page_title: United States war plans (1945–1950)
section_title: Broiler
hierarchical_section_title: United States war plans (1945–1950) / Broiler
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: B-29 DOC en vol à Oshkosh 2019 English: B-29 DOC at Oshkosh 2019
context_page_description: United States war plans for a conflict with the Soviet Union were formulated on a regular basis between 1945 and 1950. Although most were discarded as impractical, they nonetheless would have served as the basis for action had a conflict occurred. At no point was it considered likely that the Soviet Union or United States would resort to war, only that one could potentially occur as a result of a terrible miscalculation. Planning was conducted by agencies of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in collaboration with planners from the United Kingdom and Canada.
  Intelligence assessments of the Soviet Union's capabilities were that it could mobilize as many as 245 divisions, of which 120 could be deployed in Western Europe, 85 in the Balkans and Middle East, and 40 in the Far East. All war plans assumed that the conflict would open with a massive Soviet offensive.
context_section_description: Although the Pincher studies were not accepted as a war plan by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on 16 July 1947, the JWPC informed the JSP that sufficient progress had been made to formulate one, and on 29 August the Joint Strategic Plans Committee (JSPC), which had replaced the JSP with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947, instructed the Joint Strategic Plans Group (JSPG) to develop one based on Pincher, with the assumptions that a war would occur in 1948, that the United States would be allied with Britain and Canada, and that atomic weapons would be used. The resultant war plan was codenamed Broiler. Its starting point was estimates of the available strength of the US forces furnished by the three services; assessments of deficiencies would be based upon the plan at a later stage. The JSPG also drafted a longer-range war plan based on Broiler called Bushwacker for a war starting on 1 January 1952, and one codenamed Charioteer, for one in 1955 that assumed that Western Europe had already been overrun and a strategic air campaign was called for. The planners had no political guidance as to what the ultimate objective of the war would be, so it was assumed that it would be to drive the Soviet Union back to its 1939 borders.
  The same scenario as Pincher was envisaged, and Joint Intelligence Staff's assessment of Soviet Union's capabilities remained substantially unchanged; it could mobilize as many as 245 divisions. Of these, 120 could be deployed in Western Europe, 85 in the Balkans and Middle East, and 40 in the Far East. This gave it the capability of overrunning most of Europe in 45 days. In the longer term, the Soviet Union was expected to possess not just numerical superiority but technological equality as well. It was anticipated that the Soviet Union would have developed nuclear weapons by 1952, and long range bombers to deliver them to targets in the United States by 1956.
  To secure the United States, Greenland and Iceland would be occupied. The development of aerial refuelling capability would permit B-29 and B-50 aircraft to attack twenty major urban areas in the Soviet Union. B-29s were converted to Boeing KB-29 Superfortress aerial tankers, but the first were not delivered until late 1948; 77 would be in service by May 1950. Major overseas bases would be established in the United Kingdom, Okinawa and Karachi; the Cairo-Suez and Basra areas were rejected as indefensible. The JSPG admitted that Karachi was far from ideal as a base, but at least it was defensible.
  The American mobilization plan, JCS 1725/1, submitted on 13 February 1947, was based on the assumption that nuclear weapons would not be used. It called for an Army of 13 divisions at the outbreak of hostilities, which would be increased to 45 divisions in a year, and 80 divisions in two years. This was similar to what had been achieved in World War II. In July the JWPC submitted a plan based on the use of nuclear weapons. On the assumption that between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons would be available, it called for 34 atomic bombs to be dropped on 24 Soviet cities; seven would be dropped on Moscow, three on Leningrad and two each on Kharkov and Stalingrad. It was reckoned that this would do massive damage to the Soviet Union's industries, and would kill or injure about one million of its citizens. The damage might well cause the Soviet Union to sue for peace.
  The assumption that a hundred atomic bombs were available was not correct. In June 1948, components for about fifty Fat Man and two Little Boy bombs were on hand. These had to be assembled by specially trained Armed Forces Special Weapons Project assembly teams known as special weapons units. The first United States Army unit was formed in August 1947, followed by a second in December, and a third in March 1948. In 1948, they began training a United States Navy (USN) special weapons unit, as the Navy foresaw delivering of nuclear weapons from its Midway-class aircraft carriers with Lockheed P2V Neptune and North American AJ Savage bombers. An additional Army unit was created in May 1948, 
caption: A B-29 Superfortress. These bombers were the mainstay of the strategic bomber force in the late 1940s, but were vulnerable, lacked range, and not all were able to carry nuclear weapons.
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