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History Forum / General / What If / July 2009What if no Manhatten Project
I am reading a bio of Szilard. I get the impression that a wrong turn or two in the early efforts to engineer the nuclear chain-reaction might have led to no big US A-bomb development effort during the war. The Bomb was not important for the outcome of WWII. But I guess it might have slowed down Soviet agression in Europe and W. Asia. If the project was delayed and there was no big push during WWII, then when would the Bomb have been first tested, if ever? > I am reading a bio of Szilard. > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > If the project was delayed and there was no big push during WWII, > then when would the Bomb have been first tested, if ever? If the US decides not to build it the British will. They'd already worked out that it would work. Which brings us to a very interesting 'what if'... In 1947 somewhere in the Australian outback there's a very loud bang indeed, US observers have been invited... The USSR's bomb programme is already running thanks to Klaus Fuchs.  SignatureWilliam Black > I am reading a bio of Szilard. > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > The Bomb was not important for the outcome of WWII. Not in the sense of who won or lost. But the use of the Bomb ended the war a lot sooner than if it had been necessary to invade and conquer Japan on the ground. Hundreds of thousands of additional deaths would have occurred. People were dying in large numbers in Japanese occupied China and SE Asia. Public health was on the verge of collapse in Japan, with massive outbreaks of typhus and cholera threatening. The Soviet campaign in Manchuria and Korea was quite destructive. The continued fighting and skirmishing in the Philippines, New Guinea, and the South Pacific was drawing blood. There was a huge British campaign in train to liberate Malaya. Japanese HQ was contemplating the wholesale slaughter of all PoWs and possibly of all civilian internees as well. All this is in addition to the enormous casualties that would be almost certain if the Allies invaded Japan. So "the outcome" was deeply affected by the Bomb. > But I guess it might have slowed down > Soviet agression in Europe and W. Asia. Stalin was not in any particularly aggressive mood at the end of the war. He took what he was given (a lot), helped Mao take China. It's not clear how much he was deterred by the U.S. Bomb and how much by the sheer exhaustion of the USSR by WW II. > If the project was delayed and there was no big push during WWII, > then when would the Bomb have been first tested, if ever? Probably around 1950 in the USSR. Soviet scientists were speculating on the possibility of atomic weapons in 1940. In 1942, a young scientist in Army service wrote to Stalin urging research into what might be a war- winning weapon. Stalin met with the leading physicists; they told him the Bomb was possible but probably not achieveable during the war. So he decided to set up a paper project to be activated after victory. This decision may have been influenced by intel from Soviet spies in the Manhattan Project, which provided confirmation - the Americans and British thought it was possible too! However, even with intel from the successful MP, the USSR took until 1949 to build a Bomb. Without that intel, it takes longer. And there is a possibility that Stalin purges physics, as he did biology, in which case the Soviet Bomb is set back many years. (OTL, Stalin _knew_ the Bomb was for real, and left physics alone.) Bomb projects in the US or UK won't get much support after V-E Day if they aren't already showing promise of success. Besides the difficulty of getting the necessary budget in peacetime, a large proportion of key scientists in the field would oppose the project on pacifist grounds. OTL they supported it out of fear of Nazi Germany; that's gone. > > I am reading a bio of Szilard. > [quoted text clipped - 89 lines] > they supported it out of fear of Nazi > Germany; that's gone. Question whether the post V-E day effort would be minimal, certain areas like B-52 and B-36, nuke submarines, ballistic missiles all got boosts over fears of Soviet expansion. Dominos. On Jun 27, 5:52 am, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote: > Question whether the post V-E day effort would be minimal, certain > areas like B-52 and B-36, nuke submarines, ballistic missiles all got > boosts over fears of Soviet expansion. Dominos. B-36 got the goahead without thought of it being an Atomic delivery platform, but intercontinental bomber, with bombload including the T-12 earthquake bomb, that weighed 43,600 pounds. Without an US Atomic device, thought to trump all other weapons, the US would continue development of smart weapons that were more or less sidelined untill the need for precision non nuclear weapons were proved in SEAsia, and no SAC able to bomb the USSR to dust in an afternoon, expect large numbers of conventional forces to be kept in Europe, wherever the Iron Curtain would end up being. No MP, and the US has an extra 2 billion USD, and a lot of brainpower and workforce, to get to Berlin before the Soviets. ** mike ** [Default] I missed the Staff meeting, but the Memos showed that mike <marathag@yahoo.com> wrote on Sat, 27 Jun 2009 04:08:44 -0700 (PDT) in soc.history.what-if : >No MP, and the US has an extra 2 billion USD, and a lot of >brainpower and workforce, to get to Berlin before the Soviets. IMHO, even without the Manhattan District projects, the race to Berlin would have still been settled according to Political factors, more than strictly military one. - pyotr Filipivich "Bother," said Pooh, "Eeyore, ready two photon torpedoes and lock phasers on the Heffalump. Piglet, meet me in transporter room three. Christopher Robin, you have the bridge." On Jun 27, 5:52 am, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote: > Question whether the post V-E day effort would be minimal, certain > areas like B-52 and B-36, nuke submarines, ballistic missiles all got > boosts over fears of Soviet expansion. Dominos. B-36 got the goahead without thought of it being an Atomic delivery platform, but intercontinental bomber, with bombload including the T-12 earthquake bomb, that weighed 43,600 pounds. Without an US Atomic device, thought to trump all other weapons, the US would continue development of smart weapons that were more or less sidelined untill the need for precision non nuclear weapons were proved in SEAsia, and no SAC able to bomb the USSR to dust in an afternoon, expect large numbers of conventional forces to be kept in Europe, wherever the Iron Curtain would end up being. No MP, and the US has an extra 2 billion USD, and a lot of brainpower and workforce, to get to Berlin before the Soviets. ** mike ** >On Jun 27, 5:52 am, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> >wrote: [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] >No MP, and the US has an extra 2 billion USD, and a lot of >brainpower and workforce, to get to Berlin before the Soviets. Eisenhower's conclusion was that he had a VERY good chance in OTL to get to Berlin before the Soviets but given the demarcation zones that had been drawn at Yalta he did not see the point in forcing his troops to take heavy casualties (as everyone believed would be the case in an assault on Berlin) to take territory that the United States and Britain would hand to the Soviets. Given the Russians took 100,000 casualties taking Berlin the 'heavy casualties' estimate seems credible. The interesting question to me is suppose the atomic bomb was available 4 months earlier and was able to be dropped on Berlin how difficult would it have been to bring about a surrender with the German leadership essentially 'decapitated'? No one doubts the Germans were beaten well before 30 April 1945 but how long would it have taken to bring fighting to a halt and would there have been troops who didn't get the orders? (My German-born high school physics teacher who had had rudimentary military training in the Hitler Youth claims to have found a live German grenade about three weeks after the surrender and to have pulled the pin and rolled it under a parked American tank in the local square. He said it made a huge noise and while no one was injured, the reaction of the Americans made it clear they WERE very definitely worried about the possibility of German troops coming out of the hills that might not have gotten the surrender order. In this scenario that fear would have been far more likely) > Eisenhower's conclusion was that he had a VERY good chance in OTL to > get to Berlin before the Soviets but given the demarcation zones that [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > Given the Russians took 100,000 casualties taking Berlin the 'heavy > casualties' estimate seems credible. I believe that a US+Commonwealth drive on Berlin wouldn't have brought on that levels of loss. While the German tried very hard to keep the Soviets back, the effort in the West crumbled once the Siegfried Line failed to keep Patton and Patch out. If the Allies take more of Germany sooner, ATL *Yalta Conference will be held with the Western Allies having a far stronger hand, and Uncle Joe won't get the OTL deal, possible having just E.Prussia as their sector, and no west shift of Polands border. ** mike ** >> Eisenhower's conclusion was that he had a VERY good chance in OTL to >> get to Berlin before the Soviets but given the demarcation zones that [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > and Uncle Joe won't get the OTL deal, possible having just > E.Prussia as their sector, and no west shift of Polands border. De facto the Germans had surrendered to the Western Allies weeks before the armistice was formally signed. At the end parts of the Wermacht was fighting against the Soviets solely to give the US and UK time to occupy more of Germany and save more German civilians from Soviet occupation. Some would have fought to defend Berlin no matter who was attacking but they wouldn't have fought as hard against the western Allies and some wouldn't have fought at all. Eisenhower had to threaten to close the western Allied lines to refugees to get the Germans to stop and finally surrender formally. SignatureThings I learned from MythBusters #57: Never leave a loaded gun in an exploding room. > > Eisenhower's conclusion was that he had a VERY good chance in OTL to > > get to Berlin before the Soviets but given the demarcation zones that [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > mike > ** One of the myths of Nazi Germany was the "Alpine Redoubt" a large fortified area where all of the Nazi leadership and what remained of the Army would gather to hold off the Allies until they had squeezed out a victory. It didn't exist but a lot of time and troops were spent looking for it and anticipating the Gotterdammerung ending to WWII. >> If the Allies take more of Germany sooner, ATL *Yalta Conference >> will be held with the Western Allies having a far stronger hand, [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] >out a victory. It didn't exist but a lot of time and troops were spent >looking for it and anticipating the Gotterdammerung ending to WWII. And the story about my physics teacher was indeed in southern Bavaria. In telling the story I was not trying to infer anything other than that the American army in Bavaria was worried about "Werewolf" - not that there was in fact any truth to their fears. > I believe that a US+Commonwealth drive on Berlin wouldn't have > brought on that levels of loss. While the German tried very hard > to keep the Soviets back, the effort in the West crumbled once > the Siegfried Line failed to keep Patton and Patch out. About half of all U.S. ground casualties in the ETO came in the Rhineland campaign and east of the Rhine. German resistance broke down, but it did not _crumble_ till late April. > If the Allies take more of Germany sooner, ATL *Yalta Conference > will be held with the Western Allies having a far stronger hand... Yalta was in early 1945, long before the Allies could have that "stronger hand". On Jun 28, 1:09 am, Dimensional Traveler <dtra...@sonic.net> wrote: > De facto the Germans had surrendered to the Western Allies weeks before > the armistice was formally signed. Tell that to 3rd Armored Division. On March 30, their commanding general and his escort ran into a Gerrman ambush and were all captured, with the general killed. Or 2nd Armored Division. On April 17, 2nd Armored crossed the Elbe at Magdeburg. On April 18, a German counterattack drove them back across the Elbe. > At the end parts of the Wermacht was fighting against the > Soviets solely to give the US and UK time to occupy > more of Germany and save more German civilians from > Soviet occupation. More correctly, to allow more German troops and civilians to evacuate to the West; and this was only true in the days after Hitler's death. On Jun 28, 10:28 am, Rich Rostrom <rrostrom.21stcent...@rcn.com> wrote: > About half of all U.S. ground casualties in the ETO came in > the Rhineland campaign and east of the Rhine. In part to trying to redo WWI, like at Hurtgen Forest on the US and Reichswald in the North with the UK, a mistaken part of Ike's 'Broad Front' plan to clear out the Rhineland before crossing the Rhine > Yalta was in early 1945, long before the Allies could > have that "stronger hand". Now had the Race across France continued without the Sept delay(Logistics-- MP proceeds in a bigger Red Ball) or Monty gets lucky with Market-Garden (extra C-46 transports to supplement OTLs C-47) Don't you think things would have been different at the Conference? ** mike ** [Default] I missed the Staff meeting, but the Memos showed that Rich Rostrom <rrostrom.21stcentury@rcn.com> wrote on Sun, 28 Jun 2009 08:28:20 -0700 (PDT) in soc.history.what-if : >> I believe that a US+Commonwealth drive on Berlin wouldn't have >> brought on that levels of loss. While the German tried very hard [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >the Rhineland campaign and east of the Rhine. German >resistance broke down, but it did not _crumble_ till late April. Actually, German resistance had broken in August of 1944, but the decision to halt operations in the south and focus more on the northern advance, gave the German military a chance to regroup West of the Rhine. >> If the Allies take more of Germany sooner, ATL *Yalta Conference >> will be held with the Western Allies having a far stronger hand... [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] >to evacuate to the West; and this was only true in the days >after Hitler's death. - pyotr Filipivich "Bother," said Pooh, "Eeyore, ready two photon torpedoes and lock phasers on the Heffalump. Piglet, meet me in transporter room three. Christopher Robin, you have the bridge." >Question whether the post V-E day effort would be minimal, certain >areas like B-52 and B-36, nuke submarines, ballistic missiles all got >boosts over fears of Soviet expansion. Dominos. I agree. The Cold war was going to happen anyway, and if you're the leader of one of the powers, and there's a chance that you can develop a new super waepon, then you're going to do it, because a) war might break out any time, and it might help to win it, and b) the other lot might get there first. In this TL, where the A-bomb has not actually been used against people, so that no one knows quite what it will do (some people will have a theoretical idea, but theory is nothing compared to actually seeing pictures of what it's done to a city and the inhabitants), there must be a good chance that the Cold War will go hot. Mutual paranoia, and the feeling that being nuked may be an acceptable price to pay to win the war, could easily do that. It's even possible that nuclear weapons won't be classed in the 'special' category. In that case they might be used against smaller countries just as a big bomb. The US might use them in Korea or Vietnam. The USSR might use them in Hungary or Czechoslovakia. Britain might use them against Egypt. All in all, not a nice world. > I agree. The Cold war was going to happen anyway, and if you're the > leader of one of the powers, and there's a chance that you can develop > a new super waepon, then you're going to do it,,, Don't back-project. Once the Bomb was built, the concept of an absolutely decisive weapon was proven. Before, it was blue-sky. Nobody _knows_ that it will work or how powerful it could be. "The leader of one of the powers" cannot decide on his own to spend billion$ on a blue-sky project; nor is it likely that a leader would make such a decision without strong encouragement from the relevant scientists. Other players would be involved, mostly in opposition: the "conventional" armed forces, which want every available penny to maintain as much as they can of their wartime establishment and continue acquiring the latest developments; the politicians, who want to cut military spending for domestic needs and to reduce taxes. Stalin, of course, could override all such objections, but not Truman or Attlee. Yes, something like the Cold War will develop. But not immediately. There was no serious perception of threat in the U.S. for several years. >> I agree. The Cold war was going to happen anyway, and if you're the >> leader of one of the powers, and there's a chance that you can develop [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Before, it was blue-sky. Nobody _knows_ > that it will work or how powerful it could be. They don't spend the sort of money that the Manhattan Project cost if they weren't pretty sure they were going to get a working weapon out of it at some point. There were an awful lot of other technology projects that could have used the resources and brains swallowed whole by that vast endeavour. SignatureWilliam Black >They don't spend the sort of money that the Manhattan Project cost if they >weren't pretty sure they were going to get a working weapon out of it at >some point. > >There were an awful lot of other technology projects that could have used >the resources and brains swallowed whole by that vast endeavour. I agree - so what happens if the Trinity weapon is not ready until the US has landed in Kyusho - say around Oct/Nov 1945? >>They don't spend the sort of money that the Manhattan Project cost if they >>weren't pretty sure they were going to get a working weapon out of it at [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > I agree - so what happens if the Trinity weapon is not ready until the > US has landed in Kyusho - say around Oct/Nov 1945? A lot of Allied soldiers die... The Soviets know all about the bomb anyway. Fuchs told them and gave them the vital information necessary to make their own device. SignatureWilliam Black > >>They don't spend the sort of money that the Manhattan Project cost if they > >>weren't pretty sure they were going to get a working weapon out of it at [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > A lot of Allied soldiers die... Assuming the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary preconditions to the Japanese surrender in August of OTL. And it's true that in OTL the surrender decision was not a universal consensus among the Japanese leadership. But in OTL the Home Islands were under siege by submarine, surface and air. The Imperial Japanese Navy was largely destroyed. Tokyo had been fire bombed. The Imperial Japanese Army had been routed in Manchuria by the Soviet blitzkrieg. The Empire was lost. ISTM a Japanese surrender in August/September 1945 is on the cards. In OTL Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945. By 15 September in the ATL both Japanese civilians and military will have suffered worse losses. There isn't the fear of nuclear weapons in the ATL but the Red Army, the USAAF and the USN are still to be feared. If we do have TL with Japanese surrender before US nuclear ordinance can be unleashed then I fear we have the position Pete Barrett described elsewhere in this thread: a TL that does not have the precedent of a small nuclear war. In OTL the US unleashed her full nuclear arsenal against Japan. In an ATL where the first nuclear war is fought by a power, or powers, with a large nuclear arsenal I fear they will drop the lot. - Syd > ISTM a Japanese surrender in August/September 1945 is on the cards. Why? SignatureWilliam Black > > ISTM a Japanese surrender in August/September 1945 is on the cards. > > Why? In a delayed A-bomb timeline? For the reasons given in my previous post. Navy destroyed by USN, Army being destroyed by Red Army, civilian population being starved and killed steadily by HE bombs and incendiaries. More dead Japanese combatants and civilians in the ATL by mid-September than in OTL. - Syd >> > ISTM a Japanese surrender in August/September 1945 is on the cards. >> [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > incendiaries. More dead Japanese combatants and civilians in the ATL by > mid-September than in OTL. It took two bombs to make them surrender. If they'd packed it in with just one it would have been a bit different, but it needed two... The Japanese showed no inclination to surrender on the Chinese mainland when trounced by the Soviets The OPERATION ZIPPER landings took place on schedule despite the Japanese surrender. Without the nuclear bomb induced surrender this would have been opposed as well. SignatureWilliam Black [snip] > It took two bombs to make them surrender. If they'd packed it in with just > one it would have been a bit different, but it needed two... I'd rephrase that as, "In the events leading up to the Japanese surrender, two atom bombs were dropped." > The Japanese showed no inclination to surrender on the Chinese mainland when > trounced by the Soviets I assume you are referring to the Battle of Khalkhin-Gol and its aftermath. The Soviet forces involved were an over-strength corps. All Stalin was looking for was a cease-fire. He achieved his war-aim and was rewarded with a free hand in Europe. There was no further Soviet-Japanese conflict for six years, until the USSR was ready to crush the IJA. This can be contrasted with the Soviet offensive of 9th August 1945. Manchuria was invaded by twelve Soviet armies including 1.5 million men, 27 000 artillery pieces, 5 500 tanks and SPGs, and 3 700 aircraft.[1] The Soviets had learnt from their former German foes and mounted a classic blitzkrieg. As Wikipedia informs us, "After a week of fighting, during which Soviet forces were already penetrating deep into Manchukuo, Japan's Emperor Hirohito read the Gyokuon-hoso on August 15, 1945 and declared a ceasefire in the region the next day."[2] The significance of Manchuria was that, "On economic grounds, Manchuria was worth defending since it had the bulk of usable industry and raw materials outside of Japan and still under Japanese control in 1945."