK, here is my version,

No this is not a version, this is a change of subject, from the fact
the definitions were changed when comparing the lethality of
WWII nuclear and conventional attacks.

based on damage levels:

Using nukes, it is possible to subject a city to multiple groundbursts
resulting in at least 100 PSI overpressure throughout a large area.
Bomb shelters that are conspicuous enough to be detected by
reconnaissance flights can be targeted for a direct hit.

I see, bomb shelters that are conspicuous, direct hit, I presume
you have noticed the accuracy of the nuclear weapons strikes,
the aiming points were missed. I presume you have noticed the
average accuracy of WWII bombers dropping from 30,000 feet.
I presume all the aircraft release together and achieve a perfect
bombing pattern, with no weapon caught in the blast of another
before it detonates.

Direct hits presumably mean ground bursts?

Why not parachute commandos in with machine guns and line
up the population and just shoot them? It seems as realistic.

Note deliberately targeting air raid shelters is more than any
air force did in WWII, also such structures would best be
attacked by armour piercing bombs.

I expect that this will result in 99.9999% casualties amongst any part
of the populace within the 100 PSI zone that is not inside an
inconspicuous 100 PSI blast shelter.

It is becoming clear that your assumptions are nuclear weapons
incredibly bad, definitions altered to suit. You can explain how
come 7% of the people caught within 1,000 feet survived the
real attacks despite no warning but you have decided to announce
only 1 survivor in a million for your hypothetical attack?

Had WWII continued, our weapons output in early 1946 should have been
able to produce enough A-bombs every three months to achieve that
level of destruction over an area of 3.5 square miles.

The Tokyo fire storm raid destroyed nearly 16 square miles or nearly
25% of all buildings in the city.

Right so we have nuclear attacks delivering 60 to 100,000 kt being
compared to conventional attacks delivering around 5% the explosive
yield. Furthermore the aircrew delivering the nuclear attacks have
superb intelligence and well above average accuracy, no weather
problems, interceptions, mechanical failures and so on.

The bomb tonnage delivered by the 20th Air Force looks like this,
month, tonnage

Jun-44 547
Jul-44 209
Aug-44 252
Sep-44 521
Oct-44 1,669
Nov-44 2,205
Dec-44 3,661
Jan-45 3,410
Feb-45 4,020
Mar-45 15,283
Apr-45 17,492
May-45 24,285
Jun-45 32,542
Jul-45 43,091
Aug-45 21,873

Now add the arrival of the previously European based bomber units
to the 1946 attacks if we are going to talk 1946, including RAF units.
After all there was still 75% of Tokyo to go.

I expect that no conventional weapons attack, from any era you choose,
could achieve that level of casualties.

This is hardly surprising, since the nuclear attacks are simply
allowed to be so good and so much bigger than the attacks
they are being compared to. The result was in before the
experiment was run.

Fair also seems to be assuming multiple larger atomic attacks,

Since a modern nuclear attack would use enough nukes to achieve
whatever level of damage was desired, I don't see why it isn't fair to
consider that.

Let us understand this, it is "fair" to compare lethality of conventional
and nuclear attacks from WWII by assuming the nuclear attacks are
multiple, modern attacks. It looks like the biggest conventional raid
in WWII was around 1/3 the size of the smallest nuclear weapon used
in terms of explosive power. So now we compare delivering what,
10 to 100 times more explosive power and announce hey the bigger
strike is more lethal.

Congratulations.

Since nuclear weapons have to potential to provide much more explosive
power than can be achieved by conventional weapons, and thus kill far
more people than can be achieved by conventional weapons, I think it
is fair to note this when comparing nukes to conventional weapons.

Try again, fair is comparing lethality versus the effort expended,
tonnage of explosives used for example, not by changing the
definitions.

You seem to be simultaneously acknowledging this fact and taking issue
with me for also stating it.

Now stop comparing the lethality of conventional and nuclear attacks
from WWII which were nothing like the new "fair" standard. How
about we change the HE bombs into biowar weapons, then call
that "fair".

Now stop comparing the lethality of conventional and nuclear attacks
from WWII which were nothing like the new "fair" standard. How
about we change the HE bombs into biowar weapons, then call
that "fair".

I acknowledge that bioweapons are equal to nukes in killing people.
They are considered WMDs for very good reason.

