Nazi thermobaric weapons

Deleted member 1487

Sorry to burst your bubble but i'm pretty sure this is a complete hoax. The russian FOAB (the biggest thermobaric weapon ever tested) only had a blast radius of 300m (compare the 150m radius of the American MOAB) with a weight of 7 tons.

Actually a 4km fireball radius would be the equivalent of the fireball radius of the Tsar Bomba...
Apologies, I shouldn't have said blast radius, I mean blast effect; it would clearly not have been a 4km fireball. I was thinking more of the overpressure/heat effect
 
Apologies, I shouldn't have said blast radius, I mean blast effect; it would clearly not have been a 4km fireball. I was thinking more of the overpressure/heat effect

A 4km blast radius with 5 psi overpressure at it's edge would need a power of 200Kt of TNT. Little Boy had a 1.67km blast radius with 5 Psi overpressure. So no, unless you find some reliable source, i'm pretty sure the test the nazi made did not result in a firestorm of 4km...

i quote the source of the wikipedia paragraph about the supposed german developement :

http://discaircraft.greyfalcon.us/FAULKER%20FEUERSTURM.htm said:
The third outcome of Zippermayr’s work was even deadlier. The proposed Flak shells containing coal dust powder were to be developed into a super bomb. The SS took Zippermeyer’s basic idea and enlarged it into a bomb containing 60% liquid oxygen and 40% fine coal dust powder. This alone would create immense destruction but the SS pushed the idea further by adding a waxy reagent to the mix. When detonated the Superbomb would create a huge explosion with a latter unnatural electrical storm effect at ground level, consuming all oxygen and burning everything alive in a 4.5 km radius - a form of plasma weapon. However, the decision to proceed with this bomb was only granted on March 9, 1945 and was to be constructed at the Jonastal S-3 complex as well as the German discs. The complex was never finished in time and worked stopped that same month, even after 25-50 kg test versions of the bomb were detonated in remote locations near the Baltic.

4.5km radius plasma weapon creating unnatural electrical storms. Seems legit.
 
and since it is not clear what standards they used we can only guess what the overpressure was at the edge.

i believe the 4-4,5km for the improved version, since it was tested on a lake, flat surface, no obstacles, so it would reach much further than on land.
although the lethal effects would not surpass 200 m with a 75kg weapon
 
So is there anywhere where a new powerful bomb would be tactically important in the lst6-8 months of the war? Perhaps it could have been used in the Ardennes offensive and the WAllies would have faced an unsuspected armoured offensive with new and much more effective bombs.
 
The Germans were testing 250kg bombs that were getting around 4km blast radii.

Absolutely ludicrous. That's the kind of blast radius you get from kiloton-yield nuclear weapons. Even the most powerful thermobaric weapon in history (the Russian FOAB) only gets up to a few hundred meters and it's a 7,100 kg weapon.

i quote the source of the wikipedia paragraph about the supposed german developement :



4.5km radius plasma weapon creating unnatural electrical storms. Seems legit.

Well... given the desperation of the Nazis in 1945 I could see them latching onto something like that and wasting resources attempting to build it, no matter how much of a snake oil idea it was.
 
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Deleted member 1487

So is there anywhere where a new powerful bomb would be tactically important in the lst6-8 months of the war? Perhaps it could have been used in the Ardennes offensive and the WAllies would have faced an unsuspected armoured offensive with new and much more effective bombs.
Warsaw and most urban fighting, bridgeheads, assembly centers, etc.
 

Deleted member 1487

Absolutely ludicrous. That's the kind of blast radius you get from multi-kiloton nuclear weapons. Even the most powerful thermobaric weapon in history (the Russian FOAB) only gets up to a few hundred meters and it's a 7,100 kg weapon.
Read on, that's been explained to me already. Besides aren't you supposed to be writing papers?
 
And for best effects, you need proximity fuzing to start the diffusion of particles above ground before detonation

You know, what they didn't have for the V-1 and V-2 that also needed them for maximum effectiveness.
 

