Axis bombers capable of delivering atomic bombs?

I bow to your superior knowledge. Though if the Germans have a gun-type Bomb, could it work? Your explanation is slightly ambiguous, i.e. did it take years to make even a gun-type "laydown" Bomb? AFAIK, implosion bombs completely replaced gun-type almost immediately. Also, live testing could be performed with dummy bombs.

Implosion bombs were set for laydown OTL, but the parachute problem for them did take far longer than expected, with drogues to slow till the main chute would release.

All while retaining accuracy, even given the area of effect the bombs had with the expected increasing yields of the early/mid '50s. The early bombs had drag plates that failed during tests, causing the bomb to go off course.

Yes, you can test with dummy casings, as the US had done since early '45, when the casings were done months ahead of the real thing.

The 509th did a lot of drops with 'pumpkins' filled with HE only
 
Errr.... If you have a pile moderated with heavy water, and it starts going critical, the heavy water boils off (yes, radioactive steam is a huge safety hazard), and there's no moderator left. And the reaction shuts down.

That's what Heisenberg had counted on, and he was wrong on the rate of a thermal runaway could happen faster than the water could boil away with the design he was using.
 
The hypothetical problem of delivering a German fission bomb to the United States in 1945/6 was mirrored by the real issue of conveying a preliminary liquid fueled hydrogen weapon to the Soviet Union in 1953. Initially, the fusion component was a hydrogen/deuterium/tritium liquid which, despite advanced Dewar storage, had to be actively refrigerated during the lengthy transpolar flight. Since the fission ignition source in a massive focusing shell , the fusion fuel with its submerged Pu 239 sparkplugs and much of the temperature control system occupied a large volume, the only way to get it airborne was to build it into the airplane. .................

Dynasoar
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How cold did it need to stay?
How cold is the stratosphere above the Arctic Ocean?
 
At 50,00 ft/17,000 m it really doesn't matter whether you are flying over the arctic or over the equator, the temperature is pretty close to the same.
 
The thermonuclear fuel at that time was liquid hydrogen and its heavier isotopes. it would begin to boil at about -420 degrees F. The intent was to keep it slightly slushy at about -430. The arctic didn't help much, even at -60F.

Dynasoar
 
Heavy water reactors are not safer then light water reactors the only difference is that a LWR requires enriched uranium and a HWR can use natural uranium. That is because heavy water is a much better moderator. If you want to use your reactor for power production has water has to be pressurized to heat the water up to 300 celsius to run the steam turbines anyway. If a pipe or the pressure vessel brakes you got a steam explosion.

WI the Haigerloch Research Reactor melted down or exploded or ??????????
How far would fall out spread?
Which nearby industries would be damaged?
How many people would suffer radiation sickness?
How many people would die?
How many American soldiers would die?
The reactor type depends on water to be critical. So worst case for the German one is loss of radioactive steam. Not an eruption of most of the fissile material.
 

PlasmaTorch

Banned
The reactor type depends on water to be critical. So worst case for the German one is loss of radioactive steam. Not an eruption of most of the fissile material.

Thats right. Even if the uranium pile underwent a thermal runaway (which is possible, but not likely), it would merely give off a few rads of neutron radiation and slowly start to boil the heavy water. It wouldn't reach a tipping point where it goes kaboom, because the power level is too low. The uranium cubes would get hot, sure, but they wouldn't melt or explode! marathag actually tried to compare the chernobyl disaster with what might've happened happen to the B-VIII pile. :rolleyes:

The men present would have been sterilised by direct radiation, and some heavy water would be lost (due to evaporation), but it wouldn't be anywhere near as bad as chernobyl. The uranium pile is simply too small.
 
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... but it wouldn't be anywhere near as bad as chernobyl. The uranium pile is simply too small.

Darn.

I expect that when building a Uranium bomb the error in expected yeild Heisenberg made would be perceived and corrected. Be funny to think of the Nazis testing a bomb under the expectation of the low yeild error :O
 
without going into details, our guys miscalculated the prompt transmutation of a lithium isotope during an early Pacific H-bomb test. Much higher yield than expected with some sad consequences.

Dynasoar
 
Part of the problem if the Germans suffer a reactor accident is that they now have to rebuild their pile, and also deal with radioactive debris in retrieving fuel elements. Knowledge about radiation sickness at this time was minimal (dosage etc) so not only would you have the potential for key engineers and scientists to get lethal/severe doses during the accident, but also when trying to salvage things. Naturally once the issue of radiation exposure is a little better understood, disposable slave laborers can and will be used for hot work and they will serve the dual purpose of salvage and being lab rats for studying radiation diseases. Losing scientists and engineers even temporarily dues to radiation sickness, or permanently if they die will be crippling. The Germans simply had a very limited supply of these folks even if the folly of drafting them for the Eastern Front is stopped.

