The Germans don't screw up their atomic research program

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.

Ignoring the fact there's no evidence that that makes the project half as expensive it would still need to be roughly a quarter of the Manhattan projects expenditure to be the same cost as the rocket program.

They they also had no intention of building graphite reactors as well as heavy water.

Remember that the Manhattan Project didn't use heavy water, and that several Norwegian raids severely inhibited German access to it anyway.

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.

Okay well first off slaves obviously are nowhere near as efficient as paid, well fed and well rested workers who are driven by income instead of a gun in the back so expect a slower, sloppier project. Second these slaves are going to do everything they can get away with to sabotage this project and pass on information to the allies as happened with the V-rocket programs. Also, whilst a lack of safety standards results in the project may seem cheaper, it results in a significant amount of your workforce needing to be replaced as those who worked the previous shift are too sick to work, which means more need to be diverted from other industries.


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

It wasn't 2Bn, it was a quarter of that.
 
Ignoring the fact there's no evidence that that makes the project half as expensive it would still need to be roughly a quarter of the Manhattan projects expenditure to be the same cost as the rocket program.

Here's the link again. As you can see the cost of the K-25 gaseous diffusion and Y-12 electromagnetic separation plant was close to a billion dollars. The German's had no plans to use either of those methods.

We are using 2.4 RM to the Dollar, agreed? So figures:

Manhatten = $2bn = $4.8bn RM
Manhattan - K-25, Y-12 = $1bn = 2.4bn RM
V2 = RM 2bn

2.4bn RM - 2bn RM = 0.4bn RM

That's assuming the German project does everything the Manhattan Project did except the two expensive separation methods. If other bits like the graphite reactors are dropped and cheaper labour is factored in we are really rather close aren't we?

Remember that the Manhattan Project didn't use heavy water, and that several Norwegian raids severely inhibited German access to it anyway.
The Manhatten project did build heavy water reactors as well as graphite. See the link above where the budget for heavy water is nearly $27M. And there was only a single Norwegian source in OTL, with no industrial scale project. That's not necessarily the case here. Remember the Manhatten budget includes heavy water plants so that $1bn includes it.

Okay well first off slaves obviously are nowhere near as efficient as paid, well fed and well rested workers who are driven by income instead of a gun in the back so expect a slower, sloppier project. Second these slaves are going to do everything they can get away with to sabotage this project and pass on information to the allies as happened with the V-rocket programs. Also, whilst a lack of safety standards results in the project may seem cheaper, it results in a significant amount of your workforce needing to be replaced as those who worked the previous shift are too sick to work, which means more need to be diverted from other industries.

True, but we were talking about money. You were arguing that Nazi Germany can't afford the project. We can move on to how the cheaper Nazi project will progress once we've got that out of the way.

It wasn't 2Bn, it was a quarter of that.
According to The Rocket and the Reich and The Wages of Destruction the cost of the rocket programme was 2 billion RM. Do you have a source with different figures?
 
Here's the link again. As you can see the cost of the K-25 gaseous diffusion and Y-12 electromagnetic separation plant was close to a billion dollars. The German's had no plans to use either of those methods.

We are using 2.4 RM to the Dollar, agreed? So figures:

Manhatten = $2bn = $4.8bn RM
Manhattan - K-25, Y-12 = $1bn = 2.4bn RM
V2 = RM 2bn

2.4bn RM - 2bn RM = 0.4bn RM

That's assuming the German project does everything the Manhattan Project did except the two expensive separation methods. If other bits like the graphite reactors are dropped and cheaper labour is factored in we are really rather close aren't we?

Well does that take into account the centrifuges, or the fact that as you agreed, forced labour won't be cheaper?

True, but we were talking about money. You were arguing that Nazi Germany can't afford the project. We can move on to how the cheaper Nazi project will progress once we've got that out of the way.

I wasn't just talking about that cost, there's also manpower taken into consideration, which if the Nazis want their project to be to the same standard they will use non-forced labourers with safety equipment, which pulls over a 100, 000 men out of the military or other vital war work. There's also location which really gets in the way of this being feasible as well.

According to The Rocket and the Reich and The Wages of Destruction the cost of the rocket programme was 2 billion RM. Do you have a source with different figures?

Well Dan showed that the production costs of all V2's manufactured was around a quarter of that budget, where did the other 3/4's go?
 
