The Nuclear decision...what if?

[Civettone]

I read that the V 2 costed about as much as the Manhatton project. So the Germans could have had a nuke had they wanted to. They could have put it in a Ju 390 with a one way ticket to Manhattan at night.

I think it was the A-12 which was to be the first intercontinental ballistic missile. They were years away from that even though the V 2 was the biggest Army project.
Kris

[david johnson]

Originally Posted by DerAdlerIstGelandet

Great books. I have all of them including the Colonization series. I have just started reading the Colonization ones though.

colonization is also good.

in 'world at war', some secret usa science shenanigans are going on up in myrtle, mo. my wife worked at the school there for the past few years.

since much of it also occurs in arkansas, i feel right at home in the books.
i've been to all the places turtledove mentions.

i've forgotten some details...seems like one protagonist joins the raf and another flies german jets...neat stuff. i liked the guy who figured out that, if you had the guts to wait, you really could blow up a lizard tank.

my favorite part was after a truce when the us sgt and a lizard sgt were setting around talking at night in a blasted american city.
'why you guys fighting us?'
'hell if i know, the emperor said do it and that's what us soldiers do.'

i bet that conversation has happened between foes in most wars!

dj

[Hop]

The V-2 wouldn't have been a suitable delivery mechanism for a nuclear warhead. Apart from the fact the early nuclear weapons were far too big, the V-2 had very poor accuracy and was very unreliable.

Of the 1350 or so fired at London, just 520 hit within the greater London area, which was about 20 miles across. Almost a quarter of the missiles broke up in flight.

With a 25% chance of losing a precious nuclear warhead, and less than 40% chance of hitting the largest city in the world from 200 miles away, the idea of launching nuclear weapons at the US (3,500 miles) was pure fantasy.

I read that the V 2 costed about as much as the Manhatton project. So the Germans could have had a nuke had they wanted to.

It wasn't just a question of money. The Germans had some of the basic science wrong.

[Civettone]

Originally Posted by Hop

It wasn't just a question of money. The Germans had some of the basic science wrong.

Like what?

Kris

[Hop]

Their development of a nuclear reactor was hindered by a mistaken belief that graphite was no use as a moderator. That meant they needed lots of very pure heavy water, which was expensive and difficult to make (I'm not sure they ever got enough). Graphite is actually an excellent moderator, still used in most reactors today. It's cheap and easy to produce.

They also appear to have been unsure how much enriched uranium or plutonium they would need for a critical mass, with Heisenberg at times believing it would take several tons, rather than the tens of kilos actually needed.

[The Basket]

America may have developed the bomb but in which time frame...without the rush of war then it may have taken years.

The issue is that maybe the right decsions were taken at the right time but turned out to be historically wrong.

[Soren]

Without the absolute crucial help from the fleeing German scientists the US would've never gotten the A-bomb. Quite simple.

Remember the German nuclear research was boycotted by Hitler, so they never really got the time or money to ever be able to compete with the highly prioritized Manhattan Project which was a cooperation between many countries, the major contributions coming namely from German & British scientists.

As to wether the the Germans would've (had the Greman nuclear program been funded) been able to launch rockets with nuclear warheads , yes they most certainly would've. The V-2 carried a ~1 ton warhead across the sky at 800 m/s, so I think it completely possible that the Germans could've built a rocket capable of carrying a warhead in excess of 4 tons - esp. since they wouldn't need many. As to the accuracy of the V-2, well considering the slave labor used to construct it and rush to launch them it was remarkably accurate - and there's no doubt that a "V-3" (Lets call it that) carrying a nuclear warhead would've been constructed with the outmost care by professionals to ensure nothing going wrong, which would ensure a safe and accurate delivery of the warhead - like I said not many direct hits were needed

[Civettone]

Originally Posted by Hop

Their development of a nuclear reactor was hindered by a mistaken belief that graphite was no use as a moderator. That meant they needed lots of very pure heavy water, which was expensive and difficult to make (I'm not sure they ever got enough). Graphite is actually an excellent moderator, still used in most reactors today. It's cheap and easy to produce.

They also appear to have been unsure how much enriched uranium or plutonium they would need for a critical mass, with Heisenberg at times believing it would take several tons, rather than the tens of kilos actually needed.

