A pair of books I'd like to recommend

[HalfLifeExpert]

Hello all,

I recently completed the second of a pair of Alternate History books that I very much enjoyed, and I wanted to share them with all of you as I think they could provide the basis for some interesting scenario material for the Early Cold War (1946-1960). The titles are:

Dropping the Atomic Bomb on Hirohito and Hitler: What might have been if the A-Bomb had been ready early.
https://www.amazon.com/Dropping-Atomic- ... 120&sr=8-1

and

The First Atomic Bomb: An Alternate History of the ending of World War II.
https://www.amazon.com/First-Atomic-Bom ... 120&sr=8-2

Both are written by Jim Mangi and they are companion texts. Not connected to each other in plot but explore very similar things.

The first book presents a scenario where, at the inception of the early US committee to examine building the Atomic Bomb, Walter Mendenhall (a scientist) instead of Lyman Briggs (a bureaucrat) is appointed to lead the effort. Therefore, through the chain of events with more effort happening a little earlier, the Bomb is avaliable for use in February 1945, before the Allies Crossed the Rhine, before the Invasion of Iwo Jima and with the Soviets on the Banks of the Oder. Ultimately the war does end earlier, with major repercussions for the Cold War in Asia.

The Second book presents the flipside of the scenario in the first: This time, the Trinity Test in July 1945 is a fizzle. The bomb does detonate, but fails to cause a proper chain reaction and is a pretty small blast. As a result the Bomb is not available for use for about another 2 weeks. However, the Soviets still start their Manchurian-Kuril-Sakhalin Offensive on Aug. 9th 1945, well before the bombs are dropped. This has major and very different repercussions for the Cold War in Asia, including a VERY Different Vietnam War.

I feel that the scenarios of the Early Cold War in Asia presented here offer some most interesting scenario foundations that It could be a shot in the arm for those who are looking for new ideas to make use of the CWDB.

[SunlitZelkova]

Well, I suppose there are no limits to what can be done in CMO and alternate history is a sub genre of science fiction, but the author’s background and another review I have found for the second title are rather concerning.

I’m just gonna list the issues (spoilers)-

1. The Soviets didn’t really have the capacity to take Hokkaido. Their planned invasion force did not have actual landing craft, was opposed by not only regular army and the civilian units, but also a significant kamikaze force, and their invasion plan was rather garbage. D.M. Giangreco goes over this in detail in his book Hell to Pay. The Americans were also very clear that they would not accept such a breach of the Potsdam Agreement and this is why Stalin called off the plan before (!!) Japan surrendered (a big thing apparently not taken into account in this work).

1A. Furthermore, it remains questionable whether Japan would have accepted surrender at all if the Japanese Home Islands were under assault. The whole reasoning for their surrender was to avoid further bloodshed and leave the Home Islands unscathed by ground combat, but if it is already happening, there would be little reason for them to surrender. The Japanese military was fully prepared to continue getting nuked and it was only the Emperor’s decision that stopped them; with Germany divided and an atheist state advancing to the north, the Emperor, who had already not raised objections to the freaking war itself and kamikaze tactics, among other things, may have continued fighting.

2. Initiatives on the division of Korea were already underway before the end of the war. The Soviets were in the perfect position to say no- they were there, it would take the Americans time to get there, and they were still fighting Japan anyways, as they invaded the Kurils on August 18th- and yet they agreed to division on August 11th, before the end of the war.

3. The USSR and the Republic of China were allies during World War II, and as China had a large standing military there would be no reason for Soviet troops to remain in the country after the cessation of hostilities. The Soviets could not attack ROC forces without starting a war. There is no reason why Mao would have taken power earlier.

4. MacArthur could not have run against Truman in ‘48 because the occupation of Japan would have continued, which he had to administer. Very few people wanted him to run anyways and as he was an egotist, he would only run if people wanted him to, and they didn’t. The reasons they didn’t (his poor behavior in 1943 and 1944) can’t be changed by this book’s premise.

5. Japan apparently never becoming a major economy because of losing Hokkaido is rather odd, as Germany did the exact same thing while split in half. Many Japanese inventions post war came from Honshu anyways.

6. The US intervening in a conflict in Indochina is somewhat questionable. The reason the US intervened in Korea is because they had left and then the DPRK turned around and attacked a sovereign nation, in comparison, the Viet Minh were an insurgency in a European colonial possession- not something worth sending Americans to die for. The US was liberal with use of force during the Cold War but despite the loss of China and the attack from North Korea it still didn’t go as far as protecting colonial possessions through military force, despite pleas from their allies. The loss of China had a severe affect on US military planning in Asia in real life, and yet still, historically American politicians were loath to come to the aid of the French.

It sounds as though the author has a very poor understanding of history in Asia during the end of and after World War II, along with a poor understanding of the years of 1945 and 1946, and the intentions of all of the players involved.

These issues make me concerned about the other book. The title itself is also somewhat concerning- the entire administrations of both Roosevelt and Truman understood that killing the Emperor would likely lead to the war never ending.

The way the author’s credentials are construed in the blurb on Amazon also does not inspire confidence. Risk assessment has little to do with history.

To be clear however, these comments only relate to these books’ claimed* historical accuracy, not their merits as art or entertainment, or their value in relation to scenario designing. And again, in CMO anything is possible, we do have quite a few wacky (and fun!) scenarios in the Community Pack .

