Atomic bomb a year earlier: used on Germany?

Thothian

Banned
I did a few searches with various terms and couldn't find anything specifically on this.

Suppose several small butterflies ( unforeseen breakthroughs in their work) gives the Manhattan Project greater success, and we have Fat Man and Little Boy in August 1944 ( rather than OTL's Aug 45).

Would it have been used on Germany?

If so, where?

What's the possibility that Japanese observers (perhaps escorted by the Swedish embassy?) would have been allowed to see the devastation and report back to Hirohito in an effort to get the Japanese to give up without nukes having to be used on them?

What are the long term affects on the Cold War, or perhaps does the sight of two flattened European cities make the USSR a bit more conciliatory, fearing the " blood-mad Americans"?
 
Would it have been used on Germany?

Yes. Everything I've read suggests that the plan was to use the weapons on Germany once they were available. In 1945 work was well underway to prepare airfields in the UK for B-29s.

If so, where?

Now that is an interesting question. I doubt Berlin because it would need several bombs to do significant damage to the city. My feeling would be somewhere like Dresden and possibly Nuremberg (for symbolic reasons). The Allies might also have waited until there were more than 2 bombs available before striking Germany.
 

Thothian

Banned
Yes. Everything I've read suggests that the plan was to use the weapons on Germany once they were available. In 1945 work was well underway to prepare airfields in the UK for B-29s.



Now that is an interesting question. I doubt Berlin because it would need several bombs to do significant damage to the city. My feeling would be somewhere like Dresden and possibly Nuremberg (for symbolic reasons). The Allies might also have waited until there were more than 2 bombs available before striking Germany.

2 bombs could have destroyed a significant portion of Berlin if they were spread to the right spots i think. Also, you don't think Hitler and his senior staff would have been a target?

I know the US hesitated to target Tokyo in OTL because they hoped that Hirohito would be helpful in ending the war. I don't think they would have any illusions about Hitler doing the same. An atomic decapitation of the Nazi leadership might well have been considered.
 
I've read a suggestion of 6 fission bombs being necessary to destroy Berlin. Off the top of my head I can't remember how badly damaged Berlin was by conventional bombing by the end of 1944 beginning of 1945. Choosing a relatively undamaged city was part of the planning process for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Because Berlin is quite a large target there would be no guarantee (at least in the minds of the planners, IMVHO) of getting the leadership with one, or two bombs. That there might be the issue of getting Germany to surrender makes me again doubt that only two weapons would be used. I think that it is possible that several weapons might be used very quickly after one another.
 
Assuming the bugs being worked out include the casing design getting fixed, one runs into the issue of whether the B-29 can be modified in time. Standard B-29's first saw combat in June 1944, but modifications need to be done to deploy nukes. The schedule for those is going to be very compressed unless the B-29 is moved forwards. OTL the 509th didn't begin operations until June of '45, partly because the USAAF did not get production Silverplate's for training until October'44, and the definitive variant until March '45

So something might have to be MacGuyvered and failure is much more likely than OTL as the bomb droppers will almost certainly have less training and less optimized aircraft
 
One reason that more bombs might have been necessary is that German cities were more solidly constructed. Japanese cities tended to use lighter materials, which (as it turned out) made them very vulnerable to blast and thermal pulse effects. The same is not true in Germany, however. The devastation caused by a single 12.5kt nuke would have been rather lower there.
 
I heard back from one of contacts who know more about this area and got back an interesting reply. They have said it is okay for me to share here.


The great focus of the nuclear weapons effort early on was on hitting Germany (using B-29s based out of Aldergrove in Northern Ireland); that really didn't change until October/November 1944. the actual change in priority from Germany to Japan isn't documented; we have to go by inference. in August 1944, the plan was blast Germany out of the war, in January 1945 it was blast Japan out of the war so something happened between those dates. Interestingly, the Ardennes Offensive didn't change much.

