Effects of nuclear weapons on a victorious Nazi Germany?

Effects of nuclear weapons on a victorious Nazi Germany?

  • Nazi Germany wouldn't surrender/collapse through nukes alone

    Votes: 28 50.9%
  • Nukes would be sufficient to defeat a victorious Reich

    Votes: 27 49.1%

  • Total voters
    55

Wendigo

Banned
Based off the discussion in these threads:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...de-peace-if-stalin-dropped-out-of-ww2.399353/
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ermany-already-victorious-in-the-east.302881/

If Nazi Germany had successfully defeated the USSR and occupied it to the Urals (AANW), could they have been successfully bombed into surrender/collapse using nuclear weapons by the WAllies and if so how many weapons would it have required?

What are the chances that Hitler and his inner circle would surrender if millions of their citizens died in nuclear fire?

Is it possible that a victorious Reich stretching from France to the Urals (and given sufficient time to disperse manufacturing and consolidate their conquests) would be too structurally sound to be defeated *solely* through nuclear attack as opposed to a ground invasion in combination with bombing (both conventional and nuclear)?

Would the WAllies be willing to kill millions of Europeans even though it wasn't certain that nukes would make the Reich collapse?
 
Is it possible that a victorious Reich stretching from France to the Urals (and given sufficient time to disperse manufacturing and consolidate their conquests) would be too structurally sound to be defeated *solely* through nuclear attack as opposed to a ground invasion in combination with bombing (both conventional and nuclear)?

Yes, but it would have been very difficult and probably would have required more bombs that would have been available in a 1940s/early 1950s timescale. So you might call that "No".
However the question is also moot because a ground invasion would have occurred once they figured that the defences/industry/transport had been softened up enough.

Would the WAllies be willing to kill millions of Europeans even though it wasn't certain that nukes would make the Reich collapse?

OTL says yes.
 
If the WAllies are "humane" in their nuking, then they likely use tactical nuclear weapons to destroy Nazi positions as they march across Europe, thus sparing the majority of German cities from destruction.

Another side question is what happens to Eastern Europe after the defeat of the Nazi State. Several parts of the USSR/Poland would have become Germanized. Do the locals get expelled. If so, how do the WAllies reconstitute viable Eastern European states. Presumabely they won't cede the European parts of the USSR to the Soviet rump state. Would they try to create a non-communist state/confederation in the former European Soviet Union. Or do they create a seperate state for the Ukrainians, the Balts, Russians, etc?
 
Yes, but it would have been very difficult and probably would have required more bombs that would have been available in a 1940s/early 1950s timescale. So you might call that "No".
However the question is also moot because a ground invasion would have occurred once they figured that the defences/industry/transport had been softened up enough.



OTL says yes.

If the war had continued then bomb production would have stayed the same and would likely even have increased. There would probably be 2-3 bombs ready for use per month IMHO. That's the destruction of up to a dozen or so German cities in the latter half of 1945.
 
Depends on the targeting list. As i recall Trueman told the pentagon to take Tokyo off the list due to killing the Emporer would stiffen japanese resolve . Dont know if nuking Berlin and killing hitler would change anything?
 
Based off the discussion in these threads:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...de-peace-if-stalin-dropped-out-of-ww2.399353/
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ermany-already-victorious-in-the-east.302881/

If Nazi Germany had successfully defeated the USSR and occupied it to the Urals (AANW), could they have been successfully bombed into surrender/collapse using nuclear weapons by the WAllies and if so how many weapons would it have required?
Yes I believe they could be bombed into surrender. I suspect once the Nazi leadership had been killed off (and with nuclear weapons it wouldn't be that difficult) and the German infrastructure in ruins they would have surrendered.
As for the number of weapons, I'd say not more than twenty or so, delivered steadily and with the implication that the WAllies could keep such a bombardment up indefinately. Say one bomb every week, which is quite sustainable given early 1946 production rates.

What are the chances that Hitler and his inner circle would surrender if millions of their citizens died in nuclear fire?
Probably rather low. Once they're dead things should improve.

Is it possible that a victorious Reich stretching from France to the Urals (and given sufficient time to disperse manufacturing and consolidate their conquests) would be too structurally sound to be defeated *solely* through nuclear attack as opposed to a ground invasion in combination with bombing (both conventional and nuclear)?
Mmmm, I'd expect the WAllies to use a multi-pronged approach; landings in periphery, supported by lots of tactical nuclear weapons (and quite probably poison gas, especially if FDR is dead) while bombing Germany's industrial base with conventional and nuclear bombs, possibly also mixed with chemical agents.

Would the WAllies be willing to kill millions of Europeans even though it wasn't certain that nukes would make the Reich collapse?
Yes.

Depends on the targeting list. As i recall Trueman told the pentagon to take Tokyo off the list due to killing the Emporer would stiffen japanese resolve . Dont know if nuking Berlin and killing hitler would change anything?
Well with Hitler, Himmler et al dead I'd expect arranging German surrender would be easier.


