WW2 with more nukes

A nuclear weapons program would throttle Hitler's re-armament plans in the 1930s, overheat the Reich's economy yet more, and offer no discernible benefit within eighteen months/two years, so it would be shut down in 1940.

Which is exactly what the Germans concluded (possibly aided by Heisenberg's error/sabotage) and basically abandoned their effort, though the allies didn't know that until much later, hence all the attention paid to the Telemark facility.
 
With a POD after 1919, ...

I think a lot of people missed that key specification. This allows some possibilities for faster physics research in the 1920s & 30s. Its easy to say B could not be accomplished until A was established, and so on through the research of years. This is correct as far as it goes, but does not recognize the slow pace of the historical research, much of which was due to low funds and the time it took to obtain funds. The Mahatten Project accomplished what it did in 36 months due to the cash necessary for fast tracked parallel R & D tracks. Problems were buried under mountains of resources and blank cheques.

Lets imagine for a moment some eccentric billionaire is inspired by things like X Rays, electric lights, motors , ect that did not exist when he was a child. He invests massively in Curies laboratory, or your favorite physics research group, and draws in other investors. The result is the time to Fermis first atomic pile is shortened from 23 years to 17 or 18, with that critical experiment occurring circa 1937. From that a more measured and carefully managed atomic bomb project of 72 months can cost half or a quarter of the US effort & put these bombs in action 1942-44.
 
The Mahatten Project accomplished what it did in 36 months due to the cash necessary for fast tracked parallel R & D tracks.

Not only that, but also Einstein's letter. Gotta have an earlier reason for the US to even start the project. And in 1919 there weren't any nazis yet.

The haste to build the bomb started because of the fear the enemy would do it sooner.
 
.... Gotta have an earlier reason for the US to even start the project. And in 1919 there weren't any nazis yet.

The haste to build the bomb started because of the fear the enemy would do it sooner.

Yup. Difficult to start that any sooner or make it go fast if the previous 20 years of research is not further along. None of physic research though 1938 had anything to do with building a bomb. Sure there was speculation, mostly by journalists on the fringe of physics about the potential, but the research in labs like the Curie facility, the universities, or others was all academic level investigation of just what was going on with this atomic stuff. It was underfunded compared to Chemistry, or aviation. Physics research usually consisted of one academic or another spending months acquiring the funds for a small lab bench test, that moved the knowledge bar forward in tiny increments. Shorten that precess by a half dozen years and you get to the critical point of a large scale chain reaction that Fermi executed several years earlier.
 
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