Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
tomsong3320 said: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?
P38 Pilot said: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.....
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 said: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.
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 ?
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.
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.
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.
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.