Stalin gets the bomb - a bigger and better Operation BORODINO

[Darth Syphilis]

So my understanding is that this project was undermined by Stalin's scepticism of the intelligence received from the spy John Cairncross in 1941 and the fact that the Soviets didn't discover decent quantities of uranium until 1945 in Kazakhstan.

What if Stalin listens to the intel, and for whatever reason the Kazakh deposits are found earlier? Is there any chance the Soviets could have beaten the Americans to it?

And if so... Nuke Berlin? Or defeat the Nazis conventionally, then hold the world to ransom? Stalin in sole possession of the A-bomb.. I can think of few things more terrifying.

NB - if everyone feels this belongs in ASB, then I'll move it, but I think it's a legitimate question and I don't recall seeing it discussed before.

 

[gloster meteor mk3]

There is a reason the USSR did not get the bomb in WW2. Stalin knew that the soviet bomb would not be ready until 47/48 if he starts it in 41 so he concentrates on building his conventional forces which was the right decision at the time and still is. He was skeptical of anything to do with science any way

 

[Living in Exile]

1941 a pretty late POD to either speed up the Soviet bomb or delay the American one. By that point it's pretty well set that the Germans are going attack the Soviet Union, and it's pretty well set they will do a lot of damage in the process. Even the best case scenarios for the Soviets on the Eastern Front don't make up for the fact that the United States is richer than the USSR, is collaborating with Britain, and has all the scientists the Nazis drove away.

Make your POD 1939, when we can seriously alter the course of World War Two, and then it becomes very possible to change who gets the bomb first.

 

[Darth Syphilis]

1941 a pretty late POD to either speed up the Soviet bomb or delay the American one. By that point it's pretty well set that the Germans are going attack the Soviet Union, and it's pretty well set they will do a lot of damage in the process. Even the best case scenarios for the Soviets on the Eastern Front don't make up for the fact that the United States is richer than the USSR, is collaborating with Britain, and has all the scientists the Nazis drove away.

Make your POD 1939, when we can seriously alter the course of World War Two, and then it becomes very possible to change who gets the bomb first.

Okay, let's say February 1939 Stalin is made aware of the Paris Group findings and orders research into this. The Kazakh uranium deposits are found in August of that year and research gets underway, Stalin planning initially on using it as a deterrent against a Nazi double-cross... how soon could he have it operational? Early 1945?

 

[gloster meteor mk3]

much much later it was better he waited after 1945, like us with tube alloys the program took us 12 years and seven of those was during WW2. The soviets did not have the man power for it until 45 anyway.

 

[Darth Syphilis]

much much later it was better he waited after 1945, like us with tube alloys the program took us 12 years and seven of those was during WW2. The soviets did not have the man power for it until 45 anyway.

As I understand things, TUBE ALLOYS became a lower priority for the UK after the US came into the war and the Manhattan project got underway, and didn't really come back into focus until the US made clear they weren't going to share their research, which would delay things. Plus, Stalin has the advantage of simply dragooning whatever resources and scientists he wants into this project, it's not like he has to worry about a consumer economy and re-election...

 

[gloster meteor mk3]

In 1941 The HUN was knocking on the doors of Moscow, Stalingrad was close to falling Stalin's priority were trade space for time the bomb would not be a good idea. The bomb would take a lot of resources from the red army, if he goes for the bomb it means no t34 no IL2 sturmavik no moshin nagant no Stalins organ the red army would stave and die so no the bomb was a big no no for them during the war.

 

[sparky42]

In 1941 The HUN was knocking on the doors of Moscow, Stalingrad was close to falling Stalin's priority were trade space for time the bomb would not be a good idea. The bomb would take a lot of resources from the red army, if he goes for the bomb it means no t34 no IL2 sturmavik no moshin nagant no Stalins organ the red army would stave and die so no the bomb was a big no no for them during the war.

But of course in your other thread the UK can easily fund their bomb after the Fall of France without taking any vital resources from the Allied Forces.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Okay, let's say February 1939 Stalin is made aware of the Paris Group findings and orders research into this. The Kazakh uranium deposits are found in August of that year and research gets underway, Stalin planning initially on using it as a deterrent against a Nazi double-cross... how soon could he have it operational? Early 1945?

