Graehame
Banned
XCHEN08
I have evidently overestimated the effects of an FAE of the indicated size. However, your estimate that "near-total destruction within 1.5km represents a 150kt nuke" is also 'way off the mark. Hiroshima was a 12.5kt device with near-total destruction extending to 1.6km from the blast center. Also, your response completely discounts the (admittedly inconclusive) evidence of the use of unconventional explosives of unusual destructive power at Kursk, & possibly at Sevastopol. It is a long-recognized historical fact that the Russians did threaten to retaliate with chemical weapons if the Germans ever repeated whatever it was they did at Sevastopol.
From fas.org : "There are dramatic differences between explosions involving vapor clouds and high explosives... The shock wave from a TNT explosion is of relatively short duration, while the blast wave produced by an explosion of hydrocarbon material displays a relatively long duration. The duration of the positive phase of a shock wave is an important parameter in the response of structures to a blast. Although the detonation combustion mode produces the most severe damage, fast deflagrations of the cloud can result from flame acceleration under confined and congested conditions. Flame propagation speed has a significant influence on the blast parameters both inside and outside the source volume. ...This creates far more severe peak over-pressures and much higher amounts of blast energy."
From everything2.com : "(Conventional) military FAE's are 12 to 16 times more powerful than conventional munitions... Several can also be exploded in near-simultaneous ripples that reinforce each other's blast waves. This makes fuel-air explosives a nearly unparalleled destructive force..."
Contrary to your assertion that FAEs do not "yield orders of magnitude, or even one order of magnitude above...a similar weight of conventional explosives", a device that's 12 to 16 times more powerful than conventional munitions has an approximate yield of 1.5 orders of magnitude higher than conventional explosives.
Furthermore, by exploding several "in near-simultaneous ripples that reinforce each other's blast waves", we gain yields that are 2 or more orders of magnitude higher.
From www.igc.com : "...the nature of FAE explosions makes it virtually impossible for civilians to take shelter..."
From wikia.com : "A...Fuel Air Bomb is designed to produce a massive shockwave. Said to be as powerful as a small nuclear bomb..."
From "Hitler's Suppressed and Still-Secret Weapons", by Henry Stevens : "A second method to extract energy from liquid air (LOX) involves its rapid transformation from a frozen liquid to a gas... Here we encounter the patent of Karl Nowak. Nowak was an Austrian who found that when matter in its cold, liquid state is heated rapidly...it expands with a tremendous rate of force. ...The basics of this liquid air discussion are that the Germans succeeded in finding a simple new source of energy...that has apparently been forgotten today."
Unlike many in this forum, I have no problem postulating that the Nazis developed technology (not magic) that was not only ahead of its time, but has since been lost. The V-2 rocket, jet aircraft, the Walther turbine, & the Type-XXI submarine are just a few examples that were impossible to miss, so they were exhaustively studied post-war. The Fischer-Trobsch process for turning low-grade coal into diesel fuel, on the other hand, was virtually forgotten until resurrected about 20 years ago. There were probably many examples of obscure technology which, when captured, nobody understood. The scientists & techs who worked on it have scattered, the files are missing or else laying all over the floor, & all you've got are some drums filled with coal dust, some cold vats of liquid oxygen that's evaporating, & some boxes of some kind of yellowish waxy stuff. What the hell is it?
I don't expect your concurrence, but my theory is that small, primitive Nazi FAEs were used at Kursk, & possibly at Sevastopol. Despite Russian threats, R&D continued, with the stockpiling of modules for the construction of larger, more advanced bombs. This would allow the Nazis to rapidly assemble bombs to retaliate vs the US-- not, as you say, "from theory & a few tests", but from a 3-year R&D project based on at least 2 different designs which had been operationally used, developing a 3d design which had been fully tested & stockpiled but not yet used operationally.
To deal with your other objections, in contrast to the 50kg devices proposed in my original post, let's double the size, increase the number of bombs per aircraft from 4 to 8, & let's decrease the blast radius per bomb from 1.6km (which seemed a little high to me even when I wrote it) to 200M. By dropping multiple bombs on each city we gain "near-simultaneous ripples that reinforce each other's blast waves", increasing the effect to a radius of about 250-300M per bomb.
As to your point about the Russian FOAB being too large for a modern bomber to employ, I'm not using the FOAB. What I'm using are advanced Nazi FAEs that employ liquid oxygen technology in combination with a wax catalyst whose properties have since been lost.
Regarding the Ju-290, the A-7/A-8/A-9 models had a published combat range of 3843 miles (& the three A-9s had even greater range than that) with a payload of 3000kg of bombs, & 17 of them were built. That's enough range to reach the E Coast (3619 miles) without being stripped down, & plenty of bomb capacity, when all we need is about 800kg. All Ju-290 A-7s/A-8s/A-9s had either bomb bay doors or a drop-ramp that could be used for a similar purpose. (If you want a shorter flight distance, then fly first to Brest, refuel, & then to the E Coast. And BTW, I'm using it as a 1-way weapon, not even trying to fly it all the way back to Europe.)
Let me repeat for the purposes of clarity-- I know that I'm reaching a bit here. Not in my original post concerning the merits of Moscow vs Kiev, but in this offshoot concerning a Nazi response to nuclear attack. What I'm looking for isn't "truth", whatever that is-- but plausibility. In other words, is it conceivable that the Nazis invented a primitive FAE which could have been used to counter a US nuclear attack in roughly the manner I've described?
