The Germans don't screw up their atomic research program

[trekchu]

You all do realize that there were several separate efforts and that one of them, not too far from where I live was quite literally five blokes in a cellar?


You can tour said cellar today, but it illustrates why there is no way in hell the Nazis could have produced a working bomb before the early 50s.

 

[The Red]

With the amount of money and manpower needed to sustain something like the Manhattan project the Germans wouldn't probably have lost WW2 before it could be used.

The threat of Allied bombing would force such a project to be done in eastern Poland or the western Soviet Union which is going to be under threat from attack by partisans which pulls back more troops to defend these installations. Even then, this shaky operation is no longer safe by 1944 (that's considering the OTL pace of the war, it could very well be quicker considering the amount of resources diverted to this project) and would have to be moved back to Germany where it was once again at risk of even heavier Allied bombing. The war will end before it produces any real results but it will be a treasure trove for whoever captures it.

 

[KyleB]

It should be worth noting that by the end of the war, the Germans were converting a He 177 to carry the atomic weapon that they thought they would build.

 

[Shimbo]

You all do realize that there were several separate efforts and that one of them, not too far from where I live was quite literally five blokes in a cellar?


You can tour said cellar today, but it illustrates why there is no way in hell the Nazis could have produced a working bomb before the early 50s.

I think it illustrates that five guys in a cellar with very limited funding and no priority for strategic resources can't produce a nuclear reactor in three years, let alone an atomic bomb.

It doesn't say much about whether five thousand guys in an industrial scale project with top priority can. To me, how far could they have got if, the ATL nuclear programme had the OTL V2 programme's priority is an interesting question. A hell of a lot further than they did in OTL, but probably not quite all the way to a deliverable weapon is my guess.

 

[Dan Reilly The Great]

Look, you wanna handwave the ability of the reich to build an atom bomb by 1945? Alright, but you then want to also handwave a reliable delivery system that will be ready in time for the a-bomb too?

Soirry, I didn't realize that we were chatting in ASB.

Seriously, the Manhattan project was a program of epic proportions of massive size and cost, conducted by the most industrially productive nation in the world at the time which also wasn't having its infrastructure bombed at regular intervals and it wasn't finished until 1945. The Soviets took until 1949 to finish their program which was also a crash program, and was also conducted by a far more heavily industrialized nation than Nazi Germany.

So let's say that the Germans sacrifice every single other wonderwaffen project in favor of producing a working A-bomb(and again I'm not sure if that's enough to get a bomb by '45), you then still need an entire other project to build a reliable delivery system. And I can't stress the reliability issue enough, because you absolutely do not want to put your brand new supposedly war winning and incredibly expensive weapon in a rocket that has a thirty percent chance of blowing up on launch, or a bomber that has a twenty percent chance of crashing before reaching the target.

A bomber means that you have to suck resources away from somewhere else, and a lot of them too, because you need an airfield, an aircraft factory, pilots, engineers and tons of other support personnell. You cannot build just one bomber eityher, cuz one crash during testing means that you have to build another one from scratch all over again. The Germans had exactly one bomber in production before the end of the war that actually had the payload capacity(and just barely) to carry a 40's era atomic bomb. That was the He-177 which was deemed by the higher-ups at the LW to be completely unsuited toward combat, never got the kinks of its design worked out, was overengineered, and nicknamed "the flying coffin" by German pilots. This is NOT the aircraft you want to use for such a mission. All other bomber candidates never made it past the prototype stage and were riddled with various technical problems in the design, and most never made it to the prototype phase.

As far as missiles go, keep in mind that the V-2 was the single most expensive weapon produced by the reich, it consumed massive amounts of ethanol fuel, and had serious accuracy issues. It could also only transport a one ton warhead. It also lacked a proximity fuse which meant that it couldn't airburst, I'm not sure if you want to detonate a 40's era atomic weapon on impact, it might increase the failure rate.

