RE: Bobming test 1.80 (Full Version)

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dwesolick -> RE: Bobming test 1.80 (5/25/2006 4:40:59 AM)

Hi Mogami,

Couple quick questions for you since you are playing a late war scenario vs Japanese AI (as I am):

Have you experienced any Kamikaze attacks yet? I've seen some old posts and done some searches and it appears they don't "come out to play" as it were. Is this true/untrue? (I haven't seen any yet, but I'm only in Oct 44, have captured Marianas, not PI...yet).

Also, I've hit some Japanese cities (Toyama, Shimizu, Nagoya) with firebomb raids and started 30K-plus fires a few times, but the damage done to industries seems pretty slight (almost nil actually, slight damage to resource/industry, but that's about it--no damage to manpower at all)...do I just need to keep at it, or might there be a problem, or am I just missing something?

Thanks in advance!



Cmdrcain -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (5/25/2006 6:00:18 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: mlees

quote:

And the logic behind that is?.....


Idle Speculation: The designer's didn't want to be seen as pro-nuke?

Japan takes the Nuke question rather seriously, and even though WiTP is just a game, there might be some politician or peacenik that might try and raise a stink about a game that appears to promote the use of WMD's. A bit of a stretch, IMO, but sometimes people make leaps of logic that leave me blinking in confusion...



Speculation?

If after 2 more had to be used, one could then consider that Japan decided on national suicide and
every person was going to kill invaders... rabid... meaning the mentality be such that even invading all of japan would have resulted in such horror in western casualties that Allies really couldn't call it a win...

Yu could say japan eventually gets invaded and falls but that the western cost is in multi millions of men that its a "no win"






dtravel -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (5/25/2006 6:58:21 AM)

If the US had dropped more than two nukes, the invasion would have resembled a "Night of The Living Dead" movie. Nukes dropped as fast as they could be manufactured combined with continued conventional fire bombing would have left most of urban Japan a literal post-apocalyptic landscape.

The blockade, destruction of internal transport links and continued sinking of Japanese merchant marine shipping would have continued the starvation of the Home Islands, which would have resulted in the starvation deaths of millions. And the survivors would have looked a bit too much like zombies for comfort.

From what I have read, some of the plans the US was working on for the invasion called for using nukes as tactical, ground support, weapons to create breaches in enemy lines for exploitation. And I've seen enough documentation to know that the US was stockpiling truely massive quantities of chemical weapons, apparently with the intention of using them to "clear" urban areas before Allied troops entered.

I'm not saying that the US wouldn't have suffered heavy casualties but "casualties" doesn't begin to cover what would have happened to the Japanese population if they had put up the kind of fanatical resistance they were planning for. Whatever would have been left after all that IMO could not be called a "nation". A desolate howling wilderness, yes, a "country", no.



mogami -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (6/5/2006 9:54:15 PM)

Hi, 6-20-45
Score
Japan 34878
Allied 53743
Japanese Strategic loss (JSL) 16048



Nemo121 -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (6/5/2006 10:15:16 PM)

dtravel is correct. I think that it is a misapprehension to expect that the American command echelons would have contemplated engaging the Japanese forces in conventional ground combat if the Japanese had managed to organise a suicidal levee en masse of the entire population.

America had large stockpiles of non-persistent chemical weapons and any commander on the ground would quickly have happened on the solution of blanketing his objective with non-persistent agents prior to committing his men.

I think the only question is whether or not IF an invasion had occurred the use of chemicals and nukes would have been decided upon as SOP before landing OR if the commanders would have decided to wait and see what form the Japanese resistance took. I tend to believe that before embarking on the SOP of gassing every village, town or cluster of houses one came across the American commanders would have been savy enough to try conventional means and only fall back on extraordinary means once those conventional means had been shown to be ineffective/too costly. IOW I think they would have been savy enough to try conventional means and demonstrate that they were insufficient before falling back on gassing everything and, essentially, wiping out almost an entire nation. Such a thing requires proof that the alternatives were non-viable.



dtravel -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (6/5/2006 10:32:17 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

dtravel is correct. I think that it is a misapprehension to expect that the American command echelons would have contemplated engaging the Japanese forces in conventional ground combat if the Japanese had managed to organise a suicidal levee en masse of the entire population.

