German Aircraft that could deliver The Bomb

[PStickney]

One of the things that did the Northrop flying wings in concerned the inability of the bomb bay to carry a nuclear weapon - at the time, they were big and heavy.

A Post-WW2 strategic nuclear bomb (Mk III, Mk 4,6,13,18 - the 4 and up used the same shape) and so forth was 60" in diameter, 128" long, and generally massed in at nearly 11,000 lbs. (1.52m X 3.27m, 5000 kg), and required access to the bay so that the weaponeer could perform the in-flight insertion of the weapon pit, and finish the assembly of the explosive lenses.
A note from the XB-35 Erection and Maintenance Manual (You never know when you'll find one in a barn) is this: Section IV, Page 13 section h. Bomb Racks:
"(1) Description,- XB-35 airplane (AAD 42-13603) is designed to carry to 500 pund bombs in each of its eight bomb bays. As this is an experimental airplane, the inboard bays will ordinarily be filled with special equipment making them of no use for carrying bombs. Since 500 pound bombs are the only type for which the aircraft is designed, the bomb rails, brackets, etc. ordinarily removable from an airplane are to be left installed, and should not be removed except in case of damage."

Given the the B-35/49 used the Northrop multi-cellular wing construction, the bays being nested in with the engine bays in the wing, it doesn't look like there were a lot of options. The Silverplate/Saddletree nuclear weapons modifications don't look feasible.

 

[Graeme]

Again, I don't know if it is true, but if so, having to send an aircraft on recon to find out what happened to one of your own cities is something right out of a horror story.

Twas a long time ago now - but I think a similar situation happened on Christmas Day in Darwin after Cyclone Tracy (1974). First aircraft in to investigate was a Qantas Boeing 707?

Cyclone Tracy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[PStickney]

Twas a long time ago now - but I think a similar situation happened on Christmas Day in Darwin after Cyclone Tracy (1974). First aircraft in to investigate was a Qantas Boeing 707?

Cyclone Tracy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That was just what happened in 1965, after the Great Alaskan Earthquake and Tsunami. All communication with the coastal area affected was lost - not even the HAM nets were up. The USAF pulled on their Alert B-58s off alert, downloaded the weapons, uploaded one of the rare recon pods, and launched it to (quite literally) get the pictures of what happened.

 

[33k in the air]

Do not take this as gospel. But I have read in several articles, that Hitler did not put any faith in The atomic bomb. Maybe I am wrong, and this is strictly my opinion, I think when Hitler was gassed, it left him with a horror of so called Doomsday weapons.

Adam Tooze's book The Wages of Destruction mentions the matter of a German atomic bomb program. It's been awhile since I read it, but as I recall, there was a meeting of the heads of the Reich in 1942 during which an atomic bomb program was discussed. The problem was it was understood such a program required a lot of resources and financial support — both of which were limited — and the product of the program would not seen for several years. The pressures the Reich was under at that time meant the priority was for weapons which would be ready for use in the shorter term — longer-term projects of uncertain outcome would have to wait. Consequently, an atomic bomb project was put on the back burner.

 

[nuuumannn]

Twas a long time ago now - but I think a similar situation happened on Christmas Day in Darwin after Cyclone Tracy (1974). First aircraft in to investigate was a Qantas Boeing 707?

I can't confirm that, but I know that there was a Vulcan at Darwin just before the cyclone hit. It was transiting from New Zealand to Singapore and the RAF crew decided to leave as the weather report was looking bleak. On their arrival in Singapore they were horrified to hear about what happened to the city.

 

[Propellorhead]

Citing from th

Not quite -

If you knew anything about Muroc and the surrounding area, especially during the war years, there was a ton of training being done at the base and surrounding areas as well as a sizable civilian population. Muroc was huge and had the adjoining dry lake bed which was eventually turned into axillary and emergency landing areas. What Mojave didn't have was absolute security as the base actually sat somewhat in a valley there there was higher ground to the south where you can see a great portion of the base. To the north was Mohave Marine Corp base which had over 8,000 people based there. Muroc it self had around 20,000 and to the west was War Eagle Field, which had at least 1,000 people there between students, instructors, mechanics and support personnel. The surrounding areas had another 20 - 30,000 civilians spread out over the Antelope Valley. There was plenty of manpower and resources to erect any required support facilities needed.