So, assuming that the Allies did have nuclear weapons in August 1944, there is no doubt that Germany would be the target and that the attack would be carried out by B-29s. The only question would be whether the weapons were used as they came off the production lines or whether a number were assembled and used in a major opening blow. A lot of that will depend on personalities. Also, at that time, it was believed that Germany had an atomic bomb effort of its own and was roughly level with the US. That belief died between October 1944 and January 1945 as well but in August 1944 it was seriously accepted. That would have added pressure to the "use now" school. On the other hand, the proponents of "assemble a sledgehammer" would point out that using just one bomb would effectively tell the Germans (a) it could be done and (b) how to do it. It could well be argued that using one or two nuclear devices in August 1944 would guarantee the Germans doing so in December 1944.

Another big question; if the US knows that nuclear weapons are coming in August 1944 (they'd probably be certain of that in May at the latest) would Overlord happen? Why invade when the power exists to reduce Germany to a radioactive slagheap? Would the bomber offensive have picked up steam the way it did? Why use conventional bombing by B-17s and B-24s to slowly reduce German cities to rubble when single B-29s can do so overnight? I can see this being a really agonized and frank debate. Yet another point is production capacity. A nuclear device may have been available in July 1944 but is it a production item? By December 1945, the planned production rate of nuclear devices was going to be seven Model 1561s and one Mark One per month (it never got there). In the revised timeline, would that production rate have been achieved in December 1944? What would the production rate have been in 1945? I've never seen an estimate for 1946 production assuming the war had continued although plans for Operation Coronet in March 1946 included the use of nuclear weapons tactically (and prolifically) so we can assume the production rate would have increased significantly. IIRC the first day of Coronet would have seen 13 nuclear devices initiated over targets in the Kwanto. I would say that is a likely minimum for an attack on Germany.

Targets? Dresden in my opinion is a rock-hard certainty. Given its industrial importance, it's odd it wasn't bombed in 1944 when it got to be within effective range of allied bombers and I believe that it was being kept as a sample target do see what a device would do to an undamaged target. As for the rest, industrial facilities, mostly oil and aircraft. Nobody will waste time trying to get the German leadership or waste scarce devices on "political" targets. One thought, assuming the conventional bombing offensive doesn't build up because early nuclear devices are coming, German industry will not be dispersed so there are nice concentrated targets to incinerate.

There's another factor here; Japan. Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that the leadership wakes up one morning and at the situation briefing get told what's happening in the Pacific. then the following exchange happens.

"Well, what is the news from the Germans?"

"What Germans?"

There was a peace party in Japan then although it was weak, powerless and ineffectual until after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Would they have pointed to the smoking hole where Germany used to be and say "That's us in a year's time. Give it up now you damned fools." and made it stick?

In short, nuclear weapons in August 1944 is very bad for Germany, has the potential of being extremely bad or very good for Japan.
 
What about it being used for tactical purposes like breaking through the Siegfried Line?

What about the Atlantic Wall? JN1's point about the U.S. knowing at least by May that the bomb would be available raises the possibility of delaying D-Day until the German fortifications in Normandy can be smashed with uranium. Similar uses were considered for the invasion of Japan.

I wonder if a nuclear-tipped invasion might not allow the Western Allies to reach the Elbe by December, even with a late start to the invasion.
 
There's another factor here; Japan. Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that the leadership wakes up one morning and at the situation briefing get told what's happening in the Pacific. then the following exchange happens.

"Well, what is the news from the Germans?"

"What Germans?"

There was a peace party in Japan then although it was weak, powerless and ineffectual until after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Would they have pointed to the smoking hole where Germany used to be and say "That's us in a year's time. Give it up now you damned fools." and made it stick?

Well, the Tojo government was voted out when the Marianas fell in 1944. It was clear Tojos policies had failed and a 'New Way' was needed. Unfortunatly The peace faction were not in the pool to choose from. Tojo actually remained in the cabinet, along with the other warhawks. Perhaps the early destruction of Germany would have caused Suzuki to gain some traction, perhaps not. In any case he & his supporters were as rabid imperialists as any in the government & giving up the empire was as incomprehesible to them as anyone else.