America had large stockpiles of non-persistent chemical weapons and any commander on the ground would quickly have happened on the solution of blanketing his objective with non-persistent agents prior to committing his men.

I think the only question is whether or not IF an invasion had occurred the use of chemicals and nukes would have been decided upon as SOP before landing OR if the commanders would have decided to wait and see what form the Japanese resistance took. I tend to believe that before embarking on the SOP of gassing every village, town or cluster of houses one came across the American commanders would have been savy enough to try conventional means and only fall back on extraordinary means once those conventional means had been shown to be ineffective/too costly. IOW I think they would have been savy enough to try conventional means and demonstrate that they were insufficient before falling back on gassing everything and, essentially, wiping out almost an entire nation. Such a thing requires proof that the alternatives were non-viable.


Okinawa was that attempt at conventional means. Japan considered it one of their "home" islands and the Allies knew it. Japanese troops had been fighting to the death for a year already when the US invaded there. All the potentially combat useful civilians at Okinawa were conscripted into militia units and the non-combatant civilian population committed suicide when faced with possible capture by US troops. (I believe the most common method was for the mothers to push or throw their children off the island's cliffs before jumping themselves.)

No one knew of nuclear fallout in 1945 or really understood radiation poisoning & exposure, so we didn't see any reason not to use nukes as tactical weapons. And chemical weapons are very well suited to dealing with the kinds of pillbox-cave-tunnel complexes encountered on Okinawa and expected on the Home Islands. I expect that nukes would have been used just inland of the landing beaches to break shoreline defenses. Chemical weapons wouldn't be used for securing the beachead itself, the terrain wouldn't have favored it and the chemical warfare units wouldn't be among the first troops ashore (for somewhat obvious reasons, a bullet in the mustard gas tank can ruin your whole life). But after a couple of days when the beachead was secured and they could land safely, I would expect to see them used as US forces pushed farther inland.



Nemo121 -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (6/5/2006 10:43:39 PM)

On a side-note:
What other heavier than air non-persistent agents did the US have access to other than mustard gas? I think we're both agreed that one of the main uses would have been to tackle bunker complexes and obviously a heavier than air agent would be desirable for such entrenchments but wouldn't you agree that mustard gas was a bit too easily countered? If they'd had something else I'm sure they'd have gone for that.

Man-portable gas tanks? A la flamethrower units? I wasn't aware the US had those. I was thinking more along the lines of artillery-delivered munitions. A man-portable gas-delivery system strikes me as bizarre ( and not something I'd volunteer for... there may not be many quicker ways to die but there sure are a lot less unpleasant ways to go).



dtravel -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (6/5/2006 11:02:48 PM)

A bullet in the storage barrel then. I wasn't meaning to imply man-portable gas-throwers.



rtrapasso -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (6/5/2006 11:32:45 PM)

Actually, the US *DID* use chemical weapons, but wasn't aware of it at the time.

It turns out the majority of casualties inflicted by flamethrowers were caused by carbon monoxide killing people deep down in tunnel complexes. Flaming the mouth of the tunnel long enough would kill everyone deep down. They didn't figure this out until years after the war, though...



Nemo121 -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (6/5/2006 11:51:51 PM)

dtravel,
Thanks for the clarification. I misunderstood you.


rtrapasso,
Really? Any link to info regarding this? I've treated carbon monoxide poisoning in real life and would be interested in reading about this phenomenon. Off the top of my head I can only see it being possible in relatively shallow complexes with poor ventilation and a relatively narrow main entrance ( which was being flamed). Still that would cover an awful lot of the fortifications the Japanese built.



dtravel -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (6/6/2006 2:25:19 AM)

From interviews I've seen of vets they were fully aware that (and counting on) flamethrowers would suck all the oxygen out of a bunker even if the flames didn't reach all the way in. As long as the enemy died, they weren't exactly picky about the specifics.