To maintain mission security, the 509th Composite Group was formed to be a self sufficient until to not only support the direct mission, but to provide administrative support to the entire unit. It was also made to be transportable. Wendover was perfect as during the war years it was extremely isolated with Salt Lake City, the only major city in the area being over 120 miles away.

Now that is as wacky as some of your conspiracy theory cool aid you've been pushing. It's been well documented that Japan, despite the continual aerial bombardment of it's territory, was not going to willingly accept an unconditional surrender. Before the Japanese Emperor decided to end the war, Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki wanted to see one more massive land battle to save face, and he was one of the more moderate leaders. LeMay by his own admittance was running out of cities to firebomb and in Ed Jablownski's book "Wings of Fire" it was documented that Japan still had several thousand combat aircraft still serviceable. Even with the resistance experienced on Okinawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima and Tarawa, there were still plans to invade Japan, and it's well documented those in charge were not looking forward to an invasion.

The atomic bombings put an end to that and saved over a million lives.

So please, if you want to continue to post speculative conspiracy theories (that I find mainly humorously entertaining) please refrain from the revisionist BS that I not only find ignorant but insulting to those who died in the Pacific trying to wrestle control away from the Japanese as well as the many families who would have had family members participating in a blood bath (Including mine).

You are talking about physical size of the base. I am talking about bureaucratic footprint.

Citing from the declassified official history of Project Silverplate The small detachment of three B-29s sent to Muroc was too small to justify the engineering support it received and requests for support aroused unusual interest in their activities which itself posed a security risk. It was more expedient for security reasons to enlarge the detachment to a large self supporting unit.

This stopped the large paper trail of bureaucracy, every time a secret mission was asked to justify logistic requests

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Your clip doesn't say much except back up what I previously posted! It says nothing about the "bureaucratic footprint."

To maintain mission security, the 509th Composite Group was formed to be a self sufficient until to not only support the direct mission, but to provide administrative support to the entire unit. It was also made to be transportable. Wendover was perfect as during the war years it was extremely isolated with Salt Lake City, the only major city in the area being over 120 miles away.

Please stop trying to add to the conspiracy theory. I lived by Muroc (Edwards) knew people who were stationed there and even been to Wendover several times.


You said it yourself!

and requests for support aroused unusual interest in their activities which itself posed a security risk.

I'll repeat so you'll understand - there were A LOT of people at Muroc during this period!!!

Stop overthinking this!

 

[Propellorhead]

Unwittingly, you are citing from Hitler's published table talks with Romania's Marshal Antonescu on 5th August 1944, in which Hitler described the awesome power of Germany's Uranium atom splitting weapon

Hitler's own claims about testing nuclear weapons

In August 1944 Hitler Ribbentrop and Keitel met with Romanian Marshal Antonescu at Wolf'S Lair HQ. Hitler told Antonescu of Germany's atomic bomb. He 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."

Antonescu later quoted Hitler when arrested by the Russians just a month later and questioned for war crimes saying:

"These weapons, for example, have such colossal force that all human life is destroyed within three, or four kilometres of its point of impact."

The table talks that day directly quote Hitler's fears that the Allies would retaliate an attack by Germany's Atomic Bomb with a gas attack.

Source QUOTED from: Germany and the Second World War: Organization and Mobilisation of the German sphere of Power..., Volume 5, Part 1, by Bernhard Kroener, Rolf-Dieter Müller, Hans Umbreit, Oxford Uni Press 2003

Hitler's day by day table talks, were recorded and transcribed by Lt Colonel Heinrich Heim which is how they survived the war.

Hitler's mention of a "Uranium atom splitting bomb" was corroborated in a Magic decrypt of a diplomatic signal from Japan's embassy in Stockholm to Tokyo. 9 December 1944. (NARA archives RG457, SRA 14628).

Kindly photographed by William Pellas of Tennessee.

 

[Propellorhead]

You make no eff

Your clip doesn't say much except back up what I previously posted! It says nothing about the "bureaucratic footprint."


