The first atomic bomb is to be dropped on Germany. What would be Britian's level of involvement

[yulzari]

A nuclear airburst where the fireball does not touch the ground produces far less fallout as little material is irradiated by the fireball. The ones used over Japan fit this description (but there is some fallout but far less than otherwise). As bombs got bigger then the fireball becomes so large that interaction with the ground is inevitable. This is one reason (of oh so many) that the West Germans were acutely unimpressed with NATO placing nuclear mines (with their warming chickens) to hit invading Warsaw Pact armour. In shallow water the fallout is more localised but more dangerous and is a means to render ports unusable.

In the OP case there would be little fallout but if they were used on Germany without British knowledge then NATO would be unlikely as we know it IOTL as the USA would be regarded as unreliable and untrustworthy by it's potential allies.

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As an aside (and not to minimise the effect upon Japanese civilians) people judge the effect of the two Japanese attacks by post war photographs and presume that the destroyed areas of the cities were caused by the bomb blast. The blast was indeed hitting the ground but one should note that Japanese cities then were lightly built of wood and most of the devastation was caused by fires spreading across these wooden buildings. Concrete and steel frame buildings survived as (damaged) structures even when directly below the bombs.

 

[fscott]

Those who developed the atomic bomb had fewer qualms about dropping it on Nazi Germany than Imperial Japan for obvious reasons.

Based on the scenario we have Germany retreating back to more defensible borders by early 1945. In terms of men and resources, they are running out of both.

Let's assume a successful atomic bomb test at Los Alamos in early 1945 and the bomb transported via ship in a heavily guarded convoy to Britain soon after.

The Yalta meeting happens on cue and Roosevelt is able to tell Stalin (who already knew) and Churchill about the atomic bomb. The three leaders would agree for it to be used on Germany and would then detail an immediate study into the consequences of a Nazi collapse.

The planned joint spring offensive preparation continues - both eastern and western fronts will attack in western Poland and along the German border simultaneously on March 15th but the Bomb will drop sooner if weather allows.

Discussion turns to potential targets - Churchill suggests Berlin but Stalin, surprisingly, demurs. A destroyed city in his zone of occupation would be an unwelcome burden - Berlin will be needed for the political future of Germany. The suggestion of a demonstration on a Baltic island is also quickly dismissed.

One option is a site of symbolism for Hitler - Munich and Nuremburg are mentioned - but in the end the attack list concentrates on cities nearer Berlin so no one in the Nazi leadership could have any doubt as to the power unleashed. Magdeburg had been considered but the city had been badly damaged on January 16th but a raid planned for the target city on February 23rd was called off at the last minute.

The specially equipped B52 to be flown by Tibbetts and his crew arrives in England on March 5th and four days later takes off with a heavy fighter escort. There are other bombing raids that night and no one on the ground pays attention to the single plane approaching its target until it reaches its destination just after dawn.

At 7.24am, the pre-dawn of Leipzig is illuminated by a hot white light - 580,000 people lived in the city and 150,000 were killed in the instant of the explosion. The resulting blast shattered everything and ignited a firestorm which killed another 150,000 people. The first anyone in Berlin was aware of the destruction of Leipzig was when military telephone operators found their calls to local units cut in mid sentence. At Zossen, an observer sees a bright light to the south west, some 100 miles away and, a few minutes later, an immense rolling explosion.

By lunchtime reports are filtering in to OKW and to the Reichschancellery of the destruction of the city of Leipzig. The early stories are contradictory - some think it is a massive raid and firestorm but others speak of a single explosion and a blinding white light. Columns of burned and injured refugees stream out of the city in all directions overwhelming military attempts to hold them back. Joseph Goebbels goes to the city's outskirts the following day and reports back to the Fuehrer in tears. He has a film made showing the devastation and human suffering. At this time little is known of radiation or its effects.

The flash and blast were observed and heard by Soviet forces in Poland west of Lodz and by allied aircrew heading back from dawn raids over western Germany. It is a sight none will ever forget.

The Allies broadcast a final ultimatum to Berlin on the morning of March 10th. Goebbels rebuffs this angrily calling the Americans "barbarians who have degraded themselves and all humanity". At Zossen, Keitel and Jodl make a more sanguine assessment - there is little or no defence against this new weapon but perhaps this is the only weapon the Americans have.

