# WW2 starts out with nuclear weapons **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 20, 2015, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221 "2015-10-20T10:59:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/1 "2015-10-20T10:59:26Z")
What if nuclear weapons were already established technology by 1939, and all the major antagonists were nuclear armed? Forget M.A.D., war breaks out, what happens next ? ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/2 "2015-10-20T11:26:10Z")
By “major antagonists” do you mean US, UK, USSR, Germany, Japan? The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact might stick around longer if the Germans and Soviets both had nuclear weapons. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/3 "2015-10-20T11:36:42Z")
But London wouldn’t have. They were Nazis. They would have used their nukes. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/4 "2015-10-20T11:51:49Z")
Which is why IRL they used gas against the Allies…wait? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/5 "2015-10-20T12:53:23Z")
It might have made better surrender terms for the Germans. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/6 "2015-10-20T13:06:41Z")
No WWII. Sometime in the 50s the Soviets nuke Germany. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/7 "2015-10-20T13:08:54Z")
I don’t see how Germany invades Poland if there was a threat of nuclear weapons. They certainly don’t invade Russia a year later if Russia has nukes. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/8 "2015-10-20T13:31:33Z")
There wouldn’t have been a WWII. Maybe proxy wars in Africa or SE Asia, but no large scale conflict between nuclear powers. ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/9 "2015-10-20T13:58:51Z")
Don’t forget you can’t occupy radioactive land. ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/10 "2015-10-20T13:59:54Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > There wouldn’t have been a WWII. Maybe proxy wars in Africa or SE Asia, but no large scale conflict between nuclear powers. Why not ? If you’re mad enough to make death camps why not mad enough to nuke enemies, especially geographicaly distant ones ? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/11 "2015-10-20T14:15:28Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#): > > Don’t forget you can’t occupy radioactive land. It depends on what level of nuclear attacks we’re talking about. We occupied Japan in 1945 after using two nuclear bombs there. If Germany had used two bombs against Poland, there would have still been plenty of the country to occupy. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/12 "2015-10-20T14:24:22Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#): > > Why not ? If you’re mad enough to make death camps why not mad enough to nuke enemies, especially geographicaly distant ones ? Well I think Hitler had a bit of a long-term plan for Greater Germany. 1000 years or something like that? Mad as he was he still imagined that some of Germany needed to remain when the dust settled. But let’s say he did have a twitchy button-finger, I think then you see a military coup in Germany far earlier and with far more intent long before Hitler drags them over any nuclear line in the sand. ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/13 "2015-10-20T15:05:00Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > Well I think Hitler had a bit of a long-term plan for Greater Germany. 1000 years or something like that? Mad as he was he still imagined that some of Germany needed to remain when the dust settled. > > But let’s say he did have a twitchy button-finger, I think then you see a military coup in Germany far earlier and with far more intent long before Hitler drags them over any nuclear line in the sand. Well if you’re looking long term then depopulation via first strike seems reasonable, followed by slow decontamination and re-popoulation. You could strike various Russian targets and leave the valuable near-Europe cities intact but without a supporting hinterland. Scotland could go. The Eastern US seaboard, that could be tricky depending on the delivery technology, but you could do the same you did with Russia, preserve the big cities and destroy their support. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/14 "2015-10-20T15:06:48Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#): > > Why not ? If you’re mad enough to make death camps why not mad enough to nuke enemies, especially geographicaly distant ones ? Ask Stalin, he did the first but not the second. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/15 "2015-10-20T15:13:05Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#): > > Why not ? If you’re mad enough to make death camps why not mad enough to nuke enemies, especially geographicaly distant ones ? Don’t you think that Hitler would care that Russia would nuke Germany?? ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/16 "2015-10-20T15:27:10Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > Don’t you think that Hitler would care that Russia would nuke Germany?? Don’t know, what do you think ? ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/17 "2015-10-20T15:54:23Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#): > > Don’t know, what do you think ? I can’t tell if this is a whosh or not. In the off chance it’s not, you stated: > [@MrQwertyasd](#): > > Why not ? If you’re mad enough to make death camps why not mad enough to nuke enemies, especially geographicaly distant ones ? This made it seem to me that you feel Germany (Hitler) would be willing to nuke Russia. So I’ll ask you more directly: Do you think that Germany (Hitler) would care if Russia used nuclear weapons on German cities in retaliation for the nuclear bombing of Russia? And if you don’t think he’d care (I think he would) why don’t you? ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/18 "2015-10-20T16:08:32Z")
The above discussion of who nukes who ignores the problem of _how_ do they nuke each other. Just having nukes isn’t the be-all and end-all of military power, being able to use them is. With all other technology being equal, who at the start of WWII had the means to deliver a nuke onto any given target? Did Russia have a bomber that could hit Berlin, for example? And if they couldn’t bomb each other’s capital cities, could they deliver a nuke to a more forward position? The Nazi invasion of the USSR would have gone much worse if the Soviets had been able to nuke the advancing Nazi hordes before they even made it close to Stalingrad, et al. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/19 "2015-10-20T16:14:02Z")
Scenario 1 – Hitler invades Poland, France and U.K. nuke Germany, then U.S.S.R. nukes Germany to grab a piece of the spoils. War over. Scenario 2 – Instead of full-scale invasion, Hitler nibbles a little bit of Polish territority at a time. The incursions never rise to the “trip-wire” level, and before anyone realizes it, all of western Poland is in German hands up to the eastern limit agreed to in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. I haven’t played out Scenario 2 enough to decide whether Hitler then turns to the Low Countries (which finally brings France and U.K. into the war) or pushes further east (which means Hitler vs. Stalin.) ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/20 "2015-10-20T16:35:05Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > The above discussion of who nukes who ignores the problem of _how_ do they nuke each other. Just having nukes isn’t the be-all and end-all of military power, being able to use them is. > > With all other technology being equal, who at the start of WWII had the means to deliver a nuke onto any given target? Did Russia have a bomber that could hit Berlin, for example? > > And if they couldn’t bomb each other’s capital cities, could they deliver a nuke to a more forward position? The Nazi invasion of the USSR would have gone much worse if the Soviets had been able to nuke the advancing Nazi hordes before they even made it close to Stalingrad, et al. All great comments. I was assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that the weapons were at the very least mobile as aircraft delivered bombs, such as Little Boy and Fat Man. The main issue as far as I’m concerned is how we view the leaders. Though much of the cold war, we’ve view leaders through the “rational actor” model. I’m not sure that’s the case with Hitler or Stalin. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221.md?page=2)