FYI here is the production schedule for the Manhattan project, the fourth and subsequent weapons are from the Hull-Seaman memorandum of August 1945. This was drawn up to inform targeters developing a usage plan to support Downfall.
Unless there are significant variations from history the first weapon available (a MK3 plutonium bomb) will be available in early July 1945. Historically this was the 'Gadget' expended in the Trinity test on 16JUL1945. With different decisions that device could have been weaponised and used against Germany. The next two weapons, the historical 'Little Boy' and 'Fat Man', will be available around the same time. T 'Little Boy' MK1 uranium bomb in mid-July 1945 and the second MK3 (the historical 'Fat Man') the following week.
The fourth weapon (using the historical 'Demon Core') was to be ready for use in mid August 1945.
· one MK 3 by 19AUG19451945 [bomb #4]
· a second MK 3 by 01SEP1945
· three more MK 3 (mix of MOD0 and the improved MOD1 configurations) by 30SEP1945
· three or four additional MK 3 weapons in OCT1945
· an additional MK 3 every ten days for the remainder of the year
· an additional MK 1 available before the end of 1945.
So assuming the Trinity test goes ahead that'd allow the USAAF (and possibly the RAF) to drop eighteen fission bombs on occupied Europe before 1945 was out. After that things would get really nasty for Germany. Historically after the surrender of Japan the Manhattan project was essentially shown down; with an active war against Germany happening production would be ramped up so in 1946 the production rate would increase further with newer reactors coming online (and the xenon poisoning problem mostly fixed). Expect at least fifty nuclear bombs to be produced in 1946 and probably more than sixty. In fact 80-100 weapons would not be impossible.
Some of these would be the equivalent of later MODs of the MK3, with 2-3 times the yield of Fat Man and some would be the equivalent of the easier to deploy composite pit MK4.
 
Would the WAllies be willing to kill millions of Europeans Germans even though it wasn't certain that nukes would make the Reich collapse?

Corrected it for you. I doubt they'd be willing to kill millions of Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Belgians, Danes etc.
 

Wendigo

Banned
Corrected it for you. I doubt they'd be willing to kill millions of Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Belgians, Danes etc.
If you wanted to effectively gut Nazi industry to the point of collapse wouldn't you have to deploy nukes against the whole of the Greater Germanic Reich, not just Germany proper?

Relevant passage from AANW:

The British were eager, even demanding, to up the ante on the Reich by deploying nuclear weapons against several German population centers while the U.S. was equally resistant to revealing secret of the Bomb in a manner that would make clear to everyone in the world that such a weapon was possible. None of the decision makers believed that the destruction of even a dozen German cities would end the war, the Nazi state was otherwise too structurally sound for them to crumble that quickly, and enough of the Reich’s production was scattered across the rest of the continent that to ensure crippling the German economy would require deploying nuclear weapons across Western Europe, killing millions of innocent forced laborers in France, Norway, the Low Countries, and the rest of “Greater Germany”. The Americans could see nothing worse than deploying the “Ultimate Weapon” only to find the Reich still standing, bloodied by unbowed. That, Washington argued, millions of civilians killed across most of Europe anda defiant Reich still in power and able to pin the dead onto the Allies, was the worst of all possible situations. In the end, British heads cooled enough to stand down the six Vulcans that had already been bombed up and were waiting for final release.
Also according to CalBear the vast majority of the Reich's manufacturing was moved into underground facilities by 1947. This alone surely should make a decisive nuclear strike more difficult.
 
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If Germany in 1941 occupies USSR to Urals or longitude 70 East or Yenisei (a proposed border with Japan), how would the absence of Luftwaffe losses on Eastern Front affect the air war in Europe, 1942-1944?
 
If you wanted to effectively gut Nazi industry to the point of collapse wouldn't you have to deploy nukes against the whole of the Greater Germanic Reich, not just Germany proper?

Relevant passage from AANW:


Also according to CalBear the vast majority of the Reich's manufacturing was moved into underground facilities by 1947. This alone surely should make a decisive nuclear strike more difficult.

That's just one ATL. It could go any variety of ways. Moving all of that production capacity underground would take a lot of time and effort. I have my doubts about the feasibility of doing that with an ongoing strategic bombing campaign (assuming a TL where the Soviets are down but not out, leaving a commitment in the east for the Germans).
 
Also according to CalBear the vast majority of the Reich's manufacturing was moved into underground facilities by 1947. This alone surely should make a decisive nuclear strike more difficult.

A question on this: what about the efect on the german rail & channel system, resulting from the destruction of the cities? The underground factories might be intact, but with rail to supply them...
 
It depends. If it was meant to take out the Axis C3 and industrial capacity in a First Strike, then probably.
 
it should be noted that moving oil refineries and synthetic oil plants underground would be a feat of engineering that if Germany were capable of it, the Americans probably couldn't get any nuclear weapons through anyway

in other words, nuclear strikes on those targets will massively cripple Germany... just as conventional bombing of those targets in OTL.
 

Wendigo

Banned
@CalBear since this question is based mostly off of elements in your TL, what is your response?

Could a victorious Reich manage (within a decade or so) to place underground or widely disperse their industry over the entirety of Europe that the task of nuking every individual location would be unfeasible for the WAllies due to concerns for collateral damage?
 
The real question is, if Japan can keep up it's part of the bargain. If Japan can't even get into Mongolia, much less actually make it to the Urals, the Germans are gonna go as far as they can.
 
Is nuke production sufficient given that the attrition rate of nuke carrying bombers would be high and hit rate won't be 100%?

Or would nuke be those just lucky devastating shots if they hit?
 
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