No it isn't, you cannot make a nuclear bomb that weighs a bit more than a big girls hand bag. If you want to show me handbag sized nuclear weapons from the 1940s I am very interested but I know, since I worked as a qualified radiographer, that such technology in ionising radiation didn't exist in the 1940s and actually doesn't exist now.
German Aircraft that could deliver The Bomb
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Admiral Beez
Major
Germany had the ultimate a-bomb delivery aircraft, the V-2.
Oh- sorry! I was disagreeing with BlackSheep. I agree with everything you posted.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
The A4 only had a 2,200 pound payload, about the same as the A10, the only difference, was the A10 had an estimated range of 3,100 miles over the A4's range of 200 miles.
The Germans did investigate nuclear weapons, but the Nazi race policies meant that the brain drain of worthy and knowledgeable scientists deprived them of the expertise required. Thankfully, the likes of Leo Szilard and most notably Edward Teller benefitted the Manhattan Project enormously. That alone and the effort made to produce and refine the fissile material for a workable bomb was a huge effort that the Germans just did not have the resources or knowhow to do accurately within the timeframe of the war.
Refining uranium and the production of plutonium, an isotope of uranium and not found naturally except from refining uranium, is an extremely exact science. The US (rather, Multinational as there were scientists from all over the world, including little ole New Zealand involved in the Manhattan) project had difficulty doing this for their first aerial bomb, the Thin Man, a gun type weapon, which led to its cancellation when the plutonium being produced at the Hanford Site in Washington State was full of impurities and there was a fear it might not produce a chain reaction.
In a hypothetical scenario, the He 177 might have been possible to carry such a device, but at what cost? The He 177 was unreliable and the in service models were plagued with serviceability issues. Perhaps the He 274 might be a better bet, but again, a lot has to happen before that gets near production, like no Operation Overlord, for example as that aircraft was built in France. The best weapon the Germans have for delivery of a nuclear device is far and away the V 2 and any future projects (since we are speaking hypothetically), such as the A 10. Regardless of its lack of accuracy, it's unstoppable once it launches, but there is also the unreliability of the technology that comes into play as not all V 2s that were launched actually survived the forces on them during flight. The Germans, had they gotten that far would have made sense to deploy a nuclear bomb on a rocket rather than an aircraft.
IF, and that is a BIG if that such a thing even existed. The original source might be a book on airfields in Oxfordshire under the listing of RAF Enstone with little substantial fact behind it. Mark Felton's youtube video is riddled with inaccuracies, which lets his otherwise interesting take on the subject down - and I wouldn't rely on the Wiki page on Enstone, which references Felton's video - eek!
Let's put it this way, the Lancaster was listed as the only aircraft that could carry the Thin Man bomb internally, but both Groves in charge of the Manhattan Project and Gen Arnold expressly stipulated an American type. The Lancaster was never considered for carrying either Little Boy or Fat Man operationally by the Americans. Dr Ramsay, who suggested the Lancaster in his 1943 report proposed that it might be available for trials, but again, Arnold rejected the proposal for the same reason as earlier.
Refining uranium and the production of plutonium, an isotope of uranium and not found naturally except from refining uranium, is an extremely exact science. The US (rather, Multinational as there were scientists from all over the world, including little ole New Zealand involved in the Manhattan) project had difficulty doing this for their first aerial bomb, the Thin Man, a gun type weapon, which led to its cancellation when the plutonium being produced at the Hanford Site in Washington State was full of impurities and there was a fear it might not produce a chain reaction.
In a hypothetical scenario, the He 177 might have been possible to carry such a device, but at what cost? The He 177 was unreliable and the in service models were plagued with serviceability issues. Perhaps the He 274 might be a better bet, but again, a lot has to happen before that gets near production, like no Operation Overlord, for example as that aircraft was built in France. The best weapon the Germans have for delivery of a nuclear device is far and away the V 2 and any future projects (since we are speaking hypothetically), such as the A 10. Regardless of its lack of accuracy, it's unstoppable once it launches, but there is also the unreliability of the technology that comes into play as not all V 2s that were launched actually survived the forces on them during flight. The Germans, had they gotten that far would have made sense to deploy a nuclear bomb on a rocket rather than an aircraft.
IF, and that is a BIG if that such a thing even existed. The original source might be a book on airfields in Oxfordshire under the listing of RAF Enstone with little substantial fact behind it. Mark Felton's youtube video is riddled with inaccuracies, which lets his otherwise interesting take on the subject down - and I wouldn't rely on the Wiki page on Enstone, which references Felton's video - eek!
Let's put it this way, the Lancaster was listed as the only aircraft that could carry the Thin Man bomb internally, but both Groves in charge of the Manhattan Project and Gen Arnold expressly stipulated an American type. The Lancaster was never considered for carrying either Little Boy or Fat Man operationally by the Americans. Dr Ramsay, who suggested the Lancaster in his 1943 report proposed that it might be available for trials, but again, Arnold rejected the proposal for the same reason as earlier.
