I'm British too although I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. All I'm saying is that it remains a very controversial subject and the truth of what would have really happened had the US either not dropped any atomic bombs or had only dropped the first instead of following it up three days later is pretty much unknowable.

ok here is my oppinion
if the us had not done it the casualties would be very high and with the stuff the japanese held back for the fight ( prototypes and stuff ) they could of pushed the americans back

So Stalin killing 20 million or so of his own civilian citizens doesn't count as a war crime? It was a massacre of at least 3 times the scale of what happened to the Jews in Europe under the Nazi's. Not to mention killing hundreds of thousands of German and Polish POWs.

The Russians treatment of captured personnel and civilians was far worse than anything the Germans did.

I agree that the US did commit war crimes by deliberate bombing German civilians, as did my own nation, the British. However the scale of what the these nations did is dwarfed by what Stalin did, so the point stands.
Nagasaki and Hiroshima were selected as possible targets for atomic bombs because they did not contain any targets of military significance and could thus safely be left intact to test the full power of the atomic bomb. At least a third of the deaths were Korean and Chinese forced labourers, and military personnel made up substantially less than 1 per of the victims.

you are confused

they were selected ahead of the bombings to be untouched by other air raids so that the effects could be observed.

And they were indeed military targets , especially nagasaki which was a huge industrial port city that created many munitions and ordanance for the japanese war machine. mitsubishi steel works being one of them

as for the POW casualties , that is irrellevent , the japanese had POWs working all over japan as slave labor. It really makes no difference.

Its impossible to know the outcome had the A bombs not been dropped but I think its safe to assume that Japan and the Japaneses people would have fared far worse had the war not ended when it did. Out of curiosity, I think I already know the answer to this..a big fat no. In the history of PC flight simulators has there ever been a game that simulated the Enola Gay's run over Hiroshima? Im asking in all seriousness. Not much action went on apart from the dropping of the bomb itself so something like that wouldnt have made for a great game mode I guess. I referenced a few posts back perhapt the most disgustingly innapropriate pc game that I can think of as far as historicaly based games go...JFK Reloaded. And I do from time to time go back to play becuase it is a fun challenge and the physics make for some hilarious motorcade carnage..

I think the only kind of person I would ever be ashamed to know that I enjoy a game like IL-2 would be an actual ww2 combat pilot veteran...there are not too many of those guys left but I wonder what they make of something like IL-2..would b interesting to know

i have done it in IL2 with the AAA mod

Im sure similar things will be possible in future IL2 pc games

I've met three blokes in my time who flew during the war. Some via radio controlled flying at events and one bloke who used to be a director of a firm I used to work for. They all seemed pleased that someone was interested in what they did and went through and in hearing their stories (my former boss was a Mosquito pilot and had some incredible and some quite awful stories). Also despite everything they still had the interest in flying that got them into it in the first place so I imagine that they would probably be quite fascinated by it all.

Axis campaigns are a staple for WW2 flight sims so the lack of one is a pretty huge loss. I would strongly suggest it be the first DLC addition.

Playing as a pilot in the Luftwaffe and playing as a senior gas chamber operator ARE 2 COMPLETELY DIFFERENT IDEAS!

I think it has been well said; playing as the axis is not glorifying their actions, simply acknowledging them.

Whether you like it or not, history is history. Denying it happened doesn't change that fact.

Now playing a game as an Imperial Japanese officer in a campaign to rape Nanking, and slaughter 30 million Chinese? No, that's not something I want to relive in the pixel world. Flying as or along side Saburo Sakai in air combat? HELL YEAH.

Not till this Post thread have I realized the evils of Playing "Secret Weapons of the luftwaffe" by Lucas Arts all those years ago .................

Its gaming nature to want to try and see what "you" could do different, The Confederates at Gettyburg, Japanese Navy at Guadalcanal, Bismarck ripping apart convoys, to put a game up as some kind of moral Barometer of what you should or shouldnt enjoy in a game is unfair at the least , at most just plain wrong