WI/AHC: Soviet Union develops the A-bomb first.

How and what would happen if the Soviet Union had been able to develop the A-bomb first, and were able to maintain this monopoly for as long as the allies did IOTL?
 
So what does the USSR give up to make the bomb, and the infrastructure of Hanford and Oak Ridge by 1945?

USA could afford tossing 2 billion at a project and had all that spare electricity.
USSR doesn't.
 
So what does the USSR give up to make the bomb, and the infrastructure of Hanford and Oak Ridge by 1945?

USA could afford tossing 2 billion at a project and had all that spare electricity.
USSR doesn't.

Yeah, not with all those German troops breathing down its neck.
 
USA could afford tossing 2 billion at a project and had all that spare electricity.
USSR doesn't.

An A-bomb program could be made much cheaper than the Manhattan Project. For example, if the USSR had opted to develop a plutonium bomb right out the gate. Of course, if I remember rightly, going the plutonium route would be slower, which makes it harder to get the thing first.

The larger problem for the Soviets being first is that they can't get as much use from information gained from their spies in the Western programs.

Maybe if we have a no-Stalin TL, so Stalin's disastrous science policies are avoided as are some, but not all, of the bad military decisions prior to OTL's '41. The USSR never signs the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, instead signing a pact that trades raw materials for German machine tools and their neutrality if Germany invades Poland, the pact is honored until the Germans (who are weaker because of a longer fight against Poland) get bogged down in Northern France, and the Soviets try to "liberate" Poland. The Soviets don't do terribly well in their attack and the Germans beat them back into the middle of Belarus. The German advance coupled with news of the German atom bomb program causes the Soviet leadership to decide that they need to start their own program.

Long supply lines, weather and exhaustion lead to the Germans slowing down though and within a year the tide is completely in reverse. Due to France not being defeated, the Japanese decide to focus on China. Due to no Pearl Harbour, the US never enters the war against Germany, or the war against Japan, though it does send supplies to both the Chinese and the Western Allies. Due to the US not being at war, the Manhattan Project doesn't get as much funding.

With less damage to the Soviet Union, more and better scientists due to less Stalinist purging and enforced isolation, less cooperation between Britain and the US and slightly more urgency in pushing a-bomb development, the USSR is first to explode a nuclear device in 1946. This is much too late to help defeat Germany, who was crushed between the advancing Anglo-French and Soviet armies in '44.

fasquardon
 
An A-bomb program could be made much cheaper than the Manhattan Project. For example, if the USSR had opted to develop a plutonium bomb right out the gate. Of course, if I remember rightly, going the plutonium route would be slower, which makes it harder to get the thing first.

US HEU production outstripped Pu production for much of the Cold War. In 1947 the United States produced eight times as much U-235 as P-239
Most of the warheads were HEU/Pu composite pits through the '50s.

The optimal path is actually HEU made by gaseous diffusion used with implosion. Little Boy had enough HEU to make four bombs pits for a Fatman style device.
US HEU production really didn't decline till 1964

The problem with HEU only path, is you won't have the need to do implosion, as 'simple' Gun style devices are sufficient to work.

You need Pu-240 contaminated reactor Pu to start thinking about implosion
 
US HEU production outstripped Pu production for much of the Cold War. In 1947 the United States produced eight times as much U-235 as P-239
Most of the warheads were HEU/Pu composite pits through the '50s.

The optimal path is actually HEU made by gaseous diffusion used with implosion. Little Boy had enough HEU to make four bombs pits for a Fatman style device.
US HEU production really didn't decline till 1964

The problem with HEU only path, is you won't have the need to do implosion, as 'simple' Gun style devices are sufficient to work.

You need Pu-240 contaminated reactor Pu to start thinking about implosion

I've not looked this stuff up recently, so I may be miss-remembering. I thought Pu was much easier to get to early on though?

fasquardon
 

jahenders

Banned
An A-bomb program could be made much cheaper than the Manhattan Project. For example, if the USSR had opted to develop a plutonium bomb right out the gate. Of course, if I remember rightly, going the plutonium route would be slower, which makes it harder to get the thing first.

The larger problem for the Soviets being first is that they can't get as much use from information gained from their spies in the Western programs.

Maybe if we have a no-Stalin TL, so Stalin's disastrous science policies are avoided as are some, but not all, of the bad military decisions prior to OTL's '41. The USSR never signs the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, instead signing a pact that trades raw materials for German machine tools and their neutrality if Germany invades Poland, the pact is honored until the Germans (who are weaker because of a longer fight against Poland) get bogged down in Northern France, and the Soviets try to "liberate" Poland. The Soviets don't do terribly well in their attack and the Germans beat them back into the middle of Belarus. The German advance coupled with news of the German atom bomb program causes the Soviet leadership to decide that they need to start their own program.