('Course, it could be that was a later addition to their memories. *shrug*)



Terminus -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (6/6/2006 2:32:57 AM)

I've heard enough accounts with variations of that theme to believe that this was very well known. That's the only way to fight a war: you do whatever it takes to get it over with as fast as possible.



Nemo121 -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (6/6/2006 2:49:57 AM)

Aye, sucking the air out and causing asphyxiation by means of lack of oxygen, yes... But the Carbon Monoxide claim was one I was unaware of and one which I would find less probable.



dtravel -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (6/6/2006 3:53:19 AM)

Carbon monoxide poisoning from flamethrowers does seem a bit far-fetched.  Carbon monoxide poisoning from the generator exhaust I can believe.



rtrapasso -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (6/6/2006 3:59:12 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

dtravel,
Thanks for the clarification. I misunderstood you.


rtrapasso,
Really? Any link to info regarding this? I've treated carbon monoxide poisoning in real life and would be interested in reading about this phenomenon. Off the top of my head I can only see it being possible in relatively shallow complexes with poor ventilation and a relatively narrow main entrance ( which was being flamed). Still that would cover an awful lot of the fortifications the Japanese built.


Sorry i hadn't gotten back to this thread earlier.

This is what i have read/heard, unfortunately, i can not remember where i read/heard it, but i think it was from multiple sources. Alas, i heard/read about this at least 5 years ago. i think at least some of it came from Science News which is a nice little weekly science magazine covering a variety of subjects including medicine and archeology (and about anything else scientific under the sun.) i'll see if i can locate a good reference.

The stuff about "sucking out the oxygen" is what the troops thought during the war, but it turned out not to be true. IIRC, they conducted some limited experiments that showed flaming the mouth of a cave with flamethrowers (or, iirc, flamethrower-type liquids) produced lethal CO (carbon monoxide) levels deep inside the caves. There was lots of oxygen still left, though. IIRC, the toxic/fatal levels got down a lot deeper than anyone expected.

Nemo121, as you know from treating it, human hemoglobin has an avidity for CO far greater than it does for oxygen. It is odorless and pretty insidious, and tends to make you stupid. i rather doubt anyone in this situation would figure out what was happening to them.



rtrapasso -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (6/6/2006 4:11:30 PM)

OK - doing a search turned up this:

"Napalm (trade name) is a powder. Mixed with gasoline, it is a tactical weapon used to remove vegetative cover and instill fear. Napalm had an effect no one expected. Gilbert Dreyfus (Napalm and its Effects on Human Beings, 1967?) wrote "During the Second World War, troops found Japanese shelters which had been struck by Napalm bombs in which all the occupants were dead without having been burned at all. These soldiers had died, apparently without pain, and with an expression of fright and surprise frozen on to their faces...."

Air contains approximately twenty percent oxygen. When Napalm ignites, it rapidly deoxygenates the available air. Oxygen is replaced with carbon monoxide (CO) as a result of incomplete combustion. As little as 0.4 percent CO is fatal in one hour because of the high affinity between carbon monoxide and hemoglobin. Napalm creates a localized atmosphere of at least 20 percent carbon monoxide. "


iirc, i had read about some later experiments on caves (in conjunction with some archeological explorations) later on...



rtrapasso -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (6/6/2006 4:24:33 PM)

I've also turned up passing references to the carbon monoxide produced in toxic effects in napalm from Wikipedia, and in an online Army Field Manual(s) FM 8-9.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napalm

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/doctrine/dod/fm8-9/3ch8.htm

These also make reference to deoxygenation of the atmosphere. As i said, i think this is now in doubt as a mechanism in widescale deaths by napalm.



rtrapasso -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (6/6/2006 4:45:57 PM)

In further reading, lots of different references to CO and napalm. The more current stuff says that CO poisoning is apparently the second leading cause of death due to napalm. The more current stuff generally doesn't pay attention to "deoxygenation". There is a NEJM review article (which i haven't read) which may be a bit dated:

N Engl J Med. 1967 Jul 13;277(2):86-8. Related Articles, Links


Current concepts. Napalm.

