"Matt Wiser" wrote in message
news:412b51f9$1@bg2....

"Kevin Brooks" wrote:

"Matt Wiser" wrote
in message
news:412a26b3$1@bg2....

It took a double-whammy of the A-bomb and
Ivan crossing into Manchuria and
Korea to end the war. The A-bomb alone might
not have been enough.
Anything
that prevents OLYMPIC and CORONET from having
to be executed had to be
done.
Period. The Japanese Cabinet was meeting to
discuss Hiroshima and the
Soviet
invasion when word reached them of the Nagasaki
strike. Next day Hirohito
decides that enough is enough. 14 Aug is the
attempted putsch that fails
and the Surrender announcement comes on the
15th. Next probable nuclear
strike
date was on 18 Aug with Kokura as the primary.
Bomb #3 was about to leave
Los Alamos on 10 Aug when a hold order arrived.
Two bombs and a million
and
a half Russians in the space of four days
forced Japan's surrender. End of
story and of war.

Overly simplistic, at least those last two sentences.
A hell of a lot more
than that went into the Japanese surrender equation.
The tightening sea
blockade, effective inshore mining by B-29's,
the creeping effects of the
B-29 raids against industrial and urban areas,
the gaining of bases at Iwo
Jima and Okinawa that now moved even more landbased
airpower into range of
Kyushu and Honshu, the isolation of large troop
garrisons in far-flung and
by then bypassed areas, the fact that they no
longer had any navy to speak
of outside kamikaze attack light combatants
being horded, along with their
remaining aircraft, to counter the feared invasion
of Kyushu, and of course
that feared homeland invasion itself (and the
fact that the more reasonable
Japanese leaders by then realized that "Ketsu-Go"
was invariably doomed to
failure when that invasion did come)...all of
these factors contributed to
the Japanese surrender. The first atomic bomb
was an attention getter, the
Soviet invasion was the closure of their forlorn
negotiated surrender hopes,
and the second bomb was the final closer.

Brooks

snip


And there was no way that the Kyushu invasion (OLYMPIC) could have been
repelled

That is what I meant when I said that their more competent leaders realized
that Ketsu-Go was not a winning option; Ketsu-Go was their defensive plan
for the home islands that had succeeded the previous Sho-Go.

: Most Japanese defenses were on the beaches and inland in range
of NGFS, and a suggestion that the defense of Okinawa and Luzon be
emulated
was rejected-the plan was defend on the beaches and in strength inland,
but

True, but you must remember that their strategy was to try and neutralize
the NGFS and CAS superiority the US would have enjoyed by making it a
close-in "knife fight" that would have limited the usefullness of each of
those fire support systems. They were hamstrung, though, by their lack of
engineer units with which to prepare adequate defenses.

once the beach defenses are broken, the Japanese coastal divisions have
had
it,

The Japanese had already recognized that allowing the US to gain a beachhed
*anywhere* typically resulted in a rapid buildup of combat power that their
forces could not subsequently cope with, which is why they depended upon
first trying to hammer the invasion fleet with kamikaze attacks from the
air, the surface of the sea, and under the sea, and then engaging the
spearhead forces in close combat. Their best hope was that they could make
the cost so bloody to the allies that we would decide it was not worth the
effort--not a very likely outcome. But it would have likely been plenty
bloody for both sides.

and the attempts to move reserves from South-Central Kyushu to counterattack
(Ariake Bay, where XI Corps with 1st Cav, 43rd and Americal Divisions
would
have landed was considered by the Japanese to be the main battle area in
Kyushu) would have been exposed to air attack and have had very poor roads
on which to move anyway.

The Japanese staff did a pretty good job in terms of identifying the likely
invasion sites and arraying forces accordingly. And you are right, their
CATK forces would have been hard pressed to do their job; their plans called
for them to arrive and launch directly into battle from march order, so
those that *did* survive the inevitable pounding from allied air
interdiction efforts would have found themselves being fed into the
gristmill in a piecemeal fashion, not a good thing (for them).

Mostly grunts with little heavy equipment anyhow
and what armor they had would have suffered from air and naval gunfire
before
even getting to the battle. Best case for Kyushu is 30 days, more likely
45-50 days before Southern Kyushu is relatively secure and the
base-building
gets underway for to support CORONET.

I'd be careful about overestimating the value of WWII long range NGFS;
history shows that it was often of limited value (the most valuable NGFS in
numerous operations was that provided by the tin cans operating
up-close-and-personal). Time and again we pounded the hell out of Japanese
defenses with NGFS, only to have to tangle with them when they emerged from
their bunkers and hidey-holes.

Brooks


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