View attachment 654235

Please stop trying to add to the conspiracy theory. I lived by Muroc (Edwards) knew people who were stationed there and even been to Wendover several times.


You said it yourself!


I'll repeat so you'll understand - there were A LOT of people at Muroc during this period!!!

Stop overthinking this!

YOU make no effort yourself to research original archived material. You are in no position to crittique me or the document.

 

[nuuumannn]

Unwittingly, you are citing from Hitler's published table talks with Romania's Marshal Antonescu on 5th August 1944, in which Hitler described the awesome power of Germany's Uranium atom splitting weapon

Doesn't mean anything. The Nazis were not in a position to successfully complete a nuclear weapon, let alone build a pile. I notice that the website naziabomb peddles the whole Ju 390 to New York flight of which there is no evidence that it took place at all. Conspiracy theory rubbish.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

You make no eff

YOU make no effort yourself to research original archived material. You are in no position to crittique me or the document.

Oh please - you are ASSUMING things about places you never been to!!!

And yes I AM in a position to critique you, especially if you keep posting BS on here!!!

 

[GrauGeist]

Roger's lake (Muroc) was a testing and training complex during the war.

There was alot of activity there - the south end was used for twin/multi engine training: P-38, B-24, B-25, etc.

There was also a bombing range and a full size mock-up of a Japanese warship (full size meaning like 600+ feet long), used for bombing and strafing practice.

There were something like four active hangars, barracks, admin, civilian services and more.

You were not going to have much secrecy with a group of B-29s, even three.

 

[special ed]

Imagine, as one poster proposed, if 509th Lancasters showed up as a unit with U.S. insignia.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

On the afternoon of December 7, 1941, the 41st Bombardment Group and the 6th Reconnaissance Squadron moved to Muroc from Davis-Monthan Army Airfield, Arizona, with a collection of B-18 Bolos, B-25 Mitchells, and an A-29 Hudson. On Christmas Eve, the 30th Bombardment Group and the 2d Reconnaissance Squadron arrived from New Orleans Army Airbase, Louisiana, for crew training. On July 23, 1942, the Muroc Bombing and Gunnery Range, Muroc Lake, California, was designated as a separate post. The name of the facility at the time was "Army Air Base, Muroc Lake".

In July 1942, Muroc Army Airfield became a separate airfield from March Field and was placed under the jurisdiction of Fourth Air Force. Throughout the war years, the primary mission at Muroc was providing final combat training for bomber and fighter aircrews just before overseas deployment.

Muroc was initially used for IV Bomber Command Operational Unit training. The Mitchell and the A-20 Havoc trained at the station in early 1942. The training provided newly graduated pilots eight to 12 weeks of training as a team using the same aircraft they would use in combat. In 1942, the training mission was transferred to IV Fighter Command, with P-38 Lightning training for the 78th and 81st Fighter Groups. In 1943, the 360th Fighter Group and 382d Bombardment Groups were assigned permanently to Muroc for Lightning and B-24 Liberator Replacement Training of personnel.

The XP-59 and XP-80 was tested at the most northern part of the base (North Base) which was the most secluded. The closest town was Boron, about 20 miles to the east and there weren't very many people or roads there during this period.

In spring 1942, the Mojave Desert station was chosen as a secluded site for testing America's first jet, the super-secret Bell Aircraft P-59 Airacomet jet fighter. The immense volume of flight test being conducted at Wright Field, in Ohio, helped drive a search for a new, isolated site where a "Top Secret" airplane could undergo tests "away from prying eyes." The urgent need to complete the P-59 program without delay dictated a location with good, year-round flying weather, and the risks inherent in the radical new technology to be demonstrated on the aircraft dictated a spacious landing field. After examining a number of locations around the country, they selected a site along the north shore of the enormous, flat surface of Rogers Dry Lake about six miles away from the training base at Muroc.

June 21, 1940: Muroc Gunnery Range Officially Activated

The Muroc Bombing and Gunnery Range was officially activated, although it had been in continuous use since September, 1933. At that time, the Army facility was concentrated on the eastern shore of the

www.aftc.af.mil

Although a degree of secrecy was available at Muroc, it was obvious Wendover offered way more seclusion, especially for something as big as the Manhattan Project.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Imagine, as one poster proposed, if 509th Lancasters showed up as a unit with U.S. insignia.

