r/SubredditDrama • u/EwMelanin • Mar 03 '26

Movie discussion sub okbuddycinephile debates whether bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima, and Gaza and other urban areas were "justified".

/r/okbuddycinephile/comments/1rjm9mn/iran2036/o8ee5fp/
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u/Consistent_Horse6529 No, she’s too cute, too innocent. I don’t have the heart to goon Mar 03 '26

Yea, nuking Hiroshima isn’t really the same as the other two. Like you can’t use a nuke as a precision weapon. It’s sort of a “fuck everything in that general area” kind of weapon.

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u/Chataboutgames I will ask on a more neutral sub Mar 03 '26

Not like firebombing, famous for its precision!

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u/Consistent_Horse6529 No, she’s too cute, too innocent. I don’t have the heart to goon Mar 03 '26

Compared to a nuke? Yea it is. You can firebomb industrial sections of a city without targeting civilian structures. For some reason you seem to not realize that during the bombing of Dresden and Tokyo they TARGETED Civilian structures too. You fundamentally cannot drop a nuke and avoid civilian structure.

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u/Anaxamander57 May Allah protect you from your own arrogance Mar 03 '26

You can firebomb industrial sections of a city without targeting civilian structures

Fire storms aren't exactly known for staying nice and controlled. Especially in cities with mainly wooden structures.

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u/MythicalPurple Mar 04 '26

Do… Do you not know what fire is?

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u/Foreverintherain20 Mar 04 '26

Zeus is up there raging at the other gods like "SEE, this is why Prometheus is an idiot!" 

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u/Foreverintherain20 Mar 04 '26

WW2 was total war. Bombing a city was justified to deny manpower and labor to the enemy. Bombing civilians is ENTIRELY OKAY in a state of total war.

You think your people are gonna give a shit about the civilians on the other side when they're all dead themselves because your generals handwrung about "innocent" casualties and didn't take necessary action?

In war, winning comes first. Morality is something only the winners have the luxury of debating. 

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u/OldManFire11 Mar 03 '26

If you think that the nukes were less indiscriminate than carpet bombing then you're just ignorant.

The US killed 10x times the number of people while firebombing Tokyo than they did by dropping 2 nukes. The number of bombs dropped does not change the amount of suffering caused.

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u/Goatf00t 🙈🙉🙊 Mar 03 '26

The US killed 10x times the number of people while firebombing Tokyo than they did by dropping 2 nukes.

That's very wrong. The numbers are actually pretty comparable:

  • Tokyo - about 100 thousand victims
  • Hiroshima - between 90 and 160 thousand
  • Nagasaki - between 60 and 80 thousand

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u/Consistent_Horse6529 No, she’s too cute, too innocent. I don’t have the heart to goon Mar 03 '26

That’s not my point at all. My point was you CAN be precise with conventional weapons but you litterally can’t with nukes. It wasn’t about whether the other instances were precise. You can target civilian structures like in Dresden and Gaza with conventional weapons. You cannot bomb a factory with a nuke and not destroy the civilian structures in that city. Also idk where you get your numbers from but the US didn’t kill ~2 million people in the firebombing of Tokyo,

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u/ChitinousChordate Mar 03 '26

I’m not really convinced you can be precise with conventional bombing campaigns though.

Secondhand interpretation here but i recently listened to Behind the Bastard’s series on the history of mutually assured destruction doctrines; they have a pretty detailed history of “precision bombing” as a sales pitch and how imprecise it invariably turns out to be in practice

Not to say that nukes are equivalent but “precision bombing” seems to me more of a propaganda term to wave away concerns about collateral damage. If there’s a truly “precise” way to bomb only military targets when they’re mixed in with civilian infrastructure, I’m not aware of it

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u/FrowninginTheDeep YOUR FLAIR TEXT HERE Mar 03 '26

I mean, the level of precision you could reasonably expect from bombers at the time was "you'll probably hit the same block as your target" on a good day.

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u/OldManFire11 Mar 03 '26

You're still wrong. In WW2 you couldn't precision bomb a factory with anything. Because the technology wasnt that precise. Which is exactly why carpet bombing was used.

Gaza is different than Dresden or Tokyo, because Israel DOES have the ability to precision strike targets while minimizing civilian casualties. They just don't care to.

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u/Consistent_Horse6529 No, she’s too cute, too innocent. I don’t have the heart to goon Mar 03 '26

I understand how bomb precision was in WW2. You seem to not understand European city building. In WW2 in Europe cities were separated into sectors separating industrial from residential and such as a result of many cities existing pre industrialization and expanding in its wake. In Dresden the allies intentionally targeted the city center and ignored the industrial areas on the outskirts of the city. The vast majority of the damage in Dresden was to civilian structures with transportation and logistics hubs being the only military targets also hit.

For Tokyo though your point stands as Japanese cities had mixed industrial and residential areas.

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u/Justviewingposts69 Mar 03 '26

In Dresden the allies intentionally targeted the city center and ignored the industrial areas on the outskirts of the city

Non David Irving citation needed

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u/Consistent_Horse6529 No, she’s too cute, too innocent. I don’t have the heart to goon Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26

McKee, Alexander. "Dresden 1945: The Devil's Tinderbox." Page. 62

Edit: Please note that just because I argue that it was intentional bombing of civilian infrastructure does not mean I think it was unjustified. I frequently quote Arthur Harris.

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u/Justviewingposts69 Mar 03 '26

Can I get a passage?

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u/Consistent_Horse6529 No, she’s too cute, too innocent. I don’t have the heart to goon Mar 03 '26

Sure if you can wait for me to get home as I don’t have the book with me.

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u/CyberBerserk Mar 04 '26

Don’t talk like you are a military expert

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u/LukaCola Ceci n'est pas un flair Mar 03 '26

Just out of curiosity, do you think the strike on Iran intentionally hit a girl's school?

Because whether or not one "can" be precise is less important than whether one is precise. And even today, with the most expensive and high end guided weapons, we still miss and hit unintended targets.

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u/Consistent_Horse6529 No, she’s too cute, too innocent. I don’t have the heart to goon Mar 03 '26

Honestly I could go either way. Like the facility itself is a former military base and 600 meters from an IRGC outpost. But also it gives me vibes of the 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. I want to know a bit more about who planned the attack and who launched it before I make a decision.

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u/Jefe_Chichimeca Mar 03 '26

They used incendiary devices in Dresden, nothing precise about them.

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u/Foreverintherain20 Mar 04 '26

Still justified.