Hiroshima/Nagasaki vs conventional B-17 bombing

"hiroshima facts" wrote in message
om...
"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
...

Nope. You need to change your nickname from "Hiroshima Facts" to
"Hiroshima
Fantasies".

This was a poor substitute for an intelligent argument.



Had half the population of Hiroshima died then the death toll
there would have been well over 100K, which is plainly not the case.

"Half the affected area" and "half the population of the city" are not
necessarily the same thing.

I think you are going to have to very carefully define what *you*
mean by "the affected area". You apparently don't mean to include
the entire cities of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. I would like to see your
interpretation of "the affected area" as applied to Tokyo as well.

"John Keeney" wrote in message ...

I think you are going to have to very carefully define what *you*
mean by "the affected area". You apparently don't mean to include
the entire cities of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. I would like to see your
interpretation of "the affected area" as applied to Tokyo as well.


I don't have all the methodology that went into the estimate, but I
presume "affected area" refers to the areas that were leveled in the
attack.

The "affected area" for the nukes was counted as "within 2 km".

hiroshima facts wrote in message

Even in the worst cases of conventional bombing (like Tokyo), only 10%
of the affected population was killed.

Pre war population of Tokyo around 5,900,000, the firestorm raid
killed 83,783 according to Tokyo police, 1.4%, other estimates have
higher numbers of deaths and a smaller population due to evacuations.
Hamburg and Dresden suffered losses in the 4 to 5% range in the
firestorm raids, as a percentage of total population. Depending on
what population figures for the people present is accepted.

If the homeless figure plus deaths is the "population affected" figure
then the Tokyo death rate was around 7 to 8% of population affected.

In most of the Japanese cities firebombed, the death rate was about
1%.

This is presumably a percentage of total population present.


The A-bombs killed about half of the people in the affected area both
times.

Pre war combined population of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was
around 520,000

So presumably the "affected area/population" is being defined as
something less than the total city, only the districts damaged to a
defined extent and affects on people again to a defined extent.
Arthur Harris' acreage destroyed table says 75% of Hamburg and
59% of Dresden were destroyed during the war. The Tokyo fire
storm raid destroyed nearly 16 square miles or nearly 25% of all
buildings in the city, over 1,000,000 left homeless.

The attack on Hiroshima killed around 80,000 and made a further
180,000 homeless, so 80/260 or 31% of the people affected, using
homeless and killed as the definition of affected. As noted above
Tokyo comes in at 7 to 8% using this measure.

One problem with comparing the data is the non atomic attacks
were against alerted cities, with people in shelters, the atomic
strikes were against unalerted cities and it makes a big difference
to the casualty figures. On 5 April 1943 the USAAF hit the Antwerp
industrial area with 172 short tons of bombs, killing 936 civilians,
it would appear the population assumed the bombers were going
somewhere else. There are plenty of such examples from the air
war in Europe, as late as April 1945 with the RAF attack on
Potsdam, the population appears to have assumed an attack on
Berlin, one estimate is perhaps 5,000 dead, the pre war population
was 74,000, 1,962 short tons of bombs dropped.

Given the difficulty in knowing the population numbers at the time
of the attacks on axis cities it would be interesting to know how
the estimates of populations in specific parts of the cities were done.

I would expect a nuclear weapon to be more lethal to those in the
target area, mainly the difference between most damage being
inflicted almost instantaneously and fires breaking out rapidly
versus the time it takes to put hundreds of bombers over the target.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

"Geoffrey Sinclair" wrote in message ...

So presumably the "affected area/population" is being defined as
something less than the total city, only the districts damaged to a
defined extent and affects on people again to a defined extent.

Yes.



Arthur Harris' acreage destroyed table says 75% of Hamburg and
59% of Dresden were destroyed during the war. The Tokyo fire
storm raid destroyed nearly 16 square miles or nearly 25% of all
buildings in the city, over 1,000,000 left homeless.

