A Bomb 1944 was there a tactical use in Europe
- Thread starter Derek Jackson
- Start date
The German Army is not going to dissolve with Hitler dead at least at this point in time... by 1945 its a different story, but you are not wrong that killing Hitler would empower the Field Marshals in the West who wanted to surrender their forces to get the WAllies to Berlin before the Soviets as there would no longer be the Hitler alive to issue orders to the contrary.
Could be that Lübeck nuked was planned as Tactical ?
the town of Lübeck was consider as first target for US A-bomb.
but the town was heavy bombed by RAF during war and was war-ravaged.
in 1944 it was overrun by refugees from east of the reich.
So why waste a A-bomb on that town ?
Lübeck is close to HQ of the Wehrmacht, so the Generalfeldmarschals could see for them self the power of the Atom...
the town of Lübeck was consider as first target for US A-bomb.
but the town was heavy bombed by RAF during war and was war-ravaged.
in 1944 it was overrun by refugees from east of the reich.
So why waste a A-bomb on that town ?
Lübeck is close to HQ of the Wehrmacht, so the Generalfeldmarschals could see for them self the power of the Atom...
The British knew by late 1944 the issue and it wasn't so much the Generalfeldmarschals in the West wanted to fight on after it was clear they had a stable hold on Normandy, its that as long as Hitler was alive lets just say they couldn't trust that if they ordered the divisional commanders to surrender and Hitler was alive to issue countermanding orders they wouldn't follow Hitler's orders. They didn't have the same worries regarding Goering or Himmler successfully countermanding their orders.
You want to open the field up for Von Kluge, Rommel, etc to take exective action to surrender their forces in the West the best way is to eliminate the Nazi political leadership.
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Was it?
Lübeck is "close" to the OKW? Maybe for some values of "close". It's 270 kms flying as the crow flies.
Michel Van said:
in most literature about early US Atomic weapon program, claim that Lübeck was on top of the list.
the OKW were in town of Flensburg, what is in driving distance and in range for small Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft to Lübeck.
(it's much closer as Hiroshima to Military HQ in Tokyo)
There's always someone. Doenitz, who ended up signing them anyway, wouldn't have been in Berlin, he'd surely have been based in Kiel or the like?
I agree with those who say nuke Berlin, it's more like performing a lobotomy on a violently insane criminal than taking out the legitimate leadership of a foreign nation. Nuke any other target no matter how important and Hitler will just go more bat schit insane and spur on the German people to fight to the bitter end. He would not only not care if Germany was laid waste from end to end, it's what he would have preferred. Microwave him and who's ever left to take over will end the war.
This would be a different matter enterly in 1944 at least before the purge of the officer corps and when you had in tact Army Groups in the West and East.
It makes the most long term sense for Europe to accept one battlefield surrender after another so that you keep the Red Army busy in the East while the WAllied armies get as far into central Europe as they can.
Also, a decapitation strike on the regime prevents it from responding to the nuclear attacks with battlefield chemical weapons which they had tons of. Its impossible to know if Hitler would do it given how far his mind was gone at that point.
Dönitz was named a successor by Hitler so he had that legitimity. If you nuke Berlin and German leadership there isn't anybody who could take over in legal manner and would be accepted by all. You could accept individual surrenders by fieldmarshals and generals but that doesn't mean Germany as a state ceased to fight. When surrender was signed in OTL everybody laid down their arms. If there is nobody who is in charge and who can order this then you get partial surrender in West/South but not East.
von hitchofen
Banned
Lübeck was bombed heavily once, as a demonstration of Bomber Command's power
as a town mainly constructed of wood, it burnt well, it was a coastal town so it was easy[ish] to find by night
however bombing it again was never contemplated, as it was the route into Germany for Red Cross parcels to the POW camps - would the US nuke such a city?
Lubeck has been referenced as a European A-Bomb target, but beyond the comment about literature about the early atomic program, does anyone have any more detail?
Cologne sounds like a sensible target if it's a big rail hub though...