Well does that take into account the centrifuges, or the fact that as you agreed, forced labour won't be cheaper?
It does include thermal diffusion plants, I left one form of isotope separation in instead of three. Unless you want to argue thermal diffusion is cheaper than centrifuges that's the best we can do I think. It also includes graphite and heavy water reactors and plutonium and uranium bombs, so there's plenty of room for economy.

The thing is these are ball park figures, unless someone come up with a full budget breakdown. Can we agree that the ballpark figures are not that far apart? Otherwise I don't think there's much more I can say, I've provided my reasoning, it seems sound to me, unless someone can show me where it isn't.

I wasn't just talking about that cost, there's also manpower taken into consideration, which if the Nazis want their project to be to the same standard they will use non-forced labourers with safety equipment, which pulls over a 100, 000 men out of the military or other vital war work. There's also location which really gets in the way of this being feasible as well.
So are we accepting the cost isn't prohibitive then? Let's get that out of the way and then we can move on to labour and location.

Well Dan showed that the production costs of all V2's manufactured was around a quarter of that budget, where did the other 3/4's go?
Well... there were medals all round, certificates in some cases obviously and the rest went on slap up meals.;)

Even Dan's back of an envelope calculation came to 1.8bn RM, is 2bn RM so hard to believe when I've provided two citations for it?
 
Have you taken design dead ends into account? IIRC the Manhatten project wasted a whole lot of time and effort on a Nuke design that was discontinued for some reason (dunno the name) before settling on Gun and Implosion designes, i.e. Little Boy and Fat Man.
 
It does include thermal diffusion plants, I left one form of isotope separation in instead of three. Unless you want to argue thermal diffusion is cheaper than centrifuges that's the best we can do I think. It also includes graphite and heavy water reactors and plutonium and uranium bombs, so there's plenty of room for economy.

The thing is these are ball park figures, unless someone come up with a full budget breakdown. Can we agree that the ballpark figures are not that far apart? Otherwise I don't think there's much more I can say, I've provided my reasoning, it seems sound to me, unless someone can show me where it isn't.

Fair enough.


Even Dan's back of an envelope calculation came to 1.8bn RM, is 2bn RM so hard to believe when I've provided two citations for it?

Well his was actually 1.7 Bn RM, presuming your rocket figures are accurate that's still hundreds of tanks or planes and over a hundred thousand troops your cutting from the battlefield, which battle would you pull them from?

But yes, labour and location are still the death of this thing.
 
1. The mass exodus of German atomic scientists has already occurred at this point, that pretty much digs the grave for any ambitions they had for a bomb.

2. Knowledge that Germany is pursuing a bomb (and especially knowledge that it is making progress) will only spur the Allies to develop their own while sabotaging German efforts, chances are the time it will take them to develop a bomb will not allow them to effectively change the outcome of the war.

3. A bomb is a huge investment, Germany could start in the right direction by cancelling all of its stupid wunderwaffen projects to help pay for an a-bomb but they still need a lot more that their available time and resources will probably not give them.

4. They better hope that wherever they decide to store and produce their bombs if they ever get far enough is safe enough to resist, the Allies will be willing to take Soviet Union levels of battle casualties to take down anything they think is a German bomb facility.
 
Have you taken design dead ends into account? IIRC the Manhatten project wasted a whole lot of time and effort on a Nuke design that was discontinued for some reason (dunno the name) before settling on Gun and Implosion designes, i.e. Little Boy and Fat Man.

I think what you are thinking of is the 'Thin Man' gun type plutonium bomb which turned out not to be feasible because the the spontaneous fission rate of nuclear reactor-bred plutonium was too high.

But that was part of Manhattan so is included in the $1bn figure.

Fair enough.

Well his was actually 1.7 Bn RM, presuming your rocket figures are accurate that's still hundreds of tanks or planes and over a hundred thousand troops your cutting from the battlefield, which battle would you pull them from?

But yes, labour and location are still the death of this thing.

OK, so we are all in agreement then, the money is there.

Let's move on to the workforce.

The peak workforce on Manhattan was 75,000. But remember, most of that was the people building the plants and we aren't building either K-25 or Y-12, the two biggest and most expensive facilities.

The Organisation Todt which would be responsible for the building of the facilities controlled a workforce of 1.4 million. 1% were Germans rejected from military service and 1.5% were concentration camp prisoners; the rest were prisoners of war and compulsory labourers from occupied countries. So how ever many are assigned to the atomic project, it's going to have no effect on the front line troops.

