If Hitler had the A Bomb how would he have used it?

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I would agree DB, but by the time he got the bomb (say November 1944) could he have deployed it effectively against the Soviets.

I have been mulling this thread ever since Old Sage warned us to get back on Night Fighters and not linger OT :)

There is nothing about the Atomic program that pre-supposes air born release (although I grant that is the most effective and dramatic). Using an atomic device as a "mine" (in the WW1 sense of that word) seems a more likely deployment.

Where on the Eastern Front would there be the necessary concentration of Soviet assets - and within striking range (by land or by water). Think outside the box -- the British raid on Saint Nazaire, France, for example, where the Navy and Commandos drove an ex-USN 4-stack destroyer into the locks and then blew it up on time delay.

A nuclear device used in that manner would make quite an impression, I am sure, but what's the target?


MM
 
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The target would have been A.H.!

It was delivered via the B-29, did the Germans have the capability to deliver by air?
I'm pretty basic in my knowledge of these things, as well!
 
Thank you. That's a twist I hadn't thought of :) although it does seem a strange way to kill yourself :).

MM
 
That depends on how big it is. The historical 4,633 kg "Fat Man" atomic bomb could be carried by quite a few German aircraft types.

Probably the easiest delivery system would be to assemble the nuke in the wide body fuselage of a Ju-290 cargo aircraft. The Ju-290 had huge endurance so range is not an issue. Mount a fighter aircraft on top in a Mistel configuration. Or accompany the delivery aircraft with a Ju-88S control aircraft loaded with fuel. A night flight to the target is unlikely to be intercepted. And you're not going to catch a Ju-88S even during the daytime.

250px-Livadia_Palace_Crimea.jpg

The February 1945 Yalta conference would make an ideal target. Approach route over the Black Sea. The Livadia Palace is an easily identifiable target located next to the beach. Germany could bag Stalin, Churchill, FDR and quite a few other top Allied leaders all at once.
 
Personally, I'd load up a captured freighter or some neutral-flag ship, and sail that puppy up into London. That would take out a lot of shipping capacity in a very short time. Although the shock value would not be as great as he would expect, since Londoners were used to lots of V1/V2/bomber explosions. Now...if he were to sail into, say, New York or Boston Harbor and set it off...maybe a submarine at night...the public outcry from a nation that had no clue what it was like to live through constant bombardment would have been tremendous, and caused the US to pull a lot of resources back to the states to guard our home soil and territorial waters. Knocking out Stalin, while a big help to the rest of the post-war world, I don't really think would have made much more of an impact other than to create a martyr for the troops to rally behind. Unless he started Barbarossa off with a bang (yeah...bad pun...sorry) and nuked Moscow from the start, before the Communist War Machine got its rusty gears turning and churning, that might have helped out a lot on the Eastern Front. But by the end of '44, I think the Allies had too much momentum for the loss of leadership to really grossly affect the eventual outcome of the war. Heck, FDR died unexpectedly, and that didn't stop American troops one bit. For it to have been effective, it would have had to have been used a lot earlier than he would have had it available in the first place. The only reason it worked for us was because we were on the offensive, not the defensive; it gave the Japanese high command a way to surrender without losing a lot of face; and dropping two so closely together led them to believe that we had a lot more available than we really did (which ties in with point #2). Hitler would not have had those advantages.
 
I had two thoughts - the first doesn't quite meet my availability timeline (November, 1944), but I'd ship the device to a Black Sea port in Romania (still an allie in May, 1944) and take the device by ship into Sevastopol -- as German forces were withdrawing (early May, 1944) and Soviet forces were pouring in . That whole region in the Ukraine would be neutralized.

The second thought was to use it against American troops in R&R disposition in the Ardennes, December, 1944. Penetration thrust deep into Belgium to get the device into the heart of American troops. Using such a weapon on American troops would be more devastating than using it on Soviets, IMHO.

MM
 
No but it did force abandonment of the Morgenthau Plan which would have destroyed central Europe for decades to come. FDR and Churchill both agreed to this plan during September 1944. Naturally Stalin loved it.

Eliminate all three Allied leaders during February 1945 and Europe might get a better then historical peace treaty. Especially if people think Germany has a second atomic bomb ready for use.
 
If the Germans decided to hit the Soviets, it could have been done with either a V2 or a Mistel...especially if they were going to use the "Virus House" bombs which were not very large in proportions (think dirty bomb here)

If they were going to hit the U.S., then that would have taken the efforts of a long range aircraft (which has been rumored to have been done) and would have been pretty difficult to pull off logistically.
 
"... Eliminate all three Allied leaders during February 1945 and Europe might get a better then historical peace treaty. Especially if people think Germany has a second atomic bomb ready for use."

It's a diabolical plan, DB. The stuff of movies :).

MM
 
Why would Hitler have used his nuclear weapon to attack a military target? Surely he would have used it in the same way the U.S. did. Use it as a terror weapon with the threat that you'll keep on using it until the other side quits. Target any cities within range. It would have been Germany's ultimate vengeance weapon.

BTW the German's were many years away from developing a nuclear weapon. Heisenberg had made some serious mistakes.

Cheers
Steve
 
IMHO

Depends on when that lunatic would have got it. Early in the war, I doubted he would have used it even when the tide first turned against him (even though he didn't believe it had). My reason to believe that was the fact that he didn't use "Chemical Weapons", the best comparision weapon I can think of. At the end of the war, I believe he would have used it at the last minute in Berlin and gone out with a literal bang!
 
The reason chemical weapons weren't used was because there was the threat of retaliation. If Hitler's Germany was the only country with a nuke capability, then I could see him using it. In terms of targets and timeframes, I'd go for early 1944 (if available) and attack Moscow. Cutting the head off the USSR might have gained Hitler enough breathing room to enable a more robust defence against the US and Commonwealth forces massing in the UK.

Or he could go the other way round and nuke London, which was far less remote, and then concentrate on the Eastern Front.

More whiffing to follow, no doubt.
 
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