Considering the US with incredible resources behind it, and not fighting a war for survival on her own territory, didn't succeed until July 1945, no way on God's green earth.

Could they have had it a bit earlier? Like '47? Maybe. But much earlier than that gets into ASB territory.

Besides, if they spent the effort the US did in WWII on the project, the Nazis might have won against them, and they'd NEVER get the bomb. ....

 

[katchen]

And then with what would the Soviets deliver their bomb? The Soviets have Sturmoviks, not B-29s.
And how many could they make on short notice?
Stalin asked the same questions of his scientists that left him unimpressed with Roosevelt's disclosures at Yalta. Of what use to the USSR are only 6 atomic bombs?

Far better, if the USSR is to go down the unconventional weapons route, to manufacture large stocks of soman and more importantly, develop tactics to utilize soman effectively against the Nazis including cannisters that can safely be conveyed to and used by partisan units behind enemy lines to kill German soldiers in their barracks and on passing troop trains. (There is nothing more demoralizing than a runaway troop train carrying reinforcements to the front with everyone on board dead).
And long acting chemical agents that can be combined with intensely radioactive agents such as Cobalt60 that can be paintbombed onto Nazi panzers and deliver enough rads through the armor to sicken and kill the crew inside after less than an hour of exposure, panicking the tank crew into destroying the tank --something the Russians would have a more difficult time doing themselves.

That sort of unconventional chemical and radiological warfare would be well within the Soviet Union's immediate research capabllities and be far more practical.
Build a nuclear pile to manufacture Cobalt 60 and Polonium 210 to poison Nazi troops. Now that's a project Stalin can readily appreciate.

 

[gloster meteor mk3]

yea if we had a hard core start in 1937 and we have the money and we had the Empire.The soviets do not have the money or the THE UNION to afford the bomb and had much more pressing concerns the Germans are getting closer to Moscow and if my geography is correct THEIR IS NO FREAKING SEA IN THE WAY so the panzer armies can keep on rolling.Plus the uranium mines in the Belgian congo who do you think they will sell to the Germans the Soviets Or the British. The answer is Britain.Plus America is isolationist and wants to stay that way Plus it helps if you have Scientists like Einstein,Fermi,Bohr and Oppenheimer saying it can be done and the NAZIS are building one and would use it, it sort helps if an ally is trying to build one before the NAZIS plus the Americans fund the project as long as they get there share.

 

[katchen]

yea if we had a hard core start in 1937 and we have the money and we had the Empire.The soviets do not have the money or the THE UNION to afford the bomb and had much more pressing concerns the Germans are getting closer to Moscow and if my geography is correct THEIR IS NO FREAKING SEA IN THE WAY so the panzer armies can keep on rolling.Plus the uranium mines in the Belgian congo who do you think they will sell to the Germans the Soviets Or the British. The answer is Britain.Plus America is isolationist and wants to stay that way Plus it helps if you have Scientists like Einstein,Fermi,Bohr and Oppenheimer saying it can be done and the NAZIS are building one and would use it, it sort helps if an ally is trying to build one before the NAZIS plus the Americans fund the project as long as they get there share.

I could easily see Britain doing it. Assemble the nuclear team at Witswatersrand University (or in Rhodesia if there was fear that South Africa would leak like a sieve because of Afrikaner sympathies) relatively close to the source of the nuclear materiel and start processing uranium ore. It's something the British should have been working on even once the US started working on it. After all, when all was said and done, the US only came up with 6 bombs by 1945.

 

[Darth Syphilis]

Fair enough - Stalin getting the bomb pre USA is ASB.

I'll write that story and put it in the appropriate place

Far better, if the USSR is to go down the unconventional weapons route, to manufacture large stocks of soman and more importantly, develop tactics to utilize soman effectively against the Nazis including cannisters that can safely be conveyed to and used by partisan units behind enemy lines to kill German soldiers in their barracks and on passing troop trains. (There is nothing more demoralizing than a runaway troop train carrying reinforcements to the front with everyone on board dead).
And long acting chemical agents that can be combined with intensely radioactive agents such as Cobalt60 that can be paintbombed onto Nazi panzers and deliver enough rads through the armor to sicken and kill the crew inside after less than an hour of exposure, panicking the tank crew into destroying the tank --something the Russians would have a more difficult time doing themselves.

