HH 59 : The Destroyer of Worlds

[Okeefenokee]

Dan's at the back of the line. I'll listen to this one when I through my backlog.

Close down my fucking forum.......

[Penner]

A Bliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitz Show.

Loved it!

Its the first six hour blitz show but I still love it. Just have to find to do something for 6 hours so I can listen to it.

[Okeefenokee]

A Bliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitz Show.

Loved it!

Its the first six hour blitz show but I still love it. Just have to find to do something for 6 hours so I can listen to it.

the motherfucker closed down our forum. Put his ass on the backburner.

[Martin Hash]

A Bliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitz Show.

Loved it!

Its the first six hour blitz show but I still love it. Just have to find to do something for 6 hours so I can listen to it.

2x speed, only 3 hrs.

[jbird4049]

I have read several accounts of the battle, but I cannot quite get why the Army units on the east side of the Chosin Reservoir where left hanging. It was a seriously bad situation for the Americans, but It looks to me like they were just abandoned, whereas the Marines were not.

It's not that they were abandoned per se, the army commander simply dismissed the possibility of the Chinese being able to threaten his forces, he was warned, but he just said "those Chinese laundrymen can't fight worth a damn, I'm not worried about it"

Once they were encircled, it was all hands on deck to try to fight through from the south, with tanks and whatnot, to open a way for a break out, but that actually turned into a meatgrinder, the progress was painfully slow, because the Chinese were cutting that rescue force to pieces as it crawled along through their kill zone.

As for the bomb, one of them can destroy a city. Perhaps some were not eager to set a precedent. Just where were they going to drop it at the battle, or should they have dropped on Beijing, and have a really hot war?

The plan was to intimidate the Soviets and Chinese into capitulating, by dropping nuclear weapons on North Korea and creating a ring of nuclear "blast zones" through Manchuria, it was called Operation Hudson Harbor.

Chosin makes a little more sense, but the strategy for using the bomb also makes a sort of sense, it still seems extremely unwise.

I have no knowledge of the weather patterns (so I really am guessing), but going by the earlier posts, drifting clouds of radiation alone might have threatened the entire Korean Peninsula, Japan, and goodly chunk of western China. Then I could also see the Soviets giving the bomb to China, or Chairman Mao going all in to take Korea. It would be just as crazy.

[Smitty-48]

I have no knowledge of the weather patterns (so I really am guessing), but going by the earlier posts, drifting clouds of radiation alone might have threatened the entire Korean Peninsula, Japan, and goodly chunk of western China. Then I could also see the Soviets giving the bomb to China, or Chairman Mao going all in to take Korea. It would be just as crazy.

There was no "safe" in the Cold War, the Cold War, was an inherently high risk gambit, at all times, and having grown up during the Cold War myself; we were fully aware of this, I assure you.

None the less, upon the Chinese driving UN forces below the armistice line in 1953, use of nuclear weapons for Operation Hudson Harbor was authorized, the operation however, was rendered moot, when UN forces managed to drive the Chinese back across the armistice line, and then the North Koreans and Chinese signed the armistice agreement.

[Smitty-48]

And just to add, the nuclear fallout from a few single stage fission bombs in 1953, would have been utterly negligible, in comparison to the age of two stage fission-fusion bombs, which was about to arrive, the very next year.

In 1953, they were going to drop Mk. 4 nuclear bombs, maximum yield; 30 kilotons; not even a firecracker, by hydrogen bomb standards.

The biggest criticism of Operation Hudson Harbour, was not that it was going to do too much damage, but rather that the effects might turn out to be not any greater than conventional bombing, which quite frankly, was essentially correct.

The nuclear weapon didn't actually become the Sword of Armageddon, until Mr. Teller & Co, had delivered the air-droppable two stage fission-fusion "dry" deuterium warhead, in 1956.

People were concerned about the effects of nuclear weapons, but not in fact particularly concerned, until the arrival of the so called "Super" bomb, which first came on the scene with the very rudimentary Ivy Mike in 1952, but didn't really grab peoples attention, until the aforementioned Castle Bravo, in 1954, which did in fact, scare the bejeezers out of everybody.

[ssu]

Listened to it.

Nice that people are still interested in the HH, even if some think it's some vague punch at Trump. Yet it's more like a sequel to "Logical Insanity" in my view. Dan does have the ability to cover a lot of time and several wars. Worth listening to.

Good part is how he depicts how in Trumans and Stalins time in Korea the way how "Limited wars" came up in the time of nuclear weapons. All sides, Russian, Chinese and American, did want to "limit" with various ways the war from "volunteers" to "Police action". Limited warfare, or denying that actually the sides have come to blows from time to time, was something typical to the Cold War and as Dan puts it, has everything to do with nuclear weapons.

Would have liked if Dan would have gone to talk about the issue if nukes have actually made us not have a World War...

In 1953, they were going to drop Mk. 4 nuclear bombs, maximum yield; 30 kilotons; not even a firecracker, by hydrogen bomb standards.

The biggest criticism of Operation Hudson Harbour, was not that it was going to do too much damage, but rather that the effects might turn out to be not any greater than conventional bombing, which quite frankly, was essentially correct.

Thanks Smitty, I didn't know of Operation Hudson Harbour, interesting!

I think that fact that nuclear weapons haven't been used has made them more sinister to people and created them to be this "final" deterrent. If they would have been used in Korea, then there would be a lot more example of their use in "ordinary war", and then it would be far more "natural" to use them. Low yield bombs and especially tactical nukes aren't so dangerous by themselves (it's only the escalation part that makes people really afraid of them).

And use and the experiences in Korea would likely have lowered the threshold of their use in the Cuban Missile Crisis. After all, it would be then "the norm" that the US uses nukes when it fights and hence the doctrine that people thought would be the reality how the US fights.

[Ex-California]

[Smitty-48]

Thanks Smitty, I didn't know of Operation Hudson Harbour, interesting!

I think that fact that nuclear weapons haven't been used has made them more sinister to people and created them to be this "final" deterrent. If they would have been used in Korea, then there would be a lot more example of their use in "ordinary war", and then it would be far more "natural" to use them. Low yield bombs and especially tactical nukes aren't so dangerous by themselves (it's only the escalation part that makes people really afraid of them).

And use and the experiences in Korea would likely have lowered the threshold of their use in the Cuban Missile Crisis. After all, it would be then "the norm" that the US uses nukes when it fights and hence the doctrine that people thought would be the reality how the US fights.

I would say the main issue in 1953, was just the limited number of bombs available, these bombs were supposed to be for fighting World War Three if necessary, Korea itself wasn't World War Three, so unless and until it escalated beyond the Korean Peninsula, the Americans were loathe to use their bombs, because they just didn't have that many of them at this juncture.

And, as I said, they are furiously working on the hydrogen bomb, but in terms of being a deliverable weapon which could be dropped from a bomber, having that in significant quantities is also some years off yet at this point.

If the Americans dropped all the atomic bombs they had in 1953, that wouldn't even amount to one hydrogen bomb worth of firepower, Castle Bravo was twice as powerful as all the atomic bombs in the 1953 arsenal combined.