# 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:** 2
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/21 "2015-10-20T16:54:29Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > 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.) Scenario 3: Germany nukes London and Paris and as many airfields as they can right out of the box, beefs up its air defenses and maintains its non aggression pact with Russia. How many nukes are we talking about for each side anyway. if you only have a few then you can’t guarantee that you will reach the target before getting shot down. Its possible that a surprise attack from Germany could disable the allies second strike capability. ---
**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, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/22 "2015-10-20T17:03:07Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Scenario 3: Germany nukes London and Paris and as many airfields as they can right out of the box, beefs up its air defenses and maintains its non aggression pact with Russia. The problem with this is that Hitler never wanted to go to war with Great Britain, but he did want to defeat and occupy Russia. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/23 "2015-10-20T17:11:01Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#): > > 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 ? There would be no war, for the same reason there will be no war now. If a nation has a well established nuclear weapons program, that means they have breeder reactors to make Plutonium for weapons. Nuclear reactors are a Doomsday weapon. If you even conventionally bomb one, or bomb the infrastructure so they can’t be maintained any longer, they release more radioactivity than bombing a country would. Not just downwind of of the reactors, it spreads worldwide. If a country has been breeding fuel to make weapon grade Plutonium, there is a shit ton of other material left over, most of which is extremely bad news. Even the cobalt in the steel , surrounding the reactors becomes a very dangerous hazard. The last thing you want to do is bomb a reactor, that has a decade of spent nuclear fuel nearby. It’s unthinkable. Same for bombing a weapons plant, chock full of left over material after the Plutonium is separated out. During WWII (the actual one), there was grave concern over what the Nazis were up to. Even a few pounds of material created in a nuclear reactor, powdered and spread by conventional means (no need for a V2) would have been disastrous. The radioactive Strontium, Cesium, Cobalt, Plutonium and Americium in spent fuel is quite enough to make a nuclear plant a doomsday device. The last thing any sane leader would do is bomb a country that had multiple reactors. So there would be no world war. ---
**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, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/24 "2015-10-20T17:18:35Z")
We’re not going to get anywhere with this until we know how many types of weapons they had, how they produced the fissionable material, and how they would deliver them, and how much they would know about their enemies weapons. Stalin could easily get out of range from a Nazi bomb delivered by plane and keep his weapons out of range also. Hitler couldn’t move that far inland, he’d have to use MAD to keep Stalin at bay. Then we also have to consider what would happen if Japan had nukes? Would they have burnt Pearl Harbor to a crisp? Could Doolittle have carried a nuke over Tokyo? ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/25 "2015-10-20T17:25:46Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > We’re not going to get anywhere with this until we know how many types of weapons they had, how they produced the fissionable material, and how they would deliver them, and how much they would know about their enemies weapons. I was assuming each nation was armed with at least a dozen Plutonium bombs, but no hydrogen ones. > [@MrQwertyasd](#): > > 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 ? If the technology was Hydrogen bombs, it would be far worse. Nobody would dare set one off anywhere close to an enemy that had working reactors. The only use would be against navies. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/26 "2015-10-20T17:31:45Z")
I can picture Japan using nukes against parts of China, in order to destroy resistance to their “co-prosperity” plans, but nuclear powers taking each other on directly… yikes. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/27 "2015-10-20T17:33:16Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > There would be no war, for the same reason there will be no war now. If a nation has a well established nuclear weapons program, that means they have breeder reactors to make Plutonium for weapons. > > Nuclear reactors are a Doomsday weapon. If you even conventionally bomb one, or bomb the infrastructure so they can’t be maintained any longer, they release more radioactivity than bombing a country would. Not just downwind of of the reactors, it spreads worldwide. If a country has been breeding fuel to make weapon grade Plutonium, there is a shit ton of other material left over, most of which is extremely bad news. Even the cobalt in the steel , surrounding the reactors becomes a very dangerous hazard. The last thing you want to do is bomb a reactor, that has a decade of spent nuclear fuel nearby. It’s unthinkable. > > Same for bombing a weapons plant, chock full of left over material after the Plutonium is separated out. During WWII (the actual one), there was grave concern over what the Nazis were up to. Even a few pounds of material created in a nuclear reactor, powdered and spread by conventional means (no need for a V2) would have been disastrous. The radioactive Strontium, Cesium, Cobalt, Plutonium and Americium in spent fuel is quite enough to make a nuclear plant a doomsday device. > > The last thing any sane leader would do is bomb a country that had multiple reactors. So there would be no world war. Not true. I could write a longer post, but ‘not true’ suffices. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/28 "2015-10-20T17:43:11Z")
I think a lot of people are projecting 21st century attitudes towards nuclear weapons onto 1930s people. Using nukes on Germany and Japan wasn’t even considered a moral question by US planners, and they weren’t considered doomsday devices, just another big bomb. Unless the scenario postulates some kind of pre-WW2 nuclear exchange, I don’t see any reason they wouldn’t be used. Chemical weapons were different - less than 20 years before, the major powers had been in a brutal war which used chemical weapons, and had signed a lot of treaties about their use. All sides had large stockpiles and countermeasures ready to go, so no one could get a significant surprise advantage from deploying them. Chemical weapons tend to slow down operations, so would have been highly detrimental to Germany during her conquests - plus there were no effective gas masks for horses, and the German army relied on horse transport, further hindering German offensives. Also there was no concept of linking Nuclear-Chemical-Biological weapons like there is today, so nothing about using ‘NBC weapons’ and triggering a