Also, we've cancelled the rocket programme, so all the workforce that was associated with that is available. All of these projects would be cancelled and reasssigned: Peenemunde, Wizernes, Watten, the Mittelwerk
I can't find all the figures but Wizernes and Watten both had 5/6K Organisation Todt working on them (and prodigious amounts of supplies).

1. The mass exodus of German atomic scientists has already occurred at this point, that pretty much digs the grave for any ambitions they had for a bomb.
Why? They still had a lot of nuclear scientists left: Erich Bagge, Kurt Diebner, Walther Gerlach, Otto Hahn, Paul Harteck, Werner Heisenberg, Horst Korsching, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, Karl Wirtz, for example. As I've previously stated, the German theoretical understanding of the bomb was not behind the Allies at the point in 1942 where the aliies went up to the industrial scale and the Germans didn't.

2. Knowledge that Germany is pursuing a bomb (and especially knowledge that it is making progress) will only spur the Allies to develop their own while sabotaging German efforts, chances are the time it will take them to develop a bomb will not allow them to effectively change the outcome of the war.

True (IMO).

3. A bomb is a huge investment, Germany could start in the right direction by cancelling all of its stupid wunderwaffen projects to help pay for an a-bomb but they still need a lot more that their available time and resources will probably not give them.
I've shown above that cancelling the rocket programme alone provides enough money for a lightweight Manhatten Project (e.g. only using centrifuges).

. They better hope that wherever they decide to store and produce their bombs if they ever get far enough is safe enough to resist, the Allies will be willing to take Soviet Union levels of battle casualties to take down anything they think is a German bomb facility.
Also true (IMO).
 
OK, so we are all in agreement then, the money is there.

At the expense of hundreds of tanks or planes. I never argued the money wasn't there just that it would harm the war effort and it still does, just not to such a large effect.


Let's move on to the workforce.

The peak workforce on Manhattan was 75,000. But remember, most of that was the people building the plants and we aren't building either K-25 or Y-12, the two biggest and most expensive facilities.

The Organisation Todt which would be responsible for the building of the facilities controlled a workforce of 1.4 million. 1% were Germans rejected from military service and 1.5% were concentration camp prisoners; the rest were prisoners of war and compulsory labourers from occupied countries. So how ever many are assigned to the atomic project, it's going to have no effect on the front line troops.

Also, we've cancelled the rocket programme, so all the workforce that was associated with that is available. All of these projects would be cancelled and reasssigned: Peenemunde, Wizernes, Watten, the Mittelwerk
I can't find all the figures but Wizernes and Watten both had 5/6K Organisation Todt working on them (and prodigious amounts of supplies).

Very well, but that will still slow the building of other things such as factories, housing etc. And you've agreed on the inadequacy of forced labour working on this sort of program.

You still haven't tackled the problem of location.
 
What if we allow for and prewar (but post-1933) PoD? Let's say that sometime between 1935-37, German scientists confirm the possibility of weaponized nuclear reactions and the Nazis are charmed by it, leading them to intern as many nuclear physicists as possible and start a research project. For good measure, we can have Hitler do everything he does from 1933 to early 1939 (also he personally takes an interest in nukes), then have him get assassinated, allowing for saner leadership that won't waste their time on extermination camps, refuse to listen to the generals, and that sort of thing. At the same time, by 1939 Germany is militarized enough that war is very likely. The post-Hitler leaders still attack Poland and still intend to conquer Europe, but unlike Htler they are more pragmatic about their targets and objectives.

Meanwhile, the nuclear project continues to cook, making small but important advances, enough that the Nazis don't scrap it in favor of better conventional weapons. The war with the USSR goes differently; instead of trying to conquer Russia for Lebensraum the Wehrmacht goes for beating them badly enough to kick them out of the war by 1943, perhaps seizing everything west of the RSFSR's borders, then holding their ground or signing a ceasefire so that Germany can direct its attention to defeating the more dangerous enemy: The WAllies, whom they can now engage with more strength due to the end of major combat with the Soviet Union.

Eventually, despite Germany's best efforts, the Allies make gains in Western Europe owing to their navy and superior industrial prowess. However these gains are achieved at even greater cost than OTL since the Nazis are putting much more resources (that in OTL went to fighting Russia) into the defensive campaign. By late 1944 the Allies are making some progress but Germany does score various victories. Both sides' atomic projects are in full swing with Germany in a slight lead since they started already in 1939 (but the greater amount of logistical resources available to the Allies could negate this). For both sides, the atomic bomb is seen as a potential trump card; on the Nazi side they can shock the Allies into negotiations and the Allies could use the bomb to score decisive battlefield victories.