There is a third way here. That is if six of seven bombs have been readied for use in the same month or week, the use one against Japan at the same time they are used vs Germany. This 'demonstration' might be more effective in pushing the Japanese along than news paper photos from Europe.
 

Deleted member 1487

Now that is an interesting question. I doubt Berlin because it would need several bombs to do significant damage to the city. My feeling would be somewhere like Dresden and possibly Nuremberg (for symbolic reasons). The Allies might also have waited until there were more than 2 bombs available before striking Germany.
The US would want to know the impact on an undamaged city, so they'd try and find one to make and example of. Still Nuremberg has a symbolic value for nuking, so it likely gets the hammer IMHO, Dresden was a RAF led choice IOTL that the US got dragged into and there wasn't much value to nuking it really if the bomb is ready 12 months earlier. I wonder if they might use it on industrial targets to really smash the Ruhr for instance. Leuna would be an AWESOME choice for using the nuke, it was a high value target that was still in need of smashing in say August 1944. There was a major raid in August 1944 on the refinery, so it was still a target to be hit.
Considering the nukes were available in July 1945 and if ready exactly 12 months earlier it could have been set up and used arguably in late July; IOTL there were several large raids on Leuna, so if those are held off and nukes used in late July (easier to get set up in Britain in 1944 than it was in the Pacific in 1945), then it could well be an ideal target. Not a terror raid, rather a highly valuable industrial target away from civilians and an excellent gauge of the weapon's effectiveness against such major industrial targets.
 
I heard back from one of contacts who know more about this area and got back an interesting reply. They have said it is okay for me to share here.


"I can see this being a really agonized and frank debate."

The other debate which would take place is that referred to in postwar interviews by Leslie Groves: the concern about dropping the bomb on Germany was that, unlike 1945 Japan, it still had a robust air defense (including the emergence of the Me-262) against bombers. And as Groves noted, any time a new form of aircraft appeared over Germany, the Luftwaffe would make every effort to shoot at least one down, so as to learn from it what progress the Allies had made, and to develop countermeasures. And B-29's were never used on Germany.

And no one wants to see an a-bomb carrying bomber shot down over Germany. They'd get not only the remains of the bomber, but also the bomb.

This is one more reason I tend to think that the debate over "big punch" versus drop-one-as-soon-as-you-can would be resolved in favor of the big punch.

I doubt this makes the Reich surrender. I mean - Hitler was not willing to surrender even with T-34's firing into the Chancery bunker. But it could really damage morale, and perhaps even spur another effort to mount a coup against Hitler (difficult as that would be after July 20).
 
"I can see this being a really agonized and frank debate."

The other debate which would take place is that referred to in postwar interviews by Leslie Groves: the concern about dropping the bomb on Germany was that, unlike 1945 Japan, it still had a robust air defense (including the emergence of the Me-262) against bombers. And as Groves noted, any time a new form of aircraft appeared over Germany, the Luftwaffe would make every effort to shoot at least one down, so as to learn from it what progress the Allies had made, and to develop countermeasures. And B-29's were never used on Germany.

And no one wants to see an a-bomb carrying bomber shot down over Germany. They'd get not only the remains of the bomber, but also the bomb.

This is one more reason I tend to think that the debate over "big punch" versus drop-one-as-soon-as-you-can would be resolved in favor of the big punch.

I doubt this makes the Reich surrender. I mean - Hitler was not willing to surrender even with T-34's firing into the Chancery bunker. But it could really damage morale, and perhaps even spur another effort to mount a coup against Hitler (difficult as that would be after July 20).
This is actually why I believe the tactical option of nuking a hole in the Atlantic wall would be chosen.

Less opportunity for German Air Defenses to come into play more opportunity for Anglo American forces to win local air supremacy before the attack.
 
"I can see this being a really agonized and frank debate."