The attack on Hiroshima killed around 80,000 and made a further
180,000 homeless, so 80/260 or 31% of the people affected, using
homeless and killed as the definition of affected. As noted above
Tokyo comes in at 7 to 8% using this measure.

The figures behind the 10% claim presume 1 million affected and
100,000 killed.

I tried to track down the 50% claim, and it apparently is based on
"Medical Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan" published by Oughterson
in 1956. I don't have that on hand, but I understand that on page 84,
they say that 48% of people within 2 km of ground zero were killed.
And "within 2 km of ground zero" was counted as the "affected area"
for the estimate I was quoting.




I agree with the rest:

One problem with comparing the data is the non atomic attacks
were against alerted cities, with people in shelters, the atomic
strikes were against unalerted cities and it makes a big difference
to the casualty figures. On 5 April 1943 the USAAF hit the Antwerp
industrial area with 172 short tons of bombs, killing 936 civilians,
it would appear the population assumed the bombers were going
somewhere else. There are plenty of such examples from the air
war in Europe, as late as April 1945 with the RAF attack on
Potsdam, the population appears to have assumed an attack on
Berlin, one estimate is perhaps 5,000 dead, the pre war population
was 74,000, 1,962 short tons of bombs dropped.

Given the difficulty in knowing the population numbers at the time
of the attacks on axis cities it would be interesting to know how
the estimates of populations in specific parts of the cities were done.

I would expect a nuclear weapon to be more lethal to those in the
target area, mainly the difference between most damage being
inflicted almost instantaneously and fires breaking out rapidly
versus the time it takes to put hundreds of bombers over the target.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

"hiroshima facts" wrote in message
om...


I tried to track down the 50% claim, and it apparently is based on
"Medical Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan" published by Oughterson
in 1956. I don't have that on hand, but I understand that on page 84,
they say that 48% of people within 2 km of ground zero were killed.
And "within 2 km of ground zero" was counted as the "affected area"
for the estimate I was quoting.


This is an oversimplification

According to the Manhattan Engineer district survey
the relationship of mortality to range was as follows

Distance in feet Per-cent Mortality
0 - 1000 93.0%
1000 - 2000 92.0
2000 - 3000 86.0
3000 - 4000 69.0
4000 - 5000 49.0
5000 - 6000 31.5
6000 - 7000 12.5
7000 - 8000 1.3
8000 - 9000 0.5
9000 - 10,000 0.0

The same source states

"Nearly everything was heavily damaged up to a radius of
3 miles from the blast and beyond this distance damage,
although comparatively light, extended for several more miles."

Clearly the area affected was much more than that within
a radius of 2 kms

Keith

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message ...

The same source states

"Nearly everything was heavily damaged up to a radius of
3 miles from the blast and beyond this distance damage,
although comparatively light, extended for several more miles."

Clearly the area affected was much more than that within
a radius of 2 kms


Heavy damage usually refers to something like that caused by a 3 PSI
overpressure, which will destroy internal walls of a house and leave
the contents of the house all piled up against the far wall, but
doesn't destroy the exterior frame of the house.

I think the estimate probably was considering the area where most
structures were completely destroyed.

I concede that "affected area" was a poor choice of words on my part.
"Area razed to the ground" would be more appropriate.

hiroshima facts wrote in message . ..
"Geoffrey Sinclair" wrote in message ...

So presumably the "affected area/population" is being defined as
something less than the total city, only the districts damaged to a
defined extent and affects on people again to a defined extent.

Yes.

Which makes the figures very vulnerable to arbitrary definitions.

Arthur Harris' acreage destroyed table says 75% of Hamburg and
59% of Dresden were destroyed during the war. The Tokyo fire
storm raid destroyed nearly 16 square miles or nearly 25% of all
buildings in the city, over 1,000,000 left homeless.

The attack on Hiroshima killed around 80,000 and made a further
180,000 homeless, so 80/260 or 31% of the people affected, using
homeless and killed as the definition of affected. As noted above
Tokyo comes in at 7 to 8% using this measure.