[2] With the loss of Manchuria there was no longer an Empire worth fighting for, only the Home Islands. Unconconditional surrender was looking a loss less unpalatable, as long as the person of the Emperor could be safeguarded. I'm not saying that the atom bombs didn't have an effect, simply that they were two of a number of disasters befalling the Japanese at the time. [1] Source: The incredibly useful wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria [2] Ibid. - Syd Sydney Webb <syd_webb@hotmail.com> wrote in news:4A4775D6.12540E25 @hotmail.com: > I'm not saying that the atom bombs didn't have an effect, simply that > they were two of a number of disasters befalling the Japanese at the > time. The "straw that broke the camel's back", so to speak. Problem is, prior to their drop that "back" - while under absurd stress - was still unbroken. An Allied landing might eventually add up to enough additional "weight" to make up the needed straw, but I think it'll take at least a few months. We might not be seeing a surrender until November or December here (worse case scenario, early 1946...*very* early 1946). The atomics had the advantages of not only being a heavy "straw", but being one that both came out of left field and got delivered as two heavy quick shocks. That added to their effect. David Signature_______________________________________________________________________ David Johnson home.earthlink.net/~trolleyfan "So many of you come time and time again to watch this final end of everything which I think is really wonderful and then to return home to your own eras and raise families and strive for new and better societies and fight terrible wars for what you know is right, it gives one real hope for the whole future of lifekind... ...Except of course we know it hasn't got one." [Default] I missed the Staff meeting, but the Memos showed that David Johnson <trolleyfan_spamfree@earthlink.net> wrote on Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:52:52 -0500 in soc.history.what-if : >Sydney Webb <syd_webb@hotmail.com> wrote in news:4A4775D6.12540E25 >@hotmail.com: [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] >one that both came out of left field and got delivered as two heavy quick >shocks. That added to their effect. And provided the Japanese Government, Military, and everyone else who counted, a means to surrender. Otherwise, there was only Bushido - never give up until you have died with honor! Those who surrender have no honor. End of discussion. It has been said that the essence of Bushido is that you are already dead. So everything which happens is a bonus: moonrise, cold rain, hot sake, hard beds, dying young or of old age - what a marvelous gift you have received. - pyotr Filipivich "Bother," said Pooh, "Eeyore, ready two photon torpedoes and lock phasers on the Heffalump. Piglet, meet me in transporter room three. Christopher Robin, you have the bridge." > [snip] > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > I'd rephrase that as, "In the events leading up to the Japanese > surrender, two atom bombs were dropped." They could have surrendered right after the first nuclear bomb. They didn't. They surrendered after the second bomb. Their first reaction to the attack by the Soviet Union, the strength and power of which was unknown, was a strengthening of their resolve to fight, as evidenced by the minister of war laying plans for martial law on the main Japanese islands. This is not the reaction of a man looking to surrender > I'm not saying that the atom bombs didn't have an effect, simply that > they were two of a number of disasters befalling the Japanese at the > time. > > [1] Source: The incredibly useful wikipedia, > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria The one that says: "Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's research has led him to conclude that the atomic bombings were not the principal reason for capitulation. Instead, he contends, it was the swift and devastating Soviet victories on the mainland in the week following Joseph Stalin's August 8 declaration of war that forced the Japanese message of surrender on August 15, 1945.[13] His claim, however, has been criticized because it ignores the fact that the Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo knew that a full-scale invasion had begun but were unaware of how badly the fighting in Manchuria was going". SignatureWilliam Black > > [snip] > > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > They could have surrendered right after the first nuclear bomb. They > didn't. From which we can conclude that the bomb was of limited consequence. A horrific thing in a long litany of horrific things but not sufficiently different from what had happened before. > They surrendered after the second bomb. The Soviet declaration of war was on the 8th, the second bomb on the 9th and the surrender on the 15th. The first two events were a day apart, the third a week later. However the other Wiki article, Pacific_War, tries to be more even-handed. It notes, 'The effects of the "Twin Shocks" - the atomic bombing and the Soviet entry - were profound. On August 10, the "sacred decision" was made by Japanese Cabinet to accept the Potsdam terms on one condition: the "prerogative of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler". At noon on August 15, after the American government's intentionally ambiguous reply, stating that the "authority" of the emperor "shall be subject to" the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, the Emperor broadcast to the nation and to the world at large the rescript of surrender.'[*] Clearly a decision taken on 10 August would be before the Japanese government appreciated the rapidity of the Soviet advances in Manchuria. But in an ATL without the atomic bombings, where there is but a 'single shock', there is time for the ghastliness of the Kwantung Army's position to sink in. This would still allow for a late August, early September surrender. But I have been overlooking a critical thing. I can almost hear David Flin whispering in my ear that production undertaken in one area is production foregone in another. David used to point this out in his Sealion debunking. If a poster postulated a Nazi Germany that, prior to 1940, spent more effort on landing craft, aeroplanes and surface warships then David would argue that this would come at a cost in tanks and artillery that would make the conquest of France - a prerequisite for Sealion - impossible. No Manhattan Project works the other way. If we take the project out of the equation of the US war effort, what do we add back in in the project's place? More conventional weapons: more, better bombers; Sherman tanks with 85mm guns; more GIs with physics degrees? Much of the additional matériel will go across the Atlantic in line with the Allies' 'Germany first' policy. Berlin falls sooner in this ATL. But some will go to the Pacific; with more available after the fall of Germany. The USSR honours her Potsdam obligations, going to war 3 months after this TL's earlier VE Day. Japan's downfall is accelerated. Paradoxically, Japanese surrender could be sooner in a No Manhattan Project timeline. [*] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_War#Atomic_bomb_and_the_Soviet_invasion quoting Sadao Asada - _The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japan's Decision to Surrender: A Reconsideration_. The Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 67, No. 4 (Nov., 1998), pp. 477-512 - Syd Signature"Uh-oh, but say that was the night when Joe Jackson and his wife would otherwise have conceived the King of Pop. Instead they stay up all night watching some oompah band march about on the gray dust. Butterflies abound." - Bucky Rea contemplates a 1957 Nazi moon mission. > No Manhattan Project works the other way. If we take the project out of > the equation of the US war effort, what do we add back in in the [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > Germany. The USSR honours her Potsdam obligations, going to war 3 > months after this TL's earlier VE Day. Japan's downfall is accelerated. Almost certainly a lot more effort into ULTRA and more and better decryption devices. No B-29 probably means a jet fighter sees combat much earlier. Possibly a US heavy tank reaches the battlefields before 1945. Patton takes Berlin in March 1945... SignatureWilliam Black >> No Manhattan Project works the other way. If we take the project out of >> the equation of the US war effort, what do we add back in in the [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > Patton takes Berlin in March 1945... Leading to Eisenhower ordering him to turn it over to the Soviets.... SignatureThings I learned from MythBusters #57: Never leave a loaded gun in an exploding room. >>> No Manhattan Project works the other way. If we take the project out of >>> the equation of the US war effort, what do we add back in in the [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] >> > Leading to Eisenhower ordering him to turn it over to the Soviets.... Berlin is scheduled to be divided into several different areas anyway. The Soviets turned large areas of it over to us at the end of the war in OTL. What's important is the Nazi leadership and what happens to them (and who gets captured) and what interesting bits of Germany the Western Allies occupy first and therefore which stuff they get to steal rather than what the USSR gets to steal... SignatureWilliam Black > I agree - so what happens if the Trinity weapon is not ready until the > US has landed in Kyusho - say around Oct/Nov 1945? There was actually a Russian plan to land in Japan around the same time, perhaps earlier, in the area around Niigata. Stalin's intention was to occupy as much of Japan as he could. One of the big fears that the Japanese had was being occupied by the Soviets and it was this fear, more that the possibility of more atomic bombs, that impelled them to surrender solely to the western allies. An invasion of Kyushu would not have been needed. The bombing of Nagasaki may have moved the ultimate date of surrender up a few weeks, but it wasn't as decisive as our "Greatest Generation" mythology would have us believe. On Jun 27, 12:29 pm, William Black <william.bl...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote: > > Before, it was blue-sky. Nobody _knows_ > > that it will work or how powerful it could be. > > They don't spend the sort of money that the Manhattan Project cost if they > weren't pretty sure they were going to get a working weapon out of it at > some point. During wartime, yes. WIth the goad of possible Nazi competition, yes. With the consensus support of all the key scientists, yes. In peacetime, with the Nazis dead, with some initial stage having failed (the PoD), and many key scientists opposed on moral grounds... Oh yes - and with the U.S. having demonstrated, at least in our our own mind, our overwhelming conventional superiority by destroying all our enemies... There is no way that the U.S. would allocate more than a small fraction of OTL's budget to atomic- weapons research. Britain is even less likely to, because of the drastic constraints on her budget. (Britain is simultaneously trying to rebuild wartime damage, establish a welfare state, and manage the Empire she still has for a while. And, oh yes, pay off some war debts, and occupy 1/3 of Germany.) No spare money for nukes. > On Jun 27, 12:29 pm, William Black <william.bl...@hotmail.co.uk> > wrote: [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > initial stage having failed (the PoD), and many > key scientists opposed on moral grounds... I wonder how much money was spent on the Star WarsTM projects? > Oh yes - and with the U.S. having demonstrated, > at least in our our own mind, our overwhelming > conventional superiority by destroying all our > enemies... This holds true in an ATL where the Soviet Union _isn't_ an enemy, at least potentially. Otherwise, there _is_ an undestroyed enemy, the SU. And the SU was historically willing to spend a greater percentage of its GNP on military budgets. So a good reason to develop the bomb remains the same reason that in OTL spurred the British and US research: arriving there before the opposition. >> On Jun 27, 12:29 pm, William Black <william.bl...@hotmail.co.uk> >> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > I wonder how much money was spent on the Star WarsTM projects? Unknown as parts of it are classified and some parts are still in active development. SignatureThings I learned from MythBusters #57: Never leave a loaded gun in an exploding room. >Stalin, of course, could override all >such objections, but not Truman or [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >There was no serious perception of >threat in the U.S. for several years. Well just for starters the Soviets stay in Iran. Operation Olympic goes ahead - and my guess is that the Japanese would fold up easier than expected given the failure of the 1945 Japanese rice harvest. This likely leads to the death by starvation of 3-5 million Japanese during the winter of 1945-46. This may mean not so much conventional warfare in southern Honshu (I'm assuming the US holds all of Kyushu by Jan 1946) but lots of the kinds of booby-traps that the US Army learned to "love" in Vietnam in the 60s. In this situation I would doubt Stalin attempts a landing in Hokkaido but even if he takes all of Hokkaido there's no Soviet landing in northern Honshu. There probably is no "Iron Curtain" speech and there may or may not be a Korean War. On the other hand, assuming Mao wins in China you almost certainly get a "Who Lost China" witchhunt in the United States which may lead to a Cold War anyhow. On the other hand you may not get a 1949 Berlin crisis. Would the campaign that led up to Dien Bien Phu in Indochina have worked out the same way? (I'd say yes as long as Mao wins on schedule) All of these events had the net effect of deepening the Cold War. >> I agree. The Cold war was going to happen anyway, and if you're the >> leader of one of the powers, and there's a chance that you can develop >> a new super waepon, then you're going to do it,,, > >Don't back-project. I will if I want. <g> But I wasn't referring specifically to the A bomb - chemical weapons and tanks were developed in WWI as potentially war winning weapons; more recently the US put money into SDI because it would give them (or they thought it would give them) a major advantage; and you can think of other instances from history where a belligerent is prepared to invest in something which holds out the prospect of winning the war. History seems to show that if two sides are engaged in a war (including a Cold War), they'll be prepared to spend money in order to win it. >Once the Bomb was built, the concept of an >absolutely decisive weapon was proven. [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] >There was no serious perception of >threat in the U.S. for several years. Of course you're right in saying that funds will be diverted elsewhere after the end of WWII, so the Manhatten Project would be cut back and slowed down somewhat. But if Stalin starts researching nuclear weapons (and you're right in saying that he could override any objections, too), then the US will be forced to continue their development simply in self defense. > But if Stalin starts researching nuclear weapons > (and you're right in saying that he could override any objections, > too), then the US will be forced to continue their development simply > in self defense. Only once the US finds out about it, then goes into overdrive. Recall Sputnik. Now ATLs USSR will not be able to bang off Joe-1 in 1949 without having grabbed the info trailblazed by the MP. Its not that they can't do it, just not as soon. Won't know what dead ends to avoid, and I pity the ones who had to explain to Beria why xxxx failed. Also, while the US program was set to mass produce bombs from the getgo, it took well past the initial blast for bombs to be deployed:1951 So in the ATL, Joe-1 goes off in early 1951 and is announced. Going from OTL US progress,Dec 1942 (CP-1reactor critical) to July '45, 32 months. Soviet OTL progress to produce bombs in quantity, Dec 1946 (1st reactor) to Sept '51, 58 months US will still win the race, even with a Sov. head start ** mike ** > Of course you're right in saying that funds will be diverted elsewhere > after the end of WWII, so the Manhatten Project would be cut back and > slowed down somewhat. But if Stalin starts researching nuclear weapons > (and you're right in saying that he could override any objections, > too), then the US will be forced to continue their development simply > in self defense. That's the point I was making, too. [Default] I missed the Staff meeting, but the Memos showed that Jack Linthicum <jacklinthicum@earthlink.net> wrote on Sat, 27 Jun 2009 03:52:02 -0700 (PDT) in soc.history.what-if : >Question whether the post V-E day effort would be minimal, certain >areas like B-52 and B-36, nuke submarines, ballistic missiles all got >boosts over fears of Soviet expansion. Dominos. They also got built because the Bomb made massed army formations obsolete. (The B-36 started as an intercontinental bomber, a scaled up B-29 so to speak, which could fly from North America against Nazi Germany and back, in case 'we' lost the use of British airfields.) - pyotr Filipivich "Bother," said Pooh, "Eeyore, ready two photon torpedoes and lock phasers on the Heffalump. Piglet, meet me in transporter room three. Christopher Robin, you have the bridge." >> Bomb projects in the US or UK won't >> get much support after V-E Day if [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] >areas like B-52 and B-36, nuke submarines, ballistic missiles all got >boosts over fears of Soviet expansion. Dominos. Well for what it's worth the declassified Dropshot study which dealt with a 1955-56 non-nuclear WW3 in Europe and Asia reached the conclusion that the Soviets were likely to take all Europe and Asia (though much of it would likely capitulate peacefully once Europe was in Soviet hands) though it was unclear whether who would hold the UK. The conclusion was that the United States was unlikely to "prevail" in such a war without the use of nuclear weapons. > Well for what it's worth the declassified Dropshot study which dealt > with a 1955-56 non-nuclear WW3 in Europe and Asia reached the [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > The conclusion was that the United States was unlikely to "prevail" in > such a war without the use of nuclear weapons. Don't tell me, the study was done at a time when the US nuclear industry needed more funds... SignatureWilliam Black > > I am reading a bio of Szilard. > [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > thousands of additional deaths > would have occurred. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Chemical_weapons That would be incorrect IMHO, the USA starts massive raids using mixes of HE, Incendiary and mustard gas. Soon their will be no habitable places for people to live and before you get to that the Japanese cave. >> The Bomb was not important for the outcome of WWII. > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > thousands of additional deaths > would have occurred. ATL: This message most likely isn't here. My father was on Okinawa in August 1941 preparing for Olympic. Many other current posters most likely aren't here either, for similar reasons. The current demography of Japan would be interesting... Dennis >>> The Bomb was not important for the outcome of WWII. >> [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > Dennis Japan would, eventually, have lost. By then, there would have been no functioning city in the whole of the country. The survivors would have been embittered, starving, and scattered in enclaves in the countryside. Regardless of the degree of suffering, there would have been diehards, even if they were to be the last dozen of people alive in Japan. Many of them, still indoctrinated, would have had absolutely nothing to live for other than to take one or a few invaders with them. The depth of despair would have branched across to the conquerors, and the finale would have been a sink of mutual annihilation which would have scarred the survivors on both sides forever. IMHO. >I am reading a bio of Szilard. > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > If the project was delayed and there was no big push during WWII, > then when would the Bomb have been first tested, if ever? An intriguing question. It was touch and go for awhile whether the fission weapons research would take off into an all-out program during the war. But one needs to look carefully at how momentum for the project accumulated, and then posit specific ways and times that it might have gotten shelved or put on a side track. If you don't take this approach you won't have a clear idea of the state of research in the field that would have been acheived, which would then affect strongly what would come later. For example if no Manhattan Project, would there be an S-1 project? S-1 was the smaller scale fission research program running from December 1941 to that set the stage for the industrial phase project that was approved June 1942, and initiated in September . But the research work during the 6 months or so after actual initiation were continuations of the S-1 effort, and would have taken place without the Manhattan Project. A key case in point is Fermi's reactor, CP-1. By 1941 scientists (Fermi esepcially) in the U.S. knew how to build a graphite nuclear reactor, all they needed that they didn't have was the money to do it. Fermi began his project of pile construction before S-1 was even initiated, and as long as he received sufficient (relatively small) funding and a moderate degree of priority for materials acquisition he would have completed the pile at the end of 1942, Manhattan Project or no. It is hard to see how this milestone would not have occurred, no matter what. Reactor research, if not bomb research, was certain to continue throughout the war and afterward. So we would be dealing with a world hosting nuclear reactors for scientific, industrial and possiby military power applications. This could continue for years before someone decided to make a bomb. I am inclined to think though, that no later than the start of the the Cold War in 1947, the U.S. would have started to work on an atomic bomb, for fear the Soviet Union would get one first. > >I am reading a bio of Szilard. > [quoted text clipped - 45 lines] > War in 1947, the U.S. would have started to work on an atomic bomb, for fear > the Soviet Union would get one first. Would the excess of electrical power available through the TV and Columbia River dams be factor in going ahead with a somewhat reduced Manhattan Project? It would seem that much of the success of the MP was the availability of places like Hanford, Oak Ridge and Los Alamos and the supply of scientists that would have had little to do otherwise towards winning a war, hot or cold. On Jun 27, 11:08 am, "Carey Sublette" <carey...@gmail.com> wrote: > "tom" <tadams...