Long supply lines, weather and exhaustion lead to the Germans slowing down though and within a year the tide is completely in reverse. Due to France not being defeated, the Japanese decide to focus on China. Due to no Pearl Harbour, the US never enters the war against Germany, or the war against Japan, though it does send supplies to both the Chinese and the Western Allies. Due to the US not being at war, the Manhattan Project doesn't get as much funding.

With less damage to the Soviet Union, more and better scientists due to less Stalinist purging and enforced isolation, less cooperation between Britain and the US and slightly more urgency in pushing a-bomb development, the USSR is first to explode a nuclear device in 1946. This is much too late to help defeat Germany, who was crushed between the advancing Anglo-French and Soviet armies in '44.

fasquardon

That's a lot of changes, but could achieve the desired result.

Then, of course, there's the question of how the USSR uses it. I suspect they'd try to use it as a "big stick" as they try to grab large parts of Eastern Europe.
 
The only conceivable way to let the Soviets have the Bomb first is to massively slow the US effort down. If the US never decides to enter into an ABomb program (or at least doesn't start until e.g. 1944, say), then no one has a Bomb during WWII. Tube Alloys is most of the way to a bomb by 1945 iTTL, when the war's over, and funding drops dramatically. Meanwhile the Soviets (who had Tube Alloys even more thoroughly penetrated than Manhattan, iirc) take that information and run with it. So the first Soviet Bomb is 1950 (a year later than OTL), the first Tube Alloys bomb 1951, and the first US Bomb shortly thereafter.
 
I've not looked this stuff up recently, so I may be miss-remembering. I thought Pu was much easier to get to early on though?

fasquardon

Not in large quantities. Hanford made 57 tons of bomb grade plutonium over 40 years Oak Ridge made 349 tons of HEU in 20 years
 
Could the USSR have advanced earlier in nuclear physics if (as is rather unlikely IMO) Trotsky rather than Stalin had been at the helm? Consider what Trotsky said in 1926:

"The phenomena of radio-activity are leading us to the problem of releasing intra-atomic energy. The atom contains within itself a mighty hidden energy, and the greatest task of physics consists in pumping out this energy, pulling out the cork so that this hidden energy may burst forth in a fountain. Then the possibility will be opened up of replacing coal and oil by atomic energy, which will also become the basic motive power. This is not at all a hopeless task. And what prospects it opens before us!"
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1926/03/science.htm

I am not aware of anything by Stalin showing a similar interest in nuclear energy at such an early date...
 
Not in large quantities. Hanford made 57 tons of bomb grade plutonium over 40 years Oak Ridge made 349 tons of HEU in 20 years
Pu production is easier to scale as part of a "civil" nuclear programme though, HEU is exclusively for military (weapons and naval reactor) use.
 
That's a lot of changes, but could achieve the desired result.

No Stalin likely would create alot of changes.

Not in large quantities. Hanford made 57 tons of bomb grade plutonium over 40 years Oak Ridge made 349 tons of HEU in 20 years

That's enough to build a couple bombs a year though. If the Soviets really did get the bomb first, I have a hard time seeing them deciding that they need to mass produce weapons of that much destructive power.

Could the USSR have advanced earlier in nuclear physics if (as is rather unlikely IMO) Trotsky rather than Stalin had been at the helm? Consider what Trotsky said in 1926:

"The phenomena of radio-activity are leading us to the problem of releasing intra-atomic energy. The atom contains within itself a mighty hidden energy, and the greatest task of physics consists in pumping out this energy, pulling out the cork so that this hidden energy may burst forth in a fountain. Then the possibility will be opened up of replacing coal and oil by atomic energy, which will also become the basic motive power. This is not at all a hopeless task. And what prospects it opens before us!"
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1926/03/science.htm

Hard to get Trotsky in charge, it's an interesting quote though. Also, I can see Trotsky being better for Soviet science due to his more international outlook (which meant he was alot more pro trade).

Then, of course, there's the question of how the USSR uses it. I suspect they'd try to use it as a "big stick" as they try to grab large parts of Eastern Europe.

Well, one of the problems is, atom bombs aren't that useful without ways to deliver them. Unless the Soviets have also been investing in a missile program or a long-range bomber program, the bomb wouldn't help them very much at all in a fight with Britain, France or the US. And since everyone closer to the USSR is already under the shadow "big stick" of big divisions, I don't think having a-bombs changes much.

Secondly, I have a hard time seeing the USSR finishing their bomb program more than a year or two ahead of Britain, France and the US. So they have a very small window of opportunity and they'll know it, with their better espionage. And of course, the British and the Americans certainly will have an effective long-range delivery system for the bombs. If France avoids occupation in WW2, they likely do as well.

So my bet is the USSR would use their small window of advantage to secure propaganda victories and to establish precedents on the use of nuclear weapons which they consider advantageous to themselves.

fasquardon
 
How and what would happen if the Soviet Union had been able to develop the A-bomb first, and were able to maintain this monopoly for as long as the allies did IOTL?

How?

