marathag
Banned
It was oversized enough it needed the Cordite charge to force the assembly together thru the gun 'barrel'
They didn't want an oops while loading the bomb to set it off.
German Nuclear Program (Bomb/Reactor)
They didn't want an oops while loading the bomb to set it off.
The force of firing that huge gun is a lot more then just dropping it, it is on par with the explosive charge, think about it, it has to be you are trying to toss 10,000 pounds 30 miles, that is not a little bump.
and this thread has been going a while and not surprising you forgot you were forced to act as moderator.
and this thread has been going a while and not surprising you forgot you were forced to act as moderator.
Gun delivery has more issues than aerial bombs. There is the stress of firing and the need for a weapon, both the fission core and the electronics for the firing system.
A gun barrel design (e.g. the MK1 Uranium design) could fit into a 80cm bore but it would need significant work to be safe). The MK3 type (plutonium implosion) would be too big until something like the MK7 of the early fifties.
Submarine is about the only plausible way.
The MK-3's 'X-unit' weighted a quarter-tonne, all hand wired lead acid batteries and capacitors. It was also known to have 'issues' with ESD hence Hornig's vigil over the Gadget.
The MK1 didn't use hemispheres, the target was a solid cylinder and the projectile was a hollow composite cylinder, made from nine stacked rings.
Riain
Banned
Has anyone ever done an audit of what that Germans had in terms of people, facilities, raw materials and inputs and what they had access to that might of been useful to a nuclear programme?
The reason I ask is because I have a vague memory that unlike the Manhattan project the German 'programme' was fragmented in several ways, not only were facilities not concentrated and not prioritised but that organisations were competitive, duplicated as well as creating gaps that needed to be filled.
I wonder what all of that adds up to. No doubt its get nowhere near the Manhattan project, but what about Britain's Tube Alloys effort, or what the French were doing? Was the German effort bigger than these, if so by how much, etc etc etc?
The reason I ask is because I have a vague memory that unlike the Manhattan project the German 'programme' was fragmented in several ways, not only were facilities not concentrated and not prioritised but that organisations were competitive, duplicated as well as creating gaps that needed to be filled.
I wonder what all of that adds up to. No doubt its get nowhere near the Manhattan project, but what about Britain's Tube Alloys effort, or what the French were doing? Was the German effort bigger than these, if so by how much, etc etc etc?
Alright, it seems while I was unavailable to answer or participate this thread had some activity and someone even got banned, huh? Anyway, I want to answer to a few things that had been said here.
As a note, Paul Harteck, who was on the "Uranium Group" and ended up in Allied custody together with Heisenberg, Gerlach, Diebner etc. experimented with nuclear fusion in 1934, in England, later becoming an advisor for the Army Ordnance Office of Germany.
And it seems extremely unlikely for nuclear physicists, who were experimenting with nuclear fusion (I believe this was a way to measure the cross section of different elements), a clear source of neutrons, to be unable to think/suggest/propose to use fusion as a source of neutrons to start a fission reaction.
A great example of this idea was Erich Schumann's patents published post-war, though, there is the mention that he tried to publish in 1942 some patents but were either rejected or failed the requirements for a patent, and his 1948 to 1952 patents were based on his previous work. Or Kurt Diebner's 1956 thermonuclear one, but by this point such weapons were already in use. (Though, this is not really that important, it at least shows that the German physicists were not oblivious to this concept even if it was a few years after WWII but before 1954 when the first fusion-fission weapons were tested.)
(Point 6/7 centrifuge) It seems I have been mistaken, it was not a gas centrifuge but a ultracentrifuge, with development starting from 1941.
David Irving's 1967 The Virus House has more information about that (Page 154 - https://www.ba.infn.it/~cufaro/copenhagen/1967_Irving_VirusHouse.pdf ) (I think this was one of the first works that had anything more detailed about the German Nuclear Program.)
As controversial as Irving is, a feeling shared by the people on this thread; I will play the devil advocate and say that this was before he started to become what he is today, before he started to go down the route of holocaust denial and Nazi apologist. So, his earlier works should be decent given the limited data available at the time (if his pro-axis inclination).
There is more information about these ultracentrifuges in G-82, G-83, G-95, G-107, G-148, G-149, G-158, G-330 to 336. Which I don't think are on the internet. (https://www.chemie.uni-hamburg.de/institute/pc/publikationen/db/groth.html here are some of them)
- Those have nothing to do with the above text -
(Mostly interesting things)
Heisenberg's Critical Mass Paradox, this talks about the discrepancy of Heisenberg's numbers (tons, kgs) for a bomb. (Or the possibility of a bomb)
This is the manuscript of the lecture delivered February 26, 1942 at the House of German Research.