@yahoo.com> wrote in message > [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > An intriguing question. ... > This could continue for years before someone decided to make a bomb. > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > fear > the Soviet Union would get one first. Would the excess of electrical power available through the TV and Columbia River dams be factor in going ahead with a somewhat reduced Manhattan Project? It would seem that much of the success of the MP was the availability of places like Hanford, Oak Ridge and Los Alamos and the supply of scientists that would have had little to do otherwise towards winning a war, hot or cold. *********** The availability of places? No. These sites were picked out because the MED required them. Without the MED there is no special value to them associated with atomic energy. The availability of most of the world's top scientists? Absolutely. They would have kept busy, and kept pushing the establishment for resources. Concern about the possibility of a bomb would not have evaporated. Even if the bomb project had gotten shelved, the more scientists learned, the more feasible it would have appeared. An escalating, but not all-out bomb project is a possibility from this scenario. Basically this would be an incrementally expanded S-1, without the more dramatic step of the MED. The U.S. had enough resources that even during the war it could well have undertaken a moderate project aimed at post war weapon availablility or as a hedge. > Reactor research, if not bomb research, was certain to continue throughout > the war and afterward. So we would be dealing with a world hosting nuclear > reactors for scientific, industrial and possiby military power > applications. > > This could continue for years before someone decided to make a bomb. Yes. > I am inclined to think though, that no later than the start of the the > Cold War in 1947, the U.S. would have started to work on an atomic bomb, > for fear the Soviet Union would get one first. And that's the key point. Why did Britain and USA decide they had to do it? Because of the fear the Nazis would get one first. > And that's the key point. > Why did Britain and USA decide they had to do it? Because of the fear the > Nazis would get one first. They had clues that the Nazis were looking into that. I don't believe the Western Allies had enough contacts/spies/defectors in the USSR to make that call on any Soviet Atomic effort and/or progress, until its been announced in Pravda, or on a float during the MayDay parade, Ex post facto. ** mike ** On Jun 29, 2:21 am, "Michele" <don'tspammeat...@tln.it> wrote: > And that's the key point. > Why did Britain and USA decide they had to do it? Because of the fear the > Nazis would get one first. > They had clues that the Nazis were looking into that. I don't believe the Western Allies had enough contacts/spies/defectors in the USSR to make that call on any Soviet Atomic effort and/or progress, until its been announced in Pravda, or on a float during the MayDay parade, Ex post facto. Fine. So this is only a variation, consisting in the fact that the Soviets - who had no qualms about sacrificing consumer goods and postwar reconstruction to military spending - arrive there first. And the Westerners play catch up. Still it ends with a nuke-equipped Cold War, I think. > On Jun 29, 2:21 am, "Michele" <don'tspammeat...@tln.it> wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > reconstruction to military spending - arrive there first. And the Westerners > play catch up. Still it ends with a nuke-equipped Cold War, I think. The most important factor in the Soviet nuclear program was the word from their people in Los Alamos that the thing worked. This made for much smaller fear of risk and certainty that if properly done you got a boom. > Fine. So this is only a variation, consisting in the fact that the > Soviets - > who had no qualms about sacrificing consumer goods and postwar > reconstruction to military spending - arrive there first. And the > Westerners > play catch up. Still it ends with a nuke-equipped Cold War, I think. > The most important factor in the Soviet nuclear program was the word from their people in Los Alamos that the thing worked. This made for much smaller fear of risk and certainty that if properly done you got a boom. And then they actually got real evidence. But this only slides the things farther down the timeline. The research may go on the back burner for a while, but nobody's going to kill it outright, and the more the Cold War gets under way, the more both sides get interested again. The Soviets probably still have moles in the US project, and most definitely in the British intel departments, so they will know when the Westeners ratchet the work up a notch, and do the same. In the end it is possible that the Soviets win the race, for the three following reasons: - non-mutual insider information, as mentioned, - greater willingness to spend on military budgets, - the same motive behind the V-Waffen (the enemy has a stronger air force, so let's find a way to deliver a strategic blow that bypasses it). > I am inclined to think though, that no later than the start of the the Cold > War in 1947, the U.S. would have started to work on an atomic bomb, for fear > the Soviet Union would get one first. That a good point. I will try a counter-argument. In the abstract, nukes don't look like good military weapons. We mainly used the first strike threat to deter a Soviet invasion of Europe. If we could have somehow stablized the situation with the Soviet Union in Europe with conventional forces before a nuclear arms race got started, then maybe nukes would have looked like cumbersome and scary weapons not worth building. We don't always do what we can do, we never based nukes in orbit for instance, we have bans on biological and chemical weapons. > > I am inclined to think though, that no later than the start of the > the Cold [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > never based nukes in orbit for instance, we have bans on biological > and chemical weapons. The threat has to be real to get any reaction. If neither side has gotten far with developing nukes, no one knows how they would work, B-36, or what size they would be, Davy Crockett or Czar Bomba. No need for a treaty against something that no one knows what it is. Outer Space Treaty (1967) Summary Multilateral agreement signed and ratified between the U.S., U.S.S.R., and U.K. banning: * ...placement of nuclear weapons or "weapons of mass destruction" in orbit around the Earth. * ...installation of nuclear weapons or "weapons of mass destruction" on the moon, on any other celestial body, or in outer space * ...use of the moon or any celestial body for military purposes, including weapons testing of any kind. Ninty five nations have ratified the treaty. The treaty entered into force on October 10, 1963. Narrative The Outer Space Treaty, as it is known, was the second of the so- called "nonarmament" treaties; its concepts and some of its provisions were modeled on its predecessor, the Antarctic Treaty. Like that Treaty it sought to prevent "a new form of colonial competition" and the possible damage that self-seeking exploitation might cause. In early 1957, even before the launching of Sputnik in October, developments in rocketry led the United States to propose international verification of the testing of space objects. The development of an inspection system for outer space was part of a Western proposal for partial disarmament put forward in August 1957. The Soviet Union, however, which was in the midst of testing its first ICBM and was about to orbit its first Earth satellite, did not accept these proposals. Between 1959 and 1962 the Western powers made a series of proposals to bar the use of outer space for military purposes. Their successive plans for general and complete disarmament included provisions to ban the orbiting and stationing in outer space of weapons of mass destruction. Addressing the General Assembly on September 22, 1960, President Eisenhower proposed that the principles of the Antarctic Treaty be applied to outer space and celestial bodies. Soviet plans for general and complete disarmament between 1960 and 1962 included provisions for ensuring the peaceful use of outer space. The Soviet Union, however, would not separate outer space from other disarmament issues, nor would it agree to restrict outer space to peaceful uses unless U.S. foreign bases at which short-range and medium-range missiles were stationed were eliminated also. The Western powers declined to accept the Soviet approach; the linkage, they held, would upset the military balance and weaken the security of the West. After the signing of the Limited Test Ban Treaty, the Soviet Unions position changed. It ceased to link an agreement on outer space with the question of foreign bases. On September 19, 1963, Foreign Minister Gromyko told the General Assembly that the Soviet Union wished to conclude an agreement banning the orbiting of objects carrying nuclear weapons. Ambassador Stevenson stated that the United States had no intention of orbiting weapons of mass destruction, installing them on celestial bodies or stationing them in outer space. The General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution on October 17, 1963, welcoming the Soviet and U.S. statements and calling upon all states to refrain from introducing weapons of mass destruction into outer space. The United States supported the resolution, despite the absence of any provisions for verification; the capabilities of its space-tracking systems, it was estimated, were adequate for detecting launchings and devices in orbit. Seeking to sustain the momentum for arms control agreements, the United States in 1965 and 1966 pressed for a Treaty that would give further substance to the U.N. resolution. On June 16, 1966, both the United States and the Soviet Union submitted draft treaties. The U.S. draft dealt only with celestial bodies; the Soviet draft covered the whole outer space environment. The United States accepted the Soviet position on the scope of the Treaty, and by September agreement had been reached in discussions at Geneva on most Treaty provisions. Differences on the few remaining issues -- chiefly involving access to facilities on celestial bodies, reporting on space activities, and the use of military equipment and personnel in space exploration -- were satisfactorily resolved in private consultations during the General Assembly session by December. On the 19th of that month the General Assembly approved by acclamation a resolution commending the Treaty. It was opened for signature at Washington, London, and Moscow on January 27, 1967. On April 25 the Senate gave unanimous consent to its ratification, and the Treaty entered into force on October 10, 1967. The substance of the arms control provisions is in Article IV. This article restricts activities in two ways: First , it contains an undertaking not to place in orbit around the Earth, install on the moon or any other celestial body, or otherwise station in outer space, nuclear or any other weapons of mass destruction. Second , it limits the use of the moon and other celestial bodies exclusively to peaceful purposes and expressly prohibits their use for establishing military bases, installation, or fortifications; testing weapons of any kind; or conducting military maneuvers. After the Treaty entered into force, the United States and the Soviet Union collaborated in jointly planned and manned space enterprises. Source: Department of State On Jun 29, 10:37 am, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote: > > > I am inclined to think though, that no later than the start of the > > the Cold [quoted text clipped - 132 lines] > > - Show quoted text - Carey's argument is that the reactor would have been developed since the first one was relatively cheaply built. With lots of experience with reactors we would have probably figured a lot about a potential nuclear weapon without building one. > On Jun 29, 10:37 am, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> > wrote: [quoted text clipped - 141 lines] > we would have probably figured > a lot about a potential nuclear weapon without building one. Like the Germans? On Jun 29, 1:29 pm, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote: > > On Jun 29, 10:37 am, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> > > wrote: [quoted text clipped - 145 lines] > > - Show quoted text - Even the Germans were close to having a reactor by 1945. Not bad for a nation losing a war. > Even the Germans were close to having a reactor by 1945. Oh no they weren't. Not by a very long mile... SignatureWilliam Black >Even the Germans were close to having a reactor by 1945. In a certain handwaving, ignoring the facts in favor of a Hitler channel style hype manner... Sure. In reality, they weren't even close. D. SignatureTouch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/ -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. Oct 5th, 2004 JDL ... > Carey's argument is that the reactor would have been developed since > the first one > was relatively cheaply built. With lots of experience with reactors > we would have probably figured > a lot about a potential nuclear weapon without building one. Like the Germans? ******** Meaning? Note that the Germans never built a reactor, and never had a reactor project that was as well conceived as Fermi's. BTW, in answer to another comment on this thread, it should be remembered that in the late 1940s the U.S. WAS building chemical and biological weapons. And at no time from the beginning of the Cold War through its end in 1991 did the U.S. and NATO ever feel that it had sufficient conventional forces to stop an all-out Warsaw Pact attack. As costly as nuclear weapons are, in development and unit for unit, they are much cheaper than very large scale standing conventional armies. > ... > [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > As costly as nuclear weapons are, in development and unit for unit, they are > much cheaper than very large scale standing conventional armies. I was thinking specifically of Heizenberg's estimate. "But in 1940, Frisch wrote the English military to tell them it'd take only one kilogram of uranium 235 to make a bomb. U-235 is a hard-to- separate isotope that makes up less than one percent of natural uranium. Frisch underestimated how much of it we'd need, but only by a factor of ten. Heisenberg also made the calculation and got 13,000 kilograms. The huge difference in estimates has to do with the way chain reactions work: A neutron is so tiny and fast moving that it travels a long distance in uranium before it chances to hit an atom and knock more neutrons loose. If it has to travel, say, a full meter, you need a huge chunk of U-235 to get a chain reaction. If it only has to travel, say, one centimeter, then a small block of U-235 will do the trick. Heisenberg, brilliant theoretician, overestimated the path of travel. Experimentalists Meitner and Frisch did far better; and Frisch's note sent America on the way to building a bomb. ***Heisenberg's estimate so discouraged the German High Command that they never did undertake serious bomb-building.*** Back in that English country house, Heisenberg heard about the second bomb over Nagasaki. So he quickly figured out how his calculation should've gone in the first place. Then he told the English he could've built a bomb all along, but he and his colleagues had been anti-Nazi. They'd kept Germany from bomb building and steered her into a slow program of nuclear power development. " http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1127.htm On Jun 30, 6:08 am, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote: > > "Jack Linthicum" <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote in message > [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > Note that the Germans never built a reactor, and never had a reactor project > > that was as well conceived as Fermi's. ... > I was thinking specifically of Heizenberg's estimate. > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > factor of ten. Heisenberg also made the calculation and got 13,000 > kilograms. There is a lot to say about the disorganized, generally ineffective German atomic research effort during the war. As Jeremy Bernstein has observed one can survey the entire extent of German research, without finding an understanding of the subject equal to that in the little Frisch-Peierls paper. Heisenberg's critical mass estimate is a striking example of what was profoundly wrong with the German programs (there was not just one, which was a large part of the problem). He had really just set a very weak upper estimate on the amount of material needed, and his analysis was inferior to that made by Szilard even before fission had been discovered. (The fundamental problem was not one of mis-estimating the neutron path length, it was the failure to formulate it as one of time- dependent multiplication). A bad estimate by Heisenberg would not have mattered, if his work had been subject to analysis, review and refinement by others. But it wasn't. We actually have no evidence that anyone EVER did a proper critical mass calculation in Germany during the war! In the UK and Britain, the efforts of many workers combined to create synergy, and cross-checking so that errors got corrected, and results improved. The whole was greater than the sum of its parts. On Germany different teams competed in secrecy from each other, thus dividing resources and efforts. The authority and decisions of leaders went unchallenged, even when they were in error. Early mistakes never got corrected, researchers did not learn from each other. The whole was much less than the sum of its parts. > On Jun 30, 6:08 am, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> > wrote: [quoted text clipped - 59 lines] > got corrected, researchers did not learn from each other. The whole > was much less than the sum of its parts. So my comment was germaine? As it were. > > Carey's argument is that the reactor would have been developed since > > the first one > > was relatively cheaply built. With lots of experience with reactors > > we would have probably figured > > a lot about a potential nuclear weapon without building one. Like the Germans? On Jun 30, 10:19 am, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote: > > On Jun 30, 6:08 am, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> > > wrote: [quoted text clipped - 61 lines] > > So my comment was germaine? As it were. Sure. I just wanted to determine what you meant (previously) and try to clarify the matter of the German program for other readers by comparing it to the Anglo-American effort. It would be interesting to construct a comparison of the two programs that charted accomplishments vs resources expended. Germany started with a comparatively large research effort (just as the Allies feared) but I think such an analysis would show that very quickly the British (and then the Americans) pulled ahead in actual accomplishments with fairly modest investments in resources. Even the small French team (basically three guys, Kowarski, Halban and Perrin, who had to flee in 1940 ahead of the German invasion) was on a promising track to achieve a nuclear reactor ahead of Germany. Too big a deal is made of the Vemork heavy water plant, BTW. It is a dramatic story, but Germany could have built its own heavy water plants easily enough, just as the U.S. and Canada did during the war. > On Jun 30, 10:19 am, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> > wrote: [quoted text clipped - 85 lines] > dramatic story, but Germany could have built its own heavy water > plants easily enough, just as the U.S. and Canada did during the war. Just looked up something in Heisenberg's War, the controlling factor in the decision on heavy water seem to be the poor quality and impurity of the German substitutes like dry ice and graphite, even electro-graphite. They had to go outside the "fine German craftmanship" ( a takeoff on my local fine Florida craftmanship, ie slipshod work) to find suitable material. On Jun 30, 3:12 pm, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote: > Just looked up something in Heisenberg's War, the controlling factor > in the decision on heavy water seem to be the poor quality and > impurity of the German substitutes like dry ice and graphite, even > electro-graphite. I found an excerpt from an interview with Heisenberg in which he blamed Bothe's results for graphite on a failure to account for the absorption by nitrogen in the air space between blocks. I presume he was off base here. Jeremy Bernstein ("Hitler's Uranium Club") says that dry ice was tried because it would avoid the impurity problems with the graphite, which seems to make sense. Starting with a gas would limit the impurities to their vapor pressures. The relatively low density of the carbon would have called for a huge reactor though. And it is hard to imagine a practical plutonium production reactor (and of course not a power reactor) where all the generated heat has to be removed by refrigeration, so this sounds like a purely research concept. I do think Bernstein might have missed something here in the Farm Hall transcripts. There are a number of references to using very low temperatures in reactors. Bernstein just assumes this is so that dry ice can be used, with its lower impurities. But the emphasis seems to be on the temperatures, not the dry ice it allows. Heisenberg seemed to believe that there was a strong negative coefficient of reactivity with temperature. He seemed to believe that when a reactor went critical, it would heat up and then stabilize at the higher temperature. Then more reactivity would be needed to make it critical again. The mechanism for this was apparently that as the moderator heated up, the thermal neutron temperature would increase, making them less effective for fission. This sounds like the same thing as the "Doppler broadening" of the neutron spectrum that helps stabilize "pebble bed" reactors. So this mechanism has some effect. But it sounds like Heisenberg thought this effect was stronger than it is. I wonder if the idea of very low temperatures in reactors was an attempt to greatly increase the reactivity by lowering the temperature of the thermal neutrons well below room temperature. On a related note, von Ardenne said he was told in 1941 by von Weizsaker that he and Heisenberg had decided that a U-235 bomb was impossible because the fission cross sections dropped as the U-235 heated up. This seems similar to the belief about the reactor temperature, but doesn't fit. For fission by fast neutrons, the uranium temperature should have very little effect on the cross sections, since the thermal velocity of the nuclei is small compared to fission neutrons. This suggests that they are not thinking of fast fission for a bomb at this point (or that they are confused, or that they really are trying to put von Ardenne off the scent). On Jul 4, 12:38 pm, sh...