General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: No Choice: Why Harry Truman Dropped the Atomic Bomb on Japan [View all]hunter
(38,304 posts)Scientists understood it clearly enough that they didn't test it.
Rather than being a "dud," they were much more worried this bomb, built from a modified gun barrel, would go off in some accident. If a plane carrying one of these bombs crashed, and even if a bomb like this suffered an "oops, I dropped it!" kind of accident, the consequences would have been catastrophic.
The "Fat Man" plutonium bomb was the bomb of the future. Over 100 "Fat Man" atomic bombs of the type dropped on Nagasaki were built, and these were already obsolete and retired by 1950 for new and improved bombs.
After Japan's surrender an army of researchers swarmed Nagasaki carefully documenting the damage this plutonium bomb did.
To many observers it was clearly an experiment.