_— \ in the production processes, the unit cost of the bomb should easily descend to something in the neighborhood of $1,000,000 AL", Now a million dollars is a large sum ofgoneyfon any purpose other than war. Just what it means in war may be gauged by the fact that it amounts to substantially less than the cost of two fully equipped Ilying Fortresses (B-17s, not Be29s), a considerable number of which were expended in the recent war without waiting upon situations in which each sortie would be certain of success. The money cost of the war to the United States was sufficient to have paid for 2 or 3 hundred thousand of ovr million dollar bombs, It is evident, therefore, that in the future it will not be the wit cost of the bomb but the number of bombs actually available which will determine the acceptable wastage in any } Ri a atomic bomb attack. 24 Thus, if Country A should have available 5,000 atomic bombs, and if it should estimate that 500 bombs dropped on the cities of Country B would practically eliminate the industrial plant of the latter nation, it could afford a wastage of bombs of roughly 9 to 1 to accomplish that result. If its estimate should prove correct and if it launched an attack on that basis, an expenditure of only 5 billions of dollars in bombs would give it an advantage so inconcievably overwnelming as to make easy and quick victory absolutely assured—provided it was able somehow to prevent retaliation in kind. The importance of the latter proviso will be elaborated in the whole of the following chapter. ete toc, cite, p. 10. 22 This discussion recalls the often repeated canard that admirals have been cautious of risking battleships in action because of their cost. The 13 old battleships and 2 new ones available to us just after Pearl Harbor reflectedno preat money value,but they were considered precious because they were scarce and irreplacaple, Later in the war, when new battleships had joined the fleet and when we had eliminated several belonging to the enemy, no battleships were withheld from any naval actions in which they could be of service. Certainly they were not kept out of the dangerous waters off Normandy, Leyte, Luzon, and Okinawa,