Die Atombomben der Bundesrepublik: An Oral History of Germany's Nuclear Weapons Program

Nick P

Donor
Sorry for the long blackout. Between the holidays and my terminally ill mother being in and out of hospital more than is usual for a few procedures, I've had my hands full. Things have finally stabilized, and there will be an update tomorrow. It's the beginning phases of 'The West German Job'. I have figured out what to do post-heist with this thing though....sorta. I'm also having a debate as to whether to move this more from a secret history timeline to a significantly noticeable POD in November 1983 (bonus points if you can figure out from that date what it involves). I may do a branching TL (Timeline A and B) and do both.

Also, here's a funny story about an infamous Trabant speed trap from Paul Gleye's Behind The Wall: An American In East Germany 1988-1989,

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Sorry to hear about your mother. I hope it isn't too painful for her and that you are coping with it.

A friend of mine bought a Trabant some years ago. Not just any Trabbie...
It was a former East German Polizei Trabant in green and white, with blue light on top. It still had the original East German number plates. He drove it back from Germany, crossed over on the ferry and down to Devon. To annoy the Police he made a point of speeding past any cameras (only those in 30mph zones - they weren't too fast!) so that they would have photos of his kids waving out of the back window of an untraceable police car! 😄
 
Sorry to hear about your mother. I hope it isn't too painful for her and that you are coping with it.

A friend of mine bought a Trabant some years ago. Not just any Trabbie...
It was a former East German Polizei Trabant in green and white, with blue light on top. It still had the original East German number plates. He drove it back from Germany, crossed over on the ferry and down to Devon. To annoy the Police he made a point of speeding past any cameras (only those in 30mph zones - they weren't too fast!) so that they would have photos of his kids waving out of the back window of an untraceable police car! 😄

Thanks. She just finished chemo round #28, which is basically a record for her type and these drugs. That's all we can ask for these days.

I think I read somewhere that the police Trabis have been slightly breathed upon and have a few more horses under the hood, though I might be wrong.
 
Thanks. She just finished chemo round #28, which is basically a record for her type and these drugs. That's all we can ask for these days.

I think I read somewhere that the police Trabis have been slightly breathed upon and have a few more horses under the hood, though I might be wrong.
I am sorry to hear about your mother. I've known too many people that have gone through that particular variety of Tartarus on Earth.
 
How about a Trabant trying to drive on an American interstate, and getting ticketed for going under the minimum speed. It might then get further charges of impersonating a motor vehicle.
After a few of the trials of American roads, the driver pulls up to a toll plaza. The attendant says, "Two Dollars."
The driver replies, "Sold!" and gets out.
 
Operation Schildkröte
"...and so with that, Operation Schildkröte began. Various departments of Wolf's HVA began working on projects that would enable the theft of nuclear warheads from the US Army. The technical services department was assigned the challenge of silently getting through meters of reinforced concrete, the illegals department ordered to position agents to purchase property to dig from, the department which dealt with Romeos found an entire class of students aimed at the various US Army sondenwaffenlagers in Southern Germany, another department the task of exfiltrating the shells back into the DDR from the Rhine River Valley area. It took about two months before the Romeos finally seduced not one, but two members of the 59th Ordinance Brigade, which handled the US Army's tactical nuclear weapons in West Germany. A poor army sergeant fell prey to an alluring HVA fraulein, and within a few weeks with the help of a few drugs slipped into his system and a very good Stasi interrogation team, he spilled the beans on the information the Stasi needed to know. He was actually none the wiser and just thought he had drank a bit too much the night before. "

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"With options available, the Stasi finally settled on stealing the weapons from the Sondenwaffenlager at Siegelsbach. It was a longer distance to tunnel than the other option at Fischbach, but fit the cover story better. Fischbach is out in the middle of absolute nowhere; the area around Siegelsbach is within an easy drive of several population centers. A Stasi illegal, a Turkish communist with a paper trail leading back to Islamabad, purchased a property suitable for use as a small warehouse to store inventory for an auto parts business; an ideal cover for moving the dirt and tunneling teams in and out in box trucks without anyone being the wiser. And with that, the the HVA was within a mile of their goal; they moved in and began the long dig towards their goal."
 
