Whatif France had nukes in Sedan, may 1940 ?

[Archibald]

french situation in Sedan was rather similar to what Israel faced in october 1973, Ie after an initial surprise attack the army was now outnumbered and mauled.
Israel thought about using its nukes at one time.

So whatif France had nukes in 1940 and used them?
We suppose that, as after WWII, Germany has no nuclear weapons.
Let's say Manhattan project started in the thirties, the Joliot-Curie helped and, as a reward, the USA gave nukes to France (and GB).

 

[mattw101]

Shouldn't this be in ASB?

If the Germans know the allies have a nuclear capability they aren't likely to attack the West.

Couple of things though:

• How did the US manage to spend money on developing nuclear weapons when its economy is in meltdown?
• Do the French have a bomber with the technology to deliver the bomb?
• Do they have the air capability to even get their bombers through to Germany without being shot out of the sky?

 

[Archibald]

Ok, I agree that their some rules/ vocabulary in its board I don't know.

So, what's ASB ?

Do the French have a bomber with the technology to deliver the bomb?
Do they have the air capability to even get their bombers through to Germany without being shot out of the sky?

This won't be a problem.
A strong escort by D-520 would help. Sedan is not Berlin!
Yes there was french four-engine bombers at the time such as the Bloch MB-162 for example. It was a derivative of the MB-160/161 studied from 1936 onwards.

Don't know for the economics, but was technology enough advanced to allow building of nukes in the 30's ?

 

[mattw101]

So, what's ASB ?

Sorry, should have explained. It basically means something that's pretty impossible or very very infeasable. I'll give you my reasons for saying that.

1. Will the French really want to launch a nuclear attack on their northern border?
2. How do the bombs get made in the first place?
3. How do they make sufficient numbers of bombs to give them to other countries so quickly?
4. Will the US really give a nuclear bomb to France - a country which, in the 1930s, can forseeably end up either communist or fascist?
5. German air superiority makes it very dangerous to try and fly a nuclear bomb anywhere.

 

[Archibald]

question 1

Yes, is the situation is desperate... and after Sedan it really was. Nuke the Germans before they come to Abbeville and trap the armies into the north.

question 2

As manhattan was.

question 3
No need for much bombs

question 4
France was a REPUBLIC, risk of becoming communist or fascist was as high as in Great Britain or USA, ie close from zero. The 3rd republic was weak only in apeareance, it was 65 year old and firmly established.

question 5
read the comment in my previous post.

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

Nuclear fission was only discovered in 1938 by german scientists, so giving the french an operational nuke by May 1940 is completely ASB. Bear in mind that the americans needed 3 years, dozens of the world's greatest scientists and an almost unlimited budget to have a workable nuke. So this would need a PoD by 1914 at least, which would surely butterfly nazism and WWII away.


Anyway, the french didn't need a nuke to stop the germans at Sedan. If only they had kept their 17th division there instead of sending it to a worthless position around the dutch border, the germans would have had a very hard time crossing the Meuse.

 

[mattw101]

question 1

Yes, is the situation is desperate... and after Sedan it really was. Nuke the Germans before they come to Abbeville and trap the armies into the north.

question 2

As manhattan was.

question 3
No need for much bombs

question 4
France was a REPUBLIC, risk of becoming communist or fascist was as high as in Great Britain or USA, ie close from zero. The 3rd republic was weak only in apeareance, it was 65 year old and firmly established.

question 5
read the comment in my previous post.

1. They're nuking their own people. Given the strength of anti-war feeling to begin with this is an absolute impossibility.

2. I meant how are the resources mobilised without the motivation of war, with the economy in crisis etc?

3. I meant how do the US magically make enough bombs to hand them out to other nations?

4. Yep, it's a republic - so what? Look up 6th February 1934 - that may modify your claim that the threat was "close to zero" or similar to that of Britain or the US.

 

[CalBear]

Ok, I agree that their some rules/ vocabulary in its board I don't know.

So, what's ASB ?



This won't be a problem.
A strong escort by D-520 would help. Sedan is not Berlin!
Yes there was french four-engine bombers at the time such as the Bloch MB-162 for example. It was a derivative of the MB-160/161 studied from 1936 onwards.

Don't know for the economics, but was technology enough advanced to allow building of nukes in the 30's ?

The tech didn't exist. Manhattan CREATED the tech, that is the wonder of it. The theory existed, but the actual hardware, from the first atomic pile, to the enriching processes, to the determination of what critical mass was, to the concept of implosion as a means of reahing crital mass, to the practical design of an implosion system was ALL created by the Anglo-American team working the Project. Even more stunning is that they did ALL of it in three years.

