Best strategy for a nuclear campaign against Germany

[beitou]

Did the allies know Germany had nerve agents during the war or did they find out once Germany was occupied?

 

[raumatibeach]

Did the allies know Germany had nerve agents during the war or did they find out once Germany was occupied?

Good question, I'm surprised if they had them they didn't use them on the Russians.

 

[stona]

The allies were not aware of the German ability to deploy nerve agents. There was some inkling that they had developed them. They are not as easy to deploy as some here imagine. I don't know of any german system for delivering them via rocket. The Germans had artillery shells which could deliver the agents and it is a very short and simple step to a bomb. The Germans had plenty of bombers in 1945 which could have targeted areas occupied by the allies or the UK mainland.

The Germans seem to have been convinced that the allies (specifically the British) had developed similar weapons and this may have acted as a deterrent.

I doubt very much that the deterrence would have worked in the face of a nuclear assault.

Incidentally are we not forgetting that the Trinity test took place on July 16th 1945? That's more than two months after the German surrender. Prior to that no one even knew for sure that the weapon would work!

Cheers

Steve

 

[altsym]

The Germans seem to have been convinced that the allies (specifically the British) had developed similar weapons and this may have acted as a deterrent.

With good reason. I believe the Air raid on Bari in Feb, 1944 by Ju-88's proved that at the very least, the Allies were transporting Mustard Gas other chemical weapons.

 

[Readie]

The one thing that stopped the use of mustard gas etc was the ghastly memories of WW1. Bear in mind that that ended relatively recently by WW2 standards.
A Bomb over Berlin?
In order to kill Hitler and his cronies I could see the use of a small A bomb..whether or not such a targetted device could have been made is another matter.
If the bunker was unbreachable by conventional HE would an A bomb have done the trick?
Cheers
John

 

[beitou]

IISTRC, didn't Hitler have a hatred of gas from his time in the trenches. No idea where I read that but it is something that comes to mind and that he was opposed to the use of gas because of his expereinces. Of course wether that would be enough to stop hom using gas on the allies without the threat of massive reprisals is another thing.

 

[beitou]

Possibly an A bomb ground burst might have done the trick. If 617 squadron could hit the Tripitz and what was the name viaduct, well close enough to get an earthquake effect, they shoulc be able to drop an A bomb close enough to the bunker to cause problems.

 

[altsym]

The one thing that stopped the use of mustard gas etc was the ghastly memories of WW1.

If that's the case, then why were the allies caught with large quantities Mustard gas in ship cargo holds on Feb/44? I don't think it was to use on ham sandwiches

 

[bob44]

As far as I know, hitler, a corporal in WW1, was gassed and hated using gas against an enemy army. Little doubt that there was fear of the Allies using gas as well if Germany would use it.
Also, early in the war, there was not to be any bombing of civilian areas, only against military targets. Until Germany bombed Rotterdam, I believe it was.

 

[stona]

We're not talking about WWI chemical agents "mustard gas", phosgene, chlorine etc.

The nerve agents which the Germans had developed (and filled artillery shells with) are entirely different and more toxic. Special filters and protection are required. Sarin for example will kill in minute quantities when absorbed through the skin.

The consequences of an attack on a defenceless civilian population would be catastrophic.

In reality none of the allies had developed these nerve agents but the Germans were convinced that they had.

Churchill was keen to use "gas" against a German invasion. Who knows how that might have escalated.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Readie]

'If that's the case, then why were the allies caught with large quantities Mustard gas in ship cargo holds on Feb/44? I don't think it was to use on ham sandwiches'

I didn't say that the allies wouldn't make / stockpile gas. We had to have deterents however unpaltable.
In the UK as well as the USA there are all sorts of biologolical horrors stored....

 

[stona]

'If that's the case, then why were the allies caught with large quantities Mustard gas in ship cargo holds on Feb/44? I don't think it was to use on ham sandwiches'..

The same reason the allies discovered artillery shells loaded with nerve agents in Germany in 1945.The same reason submarines are dispersed around the globe today, capable of launching their nuclear arsenals.

The incident you referred to only caused a stir because the use of "dangerous gases" in warfare was banned in 1925. Neither the UK nor most other combatants in WW2 in Europe were allowed to deploy them as they had signed the relevant treaty. Japan and China had also signed.
See "Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare", usually called the Geneva Protocol, which is the treaty signed in 1925.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Readie]

Steve,
I cut and pasted the comment ''If that's the case, then why were the allies caught with large quantities Mustard gas in ship cargo holds on Feb/44? I don't think it was to use on ham sandwiches'.. from another forum members earlier post.
Cheers
John

 

[altsym]

The same reason the allies discovered artillery shells loaded with nerve agents in Germany in 1945.

