Atomic tipped v1 or v2?

[timshatz]

how much did the test bomb weigh in new mex?and could they have built a much smaller versions.I read somewhere they were plans for at least ten cities on the nuke list if the japs did not surrender.Is there an amount of uranium and other ingredants the allies had for such a project?

The one they tested was the Plutonium bomb, they knew the Uranium bomb would work so didn't bother. Think the P bomb was the one refered to earlier in this thread at 10.2K lbs. Couldn't shrink it as they'd not developed the technology to that point. Got around to do that and all sorts of funky stuff later. But for that time, it was a one size fits all gig.

One interesting point I remember hearing is the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was only used that one time and retired (by the US). It was the Gun Barrel Method (as apposed to implosion) and was thought to be potentially hazardous due to possibility of accidental detonation. As refered to earlier in this thread, it needed 1,000 fps to obtain critical mass and the possibility of it being fired off in an aircraft crash was real.

On a related note, I have heard that Nucs have a relatively high rate of fizzles and duds. Something on the order of 20%. Anybody else heard this or is able to comment on it?

 

[syscom3]

Saw this one on History Channel. Somehow, the japanese had some fighter-bombers on a carrier. The Japanese wanted to get the carrier off the coast of California and drop some dirty bombs had the war gone on any longer.....

probably bacterial weapons..... they conducted full tests on some chinese villages with unwitting humans part of the tests. I think the bacterial weapon was bubonic plague.

 

[syscom3]

On a related note, I have heard that Nucs have a relatively high rate of fizzles and duds. Something on the order of 20%. Anybody else heard this or is able to comment on it?

I have never heard that. In fact nukes tend to be some of the most reliable weapons due to their nature and desire for the "user" to keep them in operating shape.

 

[P38 Pilot]

probably bacterial weapons..... they conducted full tests on some chinese villages with unwitting humans part of the tests. I think the bacterial weapon was bubonic plague.

Thats exactly it. They wanted to launch some Kamikaze pilots off a Carrier to drop these on some cities in California.

 

[Twitch]

560 kilos of uranium oxide was shipped to Japan in the U-234. That amount of uranium oxide contained about 3.5 kilos of U-235. That is about 1/5th-1/3rd the amount needed to make a nuclear bomb. The material certainly found its way to Oakridge but there is no way of knowing specifically what device it was used in.

The Japanese had a substantial amount already gleaned from scouring China for their nuclear research facility in North Korea. They had developed gas centrifuges to refine uranium back in the 1930s. The Germans got into that technology about 1942. The benefit was the lack of heavy water needed. Decrypts of messages point to Germany/Japan transfering this technology and material in 1943-44. When Italy capitulated in 1943 a sub with uranium oxide bound for Japan was surrendered in South Africa.

Also on board the U-234 was lots of cargo. Cargo containers were built to fit in the original mine shafts forward, midships and astern. Four cargo containers were carried topside. 240 tons of cargo were loaded for departure March 25,1945. Cargo included three crated Messershmitt Me-262 jet fighters and an ME-163 rocket-propelled fighter, Henschel HS-293 glider-bomb, extra Junkers jet engines, 10 canisters of uranium oxide, a ton of diplomatic mail, and over 3 tons of technical drawings, plus other technology (torpedo, fuses, armor piercing shells, etc.) Passengers were 9 high technical officers (one general) and civilian scientists.

U-219 and U-195 had delivered 12 V-2s to Japan in 1944. U-859 sunk in 1944 was carrying uranium. The U-219 was turned over to the Imperial Navy to become the I.505. The U-195 became the I.506. There were something like 98 known attempts or successful voyages to Japan so we can only imaging what goodies were sent. Certainly the uranium oxide was not the 1st shipment.

The US had produced only enough material for the 3 bombs- Trinity test, Fat Man and Little Boy. It would have been about 6 months needed to build another so a 10 city nuke tour was just a lot of propaganda.