This is a research study on the B-VIII (Nuclear Reactor), the study concludes that if the materials were 100% pure it would have reached criticality (with unenriched uranium, it is fair to conclude that if the cubes were enriched to 5%-10% U-235 it would have reached criticality with the other impurities)
(Point 5) When I said "not necessary a plutonium implosion one. Or an uranium gun one" I was referring to fusion-fission or fission-fusion-fission (implosion, obviously) designs. I am dubious that the concept of fusion boosting or fusion initiation was non existent during WW2, when, fusion was 'invented' earlier, much earlier than fission.
As a note, Paul Harteck, who was on the "Uranium Group" and ended up in Allied custody together with Heisenberg, Gerlach, Diebner etc. experimented with nuclear fusion in 1934, in England, later becoming an advisor for the Army Ordnance Office of Germany.
And it seems extremely unlikely for nuclear physicists, who were experimenting with nuclear fusion (I believe this was a way to measure the cross section of different elements), a clear source of neutrons, to be unable to think/suggest/propose to use fusion as a source of neutrons to start a fission reaction.
A great example of this idea was Erich Schumann's patents published post-war, though, there is the mention that he tried to publish in 1942 some patents but were either rejected or failed the requirements for a patent, and his 1948 to 1952 patents were based on his previous work. Or Kurt Diebner's 1956 thermonuclear one, but by this point such weapons were already in use. (Though, this is not really that important, it at least shows that the German physicists were not oblivious to this concept even if it was a few years after WWII but before 1954 when the first fusion-fission weapons were tested.)
(Point 6/7 centrifuge) It seems I have been mistaken, it was not a gas centrifuge but a ultracentrifuge, with development starting from 1941.
David Irving's 1967 The Virus House has more information about that (Page 154 - https://www.ba.infn.it/~cufaro/copenhagen/1967_Irving_VirusHouse.pdf ) (I think this was one of the first works that had anything more detailed about the German Nuclear Program.)
As controversial as Irving is, a feeling shared by the people on this thread; I will play the devil advocate and say that this was before he started to become what he is today, before he started to go down the route of holocaust denial and Nazi apologist. So, his earlier works should be decent given the limited data available at the time (if his pro-axis inclination).
There is more information about these ultracentrifuges in G-82, G-83, G-95, G-107, G-148, G-149, G-158, G-330 to 336. Which I don't think are on the internet. (https://www.chemie.uni-hamburg.de/institute/pc/publikationen/db/groth.html here are some of them)
- Those have nothing to do with the above text -
(Mostly interesting things)
Heisenberg's Critical Mass Paradox, this talks about the discrepancy of Heisenberg's numbers (tons, kgs) for a bomb. (Or the possibility of a bomb)
This is the manuscript of the lecture delivered February 26, 1942 at the House of German Research.
This is a research study on the B-VIII (Nuclear Reactor), the study concludes that if the materials were 100% pure it would have reached criticality (with unenriched uranium, it is fair to conclude that if the cubes were enriched to 5%-10% U-235 it would have reached criticality with the other impurities)
Perhaps this? Though, I am not that sure how accurate it is. It is from Forgotten Creators by Todd Rider, which, if you intend to read it, it is better to check the sources and reach your own conclusions (because he, or following the example of others, reaches some conclusions that are... bad)
There is also Irving's The Virus House that has some figures (monetary ones) (How accurate I am not sure)
The German Nuclear Effort was as you describe, fragmented, competitive and had lots of infighting. (Many groups worked at different approaches at their own universities and had less exchange of information compared to the Manhattan ones)
True. Though one imaging a bomb in a suitable case that was 'swum out' or deployed like a mine while the sub departed, slowly.
There is one somewhere, but for the life of me I can't remember where.
And you're completely right about fragmentation, that was a feature of the Nazi system with lots of empire building.
Much of the pre-war French programme (which was energy focussed, like the US Navy's project of the time) went to Britain as France was falling. In fact the heavy water, 182 litres (pretty much the entire supply of the stuff in the world in early 1940) purchased from Norsk-Hydro by Allier with government money, was carried by Kowarski and Halban personally when they escaped. This was absolutely vital to the early British fission chain-reaction experiments which became Tube Alloys. The French uranium supply, purchased from out old friends Union Minière, was transferred to Morocco and sat out the war. It became a vital part of French post-war nuclear research. After the fall of France the French cyclortrons were copies (the Germans had never developed the accelerator).
I've seem the claims for German fusion weapons research before. I note you fail to cite any actual evidence for them.
And where were the Germans to get the deuterium and tritium for this?
Further you seem to lack an understanding of the physics of nuclear weapons. A fusion-boosted fission bomb is still a fission bomb; it requires a critical mass of fissile material (which the Nazis utterly lacked).