I´m going to assume there was quite a bit of yelling when the theft was discovered, with some careers crashing and burning. Still, sounds like no one ever learned just who did it.
 
Artillery is a Probability. But Tactical Aircraft are perfectly capable too. East Germany had enough of both.
I thought tactical bombers were not powerful enough to deliver bombs and that's why we developed ICBM's? Or I am getting a bit confused here.
 
I thought tactical bombers were not powerful enough to deliver bombs and that's why we developed ICBM's? Or I am getting a bit confused here.
Tactical bombers were not powerful enough to deliver 1st generation nuclear weapons, by the mid 50's that had been fixed and nukes could be carried by such. It took longer to carry thermonuclear weapons, but again by the 60's that had been fixed. ICBMs were created to be able to hit something on another continent in a way that could not be shot down like a bomber could be
 

Nick P

Donor
I thought tactical bombers were not powerful enough to deliver bombs and that's why we developed ICBM's? Or I am getting a bit confused here.

Back in the 1940s and 1950s nuclear bombs were big heavy objects that had to be flown in large bombers like the B-29 and B-36. Fat Man and Little Boy weighed 4.5 tons each. These were strategic in the sense of flying long range do destroy cities or military bases far away. That role later went to the ICBMs.

By the mid-1960s they were small enough to be carried by the likes of the Blackburn Buccaneer or even the Westland Wasp helicopter. The British WE177 tactical nuke weighed just 450kg. These could be used in a tactical sense for destroying ships or tank corps attacks.

The East German Air Force in the late 1970s had several Soviet aircraft designs, all of which were capable of delivering a small nuclear bomb. These included the Mig-21, Mig-23, Su-22 and in the 1980s the Mig-29.

The Air Forces of the National People's Army of the German Democratic Republic were very capable as East Germany was highly trusted by the Soviet Union. So well trusted that they got the same spec aircraft as them, not the lower spec and less capable export machines that went to the likes of Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Libya etc.
 
Tactical bombers were not powerful enough to deliver 1st generation nuclear weapons, by the mid 50's that had been fixed and nukes could be carried by such. It took longer to carry thermonuclear weapons, but again by the 60's that had been fixed. ICBMs were created to be able to hit something on another continent in a way that could not be shot down like a bomber could be
Back in the 1940s and 1950s nuclear bombs were big heavy objects that had to be flown in large bombers like the B-29 and B-36. Fat Man and Little Boy weighed 4.5 tons each. These were strategic in the sense of flying long range do destroy cities or military bases far away. That role later went to the ICBMs.

By the mid-1960s they were small enough to be carried by the likes of the Blackburn Buccaneer or even the Westland Wasp helicopter. The British WE177 tactical nuke weighed just 450kg. These could be used in a tactical sense for destroying ships or tank corps attacks.

The East German Air Force in the late 1970s had several Soviet aircraft designs, all of which were capable of delivering a small nuclear bomb. These included the Mig-21, Mig-23, Su-22 and in the 1980s the Mig-29.

The Air Forces of the National People's Army of the German Democratic Republic were very capable as East Germany was highly trusted by the Soviet Union. So well trusted that they got the same spec aircraft as them, not the lower spec and less capable export machines that went to the likes of Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Libya etc.
Thank you both for your answers, they were very insightful for my question. I thought that planes were made more powerful but nukes stayed on the same size. But now I see that planes got better and bombs got smaller, so it was a win-win scenario for both of them. And now with your explaination I see how this aircraft can be used in a more interesting role...
 
Depending on the circumstances, they can also be deployed by boat, ship, truck, or rail.
Then there's the "Leave it where you know the problem will go, and set it off then" method used against the Lizards on the Russian Front.
 
Depending on the circumstances, they can also be deployed by boat, ship, truck, or rail.
Then there's the "Leave it where you know the problem will go, and set it off then" method used against the Lizards on the Russian Front.

NATO had nuclear land mines for the Central Front prepared for such an eventuality.

As for what they end up as, just wait for the story.
 
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