Especially if ranking RAF crews showed up on base. There were RAF personnel in the area (about 30 miles to the south west) but most, if not all were pilot trainees. Yes, a lot of eyebrows "would have" been raised.

 

[Propellorhead]

The main issue with Germans detonating a bomb would be that someone should have seen the giant fireball and mushroom cloud (which, even for small devices like those employed in ww2, should have been visible over 100km away). it's simply too big to convince witnesses to 'forget about it, it's just an ammo depot hit by a raid'.

The only intriguing mystery for me is the nature of the Uranium aboard U-505. The official story is that it was just some refined metallic uranium, however it was transported into individual ceramic (or glass) gold plated small containers (a precaution which is employed usually for high purity, precious or reactive substances in chemistry).

Russian KGB archives. record a Soviet espionage report citing the deaths of Soviet POWs from an alleged nuclear test blast at Ohrdruf on 4th March 1945. WITNESSED by German citizens in a nearby town. At a court of enquiry at Arnstadt in East Germany several witnesses described the blast which turned night into day. The court records became known as the Arnstadt Archives. these archives were copied with the fall of East Germany., but the Federal German Government then had the original Documents destroyed to bury Germany's history in WW2. Key witnesses in those archives not only survived the war, but also the fall of East Germany, to repeat their accounts in recent times

For example Clere Werner who witnessed the blast and Heinz Wachsmut, a man who worked for a local excavating company, tasked by the SS to gather the incinerated bodies of Soviet POWs and destroy them on funeral pyres. Rainer Karlsch gathered testimony from surviving witnesses and published them in his book Hitler's Bombe, but what is the poinr when people refuse to even read witness testimonies today in 2022?


On 4 March 1945, Clare Werner was standing inside a castle watchtower in Thuringia, Germany where she was the caretaker. Not too far away was the military base with a POW accommodation camp near the town of Ohrdruf. Unexpectedly there was a flash of light. "I suddenly saw something," she said, " ... "it was as bright as hundreds of bolts of lightning, red on the inside and yellow on the outside, so bright you could've read the newspaper. It all happened so quickly, and then we couldn't see anything at all. We just noticed there was a powerful wind..." She described feeling nausea and suffering headaches after the blast.


Then of course there is the testimony of Luigi Romersa to witnessing a blast at Bug isthmus on Rugen Island. Romersa was sent by Mussolini to report back on the German Atomic bomb. He notes that Japanese VIPs were present with him in October 1944 at a bunker to witness the test blast, This helps explain Japanese commentary in the MAGIC decrypt of 09 December 1944. (NARA RG 457).

Not to forget the archived wartime espionage reports from diplomat Sam Woods who controlled a German spy Erwin Respondek, who was highly placed in the German Treasury who gave accurate testimony throughout the war on Germany's Atomic bomb project., via Switzerland (1943 intelligence reports of Woods in NARA, RG.59) Respondek warned Woods of underground nuclear tests in the Schwabian Alps during July / August 1943. That really got some attention because sure enough a series of earthquakes were detected in the Schwabian Alps on the dates cited by Respondek.

 

[Propellorhead]

Oh please - you are ASSUMING things about places you never been to!!!

And yes I AM in a position to critique you, especially if you keep posting BS on here!!!

I am posting material sourced from original wartime archives. you are flexing your power to shut down discussion.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I am posting material sourced from original wartime archives. you are flexing your power to shut down discussion.

With regards to our discussion you're posting utter BS - and if you keep this up not only am I going to "shut down discussion" I am going to "flex my power" and boot your ass out of here!

 

[GrauGeist]

We all know the Germans were highly advanced, they just didn't want to use their technology to win the war, but instead, played stupid (very well, I might add) and lost the short-term war for long-term goals.

Clever bastards.

Unfortunately, sometimes their stuff gets caught on film (but there's always A cover-up, you know), like this Do-STRA accidently colliding with a wind-farm in the Netherlands.

The official explanation was a weather balloon...

 

[SaparotRob]

Imagine, as one poster proposed, if 509th Lancasters showed up as a unit with U.S. insignia.

Tongues would wag.