We must acknowledge that as the victor, the Allies, a purposeful campaign was, and still is waged to downplay Axis success. There are still documents classified from WW 2 that have nothing to do with nuclear secrets. Other things have been declassified over the years. Some material declassified only in 2001 regarding the nuclear, bio, chemical weapons and other technology pursued by the Axis. There is new information still coming forth about WW 2.

It is so easy to poo-poo things and make ridiculous statements such as "they could have never done this or that." It was Allied business to counter Axis propaganda with Allied BS and to downplay Axis successes. Everyone has this picture of Werner Heisenberg and a handful of nerds in a little lab as he passively sabotaged the whole German nuclear war effort. There were many other people dedicated to the nuclear puzzle and alternatives to a nuclear bomb but using nuclear material offensively. In short, all most people know is what has been popularized. When obscure references are made to seemingly improbable Axis weaponry people are conditioned to reject them. It is implied that the Germans, Italians and Japanese were too inferior to outshine the Anglo-Saxon juggernaut of intelligence.

There were over 200,000 people working on various rocket programs in Germany yet we have been led to believe that one science geek was alone bearing the weight of the Reich's success or failure to develop the only warhead that would even justify the rocket program's huge expenditures.

 

[Kiwikid]

Also Twitch I am trying to find the pictures I have of the German "dirty" bombs found outside of Stuttgart in 1945.

DerAdleristGanderlant Please could you tell us more on this ?

The best source for the Japanese A-bomb is a book written by a Los Angeles journalist Robert K Wilcox, called "Japan's Secret War"

A wartime journalist called Snell was appointed to Robert Furman's intelligence mission in Japan after Japan's surrender. Fighting with the Russians was still going on in September 1945 when Snell met a Japanese Kempetai Captain at a Shinto Shrine in Seoul. The Captain told how one Japanese A-bomb was detonated on a launch which had been run aground by remote control on an island near Hungnam and then detonated.

The Captain also told how he had been involved with burying about three other bombs nearing completion in a mine on a hill above Hungnam and then demolishing the mines with explosives.

The identity of this informant and his physical description match that of Prince Chichubu. This Prince had been involved with burial of so called Yamashita's Gold in several mines and caves around the Philippines.

Lt Col Myata for example in Unit 731 was an assumed identity for Prince Takeda.

 

[kool kitty89]

There's also a pretty interesting History Channel doccumentary of Japan's nuclear weapons development, with some proof that only came to light a few years ago:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdCe2wBeCiw

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCpZvyHW0NI

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCPH5kTj-5Y

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0fv2_-AJeE

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWOuxC9jkYs



Some interesting notes on the original topic, there was the 1950's vintage Genie AIR-2 Nuclear air-to-air interceptor rocket AIR-2 Genie - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And even more interesting, the nuclear artiller shell: Nuclear artillery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to mention the Mark-7 nuclear bomb, the US's first tactical Nuclear weapon. (capable of being deployed with fighter-bombers, the F-84G being the first capable of using it)

And to think all these were developed only a few years after the end of WWII, becoming operational less than a decade after the US first tested the gadget at Trinity. (except for the Genie, which entered service in '57)
-And in less than 7 years gone from huge bulky bombs to one with up to ~3x that of the Fat Man bomb but was less than 1/5 the size and weight, in fact being small enough to be carried by a single engined fighter.

 

[GrauGeist]

DerAdleristGanderlant Please could you tell us more on this ?

Kiwikid, here's an older image I have of the "virus house" dirty bomb of the Germans.

It weighed about 1000 Kilograms and was .65m (2.2 feet) in diameter and contained the elements that were detailed earlier in this thread:

The Gray areas are U-235/238.
The Orange areas are Kerosene.
The Blue area was a dense ballast material, such as iron.
The Shear pins are in Yellow.
The Green sphere is called the "Urchin", comprised of Polonium/Beryllium.
The lug at the top is a hanging point, or fin attachment.
The "foot" at the base is the plunger that crushes the "Urchin".

