Luft'46 German Nuclear Weapons (WHIF)

[MarkH262]

Checkout some of the info on the Unicraft Models site. He has a couple of different A-Bomb versions in 1/72. I think that Antares Models may also have something in 1/72 and 1/48.

http://www.unicraft.biz/germ/bombs/bombs.htm

http://www.antaresmodels.com/verReview.asp?id_review=410458764  (1/48 scale)
http://www.antaresmodels.com/IMAGES/Mvc-196f.jpg (1/72 scale)

[B777LR]

They weren't actually making a bomb. They were far too tied up with other things to worry about the development of the bomb. The experimental nazi-nuclear project was to find a source for energy. Even that failed to materialise. They did mull over the idea of a bomb, but what evidence they left behind showed that they got the whole thing wrong. They would have used many tons of uranium, making the bomb huge.

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Checkout some of the info on the Unicraft Models site. He has a couple of different A-Bomb versions in 1/72. I think that Antares Models may also have something in 1/72 and 1/48.

http://www.unicraft.biz/germ/bombs/bombs.htm

http://www.antaresmodels.com/verReview.asp?id_review=410458764  (1/48 scale)
http://www.antaresmodels.com/IMAGES/Mvc-196f.jpg (1/72 scale)

I have both versions of the Anteres Models resin German A-Bomb kits and aside from the one having a crappy sheet of PE for one of the bomb shapes they are pretty much identical to the UniCraft set from Igor. 

They weren't actually making a bomb. They were far too tied up with other things to worry about the development of the bomb. The experimental nazi-nuclear project was to find a source for energy. Even that failed to materialise. They did mull over the idea of a bomb, but what evidence they left behind showed that they got the whole thing wrong. They would have used many tons of uranium, making the bomb huge.

The discussion is about WHIF atomic weapons of the 3rd Reich.

[Hobbes]

... what evidence they left behind showed that they got the whole thing wrong. They would have used many tons of uranium, making the bomb huge.

I'm readingThe virus house, it states that in ~1942 the Germans estimated the critical mass of uranium between 2 and 100 kg. Haven't finished the book yet, but I find it unlikely they'd arrive at a multiton bomb from that.

[elmayerle]

I'd argue that there's more evidence out there for a Jaanese A-bomb than a German one.  I'm not sure if the German team made a fundeamental error or if they were deliberately trying to slow the development down (I do believe that Heisenberg claimed that after the war, but I'm not sure how much to trust his testimony).  Still, if they did develop one it'd proabl, from what I've read of their work, be similar in shape to Fat Man.

[nev]

To be honest, I've always felt that Nazi A-bomb development is vastly over-rated.  Look at the Manhattan Project - regardless of how you feel about nukes, it remains one of the greatest scientific and engineering achievements in human history.  It took 130,000 workers, the free worlds top scientists, cost $22Bn in todays money, and required the vast fiscal, engineering and manufacturing resources of the United States, a country untouched by the war.

To think a war-ravaged Germany, short of skilled labour and every strategic resource you could care to mention could have made an A-bomb is not realistic to me.  Heisenberg may have claimed that he knew how to make a bomb in '38, but the theory behind it is only part of the problem.  I never cease to be amazed at the engineering/chemical/scientific problems that were overcome using the technology of the time.

But, like Jeffry says, its a whiff, so Germany can have what they like

[PR19_Kit]

To get back to the thread's original question........... 

How about a sort of super sized Fritz-X, with that octagonal ring tail? It would look good hung under, or inside, a Sanger Orbital Bomber.

[elmayerle]

Soounds as reasonable as any design, perhaps with a stretch in length, too?  For certain A-bomb designs you need a longer body on the bomb.

[Barry Krell]

Here's an interesting question.

In 1945, a German minelaying U-boat converted to cary cargoes between Germany and Japan surrendered.  In amongst the cargo were a quantity of Gold lined canisters containing U-235 - enriched Uranium.  Can someone explain how the Germans could have enriched Uranium when they didn't even have a working reactor?  If they were working on a peaceful use of Atomic energy, why would they have enriched Uranium?  As far as I'm aware, it's only use is in a bomb.

[elmayerle]

Here's an interesting question.

In 1945, a German minelaying U-boat converted to cary cargoes between Germany and Japan surrendered.  In amongst the cargo were a quantity of Gold lined canisters containing U-235 - enriched Uranium.  Can someone explain how the Germans could have enriched Uranium when they didn't even have a working reactor?  If they were working on a peaceful use of Atomic energy, why would they have enriched Uranium?  As far as I'm aware, it's only use is in a bomb.

IIRC, that was a cargo headed for japan, too.  ISTR that this bit of info was one reason the US decided to go ahead with the strike on Hiroshima, there was a concern that japan might well be near a bomb of their own.