The figures behind the 10% claim presume 1 million affected and
100,000 killed.

(10% for Tokyo)

Yet those figures should then read 9%, 100,000 dead out of 1,100,000
dead and homeless, since the two categories are mutually exclusive.

I tried to track down the 50% claim, and it apparently is based on
"Medical Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan" published by Oughterson
in 1956. I don't have that on hand, but I understand that on page 84,
they say that 48% of people within 2 km of ground zero were killed.
And "within 2 km of ground zero" was counted as the "affected area"
for the estimate I was quoting.

In which case the affected area being defined as significantly less than
the area of blast and fire damage. There were deaths and damage
beyond the 2 km/6,600 feet radius.

It is also different to the measure used for Tokyo, since it does not
use dead plus homeless, substituting a 2 km circle instead. It makes
the atomic attacks look more lethal by changing the choice of
measurement. The comparison between the two as reported is
therefore invalid.

The Tokyo raid destroyed 16 square miles, which is the area of a
circle of around 2.25 miles or 3.6 km in radius, what was the death
toll like for the 2 km circle?

On a comparative scale Tokyo comes in at 7 to 8%, Hiroshima 31%
deaths when you count the dead and homeless as the "affected
population", making the atomic strikes about 4 times as lethal.
Though this ignores the reality Hiroshima was not under air raid alert
at the time but Tokyo was, which could account for much to even all
of the difference in lethality.

It looks like the bombing campaign against Germany killed around 1
person per 4,600 pounds of bombs dropped, using the pre war German
borders definition of Germany. The strike on Antwerp I mentioned killed
at a rate much higher than that. Now it could be the reason this strike made
it to the history books was because it was an extreme example of lethality,
but it does show how variable the results could be. In the bombing
campaign against French targets the civilian death toll was around 1 death
per 20,000 pounds of bombs. In theory, assuming Little Boy had a 15,000
ton effectiveness, Hiroshima works out to 1 death per 375 "pounds", the
Antwerp raid 1 death per 360 pounds. Fat Man at 23,000 tons yield works
out to around 1 death per 1,300 "pounds".

The RAF Hamburg firestorm raid dropped 2,707 short tons of bombs,
some of which missed, but killed around 40,000 people, that is around
1 death per 135 pounds of bombs. Many of the deaths were to lack
of oxygen/carbon monoxide in the shelters which had not been set up
to handle such bad fires.

Back to Tokyo,

Put it another way, the Tokyo Police report has 1 injured for every 2
dead, assume the same ratio applies to housing and you have over
1,000,000 homeless and over another 500,000 whose house was
damaged, they would be "affected" as well. That means the dead
as a percentage of affected goes to 84,000 out of 1,600,000, back
down to the 5% range of the European fire storms.

Or again Tokyo had nearly 25% of buildings destroyed, again assume
a 2 to 1 ratio destroyed to damaged, and we have over 1/3 of the city
affected, which would mean, in theory 2,000,000 people. So the
percentage drops to 4%. Just choose the definitions and drop out
the numbers.

This ignores the problems in determining a good population figure for
the city, let alone a subset of districts, given the attacks by definition
would destroy some of the records needed to determine the population
present.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

"Geoffrey Sinclair" wrote in message ...
hiroshima facts wrote in message . ..

I tried to track down the 50% claim, and it apparently is based on
"Medical Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan" published by Oughterson
in 1956. I don't have that on hand, but I understand that on page 84,
they say that 48% of people within 2 km of ground zero were killed.
And "within 2 km of ground zero" was counted as the "affected area"
for the estimate I was quoting.

In which case the affected area being defined as significantly less than
the area of blast and fire damage. There were deaths and damage
beyond the 2 km/6,600 feet radius.

I'm guessing the estimate tried to pick the area where most of the
buildings were leveled, and came up with 2 KM. Since a modern nuclear
attack that wanted to level a city would use either large enough
warheads (or a large enough numbers of warheads) to level everything,
this seems fair to me, although perhaps I should use a more precise
term than "area affected".




