WI: A Failed Nazi A-Bomb Program

Every few months or so, there's another thread about "WI the Nazis got the bomb?" And the answer is usually, "well, they couldn't have." Well, what if the Nazis tried to get the bomb, but failed?

Let's say they use the money that would have gone into the V2 on trying to build a Hanford-style graphite pile to breed plutonium. How far could they have gotten? How would it effect the post-war world, especially if the Soviets got their hands on some of the scientists and equipment?

For that matter, how much collateral damage would the inevitable Allied air strike cause? Could you fit a production graphite pile into one of the underground bunkers they were building, or would it have to be exposed on the surface?
 
Every few months or so, there's another thread about "WI the Nazis got the bomb?" And the answer is usually, "well, they couldn't have." Well, what if the Nazis tried to get the bomb, but failed?

Let's say they use the money that would have gone into the V2 on trying to build a Hanford-style graphite pile to breed plutonium. How far could they have gotten? How would it effect the post-war world, especially if the Soviets got their hands on some of the scientists and equipment?

For that matter, how much collateral damage would the inevitable Allied air strike cause? Could you fit a production graphite pile into one of the underground bunkers they were building, or would it have to be exposed on the surface?

The best route forward for the Nazis was not to build a Hanford style graphite pile, since this would have required a Uranium enrichment programme that would have consumed vast resources and been almost impossible to hide. Remember that in OTL, the main reason that the British moved Tube Alloys to the US was the inability to hide/protect the enrichment facility.

The better bet for the Nazis was something similar to ZEEP, the Zero Energy Experimental Pile which went critical at Chalk River Laboratories in Canada. Although this design needed heavy water, it could use natural un-enriched Uranium 238 to breed Plutonium. ZEEP went critical in September 1945, but its conceivable that a German equivalent could have gone critical early 1945, although too late for a Nazi A Bomb.

This wikipedia link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_heavy_water_sabotage#Operations_Grouse_and_Freshman

gives a pretty good account of everything that the allies did in order to prevent the Germans getting enough heavy water to put a ZEEP into operation. :rolleyes:

Of course getting the German Zeep critical is only the start of their problem, especially since they had a fair part of the basic physics wrong. I happen to agree with the consensus here; the Nazis can't build a working bomb by 1945 regardless of the POD. Thats not to say you can't put a POD for a non Nazi Germany.......

Capturing ZEEP dosn't help the Russians all that much. Its a dead end technology for them without the Norwegian or Canadian heavy water. Possibly they get some Plutonium to play with a couple of years early, but I cant see this as a POD to change the in service date for a Russian Bomb.

The damage caused by an allied air strike on the German ZEEP would depend on how long it had been operating. There isn't remotely the energy in the core to get close to a Chernobyl. The worst part of any release will likely be the I131 with a half life of 8 days. This in itself would be intersting to post war scientists since there may be a statistically significant thyroid cancer blip which may in turn effect the post war atmospheric testing philosophy.

I'll go out on a limb, and guess that any Deterministic (short term) radiation deaths will be lost in those from the bombing raid itself while the Stochastic (long term, i.e. cancer) deaths will be small enough to get lost in the post war, displacement noise.

Just my random thoughts after two nice glasses of a particularly nice single malts. Anyone else?

UK05
 
I'm not going to try and argue with Vanguard about nuclear physics...

Even if they cut every corner and get all their physics spot on, the war effort will still suffer due to the needs of the program, tens of millions of Marks which would have gone into armour, artillery or aircraft will now be lost. I'd guess the project lasts until around late 1943 when Poland is no longer a safe haven from the Red Army forcing the project to be moved to areas which aren't safe from strategic bombing. I'd guess the Nazis try to destroy the program in the last days of the war and murder the scientists, depending on how successful they are, I'd say whoever survives tries to reach the west whilst the ones captured by the Soviets will be shifted to their blossoming bomb program.

I'd say the shorter war because of this bomb program will have more implications for history, especially little to no rocketry program.
 
