Quote:
Originally Posted by roachboy
what is the difference between an atomic weapon and a really big conventional weapon? is it the radiation, the gift that keeps on giving? does it lay in the fact that the fire-bombing of a place requires alot of payload and delivery systems, so is a Big Operation that delivers a Big Nightmarish Effect while a nuke is a single, relatively small package?
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Basically. I know you already know this but I'll say it for the sake of the thread.
Think of it this way: You have to dig a big hole. You can use 856 loads with a team of dudes and entrenching tools or you can use a single scoop from a magical backhoe. Both cost the same. Hell, let's say the backhoe costs twice as much. It's still a deal. Wars of attrition tend to go toward efficiency.
And nobody likes radiation. Nobody. The victims don't want it and the bomb-droppers don't want it. You can't own an enemy area (occupy it with boots on the ground) if it's radioactive. Radiation is an undesired byproduct of these weapons. If we could build a lightweight magical bomb that would vaporize a city with no radiation, we would use it over current weapons because radiation lasts a helluva lot longer than a Presidency or a World War.
That and firebombing is so
uncivilized.
Also: Discussing how ugly the use of the atomic bombs was during WWII is almost comical. A drop in the body bag. A sentence in a middle school history text. When I think ugly I think of the millions and millions of men that died a slow, painful death from small arms fire and artillery rounds for half a decade.
And that's just in Russia.