If you insist on citing Irvine (most of whose research is half-a-century old) then perhaps you'll address the various flaws in it? Take a look at the reviews, especially those concentrating on his errors of physics and science for details of his errors.
Well back in the sixties, which is when he did most of his Nazi Nuclear Bomb work he wasn't a full-on Hitler hugging, Holocaust denying, anti-Semitic fruitcase. Though there were signs.
But, as you say, he was unreliable and sloppy in his research, biased, and simply lacked understanding of the subject he was researching (not uncommon in historians lacking education in the sciences; Irving never finished his science degree at London [he has no formal education or position in the history field]). Hence his book (first published in '67) was torn apart in reviews. Hell even his discussion of Allied nuclear research was badly flawed. His captioning of Harteck as "Could have made the bomb"., was (and is) nonsense.
Then there is the elephant in the room; Irving failed to discuss whycertain processes were not pursued by the German project, for example the shunning of gaseous diffusion for isotopic separation. Gustav Hertz, the proponent of this technique, was Jewish and hence excluded.
And then there's the saga of Boethe and the graphite neutron absorption errors; it wouldn't have mattered because Siemens was incapable of producing sufficiently pure graphite to be used as a moderator, their product was contaminated with barium and cadmium.
Garrison
Donor
You can trace the impact of Nazi anti-semitism on nuclear research right back to one of the original discoverers of Uranium fission Lise Metiner
en.m.wikipedia.org
Not to mention the likes of Leo Szilard who fled the Nazi occupation of their homelands.
Lise Meitner - Wikipedia
Not to mention the likes of Leo Szilard who fled the Nazi occupation of their homelands.
He has been barred from Austria, Germany, Italy, Australia and Canada for Holocaust denial. We actually arrested and deported him from Canada in 1992. At which time he outright lied to the court about the circumstances of his entry to Canada, which probably did not help his case. He was later called to present before a French Court, but as extradition was not included, refrained from appearing.
During his libel suite against the author and publishers of Denying the Holocaust the publishers called as witness, among others, Professor of Modern History at Cambridge Richard Evans, who said:
David Irving - Wikipedia
He is about as discredited as you can get as a historian. Now most of this centred on his Holocaust denial, but it still speaks to his general credibility when discussing the third reich in general.
George Carty
Banned
How likely is it that Germany in the 1930s would seek to develop nuclear submarines: either as a weapon of war, or as a means to import food that could circumvent a British naval blockade (the threat of which is what motivated the Nazis to seek to depopulate Eastern Europe in the first place)?
It would obviously be more likely if the Nazis don't take over Germany in the first place...
It would obviously be more likely if the Nazis don't take over Germany in the first place...
Sigh, I was trying to make the point that the concept of using fusion to initiate fission wasn't unknown or hardly to come to it during the early 40s to physicists. (From Forgotten Creators, on the topic of fusion-fission, it gives the source of G-367. Wolfgang Ferrant. Proposal for a New Method of Releasing Nuclear Energy by a Beam of Heavy Particles. 1945.)I've seem the claims for German fusion weapons research before. I note you fail to cite any actual evidence for them.
Really? I don't understand how people are so certain that Germany had not even one heavy water plant throughout the war. Or that they were incapable to build one compared to the Norwegians. What made the Norwegian D2O plant so good was that it was cheap.
As to where they would get their heavy water, deuterium, tritium? From at least the Leuna Werke plant.
(https://www.academia.edu/39288090/H...2_France_Karl-Hermann_Geib_biographical_essay) and a CIA report on the plant post war (CIA-RDP81-01028R000100080011-0 - https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP81-01028R000100080011-0.pdf)
Where did I denied that?
A fusion boosted/initiated bomb still requires the fissionable material (U-233,235/Pu-239) but at a much smaller scale compared to the simple fission designs of the Manhattan Project, the W54 warhead I think had around 2 Kgs of Pu 239 and 1 of Uranium. (What I had in mind about this is the fact that requiring a smaller fission material would be more economical to Germany)
It is an unreliable source. But it is the only source that I currently have (on ultracentrifuges), if any of you have a more up to date one, that I wish I had, I sincerely hope that you will post it to shine some light on the German ultracentrifuges development. (Better if there are the G reports) (I also think he based everything regarding the ultracentrifuge development on the contents of said reports)
Well they are kind of constrained by the fact that fission was not discovered until late 30s. Maybe the Kriegsmarine get more interested in the concept of a nuclear engine and fund the project from 1939 to 45, designing a new (better?) submarine of the size of the Typ XXIX or I-400 class?
Just in time for it to disappear into some Wally naval research facility.
David Flin
Gone Fishin'
Indeed. I was going for (and clearly failing) the traditional understatement.