@cadence.com wrote: > Heisenberg seemed to believe that there was a strong negative > coefficient of reactivity with temperature. He seemed to believe that > when a reactor went critical, it would heat up and then stabilize at > the higher temperature. Then more reactivity would be needed to make > it critical again. Bernstein suggests that Heisenberg was lucky that none of his rectors went critical, as he could have had a serious criticality accident because of this belief. I looked at the design of the Haigerloch reactor, and I think it would have been OK. At first I assumed that this belief meant that there would be no control rods, but the Atomkellar museum has a diagram that shows them, and has examples on display. Without them, I think there could have been serious trouble. The uranium blocks were dangling on chains from the reactor lid. This was apparently lowered by a manual chain hoist. If it was critical before full assembly, letting go the chain could have caused a rapid increase in reactivity. The chains were also hanging freely, so swinging and twisting would have caused slight variations in the reactivity. It appears that the neutron source would have been inserted after the lid was on, secured, and covered with light water. That would cause a slower build-up of the reaction, perhaps allowing the reactor to reach higher reactivity before it was noticed. Presumably the reactor was under-moderated, so it would have had a negative void coefficient of reactivity, and boiling would have slowed the reaction down. If it were over-moderated, initial boiling would have increased reactivity. The dismantling photo seems to show some bracing across the top of the inner container. I wonder if a control rod through the lid could have hit that and gotten pushed upward as the lid was lowered. Otherwise it seems that they would keep things under control until the reactor was assembled and the rods were withdrawn. If a mistake was made when withdrawing the control rods, and there was rapid boiling or a steam explosion after the lid was on, the steam pressure could have blown the control rods up out of their pipes. The pipe for the neutron source was bigger and would have relieved pressure if it was open at the bottom. Overall, it seems unlikely to have an accident. There were fewer active shutdown mechanisms than used in Fermi's CP-1, but the negative void coefficient from the heavy water moderator made it inherently safer from a runaway reaction. On Jul 4, 12:38 pm, sh...@cadence.com wrote: > On Jun 30, 3:12 pm, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> > wrote: [quoted text clipped - 50 lines] > fission for a bomb at this point (or that they are confused, or that > they really are trying to put von Ardenne off the scent). Book says the problem with the graphite was it contained boron, an absorber of neutrons. > On Jul 4, 12:38 pm, sh...@cadence.com wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > Book says the problem with the graphite was it contained boron, an > absorber of neutrons. Yes, that is the conventional explanation, and probably correct. I find it odd that Heisenberg was claiming something else. It seems like he wanted to make it Bothe's fault. BTW, this measurement was redone by Wilhelm Hanle, who used differently prepared graphite and got better results (perhaps the electro-graphite you mentioned). He also apparently understood that it might be an issue with impurities. Army Ordnance apparently decided it was not worth the cost to purify it, and apparently the information wasn't passed along to Heisenberg's team. So it isn't as simple as "The Germans thought graphite wouldn't work, because they didn't realize there was too much boron in it." Some of them knew, and didn't think it was worth the cost to deal with. I read somewhere else that German graphite was produced from coal, while the American graphite was produced from petroleum. Apparently coal has more boron in it. But this seems oversimplified. The real key to American success here was Szilard's understanding of the impurity problem, and push for better purity. The same cost issue affected heavy water production. It could have been done in Germany, on a larger scale. But it was cheaper to continue it in Norway. The Germans just weren't that serious about pursuing fission research. On Jul 4, 11:56 pm, sh...@cadence.com wrote: > > On Jul 4, 12:38 pm, sh...@cadence.com wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > key to American success here was Szilard's understanding of the > impurity problem, and push for better purity. I am reading Szilard's bio "Genius in the Shadows". One thing that was not made clear was why Szilard was obsessed with better purity. I assume it might have been something he figured out between 1933 and 1939, when he had a lead in thinking about the neutron chain reaction. I figure he read everything he could on neutrons with the chain reaction application in mind, plus he did some research. The situation in 1939 seemed to be that none of the current uses of graphite required such high purity, so if you just bought it without purity specs then it absorbed too many neutrons. > The same cost issue affected heavy water production. It could have > been done in Germany, on a larger scale. But it was cheaper to > continue it in Norway. > > The Germans just weren't that serious about pursuing fission research. BTW, Szilard's 2nd letter to Roosevelt (via Einstein) threated to publish his reactor design paper in order to get US to quickly fund the research and put in secrecy policies. I am pretty sure that paper contained the idea of graphite purity, it certainly contained evidence that graphite would worked. > I am reading Szilard's bio "Genius in the Shadows". One thing that > was not made clear was why Szilard was obsessed with better purity. It seems to me that all that was needed was good attention to detail. You know you need low absorption in a light element, and determine that deuterium and carbon are your best bets. On the way, you note that boron is really bad. You want pure dense carbon, which leads you to graphite. You inquire into graphite supplies, and find out about the various sources. The purer sources may come with specific information about impurities. If they just tell you the overall purity, possibly with the most common impurities listed, you assume the worst case: that all the impurity below the ones listed is a strong absorber like boron or cadmium. You do some calculations and determine that would be too high to work. You ask for specific values for the remaining impurities, or specific tests for the strongly absorbing elements. You find out the actual levels of boron, and determine it is too high to work. You start pushing for higher purity. > I assume it might have been something he figured out between 1933 and > 1939, when he had a lead in thinking about the neutron chain > reaction. I figure he read everything he could on neutrons with the > chain reaction application in mind, plus he did some research. I don't know that there would be much reason to think about moderators before uranium fission was discovered. In thinking about neutron chain reactions in general, you would probably assume that higher energy neutrons would be better at causing a further reaction to release more neutrons. The idea did not come from pure theory. Fermi discovered the beneficial effects of moderation by paraffin on uranium fission almost by accident. Then an explanation was sought. Eventually it was understood that common U-238 was capturing neutrons above a certain energy, and that scarce U-235 would fission with low- energy neutrons. Moderation prevented the neutrons from being absorbed by U-238 before it could find U-235 (and also helped with the fission cross sections). Until he knew all this, I don't think he would have been thinking about moderation. > The situation in 1939 seemed to be that none of the current uses of > graphite required such high purity, so if you just bought it without > purity specs then it absorbed too many neutrons. I don't know what specs were available back then. I just did a web search for industrial graphite with specified purities. I found a couple of sources of 99.9% pure graphite that listed the levels of impurities, with boron listed at 1-10ppm. If similar specs could be obtained back then, that would have been enough. Perhaps Bothe does deserve blame for not figuring this out. In hindsight, it seems pretty straightforward. Someone indicated that the Germans tested another form of graphite besides electro-graphite. If it was natural graphite, it seems like an extreme lack of concern for impurities. Using electro-graphite might indicate a greater concern (perhaps Bothe used natural graphite and Hanle used electro-graphite). On Jul 6, 1:09 pm, sh...@cadence.com wrote: > > I am reading Szilard's bio "Genius in the Shadows". One thing that > > was not made clear was why Szilard was obsessed with better purity. [quoted text clipped - 43 lines] > impurities, with boron listed at 1-10ppm. If similar specs could be > obtained back then, that would have been enough. Szilard wrote specs for the graphite, he did not look at vendor specs and find one that was good enough. I don't know why he did this, but I would guess that there were no applications at the time that required sufficiently pure graphite so Szilard had to impose the specs on his vendors. > Perhaps Bothe does deserve blame for not figuring this out. In > hindsight, it seems pretty straightforward. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > might indicate a greater concern (perhaps Bothe used natural graphite > and Hanle used electro-graphite). > On Jul 6, 1:09 pm, sh...@cadence.com wrote: > > [quoted text clipped - 39 lines] > > > graphite required such high purity, so if you just bought it without > > > purity specs then it absorbed too many neutrons. The first chain reaction experiments in 1939 were done using light water as a moderator. These experiments by Halban et al in France and Anderson, Szilard and Fermi in June-July 1939 showed that neutron multiplicity from fission was sufficient to create achain reaction, but that light water absorbed too many neutrons and no system using just uranium and light hydrogen can be made critical (this was clear by the beginning of Fall). See: http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/psf/box5/a64g01.html for the Anderson et al paper. The candidates for moderators were then carbon, deuterium and beryllium. Beryllium was never a practical candidate though due its cost and scarcity (Szilard had what was probably the largest piece of beryllium in the world, BTW). Clearly any impurity was a potential hazard for absorbing neutrons, but getting large quantities of pure elements in suitable form was not trivial. > > I don't know what specs were available back then. I just did a web > > search for industrial graphite with specified purities. I found a [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > required sufficiently pure graphite so Szilard had to impose the specs > on his vendors. No commercial graphite then made was suitable for use as a reactor moderator. Modified production processes were necessary to produce it, and it is the time spent arranging for its production in quantity that kept Fermi from having a reactor before December 1942. Most of what he did from November 1941, when he got funding to start work on the reactor project in Chicago, through late 1942 was basically materials testing - building subcritical piles to determine whether the materials were yet good enough to build a critical reactor. > > Perhaps Bothe does deserve blame for not figuring this out. In > > hindsight, it seems pretty straightforward. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > might indicate a greater concern (perhaps Bothe used natural graphite > > and Hanle used electro-graphite). The real story on this is (which I got from Mark Walker, a historian who specializes in this topic) is that the Germans did in fact figure out that pure graphite was a sufficiently good moderator. Hanle determined that Bothe's original measurements were wrong (inconclusive, really), and that graphite would work. German Army Ordnance, given the assignment to procure this material, decided not to do it (they felt they had better things to do). Walker has this to say about the scape-goating of Bothe: "After the war, Heisenberg and von Weizsäcker systematically propagated the idea of "Bothe's mistake" that had held them back, even though the two physicists simultaneously implied that they would not have made nuclear weapons for Hitler anyway. The first appearance in print of the "Bothe's mistake" myth I know of is Heisenberg's 1946 Die Naturwissenschaften article on the German wartime uranium work, which was translated and published in Nature in 1947." Similarly I.G. Farben drafted plans for industrial scale heavy waterplants , and were even offered contracts to build them, but decided that it was not sufficiently profitable and didn't do it. There was really no obstacle in front of them, the cost would have been modest. So, by and large, the Germans didn't build a reactor during the war simply because they didn't feel it was worth the trouble. graphite > > > besides electro-graphite. If it was natural graphite, it seems like > > > an extreme lack of concern for impurities. Using electro-graphite [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > > - Show quoted text - But, the German reactor project continued till the end of the war. So, obviously, they did think it was worth the trouble. They just continued to use heavy water for some reason. Please clarify your understanding of this. > graphite > > > > besides electro-graphite. If it was natural graphite, it seems like [quoted text clipped - 45 lines] > > Please clarify your understanding of this. Not sure what you find unclear at this point. The Germans continued using heavy water (without troubling themselves to produce what was actually needed) because they could steal the Norwegian heavy water for practically nothing as war booty. It was insufficient, but no effort was expended on correcting that situation by building their own plant. The only reason they didn't build a working reactor was that they didn't bother to do what was necessary, even they knew how and had sufficient time and ample funds. The project was run more like a war-time sinecure to keep professional physicists occupied doing physics at a leisurely pace and not out fighting at the front. Their seemed to be a deep seated pervasive attitude that German physics was the best in the world, and that they were automatically the leaders in the field, even if they didn't put much effort into it. There was no sense that the British or Americans could be actual competition. > The Germans continued using heavy water (without troubling themselves to > produce what was actually needed) because they could steal the Norwegian > heavy water for practically nothing as war booty. It was insufficient, but > no effort was expended on correcting that situation by building their own > plant. What about the heavy water plant the USAAF destroyed in the raid on Leuna in May 1944? It seems they saw the need for another plant. ## CrossPoint v3.12d R ## >> The Germans continued using heavy water (without troubling themselves to >> produce what was actually needed) because they could steal the Norwegian [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > What about the heavy water plant the USAAF destroyed in the raid on > Leuna in May 1944? It seems they saw the need for another plant. You are right, this refreshed my memory a bit on this. I will amend my statements since I should not have implied that Germany made no efforts to produce more heavy water. What they did was work on the matter comparatively slowly and ineffectively, like the rest of the wartime German atomic work, and lack of enthusiasm for a niche project by IG Farben was part of the delay. I did a comparison earlier of how far the Anglo-American project(s) has advanced before the war started to turn against Germany (which was farther than Germany itself ever got during the entire war). Here is another comparison on heavy water production: In September 1943 the Manhattan Project was producing industrial quantities of heavy water in a new plant in Canada. After that milestone, during October-November 1943, the Germans started *planning* alternate heavy water plants. It was still under construction in July 1944, when it was destroyed by bombing and abandoned. In the U.S. an actual heavy water reactor had been in operation for two months when that occurred. >Here is another comparison on heavy water production: > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >In the U.S. an actual heavy water reactor had been in operation for two >months when that occurred. Obviously a major advantage the Allies had pretty much from 1942 onwards was that pretty much EVERYWHERE the Third Reich owned was exposed to air attack if the Allies wanted to badly enough. The reverse was definitely not true. Now bombing was not the ONLY was to destroy a target - there has been all kinds of speculation about what could have happened had saboteurs tried for any of the rail bridges or tunnels in the Canadian Rockies (which in 1939-45 had stretches where one or two demolished tunnel / bridges could have cut off British Columbia for more than a year from the rest of Canada - even as late as the 1960s this was the case) or for that matter in the Alps but no question there were vast Allied territories (like most of North America) that were effectively untouchable by the Axis. >>Here is another comparison on heavy water production: >> [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > onwards was that pretty much EVERYWHERE the Third Reich owned was > exposed to air attack if the Allies wanted to badly enough. It should be pointed out that the bombing campaign against industrial targets only became genuinely effective during the last year or so of the war (say, 1944-1945). Before that time accuracies were quite poor and the weight of the bombs that could be delivered much smaller. 82% of all the bombs dropped were in 1944-1945, and half of all of them in the last 10 months of the war (mid 1944-1945). So bombing was not a constraint for Germany in 1942-1943, and even the early months of 1944, and Germany could have matched or exceeded the Anglo-American progress up through that time at least if it had martialed the resources to do it. > >>Here is another comparison on heavy water production: > [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > Anglo-American progress up through that time at least if it had martialed > the resources to do it. What would the effect on the electrical supply be if programs like Hanford and Oak Ridge had gone forward in Germany ? Would other industries be reduced, or even terminated because the need for electricity was greater at these plants? Or would the "management" of Germany, read Speer, have considered nuclear weapons just one more, very distant, possibility? > > >>Here is another comparison on heavy water production: > [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > > - Show quoted text - One consideration is that the war was going badly by 1942, with the USA and Russian in the fight against Germany. Speer just did not have much time. What if (1) the German had pursued A-bomb development and had achieved same schedule that the USA achieved and (2) the USA failed to do it? Germany would have lost the war anyway, right? The USA was in an race to beat the Germans to the Bomb. But Germany was considering an A-Bomb race to beat losing the conventional war. Germany and USA were looking at very different races, so they made very different decisions in 1942. On Jul 9, 8:46 am, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote: > On Jul 9, 8:33 am, "Carey Sublette" <carey...@gmail.com> wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 49 lines] > > - Show quoted text - One consideration is that the war was going badly by 1942, with the USA and Russian in the fight against Germany. Speer just did not have much time. What if (1) the German had pursued A-bomb development and had achieved same schedule that the USA achieved and (2) the USA failed to do it? Germany would have lost the war anyway, right? The USA was in an race to beat the Germans to the Bomb. But Germany was considering an A-Bomb race to beat losing the conventional war. Germany and USA were looking at very different races, so they made very different decisions in 1942. ***** I suggest caution to avoid the "Historians Fallacy" (to quote Wikipedia "a logical fallacy that occurs when one assumes that decision makers of the past viewed events from the same perspective and having the same information as those subsequently analyzing the decision"). Germany did not think the war was going badly throughout 1942. This realization came upon them (gradually) very late in the year with the failure to take Stalingrad before another winter came down upon them. Germany shifted to a full wartime economy under Speer's direction during the last half of 1942 to mobilize more resources for a prolonged fight (not to avoid 'losing the war', per se), but before that time the idea was that things were going so well that it was going to be a short victorious war. The idea of Germany racing against time to stave of defeat only surfaces in 1943. And the assertion that "Germany was considering an A-Bomb race to beat losing the conventional war" is incorrect from several perspectives: 1. There was never a serious consideration of pursuing a bomb by anybody. The subject came up yes (as it did around the world in 1939), but the possibility was passed by as something achievable only in the distant future. To make this point clearer, there was never an equivalent event found in the UK and U.S. when a bomb program was proposed and seriously considered by high level decision makers. 2. The failure to pursue atomic R&D seriously occurred very early in the war (compare it to the timing of equivalent decisions in the UK and US), when Germany was expecting victory. 