Three days later, that assertion will be dispelled when a second atomic device, flown by B-52 from an airbase in southern Italy, explodes above Munich. 200,000 die at once from the explosion and a further 100,000 will perish in the firestorm. Inmates at Dachau, some 20 miles from Munich, feel the heat and hear the roar of the explosion.

News reaches Berlin later in the day of the second test and it's harder for Hitler to ignore. Again, the roads out of Munich are jammed with refugees and survivors but the Nazi leadership has no time to plan before Operation Eclipse is launched on March 15th. A stupendous barrage of Soviet and British artillery, parachute drops and conventional air raids herald the final onslaught.

There is much debate among historians over the impact of the atomic bombs. The allies found themselves having to deal with the appalling consequences of the atomic devices and while the rebuilt cities of Munich and Leipzig speak volumes for the style of American and Soviet rule. The events of March and April 1945 bear witness to the heavy fighting which engulfed the conquered Germany. From the west, east and south they swarmed across the German plain with the Russians and Americans famously meeting near Torgau on April 25th.

Hitler perished in his Bunker under a hail of Russian artillery fire leaving Goering to surrender what was left of the Reich on May 2nd near Bamb

I think you mean B29's

 

[Derek Jackson]

My guess is that if the bomb were available earlier Dresden becomes an even better known name.

The problem is that HITLER is not going to surrender

 

[Captain Seafort]

My guess is that if the bomb were available earlier Dresden becomes an even better known name.

Indeed. IIRC Dresden had been largely left alone before the February '45 raid, despite being a major communications hub, precisely because it had been pencilled in as target number one on the nuclear target list, just as the Japanese nuclear targets had been left alone in order to provide a useful effects test.

 

[viperjock]

Indeed. IIRC Dresden had been largely left alone before the February '45 raid, despite being a major communications hub, precisely because it had been pencilled in as target number one on the nuclear target list, just as the Japanese nuclear targets had been left alone in order to provide a useful effects test.

Dresden had been left alone prior to late 1944 because it had no strategic value.major The 8th Air Force first bombed it's rail yards as a secondary target in October 1944. It wasn't until the Russians Started getting close that the RAF started seriously looking at hitting the city. Bomber Harris put out a memo where he basically said he wanted the Russians to see what Bomber Command was capable of.

 

[fastmongrel]

Dresden had been left alone prior to late 1944 because it had no strategic value.

Not true Dresden was a major industrial and communications centre. Dresden specialized in the manufacture of a wide range of precision products for the Wehrmacht. Over the course of the Allied strategic bombing campaign against Germany, many of Dresden's factories were converted from manufacture of civilian or luxury goods to the manufacture of war materials. There were 127 Factories manufacturing war machines plus hundreds more small works producing components

The two most important war industries in Dresden were Zeiss-Ikon AG and Radio-Mende.

Zeiss-Ikon built cameras, gunsights, bombsights, rangefinders, lens and mirrors for the Wehrmacht.

Zeiss-Ikon ran a number of factories in Dresden employing over 10,000 workers, including hundreds of concentration camp inmates from Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen and thousands of forcibly conscripted foreign workers.

Radio-Mende started out as a manufacturer of the Reich's "people's radio" - the Volksempfänger - but by 1944 was given over to working for the Wehrmacht: field telephones, two-way radios, artillery observation devices, teleprinters, electrical fuses for the Luftwaffe and other electrical equipment.

Radio-Mende employed 2500 workers in 1943 and continued to expand in 1944. Radio-Mende's workforce include 300 women from the Flossenbürg concentration camp, 600 women from Bergen-Belsen and hundreds of conscripted Russian and Polish women.

As Allied bombing in the West pulverized German industries, many Dresden factories were converted to the manufacture of war materials.

Seidel and Naumann once made typewriters and sewing machines. By 1944, they were still manufacturing a few typewriters, all of which went to the Wehrmacht, but were also manufacturing rifle and machine gun parts.

Richard Gäbel & Co. once made waffle machine and marzipan makers was devoting 96% of its outputs to armaments by March 1944, including torpedo components.

J. C. Müller Universelle-Werk once made cigarette making machines. By 1944 it was making machine guns, searchlights, directional guidance equipment and torpedo and aircraft parts. It employed over 4000 workers, including 700 women from the Ravensbruck concentration camp.