You can see two proposed delivery methods (shown on the right and left of the main image), both were in the form of bombs.

The rocket team at Peenemunde also recieved orders late in the war to re-start work on the A-9/A-10 rocket project, which was an early form of two-stage ICBM capable of reaching North America.

While this may not have had the destructive capabilities of the American Atom bombs, it was very dangerous. I would suspect that the Germans wouldn't have deployed a single one, but a number of them, perhaps on the U.S. and England, then the Soviet Union.

Given the time it took the U.S. to produce the two different A-bombs, I think the Germans may have had the upper hand in an A-bomb slug-fest if they had gone ahead and built/deployed this.

 

[kool kitty89]

One interesting point I remember hearing is the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was only used that one time and retired (by the US). It was the Gun Barrel Method (as apposed to implosion) and was thought to be potentially hazardous due to possibility of accidental detonation. As refered to earlier in this thread, it needed 1,000 fps to obtain critical mass and the possibility of it being fired off in an aircraft crash was real.

This is untrue, there were the Mark 8 nuclear bomb - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and Mark 11 nuclear bomb - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia bunker busters as well as the cancelled Mark 10 nuclear bomb - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia lightweight bomb. (the latter displaced by the Mark 12 nuclear bomb - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

And this method was abandoned tue to its relatively poor efficiency, not for safety issues. The Mark 12 displacing the Mark 10 for that very reason. (the Mk 12 being much wider, but also much shorter and lighter)


The Mark 12 its self is pretty interesting, weighing only a bit over 1,000 lbs with a yeild similar to that of Little Boy. Entering service about 2 years after the larger Mark 7.
I mean it's pretty amazing, only ~9 years after the end of WWII and we've got weapons roughly the size of a 1000 lb iron bomb that with the explosive power of over 30,000,000 lbs of conventional explosives.

 

[kool kitty89]

Do you know the specific construction/composition and mechanism behind the virus house bomb?
The Beryllium/Plutonium would release a shower of neutrons, like the initiator (also referred to as "Urchin") used in the Fat Man bomb, but what use would it be in a radiological weapon?
Was the uranium used just plain old naturally occuring uranium? Partially enriched? Metal or oxide?
What's the point of the kerosene?
Is it the same bomb as referred to in Hitlers Bombe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ?



In any case I don't see the dirty bomb being really that effective, sure it could taint the area and kill some people from the radiation maybe as a terror weapon, but I think the German's chemical weapons were far more dangerous. Depending on the circumstances the chemical weapons could be more deadly than a true nuclear bomb.

We went into this (omitting the dirt bomb part) on another thread:
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/av...sr-had-been-defeated-14427-12.html#post404196

all the good Nazis would have been in Berlin, and that bomb probably would've taken out almost all of the Nazi High Command, including der Furhrer. Probably the end of the war.

This is a very unlikely event. Central european cities simply aren´s build like japanese. If You compare the damage to buildings with the distance to point zero, You can analyse the blast effect of the then in use bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hieroshima. The high degree of area destruction caused by them is to a very large extent attributable to the light, wooden construction of buildings in both japanese cities. Beton, stone and brick constructions usually prevailed in Japan. Damage was generally caused above the surface and damage below the surface was limited instead.
The large european cities not only are build from very thick and solid stone walls but also regularely have cellars for shelters.
In addition to this, Flakbunkers of the period placed on the larger cities are proof against blast, heat effects and radiation. They do have their own electrical plants and ressources. The subway system would also offer a degree of protection depending on distance to point zero.
This all is nothing in comparison to the autark Führerbunker substructures where the nazi elite housed during the latter part of the war. Don´t expect the nazi leadership to be taken out by a nuke unless the nuke happens to hit the bunker physically.