It's been suggested that if the Germans had not revised their attack plan for 1940, the attack would have failed (at least, failed to defeat France), leaving Germany in a stalemated war with little hope of eventual victory.

In that case, it is possible that the Schwarz Kapelle would move to remove Hitler and find a way to end the war.

Then the war ends in 1940, with some kind of negotiated settlement (and general relief in many countries).

Now, by 1940, uranium fission had been discovered, and the possibility of a fission chain reaction and a fission bomb were already being considered (by Soviet scientists, among others).

Research on uranium fission was continuing in France, Britain, America... would continue in Germany, but at a modest level, with very limited funds. Furthermore, many of the scientists involved were pacifists or semi-pacificists, who quaile at the thought of building such horrible weapons.

The actual development of the Bomb required a gigantic industrial effort by the U.S., possible only through wartime mobilization, and also that reluctant scientists put aside all scruples. If Nazi Germany was defeated in 1940, neither condition would be met.

What would happen in the USSR, though? ISTM possible that Stalin would become interested. (OTL, he showed personal interest in 1942.) If Stalin decided to build the Bomb, he could allocate the vast industrial resources needed, and Soviet scientists' reservations, if any, would have no effect. The USSR could have the Bomb by 1945.

What would happen?

It depends on other events and the personality of Stalin. Would he be adventurous, and use the Bomb to establish Soviet hegemony over the world or some lessser area? Would he use it to block other countries, perhaps under the pretense of international control by the League of Nations?
 
In that case, it is possible that the Schwarz Kapelle would move to remove Hitler and find a way to end the war.

The Germans expected to need time to defeat France. And the desire or even ability of the German Army to overthrow Hitler is a myth that has been roundly debunked by now. The few people who were willing to overthrow Hitler if things got difficult lacked ability, allies and had weak positions in the command structure. The vast majority of the German army, so far as the evidence shows, would back Hitler to the death either for their personal honour or out of real conviction.

If Germany bogs down in France, I expect the war lasts until 1943 at least... And I would expect that there would be a notable lack of effective coup attempts against Hitler, just as OTL (even though Hitler would be weaker, do to not proving his "genius" in France).

fasquardon
 
The few people who were willing to overthrow Hitler if things got difficult lacked ability, allies and had weak positions in the command structure.

Do you mean like Fellgiebel, the chief of Signals, Canaris, the chief of Intelligence, von Brauchitsch, c-in-c of the Army, Halder, chief of the General Staff?

Fellgiebel and Canaris were both committed members of the Schwarze Kapelle.

Von Brauchitsch and Halder were not, but they frankly discussed a coup d'état against Hitler in November 1939. Both had been retired by 1944, but Halder was among those arrested afte 20 July.

What people don't get is what the 1940 campaign did. Hitler already had enthralled the German people; Halder had commented that no move against Hitler would be possible until there was a "setback" to discredit him. But in 1940, instead of a setback, there was a glorious, dazzling, beyond-all-expectations victory and Hitler's popularity became absolute. Also, the opposition became demoralized. Every time it seemed Hitler might stumble, he scored another triumph. How do you fight Destiny's favorite?

But stalemate in 1940 would mean a very different atmosphere.
 
Do you mean like Fellgiebel, the chief of Signals, Canaris, the chief of Intelligence, von Brauchitsch, c-in-c of the Army, Halder, chief of the General Staff?

Fellgiebel and Canaris were both committed members of the Schwarze Kapelle.

Von Brauchitsch and Halder were not, but they frankly discussed a coup d'état against Hitler in November 1939. Both had been retired by 1944, but Halder was among those arrested afte 20 July.

Right. I don't think any of that bunch could have executed a coup against a wet paper bag, let alone against the Nazi party.

What people don't get is what the 1940 campaign did. Hitler already had enthralled the German people; Halder had commented that no move against Hitler would be possible until there was a "setback" to discredit him. But in 1940, instead of a setback, there was a glorious, dazzling, beyond-all-expectations victory and Hitler's popularity became absolute.

Sure, the campaign against France was miraculous. However, even had it not gone so well, already the Germans felt they were doing very well. They'd had a very good war against Poland, conquered the Czechs almost bloodlessly, eaten Austria easily, regained the Saar and re-militarized the Rhineland handily.

This gave Hitler a very big pool of credibility to work with, and by the time the Germans are bogged down enough that enough people can see that this time isn't going to be another Czechoslovak crisis, that the Western allies wouldn't fold submissively, most of the officers, just as OTL, will focus on serving their country as well as they can. The idea of breaking their oaths of loyalty to the Fuhrer and betraying their country to try and stop a war they can see they were losing was not an idea most German officers would act on.

Further, people forget just how weird the German army was. Their views were not the views the surviving officers filled their memoirs with after the war (which are, frankly, filled with blatant propagandizing), they were not the views of Western generals experienced in how seeing war and economics as a systemic whole, they were not the views of the German civilian population who mainly remembered WW1 as a bad thing.

fasquardon
 
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