Cologne sounds like a sensible target if it's a big rail hub though...
Andre27
Banned
Tactical use of A-bombs. In my opinion, the very nature of an A-bomb doesn't allow for tactical use. Massive destruction and residual radiation.
The only weapon of mass destruction which has the potential to be used on a tactical level is toxic gas.
The people who built tactical nukes later on would disagree with you.
Or are you referring to WWII A-Bombs, which had higher explosive powers?
Interesting, i didn't know about this. Could you quote two sources, then? Thank you.
You're wrong. We're talking about a 1944 nuclear attack. The OKW began moving to Flensburg from Zossen (270 kms from Lübeck) on April 20, 1945, and wasn't operational in Flensburg before May 2.
Andre27
Banned
The whole term "tactical nuke" is something to please the politicians.
Usage on a battlefield doesn't make it a tactical weapon.
While it was NATO doctrine to use nukes to stop soviet advance, it was also understood that doing so would chain to strategic use of nuclear weapons.
Hence my statement: there is no tactical usage of nuclear weapons. If anything the political impact alone makes the use of nuclear weapons a strategic matter.
I disagree. You can certainly say - and I'd agree with you - that the tactical use of a tactical nuclear warhead may lead to strategic uses and that is has a political weight.
That is not the same as saying that a Mk 54 warhead dialed down to the 10-ton yield and fired from a Davy Crockett recoilless rifle - max range 2 km s in the M28 version - is a strategic weapon per se. It cannot hit anything that isn't within 2 kms of the frontline, and when it does, the yield is just 14 times the Dora's HE round, or 2.5 times the Grand Slam bomb's. Little Boy, for comparison, is 1,200-1,400 times this dialed-down Mk 54's yield.
Andre27
Banned
You still miss the point. An atomic weapon is a WMD and therefor by definition a strategic weapon.
The range and usage is insignificant because of the sheer political ramifications. There is simply no tactical usage of nuclear weapons.
There would have been no tactical use for an atomic weapon in 1944.
For those who claim that a nuclear weapon would be able to bust bunkers open your totally mistaken as the shockwave and overpressure at ground level is far less than conventional explosives which would have been far more effective in that role.
For those that assume that a major battle would be a good location you have to consider the blast and damage radius; from the bombs dropped on Japan we know that only about 26% of people were killed within 3mi of the epicenter of the blast, and that ~85% of all those killed were within an area about half a mile in radius.
Hence you've got about a 2km blast zone where it will be tactically useful.
Given that most battles ranged over tens of kilometers of front your hardly going to make a dent in even the most fierce battles of 1944. Thus while you'll certainly shock the troops in the region your not really dropping a battle winning wonder weapon.
Then we have to consider the effects of radiation. The weapon designers knew very well that the bombs would produce radioactive material, thus they knew they didn't really want to be moving into areas that had been bombed, at least not right after the blast.
Thus we get a situation like with the mines on the Somme in the Great War where having detonated you massive explosion you have to wait before moving forward giving the enemy time to fall back and create a new defensive line.
Because of the devastating nature of the weapon non of the allied countries (occupied or not) are going to want that weapon dropped on their land hence they are going to press for it to be dropped on Germany. Dropping the weapon here isn't really tactical since the battles here are yet to come for the most part.
We have to remember that there was an opinion to invite 3rd parties and deligations from the axis to watch the Trinity(?) blast to let the Axis know that the Allies had built the Atomic Bomb and that within a few months that was going to be dropped on their forces or cities. The idea being to let the axis commander know the war was lost and have them give up without ever having to use the weapon in anger.
If the Allies had the Atomic Bomb in 1944 that is the most likely course of action rather than actually dropping the bomb on Germany, and even if they had dropped it on Germany the way that the Nazis could use the propaganda of the Allies vapourising a city means that's the last place the Allies would want to drop the weapon.
