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Captain Al
in Vancouver Island, Canada
Member
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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005 | 11:48 AM
I don't think the Nazis had sufficient resources to build a bomb even if they had made best use of what they had. Look at the amount of money the Allies threw into the Manhattan Project and they just managed to do it. Scientists all over Europe were leaving in droves to avoid being caught in Hilter's dictatorship. That didn't help.
And even if the Nazi were successful in solving all the problems, they still would have had to get a bomb to British soil. The Americans were able to drop them on Japan because they had massive air superiority. By 1945 the Luftwaffe was not much of a threat. |
Charybdis
in Hell
Member
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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005 | 06:28 PM
Keep in mind that these were the same people who developed jet fighters and cruise missiles so don't underestimate their capabilities. I'm well aware that an atomic bomb is very different from either of those, but the talent was there. A V2 would have been capable of carrying a bomb to London. Would they ever have been capable of continuous production? Very unlikely unless they managed to defeat the Soviets, but a single atomic weapon used at just the right time would have worked wonders. At the very least it would have scared the Russians shitless and possibly led to a cease-fire. |
Captain Al
in Vancouver Island, Canada
Member
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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005 | 08:47 PM
"A V2 would have been capable of carrying a bomb to London."
I disagree. I'm sure you have seen the pictures of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs called Little Boy and Fat Man. They were physically big. A V2 rocket had a maximum diameter of just over 5 feet. At the base of the warhead it was down to about 3 feet and ended in a point.
Then there's the problem of weight. I'm not sure what the 2 American bombs weighed but I bet it was more than the V2's warhead which was just under 1 ton.
Another problem would be timing the detonation. The V2 impacted at more than Mach 3. The warhead would have to triggered before that or the detonator would be destroyed and no nuclear explosion could occur. This would be tricky although not impossible. But since the Nazis would not likely have more than 1 bomb there would no chance to test their methods. |
Andy
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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005 | 11:44 PM
"...If anyone in the world could build the bomb it was Heisenberg. As I recall it's always been something of a mystery just why he didn't."
I heartilly recommend catching a performance of Michael Frayn's play Copenhagen for a wonderful dramatization of this very question. |
Mort
in Just left of centre
Member
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Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 | 04:59 AM
New story came online yesterday:
Boom!
This is of an alleged schematic for the alleged bomb. |
Peter
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Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 | 04:20 PM
It always amazed me that the scientists in the Manhatten project drove themselves at a frenzy because they were worried that the Germans would get there first. You would have thought that some of those bright people could have stopped and looked round them at all of the billions of dollars and huge facilities involved and understood that war-torn Germany could never compete.
The biggest historical "what-if", however, is not what if the Germans made an atomic bomb (they were a several billon dollars short), but what if the Russians had been a few months late getting to Berlin? The American bomb was meant for dropping on Germany. They only thought about dropping on Japan after Berlin fell. |
Charybdis
in Hell
Member
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Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 | 05:01 PM
With all their billions of dollars the Americans were still lagging behind the Germans in many technological areas, primarily rocketry and aircraft, which is why America and the USSR stripped the fallen Germany of all of it's top scientists. If money was all that mattered, why weren't we (America) employing jet aircraft at the start of the war? After all, Germany had a working prototype prior to the start of conflict. Where was ours? |
BlindMan
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Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 | 10:17 PM
How about the american nuclear bomb:
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0806-05.htm |
LepreCon
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Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 | 12:13 AM
The irony is (or you can call it a double-triple irony)that the USA destroyed 2 japanese cities in 1945.The Twin Towers were designed by a japanese architect in the early 70s and destroyed in 2001.Is Mother Nature trying to say?:What goes around,comes around. |
Charybdis
in Hell
Member
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Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 | 12:34 AM
Wow. That's so totally nonsensical that I don't even know where to start. Let's just go with WTF??? What does that have to do with anything? |
LepreCon
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Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 | 01:30 AM
Apparently you are a person without imagination. |
LepreCon
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Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 | 01:36 AM
Also it has something to do with the nuclear bomb in general and the previous comments. |
Charybdis
in Hell
Member
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Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 | 01:36 AM
I have plenty of imagination, but you still aren't making sense. This isn't even a good coincidence. It's a meaninless observation. How can you compare over a hundred thousand people killed to under four thousand? How can you compare an act of war to an act of terrorism? And as far as the architect being Japanese, so what? What's the connection? Guess what, Germans have designed things that were destroyed too. And we bombed them as well. |
LepreCon
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Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 | 01:46 AM
Man.Think.Yes,it is a bit abstract,nonetheless it makes sense.If it doesn't,I can't help you. |
LepreCon
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Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 | 02:32 AM
And my last comment:
If you call the nuclear bombing of Japan an act of war,you must be out of you mind. |
Mort
in Just left of centre
Member
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Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 | 03:31 AM
Sorry but i'm with Charybdis on this one, your Trade centre/Hiroshima link is mighty tenuous at best. as for that last statement, yes it was an act of war, what else was it? |
LaMa
in Europe
Member
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Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 | 03:46 AM
Anyone who thinks Nazi Germany wouldn't have the resources for a serious atomic bomb project, is wrong I think. Indeed as Chary mentioned, the highly sophisticated level of the German rocketry project shows otherwise, as is their development of jet aircraft. With resources available that were not to the US, like slave labour and testing on humans, and the availabillity of resources (e.g. gold) in the occupied territories, they had a lot. Their main problem would have been to access geological resources (ores).