That sort of unconventional chemical and radiological warfare would be well within the Soviet Union's immediate research capabllities and be far more practical.
Build a nuclear pile to manufacture Cobalt 60 and Polonium 210 to poison Nazi troops. Now that's a project Stalin can readily appreciate.

Now THAT's an interesting scenario- full atomic capability eludes Stalin but his scientists are able to provide him with a "dirty bomb" - how does this change the balance of forces? And would this be recognised by the Germans, perhaps causing them to employ poison gas on the Eastern Front?

 

[Blackfox5]

Not possible. Stalin got the bomb as early as he did only because the communists stole as much knowledge as possible. Since that knowledge did not exist, he won't make any earlier headway.

The Soviet Union had some excellent scientists, but not to the scale or degree that United States with British help and the European refugee scientists. Making scientific breakthroughts yourself is much, much harder than copying existing plans already created by someone else.

The industrial projects necessary to process the fissionable materials is beyond the capacity of Soviet industry. They have to build everything from scratch. They have neither the engineering knowledge, the industrial capability, and perhaps even the materials to build the complexes.

Once the Nazis invaded, there was no chance the USSR could do it. They would be reliant on American industrial supplies to build it since their own production has to go to the immediate war effort. These Lend Lease requests will be recognized for what they are, and the US won't send materials to build a Soviet bomb.

 

[LHB]

Now THAT's an interesting scenario- full atomic capability eludes Stalin but his scientists are able to provide him with a "dirty bomb" - how does this change the balance of forces? And would this be recognised by the Germans, perhaps causing them to employ poison gas on the Eastern Front?

Honestly the idea of even using a dirty bomb wouldn't occur to Stalin or anyone else in the USSR. That requires more knowledge of radiation, how it works, and what it does than anyone had at the time. As far as everyone in the Manhattan Project knew the Bomb would just make an even bigger boom, fallout and radioactive dust was not something they were thinking about when they made it nor was it well understood.

 

[ComradeHuxley]

Honestly the idea of even using a dirty bomb wouldn't occur to Stalin or anyone else in the USSR. That requires more knowledge of radiation, how it works, and what it does than anyone had at the time. As far as everyone in the Manhattan Project knew the Bomb would just make an even bigger boom, fallout and radioactive dust was not something they were thinking about when they made it nor was it well understood.

That problem could probably be solved by killing Lysenko before he comes to prominence. In OTL Hermann Joseph Muller was the leading expert when it came to effects of radiation on organism and he did move his laboratory to Leningrad in 1933. If Stalin sees his work as valuable as it was, he might get the idea to properly weaponize the negative side effects of radiation. The scenario would need to be fleshed out, but should provide a reasonable starting point.

 

[Tom_B]

"than anyone had at the time"

Honestly the idea of even using a dirty bomb wouldn't occur to Stalin or anyone else in the USSR. That requires more knowledge of radiation, how it works, and what it does than anyone had at the time. As far as everyone in the Manhattan Project knew the Bomb would just make an even bigger boom, fallout and radioactive dust was not something they were thinking about when they made it nor was it well understood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solution_Unsatisfactory

 

[Rich Rostrom]

So my understanding is that this project was undermined by Stalin's scepticism of the intelligence received from the spy John Cairncross in 1941 and the fact that the Soviets didn't discover decent quantities of uranium until 1945 in Kazakhstan.

There's nothing about Cairncross in Richard Rhodes' Dark Sun. According to Rhodes:

Stalin in 1942 received a letter from Flerov, a young atomic physicist then serving in the Army. Flerov thought Stalin should know about the possible Bomb. Stalin responded by meeting with leading Soviet physicists including Kapitza. They told him the Bomb was almost certainly possible, but would be very costly to build, and take at least 3-4 years - IOW, not practical during the war.

Stalin then ordered the creation of an embryo Bomb project, to be activated after the war.

Most historians think that the 1942 decision was right - the Soviets had no chance of building the Bomb during the war. OTL it took them three years after the war, and that was with a great deal of technical intelligence from the Manhattan District which had already done it.