I suggest rather than changing the subject you start to analyse why
you need to bias the results in favour of nuclear weapons.

It would also be possible to combine bioweapons with conventional
weapons, and get the casualty levels and property destruction that a
nuke would produce.

It is also possible to achieve, with conventional weapons, the sorts of
lethalities that were seen in the nuclear attacks. It was also quite
possible to have minimal loss of life in a major conventional attack.
These are the results of thousands of WWII bombing raids. Trying
to selectively choose results and definitions to make the 2 nuclear
attacks look more lethal is foolish, after all in absolute terms
Nagasaki was around 1/2 the casualties, and in explosive terms
around 2/7 the casualties. Those figures alone should give pause
to the creation of wonder nuclear strikes.

deleted bits, to the next

The limit on conventional delivery of explosives is aircraft over
target, the Lancaster delivered around 10,000 pounds of
bombs, put a modern bomber on the job and the number goes
up by a factor of 4 or so. Or simply switch to a combination
of conventional bombing and missile strikes to increase the
explosive delivery rate.

Just as the WWII limitations on nuclear strikes have gone
away, keep the bomb small enough for the aircraft to survive,
the limitations on delivering conventional bombs have been
significantly reduced.

Hamburg was so lethal because of the firestorm killing people
in otherwise safe shelters. Normally the best thing to do in an
air raid is get into a shelter. Large numbers of people running
away on the surface are going to be killed by blast, stampedes,
vehicle collisions and so on.

presumably also against unwarned populations.

I think it is reasonable to account for that. I just don't think it
accounts for *all* the difference. Also, given that a nuclear strike
can hit with very little warning, there might not be much time for a
population to prepare.

Now what are we comparing? WWII conventional air raids to
ICBMs?

deleted text, to the next

"The IJN strike on Pearl Harbor used around 0.1 to 0.15
kt of bombs, killed 2,400 people. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima
was around 100 times more powerful, it should have killed 240,000
people at this level of lethality. Take away the people killed on the
Arizona and you still end up with the Hiroshima bomb needing to
kill around 120,000 for equivalent lethality.

Try to understand the results of air raids in WWII varied dramatically,
using 2 attacks to generalise the effects is an exercise in selective
quotation, not facts."

I think nukes have more potential to spring a sudden attack on a
population than conventional weapons do, at any level of technology.

I would have thought the sudden attack ability comes down to the
delivery system, aircraft, ICBM, shipping container, truck, and the
warning system in place to detect the approaching delivery system.
There are clear examples from WWII of populations ignoring
warnings until it was too late because the bombers had previously
always attacked somewhere else.

The rest of the post is simply deleted text,

Again this assumes people are unprotected and ignores the fact
fleeing during an attack is likely to raise the number of dead. The
protection from blast gives good protection from radiation.

A machine gun can kill thousands of people per hour if they have
no protection.

Now we have "core area" to go with "area affected". Understand
there are plenty of raids in WWII that killed more people than the
atomic strikes per ton of explosive dropped. Even in terms of
absolute numbers killed Hiroshima comes in at 1 or 2 with Tokyo,
Nagasaki at 4 behind Hamburg at 3, Dresden at 5.

It has everything to do with it if you want to compare conventional
and nuclear attack lethalities, otherwise why not simply compare
the lethality of say 2 Zeppelins in WWI and 100 Lancasters in WWII.
No guess as to which one kills more people.

Sigh, to minimise casualties move people before or after the raid,
not during it, keep shelters away from flammable areas, keep the
people in the shelters during the raid. Movement during a raid is
obscured by smoke and dust and exposes people to shrapnel,
blast, stampedes and rapidly changing conditions, the "bridge" to
safety being hit for example, the confusion as landmarks are
destroyed or obscured.

In WWII the lethality of conventional attacks varied widely, starting
large fires was the usual way of killing large numbers of people,
incendiary bombs were the best way to start fires. The WWII
nuclear attacks were at least 3 times more powerful in explosive
terms than the biggest conventional raid, but the biggest conventional
raid was not the most lethal, in either absolute terms or deaths per ton
of bombs used.

So far instead of supplying facts you are supplying opinions and
showing a great lack of knowledge about the results of conventional
air raids. Then you bias the definitions to make the nuclear attacks
look more dangerous.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.