Likelyhood of nuclear hegemony

Also, how are you planning to throw nukes at the cities of the second industrial economy in the world, with some of the densest anti-air defence networks on earth. Is it me or does any post-ww2-wank involving war on the soviets seem to assume that the USSR is some sort of pushover waiting to fall. You'd think it's based on the memoirs of german generals.

The same way SAC was planning in the '50s: Attrition. "The bomber always gets through" was true insofar as it was nearly impossible to totally stop bombers, even with radar, AAA, and dedicated interceptors; and if each bomber is carrying a city-killer...
 
Instead of doing the basic expariments under Chicago why not do them in a remote part of Canada? Then Canada would have the bomb and not others. Maby they would go along with the US about droping it on Japan. Then again maby not.

Well, if the US is still putting the resources and personnel into the project in Canada that it did in OTL, and I can't see the Bomb working out if they don't, the US isn't going to let Canada just keep the Bomb. It simply would not happen.
 
Instead of doing the basic expariments under Chicago why not do them in a remote part of Canada? Then Canada would have the bomb and not others. Maby they would go along with the US about droping it on Japan. Then again maby not.

Canada 1945 =/= Canada 2010 (or even Canada 1965)

They'd drop the bomb just as readily as the US...
 

Sachyriel

Banned
Instead of doing the basic expariments under Chicago why not do them in a remote part of Canada? Then Canada would have the bomb and not others. Maby they would go along with the US about droping it on Japan. Then again maby not.

I don't see why not, we were at war with them as well.
 
There's a difference between the will to make a superweapon... however long it takes... (USA/USSR...) and the will to make a superweapon... but it's gotta be ready in time for my B-day (Nazis)

Hitler and Co. simply didn't have the patience to wait, thus no atomic bombs and the Japanese had no effing clue as to what they were getting themselves into plus the rivalry between the army and navy was so bad they would probably have had 2 programs that were sabotaging one another. That's what I mean by not having the political will. Sure if the entire US boomer fleet was ISOT into Hamburg / Tokyo harbor in 1942 empty of people and with the launch codes next to the launch controls yeah the Nazis / Imperials would use them without the slightest hesitation or crisis of conscience but that's different from building a bomb and a delivery system that has little to no chance of being intercepted before it hits its target... that type of planning takes a very long view with a sustained political will rather than "Oooh! a-bombs will win the war!... whaddya mean it'll take 5 years!? Forget it! Go work on those big tanks I wanted a year ago!"


Well to be fair the Nazi's and the Japanese did not have time to build the bomb.

But what if the Nazi's had mangaed to win?

Two senerios, leading to two very differant hegemonies.

1. Nazis win. They develope nukes first, they have the best rockets, they have a very large percentage of world's economy, they decide it would be best for all concerned, ie the master race, if they only had nukes.

And they nuke anyone that builds a reactor.

2. Nazis win. They end up dominating Europe and Africa. Much of rest of world changes to work with them.

the US and UK get the bomb in the late 40s or early 50s and dedide as yo put that they are far superiour to the rest of the Nazi or nazi-friendly world. Either just tell Geramny that the new order is US/UK Hegemony and deal with it, which leads to war, or just launches a first strike on Germany.

Either way afterward the US/UK alliance is a nuclear hegemony that has a history that justifies not letting anyone else get the bomb.
 
The same way SAC was planning in the '50s: Attrition. "The bomber always gets through" was true insofar as it was nearly impossible to totally stop bombers, even with radar, AAA, and dedicated interceptors; and if each bomber is carrying a city-killer...
As I recall, the US did not have nearly enough first generation nukes stockpiled/in production to use them in an attritional manner, so you can not really compare that to situation in the 1950's.

That is not to mention that attritional bomber warfare would be much riskier for hegemonic nuclear power. In the 1950's the Soviets already had nuclear weapons, so the the potential damage from the USSR recovering a nuke from a shot down bomber was minuscule. For a US that bases all its power on being the only nation in the world with nuclear technology, the possibility, however slim, of their enemies recovering a nuclear weapon that could be reverse engineered would be terrifying. A hegemonic nuclear power could not afford to be cavalier about the idea that even one nuclear-equipped bomber might be lost in battle.
 
As I recall, the US did not have nearly enough first generation nukes stockpiled/in production to use them in an attritional manner, so you can not really compare that to situation in the 1950's.

I was wondering when someone would bring that up...well, if they can't keep nuclear hegemony for long enough to ramp up production and develop hydrogen bombs, then you can't really describe them as having it, can you?

That is not to mention that attritional bomber warfare would be much riskier for hegemonic nuclear power. In the 1950's the Soviets already had nuclear weapons, so the the potential damage from the USSR recovering a nuke from a shot down bomber was minuscule. For a US that bases all its power on being the only nation in the world with nuclear technology, the possibility, however slim, of their enemies recovering a nuclear weapon that could be reverse engineered would be terrifying. A hegemonic nuclear power could not afford to be cavalier about the idea that even one nuclear-equipped bomber might be lost in battle.

Nonsense. While there might be some danger of a plutonium bomb being reversed engineered, it would be dead simple for any country with a sufficiently large industrial base (which doesn't have to be that big; South Africa did it, later) to produce a uranium gun-type bomb. Which points out why the idea is silly; as soon as one country detonates a nuke, everyone else will know they are possible, and it's not very difficult to build a U-235 gun-type weapon, compared to a plutonium weapon (the Soviets didn't do it IOTL for some reason, but they could have, and probably had a nuke by 1948, instead, or earlier even). You would need to build up a large stockpile and have high production rates to be able to prevent that from happening, so that you could devastate everyone else's industry quickly.
 
The same way SAC was planning in the '50s: Attrition. "The bomber always gets through" was true insofar as it was nearly impossible to totally stop bombers, even with radar, AAA, and dedicated interceptors; and if each bomber is carrying a city-killer...
That's still a lot of nukes that will never make it to the target. Which is why you need to stockpile lots, and have them be sufficiently advanced that one or two bombs can do the job on a city-sized target on its own.
 
Nonsense. While there might be some danger of a plutonium bomb being reversed engineered, it would be dead simple for any country with a sufficiently large industrial base (which doesn't have to be that big; South Africa did it, later) to produce a uranium gun-type bomb. Which points out why the idea is silly; as soon as one country detonates a nuke, everyone else will know they are possible, and it's not very difficult to build a U-235 gun-type weapon, compared to a plutonium weapon (the Soviets didn't do it IOTL for some reason, but they could have, and probably had a nuke by 1948, instead, or earlier even). You would need to build up a large stockpile and have high production rates to be able to prevent that from happening, so that you could devastate everyone else's industry quickly.
Ummm....

I think you MASSIVELY underestimate the difficulty of enriching U235. O, sure, once you've GOT U235 in sufficient purity, a gun-type weapon is trivial. But getting it is the problem. IMO, the difficulty of making an implosion Pu device is a lot less than enriching the U.
 
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