Deleted member 1487

Yeah, I just latched on to that for how transparently wrong it was before continuing on with the rest of the thread. Apologies. :eek:

Finished it yesterday. :p
Maybe its time to get a head start on the next one ;)
 

Deleted member 1487

And for best effects, you need proximity fuzing to start the diffusion of particles above ground before detonation

You know, what they didn't have for the V-1 and V-2 that also needed them for maximum effectiveness.
IIRC they did have one for bombs by the end, they just didn't have one for AAA shells because they hadn't worked out making parts that could handle the accelleration mass producable, but were getting close by the end of the war. In contrast a dropped bomb, especially one with parachutes like FAE, was a lot easier to make and therefore ready in 1944, but less useful overall and more expensive than regular bomb fuses.
 
My thought is this weapon should be used on the Allied airfields in France & Belgium. Op Bodenplatte actually did manage to hit most of its targets & a few hundred Allied aircraft were damaged, less than 2% of the total based in west Europe & the UK. There were just not enough aircraft and bombs.

Perhaps these weapons could have wrought more destruction? Not just on aircraft but though ear damage, concussions, and burns on the air and ground crew at the airfields. Even if only temporary light injuries a casualty rate of 20% to the airforces would be a severe temporary blow. Worse if communications are down for 12 to 24 hours.
 
IIRC they did have one for bombs by the end, they just didn't have one for AAA shells because they hadn't worked out making parts that could handle the accelleration mass producable, but were getting close by the end of the war. In contrast a dropped bomb, especially one with parachutes like FAE, was a lot easier to make and therefore ready in 1944, but less useful overall and more expensive than regular bomb fuses.

Speed of the V-1 was less than a dropped bomb.

And drogues for bombs from high speed planes took years for the USAF to get right in the '50s.
 
My thought is this weapon should be used on the Allied airfields in France & Belgium. Op Bodenplatte actually did manage to hit most of its targets & a few hundred Allied aircraft were damaged, less than 2% of the total based in west Europe & the UK. There were just not enough aircraft and bombs.

Perhaps these weapons could have wrought more destruction? Not just on aircraft but though ear damage, concussions, and burns on the air and ground crew at the airfields. Even if only temporary light injuries a casualty rate of 20% to the airforces would be a severe temporary blow. Worse if communications are down for 12 to 24 hours.

That's a good idea, with the blast of thermobarics soft area targets would be suitable. Vehicle parks might be another.
 

Andre27

Banned
Going with the size of 250Kg, what would the blast radius of such a bomb have been?

It would have been interesting if the Germans developed a thermobaric charge for the Nebelwerfer.

One thing which i am wondering about is if thermobaric weapons during ww2 would have been classified as weapons of mass destruction and invoked the use of chemical weapons by the western allies and russia?
 
A 4km blast radius with 5 psi overpressure at it's edge would need a power of 200Kt of TNT. Little Boy had a 1.67km blast radius with 5 Psi overpressure. So no, unless you find some reliable source, i'm pretty sure the test the nazi made did not result in a firestorm of 4km...

i quote the source of the wikipedia paragraph about the supposed german developement :



4.5km radius plasma weapon creating unnatural electrical storms. Seems legit.


Clealry they managed to find the Stargate in this timeline. ;)
 

Deleted member 1487

Speed of the V-1 was less than a dropped bomb.

And drogues for bombs from high speed planes took years for the USAF to get right in the '50s.
FAE are parachute dropped, so I imagine the parachute bombs were slower than the V-1
 
One thing which i am wondering about is if thermobaric weapons during ww2 would have been classified as weapons of mass destruction and invoked the use of chemical weapons by the western allies and russia?

when this was discussed before something was mentioned that these weapons were used on the eastern front, and that the stopped using them after a threat from the soviets to go chemical, because the soviets considered them chemical weapons.
 
Anyways, the answer to the OPs question of the Nazis getting workable FAEs in mid-44 is "nothing significant". FAEs and thermobarics are not really that notable of an improvement over HE and the overall situation the Germans are facing mean it will be impossible to leverage whatever tactical advantage this gains them into something of operational significance.
 
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The Germans extensively tested thermobaric weapons using coal dust in 1943-44 but didn't weaponise the results before the war ended.

What if the results were weaponised by mid-late 1944? Obviously they won't win the war but there should be some effects on the battlefield.

If the Germans weaponized thermobaric weapons by mid-late 1944 I would expect they would have been used in the historical attacks on air bases during the battle of the bulge and the later attacks on the Soviet bridge heads across the Oder. Maybe a few allied air bases are more extensively damaged and a few pontoon bridges are disrupted ? I doubt the outcome of the war would have changed much.
 
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