Armchair General: Iwo Jima

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JAG2955
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Re: Armchair General: Iwo Jima

Post by JAG2955 »

I don't know if a firestorm would work on Iwo Jima. I don't think that there's quite enough combustibles in certain areas on the island to create the same effect that we had in Tokyo. Of course, looking at contemporary satellite imagery versus the photos during the campaign, it's hard to tell what deforestation was caused by the bombardments and what occurred during the Japanese occupation. Most of the greenery appears to be grass and small shrubs. There are large areas of rock that would have been without combustibles.

I do think that we're splitting a very fine hair if we say that a carpet napalming to the extent that the defenders die of asphyxiation is moral and just, and chemical warfare isn't.

Chemical warfare would be about the only way to make it "easy". Even then, it still wouldn't be 100%, but at least we'd have the intact infrastructure. Blanket it with non-persistent nerve, mustard, and mask-bursters. A few days later, and the sunny parts of the island are toxin-free.

Whether it's right or not is a completely other story. If we had the knowledge of the Japanese atrocities that we do now, which are too long to list, back then, would we have elected to do it? Maybe. We could meet the criteria for a proper reprisal through the laws of war and take the island with less casualties. But if we do it, we had better make certain that they can't phone home and let anyone know, or we need to be prepared to do it for each and every island thereafter.

Short of that, we'd be talking about things like identifying their water supply and storage and bombing it round the clock to prevent repair. I don't know how long that would take until they exhaust their supplies in the caves and bunkers.
Aesop
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Re: Armchair General: Iwo Jima

Post by Aesop »

Langenator wrote:Anyone for chemical warfare?
I'll be the contrarian.
Hell yes!

First off, "chemical warfare" covers things like tear gas. I have no problem whatsoever deploying that on Iwo ca. 1945 by the metric fuckton, and then strafing and shelling those forced to the surface around the clock.

Secondly, we're talking about an enemy force that won't surrender. We know that, at this point, because of Guadalcanal, Tarawa, The Philippines, and every other campaign since 1942. So we have an isolated island swarming with fanatical little shits willing to die for their Emperor.
Fair enough, I vote to let them.

Thirdly, functionally, there are non-persistant agents. Dropping a daily dose for a week is no different than spraying for termites, except more fun, and better for the human race.

Fourthly, it was no such morally repugnant, then or now. Biological agents, maybe. Chemical, hell no. It was practiced with glee by both sides in WWI, and no one is maligned then or now for doing it. What it was, as was noted correctly, is a huge pain in the ass: if you use persistent agents, and if the other side has the capability to respond in kind. There is neither of those considerations in play here.
Gas the shit out of the rock, daily, around the clock, for a week. Wait another week or two while blockading it. Stroll ashore. Mop up the pitifully few remaining defenders after tear-gassing them to the surface.

We were prepared, within months, to nuke up to 8 cities to end the war (when we would have run out of fissile material). We had been firebombing the mainland, and already snuffed Dresden out. Don't cry to me about "morally repugnant".

The only expedient in war is to win it, by getting it over as fast as possible with the fewest friendly casualties.

GA (Sarin) the hell out of it. The biggest problem afterwards will be bulldozing over the tunnel outlets to seal in the stench of decomposing bodies.
Which is one helluva lot better than digging mass graves for friendly casualties from the first three assault waves, from where I'm sitting, and far more humane than letting them stave to death over weeks. If they weren't prepared for the death sentence, they shouldn't have done the crime of starting the war. And there is no such thing as a "proportional" response in wartime. Quite literally, kill them all, and let God sort them out.

With the added bonus that on Iwo, the civilian pop. was a pittance.
And the only reason it wasn't used early in the war was the threat of reciprocity. By 1945, we simply didn't want the mess or the bother, as reciprocity was a distant concern in the Pacific.
In Europe, it was a concern right up until the Germans surrendered.
Knowing the (needless) casualties we suffered for Iwo and Oki, I'd have been running Dow Chemical three shifts a day seven days a week, and pouring the product on both islands until even fish and birds wouldn't go near the place.
There's always the chance that the A-bomb might not have worked. One WMD is as good as another. ;)
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy." -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
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JustinR
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Re: Armchair General: Iwo Jima

Post by JustinR »

The pictures in the book, and the descriptions of the island, both point toward very little natural vegetation, mostly some scattered grasses and weeds, so not much in the way of natural combustibles. Also, the few Japanese civilians that had lived on the island had long since been evacuated back to Japan by the time the invasion came around. When the Marines invaded, the engineers dug wells down to the water, which was high in sulfur but useable. I must assume the Japanese had done the same within their bunkers.

