Atomic tipped v1 or v2?

[Propellorhead]

could the allies or axis produce an atomic tipped missle.I saw a pic of an Amercain buzz bomb it had a skid on the catapult?Where it was launched.I don't know how late in the war it was whenthe pic was taken.

The answer is yes.

The German Artillery general Walter Dornberger was interred after the war along with scores of other high ranking generals where the British Mi-9 agency known as CSDIC secretly recorded their conversations. He disclosed to Gen Heim that Hitler had always intended the V-2 for use with far more than mere explosives.

In addition evidence has begun to emerge in recent years that possibly the Nazi perfected a hollow charge nuclear weapon which is the direct ancestor of modern US tactical nuclear weapons. Rainer Karlsch in his 2005 book Hitler's Bombe describes such weapons as fusion boosted fission. Nazi Germany certainly had the technology during WW2 with advanced cyclotrons to obtain a few hundred grams of HEU (Highly Enriched Uranium -235) The Nazis also had projects to obtain Deuterium (codename SH 200) and Trittium (codename SH 220). Nazi interest in obtaining Trittium almost shouts out clues to back development of a fusion boosted fission weapon since Trittium really has no other purpose.

These Nazi tactical nukes worked by arranging approximately 100-150 grams of fissile material (HEU, Pu 239 or U233) mixed with Lithium Deuteride and Beryllium-oxide inside a 4 inch diameter Lithium sphere. This itself was positioned at the centre of two opposed conical Lithium "cups" in a vacumn. Behind these cups were packed explosives. Thus formed two opposed hollow charge warheads designed to detonate two molten slugs of Lithium aimed at the core.

When detonated two molten slugs slammed against the deuteride and uranium at 7-10 kilometres per second and 200 atmospheres of pressure. This caused what we today term a Deuteron beam of neutrons sufficiently intense to mimic the effect of critical mass.

This concept which today underlies all tactical nuclear weapons was first conceived by Nazi nuclear scientists such as Schumann and Trinks based on the accidental discoveries of Dr Ronald Richter whilst reducing Lthium for U-boat batteries in an electric arc furnace.

ULTRA decrypts of Japanese diplomatic signals from Stockholm to tokyo in December 1943 discuss the concept of Nazi nuclear weapons, mention the weight of their warheads as a mere 4-5 kilograms and also that they were used in action against the soviets near Kursk and in defence of an isolated garrison in the Crimea. The signal also mentions German abandonment of nukes in fear of threatened Soviet retaliation with poison gas.

If the signal is correct (such a bomb being feasible) then in theory at least the V-2 could have been made nuclear tipped as early as late 1943, however the more interesting story will be why they were not.

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



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

The documents pertaining to them were seized by ALSOS teams and then classified top secret. Some have been declassified whilst others remain classified .... Why?

The Stockholm signal in which Japanese diplomats refer to use of these weapons is however one of those which was declassified in 1978.

The so called Davy Crockett device was so unlike anything developed by the Manhattan project that there is no direct logical lineage. Thus they were not built upon wartime "understanding on the ins and outs of the making of an atomic weapon."

After the war several Nazi scientist including Trinks and Diebner published accounts of the nazi technology mainly in Germany or France. From their personal papers upon their deaths emerged copies of wartime patents issued to these gentlemen which ALSOS had failed to sieze and which USA failed to make classified.

The Japanese diplomatic signal from Stockholm to Tokyo No. 232.9 December 1944 (War Department), National Archives, RG 457, declassified October 1, 1978 states:

The German atom-splitting device is the Neuman disintegrator. Enormous energy is directed into the central part of the atom and this generates an atomic pressure of several tens of thousands of tons per square inch. This device can split the relatively unstable atoms of such elements as Uranium. Moreover, it brings into being a store of explosive atomic energy.... That is, a bomb deriving its force from the release of atomic energy.

A potentially enlightening intelligence report by Captain R.F. Hickey was entitled, "Investigations, Research, Developments and Practical Use of the German Atomic Bomb" 19 August 1945*, One important enclosure, listed in the contents, detailing how the Nazi A-bomb worked is missing, and is still classified top secret, however the affidavit of a German pilot Hans Zinsser was attached. Zinsser was an artillery observer attached to Penemunde research centre. He said:

At the beginning of October 1944, I flew from Ludwigslust (south of Luebeck) [to] about 12 to 15 km from an atomic bomb test station, when I noticed a strong, bright illumination of the whole atmosphere, lasting about 2 seconds.

The clearly visible pressure wave escaped the approaching and following cloud formed by the explosion. This wave had a diameter of about 1 km when it became visible and the colour of the cloud changed frequently. It became dotted after a short period of darkness with all sorts of light spots, which were, in contrast to normal explosions, of a pale blue colour.

After about ten seconds the sharp outlines of the explosion disappeared, then the cloud began to take on a lighter colour, against the sky covered with a grey overcast. The diameter of the still visible pressure wave was at least 9000 metres (9km) while remaining visible for at least 15 seconds.

Personal observations of the colours of the explosion cloud found an almost blue-violet shade. During this manifestation reddish-coloured rims were to be seen, changing to a dirty-like shade in very rapid succession.

The combustion was lightly felt from my observation plane in the form of pulling and pushing. The appearance of atmospheric disturbance lasted about ten seconds, without perceivable climax.

About an hour later I started with an He-111 (aircraft) from the A/D at Ludwigslust and flew in an easterly direction. Shortly after the start I passed through almost complete overcast (between 3,000 and 4,000 meter altitude). A cloud shaped like a mushroom with turbulent billowing sections (at about 7,000 meter altitude) stood, without any seeming connections, over the spot where the explosion took place. Strong electrical disturbances and the impossibility to continue radio communication as by lightning, turned up.

*(US NARA/RG 38, Box 9-13 Entry 98c. Top Secret Naval Attaché Reports 1944-1947 (A.P.I.U. [Ninth Air Force] 96/1945 APO 696, U.S. Army, 19 August 1945)

Ribbentrop, Hitler and Keitel met with Romanian Marshal Antonescu on 5 August 1944. Hitler told Antonescu of Germany's atomic bomb. Antonescu was captured soon after and questioned for war crimes, Antonescu quoted Hitler. He said Hitler described Germany's latest work on...

...new explosives, whose development was already advanced to the experimental stage...

Hitler confided his view that the jump from modern explosives to this one was

...the biggest since gunpowder.

Then Hitler explained the difficulty with all new weapons was the same. He had ordered therefore that no new weapon was to be employed until Germany had herself developed measures counter to it. For this reason Hitler explained, a new type of mine they had developed could still not be employed. The Fuhrer added Germany had four secret weapons. Of these the V-1 flying bomb and the V-2 rocket were only two. He said Another of these weapons for example, has such colossal force that all human life is destroyed within three to four kilometres of the point of impact.