Bernsdorf & Co. once made cigarettes. By 1944, the cigarette making making machines had been adapted to make rifle and machine gun bullets. Workers from concentration camps had quotas to fulfil: 1000 cartridges per hour, working over 12 hour shifts, seven days a week.

Deutsche Werkstätte once made furniture. By 1944 it was turning out parts for the V-1 buzz bomb, the V-2 rocket and aircraft parts.

The Wehrmacht's armaments office maintained a directory of businesses and factories doing war work, each identified by a unique code. The directory listed 127 separate businesses or manufacturers in Dresden working for the Wehrmacht. There were probably many more in Dresden since the directory did not include many component and part manufacturers.

But the Bomber Command and the US 8th Air Force weren't after Dresden's factories, which had long been out of reach in eastern Germany. They were after Dresden's railroad lines and marshalling yards.

British intelligence had picked up on German plans to withdraw up to forty divisions from the Western Front, Scandinavia and training depots in Germany to reinforce the Eastern Front to contest annual Soviet winter offensive. Bomber Command's Joint Intelligence Committee proposed to hinder the troop transfer by attacking transportation centers in eastern Germany and Berlin, Leipzig, Chemnitz and Dresden were added to Bomber Command's target list.


I copied the above from this forum a few years ago but I have forgotten the author. If anyone recognises this let me know and I will put your name as author.

 

[fastmongrel]

A Dresden website has the following

http://www.dresden.de/en/02/07/City-of-Industry.php

As a protest against the growing concentration and increasing internationalisation in certain important Dresden industrial branches, the early 20th century also brought forth various reform movements, leading to the founding of enterprises such as the Deutsche Werkstätten workshops in Hellerau.
Numerous world firsts and traditional brand-name products strengthened the reputation of typewriters, photographic equipment, electrical products and packaging machinery from Dresden. Even though there were, in 1929, for example, ten major enterprises with more than 1,000 employees in the city, it was equally the endless number of small and medium companies and businesses which determined the extraordinary diversity in Dresden's economic profile.
During both World Wars of the 20th century, Dresden's industry was placed almost fully at the disposal of armaments production.
The air raids of February 1945 destroyed 70% of the industrial facilities in Dresden.

 

[riggerrob]

Granted,
Air bursts produce less radiation.

But I still believe that it was in WALLIES best interests to "assist" their Russian allies by reducing East German cities to rubble.
..... if only to prevent Russians from salvaging the latest rocket technology from Pennemunde ....... etc.

 

[viperjock]

Good information from @fastmongrel.
The point I was trying to make is that Dresden became a target of interest late in the war. If the Russians were not close to the German border would Harris have subjected the city to a "city busting" raid anyway?

 

[Aber]

The point I was trying to make is that Dresden became a target of interest late in the war. If the Russians were not close to the German border would Harris have subjected the city to a "city busting" raid anyway?

Almost certainly, he was working his way through the target list...

 

[Griffon]

There have been other threads about the atomic bomb being used against Nazi Germany however this thread is not about what target to choose or the after effects.

What if the atomic bomb is ready for use in January-February 1945. For the purpose of the story let's go with the POD that the Germans do not collapse in France after D-Day and the allies are just reaching the German border in the winter of 1944. In the east the Russians are also stalled in Poland.

President Roosevelt decides to use the new atomic weapon against Germany first, staying the course with the whole "defeat Germany first" plan. My question is what would be the level of British involvement? Because the bomb is going to delivered by a B-29 flying from England what members of the Government would be briefed on the Manhattan Project? Would there be concerns about what if the bomb detonated by accident in England? Would Bomber command and Arthur Harris be briefed? Would Churchill insist on RAF involvement (more than just an observer riding along on a Superfortress)?

Churchill and, probably, Harris will be informed. Britain will have an observer on the plane and a few observations shadowing the attack formation. Bomber command will also stage a diversionary raid shortly before the atom bomb attack to help draw off the Luftwaffe. US bomber forces will also launch a diversionary raid.

 

[Catsmate]

Okay, let's back up a bit here. In January 1945 the atomic bomb didn't exist. The Trinity test at Alamogordo didn't happen until 16 July 1945, and that was the result of the most intensive, well funded, and urgent scientific research project in history up to that time. The project scientists (who were the best in the world, BTW) were under tremendous strain to produce a working weapon before the end of the war, and I don't see how the project could have been made to move faster. You will have to have a POD that explains the quicker production, and good luck with that. You can't hand wave a bomb into existence. Without a realistic POD for a quicker bomb, this whole thread is rather pointless.