It is also different to the measure used for Tokyo, since it does not
use dead plus homeless, substituting a 2 km circle instead. It makes
the atomic attacks look more lethal by changing the choice of
measurement. The comparison between the two as reported is
therefore invalid.

The Tokyo raid destroyed 16 square miles, which is the area of a
circle of around 2.25 miles or 3.6 km in radius, what was the death
toll like for the 2 km circle?

As far as I know, there was no concentration of deaths in the Tokyo
raid that would change the ratio if we focused on a smaller area.




On a comparative scale Tokyo comes in at 7 to 8%, Hiroshima 31%
deaths when you count the dead and homeless as the "affected
population", making the atomic strikes about 4 times as lethal.
Though this ignores the reality Hiroshima was not under air raid alert
at the time but Tokyo was, which could account for much to even all
of the difference in lethality.

I don't think it could account for all of it.

Are there *any* instances of conventional weapons ever killing more
than 8% (either of the "area affected" or the "area leveled")?

This will probably appear in the wrong place thanks to a buggy news server.

hiroshima facts wrote in message
"Geoffrey Sinclair" wrote in message
. ..
hiroshima facts wrote in message
I tried to track down the 50% claim, and it apparently is based on
"Medical Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan" published by Oughterson
in 1956. I don't have that on hand, but I understand that on page 84,
they say that 48% of people within 2 km of ground zero were killed.
And "within 2 km of ground zero" was counted as the "affected area"
for the estimate I was quoting.
In which case the affected area being defined as significantly less than
the area of blast and fire damage. There were deaths and damage
beyond the 2 km/6,600 feet radius.

I'm guessing the estimate tried to pick the area where most of the
buildings were leveled, and came up with 2 KM. Since a modern nuclear
attack that wanted to level a city would use either large enough
warheads (or a large enough numbers of warheads) to level everything,
this seems fair to me, although perhaps I should use a more precise
term than "area affected".

Let us understand this, fair for nuclear weapons is looking at the
most damaged areas when computing lethality. Fair for conventional
weapons is looking at a much bigger area, where damage is not as
severe in places when computing lethality. Fair also seems to be
assuming multiple larger atomic attacks, presumably also against
unwarned populations.

It is also different to the measure used for Tokyo, since it does not
use dead plus homeless, substituting a 2 km circle instead. It makes
the atomic attacks look more lethal by changing the choice of
measurement. The comparison between the two as reported is
therefore invalid.
The Tokyo raid destroyed 16 square miles, which is the area of a
circle of around 2.25 miles or 3.6 km in radius, what was the death
toll like for the 2 km circle?
As far as I know, there was no concentration of deaths in the Tokyo
raid that would change the ratio if we focused on a smaller area.

Actually there were concentrations of deaths, the canals and rivers
became choked with bodies as people tried to escape the heat,
the incoming tide caused drownings.

It all came down to whether the fires cut off people's retreat, if they
did not more people survived. There was not an even x deaths per
square mile in the "affected area", as a simple exercise in logic
the people at the fringes had a better chance of escaping.

On a comparative scale Tokyo comes in at 7 to 8%, Hiroshima 31%
deaths when you count the dead and homeless as the "affected
population", making the atomic strikes about 4 times as lethal.
Though this ignores the reality Hiroshima was not under air raid alert
at the time but Tokyo was, which could account for much to even all
of the difference in lethality.

I don't think it could account for all of it.

There are precisely two atomic strikes against populations, in both
cases unwarned populations, it is clear moving the population to air
raid shelters would have made a significant difference to lethality.

In theory, assuming Little Boy had a 15,000 ton effectiveness,
Hiroshima works out to 1 death per 375 "pounds", Fat Man at
23,000 tons yield works out to around 1 death per 1,300 "pounds".

That is nearly a factor of 3.5 difference between these two strikes and
3.5 times the 7 to 8% Tokyo lethality is 24 to 28%, in the area of the
claimed atomic weapons lethality.