By early 1945, the German project bears fruit with one example built. They "test" it against Allied troops in France or Italy by retreating and luring the enemy into a trap where the bomb, hidden from view, is detonated as a landmine. The Nazis have built and used an atomic bomb.

This scenario supposes that:
- The right scientists are retained by Germany
-- That these scientists are well-funded and come to more efficient conclusions than the Manhattan personnel, allowing them to create a working bomb in 6 years and with less resources.
- once Stalin is beaten back to the RSFSR border, he does not get American support and does not try to get back into the war and divert German resources, at least not until late 1944.
- the details of the Nazi project are at least relatively concealed from foreign (esp. WAllies) intelligence
-- and that the facilities are not destroyed or sabotaged.
- That the post-Hitler leaders of Germany are smarter than he was.

Is this plausible or is there still something important that I'm overlooking?
 
(snip) You still haven't tackled the problem of location.

No, because that's the tricky one :)

I'm going to suggest the Die Reise complex. It was enormous (277,000 cubic yards), it's underground, it was built in OTL, it never seems to have been used for much in OTL, it's a long flight from Britain and a long way from the Eastern Front.

And being both underground and in the mountains it's going to be a bugger to destroy either from the air or by dropping paratroops on it.

That's the best I can do. Let's hear how you're going to wipe it out. :)
 
No, because that's the tricky one :)

I'm going to suggest the Die Reise complex. It was enormous (277,000 cubic yards), it's underground, it was built in OTL, it never seems to have been used for much in OTL, it's a long flight from Britain and a long way from the Eastern Front.

And being both underground and in the mountains it's going to be a bugger to destroy either from the air or by dropping paratroops on it.

That's the best I can do. Let's hear how you're going to wipe it out. :)


Well the biggest problem I can see is that it was started in late 1943, pretty good location aside from that though although I expect Allied bombers could reach it if they didn't mind heavy losses.
 

loughery111

Banned
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.

Here's an entirely new goalpost for you: power generation. Where on the Continent is the electrical generating capacity to not only run the project without disrupting the industrial effort, but with sufficient spare to hide the expenditure from the Allies extremely capable espionage network?

The correct answer is that the Germans cannot spare the electricity, let alone conceal such expenditure long enough to build a device. There simply isn't the capacity; Continental Europe has no Tennessee Valley Authority. And even if there were, it would be bombed into scrap by the Allies within a year. Power plants are easy targets; no one thought to destroy them IOTL, but they will if a functioning nuclear program is discovered.
 
Here's an entirely new goalpost for you: power generation. Where on the Continent is the electrical generating capacity to not only run the project without disrupting the industrial effort, but with sufficient spare to hide the expenditure from the Allies extremely capable espionage network?

The correct answer is that the Germans cannot spare the electricity, let alone conceal such expenditure long enough to build a device. There simply isn't the capacity; Continental Europe has no Tennessee Valley Authority. And even if there were, it would be bombed into scrap by the Allies within a year. Power plants are easy targets; no one thought to destroy them IOTL, but they will if a functioning nuclear program is discovered.

You know you had me worried there for a minute. :) Some sources do claim Oak Ridge, consumed 14% of the electric power being generated in the United States. That would be a bit of a problem.

But this link is to a statistical analysis that suggests that in fact that's a miscalculation and the real figure was less than 1%. Whew.

And remember in my scenario, the Germans aren't building the electromagnetic separation or gaseous diffusion plants, both of which used huge amounts of electricity. By luck or judgement the German scientists had hit on the most efficient means of isotope separation, centrifuges. If the allies are really unlucky they'll invent the zippe centrifuge early and then things will get really interesting.
 
A good start would be if the germans didn't mess up with the graphite. They use uncontaminated instead of the contaminated stuff from otl and realize it can be used as moderator.

The other question is did a nuclear bomb have priority for the germans over power generation? If generating power is a much more important issue for the reich they might concentrate on building a nuclear powerplant.
 
Have you taken design dead ends into account? IIRC the Manhatten project wasted a whole lot of time and effort on a Nuke design that was discontinued for some reason (dunno the name) before settling on Gun and Implosion designes, i.e. Little Boy and Fat Man.