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As a postscript to this, I altered the Enstone Airfield wikipedia page to shed some truth on the matter, as the previous entry was bollox.
Enstone Airfield - Wikipedia
Admiral Beez
Major
Easy enough to scale up the missile. Until Normandy, it need only fly from France to London.
Peter Gunn
Master Sergeant
"I am going to have to dig out my articles but I remember reading about a sighting of a German bomber off the coast of New England, I believe. The story talked about the bomber going down, witnesses being asked to keep quiet, and years later divers recovering a German airplane engine. The most interesting, and pertinent to this thread, tidbit talked about the Nazis' choice of bomb design. Apparently, there were two ways to go about building an atomic weapon, the way we did which weighed several thousand tons and an alternate way which came in at under a hundred pounds. That being the case, the bomber would only need to be capable of long flights.
Anyone who may have seen the article, I seem to remember it discussed a Soviet regiment that was decimated by a Nazi wonder weapon, which left the battlefield charred and the Soviets blaming it on a chemical attack. The same article also stated that Churchill threatened to use anthrax on German livestock, if they continued to pursue that course of warfare.
Sorry, so off topic, but the thought of a lightweight atomic weapon in the hands of an air force lacking the types and numbers of 4-engine bombers as the allies really intrigued me."
Conspiracy theories and wehreaboos <?sp>
...
UGH!
Anyone who may have seen the article, I seem to remember it discussed a Soviet regiment that was decimated by a Nazi wonder weapon, which left the battlefield charred and the Soviets blaming it on a chemical attack. The same article also stated that Churchill threatened to use anthrax on German livestock, if they continued to pursue that course of warfare.
Sorry, so off topic, but the thought of a lightweight atomic weapon in the hands of an air force lacking the types and numbers of 4-engine bombers as the allies really intrigued me."
Conspiracy theories and wehreaboos <?sp>
...
UGH!
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GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
(Close - move the H around: Wehr)
Shortround6
Major General
To get a US style A bomb on a missle you need to scale up about 5 times the lift of a V-2.
Use one or two really big engines? (more development time?)
Use 5 existing engines on one air frame?
The more parts/assemblies you use the less reliable the overall system is.
Use one or two really big engines? (more development time?)
Use 5 existing engines on one air frame?
The more parts/assemblies you use the less reliable the overall system is.
Rocket science is rocket science, 5 existing engines would give you 5 times the load with the same range, for 5 times the range you need a rocket motor(s) with more than five times the combustion rate. The Saturn V and Shuttle rockets use fantastic amounts of fuel just clearing the launch tower, more than was used to go to the moon and back once in orbit in the case of the moon landings.
Yup...
Specific impulse - Wikipedia
All this does is illustrate how difficult it was gonna be for the Germans to go through the motions to get to a stage where they have a deployable nuclear weapon. Having the weapon is one thing, perfecting the delivery system is another...
This is Black Knight, it was a sounding rocket and was developed by the British for testing warhead shapes and their characteristics during re-entry. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, these rockets were launched into the skies above Australia and warhead shapes packed with recording devices measured what would happen to a warhead on entry into the atmosphere after being deployed from a rocket flying a ballistic trajectory. Fitted with a small solid fuel motor, the warhead was mounted inverted, with the tip of the cone facing downward, so that when the rocket reached the apogee of its flight path it would deploy the warhead, which would blast its way downward to simulate the speeds of re-entry. Incidentally it is worth noting that Black Knight's Armstrong Siddeley Gamma liquid propellant motors were developed from the German use of HTP by the Walther works in Hamburg, who built the Me 163's motor. The British Rocket Propulsion Establishment at Westcott developed a family of rocket motors using captured German technology.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
It took considerable time and effort to get an A4 into operational status and even then, it's range was roughly 200 miles to deliver a one ton warhead.
The 200 miles was it's reach, not flight trajectory, by the way.
The 200 miles was it's reach, not flight trajectory, by the way.
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pinehilljoe
Senior Airman
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- May 1, 2016
The reliability of the A-4/V-2 would have made a questionable delivery system, even if a device small enough for it to carry could have been developed in that time frame.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
When discussing atomic weapons, the term "accuracy" needs to be defined somewhat.
If you're going to nuke a target, you don't exactly have to drop it dead center on the rooftop to wipe it out.
Think of the saying: "almost only counts in horse-shoes, hand grenades and nuclear warfare".
If you're going to nuke a target, you don't exactly have to drop it dead center on the rooftop to wipe it out.
Think of the saying: "almost only counts in horse-shoes, hand grenades and nuclear warfare".
The building that survived sort of intact at Hiroshima, was almost directly under the air burst bomb, the devastation increases as you get further away from the centre.
swampyankee
Chief Master Sergeant
- 4,022
- Jun 25, 2013
The answer to the OP's question is, of course, none of them: Germany had approximately no chance of nuclear weapons, as the German scientists were running at low speed down a blind alley.
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