Hence Berlin or any other German city is not an opition to demonstrate the weapon. This was an actual decision made by Allied high command earlier in the war (however it got changed later after VE day). Thus if the weapon was dropped in anger it would likely be some small millitary target away from populated areas (but close enough to be visable) with the attack pre-announced/or credited as soon as it happened, in order that it wouldn't give the Germans a propaganda victory and that the weapon would have the desired effect...shock...shock being much less if it is used in an actual battle and found to not be all that effective insuring the enemy doesn't fear its tactical use.
For these reasons, there is no tactical use for an atomic weapon in 1944.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fuel Air Bombs?
EMP?
Radiological (i.e. Neutron Bomb)?
Herbicide?
I think there are some other catagories of weapon
. It's a good think that for the most part nations have stayed clear of weapons that are harmful to the general enviroment or cause indescriminate damage to large areas, however that doesn't mean that there are not tactical uses for such weapons. For instance a 'defoiliating agent' could clear an area of forest prior to an attack to deny defenders cover, or a radiological weapon could kill troops with a lethal exposure before the battle so they are dying off as your forces begin the attack.
Anyhow, that's an aside.
For those who claim that a nuclear weapon would be able to bust bunkers open your totally mistaken as the shockwave and overpressure at ground level is far less than conventional explosives which would have been far more effective in that role.
For those that assume that a major battle would be a good location you have to consider the blast and damage radius; from the bombs dropped on Japan we know that only about 26% of people were killed within 3mi of the epicenter of the blast, and that ~85% of all those killed were within an area about half a mile in radius.
Hence you've got about a 2km blast zone where it will be tactically useful.
Given that most battles ranged over tens of kilometers of front your hardly going to make a dent in even the most fierce battles of 1944. Thus while you'll certainly shock the troops in the region your not really dropping a battle winning wonder weapon.
Then we have to consider the effects of radiation. The weapon designers knew very well that the bombs would produce radioactive material, thus they knew they didn't really want to be moving into areas that had been bombed, at least not right after the blast.
Thus we get a situation like with the mines on the Somme in the Great War where having detonated you massive explosion you have to wait before moving forward giving the enemy time to fall back and create a new defensive line.
Because of the devastating nature of the weapon non of the allied countries (occupied or not) are going to want that weapon dropped on their land hence they are going to press for it to be dropped on Germany. Dropping the weapon here isn't really tactical since the battles here are yet to come for the most part.
We have to remember that there was an opinion to invite 3rd parties and deligations from the axis to watch the Trinity(?) blast to let the Axis know that the Allies had built the Atomic Bomb and that within a few months that was going to be dropped on their forces or cities. The idea being to let the axis commander know the war was lost and have them give up without ever having to use the weapon in anger.
If the Allies had the Atomic Bomb in 1944 that is the most likely course of action rather than actually dropping the bomb on Germany, and even if they had dropped it on Germany the way that the Nazis could use the propaganda of the Allies vapourising a city means that's the last place the Allies would want to drop the weapon.
Hence Berlin or any other German city is not an opition to demonstrate the weapon. This was an actual decision made by Allied high command earlier in the war (however it got changed later after VE day). Thus if the weapon was dropped in anger it would likely be some small millitary target away from populated areas (but close enough to be visable) with the attack pre-announced/or credited as soon as it happened, in order that it wouldn't give the Germans a propaganda victory and that the weapon would have the desired effect...shock...shock being much less if it is used in an actual battle and found to not be all that effective insuring the enemy doesn't fear its tactical use.
For these reasons, there is no tactical use for an atomic weapon in 1944.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fuel Air Bombs?
EMP?
Radiological (i.e. Neutron Bomb)?
Herbicide?
I think there are some other catagories of weapon
. It's a good think that for the most part nations have stayed clear of weapons that are harmful to the general enviroment or cause indescriminate damage to large areas, however that doesn't mean that there are not tactical uses for such weapons. For instance a 'defoiliating agent' could clear an area of forest prior to an attack to deny defenders cover, or a radiological weapon could kill troops with a lethal exposure before the battle so they are dying off as your forces begin the attack.Anyhow, that's an aside.
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