The material resources needed to build a plutonium bomb are not that great. America spent a great deal by exploring every possible avenue for bomb building. Israel built plutonium bombs as early as the Sixties, India in the Seventies. It could have been done in Great Britain if necessary. Nazi Germany might have managed it, in spite of the bombing. The largest obstacle was inadequate knowledge of neutron reaction cross sections.
Tube Alloys and a British nuclear programme
- Thread starter Gunnarnz
- Start date
From the discussion so far, it sounds like Britain could not only have developed a nuclear weapon, they might have beaten the OTL timetable due to a lucky guess at which technologies to use.
So, assuming their programme goes reasonably well, how would they use their weapon(s)? Would they bother with a test shot (like Trinity), or head straight for somewhere with a swastika above it?
So, assuming their programme goes reasonably well, how would they use their weapon(s)? Would they bother with a test shot (like Trinity), or head straight for somewhere with a swastika above it?
Well, gun-type uranium bombs *are* very "reliable" (in the sense that they are virtually certain to detonate if dropped). So much so that, famously, the Little Boy design was never test-detonated. I'd give 60/40 odds on the Brits just dropping one on Berlin versus nuking the North Sea first.
The only reason to take a test shot is to avoid the risk of an un-detonated weapon being recovered by the Germans. Perhaps the bomb could be equipped with a back-up self destruct device, like a thermite charge.
Shimbo
Sounds like what you need is something to heighten mistrust between the UK and US.
One simple solution, which also eases a lot of the economic problems is that Britain makes peace in 1940 but starts preparing for a re-match. Because it makes peace the US is more isolationist and Britain also wants to keep every technological secret it can to boost both its military and economic position.
Steve
Shimbo
Is that a TL in this board? Sounds like it might be interesting?
Steve
It's a novel. It's here.
Shimbo
Is that a TL in this board? Sounds like it might be interesting?
Steve
Ahem cough try his sig
ALREADY EXPLAINED WHY NOT
Boy, threads sure go a ton better when people read what's come before in the thread. Otherwise, threads can go nowhere. I've been seeing rather alot of that recently, and consequently lame threads. So, I'm reposting what I had to say, with the important bits bolded. I also have an alternate version of the challenge, which maybe can make progress now.
If Tube Alloys development had been separated, it probably would've stretched too long to have had any effect on the war, and Japan would've had to've been invaded. Bomb development was really, really, really hard, so a joint effort was needed for it be done on time. And, IOTL, it didn't arrive til mid '45, already so late.
Getting enough pure bomb-grade materials is still hard enough to be what keeps nuclear proliferation slow.
Sorry.... Now, there's an alternate interesting challenge, which is, thread, how could unified Bomb development have happened on Commonwealth turf?
Boy, threads sure go a ton better when people read what's come before in the thread. Otherwise, threads can go nowhere. I've been seeing rather alot of that recently, and consequently lame threads. So, I'm reposting what I had to say, with the important bits bolded. I also have an alternate version of the challenge, which maybe can make progress now.
If Tube Alloys development had been separated, it probably would've stretched too long to have had any effect on the war, and Japan would've had to've been invaded. Bomb development was really, really, really hard, so a joint effort was needed for it be done on time. And, IOTL, it didn't arrive til mid '45, already so late.
Getting enough pure bomb-grade materials is still hard enough to be what keeps nuclear proliferation slow.
Sorry.... Now, there's an alternate interesting challenge, which is, thread, how could unified Bomb development have happened on Commonwealth turf?
Hmm... as you obviously know so much more than the rest of us perhaps you'd like to explain yourself in a bit more detail, just so we can all be educated by your wisdom.
With sources, obviously.
I wouldn't put any money on a standard Lancaster getting to Berlin...you are going to need something like the Avro 684 Straospheric Lancaster or the Vickers Victory bomber - really got to wonder if any of the people who knew about Tube Alloys knew about the Victory bomber - the issue of only being able to carry a single bomb would go away.
You wouldnt want to bomb Berlin anyway, do that an dthere is noone left to surrender...
Logical early targets are one or two of the big coastal cities with navy yards and other heavy industry. That way, if something goes wrong the bomb goes in the ocean, so the Nazi's dont get hold of it
The operating premises so far seem to be that the UK programme had already made a lucky guess about how to purify the nuclear materials, so it might not have had to have been such an extensive - and time consuming project - as OTL. Certainly it was really hard, but given what people have been saying it doesn't seem to be impossible that the British Empire on its own could have produced a usable weapon.
As for the issue of it being too late... too late for what? Originally I was wondering if Britain could produce a bomb in time to use during whatever WW2 turns into, but the butterflies will have been flapping pretty hard by 1945. Maybe a better question would be: "what are the implications of a British effort, starting in 1939, to go-it-alone with respect to nuclear weapons"?
It's certainly hard, but I don't know if that's enough to say that the British Empire couldn't afford the resources or time to get it. They had control of (or very friendly relations with) most of the places that produce Uranium, so the raw materials are certainly available. As for the technical issues, I'm not a nuclear scientist but others have indicated that it's reasonably plausible they could have done the processing needed, even under wartime conditions.
Well, we could have the British try to develop a nuclear weapon... that would probably get it done on Commonwealth turf.
Otherwise, the obvious places to do it are Canada or Australia. Perhaps it is decided that since it's not sure how much radioactive material will be needed, it makes sense to put the project near the sources of supply? Australia qualifies on that, and it's comfortably out of the way. Japanese raids on Darwin aside, I don't think a nuclear research program is in danger of being overrun.
I read this *asssertion* upstream, but didn't see much more argument for it there than here.
There's still Hitler's eyrie, so he and his top command structure are probably still kicking (depending on when you drop the bomb). But you probably maximize your chances of a surrender if you eliminate the top brass but leave the next level alive, so yeah . . .
Unfortunately, this is not quite so. The average terrorist ring would find it impossible to enrich uranium or manufacture plutonium, of course, but even a smallish government can do it easily enough (Iran, North Korea, South Africa, India, Israel, etc.)
There are a couple of factors working against proliferation.
First, any nation that avails itself of atomic weapons does not become the sole possessor thereof, as the U.S. did in 1945, nor do they automatically have ICBMs. They may be of some deterrent value in a local conflict, but if North Korea dropped a nuke on Seoul, they would not then be allowed to conquer South Korea. A fistful of atom bombs are not the same game-breaker today that they were in WWII.
It's a lot harder to build atom bombs in secret than it is to just build atom bombs, especially with the quality of spy satellites. India did it, but they probably couldn't do it today. Most countries just don't want nukes as bad as Iran does.
It took the U.S. three years to construct three atomic weapons of two designs. For the U.K. to produce a single weapon of a single design in four years, given one or two correct guesses about how to proceed, is quite conservative, I think.
It also occurred to me that one other reason to take a test shot would be to recover the plutonium if it failed. I don't suppose it would be any riskier than an unexploded bomb - the spectators would just watch from a lot farther back.
I admire a good understatement. That'll do until a bigger one comes along.