3. In particular, no one ever thought of a bomb project as a way to avoid losing the war. The fact that Germany (before late 1942) would have expected to win on the continent, then face a hostile UK and US indefinitely in a post war world who might be atomic armed, makes the failure to pursue atomic research aggressively in 1940-1942 more striking. Remember Germany was already behind the UK and US in atomic R&D at the end of 1941. >> Obviously a major advantage the Allies had pretty much from 1942 >> onwards was that pretty much EVERYWHERE the Third Reich owned was [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > Anglo-American progress up through that time at least if it had martialed > the resources to do it. That depends. The other poster's key words are "if the Allies wanted to badly enough". Assuming the Allies do know where the target is, sure one average raid won't hit it. But the Allies can try again. And again. Remember, the British bombers managed to put bombs into German battleships in port quite early on in the war. A battleship is a long target, but it's rather narrow actually. This, at night. If "badly enough" means at whatever cost, please remember the Allies did carry out daylight bombing, which gave way more accuracy of course. It is true, in general, that until 1944 the Germans could repair what was destroyed/damaged (which _is_ a constraint, given that they had to dedicate growing resources to AA defenses, passive defense, and indeed repair work). But that's also because the German industry was, of course, redundant. The Schweinfurt raids were an attempt at locating a chokepoint in it, a single target or group of targets that would, alone, cause severe disruption. The raids were untolerably costly and a failure - in that the ball bearings could be replaced, production in other centers could be boosted, etc. Not in that the Schweinfurt facilities had not been damaged. If there is _one_ target, the Allies know where it is, and it's not an under-the-mountain facility, the Allies can generally damage it and keep it damaged, especially from 1942 onwards. Even if it's a hard or impossible target per se, the British will apply their favored doctrine, and area bombing will disrupt the ancillary activities. Remember, Oak Ridge had some 1,000 inhabitants in 1939, and 45,000 in 1945. All people who needed houses, shops, public buildings, power, water, gas, sewage, streets and public transportation means. In a word, surface. That makes the kind of target that Harris is perfectly capable to harass very seriously in 1942, especially if the housing buildings are wooden, even if the actual production takes place underground. > >> Obviously a major advantage the Allies had pretty much from 1942 > >> onwards was that pretty much EVERYWHERE the Third Reich owned was [quoted text clipped - 46 lines] > > - Show quoted text - Did the Allies take any action to shut down uranium mining in Czechoslovakia? >Even if it's a hard or impossible target per se, the British will apply >their favored doctrine, and area bombing will disrupt the ancillary [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >capable to harass very seriously in 1942, especially if the housing >buildings are wooden, even if the actual production takes place underground. Except that in the real world, Harris notably failed to achieve anything in 1942. D. SignatureTouch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/ -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. Oct 5th, 2004 JDL > >Even if it's a hard or impossible target per se, the British will apply > >their favored doctrine, and area bombing will disrupt the ancillary [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Except that in the real world, Harris notably failed to achieve > anything in 1942. Right. The bombing campaign was not a serious industrial constraint for Germany until after the start of 1944, and we are talking here about what would be a very modest industrial effort (in 1940-1943) sufficient to build operating nuclear reactors. The only real plant needed then was one heavy water enrichment facility (or a graphite purification plant) neither of which would be anything like a Hanford or Oak Ridge, just one unremarkable plant among thousands. BTW: The reason that the Leuna HW plant got bombed out in July 1944 was simply that Leuna was a petrochemical center. Other plants at Leuna were repaired and kept in operation into 1945 (with steadily declining production). My point is still that it is quite striking that Germany failed to pursue a genuinely vigorous atomic R&D program early in the war, when the logic for doing so was quite strong. That is, they had the resources and knowledge, the time and money, and they (should have) had a rationale to do it- to keep abreast or ahead of the Anglo- Americans so that Germany would not be at disadvantage after it defeated Russia and won the war on the continent. On Jul 9, 12:11 pm, fairwa...@gmail.com (Derek Lyons) wrote: > "Michele" <don'tspammeat...@tln.it> wrote: > >Even if it's a hard or impossible target per se, the British will apply [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > Except that in the real world, Harris notably failed to achieve > anything in 1942. > Right. No, it's wrong. It is true Bomber Command did not achieve, in 1942, consistent good results, in an attempt to bomb, I'll stress it again, the whole German network of cities and industrial complexes. It is false that Bomber Command did not achieve anything. In particular, it did, occasionally, on good visibility nights, cause heavy damage on certain targets. For instance, in March 1942 Bomber Command caused heavy damage to the Renault plants in Boulogne-Billancourt. Despite significant civilian casualties, this was not an area bombing, considered that the target was in France. It was achieved by about 250 bombers. In the same month, Lübeck was hit. 62% of the buildings in the city were destroyed or damaged. In both cases, the bombers had been lucky with visibility conditions and light opposition. At the same time, in the same month, it is true that Essen was attacked repeatedly, for no significant damage. But the visibility had been bad and there was heavy opposition. Bomber Command did not give up on Essen - but it remained a difficult target, because of several factors, including the clutter and thickness of settlement network in the area. However the British kept returning, with indifferent results - until finally, in September 1942, Essen was bombed with satisfactory results. The Krupps works suffered heavy damage. Note that while Essen was an important target, it was by no means _the_ target. If we assume the Allies know there is the German reactor and nuclear facilities here, the effort will be scaled up beyond the doggedness with which Bomber Command accepted unberable losses to keep returning onto Berlin later in the war. 1942 also saw the Cologne raid that resulted in heavy industrial damage and widespread damage to residential areas. For those who think widespread damage could not be achieved until late 1944, I have one word: Hamburg. > The bombing campaign was not a serious industrial constraint for Germany until after the start of 1944, If by that you are meaning the direct hitting of factories, you are right. That doesn't mean there were no constraints. The loss of production in Hamburg was very severe, not primarily because of the direct damage to factories, but because the workforce had been seriously affected. This still did not cause a complete stop in the production of the items that were produced in Hamburg - the main reason being that by then, the Germans had grown wary of having one-of-a-kind plants. And the reason why they had grown wary and relied on redundancy was exactly the supposedly ineffective bombing campaign. But if the Germans are working on nuclear research, and moreover on a budget, it seems very likely they will have just that, one of a kind plant. > and we are talking here about what would be a very modest industrial effort (in 1940-1943) sufficient to build operating nuclear reactors. The only real plant needed then was one heavy water enrichment facility (or a graphite purification plant) neither of which would be anything like a Hanford or Oak Ridge, By 1943, the Hanford plants had more than 50,000 employees and needed over 500,000 acres. I suppose that if the Germans do want to move from research to actual production, they will need to step up sooner or later. > just one unremarkable plant among thousands. Of course. The key point in this part of the thread is obviously whether the Allies know the place. If they don't, _that_ will be the factor protecting it. Not the Flak, not the fighters, not weather and geography, and not an incapability of the Allies to bomb it. If the Germans have _one_ plant, and the Allies know where it is, it will go as with the Tirpitz, of which the Germans also had just the one. Heavily defended, geographically and meteorologically difficult, tough, required multiple attempts and heavy bomber losses - it still got a bomb. Note that all of the above deals with an ordinary effort by Bomber Command, at night. By 1943, the Allies would have the USAAF daylight bombing. And even before that, awareness of the importance of a target might well bring Bomber Command to accept the losses of a daylight attempt. On special case, this was done historically. > My point is still that it is quite striking that Germany failed to pursue a genuinely vigorous atomic R&D program early in the war, when the logic for doing so was quite strong. That is, they had the resources and knowledge, the time and money, and they (should have) had a rationale to do it- to keep abreast or ahead of the Anglo- Americans so that Germany would not be at disadvantage after it defeated Russia and won the war on the continent. Did they really have the money? A country that equipped its army, in the make-or-break effort, with old foreign civilian-issue trucks and used old unreliable testbed-training armored vehicles as battle tanks? >On Jul 9, 12:11 pm, fairwa...@gmail.com (Derek Lyons) wrote: >> "Michele" <don'tspammeat...@tln.it> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > >No, it's wrong. A contention you utterly an completely fail to support. >For those who think widespread damage could not be achieved until late 1944, >I have one word: Hamburg. Do pay attention to what you yourself write - your criteria, quoted above, wasn't widespread damage. Your criteria was specific, repeated, and repeatable damage. _Which your own narration shows was never consistently achieved in the time frame in question_. Not to mention that Hamburg was in _1943_, a full year and considerably changed circumstances from your target year of _1942_. D. SignatureTouch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/ -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. Oct 5th, 2004 JDL >>On Jul 9, 12:11 pm, fairwa...@gmail.com (Derek Lyons) wrote: >>> "Michele" <don'tspammeat...@tln.it> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > > A contention you utterly an completely fail to support. It seems you wrote in a hurry. > Do pay attention to what you yourself write - your criteria, quoted > above, wasn't widespread damage. Your criteria was specific, > repeated, and repeatable damage. Specific? What I mentioned were the advantages - and limitations - of area bombing. Do pay attention to what I myself wrote. "houses, shops, public buildings, >>> >power, water, gas, sewage, streets and public transportation means. In >>> >a >>> >word, surface." See? What I claim, firstly, is that Bomber Command would be able to make life miserable for the people who worked in any one given plant. This is not the same as destroying the plant, but it unavoidably causes disruptions. An unreliable supply of electric power, alone, would be quite a hindrance for their work. That's not very specific. It is actually the contrary. It's systemic. It's not as effective as actually hitting the research center proper, but it's not ineffective. Additionally, what I claim is that by trying again and again and again, the British also managed to place the occasional bomb onto the target, even when it was smaller than a city block. I easily support that claim by quoting the events that led to the Kanaldurchbruch. It was a successful German move - in exactly the same way Operation Dynamo was a successful British move. A successful retreat. And why did the Germans need to withdraw their ships from Brest? Because in Brest they kept being hit. Not sunk - but damaged anyway. And the Gneisenau had been hit by four bombs already in 1941. And the German personnel's accommodaitons in the town were quickly degrading, BTW. And guess what happened to the Gneisenau, once it was away from the exposed, vulnerable position it was in Brest? It got hit by a British bomb and remained not operational for the rest of the war. The British, you see, had a problem with the German industrial targets; they were countless. They wanted to hit them everywhere, and this greatly contributed to the limited effects they could achieve. Lack of accuracy and the usual tale of woes were of course more important, yet they were no less present when Bomber Command tried to deal with a list of targets that was by no means infinite: the German major warships. The British bombers accepted indifferent results on average, heavy losses, and kept returning, and several of that handful of targets were rendered nothing but a barely floating hull by the occasional hits over many attempts. The Gneisenau, in particular, was _repeatedly_ hit - which is what you asked, and those hits took place in 1941 and 1942. What if Bomber Command had been told that there was a target the size of a battleship, more important than a battleship and, unlike a battleship, unable to move? The target would have been hit, again and again, that's what. And all of that, with night bombing. Bomber Command did carry out daylight bombing in 1942, when accuracy was of utmost importance. Mosquitoes would take heavy losses, but place bombs into targets the size of a public building. > Not to mention that Hamburg was in _1943_, a full year and > considerably changed circumstances from your target year of _1942_. Read again, carefully: >>For those who think widespread damage could not be achieved until late >>1944, >>I have one word: Hamburg. See? I mentioned Hamburg... for those... who think that widespread damage... could not be achieved... until late 1944. Got that? In other words, in 1942 Bomber Command could consistently keep a battleship under repairs, and the people working at it under serious harassment. By 1943, the possibility exist that the people working at the nuclear research plant, including top scientists, aren't saved by their shelters, given that a firestorm will suck away their oxygen. Now, if you want, you can tackle the facts I mentioned, instead of making an excessive use of adverbs like "utterly". >>>On Jul 9, 12:11 pm, fairwa...@gmail.com (Derek Lyons) wrote: >>>> "Michele" <don'tspammeat...@tln.it> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > >It seems you wrote in a hurry. No, I wrote very specifically - but I should have written in a hurry in order to keep up with you constantly moving the goalposts and redefining what you wrote to means something very different from what you actually did write. D. SignatureTouch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/ -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. Oct 5th, 2004 JDL ... > It is true Bomber Command did not achieve, in 1942, consistent good results, > in an attempt to bomb, I'll stress it again, the whole German network of [quoted text clipped - 30 lines] > 1942 also saw the Cologne raid that resulted in heavy industrial damage and > widespread damage to residential areas. Yes, some effective campaigns some months in to 1942, but keep the time line in focus. Fission research was underway since 1939. In 1942 Fermi was building a reactor, after a one year delay by U.S. authorities (i.e. he could have done this in 1941, if a few hundred thousands dollars had been allocated).. German could have built a heavy water plant in 1940 and had a reactor in early 1941, or built the plant in 1941 and had a reactor in early 1942, all before there were any bombing successes. > For those who think widespread damage could not be achieved until late 1944, > I have one word: Hamburg. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > If by that you are meaning the direct hitting of factories, you are right. And that is exactly what I mean. ... > But if the Germans are working on nuclear research, and moreover on a > budget, it seems very likely they will have just that, one of a kind plant. But they didn't build any plants during this period. "Might have been bombed" (when very few factories were being bombed effectively) does not explain "didn't build one at all". More on that one-of-a-kind plant further down. > > and we are talking here about > > what would be a very modest industrial effort (in 1940-1943) > > sufficient to build operating nuclear reactors. The only real plant > > needed then was one heavy water enrichment facility (or a graphite > > purification plant) neither of which would be anything like a Hanford > > or Oak Ridge, ... > > just one unremarkable plant among thousands. > > Of course. The key point in this part of the thread is obviously whether the > Allies know the place. If they don't, _that_ will be the factor protecting > it. Not the Flak, not the fighters, not weather and geography, and not an > incapability of the Allies to bomb it. Yes and no. If Germany built only one plant, and the Allies knew where and what it was, and spared no effort, then very likely it could have been rendered unusable the day of the raid. But if Germany built two or three, and the allies knew of only one, or of none, or if Germany repaired the plant after bombing, or if Germany hardened the plant (think of the Mittelwerk V2 plant) then no. The fact is if Germany had a serious interest in building reactors, and put some modest resources into it (defined further below), the allies could not have stopped them during this period, and Germany could have reached the operating reactor milestone before bombing was even an option. > > My point is still that it is quite striking that Germany failed to > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > make-or-break effort, with old foreign civilian-issue trucks and used old > unreliable testbed-training armored vehicles as battle tanks? And a country that built jet fighters and V-2 missiles and had the world's best chemical industry? Lets look at some numbers. The German atomic research spending was less than 0.1% of the Manhattan Project spending, i.e. less than $2 million (then year) total from 1939 to 1945. Increasing this ten-fold, to a level similar to the S-1 project in 1941-early 1942 is not a problem. The U.S. spent $15.8 million to build three heavy water plants, starting in late 1942 and had an operating heavy water reactor early in 1944. Germany could easily have come up with $15.8 million in early 1940 (say) and have an operating reactor in late 1941. Or done in it early 1941 and had that reactor in 1942. All they would have had to do was replicate what the U.S. and Canada actually did (and they would have had multi-plant HW production redundancy to boot). What is particularly strange is that in late 1943, when resources really were tight, and Germany was clearly facing the prospect of defeat, and a wartime reactor project no longer made sense at all, that is when they started to build a heavy water plant. If they had the cash then, they certainly could have put it up earlier. On Jul 10, 1:15 am, "Michele" <don'tspammeat...@tln.it> wrote: > 1942 also saw the Cologne raid that resulted in heavy industrial damage > and > widespread damage to residential areas. > Yes, some effective campaigns some months in to 1942, but keep the time line in focus. Fission research was underway since 1939. In 1942 Fermi was building a reactor, after a one year delay by U.S. authorities (i.e. he could have done this in 1941, if a few hundred thousands dollars had been allocated).. German could have built a heavy water plant in 1940 and had a reactor in early 1941, or built the plant in 1941 and had a reactor in early 1942, all before there were any bombing successes. True. I did not claim the 1941 was a year of successes. But if the Germans don't have just a research facility, but actually a reactor, in 1942, at that point I'd begin to wonder what are the weak spots of such a plant. Will it be larger than a research facility? I'd say yes. What about electrical power requirements? Area bombing was great at interrupting power supply, and the higher the requirements, the harder the repairs. What about personnel? Etc. > For those who think widespread damage could not be achieved until late > 1944, [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > If by that you are meaning the direct hitting of factories, you are right. > And that is exactly what I mean. I see. Then you are not taking the full picture into account. The direct damaging of a plant might reduce its output by 10% for 2 weeks. That would be the result of a bombing that directly hit the factory. Roughly the same result could be achieved by killing 5% of the workforce, and disrupting another 10% of it. That would be the result of area bombing. Additionally, part of the replacements could well not be as skilled as the men they replaced, and that would trail along after those two weeks. Personnel is just an example; area bombing could affect the production of that plant, without one bomb of the raid having fallen within the plant's fences, in many other ways. Raw materials intended for the plant are damaged at the rail station, and the next delivery is delayed by damages there. The power lines or water or gas facilities are severed. Etc. > But if the Germans are working on nuclear research, and moreover on a > budget, it seems very likely they will have just that, one of a kind > plant. > But they didn't build any plants during this period. > "Might have been bombed" (when very few factories were being bombed effectively) does not explain "didn't build one at all". Oh, absolutely. They built what they wanted to build. And they repaired what they wanted to repair. I don't claim the Allies could prevent building or repairs. I do claim the Allies could harass and disrupt any activity. > > and we are talking here about > > what would be a very modest industrial effort (in 1940-1943) > > sufficient to build operating nuclear reactors. The only real plant > > needed then was one heavy water enrichment facility (or a graphite > > purification plant) neither of which would be anything like a Hanford > > or Oak Ridge, ... > > just one unremarkable plant among thousands. > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > it. Not the Flak, not the fighters, not weather and geography, and not an > incapability of the Allies to bomb it. > Yes and no. > If Germany built only one plant, and the Allies knew where and what it was, and spared no effort, then very likely it could have been rendered unusable the day of the raid. > But if Germany built two or three, and the allies knew of only one, or of none, or if Germany repaired the plant after bombing, or if Germany hardened the plant (think of the Mittelwerk V2 plant) then no. I never claimed the Allies could bomb a plant they did not know of. That would be kind of silly, though it could happen by mere chance if the Germans just set it up in any industrial city, which is a possibility. Then again, the Allies tended to come to know about important German plants. Repairs were the rule. To which the reply is bombing again. No plant can ever be destroyed for good, as far as the owner has the resources, materials and personnel to start again. That is exactly what happened until late 1944. That is not to say, however, that repairs take one day. Or that the continuing damage did not hinder production, kill skilled workers, etc. There used to be an interesting essay on air power, available on-line, titled "The Tourniquet and the Hammer". Neither are really effective alone, but either can be a serious pain in the neck, even alone. Underground plants, per se, are immune. So we're back exactly to area bombing. Huge numbers of personnel would live in the town nearby. And they would be "dehoused", when not killed, by standard Bomber Command doctrine. If the personnel live underground, anyway the rail marshalling yard and rail lines and power lines etc. will be targets. > The fact is if Germany had a serious interest in building reactors, and put some modest resources into it (defined further below), the allies could not have stopped them during this period, and Germany could have reached the operating reactor milestone before bombing was even an option. Stopped, no. Delayed, I believe so. > > My point is still that it is quite striking that Germany failed to > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > make-or-break effort, with old foreign civilian-issue trucks and used old > unreliable testbed-training armored vehicles as battle tanks? > And a country that built jet fighters and V-2 missiles and had the world's best chemical industry? It's not the same country. The country that would build a reactor in 1941 is the country I spoke about, the one without trucks and tanks. The country that built jet fighters and missiles isn't the country of 1941. In 1941, that country _researched_ jet fighters and missiles, yes - that doesn't cost as _building_ them. They did not spend that money on trucks, because a jet engine held a clear promise of functioning and of being useful in the short-medium term. Which could hardly be said, at the time, of nuclear research. > On Jul 10, 1:15 am, "Michele" <don'tspammeat...