I am merely providing some info so that anyone who reads this might make a more informed decision with their money and/or time designing scenarios.

*As claimed in the blurb of the first title on Amazon.

[Coiler12]

The Second book presents the flipside of the scenario in the first: This time, the Trinity Test in July 1945 is a fizzle. The bomb does detonate, but fails to cause a proper chain reaction and is a pretty small blast. As a result the Bomb is not available for use for about another 2 weeks.

Do the uranium enrichment machines also break down, preventing the vastly simpler Little Boy from being used instead? I don't mind the premise, even with historical accuracy issues, but am curious to see what the justification was for not simply leaning on the other bomb.

(Since Little Boy was very HEU-hungry, and since enriching it was and is a massive task, the explanation I would use would be a disruption of the enrichment process).

[HalfLifeExpert]

The Second book presents the flipside of the scenario in the first: This time, the Trinity Test in July 1945 is a fizzle. The bomb does detonate, but fails to cause a proper chain reaction and is a pretty small blast. As a result the Bomb is not available for use for about another 2 weeks.

Do the uranium enrichment machines also break down, preventing the vastly simpler Little Boy from being used instead? I don't mind the premise, even with historical accuracy issues, but am curious to see what the justification was for not simply leaning on the other bomb.

(Since Little Boy was very HEU-hungry, and since enriching it was and is a massive task, the explanation I would use would be a disruption of the enrichment process).

The availability of Little Boy isn't really affected, but the author explains that since Uranium Enrichment at the time took a lot longer than the Plutonium, they didn't want to drop one bomb and have to wait a long time for another to be ready.
This is discussed a couple times in the book. The Uranium Gun-Type 'Little Boy' is so easy and reliable but the Material is so hard to get. It's the Opposite with the Plutonium bomb: Material relatively easy to get but the device is so complex and hard to get right. At one point they consider rigging up a smaller yield and less efficient Plutonium Gun-Type bomb just to get something into action, but the Los Alamos Team conclude their crash investigation in the failure of Trinity fast enough that it's ultimately not needed.

SPOILER BELOW:

When the Los Alamos team is reasonably confident in identifying the reason for the Trinity fizzle (they're never 100% sure), they want to do another test, but Groves, the Pentagon and the White House want to get things moving with the Soviets having joined the Pacific War, so the decide to do the second test (Fat Man) on Hiroshima as the first A-Bomb stirke on Aug 19th, which does work. They actually have a follow on force of conventional B-29s immediately ready to blast the city in case the bomb fails to work, but that's not needed so they divert to a secondary target.

Little Boy is dropped second, on Kokura on Aug 22nd.

This scenario doesn't have anything go wrong with the production of Uranium or Plutonium. It's really with the assembly and test of the Trinity bomb.

In the timeline of this book (which is written as a history book from that timeline), it's never determined with 100% certainty what caused the fizzle, with numerous conspiracy theories (chiefly a Soviet agent sabotaging it), but it seems that the cause most likely had to do with small errors in the molding of the explosive lenses for the plutonium bomb (Trinity). As in history, they really did accidentally have air pockets in the molded blocks that had to be filled for a Chain reaction to occur. This book seems to have it where those little imperfections sufficiently affect the ability of the explosives to go off precisely correctly for the chain reaction.

[HalfLifeExpert]

Well, I suppose there are no limits to what can be done in CMO and alternate history is a sub genre of science fiction, but the author’s background and another review I have found for the second title are rather concerning.

I’m just gonna list the issues (spoilers)-

I will reply in a PM as my answers would be too spoiler heavy

[Gunner98]

Well the one thing about alternate histories is that it takes at least one or two implausible things becoming plausible in order to make them work. Some Alt-Histories assume that the Soviet economy could thrive at the end of the 80's - I'm not sure if that is more or less feasible then the premises' mentioned above. Hindsight is a wonderful thing when applied in moderation, but it scuppers a lot of good stories.

Anyway these sound like good stories.

B

[SunlitZelkova]

Well the one thing about alternate histories is that it takes at least one or two implausible things becoming plausible in order to make them work. Some Alt-Histories assume that the Soviet economy could thrive at the end of the 80's - I'm not sure if that is more or less feasible then the premises' mentioned above. Hindsight is a wonderful thing when applied in moderation, but it scuppers a lot of good stories.

Anyway these sound like good stories.

B

I think the issue with that premise is that there is no point of divergence for the Soviet economy, basically the entire thing was a problem in and of itself. I would say these are still far more plausible than a Soviet survival just because of the extremely deep rooted issues with the Soviet system.

@HalfLifeExpert explained in more detail to me the two books in a PM, and there isn’t anything wrong with them in terms of illogicality (i.e. each change is well explained, not “this happens instead of this just because”). I myself still have reservations about plausibility but that is more of an opinionated thing at this point, as I said the different points in the book are well explained.

But neither video games nor, as you mention, stories need be impacted by these things.

[SunlitZelkova]

Zhukov said the Soviets would need four field armies. Stalin assigned 2 divisions. It was a recipe for disaster.

The Soviets would have been attacking with a near 1:1 attacker/defender ratio, which was actually slightly in favor of the Japanese. This doesn’t take into account the civilian defence units.

The Soviets would have had no ability to interdict movement of Japanese reinforcements across the Tsugaru strait.

I would be extremely curious to see arguments in favor of Soviet victory but I don’t see how that could have happened.