The "Thin Man" design, which was a plutonium gun-type design. It wouldn't have worked due to the specific properties of plutonium (mostly, it's impossible to get it isotopically pure enough), but you can't discover that without synthesizing a lot of plutonium and experimenting with it, during which time you will most likely be working on the design.
 
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.
Shimbo, I love you like a brother, but I think your idea of the Nazis being able to develop and an deploy an atomic bomb has two major flaws on quick review. These flaws are so great that I think the development and deployment would be impossible.

First, I think you faith in using the He 177 is misplaced. Second, I think getting the Nazis to give up other projects is simply contrary to nature of the Nazi Reich.

As CalBear pointed in another thread, there is a difference between being able to lift an atomic bomb and being able to fly the mission profile to deliver the weapon.

The semi-reliable Wikipedia, where I assume you obtained your ball park figures on the He 177, indicates that He-177 was able to carry 5600 kg of bombs (not 6000 kg) from German airfields to London. This is certainly sufficient payload of a Little Boy type bomb, assuming the Wikipedia is right, as the Little Boy weighed 4400 kg.

The problem is that carrying the bomb to London is different than effectively delivering the bomb. The He 177 appears to lack the ability to climb high enough and fly fast enough to fit the mission profile. (Calbear's above cited post explains what was required.)

The He 177 London mission profiles you cite, assuming we believe the Wikipedia, involved the He 177s climbing to around 23000 feet over Germany. The planes then made long descent to build up speed, attacking London at 14000 feet, and then continuing the descent on way home so the planes would continue to gain speed.

To deliver the A-bomb and survive the blast of the bomb, a plane is needed that can do 300+ mph at 31,000. The He-177 couldn't do that. (The He 177 lacked the exhaust driven turbo-supercharging of the B-29, having just mechanical supercharging, which limited its high altitude performance.)

I also have my doubts about the 10% loss figure you cite for the London raids (which, I presume, also comes from the Wikipedia and were, I also presume, part of Steinbock). I think the actual losses were far higher. I think the 10% represents the losses for planes shot down over England, and not just all planes not returning. I think the actual losses from all causes, such as engine fires, damaged beyond repair, crashed, etc., were much higher. Add to that the planes that turned back, these figures of losses and mission failure become astronomical. For example, the semi-reliable Wikipedia states this:
On the night of February 13, 1944 as part of Operation Steinbock, fourteen He 177 taxied out on a bombing mission, thirteen took off, one suffering a burst tire, eight promptly returned to base with overheating or burning engines. Of the four He 177s which did reach London one was shot down by night fighters.
In the case of an atomic bomb attack the planes would be operating at the very furthest edge of the performance envelope, so reliability would be even lower.

For the B-29s, a more advanced airframe and engine set-up, to reach the performance envelope, they had to be modified extensively. I think this would be impossible for the He-177 to reach anywhere near the performance of the B-29, particularly as to altitude.

Still, you have piqued my curiosity as I respect your opinions, but in this case it seems to go against everything I have I read. I have ordered some books of the He 177. These ought to be in clutches in the next couple of months, so by October or so, I may be able to offer a more definitive opinion.:p

A greater hurdle for the success of a program as big as the atomic bomb project is the inherent nature of the German economy under the Nazis. The economy, from what I have read, was run as a collection of corrupt fiefdoms--a kakistrocracy. The atomic bomb project would require too many special interests to give up too much to pursue a goal that seems too unobtainable. This alone would prevent the project to proceed in a fashion as rationally as you suggest. Coordination is impossible in Nazi Germany where infighting is the norm, and the most petty and territorial advance. For the Nazis to have an atomic bomb program efficient enough to develop an atomic bomb requires the Nazis to change the entire basis of their political and economic culture, which seems more unlikely than the Nazis overcoming the technical challenges.
 
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in regards to the delivery issue, what if the nazis used two or three bombs as "atomic mines" for allied armies crossing into Germany? not sure what the impact would be. probably a radiocative Berlin, as is usually the case in these kinds of scenarios... also, what about Hitler blowing up Paris? You know, just to piss off the French
 
Assuming the project wasn't deliberately sabotaged by Heisenberg as he claimed after the war,

To be fair to Heisenberg he didnt make that bullshit claim it was his daughter when she wrote his biography in the 60s. She also claimed he wasnt a nazi, loved the jews (even the ones who worked for him and ended up in a death camp) and had sun beams shining out of his backside. Hagiography is certainly not a basis for proper information not that that stops wikipedia :D
 
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