The other debate which would take place is that referred to in postwar interviews by Leslie Groves: the concern about dropping the bomb on Germany was that, unlike 1945 Japan, it still had a robust air defense (including the emergence of the Me-262) against bombers. And as Groves noted, any time a new form of aircraft appeared over Germany, the Luftwaffe would make every effort to shoot at least one down, so as to learn from it what progress the Allies had made, and to develop countermeasures. And B-29's were never used on Germany.

And no one wants to see an a-bomb carrying bomber shot down over Germany. They'd get not only the remains of the bomber, but also the bomb.

This is one more reason I tend to think that the debate over "big punch" versus drop-one-as-soon-as-you-can would be resolved in favor of the big punch.

I doubt this makes the Reich surrender. I mean - Hitler was not willing to surrender even with T-34's firing into the Chancery bunker. But it could really damage morale, and perhaps even spur another effort to mount a coup against Hitler (difficult as that would be after July 20).
Well given that the B-29 needed modifications to use nukes I think the "big punch" might end up by default, as it would take time to develop a modified variant of the bomber, and for the *509th to train on it. B-29 started combat raids OTL a year before the 509th managed to start operating. So the B-29 likely would not be new over Germany, as it would either be heavily accelerated over OTL and thus more available to have some to spare for Europe before summer 1944, or it would not be and the bombs lie around waiting for proper aircraft, leaving time to start operating standard B-29's to get Germany used to them
 
Well given that the B-29 needed modifications to use nukes I think the "big punch" might end up by default, as it would take time to develop a modified variant of the bomber, and for the *509th to train on it. B-29 started combat raids OTL a year before the 509th managed to start operating. So the B-29 likely would not be new over Germany, as it would either be heavily accelerated over OTL and thus more available to have some to spare for Europe before summer 1944, or it would not be and the bombs lie around waiting for proper aircraft, leaving time to start operating standard B-29's to get Germany used to them

Actually, I assume that the USAAF, knowing full well what Groves alluded to, would immediately make a serious effort to get some B-29's flying over Germany, in order to get the Germans used to seeing them.
 
This is actually why I believe the tactical option of nuking a hole in the Atlantic wall would be chosen.

Less opportunity for German Air Defenses to come into play more opportunity for Anglo American forces to win local air supremacy before the attack.

Only if the Bomb is ready in spring of 1944.

If we are talking exactly one year earlier - which means availability on August 1 - then you are talking about delaying D-Day for two months. Which reduces in turn your available campaigning season, and running up on the end of acceptable conditions in the Channel. (Also, you have Stalin mounting Bagration, screaming his fool head off for a Second Front every day.) I doubt that Roosevelt would be willing to wait that long.

But there is tactical value in the a-bomb here: you could hit key railroad yards in major cities and marshalling points in Western Germany, as Allied forces approach the WestWall. They would still need to be big, stationary targets.
 
Only if the Bomb is ready in spring of 1944.

If we are talking exactly one year earlier - which means availability on August 1 - then you are talking about delaying D-Day for two months. Which reduces in turn your available campaigning season, and running up on the end of acceptable conditions in the Channel. (Also, you have Stalin mounting Bagration, screaming his fool head off for a Second Front every day.) I doubt that Roosevelt would be willing to wait that long.

But there is tactical value in the a-bomb here: you could hit key railroad yards in major cities and marshalling points in Western Germany, as Allied forces approach the WestWall. They would still need to be big, stationary targets.
Well it was mentioned earlier that if there is a nuke for August it would be known in April or May by top level planners.

I'm sure planning would take this into account and consider postponing Dday.
 
Well it was mentioned earlier that if there is a nuke for August it would be known in April or May by top level planners.

I'm sure planning would take this into account and consider postponing Dday.

Probably. And Churchill might even leap on it to delay or even redivert invasion resources to the Med.

But the Allies would be fools to wait. In any event, they know the fixed defenses of Normandy down to the square yard now. They know they're surmountable. The wild card is the German mobile reserve. Against that, there is the difficulty of extending operational security for two more months, the reduction of the period of acceptable Channel weather to just a month (which means only one more new moon if they have to delay due to weather), and reduction of the remaining campaign season.
 
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