<story><title>Steel worker reveals blocking view of U.S. aircraft on day of atomic bombing</title><url>http://mainichi.jp/english/english/features/news/20140726p2a00m0na014000c.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>colanderman</author><text>97 &lt;i&gt;square&lt;/i&gt; kilometers?  97 kilometer &lt;i&gt;radius&lt;/i&gt;?  tsk tsk Wikipedia…</text></item><item><author>FatalLogic</author><text>I wanted to know if this was plausible, so I located the Yawata Steel Works (the source of the smoke screen) and the Kokura Arsenal (the aiming point for the bomb) on a map. They were about 4.4km apart.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://i.imgur.com/nJaJtH7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;nJaJtH7.png&lt;/a&gt; (the site of the Steel Works is on the left)&lt;p&gt;Interesting, but I still don&amp;#x27;t know if it&amp;#x27;s true.&lt;p&gt;edit: Wikipedia&amp;#x27;s page on Smokescreens says &amp;quot;One 50 gallon drum of fog oil can obscure 60 miles (97 km) of land in 15 minutes&amp;quot;, so I suppose it was easily possible for them to have hidden the target if the wind direction was right&lt;p&gt;Google Maps link: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/maps/place/%E4%B8%AD%E5%A4%96%E7%82%89%E5%B7%A5%E6%A5%AD%EF%BC%88%E6%A0%AA%EF%BC%89+%E5%B0%8F%E5%80%89%E5%B7%A5%E5%A0%B4/@33.8999819,130.8525735,13z/data=!4m7!1m4!3m3!1s0x0:0x0!2zMzPCsDU0JzEwLjAiTiAxMzDCsDQ5JzQ4LjAiRQ!3b1!3m1!1s0x0:0x6a522cb4a3d20415?hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;maps&amp;#x2F;place&amp;#x2F;%E4%B8%AD%E5%A4%96%E7%82%8...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>FatalLogic</author><text>I assume it means 97 square kilometers, because covering a circle of 97 km radius in 15 minutes would require a 776 km&amp;#x2F;hour wind :)&lt;p&gt;But it is written very unclearly, and it&amp;#x27;s not clear what is wikipedia&amp;#x27;s source, sadly.&lt;p&gt;It just seemed plausible that there could be plenty of smoke coverage for the scenario under discussion</text></comment>
<story><title>Steel worker reveals blocking view of U.S. aircraft on day of atomic bombing</title><url>http://mainichi.jp/english/english/features/news/20140726p2a00m0na014000c.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>colanderman</author><text>97 &lt;i&gt;square&lt;/i&gt; kilometers?  97 kilometer &lt;i&gt;radius&lt;/i&gt;?  tsk tsk Wikipedia…</text></item><item><author>FatalLogic</author><text>I wanted to know if this was plausible, so I located the Yawata Steel Works (the source of the smoke screen) and the Kokura Arsenal (the aiming point for the bomb) on a map. They were about 4.4km apart.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://i.imgur.com/nJaJtH7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;nJaJtH7.png&lt;/a&gt; (the site of the Steel Works is on the left)&lt;p&gt;Interesting, but I still don&amp;#x27;t know if it&amp;#x27;s true.&lt;p&gt;edit: Wikipedia&amp;#x27;s page on Smokescreens says &amp;quot;One 50 gallon drum of fog oil can obscure 60 miles (97 km) of land in 15 minutes&amp;quot;, so I suppose it was easily possible for them to have hidden the target if the wind direction was right&lt;p&gt;Google Maps link: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/maps/place/%E4%B8%AD%E5%A4%96%E7%82%89%E5%B7%A5%E6%A5%AD%EF%BC%88%E6%A0%AA%EF%BC%89+%E5%B0%8F%E5%80%89%E5%B7%A5%E5%A0%B4/@33.8999819,130.8525735,13z/data=!4m7!1m4!3m3!1s0x0:0x0!2zMzPCsDU0JzEwLjAiTiAxMzDCsDQ5JzQ4LjAiRQ!3b1!3m1!1s0x0:0x6a522cb4a3d20415?hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;maps&amp;#x2F;place&amp;#x2F;%E4%B8%AD%E5%A4%96%E7%82%8...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cdwhite</author><text>So I read this as &amp;quot;within 15 minutes, land up to 60 miles downwind of the generator is obscured.&amp;quot;</text></comment>