Originally Posted by
Lima Juliet
I do disagree. The Japanese were hoping to seek favourable terms for surrender after the Potsdam Declaration in Jun 45 and the first bomb on Hiroshima. The brokers for those favourable terms were hoped to be the Soviets, whom had been neutral with Japan since a pact in 1941. When the Soviets invaded on the same day of the Nagasaki bomb, the hopes for those favourable terms were totally lost. What we will never know is whether the Soviet invasion would have changed that surrender - if the Japanese had surrendered in the hours between the Soviet invasion and the second bomb, we would have done. Unfortunately, the story is very convenient to anti nuclear weapon believers on the theory of deterrence of Mutually Assured Destruction. I believe the Soviet invasion was just another stressor, on top of the naval blockade “Operation STARVATION” and the fire bombings. The coupe de grace was indeed the 2x Bombs that delivered on the Potsdam Declaration. The rest is history...
The operation against Japan began exactly as it was agreed at the Yalta (Crimea) conference in Feb. 1945 where Britain and US urged the USSR to join the war against Japan in 2-3 month after "Hitler is kaput". Uncle Joe was keeping his word given to Roosevelt and Churchill, though the country was bloodily ruined and all expected to say farewell to arms in May '45.
Anyway, it was the biggest land operation in Far East with about 1 Mln Japanese troops involved and some 1.5 Mln Russian.
And the operation took place on the territory that was earlier occupied by Japan. So, it was rather a liberating action (for Mongolians, Chinese and Koreans).
As for the main topic (6th gen. fighter), I recall the British project called "Hotol" in 80's (stands for "horizontal take off and landing"). It was about a spaceplane. In reality there were just a few guys making drawings on paper with quite a limited budget. And much noise in aerospace journals. The French were very angry when this Hotol was compared to their Hermes. They already had a launcher at that time, a high fidelity mock-up, many onboard systems ready, ground test facilities and simulators, and astronaut candidates.