Reich P, Sidel VW.

Publication Types:
Review

PMID: 5338473 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]



Nemo121 -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (6/6/2006 9:19:04 PM)

rtrapasso,

Thanks for the clarification. Yes, as you say human haemoglobin has a much higher affinity for CO than O2 and hence the presence of even small quantities of CO would be enough to cause the haemoglobin to preferentially bind to the CO preventing future binding to O2 and leading to very rapid death. About the only treatment would be to get to the person quickly enough and overdose them on pure oxygen ( IOW giving them 100% oxygen)... This is obviously impractical on the battlefield.

Thanks for the info. It hadn't occurred to me as a mechanism of death from napalm attacks but the evidence seems pretty conclusive ( and reasonable on further reflection). very interesting, thanks.



As to de-oxygenation.... If we assume complete de-oxygenation of air in a given tunnel ( highly unlikely ) then we would simply be setting up a gradient for oxygen in air outside of the tunnel to osmose in. Since there had to be some access point for the fire/napalm etc which de-oxygenated the tunnel there would have to be a point of access for the oxygen to flow down this gradient. so, in order to have de-oxygenation cause deaths we would need to prevent this flow of oxygen into the de-oxygenated tunnel for a sufficiently long time that the troops would die before the de-oxygenation could kill them ( so, about 2 or 3 minutes... would take 5 minutes to die but after 2 or 3 minutes of anoxia it is unlikely that a significant number of people will come round themselves because they'll start having arrhythmias etc). Since the only ways I can think of to prevent this airflow would be to block the access point ( fairly impractical if we're talking about a tunnel opening) or to continue the fire at its original intensity for that time ( again unlikely) I imagine that the primary causes of death secondary to napalming of fortifications would be:

1. Being unlucky enough to stand beside the bomb when it explodes and getting burned alive.

2. Carbon Monoxide poisoning ( either acutely or in the medium term... survivors would be very moribund and incapable of rendering any coherent resistance).

3. Adult Sudden Respiratory Distress Syndrome ( sometimes known as shock lung) in which the inhalation of irritants into the lung can cause the lung to become acutely inflamed and relatively useless for gas exchange. Can occur very quickly following exposure to massive amounts of irritants ( such as would exist in a small, poorly ventilated cave which has been near-missed by napalm or had a flamethrower fired at the entrance) and would be almost 100% fatal on the battlefield. Even today severe cases only survive if ventilated by machine and lucky.


Thanks again for the info rtrapasso. I learnt some new things there.



rtrapasso -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (6/6/2006 9:21:42 PM)

Perhaps Matrix can offer some Category I CME credits... [:D]



Nemo121 -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (6/7/2006 12:08:15 AM)

CME credits?



rtrapasso -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (6/7/2006 12:18:59 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

CME credits?


Continuing Medical Education credits... (referring to the Carbon Monoxide/Shock Lung medical discussion...) [:)]



mogami -> RE: How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?" (10/26/2006 5:17:32 PM)

Hi, Been a while since I posted update to this thread.
1 July 1945
Japan 35442 Allies 55262 JSL 16684

B-29 have been stood down for over week waiting for supply TF to reach bases (a 3 bases went into red in supply) supply currently off loading at all three.

Allies have taken Rangoon.

Only 13 Japanese fighters spoted on CAP over home Islands so P-38's conducted sweep. 11 Tony-100 shot down 2 P-38 lost.

Still waiting for first bomb but July is first month that one may be added to pool. Bomb group deplyed Iwo Jima waiting bomb.

Allies need 15,622 VP for victory is Japanese total remains as is. I am hoping it goes down from lack of supply to bases in South/Central Pacific. I think I will capture several hundred VP worth of bases this month in China/Burma/DEI. Only Takao remains in Japanese hands on Formosa and it should fall in next few days. Engineers and Aviation support already enroute. (B-29 will operate from there when airfield secure and repaired and supplied. )
The B-29 must socre a lot of points this month. I am counting on around 4k from use of bomb when it arrives.



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