So, except for the fact it makes building an emergency airfield for B-29's impossible, do you test out atomic bombs on the island and turn it into one giant volcanic glass sarcophagus, instead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
"The armory was even better. Above the door was a sign: You dream, we build." -Mark Owen, No Easy Day

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Vonz90
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Re: Armchair General: Iwo Jima

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mekender
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Re: Armchair General: Iwo Jima

Post by mekender »

Aesop wrote:
Langenator wrote:We were prepared, within months, to nuke up to 8 cities to end the war (when we would have run out of fissile material). We had been firebombing the mainland, and already snuffed Dresden out. Don't cry to me about "morally repugnant".
Ayup... Starting from March 1945 (3 weeks before the invasion of Iwo Jima) when we firebombed Tokyo and destroyed somewhere above 7% of the city... By June, in just three major cities (Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya), we had leveled more square footage of civilian cities than the entire amount we and the British had leveled in Germany during WWII. In the end, more than 65 cities were completely devastated.

Adding another 20,000 to the casualties list would have done little to the results...
“I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform.” - Norman Thomas, a six time candidate for president for the Socialist Party, 1944
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mekender
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Re: Armchair General: Iwo Jima

Post by mekender »

JustinR wrote:The pictures in the book, and the descriptions of the island, both point toward very little natural vegetation, mostly some scattered grasses and weeds, so not much in the way of natural combustibles. Also, the few Japanese civilians that had lived on the island had long since been evacuated back to Japan by the time the invasion came around. When the Marines invaded, the engineers dug wells down to the water, which was high in sulfur but useable. I must assume the Japanese had done the same within their bunkers.

So, except for the fact it makes building an emergency airfield for B-29's impossible, do you test out atomic bombs on the island and turn it into one giant volcanic glass sarcophagus, instead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Maybe...

Doing so would have had no real strategic value... Certainly no more than bypassing the island would have. Either way the island and its forces would have been irrelevant.

Destruction would have been total with perhaps the exception of some of the deepest tunnels... The overpressure would have collapsed or gutted most of the length of the some 11 miles of tunnels on the island. Assuming that the target would be north east of the mountain, the pressure would have exceeded 5psi over almost the entire surface of the island and been significantly higher in the tunnels. Radiation would have killed off everyone remaining on the island with the exception of those in the very deepest tunnels, those would have likely starved to death or died of lack of oxygen after being trapped underground. With the mountain only being 169m above sea level, the bomb would have detonated with enough altitude above it to cause blast effects to both the north and south face although it is possible that some very "lucky" individuals might have survived if they had been in tunnels near sea level on the opposite side of the mountain.

As to the ability to use the island afterwards, that is actually a toss up in my eyes. With the island being mostly volcanic rock and having a fairly small soil depth, how much radiation that would have been left behind would be minimal, especially with an airburst as we saw in Japan... Fallout would have drifted out to sea. Based on the stories of the Able test during Operation Crossroads, we would have probably been able to land on the island within a day or two. Rebuilding and upgrading the airstrips would have probably been doable within a week or two.

The biggest question mark of the idea in my head is that the island is a volcano... Such a blast very well might have kick started the fires of hell and caused a much bigger problem than the blast itself.
“I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform.” - Norman Thomas, a six time candidate for president for the Socialist Party, 1944
Langenator
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Re: Armchair General: Iwo Jima

Post by Langenator »

Refresh me, was Iwo used to base P-51s to fly escort for B-29s in addition to being an emergency field?
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mekender
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Re: Armchair General: Iwo Jima

Post by mekender »

Langenator wrote:Refresh me, was Iwo used to base P-51s to fly escort for B-29s in addition to being an emergency field?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Field_(Iwo_Jima)

Yes, it looks like they also had some B-29's stationed there.
“I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform.” - Norman Thomas, a six time candidate for president for the Socialist Party, 1944
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JustinR
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Re: Armchair General: Iwo Jima

Post by JustinR »

Langenator wrote:Refresh me, was Iwo used to base P-51s to fly escort for B-29s in addition to being an emergency field?
Yes. P-51's were immediately based there for bomber escort duty, along with P-61 night fighters and some PBY seaplane tenders off shore for SAR. The book I read said even with the P-51's range, it needed to take off from Iwo to be able to get to Japan and back with the B-29's. I haven't looked up numbers to verify this but I believe it is correct. As to the necessity of fighter escort that late in the war with American carriers unopposed... that I don't know.
"The armory was even better. Above the door was a sign: You dream, we build." -Mark Owen, No Easy Day

"My assault weapon won't be 'illegal,' it will be 'undocumented.'" -KL
Aesop
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Re: Armchair General: Iwo Jima

Post by Aesop »

American carriers were far from "unopposed", as the 33 ships sunk or severely damaged by 1500+ kamikaze attacks at Okinawa from April to June 1945 demonstrate.
P-51s were not simply a convenience until very late in the war.
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy." -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
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