This means that you need to design an entirely new rocket to deliver your weapon. The V-2 didn't reach full production status until 1944, an even bigger and more sophisticated missile would have taken even longer than that.

Whatever the case, even if the Germans somehow manage to beat the Americans to an A-bomb, you're still looking at sucking prescious resources away from another vital part of the war effort just to produce a viable delivery system for the new bomb. So the Germans are going to be short on U-boats, or tanks or planes, or any number of other things crucial to fighting the war. This means a shortened war, which means that there is even less likelihood that there will be a German A-bomb before the end of the war.

 

[azander12]

Couldn't the POD be in 1941, with Hitler deciding not to go into Russia, or maybe with both Germany and Japan attacking the USSR? A Japanese invasion might have caused a collapse in the Soviet government, and would at least draw off thousands of troops that were later used at Stalingrad and throughout the Russian counter-offensive. That, combined with an increased focus on the nuclear program, could have given Germany the time to develop an atomic bomb before the Americans.

 

[The Red]

Couldn't the POD be in 1941, with Hitler deciding not to go into Russia, or maybe with both Germany and Japan attacking the USSR? A Japanese invasion might have caused a collapse in the Soviet government, and would at least draw off thousands of troops that were later used at Stalingrad and throughout the Russian counter-offensive. That, combined with an increased focus on the nuclear program, could have given Germany the time to develop an atomic bomb before the Americans.

A Japanese invasion of the USSR is slightly less ASB than the Germans getting an atomic bomb by 1945.

Hitler not launching Operation Barbarossa would be the best bit as he doesn't need to invest so many resources on the armed forces but it means that the program will be in range of Allied bombing and a very real possibility of Soviet attack.

 

[Shimbo]

You are exagerating with respect to the He-177, IMO. The early versions were disasterous, but the problems were largely resolved by the time of the He 177 A-5, which of which there were over 800 produced. In OTL He-177s carried 6,000kg bomb loads to London with less than 10% loss rate.

If there is a bomb, the He-177 can deliver it to London.

Clearly, a 4.5 ton warhead rocket is not going to happen. In fact the entire rocket programme will have to be scrapped for the nuclear programme to have any chance. Nazi Germany spent as much of it's GDP on rockets as the Allies spent on Manhatten Project - redirect that money and political energy to the atomic project and, yes you are right, they still won't get it done, probably, but it's going to get a lot further. And as the rockets were militarily useless, you won't damage the defence of the Reich.

 

[The Red]

Nazi Germany spent as much of it's GDP on rockets as the Allies spent on Manhatten Project.

Do you have any evidence for that?

 

[Shimbo]

Do you have any evidence for that?

The Rocket and the Reich by Michael Neufeld (p273)

NB. I'm not saying the rockets cost the same as the Manhattan Project, the German economy was smaller so as a percentage it was equivilent.

 

[teg]

The Rocket and the Reich by Michael Neufeld.

NB. I'm not saying the rockets cost the same as the Manhattan Project, the German economy was smaller so as a percentage it was equivilent.

This is the exact problem. Germany just doesn't have the capacity to deploy a nuclear bomb, it eats too many resources.

When would the PoD to have been for Germany to develop nuclear weapons in a world war II timeframe. I reckon it would have had to have been before the Nazis even took power...

 

[Dan Reilly The Great]

Do you have any evidence for that?

There is none, Wiki states the cost of The manhattan project at nearly 2 billion dollars. It also states that the unit cost in 1944 of a single V-2 was 100K Reichmarks and 50K in '45. Lets average that out to 75K for the duration of the program, let's assume that is only production cost and not actual R&D costs. So we had 5200 missiles produced in all. So that brings a total production cost to 390 million RM. To be generous, we'll assume that the R&D costs were twice what the overall production costs were, so we're talking about 1,170,000,000 RM. Being generous again, we'll use the 1938 exchange rate for the Reichmark which was 2.49 per dollar which gives a total program cost of $469,879,518. Not even close to the cost of Manhattan.

