Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 alpha 4/15/85; site spectrix.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!spectrix!clewis
From: clewis@spectrix.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.crypt
Subject: Re: Military funding in maths
Message-ID: <196@spectrix.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 20-Nov-86 16:40:36 EST
Article-I.D.: spectrix.196
Posted: Thu Nov 20 16:40:36 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 20-Nov-86 17:32:54 EST
References: <307@stracs.cs.strath.ac.uk> <2274@mtgzz.UUCP>
Reply-To: clewis@spectrix.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Organization: Spectrix Microsystems Inc., Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Lines: 40
Keywords: nothing to do with cryptology
Xref: mnetor sci.math:223 sci.crypt:58

In article <866@ur-tut.UUCP> huds@ur-tut.UUCP (Andrew Hudson) writes:
>
>For an excellent treatment read Cyril Kornbluth's  Two Dooms....

I believe I've read it, and several like it, and enjoyed them a lot.

But it would have been an interesting trick - by the time the bombs were 
dropped (or not), there wasn't enough left of the AXIS to revitalize.  
Germany had been flat on its back for a couple of months.  Then compare 
the navies, air forces and building capacity of Britain, the US, Canada and 
Australia (along with probably the Soviet Union and Free French 
running "prize" German ships.  Eg: there was only one German aircraft 
carrier - the USSR got it at the end of the war along with a couple 
of complete mine-sweeper fleets.  The Americans blew up most of 
their "prizes" in their later A- and H-bomb tests in the Pacific.
In contrast, Canada didn't even keep the ships we built ourselves - most
of them ended up in the Brooklyn Navy yards as scrap iron) to a blockaded Japan 
(as it effectively was by the time the bombs were dropped).  The US wasn't 
the only nation fighting Japan in the Pacific - especially after Europe 
wasn't occupying all of the rest of the allies' attention...

The Pacific was a foregone conclusion from the moment Japan attacked Pearl
Harbour - as a Japanese admiral put it "I fear ... the wake of the sleeping
giant" regardless of US losses at Pearl or the use of A-bombs.  In all 
likelyhood, if Japan hadn't attacked Pearl, most of the Pacific would still 
be under Japanese control.  In fact, if the US intelligence service had
managed to tell Washington of the imminent attack on Pearl found from their
breaking of the Japanese codes, or the Japanese embassy had decoded their 
messages faster there may not have been a war... nothing gets Americans
more riled up than attacks without warning (and the lack of warning was
un-intentional).  The US could have lost *all* of their ships at Pearl
and still won - only a little later.  Japan could never have invaded the
mainland - would have made the Eastern Front look like a cakewalk (for
the Germans).
-- 
Chris Lewis
Spectrix Microsystems Inc,
UUCP: {utzoo|utcs|yetti|genat|seismo}!mnetor!spectrix!clewis
ARPA: mnetor!spectrix!clewis@seismo.css.gov
Phone: (416)-474-1955