The French (or anyone else's) bombers of the era lacked the lift to carry a nuke. Early nukes were HEAVY (Little Boy was around 4000kg/9000lb & Fat Man was even heavier at 4600kg/10,000lb), even the B-29, which was way more powerful than any 1940 bomber, had trouble with it. On paper the MB-162 could handle 8,000lb of bombload, but that was on paper (the B-17 could carry 17K in theory, in fact it was more like 8,000 & the B-29 could externally handle two 10,000 kg "earthquake" bombs but they didn't arm the first two nuclear weapons until they were in the air because there was a reasonable chance that the plane would crash on take-off and blow the tip of Tinian into vapor).

Wnhat is even more critical is that no sane nation would invade a state with nuclear weapons unless they also had them. Germany never came close to creating the Bomb, to invade a nuclear power would be committing suicide.

 

[CalBear]

Nuclear fission was only discovered in 1938 by german scientists, so giving the french an operational nuke by May 1940 is completely ASB. Bear in mind that the americans needed 3 years, dozens of the world's greatest scientists and an almost unlimited budget to have a workable nuke. So this would need a PoD by 1914 at least, which would surely butterfly nazism and WWII away.


Anyway, the french didn't need a nuke to stop the germans at Sedan. If only they had kept their 17th division there instead of sending it to a worthless position around the dutch border, the germans would have had a very hard time crossing the Meuse.

Actually it WAS an unlimited budget. It is doubtful that anything short of WW II would have gotten Manhattan funded. Manhattan cost $2 BILLION dollars ($27 BILLION in 2007 dollars) that is 2/3 of the TOTAL amount spent by the U.S. on conventional munitions during the entire war.

 

[Archibald]

4. Yep, it's a republic - so what? Look up 6th February 1934 - that may modify your claim that the threat was "close to zero" or similar to that of Britain or the US

I mean why so much questions ?

Biased example. It's really the only threat in the whole 30's.
I maintain the thread was close from zero, and the 3rd republic was firmly established despite its weaknesses.

 

[mattw101]

I mean why so much questions ?

Well, because this is a discussion site. I could just tell you there was no chance it could happen, but I think it's better to develop the idea - even if all that does is further explain why it couldn't happen.

Biased example. It's really the only threat in the whole 30's. I maintain the thread was close from zero, and the 3rd republic was firmly established despite its weaknesses.

I disagree. There was nothing to compare with this in the UK or US, the closest thing is the Battle of Cable Street and all that was was a load of socialists fighting with the police, not an attempted coup.

The American fascist movement (Silvershirts) had 15,000 members in 1934.
The British Union of Fascists had around 30,000 members in 1934.

Compare that to France.

Action Francaise alone had 60,000 members in 1934.
Jeunesses Patriotes had 90,000 members in 1934.
Croix de Feu had 150,000 members in 1934!
And there were many smaller ones as well.

Furthermore the numbers of people supporting extremist parties got bigger as war approached, I don't know about the US, but the complete opposite happened in the UK.

 

[Cockroach]

french situation in Sedan was rather similar to what Israel faced in october 1973,

The logical target for a nuke wouldn't be the german army in the field but rather the industry in and around the Ruhr.

 

[Archibald]

Well, because this is a discussion site. I could just tell you there was no chance it could happen, but I think it's better to develop the idea - even if all that does is further explain why it couldn't happen.



I disagree. There was nothing to compare with this in the UK or US, the closest thing is the Battle of Cable Street and all that was was a load of socialists fighting with the police, not an attempted coup.

The American fascist movement (Silvershirts) had 15,000 members in 1934.
The British Union of Fascists had around 30,000 members in 1934.

Compare that to France.

Action Francaise alone had 60,000 members in 1934.
Jeunesses Patriotes had 90,000 members in 1934.
Croix de Feu had 150,000 members in 1934!
And there were many smaller ones as well.

Furthermore the numbers of people supporting extremist parties got bigger as war approached, I don't know about the US, but the complete opposite happened in the UK.

Pfff... I'm sorry but this sound really biased to me, or at least overly simplistic!

What about Mosley and this king (I forget the name, think it was Edward VIII) which had nazi simpaties ? GB was not nazi proof!