Also, Manhattan employed more than 130,000 people, quite a feat to match for the manpower strapped Reich.

Mind you, that's what it took to get a working bomb built by spring of 1945 and they only produced three working weapons, two for use against japan and one for testing.

Oh, and these are 1940's era figures.

Really, you're looking at scrapping every wonder weapon project the Germans worked on for the entire war, and probably will still only get to half the cost of the American effort.

 

[Shimbo]

There is none, Wiki states the cost of The manhattan project at nearly 2 billion dollars. It also states that the unit cost in 1944 of a single V-2 was 100K Reichmarks and 50K in '45. Lets average that out to 75K for the duration of the program, let's assume that is only production cost and not actual R&D costs. So we had 5200 missiles produced in all. So that brings a total production cost to 390 million RM. To be generous, we'll assume that the R&D costs were twice what the overall production costs were, so we're talking about 1,170,000,000 RM. Being generous again, we'll use the 1938 exchange rate for the Reichmark which was 2.49 per dollar which gives a total program cost of $469,879,518. Not even close to the cost of Manhattan.

Also, Manhattan employed more than 130,000 people, quite a feat to match for the manpower strapped Reich.

Mind you, that's what it took to get a working bomb built by spring of 1945 and they only produced three working weapons, two for use against japan and one for testing.

Oh, and these are 1940's era figures.

Really, you're looking at scrapping every wonder weapon project the Germans worked on for the entire war, and probably will still only get to half the cost of the American effort.

According to The Rocket and the Reich and Adam Tooze's The Wages of Destruction the cost of the rocket programme was 2 billion RM so your calculation is not far off.

But I think you are miscalculating if you think the Reich has to find 4Bn RM to make a bomb. The allies persued every option almost regardless of cost: a Plutonium and a Uranium Bomb, plants for thermal, centrifugal, gaseous and electromagnetic separation, heavy water and carbon moderated reactors, gun-type and implosion type weapons.

The K-25 gaseous diffusion and Y-12 electromagnetic separation plants alone cost half of the entire Manhatten budget. Cut those from the ATL German project and you are down to the cost of German rocket programme.

 

[Dan Reilly The Great]

According to The Rocket and the Reich and Adam Tooze's The Wages of Destruction the cost of the rocket programme was 2 billion RM so your calculation is not far off.

But I think you are miscalculating if you think the Reich has to find 4Bn RM to make a bomb. The allies persued every option almost regardless of cost: a Plutonium and a Uranium Bomb, plants for thermal, centrifugal, gaseous and electromagnetic separation, heavy water and carbon moderated reactors, gun-type and implosion type weapons.

The K-25 gaseous diffusion and Y-12 electromagnetic separation plants alone cost half of the entire Manhatten budget. Cut those from the ATL German project and you are down to the cost of German rocket programme.

I was being generous by using the 1938 exchange rate, chances are the Reichsmark was worth far less in the later years of the war, there aren't any figures on an exact exchange rate that I could find though, probably due to the fact that the US wasn't exchanging currency with Nazi Germany during the war.

You are also assuming that if the Germans start a major effort for a bomb they don't go down the wrong path. The US pursued every possible avenue because they weren't sure what the best way to get an atom bomb was at the time. Also, cost is only part of the factors determining how quickly the bomb project came to fruition. The US had the advantage of having access to more brain power than any other nation in the world when it came to atomic science. The Germans while in possession of some very smart scientists cannot match the think-tank size that manhattan had.

 

[Gunnarnz]

In OTL He-177s carried 6,000kg bomb loads to London with less than 10% loss rate.

If there is a bomb, the He-177 can deliver it to London.

Thanks for your earlier response, it was very informative.

It seems clear a He 177 could get such a bomb to London then. I'm still not sure how much further it could deliver one though - that 6 tonne max bombload might be at the expense of some fuel weight. Conversely, a full fuel load might eat into the amount of load capacity available for bomb(s).