@tln.it> wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 42 lines] > at the rail station, and the next delivery is delayed by damages there. The > power lines or water or gas facilities are severed. Etc. I'm not debating about whether bombing in 1942 could not do significant (but comparatively minor, and non-selective) economic damage. It is that effective interdiction of a specific industry, or a successful demolition of a specific facility was beyond Allied ability. The accuracy was too low, and the bomb weights that could be delivered too light. Bombing could not have shut down nuclear research before 1944. > > But if the Germans are working on nuclear research, and moreover on a > > budget, it seems very likely they will have just that, one of a kind [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > they wanted to repair. I don't claim the Allies could prevent building or > repairs. I do claim the Allies could harass and disrupt any activity. No disagreement then. > > > and we are talking here about > > > what would be a very modest industrial effort (in 1940-1943) [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > would be kind of silly, though it could happen by mere chance if the Germans > just set it up in any industrial city, which is a possibility. This is actually what happened to the heavy water plant at Leuna. It was built as part of a huge petrochemical complex (for industrial efficiency and cost reasons) which got bombed by a massive raid (the RIKEN atomic research lab in Tokyo similarly got burned out in an unrelated raid). > Then again, the Allies tended to come to know about important German plants. > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > If the personnel live underground, anyway the rail marshalling yard and rail > lines and power lines etc. will be targets. I have been talking about plant(s) and facilities sufficient to support successful research, including prototype nuclear reactors, which are a prerequisite to considering any type of industrial-scale application. That is - the type of work conducted in the UK and US from1940 to mid 1942 (Fermi's reactor project preceded the Manhattan Project, and would have been completed in Dec. 1942 even if the MED had never been created). None of the work up to that time required large atomic installations, or very large investments. > > The fact is if Germany had a serious interest in building reactors, > [quoted text clipped - 29 lines] > short-medium term. Which could hardly be said, at the time, of nuclear > research. Au contraire, the potential for fission as a source of industrial power was very strong. The French were gung-ho for an industrial power (not a bomb) project before the end of 1939. The possibility of industrial power was the argument the German scientists use to support their work, and was presumably the reason that money was being belatedly spent (wasted) on heavy water plants in 1943-1944, when it was clearly too late. This same money three years earlier would have dramatically changed German atomic research. It is during the period 1940-1942 that modest but serious investment (on the scale of $20 million US, or 35 million RM, total investment) would have made a huge difference on German progress - it could have given them the world's first reactor. Germany was investing about 10 billion RM annually in its economy during 1937-1941, and the V-2 program alone wold consume 2 billion RM late in the war. With these levels of expenditures it is hard to argue that 35 million RM over 2-3 years (1940-1942) would have been unaffordable or unreasonable. > I'm not debating about whether bombing in 1942 could not do significant (but comparatively minor, and non-selective) economic damage. It is that effective interdiction of a specific industry, or a successful demolition of a specific facility was beyond Allied ability. The accuracy was too low, and the bomb weights that could be delivered too light. Can we call the Gneisenau a specific facility? Mind you, it was easier to find the Gneisenau than a place like Essen. But once again this reduces down the problem to the fact that it wouldn't be Allied capabilities (or lack thereof) that would save the plant. It would be how wisely, or luckily, the Germans chose to locate it. > Bombing could not have shut down nuclear research before 1944. No. In fact, I expect it would have harassed, disrupted and delayed it, in 1942. In 1943, there's a chance a significant number of key personnel would die in a firestorm, even if they were in their shelters during the attack, which is a more effective disruption. 1944? Well, at that time, the question is another. If the Germans are still _researching_, then there's not much point in attacking them there. If conversely the Germans have researched in, say, 1941-42, by 1944 they're more dangerous - but then again the target will be far larger and fatter. If they're producing, then attacking the workforce is both easier and more disruptive. And even a half success as the attack against dams will be a headache, given that Germany was less rich than the continental USA in electric power. > I never claimed the Allies could bomb a plant they did not know of. That > would be kind of silly, though it could happen by mere chance if the > Germans > just set it up in any industrial city, which is a possibility. > This is actually what happened to the heavy water plant at Leuna. It was built as part of a huge petrochemical complex (for industrial efficiency and cost reasons) which got bombed by a massive raid (the RIKEN atomic research lab in Tokyo similarly got burned out in an unrelated raid). I wasn't aware of the Japanese lab, but I knew about Leuna, and that's why I mentioned that possibility > > Did they really have the money? A country that equipped its army, in the > > make-or-break effort, with old foreign civilian-issue trucks and used [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > short-medium term. Which could hardly be said, at the time, of nuclear > research. > Au contraire, the potential for fission as a source of industrial power was very strong. The French were gung-ho for an industrial power (not a bomb) project before the end of 1939. The possibility of industrial power was the argument the German scientists use to support their work, and was presumably the reason that money was being belatedly spent (wasted) on heavy water plants in 1943-1944, when it was clearly too late. This same money three years earlier would have dramatically changed German atomic research. By "useful" I mean "useful" as Hitler would have defined it. That is, useful at killing the enemy. I do understand that more energy means actual guns are easier to produce. But you'd have to convince Hitler that victory wasn't around the corner and thus an energy project that might show results in a couple of years was more important than trucks that could be produced next month with the energy sources currently available. > > I'm not debating about whether bombing in 1942 could not do > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > Allied capabilities (or lack thereof) that would save the plant. It would be > how wisely, or luckily, the Germans chose to locate it. Sorry, cherry picking the best results of the 1942 bombing campaign doesn't make the case. Drop enough bombs and some will be lucky hits, which is what took out the Gneisenau. One bomb hitting a vulnerable spot and setting off the ammunition on board. Raids on specific targets like this usually were unsuccessful during this period, and as you point out, a battleship in a known port is a uniquely obvious target. > > Bombing could not have shut down nuclear research before 1944. > > No. In fact, I expect it would have harassed, disrupted and delayed it, in > 1942. Why would you expect that? Remember, at that time the Allies knew nothing at all about German atomic research. A larger research program (successfully building a research reactor) would still be minuscule by German industrial standards and there is no reason why intelligence on this would have been any better. The only extent to which the Allies were able to harass, disrupt or delay German atomic research during the war was in attacking a Norwegian facility that had made heavy water commercially prior to the war (not secret in any way, and on hostile terrain), and the coincidental destruction of the plant at Leuna. A new German wartime plant built earlier would have faced no such hazards. > In 1943, there's a chance a significant number of key personnel would die in > a firestorm, even if they were in their shelters during the attack, which is > a more effective disruption. This is really taking a crap shoot. Bombing killed 0.5% of the German population, and firestorms in particular were infrequent events. Devastating when they occurred, but they could not be ordered up. And, my point is that by that time they should have already had an operating nuclear reactor if they had put in a bit of serious effort. Would this have led on to a successful atomic bomb project, or a successful nuclear submarine (see below), or an atomic powered Reich? No. There wasn't enough time to make any of these a reality before the end of the war. But in 1940-1942 Germany had no way of knowing this, and in fact generally believed the opposite. ... > > Au contraire, the potential for fission as a source of industrial > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > couple of years was more important than trucks that could be produced next > month with the energy sources currently available. There are quite a number of problems with this line of reasoning. First, in the late 1930s, well into the war, Germany was spending something like 10 billion RM annually on industrial investments, including many advanced projects like synthetic rubber and synthetic oil. Several million RM annually on a potential new source of industrial power is imminently affordable and well within established German practice of the time. Second, it is not like Hitler was personally okaying every 10 million RM that was spent. Decisions at that time on such a small project were being made at much lower levels. This is where the failures to pursue atomic research effectively lie. Third, the whole "you'd have to convince Hitler that victory wasn't around the corner" entirely turns the matter on its head, back- projecting how we now view the war after the fact on to German decision making at its outset. In 1940-1941 Hitler (like nearly every other German) believed victory on the continent was around the corner (hence the failure to entirely mobilize the economy for war production before 1942). Planning for the post-war world, where Germany would be facing a hostile Britain and U.S. should have thus been very important, and thus long term potentially high pay-off projects is exactly what they should have been pushing aggressively. Remember Hitler was building the Thousand Year Reich, a little long term thinking seems in order. The lesson of living in a hostile world during peacetime from a position of weakness was fresh in German minds, and also the lesson that when one war ends (WWI) another may be not far down the road. Indeed, if this argument were a valid insight into German behavior why did they start spending money on heavy water production in late 1943 when defeat in the next year or two was becoming increasingly likely? That is when this argument should have killed the project, but didn't. Fourth, if you insist on reducing this to the question of a super- weapon (and not "merely" the advantages of electricity without needing coal or oil), consider these two words: "nuclear submarine". THAT is a super-weapon that would have made Hitler's eyes pop! The failure of the German Navy to take a keen interest in this is striking. After all, the U.S. Navy made this a high priority project and build its own uranium enrichment pilot plant entirely independent from S-1 and the Manhattan Project. A German submarine operating with a natural uranium heavy water reactor would have been a devastating weapon against the mighty UK and U.S. navies, if it could be made. On Jul 15, 12:52 am, "Michele" <don'tspammeat...@tln.it> wrote: > "careysub" <carey...@gmail.com> ha scritto nel > messaggionews:b4fa94c7-4283-45ff-bf24-f63f995b24ab@k30g2000yqf.googlegroups.com... [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > be > how wisely, or luckily, the Germans chose to locate it. > Sorry, cherry picking the best results of the 1942 bombing campaign doesn't make the case. Drop enough bombs and some will be lucky hits, And why shouldn't a lucky hit, well, hit the lab? > which is what took out the Gneisenau. One bomb hitting a vulnerable spot and setting off the ammunition on board. The damage in that case was crippling and final. But it is not as if this happened that once and never again. As early as 1941, Bomber Command was placing hits into German capital ships. The Gneisenau itself had taken other hits. > Raids on specific targets like this usually were unsuccessful during this period, Yes. As already mentioned, it is exactly the volume of unsuccessful raids that eventually make the successful, albeit rare, raid. This "cherry picking" idea, with all due respect, looks flawed to me. To make a simplified example. A guy plays Russian roulette. He survives four times, then shoots himself. I'll conclude that that was going to happen, sooner or later. You seem to be intentioned to conclude that generally speaking, Russian roulette fails at killing the player, in fact it failed four times out of five; and if I point out the body on the ground, you tell me I'm cherry picking. > and as you point out, a battleship in a known port is a uniquely obvious target. Well, to a point. Part of the greater ease in locating the capital ships isn't finding them inside the port; it is finding the port, the general target area. Bombing Essen was difficult because it is inland, in an area where industrial haze was almost continual, and where cities and towns are damn close to each other. A seaport is an easier target, for starters, because its being on the sea makes reckoning easier. There will be some coastal landmark. There will be, at least at times, some breeze washing the fog away. So we're back to what I stated; the lab would be defended by the Germans' wise (or lucky) choice in positioning it, not so much by the Allied bombing capabilities. > > Bombing could not have shut down nuclear research before 1944. > > No. In fact, I expect it would have harassed, disrupted and delayed it, in > 1942. > Why would you expect that? > Remember, at that time the Allies knew nothing at all about German atomic research. A larger research program (successfully building a research reactor) would still be minuscule by German industrial standards and there is no reason why intelligence on this would have been any better. I have no argument here. I started from my very first post in this part of the thread that the basic assumption concerning bombing was that the intelligence part of the job had already been done. If the Allies don't know where it is or, even worse, don't know it exist, I have not claimed they can bomb it. > In 1943, there's a chance a significant number of key personnel would die > in > a firestorm, even if they were in their shelters during the attack, which > is > a more effective disruption. > This is really taking a crap shoot. Bombing killed 0.5% of the German population, A population that was far more agricultural than we could conceive today. Maybe a more interesting figure is that 2.4% of the population of Hamburg was killed. Or 7.4% of the population of Darmstadt. I expect the scientists, engineers, technicians to live in the city where the research lab is, not some plac ein the countryside that never saw a bomber in the whole war. > and firestorms in particular were infrequent events. Devastating when they occurred, but they could not be ordered up. Of course. That is why I said, about this occurrence: "there is a chance". > By "useful" I mean "useful" as Hitler would have defined it. That is, > useful [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > couple of years was more important than trucks that could be produced next > month with the energy sources currently available. > There are quite a number of problems with this line of reasoning. > First, in the late 1930s, well into the war, Germany was spending something like 10 billion RM annually on industrial investments, Sorry, of the late 30s, only 4 months were into the war. > including many advanced projects like synthetic rubber and synthetic oil. Several million RM annually on a potential new source of industrial power is imminently affordable and well within established German practice of the time. Ok, since you keep saying that, what would you have cut? > Second, it is not like Hitler was personally okaying every 10 million RM that was spent. Decisions at that time on such a small project were being made at much lower levels. This is where the failures to pursue atomic research effectively lie. Yes, but to me this seems to underestimate the consequences of Hitler's will on the decision-making process. As we know, the Nazi administrative machinery was turf wars among thugs. Hitler preferred, in line with what you point out above, just to set general objectives, and to let his bosses fight each other for resources; he thought that was actually the best way to handle prioritization. But the last recourse was, of course, to Hitler's will. This sometimes took the shape of an actual, direct appeal to Hitler. But sometimes it meant demonstrating to your opponent that you were "working in the Führer's directions" more than him. To all of that, we have to add Goering as the 4-year plan czar. > Third, the whole "you'd have to convince Hitler that victory wasn't around the corner" entirely turns the matter on its head, back- projecting how we now view the war after the fact on to German decision making at its outset. In 1940-1941 Hitler (like nearly every other German) believed victory on the continent was around the corner (hence the failure to entirely mobilize the economy for war production before 1942). Planning for the post-war world, where Germany would be facing a hostile Britain and U.S. should have thus been very important, and thus long term potentially high pay-off projects is exactly what they should have been pushing aggressively. That all works, assuming the Germans believed they could stroll around that corner. They were delusional, but not to that point. They thought the corner was near, but were aware it would take "one last effort", one last _big_ effort. Hitler did not all-out convert the industry to war production because he did not want to upset the civilians, not because he believed the war could be easily mopped up with what he already had. > Remember Hitler was building the Thousand Year Reich, a little long term thinking seems in order. Yes. I'm not the one who needs to be convinced. > The lesson of living in a hostile world during peacetime from a position of weakness was fresh in German minds, and also the lesson that when one war ends (WWI) another may be not far down the road. Indeed, if this argument were a valid insight into German behavior why did they start spending money on heavy water production in late 1943 when defeat in the next year or two was becoming increasingly likely? That is when this argument should have killed the project, but didn't. The fact that much of everything else had not worked may have had an impact on the choice. > Fourth, if you insist on reducing this to the question of a super- weapon (and not "merely" the advantages of electricity without needing coal or oil), consider these two words: "nuclear submarine". THAT is a super-weapon that would have made Hitler's eyes pop! The failure of the German Navy to take a keen interest in this is striking. After all, the U.S. Navy made this a high priority project and build its own uranium enrichment pilot plant entirely independent from S-1 and the Manhattan Project. A German submarine operating with a natural uranium heavy water reactor would have been a devastating weapon against the mighty UK and U.S. navies, if it could be made. You are right here. Point taken. ... > So we're back to what I stated; the lab would be defended by the Germans' > wise (or lucky) choice in positioning it, not so much by the Allied bombing > capabilities. I'll compromise and say it is some of both (reflecting also your comment below about specific intelligence being necessary). A better analogy than Russian Roulette is insurance. 