[Fulcrum]

I heard a rumour(from a T.V. documentary) that the Japanese had 2 nuclear bomb programs(1 for the army, the other for the navy) & while the army bomb program failed, the navy bomb program progressed far enough to test the bomb in present-day North Korea on the day after the surrender was announced(sortof "had the war countinued, would we have a bomb? question, plus they already knew how the bomb worked(i.e. the 2 nuclear attacks on them)). According to a Japanese eyewitness, the test was a success, but it was all covered up by the allies due to a racial inferiority complex(believeing that the Japanese were incapable of making a nuclear bomb).

[rickshaw]

*SIGH* conspiracy theories.  The Germans didn't have a bomb, they didn't even have a working nuclear pile.  The Japanese were even further behind that, not yet got beyond the theoretical stages of developing one.  This has been laid out in several serious books on the subject (you know the ones that don't engage in wild speculation or entertain fanciful stories from witnesses who make things up).

Considering that the cost of the Manhattan Project was so massive only the US could really entertain attempting it, and then only by utilising wartime accounting practices (ie build it and worry about the cost later), neither the German war economy (which was pretty much a shambles throughout most of the war) nor the Japanese one could have sustained the effort required.   As it was, the Germans decided their "Manhattan Project" would be the Vergeltungswaffen - the Vengeance weapons, while the Japanese were battling even to supply their home economy, let alone their population and was still pursuing the chimera of naval dominance in the Pacific.  The Vergeltungswaffen took up massive amounts of time, research and engineering effort to bring to production.  Quite simply, the Germans had no way to even contemplate a project like building an A-bomb, on top of everything else.  The Japanese were even worse off.

[Hobbes]

Here's an interesting question.

In 1945, a German minelaying U-boat converted to cary cargoes between Germany and Japan surrendered.  In amongst the cargo were a quantity of Gold lined canisters containing U-235 - enriched Uranium.  Can someone explain how the Germans could have enriched Uranium when they didn't even have a working reactor?  If they were working on a peaceful use of Atomic energy, why would they have enriched Uranium?  As far as I'm aware, it's only use is in a bomb.

The process for enriching Uranium does not need a reactor. There are a number of approaches, the most common is the use of ultracentrifuges.

There are reactor designs that need enriched Uranium: if you use ordinary water as a moderator, the understanding back then (1942) was that enriched Uranium was required. The Germans were interested in this, because they hoped it might be simpler to enrich Uranium than to create  large amounts of heavy water (as needed for a reactor with unenriched Uranium).

[Jeffry Fontaine]

*SIGH* conspiracy theories.  The Germans didn't have a bomb, they didn't even have a working nuclear pile.  The Japanese were even further behind that, not yet got beyond the theoretical stages of developing one.  This has been laid out in several serious books on the subject (you know the ones that don't engage in wild speculation or entertain fanciful stories from witnesses who make things up).

Considering that the cost of the Manhattan Project was so massive only the US could really entertain attempting it, and then only by utilising wartime accounting practices (ie build it and worry about the cost later), neither the German war economy (which was pretty much a shambles throughout most of the war) nor the Japanese one could have sustained the effort required.   As it was, the Germans decided their "Manhattan Project" would be the Vergeltungswaffen - the Vengeance weapons, while the Japanese were battling even to supply their home economy, let alone their population and was still pursuing the chimera of naval dominance in the Pacific.  The Vergeltungswaffen took up massive amounts of time, research and engineering effort to bring to production.  Quite simply, the Germans had no way to even contemplate a project like building an A-bomb, on top of everything else.  The Japanese were even worse off.

Once again, this discussion is about WHIF atomic weapons of the 3rd Reich. 

Leave the politics and reality at the door! 

If this discussion continues to spiral downwards towards a chest-thumping session it will be locked and no further discussions will take place. 

Is that clear enough for all concerned? 

[sagallacci]

If I were doing a seriously whiffy German Bomb, I'd go with a simple gun type configuration. Though terribly inefficent, it is also the least technically challenging, though would need a lot of hard to come by U235. And I'd use a simple lollypop configuration, a more or less spherical or cylinder shaped containment/target end with a couple meter long gun tube end. John Coster-Mullen's book "Atomic Bombs" has great photos of early drop shapes along those lines. Even in a very simplefied form, it would still weight several thousand kilos, mainly in the containment end. Eliminating the massive containment would save a lot of weight, but risk an even less efficent event. I really doubt the Germans would get implosion, in no small part due to their likely desire to compartmentalize research and, despite some crazy stuff, where in many ways very conservative in their engineering thoughts.

As to some of the earlier comments, the shipment to Japan was simply urainium oxide, not proccessed Isotope.

While the Germans appeared to be way off the mark for getting the physics right and appearently made no real effort towards fissionables extraction, the Japanese had both a better notion about the physics and had lab level work on U235 extraction and Pu creation. But as it was still on the level of a grade student lab experiment, with a for spit budget, was nowhere near an actual weapons program.