Well, that's not really the same as saying they had the principles wrong.
The heavy water would have been produced and the amounts of plutonium needed would also have been found out given some more research.

Kris

[syscom3]

Soren, given the genocidal tendencies of the Nazi's towards the Jews, none of the scientists would have stayed in Germany to help them develope an atomic weapon.

So yes, the German scientists helped the allies in developing the bomb. Your loss, our gain.

Another thing to ponder about the development and construction of the bomb..... you need a huge industrial plant to work on the various components of the bomb. All of which would be known to allied intelligence and bombed.

And then there is the issue of the Soviets allowing the Nazi's to build a bomb.

[delcyros]

They had developed finally a sound understanding of a nuke and the necessary technologies behind (breed reactor formulated by Heisenberg 1942, recyclotrons build by v. Ardenne and others, gaseous centrifuges installed in Hamburg, Bad Saarow and elsewhere, infrared fuze designed and builded by Trinks). But as Syscom noted, not the industrial background, necessary to invoke building nukes.
Graphite was, contrary to popular believe, utilzed as a moderator in Heisenbergs Haigerloch pile.
Diebners G IV, a shortliving pile got critical in 1944 using heavy water as a moderator.
Seriously, the V-2 IS NO SUITABLE CARRIER.

[Hop]

Graphite was, contrary to popular believe, utilzed as a moderator in Heisenbergs Haigerloch pile.

The Haigerloch reactor used heavy water as the moderator. Graphite was used around the core as shielding, not as the moderator.

From an interview with Heisenberg:

ERMENC: Why wasn't there more interest in graphite knowing that heavy water was very scarce ?

HEISENBERG: It was because of the experiment of Bothe's on graphite which was not correct. Bothe had made a measurement of the neutron absorption coefficient of pure carbon and an error had slipped into his experiment. His values were too high but we assumed they were cor-
rect and so we did not think carbon could be used.
Afterwards we knew what his error probably was. He had
built a pile of graphite pieces but in between the graphite pieces there was always some air and the nitrogen of the air has high neutron absorption. Somehow he must have forgotten this. I don't know why but it's understandable .

We intended in the later development of the thing
to use carbon for shieldinq around the reactors.

ERMENC: This is what you did at Leipzig?

HEISENBERG: No, we did this at Haigerloch in South Germany.
There we wanted to get carbon as shieldinq for the outside
because we realized that carbon was much better than light
water.

But then there was not enough carbon and it was difficult to
get. So not much was done with it. The carbon line was really ruled out by the experiment of Bothe.

It's worth pointing out that the Haigerloch reactor never worked, and never would have. It was too small to achieve criticality.

[delcyros]

While it is correct that Haigerloch used water as moderator, the graphite shielding of the core contributed to neutron reflection on a measurable scale and was recognized as such. Any later projects therefore would return to graphite (indeed even Ardenne, who didn´t participated in Haigerloch knew this and suggested graphite as moderator to the soviets, who refused to accept his proposal and build their first pile with heavy water as moderator).

BTW, Haigerloch WOULD have worked incase:

A) Heisenberg would have gotten access to the remaining heavy water and uranium stored in Stadtilm /Thuringia, or
B) Heisenberg would have allowed a change into spherical arrangement of the core according to Diebners G III and G IV results. Heisenberg perhaps was the most conservative of the german nuclear physics by this time. Either intended or not remains debatable.

[Soundbreaker Welch?]

Even a German nuclear warhead going off in a Vermont wheat field might scare a couple people!

[syscom3]

Look at the industrial capacity needed to build an atomic weapon. The Manhattan project involved 10's of thousands of skilled workers needed to build the massive infrastructure. And thousands of scientists and technicians were needed to research, design and build the weapons.

Its lucky that the US had enough manpower and excess industrial capacity to do it. Now consider the implications for Germany in which vitally needed resources would have to be diverted to a nuclear weapon program that might or might not work.

And then factor in the British and Russian bombardments on these plants and the resultant delays.

[Civettone]

If it's true that the V2 rocket project costed as much as the Manhattan project it would also mean it would have been possible for the Germans to collect the resources to build a nuke. Also remember that there is no reason to believe that the Germans would have needed as much resources as the Americans. The Germans usually designed and build new weapons with much less personnel and resources than the allies.

Kris