If we had made it the first order of business to finish off the Luftwaffe That’s why that is the way we do things nowadays. Different gear, different era.
Never had that supremacy over Japan. The enemy always gets a say in strategy. The ground forces would have been protected, the Japs would have went after the fleet, which we would have protected. Just like Okinawa, but now the Japs had a shorter distance to fly. How many Americans would you have sacrificed to not use the bomb?
If we had made it the first order of business to finish off the Luftwaffe That’s why that is the way we do things nowadays.
Different gear, different era.
Never had that supremacy over Japan. The enemy always gets a say in strategy. The ground forces would have been protected, the Japs would have went after the fleet, which we would have protected. Just like Okinawa, but now the Japs had a shorter distance to fly. How many Americans would you have sacrificed to not use the bomb?
From wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWII_Battle_of_Japan_%28Air_War%29
"Air combat was most intense in late 1944 and early 1945. Following the first B-29 raids on Tokyo, the number of IJN aircraft assigned to air defense duties was greatly increased and all 12-centimeter (4.7 in) guns were allocated to protect the capital.[192] Fighters stationed to defend Japan's main industrial areas frequently intercepted American air raids between 24 November 1944 and 25 February 1945, and inflicted significant losses for a period. The number of fighters available declined from late January, however.[193] Poor coordination between the IJAAF and IJN also continued to hamper Japan's defensive efforts throughout this period.[194] The Americans suffered few losses from Japanese fighters during the night raids which were conducted from March 1945 until the end of the war.[195]
Resistance to the air raids decreased sharply from April 1945. On 15 April the IJAAF and IJN air defense units were belatedly placed under a single command when the Air General Army was formed under the command of General Masakazu Kawabe, but by this time the fighter force's effectiveness had been greatly reduced due to high rates of casualties in training accidents and combat. Due to the poor standard of the remaining pilots and the deployment of P-51 Mustangs to escort B-29s, the Japanese leadership decided in April to withdraw their remaining fighters from combat. These aircraft were placed in reserve to counterattack the Allied invasion.[196] As a result, few of the subsequent Allied raids were intercepted.[196] The effectiveness of Japanese anti-aircraft batteries also decreased during 1945 as the collapse of the national economy led to severe shortages of ammunition.[196] Moreover, as the anti-aircraft guns were mainly stationed near major industrial areas, many of the raids on small cities were almost unopposed.[197] Imperial General Headquarters decided to resume attacks on Allied bombers from late June, but by this time there were too few fighters available for this change of tactics to have any effect.[198] The number of fighters assigned to the Air General Army peaked at just over 500 during June and July, but most frontline units had relatively few serviceable aircraft.[199] During the last weeks of the war Superfortresses were able to operate with near impunity owing to the weakness of the Japanese air defenses;
LeMay later claimed that during this period "it was safer to fly a combat mission over Japan than it was to fly a B-29 training mission back in the United States".[200]
Overall, Japanese fighters shot down 74 B-29s, anti-aircraft guns accounted for a further 54, and 19 were downed by a combination of anti-aircraft guns and fighters. IJAAF and IJN losses during the defense of Japan were 1,450 aircraft in combat and another 2,750 to other causes.[201]"