Cheers

Steve

That is a fascinating statement, is there a link or book you can point me too so I could learn more about what you said. I would like to know
specifically which nerve agents, when where exactly they were found. Thanks for the heads up on this.

 

[stona]

That is a fascinating statement, is there a link or book you can point me too so I could learn more about what you said. I would like to know
specifically which nerve agents, when where exactly they were found. Thanks for the heads up on this.

I'm not at home at the moment and don't want to second guess myself.

The shells contained "tabun" and "soman", the nazis had accumulated something approaching 30,000 tons of tabun by the end of the war. The production facility at what is now Brzeg Dolny in Poland was captured by the Soviets and transported lock stock and barrel back to the USSR (there's a song there somewhere )

I know charged artillery shells and bombs were found in various locations by the western allies but can't look that up at the moment.

The Germans had also started production of "sarin". This was on a much smaller scale and the US forces bagged the sarin filled devices at the end of the war.

Cheers

Steve

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

The same reason the allies discovered artillery shells loaded with nerve agents in Germany in 1945.The same reason submarines are dispersed around the globe today, capable of launching their nuclear arsenals.

The incident you referred to only caused a stir because the use of "dangerous gases" in warfare was banned in 1925. Neither the UK nor most other combatants in WW2 in Europe were allowed to deploy them as they had signed the relevant treaty. Japan and China had also signed.
See "Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare", usually called the Geneva Protocol, which is the treaty signed in 1925.

Cheers

Steve

That is a fascinating statement, is there a link or book you can point me too so I could learn more about what you said. I would like to know
specifically which nerve agents, when where exactly they were found. Thanks for the heads up on this.

The US Training base in Grafenwöhr had stockpiles of artillery shells loaded with chemical agents when it was captured by the Allies in 1945.

At least so it is told at the on base Museum.

 

[bobbysocks]

i dont see where nuking germany serves any purpose. perhaps if the allied advance stalled and the war became static for several months without any likelihood of changing...or one of the "wonder weapons" came out and germany was able to turn the tide. both were unlikely.

 

[stona]

i dont see where nuking germany serves any purpose.

It doesn't, which is why it was never considered.

Germany had surrendered long before the weapons became available anyway. The first two were ear marked for Japan as two were considered necessary to force a Japanese surrender. Had they not done the job there would have been some delay before more could have been completed.

Even in the most ludicrous "what if" there would have been no possibility of using these weapons against Germany until early in 1946,nearly a year after her historical surrender!

Cheers

Steve

 

[Golladay]

Going by the raw question posed by this thread:

First things first, nukes are not all that powerful. They explode in a sphere and most of the energy is wasted.

The Little Boy did as much damage as it did, because:

1. Most buildings were wood and paper.

2. The city was an ammunition dump and many of the ordinance piles exploded.

3. The blast knocked over cooking stoves and the chaos post blast prevented firefighting efforts.

4. Hiroshima was on nice flat land

However, the Hiroshima Naval Base survived, the Factories and 94% of their workers also survived. Moreover, the electric plants survived. If Little Boy was meant to destroy them, the Enola Gay's mission was a failure.

Now in Germany, lets say we decide Dresden instead of being firebombed to destroy its factories (which are on the outskirts and thus did not suffer damage), and its rail roads (which were completely missed) will get hit by fatman.

1. Rail road tracks need to be scoured off by direct ground bursts as established by post war testing of nukes. So the tracks will survive. Mission failure right there as Fatman is airburst only.

2. Dresden just to be burned, had to be hit by thousands of HE bombs over a wide area and thousands of incendiary bombs. The fatman's main damage area will be .79 mile diameter area in a lightly populated part of the city

3. Dresden's terrain will greatly mitigate damage by protecting buildings from blast, thermal, etc, further lessening the damage.

End result, mission failure. You just don't go bomb a city with a nuke, doesn't work that way.

Now you know why nukes weren't use post war. They are notoriously difficult to target correctly to take advantage of their destructive potential and many complex factors greatly limit their potential. The DoD uses massive supercomputers and millions of lines of code just to get optimum targeting solutions for these weapons. Just take out one radar site 75 km from Moscow, 79 ballistic missiles were targeted at it to ensure a 99% PoK to open up a a hole for B-52s to exploit.

 

[tyrodtom]

Hiroshima naval base was called what it was because it was in Hiroshima prefecture, not because it was in Hiroshima city, it was about 10 miles away, also known as Kure.

If all the poles and wires are down and destroyed, what good is a electrical plant ?

According to you, all we'd have to do to destroy any Japanese city is set off a few bombs and turn over their cookstoves !!

15,000-20.000 tons is not that powerful ?? Up until the atomic bombs the most powerful man made explosion was when a whole cargo ship of explosives went off in a Newfoundland harbor in WW1.