Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran
What if one of the two WWII bombs fizzled? Prototype nukes weren't idiot proof.
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Little Boy was close to foolproof: they were happy to use it without a test of the design. The easy way for the bomber to get caught is a parachute failure, giving it far less time to get away before the radar altimeter on the bomb sets it off. However, this would not have much effect on the larger issues, since there were other B-29s in the area to observe, and the cause of the failure would be obvious.
A failure of the Fat Man bomb was much more plausible, which was why the Trinity test was done to validate the design.
The demand for unconditional surrender dated from early 1943, and had been repeated in July 1945. The US was making
preparations to invade Japan, and would almost certainly have succeeded, although at a very high cost in lives on both sides. They weren't betting on the atomic bomb to end the war; it was too secret for that.