On the subject of the bomb project itself, I think Dan has a point when he mentions how the US could - and had to - try every avenue. Any German nuclear project will have to get it right first time and not go down any blind alleys. It's not impossible of course, but it makes the whole thing even less likely.

 

[FlyingDutchman]

Hmm, a couple of points here:

• He-177 is listed as carrying upto 6,000kg of bombs, well over 4.5 tons. In addition, if we are postulating a top priority German Manhatten Project, I'm pretty sure one of the facets would be producing a bomber capable of carrying the weapon. There are other options than the He-177, like the various Amerika Bombers that never got operational in any numbers in OTL, but could have with increased priority.
• He-177 losses during Operation Steinbock were less than 10%, which suggests a single 'special' He-177 in a stream with the rest would have a 90%+ chance of reaching the target (probably higher as some casualties were on the return leg).
• The Russian air defences weren't geared for high level interception, (He-177 operations on the Eastern Front did not have high casualty rates) so chances of a single bomber making it to Moscow aren't negligable (I won't put a figure on it though).
• A U-boat getting into New York harbour is highly unlikely I agree.

Anyway, I think we are in agreement that the primary issue is the actual production of a German bomb, which was highly unlikely to suceed in time even if they had tried.

You do realise that the reasons why the losses of He-177 during Operation Steinbeck seem so low is because;

- aircraft which abort during and after take-off are not included in that 10% figure. F.ex. Ju-88's which were more reliable had a much higher loss rate, but there were relatively much more Ju-88's over the target also.
So, by using your logic, your numbers would be even better if 100% of the He-177's aborted the sortie due to malfunctions, because then 0% of them would be lost (to enemy action) and a He-177 on a nuke mission to London would have 100% chance of success!

- the He-177's operated from Osnabruck and Orleans, which isn't exactly a long trip to London. Bombing Moscow would have been a much, much longer distance, resulting in more losses and even less reliability.

- normal He-177 crews 'only' carried 4000 kg of bombs during operation Steinbock, which is only 2/3 of the 6000 kg you claim.
Only the very experienced crews carried 5600 kg of bombs.


If that's not enough, there's another problem for the Germans.
Even if the He-177 is capable of carrying the A-bomb, it's certainly not going to be able to fly fast enough (with that load!) and high enough to have it survive the sortie. For that you need the B-29. Unlike the Japanese the Germans weren't into kamikazes, not untill the last days of war in ETO anyways, so that probably means it's a no go to use the He-177.

Even if the Nazi's - with a sudden talent for realistic planning which they didn't show entire WWII - manage to scrape enough resources together to raise the necessary resources for their Manhattan program, they're not going to have enough left to fund the delivery system.
IIRC the B-29 program (which is the only WWII aircraft capable of dropping the bomb and barely survive it) cost 150% of the Manhattan program at around 3 billion USD.

No way the Germans can manage both programs and not lose WWII in '43 or '44 because they have had to sacrifice too much on other terrains.

You all do realize that there were several separate efforts and that one of them, not too far from where I live was quite literally five blokes in a cellar?

You can tour said cellar today, but it illustrates why there is no way in hell the Nazis could have produced a working bomb before the early 50s.

Well put and a nice anecdote. Enormous contrast with even the 1941 British program.

It should be worth noting that by the end of the war, the Germans were converting a He 177 to carry the atomic weapon that they thought they would build.

Do you have a source for that?

 

[Shimbo]

So, the argument here is that rather than, either parachute retarding the bomb or risking sacrificing a He-177 crew, the Nazis will be forced to build a B-29 equivilent and, because that will be expensive, delivery is impossible?