I have evidently overestimated the effects of an FAE of the indicated size. However, your estimate that "near-total destruction within 1.5km represents a 150kt nuke" is also 'way off the mark. Hiroshima was a 12.5kt device with near-total destruction extending to 1.6km from the blast center. Also, your response completely discounts the (admittedly inconclusive) evidence of the use of unconventional explosives of unusual destructive power at Kursk, & possibly at Sevastopol. It is a long-recognized historical fact that the Russians did threaten to retaliate with chemical weapons if the Germans ever repeated whatever it was they did at Sevastopol.
From fas.org : "There are dramatic differences between explosions involving vapor clouds and high explosives... The shock wave from a TNT explosion is of relatively short duration, while the blast wave produced by an explosion of hydrocarbon material displays a relatively long duration. The duration of the positive phase of a shock wave is an important parameter in the response of structures to a blast. Although the detonation combustion mode produces the most severe damage, fast deflagrations of the cloud can result from flame acceleration under confined and congested conditions. Flame propagation speed has a significant influence on the blast parameters both inside and outside the source volume. ...This creates far more severe peak over-pressures and much higher amounts of blast energy."
From everything2.com : "(Conventional) military FAE's are 12 to 16 times more powerful than conventional munitions... Several can also be exploded in near-simultaneous ripples that reinforce each other's blast waves. This makes fuel-air explosives a nearly unparalleled destructive force..."
Contrary to your assertion that FAEs do not "yield orders of magnitude, or even one order of magnitude above...a similar weight of conventional explosives", a device that's 12 to 16 times more powerful than conventional munitions has an approximate yield of 1.5 orders of magnitude higher than conventional explosives.
Furthermore, by exploding several "in near-simultaneous ripples that reinforce each other's blast waves", we gain yields that are 2 or more orders of magnitude higher.
From www.igc.com : "...the nature of FAE explosions makes it virtually impossible for civilians to take shelter..."
From wikia.com : "A...Fuel Air Bomb is designed to produce a massive shockwave. Said to be as powerful as a small nuclear bomb..."
From "Hitler's Suppressed and Still-Secret Weapons", by Henry Stevens : "A second method to extract energy from liquid air (LOX) involves its rapid transformation from a frozen liquid to a gas... Here we encounter the patent of Karl Nowak. Nowak was an Austrian who found that when matter in its cold, liquid state is heated rapidly...it expands with a tremendous rate of force. ...The basics of this liquid air discussion are that the Germans succeeded in finding a simple new source of energy...that has apparently been forgotten today."
Unlike many in this forum, I have no problem postulating that the Nazis developed technology (not magic) that was not only ahead of its time, but has since been lost. The V-2 rocket, jet aircraft, the Walther turbine, & the Type-XXI submarine are just a few examples that were impossible to miss, so they were exhaustively studied post-war. The Fischer-Trobsch process for turning low-grade coal into diesel fuel, on the other hand, was virtually forgotten until resurrected about 20 years ago. There were probably many examples of obscure technology which, when captured, nobody understood. The scientists & techs who worked on it have scattered, the files are missing or else laying all over the floor, & all you've got are some drums filled with coal dust, some cold vats of liquid oxygen that's evaporating, & some boxes of some kind of yellowish waxy stuff. What the hell is it?
I don't expect your concurrence, but my theory is that small, primitive Nazi FAEs were used at Kursk, & possibly at Sevastopol. Despite Russian threats, R&D continued, with the stockpiling of modules for the construction of larger, more advanced bombs. This would allow the Nazis to rapidly assemble bombs to retaliate vs the US-- not, as you say, "from theory & a few tests", but from a 3-year R&D project based on at least 2 different designs which had been operationally used, developing a 3d design which had been fully tested & stockpiled but not yet used operationally.
To deal with your other objections, in contrast to the 50kg devices proposed in my original post, let's double the size, increase the number of bombs per aircraft from 4 to 8, & let's decrease the blast radius per bomb from 1.6km (which seemed a little high to me even when I wrote it) to 200M. By dropping multiple bombs on each city we gain "near-simultaneous ripples that reinforce each other's blast waves", increasing the effect to a radius of about 250-300M per bomb.
As to your point about the Russian FOAB being too large for a modern bomber to employ, I'm not using the FOAB. What I'm using are advanced Nazi FAEs that employ liquid oxygen technology in combination with a wax catalyst whose properties have since been lost.
Regarding the Ju-290, the A-7/A-8/A-9 models had a published combat range of 3843 miles (& the three A-9s had even greater range than that) with a payload of 3000kg of bombs, & 17 of them were built. That's enough range to reach the E Coast (3619 miles) without being stripped down, & plenty of bomb capacity, when all we need is about 800kg. All Ju-290 A-7s/A-8s/A-9s had either bomb bay doors or a drop-ramp that could be used for a similar purpose. (If you want a shorter flight distance, then fly first to Brest, refuel, & then to the E Coast. And BTW, I'm using it as a 1-way weapon, not even trying to fly it all the way back to Europe.)
Let me repeat for the purposes of clarity-- I know that I'm reaching a bit here. Not in my original post concerning the merits of Moscow vs Kiev, but in this offshoot concerning a Nazi response to nuclear attack. What I'm looking for isn't "truth", whatever that is-- but plausibility. In other words, is it conceivable that the Nazis invented a primitive FAE which could have been used to counter a US nuclear attack in roughly the manner I've described?