AH challenge: Somebody besides the US is the first to use atomic weapons in anger

10 points for any PoD after 1936

5 points for any PoD after 1900.

[FONT=&quot] Some factors mean worse relations between Britain and the US drastically reducing co-operation. Roosevelt, trying for a 3rd term in 1940 is defeated, possibly aided by some scandal.

Britain either makes a separate peace with Germany [without going collaborationist!] or plans for a long war, i.e. Churchill's attack at all costs tendency is properly muzzled. Isolationists in the US have little interest in events in Europe and the Republic regime have a deep opposition to 'big government' after the New Deal years. So the US nuclear programme is crippled while probably much social tension over internal matters. Also with the US neutral it is less attractive to the various émigré’s fleeing the Nazis.

As such while the Nazis and Soviets are engaged in their death-match Britain develops the bomb 1st as a way of balancing the continental powers.

Steve[/FONT]
 
Some political issues result in Fermi and Einstein ending up in France instead of the US, along with Szilard and maybe another couple pysicists. France begins developing a nuclear program, and when Germany invades, the program is rushed to Algeria. France falls, but French North Africa is kept by the Free French, and eventually a nuke is developed. It's tested on one of Rommel's badly needed supply convoys, and another bomb is used on German-held Vienna to cripple their initiatives.
 
First, prevent Hiroshima and Nagasaki by either:

1) An accident at Oak Ridge sets Uranium production back a few months; all work is focused on the Plutonium implosion bomb; the rush means someone makes a mistake with the Trinity device; the program is delayed for another few months while they figure out what is going on.

Or

2) Truman simply decides in 1945 not to authorise use of atomic weapons.

Assume then a US invasion of Japan, and history proceeds otherwise as OTL, up until 1950, when the USSR detonates a nuke over Seoul...

Simon ;)
 
First, prevent Hiroshima and Nagasaki by either:

1) An accident at Oak Ridge sets Uranium production back a few months; all work is focused on the Plutonium implosion bomb; the rush means someone makes a mistake with the Trinity device; the program is delayed for another few months while they figure out what is going on.

Or

2) Truman simply decides in 1945 not to authorise use of atomic weapons.

Assume then a US invasion of Japan, and history proceeds otherwise as OTL, up until 1950, when the USSR detonates a nuke over Seoul...

Simon ;)

If the US invaded Japan, you may assume history would have been VERY different than IOTL.

The invasion of Kyushu was scheduled for November 1st, 1945, and the invasion of Honshu was scheduled for March 1946.

Honshu would probably have seen a million Allied casualties alone, as the Japanese correctly guessed where the American forces would have landed, and deployed to those places far more men than Allied planners thought possible; to say nothing of the extremely expansive defense network. And then there would have been the fighting inland, and the Japanese weren't going to go down without a fight.
 
If the US invaded Japan, you may assume history would have been VERY different than IOTL.

The invasion of Kyushu was scheduled for November 1st, 1945, and the invasion of Honshu was scheduled for March 1946.

Honshu would probably have seen a million Allied casualties alone, as the Japanese correctly guessed where the American forces would have landed, and deployed to those places far more men than Allied planners thought possible; to say nothing of the extremely expansive defense network. And then there would have been the fighting inland, and the Japanese weren't going to go down without a fight.

Right, but different enough to prevent the Soviets from developing a bomb and using against the West at the first opportunity? Indeed, if the invasion of Japan is really bloody, then an atomic bomb might initially be seen as more "humane" (at least until someone uses one on a major city).

Also remember that these were 20-30 kiloton bombs, with a metropolitan bast radius, not the regional kill zones of Cold War hydrogen bombs...

Simon ;)
 
Japan gets sane when Germany give up WWII realising thet thing will not go that good. USSR uses the bomb in against the Hungarians.:eek:
 
Early POD

Hitler killed in WWI.

1920-1930: Soviet victory in Soviet Polish War. Fascists take over post-war Germany(however lack a significant anti-semitic ideology). Soviet pogroms drive many of the best educated families in Russia west.

1930-1940: Germany leads the world in Atomic research. Many Jewish scientists join research efforts to create German Atomic bomb.

1940-1950: After 20yrs of uneasy peace the most devastating war in human history explodes. German forces battle at the gates of their capital supported by Italian, Spanish and French forces they are just able to hold off Soviet domination. As it becomes clear that Germany is running out of time the decision to use the newly developed A-bomb to throw back the tide of Bolshevism.

Apr. 1947 During a massive air raid on Leningrad the weapon is used.
 
Atomic, but not fission...

Suppose Germany has an abundance of highly radioactive materials, although is not getting close to a bomb when one is really needed. So, the radioactives are dropped over the D-Day beaches, or more effectively, a major port.
 
Britain could not develop the bomb without American money and facilities. The US could not develop the bomb without British scientific knowledge. The Germans were on the wrong track and nobody else had any hope of doing it.

POD 1936, the British political class has decided Hitler's Germany is far more of a worry than in OTL. Further, French military intelligence is more effective and correctly evaluates that German military strength is roughly what it actually was in OTL instead of the greatly inflated estimates they actually reported to both their government and passed on to British intelligence. As a result Britain has accepted the French idea of collective security coupled with rearmament. This is because Britain can see the urgency as in OTL but not the hopleless desparation it and France were apparently saddled with in OTL.

The Allies then make serious overtures to Italy and publically declare their intention to back Mussolini if there is any threat of German occupation of Austria. Mussolini declares publically that he will send bombers and several divisions to back up France and Britain if Hitler does not withdraw from the Rhineland.

Hitler backs down and the Nazis are overthrown. Or he does not and the German army is defeated and the country partially occupied. In any case Germany is not a threat to world peace any longer.

Britain continues its research into atomic power and weapons. With time on its side and the ability to spend less per year on developing the bomb the eventual development is decades away, if ever. However, I think the only possible power who could develop the bomb is the UK.

Would Britain use the weapon it has developed? If so on who? And when?
 
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