AHTL:A very British deterrence

18th June 1936

With the worsening political situation in Europe three groups of jewish scientists who worked for IG FARBEN take their research on nuclear fission and their families to Britain. Included in the research from IG FARBEN is the German designs on something that IG FARBEN call the gaseous centrifuge and the feasibility study done by FARBEN for uranium detonation in a military application.

3rd July 1936

When the scientists arrive in Britain they are met by a group of people including Sir James Chadwick, Mark Oliphant, Otto Frisch and Rudolph Peierls. When the scientists sit down they explain everything they have brought with them including the feasibility study done by IG FARBEN. The group come to a startlingly conclusion that the Nazis have begun work on a military application of uranium.

George Thompson and William Bragg who are at the meeting mention to Mark Oliphant that the government must keep as much uranium ore out of the Nazis hands. The head of the committee for Imperial Defence general Hastings Ismay is told about the feasibility study and asks if it's possible for Britain to get there before the NAZIS.
 
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12th July 1936

General Ismay Hastings calls a meeting of the committee for Imperial Defence. In the meeting Otto Frisch , Rudolph Peierls and sir James Chadwick explain the feasibility study done by IG FARBEN and the gaseous centrifuge.

At the end of the meeting general Hastings calls a meeting with the head of ICI to discuss the possibility of ICI leading the building of a uranium detonation in a military application. The head of ICI explains that it's possible for ICI to start building the knowledge base for a military application of uranium detonation.

30th june 1937

ICI and Cambridge university start experiments on nuclear fission. ICI also starts building gaseous centrifuges at there Carr's billington plant in the north east of Britain.
 
In 1936, no one even knows about atomic fission, much less chain reactions or the significance of uranium. There are several important discoveries to be made before anyone would have a clue about any military use of uranium, much less the importance of particular isotopes, or isotope enrichment technology.

Unless your PoD is several years earlier... No later than 1930. And this project would have to have been started in secret under the Weimar Republic.

Of course, this post says nothing about the political situation in Germany other than it frightens Jews.
 
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Interesting start. The Germans are working on a gas centrifuge at a time when the cyclotron was invented just a few years prior (1930). They’ve been doing nuclear research and keeping the results secret, while the UK and US have been publishing in the open literature.

One thing about science is that it's much easier to interpret and reproduce someone else's results than it is to do experiments yourself. (I've always believed a PhD's worth of experiments could be finished in a matter of weeks or months if only you knew which experiments to perform.) The scientists will easily be able to figure out what the gas centrifuge does, although building their own is an engineering problem. The fact that the Germans are making uranium gas centrifuges will also confirm the British physicists' suspicions: nuclear fission is possible, the rarer isotope of uranium (235U) can undergo fission, and so on, and so on.

So, the Germans are a generation ahead in nuclear physics, which isn't hard to believe, although the seeds for the research would have been, ironically, planted during the Weimar era. They have a gas centrifuge. They probably have much larger cyclotrons than Lawrence does at Berkeley, and he's American anyhow. (Some British and Canadian scientists were doing mass spectroscopy circa 1934, IIRC, although I am not sure whether there were any cyclotrons outside the USA.) All this means that the Germans must be close to a sustainable artificial nuclear chain reaction. Hopefully an IG Farben scientist brought along a vial with a microgram or so of fission products, as this information will do wonders for the British. A sample of enriched UF6 would also help, no matter how little enrichment it had gone through.

This being a TL, what's next is up to the author, but I would imagine many students of Chadwick and the others would develop a sharp interest in studying abroad in Germany. If the Germans don't let non-citizens perform nuclear research, that field would be conspicuous by its absence. It is going to take more than a set of academic decisions for the UK to keep up with Germany, though. Fortunately, the person most likely to make his voice heard -- Albert Einstein -- had, in 1933, decided not to return to Germany after a trip. Although he was resident in the US, he could add political clout to the argument of the British scientists when it comes time to demand millions of pounds for a secret project...

Looking forward to more.
 
In 1936, no one even knows about atomic fission, much less chain reactions or the significance of uranium. There are several important discoveries to be made before anyone would have a clue about any military use of uranium, much less the importance of particular isotopes, or isotope enrichment technology.

Unless your PoD is several years earlier... No later than 1930. And this project would have to have been started in secret under the Weimar Republic.

Of course, this post says nothing about the political situation in Germany other than it frightens Jews.

The PoD would need to be several years before 1934, as I assumed it was when writing the post above. The post-war era was not a good time for science in Germany IOTL. In fact, after WW1 the number of German Nobel laureates dropped sharply. However, a Kernverein (Nucleus Club) might form in the 20s. States that are struggling economically tend to be limited with research funding, but they usually try to fund the most promising research, although "promising" is politically defined, not scientifically. So, a few influential scientists might have teamed up with Siemens, AEG or the future IG Farben to convince the Weimar government that nuclear research was worth funding.