specific response fits in. OTOH, people seem to be vastly overestimating the effects of nuclear weapons. If the weapons in this scenario are like what was developed before 1950 in our time, they are big, bulky, and hard to deliver to a target. There were no ICBMs or submarines, and no thing that would fit in a suitcase or artillery shell. They would have to be delivered by large, slow, vulnerable bombers, or driven directly to target by a ship or freight train. One strike would not wipe out a city like London, Berlin, or Moscow, and while deployed tactically would trash a target area, they wouldn’t wipe out an entire army, and any distant strike would be risky because of the lack of delivery systems. I think you need to specify the parameters of this scenario a bit better before there can be much meaningful discussion. What does the delivery and manufacturing technology look like (there’s a huge difference between 1948, 1950, 1955, 1960, and 1965)? How many bombs and how much material to make more do various countries have (With nuclear weapons known, controlling supplies of uranium and plutonium becomes a major objective)? It’s likely to radically change the pre-war diplomacy and industry too. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/29 "2015-10-20T17:46:13Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > I think you need to specify the parameters of this scenario a bit better before there can be much meaningful discussion. What does the delivery and manufacturing technology look like (there’s a huge difference between 1948, 1950, 1955, 1960, and 1965)? Considering that by 1953 the USSR already had a ready to use practical H bomb, using that level of weapons development would make for a great fictional debate point. ---
**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, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/30 "2015-10-20T18:06:37Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > They would have to be delivered by large, slow, vulnerable bombers, or driven directly to target by a ship or freight train. The B-29 prototype first flew in September 1942. I can see Japanese suicide missions by ship or large submarine. ---
**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, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/31 "2015-10-20T18:29:05Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > Do you think that Germany (Hitler) would care if Russia used nuclear weapons on German cities in retaliation for the nuclear bombing of Russia? OP: > [@](#): > > Forget M.A.D., war breaks out, what happens next ? ---
**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, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/32 "2015-10-20T18:30:39Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > 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. I was assuming some sort of ICBM ---
**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, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/33 "2015-10-20T18:32:59Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > I think a lot of people are projecting 21st century attitudes towards nuclear weapons onto 1930s people. Using nukes on Germany and Japan wasn’t even considered a moral question by US planners That’s right. Let’s face it people before 1950 were harder and more aggressive, and willing to enter all out trench warfare just to avoid a white feather from a dippy girl. If there were nukes, they’d use them on each other. > [@](#): > > I think you need to specify the parameters of this scenario a bit better before there can be much meaningful discussion. What does the delivery and manufacturing technology look like (there’s a huge difference between 1948, 1950, 1955, 1960, and 1965)? How many bombs and how much material to make more do various countries have (With nuclear weapons known, controlling supplies of uranium and plutonium becomes a major objective)? It’s likely to radically change the pre-war diplomacy and industry too. Good point, let’s grant them modern weapons. SS20, Trident etc. ---
**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, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/34 "2015-10-20T18:50:07Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#): > > OP: You cannot forget MAD, your premise is flawed. ---
**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, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/35 "2015-10-20T18:58:43Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > You cannot forget MAD, your premise is flawed. If Hitler was sane he wouldn’t have decided that he could just walk all over the rest of the world and claim it as Aryan territory. And what was so sane about Stalin ? The premise stands. ---
**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, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/36 "2015-10-20T19:38:07Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#): > > If Hitler was sane he wouldn’t have decided that he could just walk all over the rest of the world and claim it as Aryan territory. It would have been some Wagnerian Gotterdammerung, however one spells it. ---
**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, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/37 "2015-10-20T19:39:15Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#): > > Good point, let’s grant them modern weapons. SS20, Trident etc. In that case, either nothing at all happens, or Hitler gets crazy enough to try nuking London, Moscow, and Washington, and then Germany gets glassed by all three of the UK, USSR and US. Japan is probably smart enough to stay out of it. ---
**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, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/38 "2015-10-20T19:50:30Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > In that case, either nothing at all happens, or Hitler gets crazy enough to try nuking London, Moscow, and Washington, and then Germany gets glassed by all three of the UK, USSR and US. Japan is probably smart enough to stay out of it. Obviously you don’t go for the capital cities you go for their launch sites. Crazy but not daft. But if there\* is\* a deterrent affect then just conduct the invasions with conventional forces. Russia still gets Eastern Europe, Germany still gets the north and North Africa, Japan gets China. India severs relations with Britain and goes neutral. South America becomes largely Axis. Britain puts all it’s hope on the Strait of Dover, but eventually falls. The US relies on the Oceans and the Alaskan bottleneck for defense. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/39 "2015-10-20T19:58:38Z")
What launch sites? Weren’t delivery systems in 1953 mostly heavy bombers? You’d have to take out every airfield and potential airfield in range. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221/40 "2015-10-20T20:24:36Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > What launch sites? Weren’t delivery systems in 1953 mostly heavy bombers? You’d have to take out every airfield and potential airfield in range. And all those planes they keep in the air all the time, to prevent them from being taken out first, [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-starts-out-with-nuclear-weapons/735221.md?page=3)