If there were a possibility of a Nazi counter nuclear strike, say against London, then I imagine the British wouldn't have been so keen on a nuclear strike on Berlin. However, the U.S. might have just gone ahead and done it anyway without British approval (or knowledge). Who knows - thankfully it never came to that.

Yes, thankfully. They were in possession a more dangerous substance than a nuke. Had they been nuked, they may have used their refined Botulinum against the UK and likely also against the US East coats with millions of losses on human life. The UK may have used it´s stocks of nerve gas in return, causing millions of losses in europe. Anyhow, these are bitter prospects.

 

[kool kitty89]

OK, I found some reading material, so I'll do the reasearch myself. (previously I've looked into this a bit, but not the "Hitler Bombe" part of it)

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/archivos_pdf/virushouse.pdf

Hitler A-bomb

 

[GrauGeist]

kool kitty, the main idea behind the Virus House, would be a cheap and easy to produce terror weapon.

Earlier in the thread, Twitch gives a great detail on how the detonation process commences, along with the part that kerosene plays.

But figure that the most expensive part of the bomb would be the enriched Uranium and processing assembly of the Urchin's components.

It's size would allow for deployment in numbers unlike the American A-bombs so a broader area could be affected in a strike.

The area a Virus House could damage (damage, not devastate) would be just about the size of Manhattan. Factor in the residual radiation and fallout zone, and you've effectively impacted a large geographic area and initiated a wave of fear/panic.

Deploy a number of these weapons over an overlapping area and you've acheived comparable damage to a conventional bombing strike with a fraction of the cost in aircraft, bombs, etc.

 

[kool kitty89]

According to Hitler A-bomb (at the bottom of the article) the bomb was more than that:

It claims that it was parafin wax used, not liquid, and the entire bomb was designed to be a miniature breeder reactor using ~551 kg natural Uranium with the Paraffin as the neutron moderator and an external Neutron sourse (at least for initiation) inserted through the chimney. With >7% Plutonium when "matured" after 2 years. It would only have had a yeild of ~20 tons of TNT (with the added radiological effects of course) so it's considerably more than a simple "dirty bomb" by the modern definition. The sphere was roughly 30 cm in diameter.

However, I'm not sure it would have worked as intended and it seems rather wastefull to use the plutonium in such a manner. At 7% that would be over 38 kg of Plutonium per bomb, enough to make 6 Fat Man type bombs. -And remember Plutonium could be simply seperated from Uranium by chemical methods (being different elements with different chemical properties) unlike seperating U-235. (which cannot be seperated through chemical methods -having identical chemistry to U-238 )

It should also be noted that Plutonium in general is a much faster way of getting sufficient material to make bombs. (though the simple gun assemby method will not work) It bred and seperated chemically from Uranium (provided a Breeder reactor can be developed) and the necessary critical mass is far lower than than of U-235. (particularly as enrichment level drops, Little Boy used ~5x the Uranium Fat Man did of Plutonium, though only 4x the actual nuclear material, 20% being U-238 )

 

[KrazyKraut]

Isn't there pretty much consensus that Kalrsch is well, full of it. AFAIK there are zero first hand documents in his book that indicate any advanced stage of an actual a-bomb or dirty bomb. Everything in his book has either been dicredited or is just very unlikely supposition. I believe Mutke went supersonic before I believe in his stuff.

 

[kool kitty89]

The stuff on this page: Hitler A-bomb is more than Hitler's Bombe. It's a whole discussion on a viriety of sourses, including discussion of the validity of that book.

Also note that the bomb we were discussing was in "Virus House" (see link above in post #11).

But in any case, using Plutonium in that manner wouldn't make sense.

The design seems to be linked to the Zeipzig pile of 1942. (D20 moderated 2-concentric spheres of uranium powder with a neutron sourse -initiator- introduced into the core -inside the inner sphere) After the accedent it apears this project was abandoned. (though a sustained reaction had taken place -with positive Neutron production- albeit uncontroled)

 

[KrazyKraut]

I guess you know it, but I just want to remind everyone what kind of person David Irving is. I haven't read Virus House, I might take a look at it as it's free, but I would be very careful with Irving's works considering what he said in the past. While I don't doubt he has a lot of knowledge on German politics and armament programs in the second world war, he also has an agenda.