Scientifically, IOTL the structure of the atom (Bohr, 1913 and Schrödinger, 1926), the neutron (Chadwick, 1932), the cyclotron (Lawrence, 1930), the proton, proof of the nucleus and the first nuclear reactions (Rutherford, late 1910s) were all known by 1934. That's why I don't think it's entirely unreasonable for the Germans to have come up with a rudimentary gas centrifuge and a fission theory by 1934. They would have needed at least ten years, IMO, to discover that much, but if they chose not to publish any of their results, it's possible that they could leap ahead (no quantum pun intended) in nuclear physics.
 
I think the premise of a Weimar Republic secretly trying to build a super bomb as a way to counter the military restrictions post-Versailles entirely credible. It'd clearly be early research, but it definitely fits the bill of asymmetric warfare the U-Boat epitomized.
 
H G Wells was writing of Atomic Bombs in 1914 so the concept isn't new or unknown. The US A-Bomb program was about $1.8b in 1940-45. About $70m was on R&D - about the cost of a Battleship. However actual production was about $1.1b for the plant just to deliver 5 bombs by 1945 (cost of a fleet!). In late 1930's rearmament terms its: Navy, Army, RAF and A-Bomb program - pick any 3?
 
H G Wells was writing of Atomic Bombs in 1914 so the concept isn't new or unknown. The US A-Bomb program was about $1.8b in 1940-45. About $70m was on R&D - about the cost of a Battleship. However actual production was about $1.1b for the plant just to deliver 5 bombs by 1945 (cost of a fleet!). In late 1930's rearmament terms its: Navy, Army, RAF and A-Bomb program - pick any 3?

Probably more like 2, given issues with the British budget. Especially since in 1936 there haven't been sufficent international moves to REALLY be able to sell full-scale rearmament to the public in the time of huge economic malaise.
 

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Probably more like 2, given issues with the British budget. Especially since in 1936 there haven't been sufficent international moves to REALLY be able to sell full-scale rearmament to the public in the time of huge economic malaise.

about £60 million per year for 5 years achievable, as long as your dollar costs are minimised
 
Probably more like 2, given issues with the British budget. Especially since in 1936 there haven't been sufficent international moves to REALLY be able to sell full-scale rearmament to the public in the time of huge economic malaise.
Yes, rearmament was funded by borrowing, not taxes to make it palatable on the electorate. I don't think 'just one bomb to destroy a whole city, cool eh?' will cut it for a business case in the political environment. One marksman with a bullet and the political will to pop a foreign head of state could probably achieve peace at far lower cost.
 
The US A-Bomb program was about $1.8b in 1940-45. About $70m was on R&D - about the cost of a Battleship. However actual production was about $1.1b for the plant just to deliver 5 bombs by 1945 (cost of a fleet!). In late 1930's rearmament terms its: Navy, Army, RAF and A-Bomb program - pick any 3?
Using http://www.historicalstatistics.org/Currencyconverter.html

What is the equivalent of 1100000000 US dollar [1791-2015] in year 1944 in the currency of UK pound [1658-2015] in year 1937?

1100000000 US dollar [1791-2015] in year 1944 could buy the same amount of consumer goods and services in Sweden as 164852642.83959574 UK pound [1658-2015] could buy in Sweden in year 1937. This comparison should be used if the purpose of the analysis is to compare absolute worth over time rather than relative worth.

Another way to compare the worth of money in different periods is to estimate how much labour power an amount of money could buy. 1100000000 US dollar [1791-2015] in year 1944 was the amount a male worker in Sweden received in wage for 2536509541.2332735 hours work. A male worker in Sweden in 1937 received 158478243.2871983 UK pound [1658-2015] in wage for 2536509541.2332735 hours worked. This comparison should be used if the purpose of the analysis is to compare relative worth over time rather than absolute worth.

1100000000 US dollar [1791-2015] in year 1944 could buy 993246160.0311341 gram gold. The price of 993246160.0311341 gram gold in year 1937 was 225458311.37464097 UK pound [1658-2015].

1100000000 US dollar [1791-2015] in year 1944 could buy 77145429249.61812 gram silver. The price of 77145429249.61812 gram silver in year 1937 was 226127931.8758826 UK pound [1658-2015].

King George V-class battleships ..... Cost: £7,393,134 v £164,852,642 or £225,458,311 so its more than a fleet...?

Even the R&D would be 10-14M£
 
about £60 million per year for 5 years achievable, as long as your dollar costs are minimised

Except you don't know ahead of time that its going to cost you only 300 million Pound-Sterling or take only 5 years in advance. We know that, with hindsight, but this is entirely untested technology to people in the time and place the cheque is getting signed. Hell, they don't even know if they'll get anything militarily useful whatsoever out of it.

Meanwhile, an aircraft carrier with accompanying escorts or a wing of heavy bombers; fundamentally they aren't groundbreaking but that ALSO means we know what you're getting for your money.
 
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The $70m is about a US BB not a KGV which were a little cheap by comparison but using these exchange rates:
http://www.paper-dragon.com/1939/exchange.html

$70m is about £14m and you need to pay for scientists and engineers not shipyard workers.
But the $70M only buys the R&D not the bombs that's 1.1B$ more...... ie 165-225 M£ ............and developing the bomb earlier would likely be more expensive rather than less due to having to do more R&D (ok you could with total hindsight only use one of the many OTL routes)?
 
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