Nuclear Weapons help
- Thread starter King_Arthur
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- fascism nuclear bomb ww2
Averaging out to 80kg a year, over 72 years.
Most of the production was in the 60s and 70s, after huge increases in infrastructure
nbcman
Donor
While having the right personnel is important, what countries can afford the cost and provide sufficient electrical power to separate the uranium? For example, the Uranium separation plant at Oak Ridge consumed 1.6 BILLION kWh - or over 100 times the energy that Little Boy released. I don't see Imperial Japan having enough spare money or power to be able to get there or a 'Militaristic Authoritarian Germany' to be able to afford it either.
That letter was more an Initiative of Szilard and Teller, Einstein gave prestige to it, but he is replacable by someone like Fermi.
And even without A-Bomb as a goal, USN originally started with 'Uranium Boiler' research
nbcman
Donor
Best bets would be the Fascist USA (as OTL) followed by the Germans and the Soviets. The British would be hard pressed to be able to do it since they can't set up facilities in Canada in the 1940's with an unfriendly USA across the border, it would be difficult to find the power and a safe location for production facilities in the UK, and there is no where else in their Empire by 1945 that can provide enough power to support the uranium separation process. Japan is flat out too poor. France would be hard pressed to fend of Germany from their home country as OTL so they can't afford it - and there is no where else in their Empire that can support it either. But I have my doubts that any country could attain a nuclear weapon by 1945 the proposed ATL.
Agreed. ITTL I doubt outside of the CCCP, that the will, talent, and means would be assembled because the "talent" would not cooperate.
Correct, the only other country I could think of that would even be close would be Norway, as they were advanced in terms of research and the heavy water proximity would make the Germans the ideal people to take Norway which could be the spark that starts the TL if you planned on that direction. Once that is taken care of the best place to actually develop the bomb would be America because of geography and technology, in my mind Japan would be the better place for undisturbed research if they had better infrastructure to cope with it. With the British and the general Allied Powers nbcman is correct, even if the Germans decide to invade Norway there is still no suitable place to build anything because the only thing from Norway would be the knowledge on what to do with it.
It's Saxony... 200 km away from Berlin, the Canadian, Congolese and Kazakh hinterlands are at the end of the world compared to that, and there's already a dense infrastructure net in Saxony, just build the 10 km of rail needed to get to the mine.
People keep posting that and get it always wrong.
KWh is electric power over time. Those 1.6 billion kWh are equal to 270 MW of actual power output as your source states well enough, or the output of a medium sized hydro power plant which you'll find plenty of in Japan and Germany at the time. Or which can be build with little effort if needed.
For example here we have a nice little hydro power plant in central Germany, build in the early 30s, with more than 600 MW output.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpspeicherkraftwerk_Waldeck
Or this one in Japan, completed in 1938, output of more than 400 MW.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyanaka_Dam
Heissenberg is not the only potential leader for the German project. Plus it is POSSIBLE that in OTL he deliberately sabotaged it. PLUS my understanding of modern science is that the German method was NOT wrong just a hell of a lot more difficult to achieve with 1940s technology than the alternative
Moving carloads of ore isn't the infrastructure I'm speaking of, but the plants to do the nickel plating, making industrial amounts of Teflon and Hydrofluoric Acid, for starters, along with power generation that you handwave away.
If Greater Germany was so flush with Power, why did they have to use Norse Hydropower for the small amounts of Heavy Water created?
I want be clearer:
Enrico Fermi was a happy scientist under Fascist Italy, working on nuclear experiments in his laboratory in Panisperma Street in Rome. He left Italy due Racial Law, because his wife was Jew. Fascism didn't persecute Jews between 1922 and 1938, as it enacted anti-Semite measures after Steel Pact with Nazi Germany.
No Nazis, no Racial Laws, Fermi continued his work in Italy, with his collaborators Emilio Segrè and Ettore Majorana (until his disappearance).
United Kingdom has his program with John Cockcroft and then Bruno Pontecorvo, with the latter be a Soviet friend.
Germany has his entire OTL group, led by Heisenberg, plus Einstein and Klaus Fuchs, two greatest theoretical minds in nuclear field, Edward Teller (that without Nazism never left Göttingen University), Leo Szilard (who get German citizeship in 1930) and some others.
Soviets have Kyurchatov but thanks Fuchs and Pontecorvo it's as they have all the others.
Japan Empire has its small research group as OTL.
So:
- Szilard, Einstein and Teller write a letter to German President, not to American one, because they are all in Germany (and if they were in America they would not do it, due Goverment's Fascism). If they decided against it, they would be forced to collaborate because Germany started its nuclear program without letters.
- USA are in Fascist mode, so it's probably that Oppenheimer will escape in Canada or similar. And without Szilard, Einstein and Teller they will not have idea about nuclear program then very later.
- Soviets are copying as usually.
- UK is far behind. They could have Oppenheimer but they started the program only in 1942.
- Japan is so far behind that they don't invest much in nuclear programs because they thought that it will not ready before war's end (and with their knowledge they are right)
- Italy has a good scientists group but probably it's not enough.