Dump the uranium design and plough the resources into more plutonium reactors and separation facilities. Also erase the early slow start to the Manhattan project, that'd gain six to eight months.

The problem with using Atomic bombs in the Euro theater is that it is likely that Germany would come to the conclusion that all 3 legs of the NBC triad are equal (a conclusion that the OTL present day US accepts at an intellectual level if not necessarily a pragmatic one). Accordingly they're likely to counterattack with Biological & Chemical, and the brunt of it is likely to fall on the UK. Japan would likely have retaliated in such a fashion if it had the wherewithal, but it didn't. A Germany hanging on long enough to get meaningfully nuked is much more likely to.

Germany didn't have a significant BW capability. Their CW stocks were large but the delivery systems were tactically orientated so while they could drench Allied troops in sulphur mustard, phosgene, tabun (and exotica like chlorine trifluoride) the Allies could retaliate in kind, plus nuclear and biological weapons.

 

[Catsmate]

With the conditions specified by the OP the Brit contribution would be with officers and technicians in the supporting roles. We have to remember there was a effort by some US leaders to cut the Brits out of the atomic weapons research starting in 1944. That lot will still be operating in this ATL & it will require attention at the top to make the atomic attacks on Germany a joint operation.

If the bomb development was quicker but the Silverplate programme wasn't, the UK might be contributing the delivery aircraft too.

 

[Catsmate]

Why were the Brits cut out?

The US wanted a monopoly on nuclear weapons. Hence measure like excluding UK personnel from the Hanford sites and later the McMahon act.
It took FDR's intervention to counteract the efforts by Bush, Conant and Groves to exclude Britain from the project entirely. Ironic because without the British kick-start it wouldn't have happened.

 

[andys]

Leonard Cheshire and William Penney were official British observers of the Nagasaki attack. They were aboard one of the support B-29s.

 

[fastmongrel]

I wonder if the Soviets would have been alerted after all Dresden was going to be in their zone according to the Yalta conference.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Leonard Cheshire and William Penney were official British observers of the Nagasaki attack. They were aboard one of the support B-29s.

Any details on any other tasks they had in the Manhatten Project?

 

[Simon]

Without a realistic POD for a quicker bomb, this whole thread is rather pointless.

No, it's not. You can certainly start a thread with the understanding that for the sake of discussion certain points might be glossed over, providing that they're not absolutely improbable, if you mainly want to discuss just certain aspects of a situation without necessarily having an in-depth point of divergence. The original poster brings up some interesting aspects of things and people seem interested discussing things, that to me would appear to make it a worthwhile topic.

With the conditions specified by the OP the Brit contribution would be with officers and technicians in the supporting roles. We have to remember there was a effort by some US leaders to cut the Brits out of the atomic weapons research starting in 1944. That lot will still be operating in this ATL and it will require attention at the top to make the atomic attacks on Germany a joint operation.

IIRC the US made an offer for a joint project early on when the UK held the lead in nuclear research but for various reasons the British prevaricated and the moment passed, later on the US had caught up so could be more selective in its cooperation. Hell, it needed some heavy British prompting to get the US seriously looking at nuclear weapons. A decent point of divergence is that Lyman Briggs doesn't sit on the scientific reports from the UK and the British agree to the earlier proposal of a joint project with it being specifically written into the agreements and those being officially recognised.

Getting back to the original topic your comment about certain folks trying to cut the British out of things sounds familiar. Again having to go from memory but I believe the British were meant to have observers on one, or possibly both, of the chase/observation planes but American commanders on the ground tried to or keep them off the aircraft.

 

[baldipaul]

Aikiko Takakura survived Hiroshima only 300m from ground zero inside a solid stone built bank. The early atomic bombs were not that powerful, however she must have been very fortunate to have been able to live through the effects of the heat, blast wave over pressure and then the air gets sucked away as the mushroom cloud forms being so close.

 

[torten]

The British would know, would have a significant say in target selection (As to where, maybe Western Germany so that it will in the Western zone of occupation.) They would also probably have observers on the aircraft, though I expect the Americans would attempt to do observation, weather reports etc themselves as much as possible.

Of course, if the Americans have two Bombs available, then drop one on Japan and one on Germany. Simples.