I've just reread this thread and there's been a hell of a lot of goalpost moving about delivery mechanisms. We've gone from:
"The German's don't have an aircraft capable of lifting the bomb",
He-177
"The He-177 didn't work"
Early versions didn't work but later ones did.
"Londons defences would shoot any bomber down"
They didn't in OTL.
"It can't carry 4.5 tonnes"
It carried 6 tonnes in OTL
"Only with good crews"
OK fine, only with a good crew, lets assume a good crew would be assigned to a potentially regime saving mission.
"He-177 would be caught in the blast"
Parachute retardation or 'Dangerous mission - volunteers only'

At the same time we've gone from "impossibly expensive" to "no more expensive than the useless rockets". And the OP mentioned the 'theoretical misunderstandings' myth.

How about "Nukes = Jewish Physics" or "Heisenburg deliberately sabotaged the project"? They're a couple more good ones.

I've never said that the nazis can win the race to the atomic bomb. What they could have done is tried. IMO if they had decided in 1942 to divert the money and priority from the rockets to an industrial scale 'Munchen Project' they would definitely have managed to get a reactor working and wouldn't have been that far off a bomb by the time the factories were overrun.

 

[teg]

At the same time we've gone from "impossibly expensive" to "no more expensive than the useless rockets". And the OP mentioned the 'theoretical misunderstandings' myth.

How about "Nukes = Jewish Physics" or "Heisenburg deliberately sabotaged the project"? They're a couple more good ones.

I've never said that the nazis can win the race to the atomic bomb. What they could have done is tried. IMO if they had decided in 1942 to divert the money and priority from the rockets to an industrial scale 'Munchen Project' they would definitely have managed to get a reactor working and wouldn't have been that far off a bomb by the time the factories were overrun.

I'm not saying that was the primary reason the Germans couldn't win the atomic race, but I'm fairly sure it isn't a myth and that it seriously hampered their project. Also, spending huge amounts of resources on a German Manhattan Project would have drained their forces elsewhere of resources, especially if the Germans did not cut funding to their V-rockects.

 

[The Red]

At the same time we've gone from "impossibly expensive" to "no more expensive than the useless rockets".

No, you yourself agreed that it was a smaller amount of money as it was only an equivalent percentage in the German economy. As Dan showed the project was only about a quarter of the expenditure used on the Manhattan Project and had nowhere near the manpower. If Germany wants this bomb it needs to cut back on a significant amount of tanks, planes, U-boats etc which probably brings the end of the war at least several months back if not a year.

 

[Shimbo]

I'm not saying that was the primary reason the Germans couldn't win the atomic race, but I'm fairly sure it isn't a myth and that it seriously hampered their project.

OK, what were these theoretical mistakes? It wasn't the critical mass: the German thought it was 10 - 100kg the Americans thought it was 2 - 100 kg. It wasn't the neutron absorbancy of graphite: there was a good theoretical basis for using heavy water - the reactor would require less uranium. It wasn't the scientists deliberately 'going slow', that's a post-war rationalisation by the scientists, unsupported by the documents produced at the time.

Also, spending huge amounts of resources on a German Manhattan Project would have drained their forces elsewhere of resources, especially if the Germans did not cut funding to their V-rockects.

No, you yourself agreed that it was a smaller amount of money as it was only an equivalent percentage in the German economy. As Dan showed the project was only about a quarter of the expenditure used on the Manhattan Project and had nowhere near the manpower. If Germany wants this bomb it needs to cut back on a significant amount of tanks, planes, U-boats etc which probably brings the end of the war at least several months back if not a year.

The reason the possible German project would be no more expensive than the rockets is that the Germans had no intention of building all the different isotope separation methods, they were only planning on using centrifuges. That makes their project half as expensive. They they also had no intention of building graphite reactors as well as heavy water. By luck or judgement centrifuges are the best way of separating isotopes, so there's no risk involved. We are also assuming that things were as expensive in Germany as they were in USA, which they weren't. For one thing, morally repugnant as it may be, they had slave labour and their safety standards were non-existant.

Cancel the 2bn RM rocket programme and they are financially in touching distance of a $1bn lightweight Manhatten Project.

Yes though, if they don't cut the rockets, then something else has to give and that might effect the course of the war.