In conclusion Germany seems as the best posed to reach a nuclear bomb, unless in 1946. Italy, UK and Soviet Union could reach for late 1940s, Japan in early 1950s and France and China for early 1960s as OTL.
Enrico Fermi was a happy scientist under Fascist Italy, working on nuclear experiments in his laboratory in Panisperma Street in Rome. He left Italy due Racial Law, because his wife was Jew. Fascism didn't persecute Jews between 1922 and 1938, as it enacted anti-Semite measures after Steel Pact with Nazi Germany.
No Nazis, no Racial Laws, Fermi continued his work in Italy, with his collaborators Emilio Segrè and Ettore Majorana (until his disappearance).
United Kingdom has his program with John Cockcroft and then Bruno Pontecorvo, with the latter be a Soviet friend.
Germany has his entire OTL group, led by Heisenberg, plus Einstein and Klaus Fuchs, two greatest theoretical minds in nuclear field, Edward Teller (that without Nazism never left Göttingen University), Leo Szilard (who get German citizeship in 1930) and some others.
Soviets have Kyurchatov but thanks Fuchs and Pontecorvo it's as they have all the others.
Japan Empire has its small research group as OTL.
So:
- Szilard, Einstein and Teller write a letter to German President, not to American one, because they are all in Germany (and if they were in America they would not do it, due Goverment's Fascism). If they decided against it, they would be forced to collaborate because Germany started its nuclear program without letters.
- USA are in Fascist mode, so it's probably that Oppenheimer will escape in Canada or similar. And without Szilard, Einstein and Teller they will not have idea about nuclear program then very later.
- Soviets are copying as usually.
- UK is far behind. They could have Oppenheimer but they started the program only in 1942.
- Japan is so far behind that they don't invest much in nuclear programs because they thought that it will not ready before war's end (and with their knowledge they are right)
- Italy has a good scientists group but probably it's not enough.
In conclusion Germany seems as the best posed to reach a nuclear bomb, unless in 1946. Italy, UK and Soviet Union could reach for late 1940s, Japan in early 1950s and France and China for early 1960s as OTL.
nbcman
Donor
And how much slack capacity do other countries that they can to lose up to 200 MW (which is only the power requirements for the single facility at Oak Ridge mind you) without impacting other industries? The US had to direct 10% of the TVA hydroelectric output (which cost hundreds of millions of US dollars to construct) or about 1% of the total US electrical generating capacity. Other countries would be hard pressed to find 200+ MW simply to run the enrichment plant - or the money to construct additional power plants not to mention the time to build the additional generating capacity.
Hydro plants aren't going to be built with little effort. To compare, the Guntersville Hydro plant in the TVA cost about $51 Million USD when completed in 1939 (began in 1935) and supplies 124 MW. So one would need about $100 M USD and about 4 years to construct the hydro plants. Maybe coal powered plants may be faster but it will still cost tens of millions of USD plus multiple years of construction.
Because Norse hydropower was already there and it was not a high enough priority project to remake it in Germany. While Germany can make everything you put under "infrastructure" there are more important things during war time, for example the Atlantik wall. Germany was an industrial power after all. Why am i handwaving away electrical power? Germany is the second largest electrical power generating country at the time and can make new power plants wherever they want when needed - the same can not be said about China when they conducted their own nuclear bomb project as they simply lacked capabilities to make modern turbines and such.
The Japanese did make a heavy water plant for themselves in Korea under similar conditions where the project had no priority and while having far far less industrial capabilities than Germany.
This is a list of hydro power in Germany.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Talsperren_in_Deutschland
In the post WW1 to WW2 time there were quite a few new ones build, More than 50, they were made as part of the labor program, put people to work so they're not unemployed getting revolutionary ideas, each project employs just 1000-2000 man for a hand full of years though so they made lots of them, small ones, big ones, in between.
Is it unthinkable that they throw 1 more on top of the other 50 ones?
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No they cannot. Most of the untapped Coal was actually Lignite, and that's not cost effective to ship.long distances, so the powerplants, as OTL, are built close to the pits. Germany had a lot of power generation capacity, but most of it was in a thousand tiny powerplants feeding individual small towns. They didn't have a lot of surplus power, or the transmission lines that could be shifted to a industry. The big plants were already tapped for aluminum smelters and such. They didn't have a TVA hydro system, pretty much doing nothing in the 1940s like the USA did, or the Russians soon would.
Thanks that's really helpful! Also Oppenheimer won't be safe in Canada for long...
They can not? The country with the second most industrial output can not construct just another power plant and the second or third densest railway network can not transport coal to a newly made coal power plant? This sounds very unbelievable.
Are you saying only the USA and underdeveloped nations like the Soviets and Chinese can make power plants on demand?
Do you want Henschel making Panzer III and stupidly large tanks, or steam locomotives and rolling stock? Diesel engines for Trains, or for U-Boats? You have to ship that Lignite, that OTL Germany did not want to do for long distances(long being more than a few km) due to it being economically a poor return.
Next, workers and Concrete to make K-25, or more bunkers on the Atlantic Coast?
Not the case here, this is not OTL war, as per the OP.
No need for Uboats, no need for bunkers at the Atlantic Coast, no need for Panzer 3s (if you cant ship them anywhere...).