What if the USS Indianapolis was sunk before she reached Tinian, not afterwards?

[James G]

In 1945, the US Navy cruiser Indianapolis was torpedoed in the Pacific. Her fate is well known because of the sharks. She'd just come from the island of Tinian after dropping off components for the first A-Bomb used on Japan: the bomb was completed on the island and other bits came by other means.
What would be the consequences for the war if she was sunk inbound for Tinian with her cargo?

[stevep]

Feb 24, 2019 20:22:28 GMT James G said:

In 1945, the US Navy cruiser Indianapolis was torpedoed in the Pacific. Her fate is well known because of the sharks. She'd just come from the island of Tinian after dropping off components for the first A-Bomb used on Japan: the bomb was completed on the island and other bits came by other means.
What would be the consequences for the war if she was sunk inbound for Tinian with her cargo?

  Well it would delay the 1st attack, which might now be with the plutonium bomb and not sure how long before a 2nd bomb would be available.  Wiki says it was actually carrying the active U235 and that this made up about 50% of what's available in the world [i.e. the US] so probably at least a few weeks before enough more was available to replace this.

  Doubt this will make a significant difference as with the fire-bombing, mining operations causes desperate shortages of imports including food and the Soviet attack into Manchuria Japan is still most likely to surrender.  Unless some butterflies means that the coup to prevent the surrender being broadcast succeeds, in which case Japan's agony continues some time long, possibly a lot of the emperor is held incommunicado by the militants, which could cost a lot more lives.  The Soviets might get all of Korea to hand over to the 1st Kim which would be bad for them and also mean a shift in geopolitics in the region.  However probably not much else of difference in the short term.  Without a Korean war Japan might take longer to be reabilitated in western eyes and also to restart its economy but with Korean totally in communist hands it would be in the front line.

  Interesting idea however.

[lordroel]

Feb 24, 2019 20:22:28 GMT James G said:

In 1945, the US Navy cruiser Indianapolis was torpedoed in the Pacific. Her fate is well known because of the sharks. She'd just come from the island of Tinian after dropping off components for the first A-Bomb used on Japan: the bomb was completed on the island and other bits came by other means.
What would be the consequences for the war if she was sunk inbound for Tinian with her cargo?

Then there will be only been one bomb ready to drop on Japan in early August 1945. At that time there only existed two after the tests at Los Alamos.