WW2 : Can we blast Japan from below?

BAROBA

BAROBA

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I found this article..

"Can we blast Japan from below?"
(January 1944) is an article by an eminent geologist who proposes bombing Japan’s volcanoes as a strategy for winning the war.
Given Japan’s seismic instability and the explosive nature of volcanoes, dropping bombs into volcanic craters might, in the words of the author, “cause such a vomiting of lava and ash as to hasten the day of unconditional surrender.”

http://books.google.com/books?id=_ykDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA103&dq=can%20we%20blast%20japan%20from%20below&as_brr=1&as_pt=MAGAZINES&pg=PA103#v=onepage&q&f=false

Was this plan ever feasible? Had the US such bombs at their disposal at the time?

Love some feedback :)

Rob
 
AFAIK the cause for an eruption is too high a pressure in a magma bubble in a depth of 2 to 50 km below
the surface. So, to trigger an eruption would need an influence in that depth. Don't know, which weapon
in the arsenals today could do this, not even thermonuclear (and then, there would be no need for such
an eruption any more !). And if a volcano erupts after being bombed with smaller calibers, it would have
erupted either by itself, I think.
 
From wikipedia...Vesuvio wartime eruption
The last major eruption was in March 1944. It destroyed the villages of San Sebastiano al Vesuvio, Massa di Somma, Ottaviano, and part of San Giorgio a Cremano.[60] From 6 January to 23 February 1944, lava flows appeared within the rim. There were outflows. The activity paused on 23 February, resuming on 13 March. Small explosions then occurred until the major explosion took place on 18 March 1944.[61]

At the time of the eruption, the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) 340th Bombardment Group was based at Pompeii Airfield near Terzigno, Italy, just a few kilometers from the eastern base of the mountain. The tephra and hot ash damaged the fabric control surfaces, the engines, the Plexiglass windshields and the gun turrets of the 340th's B-25 Mitchell medium bombers. Estimates ranged from 78 to 88 aircraft destroyed.[62]
 
From Wikipedia max penetration range of wartime bombs
Though these bombs might be thought of as 'bunker busters' today, in fact the original 'earthquake' theory was more complex and subtle than simply penetrating a hardened surface. The Earthquake bombs were designed not to strike a target directly, but to impact beside it, penetrate under it, and create a 'camouflet' or large buried cavern at the same time as delivering a shock wave through the target's foundations. The target then collapses into the hole, no matter how hardened it may be. The bombs had strong casings because they needed to travel through rock rather than reinforced concrete, though they could perform equally well against hardened surfaces. In an attack on the U-boat pens at Farge two Grand Slams went through the 15 ft (4.5 m) reinforced concrete hardening[1] — equalling or exceeding the best current penetration specifications.

Post war the U.S. added a form of remote control guidance to the Tallboy to create the Tarzon, a 12,000-pound bomb which was deployed in the Korean War against an underground command center near Kanggye.

The Disney Rocket-Assisted Bomb was another World War II device to be used against U-boat pens and other super-hardened targets. Thought up by Royal Navy Captain Edward Terrell,[2] it had a streamlined hardened case bomb weighing some 4,500 lb (2 tonnes). The bomb was dropped from 20,000 ft (~6,000 m). At 5,000 ft (~1,500 m) a barometric fuze fired the rocket in the tail to give it a velocity at impact of up to 2,400 ft/second (730 m/s). It was first used by the 92nd Bomb Group on 10 February 1945 on U-boat pens at IJmuiden, Netherlands, one bomb under each wing of 9 B-17 Flying Fortress. On that occasion a single direct hit was scored. A total of 158 "Disney Bombs" were used operationally by the end of hostilities in Europe.
 

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