Was there a contingency plan in place if Little Boy failed to detonate?
score:44
If the bomb failed to explode in any way (which was unlikely, see comments and Mark's answer), the USA still would not have to worry about it (too much).
They would win the war anyway within a few months, and pick up the wrecked bomb from wherever the Japanese had stored it.
Even if Japan could figure out what that bomb was supposed to be doing and repair it, they didn't have any delivery system that could reach mainland USA (with any degree of certainty).
More importantly, the USA knew Japan did not have the capacities to build a second bomb, so even the microscopic chance that Japan could deliver the salvaged bomb to some target would not have changed the outcome.
The USA had both the delivery system and the production capacity to build a second, third, fourth bomb (of the Fat Man design), quite aside from having the strategic upper hand so firmly that they did not actually need the A-bomb to win the war. Not even in the very, very unlikely scenario of a major city, Pearl Harbor, or any other single location taken out by the salvaged Little Boy.
Upvote:-1
Adding to the above mentioned facts that the bomb would go off very easily and would be useless even after a fizzle, and that Japan was in no position to get a nuclear weapons programme off the ground, the U.S. didn't really need a contingency plan.
Japan had already started overtures for a general surrender before the bomb was dropped. The excuse the U.S. used for dropping the bomb was that they didn't like one of the conditions of the surrender, namely that the emperor would remain Japan's head of state. If the bomb hadn't gone off, the U.S. would have simply accepted Japan's surrender with the condition and leave the emperor on the throne, which the U.S. ended up doing anyway.
Upvote:43
The primary contingency plan was the design of the bomb itself. Little Boy was not a safe design: any number of unplanned events could cause a detonation. Foremost among these is impact: a 500 g impact, such as would happen after a 15,000-foot (4.5 km) fall, is sufficient to bring the bullet and target together, detonating the bomb. If the bomb hit water instead of land, the water would act as a neutron moderator, causing a criticality event and severe radioactive contamination. In the event of an airplane crash, any resulting fire will trigger the explosives, setting off the bomb.
In short, once the bomb is fully assembled, it's very hard to keep it from going off. In the event that the crew of Enola Gay had to abort their mission, they had no intention of trying to land with the bomb still aboard.
More post
- 📝 When did Aurochs (large wild cattle) become extinct in Britain?
- 📝 When did the terms, 1-point, 2,-point, 3-point, etc... perspective come into use?
- 📝 What battle of WW2 is depicted in this Battlefield V level?
- 📝 Why were Austria-Hungary's Slavic minorities put into multinational states?
- 📝 How many humans were killed by Alexander.the Great, versus Genghis Khan?
- 📝 What happened to Mao Zedong's first wife?
- 📝 What happened to the undergrad students who attended the Feynman Lecture Series in 1961-63?
- 📝 What is the origin of Khans? Is there any link between South Asian Khans and the Mongols?
- 📝 What is the spiral-looking device shown in this wall painting?
- 📝 Why is the Bishopric of Canterbury located in London?
- 📝 Why did Western Christian monasticism really take off in Ireland?
- 📝 What is the earliest recorded reference to a bubble floating in the air?
- 📝 Why did Cleon say this in the Mytilenian Debate?
- 📝 What is a major historical event historians are deeply divided over?
- 📝 Need song or quote from Christmas Truce of 1914
- 📝 In the Nuremberg Laws, What did "Approved for Citizenship" is half Jewish mean in practice?
- 📝 Why have population maps indicated a stark divide in population density of the United States on either side ot the 100th Meridian?
- 📝 Where can I find more information about destruction of a castle in Merlas, France?
- 📝 Why is German spoken in Upper Valais?
- 📝 Were the doors kept open for the entire Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention?
- 📝 When else has an incumbent president alleged election fraud by a challenger?
- 📝 3 commander-in-chiefs of india can ever meet in one place
- 📝 Which tools were available in 1933 for the Chinese government to intervene in the money market?
- 📝 Why would graphite have been confused with lead?
- 📝 Was King Henry VIII, mid-late in his reformation campaign, motivated more by theology or absolutist drive?
- 📝 How common were marital duels in medieval Europe?
- 📝 Where were Hindus and Sattagydia in the late Achaemenid Empire?
- 📝 What happened in Calcutta in 1961?
- 📝 What decides who goes in the front rank in a line infantry formation?
- 📝 Where did Theophrastus write about a "a common chest" into which funds are placed in case of a member's hardship?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Was there a contingency plan in place if Little Boy failed to detonate?
- 📝 Was there a plan to use nuclear weapons for terrain modification in North America?
- 📝 Where was Carl Sagan working on a plan to detonate a nuke on the Moon? Where was he applying when he leaked it?
- 📝 Why was there little nonwhite migration to Europe in the 19th century?
- 📝 Was there a Spanish plan to retake Malta, had the siege of 1565 been succesful?
- 📝 Why was there so little information about sex in Eastern Block countries?
- 📝 Why was there relatively little use of land mines in WW1?
- 📝 Was there a plan "B" for the D-Day?
- 📝 Was there a German re-urbanization plan for after WWII?
- 📝 Was there ever a conqueror who named the place after themselves?
- 📝 Was there a plan from the USSR to invade Germany before Barbarossa?
- 📝 Is there any evidence to support the claim that the United States was "suckered into WW1" by Zionists, made by Benjamin Freedman in his 1961 speech?
- 📝 Are there historical examples of audiences drawn to a work that was "so bad it's good"?
- 📝 When did FDR announce he was running a 3rd time, and was there any outrage?
- 📝 Was there ever a treaty between 2 entities with significantly different translations to the detriment of one party?
- 📝 What led some people to (correctly) believe that there was no land under the ice cap at the North Pole?
- 📝 Why was there a surge in the US incarceration rate during the 1990s?
- 📝 Is there evidence to suggest the "war on drugs" was a cover for class warfare?
- 📝 What was the plan for an abort of the Enola Gay's mission to drop the atomic bomb?
- 📝 How did medieval manors handle population growth? Was there room for more fields to be ploughed?
- 📝 What kind of ink was used by medieval scribes in Iceland, given that there were no plant galls for iron-gall ink?
- 📝 Was there a tax in the fifties for British citizens traveling abroad?
- 📝 Was there a Viking Exchange as well as a Columbian one?
- 📝 Was there an assassination attempt against Xerxes in the battle of Thermopylae?
- 📝 Was there a King of England, or an heir to the throne, in 1831 who idolized Michael Faraday?
- 📝 Was there any practical use for German spiked helmets (Pickelhaube)?
- 📝 Was there a European response to the trail of tears?
- 📝 Was there really a navy officer named Picard at the Battle of Trafalgar?
- 📝 Was there a priest on the Titanic who stayed on the ship giving confession to as many as he could?
- 📝 Was there a fighter jet designed without cannons?