 

[kool kitty89]

Thanks KrazyKraut, I hadn't known about Irving. (just looked him up on wiki)

I only skimmed through Virus House (mostly for technical refrences).

In any case I was focusing more on the "Hitler's Bomb" web page which is interesting in its own right (as I mentioned previously), but I'm not sure of the author of these articles.

Though is is hosted by this site Main Page @ greyfalcon.us which seems to be somewhat "conspiracy theory" oriented. (though a lot of it is historical too)


Edit: I still am not sure of the author of that article, but all the refrenced/quoted article or material seems to sourse the author. (as well it should)


And in the specific portion I was refering to (that mentions the Bomb Twitch originally mentioned) it was not by either of the above metioned authors. (quite the contrary)

Hitler A-bomb (the rest of the article is at the bottom of the page)

Dr. Samuel Goudsmit was the head of the US intelligence mission to Europe codenamed ALSOS, whose objective was to discover to what extent the Nazis had been working on an atomic weapon. In his book "ALSOS - The Failure in German Science" (New York, 1947), there appears a sketch of the zenith of German scientists' achievement in the field. The same diagram appears in the book authoured by Lt. Leslie Groves, military chief of the Manhattan Project. Both Goudsmit and Groves stated that the diagram and photos represent "the German atom bomb".



The bomb was an aluminium sphere, about the size of a medicine ball, and had a tall chimney. The latter enabled the radium-beryllium radio-active source to be introduced into the core of the reaction. Within the sphere was layered alternately natural uranium powder (551 kilos) and paraffin wax.

And I don't know if this has been mentioned in any of these books/articles (I've only read a few sections) but the amount of Uranium being shipped to Japan on U-234 was about the amount used in one of these devices.
Though Japan had completely different nuclear programs focusing entirely on construction of a Uranium bomb (and they had indeed requested Uranium from Germany, under the cover of a "rocket fuel catylist"), so this is probably just coinsidence.

 

[Propellorhead]

Karlsh was bitterly criticised and even I was one of those to criticise him, but in the recent past I struggled to read his book in German and began to realise Karlsch got it right. He talked about patents filed by Schumann and Trinks for a hollow charge nuclear weapon.

After the war in 1956 the German design was published in a French periodical :

Critics abused Karlsch for his lack of understanding of nuclear physics and said the Schumann / Trinks bomb wouldn't work.... That's wrong. In 1956 USA built the same bomb and called it the Swan Device.

Why would the physics work for an American copy, but not for Nazi scientists?

From declassified MAGIC decrypts of japanese diplomatic signals there is a suggestion that Germany did have working miniature nukes. The Japanese diplomat refers to 5 kilogram warheads. An exiled Nazi scientist in Argentina has also claimed that Nazi Germany had 15 such weapons.

So assuming all of the above, imagine fifteen V-2 rockets with 1 kiloton warheads raining down on London or wherever. Clearly history confirms they weren't used, but there could be several explanations ranging from technical complications adapting it to a rocket warhead to an undertaking in Operation Sunrise to refrain from nuclear warfare.

 

[syscom3]

Why would the physics work for an American copy, but not for Nazi scientists?

Because the US had several years of understanding on the ins and outs of the making of an atomic weapon.

From declassified MAGIC decrypts of japanese diplomatic signals there is a suggestion that Germany did have working miniature nukes. The Japanese diplomat refers to 5 kilogram warheads. An exiled Nazi scientist in Argentina has also claimed that Nazi Germany had 15 such weapons.

And the weapons were never seen by anyone, nor documents produced showing that it was built.

 

[norab]

The US was producing the little "davy Crocketts" only 11 years after WWII ended

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)