Earlies possible nukes?

Assuming WW2 starts as per OTL and european scientists flee German dominance as per OTL and both UK and US express same level of interest as per OTL, say up to late 1941 when FDR OKs the project. What is the earliest time workable nuke can be fielded? And assuming rest of war goes as per OTL (no reason why it shouldn't) what would be the target?

You can load the dice as much as realistically possible but any ASB will be shot on sight.
 
Assuming WW2 starts as per OTL and european scientists flee German dominance as per OTL and both UK and US express same level of interest as per OTL, say up to late 1941 when FDR OKs the project. What is the earliest time workable nuke can be fielded? And assuming rest of war goes as per OTL (no reason why it shouldn't) what would be the target?

You can load the dice as much as realistically possible but any ASB will be shot on sight.

Have the Manhattan Project discover the Zippe centrifuge. This was tech that could have been built with early 40s technology; the Manhattan Project just got unlucky and missed it, and instead went with thermal diffusion etc. Zippe is today the cornerstone of most uranium enrichment, because it has significantly lower capital costs and energy requirements than Manhattan-style enrichment. I'm not sure exactly how much that pushes up the bomb, but I would bet it would buy at least a few months.
 
Have the Manhattan Project discover the Zippe centrifuge. This was tech that could have been built with early 40s technology; the Manhattan Project just got unlucky and missed it, and instead went with thermal diffusion etc. Zippe is today the cornerstone of most uranium enrichment, because it has significantly lower capital costs and energy requirements than Manhattan-style enrichment. I'm not sure exactly how much that pushes up the bomb, but I would bet it would buy at least a few months.

If they went all out, they could probably have the bomb by '44 (late '44, mind you) even with OTL techniques, given that work didn't start in earnest until late '42 or so (that's what I've read, anyways). Put them together, and...how does clearing the beaches of Normandy with tactical nuclear strikes sound to you (of course, they'd need to have British-based B-29s for that)?

Of course, far more likely would be replacing the firebombing of Dresden, etc. with the nuking of Dresden, etc. This would be much more effective at destroying industry, probably, than the OTL strategic bombings. It would also make the China-based B-29s more effective, and would tend to make people focus on that, perhaps? Could Silverplate bombers based in China reach Japan?

Somehow I suspect that ITTL the war would be over by Christmas '44...
 
I suppose my question would be the cultural effects of a much larger nuclear bombing campaign--particularly if it's used for something like clearing invasion beaches ahead of landings or something, where you're likely to have Allied forces in sustained presence around ground zero after the initial bombing. Can you imagine how the public impression of radioactivity's effects might be if American soldiers were taking the effects of fallout?
 
I suppose my question would be the cultural effects of a much larger nuclear bombing campaign--particularly if it's used for something like clearing invasion beaches ahead of landings or something, where you're likely to have Allied forces in sustained presence around ground zero after the initial bombing. Can you imagine how the public impression of radioactivity's effects might be if American soldiers were taking the effects of fallout?
I think they knew a bit about fallout so as not to want to send troops through it, didn't they?
 
I suppose my question would be the cultural effects of a much larger nuclear bombing campaign--particularly if it's used for something like clearing invasion beaches ahead of landings or something, where you're likely to have Allied forces in sustained presence around ground zero after the initial bombing. Can you imagine how the public impression of radioactivity's effects might be if American soldiers were taking the effects of fallout?

The Manhattan Project's radiation guidelines were absolutely TERRIFYING - as in, crazy high even compared to what they did in the 50s. I may be misremembering, but I believe the radiation threshold for evacuating the public if Trinity went oopsie was 75 Rads infinite dose. Basically, just low enough that short-term radiation sickness was unlikely, and we'll worry about cancer when we come to it.
 
I don't think the idea of nuking Normandy (or any part of France) before the invasion is feasible. Not operationaly, that could happen, but I think fallout (both literal and figurative) would be too much for nukes to be used in France. I think target would be Germany.
 
Have Arthur Jeffrey Dempster get luck with the discovery of U-235 in 1930 instead of 1935.

Read the OP; this is OTL up to 1941, so that's not possible. I mean, I suppose you could argue that the discovery of U-235 wouldn't change world politics at all, but I don't think that's really plausible if you also want to use it to advance nuclear weapons development.
 
IIRC, in Operation Olympic they were considering having US troops on nuked soil just 48 hours later. Then again I'm not entirely sure of the validity of that, lemme check for you...

EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Nuclear_weapons

The effects of that depend on if it's a ground- or air-burst, and I don't think I've ever seen any definitive information on their plans one way or the other. Airburst, 48 hours is probably more than enough. Groundburst, not so much.

You know, the public perception of radiation exposure could go either way as a result of this. If large numbers of American troops are dusted with a significant level of fallout, but not enough to cause observable acute effects or a large (5% or greater) increase in cancer rates, I wonder if it would actually decrease the public's fear of radiation. Because it would make radiation seem familiar and normalized, rather than esoteric and mysterious.
 
The effects of that depend on if it's a ground- or air-burst, and I don't think I've ever seen any definitive information on their plans one way or the other. Airburst, 48 hours is probably more than enough. Groundburst, not so much.

Airburst still means large amounts of radiation - all the dust from the destroyed city is gonna get sucked up into the mushroom, irradiated, and a few hours later begin to settle as fallout. It won't be as much as a groundburst, doubtless, but it will still produce fallout, and it will produce the same proportion of long-lasting radioactive substances as a groundburst.
 

Nietzsche

Banned
Nuking targets in France, regardless of their importance, is going to piss off the French(and likely, the British) somethin' fierce.

I've got a semi-related question:

Why didn't the British drop a few Tallboys on the German emplacements?
 
Tallboy's in June in Normandy, don't think there were enough of them at that point. As for nukes, got to go for Berlin, maybe March 45.
 
Airburst still means large amounts of radiation - all the dust from the destroyed city is gonna get sucked up into the mushroom, irradiated, and a few hours later begin to settle as fallout. It won't be as much as a groundburst, doubtless, but it will still produce fallout, and it will produce the same proportion of long-lasting radioactive substances as a groundburst.

I'm going by The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, by Samuel Glasstone and Phillip Dolan, 1977 edition. They say that, while a weapon airburst at an altitude where the fireball is well above the Earth's surface will produce about the same amount of radioactive fallout as a groundburst (with some minor differences in the neutron activation products), the fallout will be lofted into the upper atmosphere by the heat of the blast, where it will be diluted and largely decay before returning to Earth. Therefore, under most circumstances, fallout does not pose a major short-term local hazard after an airburst.
 
Top