So some of the comments I see above really underestimate the capacities of Nazi Germany, and overestimate those of the US.
Fact is that the militairy technology of Nazi Germany was way above that of the alllied when the war started, and on a certain level remained so during the later part fo the war too. Their aircraft and other weaponry were technologically advanced compared to that of the allied. The main reason why they lost air supperiority neverthless, was a lack of trained pilots after some time (when many of the early batch were killed in action), and the impossibility to uphold high fighter and bomber production levels; as well as the one thing whhere the British were upfront from the Germans, and that was Radar (I'm convinced that without Radar, the Brits would have lost the Battle of Britain). |
Hawkeye
in Minnesota
Member
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Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 | 08:59 AM
Don't forget that the Nazi's also had produced the HO-IX The First FLying wing Jet Airplane, of course it lost an engine and then crashed, but they had accomplished it. Also i have heard of the designs of the Nazi's on the History channel that they were trying to build aricraft that could be flown to Newyork and Drop a nuke there, some of their designs were cery close to coming to pruicion, one of the designs for this NewYork bomber were very close to that of the HO-IX
HO-IX Information
HO-IX Images
I cant find anything on the history channel show right now though |
Captain Al
in Vancouver Island, Canada
Member
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Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 | 10:38 AM
I don't think anyone doubts the Nazis had enough resources to build an atomic bomb. They just didn't have enough time.
I also don't think we have underestimated their capability here. Sure they were further ahead of the Americans and British in rocketry and jet aircraft development but Germany had been in war mode ever since Hitler came to power in the '30s. The Americans had no incentive since they were protected by the Atlantic on one side and the Pacific on the other. And Britain had been resting on their colonial laurels for a least half a century. Hell, they still had a calvary at the start of the war! Horsemen had to be retrained in the use of tanks, rapidly. Once the Axis threat was realized, America then mobilized its industry to a total war effort and that's when the tide began to turn.
From what I remember reading, the German design for a bomber that could reach New York never got out of the concept stage. Their whole aircraft industry was based on designs that were to be used in the European theater. Therefore they were small and had short range, just enough to fly from Germany to England and back. The Americans had to design aircraft to cross the country, the Atlantic and the Pacific because that's what they needed. In this respect they were far ahead of Germany, even at the beginning of the war.
But Germany's amazing technological capability couldn't overcome their biggest challenge. That was the fuel shortage problem they faced at the end of the war. Their superior jet aircraft were grounded. So it seems we in North America were safe from airborne nuclear attack. |
Charybdis
in Hell
Member
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Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 | 03:24 PM
Cap, nobody's disputing the fact that Germany would have been extremely hard pressed to attack America with atomic weapons. The question is did they have the ability to make an atomic weapon and, by extension, would it have made a difference. I think that they should have had the ability to make at least one bomb. Why they didn't is due to many factors but I don't believe that it comes down to "it was impossible".
Where the war would have gone if they had developed a bomb is anybody's guess. If deployed correctly I feel a single bomb, if developed early enough, could have given Germany the chance to stabilize either their western, or eastern fronts. Then the war would have gotten really shitty. |
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