1942 "bombing insurance" would not have cost much since the chance of any particular plant being heavily damaged by bombing was low. A scientific- industrial project on the scale I am suggesting the Germans had the capability and good reason to run would be virtually invisible to Allied intelligence (unlike a battleship in port). Not so much in 1944. By then critical industries could be nearly shut down since the Allies could deliver enough tonnage accurately and often enough that it severely damage entire industrial complexes repeatedly. In this environment any industrial operation was threatened if it was in a complex that might be bombed, whether or not specific intelligence on it was available, or whether or not it was specifically targeted. "Bombing insurance" would be quite expensive because the likelihood of loss was now high, even if the plant is not specifically targeted. .. > A larger research program (successfully building a > research reactor) would still be minuscule by German industrial [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > where it is or, even worse, don't know it exist, I have not claimed they can > bomb it. > > In 1943, there's a chance a significant number of key personnel would die > > in > > a firestorm, even if they were in their shelters during the attack, which > > is > > a more effective disruption. The issue of contention here is what "significant" means. Although I would consider a 2% chance of myself being killed very significant, in discussing the disruption of a project employing hundreds, killing 2% has negligible effect on project success. I would not consider that significant. > > This is really taking a crap shoot. Bombing killed 0.5% of the German > population, > A population that was far more agricultural than we could conceive today. It was, what, something like 40% urban, at least? This pushes up the percentage of urban killed to 1.25%? Still very low odds of killing anyone in a city. > Maybe a more interesting figure is that 2.4% of the population of Hamburg > was killed. Actually the low overall fatality rate for such a devastating raid emphasizes my point nicely. Only the section of of the city (highly built up worker housing) that fire stormed suffered significant fatalities (but of course there it was nearly total). > Or 7.4% of the population of Darmstadt. > I expect the scientists, engineers, technicians to live in the city where > the research lab is, not some plac ein the countryside that never saw a > bomber in the whole war. This was the worst in terms of percentage killed I think (worse even that Dresden?). ... > > First, in the late 1930s, well into the war, Germany was spending > > something like 10 billion RM annually on industrial investments, > > Sorry, of the late 30s, only 4 months were into the war. It was simply a handy figure (from Tooze) indicating the level of spending the government was engaged in, it does not even include specifically military expenditures. > > including many advanced projects like synthetic rubber and synthetic > oil. Several million RM annually on a potential new source of > industrial power is imminently affordable and well within established > German practice of the time. > > Ok, since you keep saying that, what would you have cut? How about 0.1% from everything? Or 1% from each project in the 1/10 lowest priority projects. Or 10% each from the bottom 1%? The overall size of the German economy was around 90 billion RM, typical wartime spending levels among major combatants was something like 1/3 of the entire GDP, so Germany was spending on the order of 30 billion RM annually in supporting the war. Coming up with 10-20 million RM in a year for an advanced research project out of budgets that large is not a difficult trick, no economy or budget is that tightly constrained (according to Speer he actually offered several million RM to Heisenberg in mid 1942, where was he getting that from)? Note that in 1943-1945 Germany came up with 2 billion RM for the V-2 project, and came up with money for a heavy water plant after all. Where did that money come from? Why would it have been impossible under the less severe financial circumstances of 1940-1941? > > Second, it is not like Hitler was personally okaying every 10 million > [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > But sometimes it meant demonstrating to your opponent that you were "working > in the Führer's directions" more than him. Exactly - the inability of the Nazi machinery to efficiently set priorities and marshall resources is a large part of the explanation for this. Nothing like the excellent committee work of the MAUD group, or the NDRC in the U.S. Hitler likely never saw any reports on atomic energy during this period (and Speer says it only came up once in an audience with Hitler, one item out of 2200 that he raised with Hitler during his term as armaments minister). This is a failure of the German system and scientists to focus attention on the subject. > To all of that, we have to add Goering as the 4-year plan czar. > [quoted text clipped - 50 lines] > > You are right here. Point taken. > > >Even if it's a hard or impossible target per se, the British will apply > > >their favored doctrine, and area bombing will disrupt the ancillary [quoted text clipped - 30 lines] > Americans so that Germany would not be at disadvantage after it > defeated Russia and won the war on the continent. The problem for Nazi Germany was that it was still a gang of thugs arguing over their loot, in this case industrial capacity and government backing. Reading Speer you know he loved being the elegantiae arbiter, missing the point that lots of tanks or planes were better than nukes or rocket bombs. > The problem for Nazi Germany was that it was still a gang of thugs > arguing over their loot, in this case industrial capacity and > government backing. Reading Speer you know he loved being the > elegantiae arbiter, missing the point that lots of tanks or planes > were better than nukes or rocket bombs. Well no. A nuke on a rocket bomb is a war winner for everyone. The Nazis didn't know that, and probably didn't have the economic muscle to hold onto their territory and develop one. SignatureWilliam Black So I looked at the script It was six weeks filming in the desert. No girls, no dialogue, just guys with guns. They said "Do you want wages or a percentage?" It looked like a certain turkey. When they came the second time I was ready. I haven't had to work since... Eli Wallach on his roles in "The Magnificent Seven" and "The Good the Bad and The Ugly > > The problem for Nazi Germany was that it was still a gang of thugs > > arguing over their loot, in this case industrial capacity and [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > "The Magnificent Seven" > and "The Good the Bad and The Ugly But still tried both, without meaningful results. The nuke and the long range rocket carrying same needed a big industrial organization. I live near Cape Canaveral, you can't do this anymore but a trip amongst the various launch facilities and the Polaris/Poseidon/Triton operational area is a n eye-opener. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CCAFS.jpg >But still tried both, without meaningful results. The nuke and the >long range rocket carrying same needed a big industrial organization. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CCAFS.jpg When did that change? Are you talking about the missile park in the air base historical area? (I saw it in 1998 and found it a LOT more interesting than the Kennedy Space Center tourist trap - I thought it was rather fun to sit in the Capcom chair that launched John Glenn) I especially enjoyed seeing the gift shop since just outside it they had a Mercury capsule which according to the sign had actually flown in space. They had replaced the hatch with a 1/2" piece of plexiglass so you could see the astronaut's couch and my son (then 5 - he's 6'1" now) said "Dad I think I could fit into that!" which his sisters though incredibly funny because the first two American astronauts were not Carpenter and Glenn but two chimpanzees and this was one of the chimp capsules and naturally that confirmed for the girls what they already knew about their brother! > On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 04:30:57 -0700 (PDT), Jack Linthicum > [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > chimp capsules and naturally that confirmed for the girls what they > already knew about their brother! 9/11/01 > BTW: The reason that the Leuna HW plant got bombed out in July 1944 > was simply that Leuna was a petrochemical center. Other plants at > Leuna were repaired and kept in operation into 1945 (with steadily > declining production). I wonder why you wrote July 1944. Was it rebuild after the raid in May? (I only know it was rebuild after the war in 1945 for the Red Bomb.) I googled about it and got some news on the Nazi heavy water production. I.G. Farben at Leuna was engaged also in the production of heavy water for Germany's atomic bomb in a plant of 2 to 3 tons per year planned capacity (actually they made slightly less 1 ton than per year). The building housing this plant was reported by the Germans to have been knocked out in the first raid on Leuna on 12 May 1944, which possibly may have contributed to the delay in the German development of atomic power. That is about what I remembered too. The intensive bombing of Leuna led to a curious confrontation between Buetefisch, who was in charge of Leuna, and Paul Harteck, a leading nuclear scientist working on Germany's atomic bomb project. Part of Leuna was devoted to the manufacture of heavy water, a necessary component of atomic energy. After the first bombs fell on Leuna, Buetefisch informed Harteck that the heavy water installation must be abandoned. He claimed that the massive bombing could not have been aimed at fuel production since there is a "gentlemen's agreement" between heavy industry in Germany and abroad that I.G.'s synthetic gasoline plants would not be bombed. The only explanation for the raids against Leuna, therefore, was the heavy water facility. 12 That account seems from the memory of Harteck. Few years ago I saw a TV interview with John Kenneth Galbraight. He is known from the USSBS and was in sommer 1944 in relation with air target planning against Germany. I remember (maybe he said it or I read it elsewhere) that General Spaatz of USAAF wanted a oil campaign against Germany. But the Target Commitee opposed and prevented it for some time. In spring 1944 Spaatz suddenly got an ok from "someone in Washington" for a raid against Leuna. I thought that was General Groves. He was not only in charge to build the bomb but to prevent the German bomb too. He ordered the USAAF bombing of the Norsk Hydro plant in November 1943 too. Had he knowledge of the HW plant in Leuna he had the power to overrule almost any commitee. Now, Galbraight said in the TV interview, after the very successfule May raid on Leuna the Target Commitee still opposed a oil campain. But by "Ultra" US got good intelligence about the impact of the raid and the fear of the Germans about a oil campaign. That news from inside Germany was crucial to convince (or overrule?) the Target Commitee to allow the oil campaign. It was the most successfule strategic bombing campaign of WWII (and perhaps ever). Although never used in Germany, Karl-Hermann Geib in Leuna in 1943 developed what we now regard as the most cost-e?ective process for producing heavy water: the dual temperature exchange sulphide process (see appendix and ?g. 10). Contemporaneously, the process was also developed by J. S. Spevack at Columbia University[37], and his process became the basis of the post-war North American plants under the name of the Girdler Process, named after the company which ?rst exploited it. North American scientists were not aware of GeibÆs work for many years after the war; Maloney et al. in their book ôThe Production of Heavy Waterö (1955)[38] complain that relevant German wartime work was still classi?ed. Unfortunately Geib was not able to bene?t from his work; in 1945 he was taken to the USSR, along with many others, who were given a 10-year contract to work on ?ssion and aerodynamics. Many German scientists found this very congenial and some even went as far as to describe these 10 years as the time of their lives. However, Geib was not so happy and he made the mistake of applying for asylum in Canada, giving the name of Professor E. W. R. Steacie as a reference. O?cials at the Canadian Embassy in Moscow did not know what to do with him and told him to come back the next day and that was the last time he was seen. His wife in Germany received his e?ects in the mail[33]. Chris Waltham: An Early History of Heavy Water, (2002). Seems Waltham was not aware of the HW plant in Leuna, he did not mention it. But the timeline may fit and the plant at Leuna had no chance to get much in production till May 1944. I found mentioned a third HW plant near Hamburg, called the "Beck Plant". Dont know about this. Maybe it was related to Harteck too. He lived in Hamburg. For me it looks like Germany did some effort to the Plutonium bomb (thats what the heavy water reactor was for) but did not press further against USAAF counters. If the fight about heavy water realy triggered the oil campaign, it may be a main impact the Bomb had on WWII. ## CrossPoint v3.12d R ## On Jul 10, 11:42 am, SEN...@argo.rhein-neckar.de wrote: > > BTW: The reason that the Leuna HW plant got bombed out in July 1944 > > was simply that Leuna was a petrochemical center. Other plants at [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > I wonder why you wrote July 1944. Was it rebuild after the raid in May? > (I only know it was rebuild after the war in 1945 for the Red Bomb.) The July date is from "Heavy water and the wartime race for nuclear energy" by Per F. Dahl. I don't have the book, and don;t know if the plant was repaired after the May raid, or how severely it was damaged at that time. > I googled about it and got some news on the Nazi heavy water production. > [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > That account seems from the memory of Harteck. Yes, this account from Harteck is found in "The Crime and Punishment of IG Farben". Buetefisch's notion can safely be discarded as war-time wishful thinking. > Few years ago I saw a TV > interview with John Kenneth Galbraight. He is known from the USSBS and [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > of the HW plant in Leuna he had the power to overrule almost any > commitee. This seems very far-fetched. The May 1944 oil raid included 935 bombers, of which "only" 200 were tasked with hitting Leuna. This seems clearly to have been a planned kick-off for the long sought oil campaign. The notion that this enormous military operation had anything to do with heavy water (instead of oil) is hard to credit. Also, the influence of Groves has been exaggerated. There is no question that he had a remarkably powerful position, with unique high- level connections (e.g. Stimson, Bush and Conant), akin perhaps to a theater commander in his own domain of responsibility. But Groves could not overrule almost any committee, and his influence over bombing policy has been wrongly portrayed. Rhodes claims that Groves could set aside any city in Japan from bombing, so that it could be preserved for the Target Committee's A-bomb list. In fact, he could only defer temporarily relatively small cities from being bombed. The largest city he tried to keep for the bomb list, Yokohama, was fire-bombed over his objection. The ones he was able to preserve had low priority among the conventional bomb planners, and if the atomic bomb had been delayed another month then it seems more than likely that their number would have come up as the bombers worked their way down the list of available targets. > Now, Galbraight said in the TV interview, after the very successfule > May raid on Leuna the Target Commitee still opposed a oil campain. But [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > to allow the oil campaign. It was the most successfule strategic > bombing campaign of WWII (and perhaps ever). ... > Chris Waltham: An Early History of Heavy Water, (2002). > > Seems Waltham was not aware of the HW plant in Leuna, he did not mention > it. I had previously read the Waltham paper, and upon reexamining it I was struck by the fact that his account is essentially the same as the brief one I gave earlier on this thread, e.g. not mentioning the plant at Leuna, even though I knew about the Leuna plant. I think that Waltham's account, being read much more recently, had submerged my earlier readings on the subject. > But the timeline may fit and the plant at Leuna had no chance to > get much in production till May 1944. I found mentioned a third HW plant [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > against USAAF counters. If the fight about heavy water realy triggered > the oil campaign, it may be a main impact the Bomb had on WWII. This is quite an interesting post, thanks. I don't buy the heavy water-> oil campaign idea though. Germany did put some effort into a reactor, but the timing is odd - it is too little too late. The time they started a significant serious effort to build a reactor it was clearly too late in the war for it to be of any use and logically they should have cut it off at that point. But early in the war, the possibility of an atomic prime mover to assist with Germany's energy problems would have made a sensible substantial exploratory investment. > > > BTW: The reason that the Leuna HW plant got bombed out in July 1944 > > > was simply that Leuna was a petrochemical center. Other plants at [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > repaired after the May raid, or how severely it was damaged at that > time. If only Buetefisch was convinced that the Heavy Water plant was the main target they may tried to repair. I read about a visit by Gerlach and Harteck in Leuna in August 1944. They wanted a repair but IG Farben chiefs (not only Buetefisch) were very hostile about such plans. It reminds me about roumors about a further HW plant, subsurface and called "Quartz III". Maybe it was a paper project only. > > I googled about it and got some news on the Nazi heavy water production. > > [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > Buetefisch's notion can safely be discarded as war-time wishful > thinking. I dont think so. It explains a lot. Why the USAAF was not allowed to go for the German electric power system like planned in 1941. Or why the oil campaign did not begin by RAF in 1943 or USAAF in February 1944. The USSBS wrote that the escort fighters for Leuna were available since 2/1944 and deliberately left the open question why it did not start 3 months sooner. I found another possible link to Groves. "A few days" after April 17th 1944 was a conference of the German uranium group. On scientist reported that the heavy water plant at Leuna was complete and close to begin production. Chief of the uranium group than was Gerlach. Gerlach meet about every week (or some account up to 4 times a week) with his personel friend Paul Rosbaud. Rosbaud was a most important UK/US agent and after the war got the (US-) Taft Medal for his work as atomic spy. There is a book about him from the 1980s. > > Few years ago I saw a TV > > interview with John Kenneth Galbraight. He is known from the USSBS and [quoted text clipped - 32 lines] > likely that their number would have come up as the bombers worked > their way down the list of available targets. I had not in mind the target list for Japan. I meant Groves authority regarding preventing the German Bomb. He was the leading military person in charge of all Bomb related matters. And he had the main access to the scientists about it. If he said a target had to be bombed to prevent the German Bomb - there was no committee that could opposed it. The targest list for Japan was another matter. More people could claim expertise. Like Stimson opposed Kyoto on the list and others like you mentioned above. > > Now, Galbraight said in the TV interview, after the very successfule > > May raid on Leuna the Target Commitee still opposed a oil campain. But [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > Waltham's account, being read much more recently, had submerged my > earlier readings on the subject. I thought I read about it in the USSBS. I just wanted to take a look in the Oil Report, but it seems no longer for free in the net. I searched "oil report" "heavy water" leuna United States Strategic Bombing Survey "Oil Division Final Report" but got only a pay site and some second hand account without citation. I think I saw it at a site in the late 1990s, but now its gone. Thats bad because its a very important historical source. And we live in a time were even a lot of historians prefere to look first in the net. > > But the timeline may fit and the plant at Leuna had no chance to > > get much in production till May 1944. I found mentioned a third HW plant [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > assist with Germany's energy problems would have made a sensible > substantial exploratory investment. I read that the US main concern about the German reactor was less the Bomb but fear of a radioactive dirty bomb. That they would breed in the reactor istopes for radiological warfare. To get cities evacuated or to block the beachhead after the invasion of France. For the later case they did some preparation in the US Army to detect any such strike as early as possible. They distributed Geiger Counters and reports for medical staff about possible alert symptons. ## CrossPoint v3.12d R ## > Except that in the real world, Harris notably failed to achieve > anything in 1942. You mean like he didn't do this to Cologne? "German records show that 2,500 separate fires were started, of which the local fire brigade classed 1,700 as large. Property damage in the raid totalled 3,330 buildings destroyed, 2,090 seriously damaged and 7,420 lightly damaged. More than 90 per cent of this damage was caused by fire rather than high-explosive bombs. Among the above total of 12,840 buildings were 2,560 industrial and commercial buildings, though many of these were small ones. However, 36 large firms suffered complete loss of production, 70 suffered 50-80 per cent loss and 222 up to 50 per cent." State that he wasn't delivering what he had promised, and I'll agree. State that he didn't achieve decisive results, and I'll agree. State that he didn't consistently obtain satisfactory results, and I'll agree. State that what he did wasn't worth what he was expending, and I'll agree. State that he didn't achieve anything, and history disagrees. >> Except that in the real world, Harris notably failed to achieve >> anything in 1942. [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > >State that he didn't achieve anything, and history disagrees. In other words - so long as I don't state the truth and concentrate on your version with so many exceptions and special pleadings - and you'll agree with me. I respectfully decline to play your game, preferring to stick with reality rather than cherry picking. D. SignatureTouch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/ -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. Oct 5th, 2004 JDL >>> Except that in the real world, Harris notably failed to achieve >>> anything in 1942. [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > In other words - so long as I don't state the truth and concentrate on > your version "version"? Those are the German records, you know. Facts. with so many exceptions and special pleadings - and > you'll agree with me. So you got to define what is "the truth"? Is there any special reason why you are entitled to such a privilege? I