Precision bombing

Stimson abhorred bombing cities. As he wrote in his third-person memoir after the war, for thirty years Stimson had been a champion of international law and morality. As soldier and Cabinet officer he had repeatedly argued that war itself must be restrained within the bounds of humanity.. .. Perhaps, as he later said, he was misled by the constant talk of precision bombing, but he had believed that even air power could be limited in its use by the old concept of legitimate military targets. Firebombing was a kind of total war he had always hated. He seems to have conceived the idea that even the atomic bomb could be somehow humanely applied, as he discussed with Truman on May 16 ... 

I am anxious to hold our Air Force, so far as possible, to the precision bombing which it has done so well in Europe. I am told that it is possible and adequate. The reputation of the United States for fair play and humanitari-anism is the world s biggest asset for peace in the coming decades. I believe the same rule of sparing the civilian population should be applied, as far as possible, to the use of any new weapons. 

Stimson still quailed at destroying entire cities with atomic bombs. In the afternoon, absenting himself from the Interim Committee discussions, he distanced that horror by pursuing the precision-bombing question further with Hap Arnold, whom he says he sternly questioned. I told him of my promise from [War Department Undersecretary for Air Robert] Lovett that there would be only precision bombing in Japan I wanted to... 

Precision bomb combustion calorimeters are commercially available. 

Constant-Volume Calorimetry Constant-volume calorimetry is often carried out in a bomb calorimeter, a device conunonly used to measure the heat of combustion reactions, such as for fuels and foods. In the coffee-cup calorimeter, we assume all the heat is absorbed by the water, but in reality, some must be absorbed by the stirrer, thermometer, and so forth. With the much more precise bomb calorimeter, the heat capacity of the entire calorimeter is known (or can be determined). 

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