The Nazis did have an atomic bomb project, although Hitler never gave it the priority it deserved and the Allies knew about it.

Incidentally, it is necessary neither to enrich uranium nor to use heavy water to create a plutonium-breeding nuclear reactor. Graphite moderation is sufficient if the graphite is purified of boron. Luckily, the Nazis never figured this out.
 
Capturing ZEEP dosn't help the Russians all that much. Its a dead end technology for them without the Norwegian or Canadian heavy water. Possibly they get some Plutonium to play with a couple of years early, but I cant see this as a POD to change the in service date for a Russian Bomb.

The Russians did produce their own heavy water even before the war (in Dnepropetrovsk). Given that they do have a lot of rivers and a fairly large number of large hydroelectric dams (on the Volga, especially), I don't see what the big post-war showstoppers would be to them upping their heavy water production if they deemed it necessary.
 
The best route forward for the Nazis was not to build a Hanford style graphite pile, since this would have required a Uranium enrichment programme that would have consumed vast resources and been almost impossible to hide. Remember that in OTL, the main reason that the British moved Tube Alloys to the US was the inability to hide/protect the enrichment facility.
Enrichment? for a graphite moderated reactor? How odd.

The main point of graphite moderation is that you can use natural uranium - as the Russian RBMK reactors do.

What Hanford used, I don't know, but it's most certainly possible to breed Plutonium in a graphite reactor without any enrichment at all.

OTOH, it might be easier to make heavy water than to chemically purify the graphite enough, I suppose.
 
OTOH, it might be easier to make heavy water than to chemically purify the graphite enough, I suppose.

No. But IF you are going to use a water coolant, heavy water is better than light water. Even slightly enriched uranium is also easier to use than natural uranium. Basically, every increment of increased moderation or reduced neutron parasitism gives you increased reactivity, reducing the minimum reactor size and making it easier to design the reactor.
 
There was a failed Nazi bomb project OTL. They failed because they were following a research path that was a dead end. This could have happened to any of the various projects.

One interesting note though, even today it isn't clear whether the Nazis were following the wrong path because Heisenberg (the project leader) was wrong or because he was deliberately sabotaging the project
 
Wasn't hitler kind of skeptical towards this field because it was a "Jewish" science?

Yes. Nonetheless he authorized at least two different atomic bomb projects. Later, Speer determined neither had any chance of providing a weapon soon enough to do the Reich any good, so he canceled them and reassigned their resources to other projects.
 
Enrichment? for a graphite moderated reactor? How odd.

The main point of graphite moderation is that you can use natural uranium - as the Russian RBMK reactors do.

What Hanford used, I don't know, but it's most certainly possible to breed Plutonium in a graphite reactor without any enrichment at all.

OTOH, it might be easier to make heavy water than to chemically purify the graphite enough, I suppose.

RBMK reactors don't use natural uranium as a fuel, but lightly (2%) enriched uranium. The British AGR reactors also have graphite as moderator, but they also use enriched uranium as fuel.

Whether or not natural uranium can be used depends on many others things in addition to the moderator choice. The size of the reactor core, is another one and what type fo fuel cladding (steel, zircalloy ...) is another big one.
 
RBMK reactors don't use natural uranium as a fuel, but lightly (2%) enriched uranium. The British AGR reactors also have graphite as moderator, but they also use enriched uranium as fuel.

Whether or not natural uranium can be used depends on many others things in addition to the moderator choice. The size of the reactor core, is another one and what type fo fuel cladding (steel, zircalloy ...) is another big one.
The original RBMK design used natural uranium, as did the Magnox reactors.
 
We know the Russians had an effective spy network which meant they knew how to build the bomb.

An alternative timeline might involve the Germans putting more resources into spying and as a result being able to get on the right track with their A Bomb development.
 
An alternative timeline might involve the Germans putting more resources into spying and as a result being able to get on the right track with their A Bomb development.
Or one of the project members on their side. It would help if they weren't such pricks about non "Aryans".
 
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