One of the first things to learn about WWII bombing is how variable
the results could be. It is clear from the atomic attack survivors many
were killed or lethally injured in the open and others were killed when
trapped in damaged/destroyed buildings that burnt. Put the population
in shelters and many/most of these injuries go away.

Hamburg was so lethal partly because the shelters were not designed
to cope with a firestorm, normally the best thing to do was head for the
shelters, on this night it would have been flee the area even as the
raid began. The Hamburg raid killed people at a rate 34 times the
average per ton of bombs dropped on Germany. And you want to
think a factor of 4 is somehow large between Tokyo and Hiroshima,
and that is after altering the definitions in favour of the atomic attack.

If the Oxford companion to WWII is correct air raids on Austria were
3 times as lethal per ton of bombs dropped on average than those
on Germany.

Are there *any* instances of conventional weapons ever killing more
than 8% (either of the "area affected" or the "area leveled")?

Yes night of 23/24 February 1945 RAF Bomber Command versus
Pforzheim. The city, pre war population of 80,000, had been the
target of Mosquito harassment raids by night plus some day strikes
in the order of 100 to 300 tons of bombs before the big raid. On
23/34 February 1945 some 1,740 tons of bombs caused a firestorm,
around 17,000 to 18,000 people killed on this night. This raid was
responsible for most of the damage to the city during hostilities.
Some 83% of the built up area destroyed for the war. In terms
of deaths per bomb it works out to a maximum of 1 death per 190
pounds of bombs, around 2/3 the lethality of the Hamburg firestorm.

Assuming no growth in population the Pforzheim raid's lethality works
out at 21 to 23% of the total population, but around 20% of the city
survived, so 5/4 times 21 to 22 is 26 to 28%.

This ignores the problems in determining a good population figure for
the city, let alone a subset of districts, given the attacks by definition
would destroy some of the records needed to determine the population
present.

Simply given the reality there are only two atomic strikes to go on
and their lethality per "ton" of bomb varied so much and they were
against unwarned populations, and the variability seen in WWII
conventional bombing means claims about how much more lethal
atomic weapons can be do not have solid evidence to back them.
Hopefully it stays this way. As I said before I would expect a higher
lethality for nuclear weapons thanks to the instantaneous nature of
much of the damage and the much higher "explosive" yield, how
much higher is another question.

The only comparable strikes to the atomic weapons in "explosive"
yield were the RAF Bomber Command strikes against Duisberg on
14 October 1944 by day and again that night, the two operations
put around 10,000 short tons of bombs on the city, about 5,000
tons each, around 16% incendiaries. No idea of casualties, the
city did not put together a final report but there were clearly not
Hamburg etc. casualty levels.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

On Sat, 20 Mar 2004 01:23:21 -0500, "zxcv" wrote:

Since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were about 10 kilotons and a B-17 had
a normal bomb load of about 3 tons and I have heard of a formation of 1300
B-17's on a bomb run that would equal around 4 kilotons (3 x 1300 = 3900)
would the devastation be the same as a small A-bomb? or is there some
lessening effect because of the spread of much smaller bombs?


The effects of 1300 B-17s over a relatively wide area would spread the
destruction further. What an atomic bomb does that is so effective is
due to having all xxx kilotons go off at the same time and the same
place creating an enormous shockwave and wall of intense heat.

To put this in perspective, think of the bombs as hailstones. If I
have a hailstorm for 30 minutes with pea sized hail over, say a 2 acre
area and that hail had the equivalent water to 1/8 inch of rain, it
would cause a great deal of damage. But imagine the damage if there
were just one hailstone that weight 7000 lbs dropping from the sky.
Not nearly as much damage in most of the area, but where it hit, wow!

This, of course, is not an entirely fair analogy, since our bombing in
Japanese cities was designed to start firestorms, which did much more
damage and killed many more people than the bombs that started them.
----------------------
Mike Willey