You seem convinced that "France was more fascist or communist than GB because it had higher numbers of fascists or communists"

But that's not true. Communists were under control, but fascists were, too. Despite what happened in 1940, before that the fascists were considered a threat by the french governement and monitored by the police.

You need to know that all the fascist groups you mention were dissolved in 1936.

Like it or not, but France was a democracy in the 30's. A turbulent democracy with lot of problems, but still a 70 year old republic.

btw thanks for the conclusions

If France has nuclear weapons in the 30's, Germany doesn't attack.
If Hitler is crazy enough to attack, we nuke the Rhur and key elements of German economy.

 

[mattw101]

Pfff... I'm sorry but this sound really biased to me, or at least overly simplistic!

What about Mosley and this king (I forget the name, think it was Edward VIII) which had nazi simpaties ? GB was not nazi proof!

You seem convinced that "France was more fascist or communist than GB because it had higher numbers of fascists or communists"

But that's not true. Communists were under control, but fascists were, too. Despite what happened in 1940, before that the fascists were considered a threat by the french governement and monitored by the police.

You need to know that all the fascist groups you mention were dissolved in 1936.

Like it or not, but France was a democracy in the 30's. A turbulent democracy with lot of problems, but still a 70 year old republic.

btw thanks for the conclusions

If France has nuclear weapons in the 30's, Germany doesn't attack.
If Hitler is crazy enough to attack, we nuke the Rhur and key elements of German economy.

Mosley was a complete and utter joke by 1939. Read Blackshirt by Stephen Dorril. He couln't make public speeched because he was booed off the stage every single time he tried. The number of active Blackshirts, as in the number of people who actually dressed up, was in the region of 1,000 - 3,000. That's nothing.

Let's look at election results.
1931/32. British Communist Party gets 69,000 votes. French Communists get 796,000 votes.

1935/36. British Communist Party gets 27,000 votes. French Communists get 1,500,000 votes.

"France was more fascist or communist than GB because it had higher numbers of fascists or communists"
Well - the populations of the two countries are similar, it seems an adequate method to me.

France was a society deeply and disturbingly divided by 1939, to a much greater extent than Britain or the USA. Radical politics has always been more popular in France, this didn't change in the inter-war period. You seem to think that outlawing the different fascist movements equates to destroying fascism altogether. The Austrian Nazi party was outlawed in the mid-30s, yet the majority of its members remained Nazi and waited for Hitler. The original Brownshirts themselves were outlawed in Germany for a few years in the early 1930s and, guess what, they made something of a comeback.

Just look at the amount of collaboration in France. Now I'm certainly not saying that there wouldn't be collaborators in the UK, but I think there'd be a difference in number and ferocity.

Utter ASB in any case, so it doesn't really matter.

 

[Hierophant]

Actually Enrico Fermi came damn close to noticing nuclear fission in 1925. With that as the POD and its likely publication, its likely more then a few countries would have entered the war with nukes or very close to them.

 

[mattw101]

Will nations really be trying to develop the most destructive weapon in history whilst still realistically talking about general disarmament though?

In the late 1920s there isn't really any motivation for producing such a weapon.

By the mid 1930s there is, but the economies of the major powers are still recovering from the depression.

 

[Earling]

The question is one of cost.

There is often a general view that over time technology will progress. If you can progress by small increments that is true. The theory of nuclear fission is quite simple. The technical production of such however is another question entirely.

Can you get to nuclear weapons by small increments? I am under the impression you cannot. You need a vast one off investment. For that you need a serious belief that you are eventually going to come out with something worthwhile. In OTL the theory for a bomb was there and WW2 was a great motivator for getting such a war winning weapon. If the Manhattan project had recieved 1/10th of the money and other resources would there have been a bomb for 1945? No.

It seems to me you can't just take a handful of scientists with a normal budget and 20 years down the line *bam* you have Nuclear weapons. They just won't get anywhere.

 

[Dean_the_Young]

Especially when many of the material and chemical sciences needed for the Manhattan project were developed in the very late 30's/during the 40's, and this applies especially to the corrosive acids they used. In the 20's and 30's, the material sciences to build systems that could withstand those forces did not exist. Any project that started in the late 20's would conclude that it was unfeasible to even try, because they wouldn't be able to build the machines necessary.

 

[Berra]

The majority says that the chance of nukes in 1940 is slim. But I think the WI is more about WMDs then nukes in specific so would the French use massive amounts of gas if they had that option?

 

[mattw101]

I'm not sure. They may actually have had gas supplies that could be used for that purpose (wasn't there a plan in the UK to gas the German landings?).