guess that the directors of those factories whose production was completely shut off in 1942 in Cologne will have had their own definitions of "truth". In any case, you have accepted that you are wrong. Because "nothing" means just that. "Nothing" _save exceptions_ means "something", you know. And you have had to admit there were exceptions, above. It would just be elegant to openly acknowledge that. Unless, of course, you want to shape the "truth" so that this is not the case. So that "something" means, somehow, "nothing". In _your_ "truth", of course. Probably you will, I'm beginning to think facts can't actually disturb your prejudices. > I respectfully decline to play your game, preferring to stick with > reality rather than cherry picking. Sorry, but cherry picking is exactly the name of the game. In 1942, that's the way the German warships were made not operational. Keep returning over their ports, waste a lot of the tonnage, accept the losses, and eventually a bomb lands on the bow of the Gneisenau in Kiel, in February 1942. Now if you want to play _your_ game, you can say that Bomber Command achieved nothing, you will just have to look only at the 99% of the bombs thrown at the Gneisenau. For the purposes of ascertaining what made it not operational any more for the rest of the war, I'll go with cherry picking the few bombs that did the job. What you fail to understand, of course, is that the 99% of "nothing" results is what eventually made the 1% of an "everything" result. It is because the British accepted such a low yield that they eventually achieved a significant (for practical purposes, a crippling) result, on a specific, difficult target. in 1942. >> I respectfully decline to play your game, preferring to stick with >> reality rather than cherry picking. > >Sorry, but cherry picking is exactly the name of the game. Sorry, but bullshit. Cherry picking lets folks like yourself 'prove' a point, but otherwise accomplishes nothing. >In 1942, that's the way the German warships were made not operational. >Keep returning over their ports, waste a lot of the tonnage, accept the >losses, and eventually a bomb lands on the bow of the Gneisenau in Kiel, >in February 1942. Except that those who have actually studied WWII and know what they are talking about know that the bomb in Gneisenau's bow *was* useless, and the Kriegsmarine was already virtually neutered. The whole effort was a vast waste compared to the miniscule return gained. >Now if you want to play _your_ game, you can say that Bomber Command >achieved nothing, you will just have to look only at the 99% of the bombs >thrown at the Gneisenau. For the purposes of ascertaining what made it not >operational any more for the rest of the war, I'll go with cherry picking >the few bombs that did the job. Which is precisely my point - your cherry picking blinds you to reality. You've spent so long actively disregarding whatever disagrees with your foregone conclusions, you are living in a fantasy land utterly disconnected from reality. D. SignatureTouch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/ -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. Oct 5th, 2004 JDL >If there is _one_ target, the Allies know where it is, and it's not an >under-the-mountain facility, the Allies can generally damage it and keep it >damaged, especially from 1942 onwards. That was basically my point. >Even if it's a hard or impossible target per se, the British will apply >their favored doctrine, and area bombing will disrupt the ancillary [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >capable to harass very seriously in 1942, especially if the housing >buildings are wooden, even if the actual production takes place underground. Even if the German project had been totally underground the attempt would have been made to disrupt rail lines leading to the mineshaft. How successful they would have been is perhaps problematic but there's no question that disrupting the access points to the impregnable factory would still have helped the cause. >>If there is _one_ target, the Allies know where it is, and it's not an >>under-the-mountain facility, the Allies can generally damage it and keep it >>damaged, especially from 1942 onwards. > >That was basically my point. Which is basically utter nonsense. D. SignatureTouch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/ -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. Oct 5th, 2004 JDL > But, the German reactor project continued till the end of the war. So, > obviously, they did think it was worth the trouble. They just > continued to use heavy water for some reason. > > Please clarify your understanding of this. Some of this depends on who you mean by "they". It is a mistake to talk about "the Germans" as if they were of one mind. The German physicists thought it was worth the trouble to work on the project with the resources they had. Some of them thought it was worth dangling the possibility of weapons in front of the military, to get more funding. None of them thought it was worth promising weapons to get serious funding. There could have been a variety of reasons for this, including scruples about working on such a destructive weapon, not wanting to waste their country's resources if they failed, or not wanting to be executed if they failed. Often they didn't seem to think it was worth losing credit by cooperating with other German physicists. The German military/government seemed to think it was worthwhile to provide a little funding to keep academic research going, and worth inquiring about any near-term military applications. But with no assurance of such applications, they weren't willing to divert significant resources. German companies thought it was worthwhile to help out as long as they could make enough profit from it. I.G. Farben insisted on getting the patent rights to the improved process as part of a deal to build a heavy water plant. And then they felt it was too small of a business to bother with. On Jul 8, 12:24 am, sh...@cadence.com wrote: > German companies thought it was worthwhile to help out as long as they > could make enough profit from it. I.G. Farben insisted on getting the > patent rights to the improved process as part of a deal to build a > heavy water plant. And then they felt it was too small of a business > to bother with. AFAIK, German companies didn't have an equivalent to the $1 patent that US companies dealt with for some war related work ** mike ** > Modified production processes were necessary to produce it, and > it is the time spent arranging for its production in quantity that kept [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > subcritical piles to determine whether the materials were yet good enough to > build a critical reactor. I get the impression that Szilard was pushing graphite purity before he wrote the early paper on reactor design mentioned in Einstein's 2nd letter to Roosevelt in 1940. Is Szilard's paper, or his 1940 report for the government on reactor design on the web somewhere? > > Modified production processes were necessary to produce it, and > > it is the time spent arranging for its production in quantity that kept [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > Is Szilard's paper, or his 1940 report for the government on reactor > design on the web somewhere? I can't find it Divergent chain reaction in systems composed of uranium and carbon, later the A-55 report One Bibliography has MDDC-446, (November 21, 1946) There is a registry of his papers at http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/testing/html/mss0032a.html and another is a document tree with one heading saying is the "background to Divergent chain, etc" http://texts.cdlib.org:8088/xtf/data/13030/k3/tf0z09n7k3/tf0z09n7k3.xml > > > Modified production processes were necessary to produce it, and > > > it is the time spent arranging for its production in quantity that kept [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > > There is a registry of his papers athttp://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/testing/html/mss0032a.html So, it's pretty clear from that archive that the Szilard manuscript mentioned in the 2nd letter from Einstein to Roosevelt (a letter actually written by Szilard) had the title: "Divergent Chain Reactions in a System Composed of Uranium and Carbon" and was dated February 14, 1940. This became the A-55 Report. This page: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Szilard.html says: "Szilard elaborated on a graphite uranium system in his manuscript entitled "Divergent Chain Reactions in a System Composed of Uranium and Carbon" (later expanded into the "A-55 Report" for the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago) which was submitted and accepted (although withheld) for publication in the Physical Review on February 16, 1940." Interesting that this paper/report of such historical importance is not available on the web. I wonder if it is still subject to some sort of limited access? Anyway, there seems to no way on the web to figure out what it says about graphite purity. >On Germany different teams competed in secrecy from each other, thus >dividing resources and efforts. The authority and decisions of leaders >went unchallenged, even when they were in error. Early mistakes never >got corrected, researchers did not learn from each other. The whole >was much less than the sum of its parts. That paragraph could be applied to many German technical works during the war. D. SignatureTouch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/ -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. Oct 5th, 2004 JDL > In the abstract, nukes don't look like good military weapons. We mainly used the first strike threat to deter a Soviet invasion of Europe. Doesn't that make it a good weapon? A trump card weapon, it might even be defined. > If we could have somehow stablized the situation with the Soviet Union in Europe with conventional forces before a nuclear arms race got started, then maybe nukes would have looked like cumbersome and scary weapons not worth building. Until the SU builds them, exactly to unhinge that stabilization. > We don't always do what we can do, we never based nukes in orbit for instance, we have bans on biological and chemical weapons. True. Assuming that we do know what's up there in orbit, and that we do know nobody's cheating on the bans. > > I am inclined to think though, that no later than the start of the >the Cold [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >In the abstract, nukes don't look like good military weapons. We >mainly used the first strike threat to deter a Soviet invasion of Europe. That's not much of a counter - because it relies on 20/20 hindsight, on knowledge we didn't have at the time. (And isn't entirely correct anyhow as it ignores detterent value versus the Soviets nuclear arms.) >If we could have somehow stablized the situation with the Soviet Union >in Europe with conventional forces before a nuclear arms race got >started, then maybe nukes would have looked like cumbersome and scary >weapons not worth building. Even given that situation - we still face a strategic standoff, and nukes still look attractive because it allows a drawdown of forward deployed forces. D. SignatureTouch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/ -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. Oct 5th, 2004 JDL > > > I am inclined to think though, that no later than the start of the > >the Cold [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > That's not much of a counter - because it relies on 20/20 hindsight, > on knowledge we didn't have at the time. That's certainly not true. There was plenty of understanding of the implications of a nuclear arms race before it started. Read Szilard's biography "Genius in the Shadows". If anything, they overestimated the consequences of not negotiating a way to avoid a nuclear arms race. There was high level discussions of the need to disperse the population of cites in the case of a nuclear arms race. They could not imagine that human beings had sufficient apathy to continue to inhabit cities after they became mega-death- traps. The argument was that negotiations were preferable to any credible and very expensive civil defense programs. Politicians at the time had no idea that the people would tolerate near-zero civil defense. The weapon was essentially useless and civil defense was not practical. Szilard invented the doomsday machine to emphasize the need for negotiations. He designed the cobalt bomb on paper. >(And isn't entirely correct > anyhow as it ignores detterent value versus the Soviets nuclear arms.) I don't know about the Soviet side, but both sides basically called off the nuclear arms race around 1965, so they could have done it earlier perhaps. > >If we could have somehow stablized the situation with the Soviet Union > >in Europe with conventional forces before a nuclear arms race got [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > nukes still look attractive because it allows a drawdown of forward > deployed forces. That's hindsight. We liked force reduction and learned that people would live with no civil defence. That was not obvious before the fact. > D. > -- [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. > Oct 5th, 2004 JDL >> > > I am inclined to think though, that no later than the start of the >> >the Cold [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > >That's certainly not true. <snip handwaving and evasive bullshit requiring 20/20 hindsight.> I await your demonstration that nuclear weapons don't look like attractive military weapons from a point of view that doesn't have any experience with said weapons. >>(And isn't entirely correct >> anyhow as it ignores detterent value versus the Soviets nuclear arms.) > >I don't know about the Soviet side, but both sides basically called >off the nuclear arms race around 1965, so they could have done it earlier >perhaps. I don't know about your planet, but here on Earth the arms race continued unabated up until virtually the end of the Cold War. >> >If we could have somehow stablized the situation with the Soviet Union >> >in Europe with conventional forces before a nuclear arms race got [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >That's hindsight. We liked force reduction and learned that people >would live with no civil defence. That was not obvious before the fact. No, that's a recounting of the reason why we shifted to relying on a nuclear deterrent. Conventional forces were horridly expensive, and nukes looked like a reasonable alternative. Developing them late doesn't change that. D. SignatureTouch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/ -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. Oct 5th, 2004 JDL > >> > > I am inclined to think though, that no later than the start of the > >> >the Cold [quoted text clipped - 54 lines] > -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. > Oct 5th, 2004 JDL If you count the idea of the bunker buster a-bomb and the need to redesign some of the weapons it continues to about ...today. http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2009/0103/spch_nukedet.html > Conventional forces were horridly expensive, and > nukes looked like a reasonable alternative. Developing them late > doesn't change that. If they were developed late, how would we have contained USSR after WWII before we developed the nukes? There are only two answers: 1. Conventional forces. Once we had committed to that direction, we would have never switched to MAD and the first use theat to protect Europe. You would advise the President: "Conventional defense of Europe is way too expensive, so let's build the doomsday machine and switch to a policy of mutual assured destruction." 2. Containment failure. Europe is aready in the communist camp. What good is MAD and a first use threat in that senario? > > Conventional forces were horridly expensive, and > > nukes looked like a reasonable alternative. Developing them late [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > 2. Containment failure. Europe is aready in the communist camp. What > good is MAD and a first use threat in that senario? And, you would advise the President: "Civil defense against the doomsday machine would be way too expensive. So, lets just leave Americans completely undefended." Sounds like a great idea! >And, you would advise the President: "Civil defense against the >doomsday machine would be way too expensive. So, lets just leave >Americans completely undefended." In an early nuke era, when you are talking delivery by manned aircraft (since inevitably they would be part of the massive conventional force the nukes were meant to replace), civil defense isn't even an issue because military defenses (fighters and interceptors) are in place. You seem to forget that a) the 'fear' of the bomb and MAD that you mistakenly treat as instinctual is an artifact of the post H-bomb era, not the A-bomb era; and b) that civil defense doesn't become an issue until the bombers start to be replaced by missiles; and c) nobody seems to have much cared about civil defense anyway. D. SignatureTouch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/ -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. Oct 5th, 2004 JDL > >And, you would advise the President: "Civil defense against the > >doomsday machine would be way too expensive. So, lets just leave [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > until the bombers start to be replaced by missiles; and c) nobody > seems to have much cared about civil defense anyway. The H-Bomb was conceived by 1946 and an A-Bomb test was not required to concieve it. My reading of the history indicates that the nuclear physicist who were against an arms race before 1950 were really good at looking ahead and seeing the implications, in particular the unrealistic cost of civil defense. Nobody cared about civil defense in the stoved-piped decision-making process that led to the use of the Bomb against Japan. Groves actually thought the Russians had no uranium. There was an assumption that the US had a big lead. In reality, the Russians ended up in control of huge deposits in eastern Europe and had a spy in the Manhatten project. In a more open decision making process, the outcome could have been different. > D. > -- [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. > Oct 5th, 2004 JDL >> >And, you would advise the President: "Civil defense against the >> >doomsday machine would be way too expensive. So, lets just leave [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] >The H-Bomb was conceived by 1946 and an A-Bomb test was not required >to concieve it. So the f.ck what? A delayed Manhattan Project means the delayed deployment of A-bombs, not skipping A-bombs and developing H-bombs. You aren't going to get H-bombs without having A-bombs first, even if on your planet it's possible to conceive a working one without having A-bomb tests first. >My reading of the history indicates that the nuclear physicist who >were against an arms race before 1950 were really good at looking >ahead and seeing the implications, in particular the unrealistic >cost of civil defense. A) Hindsight is always 20/20. B) So the f.ck what? This has nothing to do with the points I raised. >Nobody cared about civil defense in the stoved-piped decision-making >process that led to the use of the Bomb against Japan. Groves >actually thought the Russians had no uranium. There was an assumption >that the US had a big lead. In reality, the Russians ended up in >control of huge deposits in eastern Europe and had a spy in the >Manhatten project. All which not only has f.ck-all to do with the points I raised, it has f.ck all to do with the history of civil defense on this planet. You need to either alter the dosage of your meds or stop taking drugs as your connection with reality becomes more tenuous with each post. >In a more open decision making process, the outcome could have been >different. An assumption, not a fact. Learn to tell the difference. D. SignatureTouch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/ -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. Oct 5th, 2004 JDL >> Conventional forces were horridly expensive, and >> nukes looked like a reasonable alternative. Developing them late [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >1. Conventional forces. Once we had committed to that direction, we >would have never switched to MAD and the first use theat to protect Europe. That's an assumption, not a fact. Learn to tell the difference. >You would advise the President: "Conventional defense of Europe is way >too expensive, so let's build the doomsday machine and switch to a policy >of mutual assured destruction." If MAD were the only option, and the nuclear defense of the United States and the nuclear defense of Europe were one and the same, inextricably linked... But neither is true. D. SignatureTouch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/ -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. Oct 5th, 2004 JDL > >> Conventional forces were horridly expensive, and > >> nukes looked like a reasonable alternative. Developing them late [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > States and the nuclear defense of Europe were one and the same, > inextricably linked... But neither is true. I am not sure what you mean. The threat of MAD or a conventional defense of Europe were the only options. Is there another? > D. > -- [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. > Oct 5th, 2004 JDL > > Conventional forces were horridly expensive, and > > nukes looked like a reasonable alternative. Developing them late [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > would > have never switched to MAD and the first use theat to protect Europe. Why would that be? A huge standing army is a huge on-going expense, not a one-time investment. The opportunity to cut costs by partial demobilization after nuclear weapons were developed would be impossible to resist. ... > 2. Containment failure. Europe is aready in the communist camp. What > good is MAD and a first use threat in that senario? There is a third answer: The West lives in fear of a Warsaw Pact attack that does not materialize while it builds up its conventional forces again, and develops an atomic bomb. This is the most likely situation. I don't think retrospective analysis supports Western fears of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe in the late 1940s, either in capability or intention. > I am reading a bio of Szilard. > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > If the project was delayed and there was no big push during WWII, > then when would the Bomb have been first tested, if ever? The Cold War becomes hot. The Soviet Union takes over all of Germany but gets bogged down with guerrilla wars in either France or Spain. The United States nukes the Soviet Union around 1949. After that it becomes difficult to speculate. |
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