We have 20/20 hindsight so we can predict the potential causes of accidents for the reactor design(s) the Germans used or were likely to. If something goes wrong and they have a significant accident, they will need to figure out what went wrong and how to prevent it before they get everything back to speed again. Yet another delay.
 
without going into details, our guys miscalculated the prompt transmutation of a lithium isotope during an early Pacific H-bomb test. Much higher yield than expected with some sad consequences.
Same for the Army Light Water SL-1 reactor at Idaho.

Crew pulled a control rod out a few more inches than they should have, and in four milliseconds went from subcritical to supercritical, taking a 3MW thermal reactor to 20GW that vaporized fuel elements and caused a steam explosion that blew bits thru the containment roof.
This killed one immediately, and other two dying quickly from radiation.
This was a design with 9 control rods.

Nazi reactor
Haigerloch_nuclear_pile.jpg

Uranium cubes suspended by chain, no control rods
A steam explosion would force the cubes against one another, and at the high temps involved, would be plastic enough to weld together to a large lump to where the cross section would be such that could remain critical and keep melting and tossing out fast fissioning neutrons
 
Same for the Army Light Water SL-1 reactor at Idaho.

Crew pulled a control rod out a few more inches than they should have, and in four milliseconds went from subcritical to supercritical, taking a 3MW thermal reactor to 20GW that vaporized fuel elements and caused a steam explosion that blew bits thru the containment roof.
This killed one immediately, and other two dying quickly from radiation.
This was a design with 9 control rods.

Nazi reactor
Haigerloch_nuclear_pile.jpg

Uranium cubes suspended by chain, no control rods
A steam explosion would force the cubes against one another, and at the high temps involved, would be plastic enough to weld together to a large lump to where the cross section would be such that could remain critical and keep melting and tossing out fast fissioning neutrons

I think giving a 5 year old a pineapple grenade MAY be safer than THAT.
 

PlasmaTorch

Banned
This is an example of how screwed up the Nazi atomic bomb effort was.

The german program was definitely mishandled, and given a lower priority than it deserved. No one disputes that. But the lack of safety with the B-VIII pile was due largely to the fact that the scientists had to make this thing while on the run from allied armys.

The chicago pile experiment run by fermi wasn't much better. They had control rods, yes, but they weren't 100% sure this would be sufficient. Thats why fermi had a 'suicide squad', who would dump buckets of liquid cadmium onto the pile, in order to prevent a thermal runaway.

If illinois had been under invasion by a foreign army, you have to wonder whether they would have continued with the experiment at all. Heisenberg was determined, if nothing else.
 
The difference being, Fermi put thought into thermal runaways, and had multiple contingency plans.
Heisenberg was so far off on his cross section calculations, it never occurred to him on the actual magnitude of the problem of going critical
 
Yes, you can test with dummy casings, as the US had done since early '45, when the casings were done months ahead of the real thing.

The 509th did a lot of drops with 'pumpkins' filled with HE only

On one of those runs, the pilot decided to drop the "pumpkin" on the Imperial Palace. Fortunately he missed completely.

Hey, I got another "brilliant" idea.

Assume a "Fat Man" Bomb. Build the Bomb into a He 177 (it will just fit inside the fuselage). The He 177 takes off led by a He 111Z "Zwilling" tug, with the two planes connected by a tow cable which also carries remote-control wires. The take-off crew in the He 177 and the He 111Z get lined up on London, then the take-off crew bail out. An operator on the He 111Z flies the He 177 until they are within 20 km of London, then switches on the autopilot. The He 111Z casts off, turns 180, and departs at full throttle. The He 177 continues for 20 km, then timer-detonated charges blow the fuselage apart, releasing the Bomb over London. BANG!

OK, here's a really brilliant idea, which brings the US within range:

The lead plane is another He 177, and instead of remote-control wires, the tow cable carries a fuel line. Both planes are stripped of all defensive armament and loaded with as much fuel as they can take off with. Both planes run on the lead plane's fuel till it runs out; then the lead plane ditches in the Atlantic, to be retrieved by a U-boat. The Bomb plane continues to near America, the crew aims it at New York and bails out to be retrieved. The He 177 had a ferry range of 5,600 km. Stripping the defensive guns and using the tanker plane should offset the weight of the Bomb and add 2,800 km to that. Norway to NYC is less than 6,000 km.
 
First bolding mine.
Then why did you ask for a citation if you knew German safety was haphazard?
Just for comparison here, the contemporary gold standard for nuclear engineering was set by the USA. And they had scientists ‘tickling’ plutonium cores into criticality with screwdrivers. In 1946.

In fin de siecle Third Reich, safety was basically irrelevant. Win the war, die trying, or be buggered insensible by the soviets then shipped to Siberia. No one was completing risk assessment forms.
 
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