Luft'46 German Nuclear Weapons (WHIF)

[kitnut617]

If anyone is interested in the real story of the A-bomb, I recommend The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes, Touchstone 1986.

Two other books, 'Ruin from the Air' and 'The Deadly Element' are very good too. Sorry I can't remember the author's names at the moment.

[Mossie]

Ruin from the Air is by Gordon Thomas & Max Morgan Witts.  I've got this one, very good account of the Hiroshima mission with some insights into the Manhattan Project.

[sequoiaranger]

>There are some accounts that the Uranium aboard that U-boat that surrendered ended up as part of the warheads dropped on Japan. <

HIGHLY unlikely. The Uranium Oxide on the sub was NOT enriched or even highly radioactive. Just simple ore of the type one of the directors of the Manhattan Project used as a doorstop. It was put in the general pile of stuff that would SOMEDAY be enriched for use in atomic weapons, but the Manhattan Project had already begun the long process of making fissionable U-235 for the weapons used over Japan just a couple of months hence.

[TsrJoe]

not the forum for a discussion on U.234 and its Uranium cargo and slightly off the intended topic matter, but would Uranium in its ore form require specially lined containers and 'safe' handling 'just in case' theres enough published material on the submarine and its 'amended' manifest to make one wonder if the cargo was actually in its 'enriched' form?

From the files in the UK. and US. National Archives there is ample reference sources to confirm the allies did indeed think the German Reich 'did' have the capability for atomic weapons (note, of no definate specified type) and were on the cusp of deploying same either in bomb or more particularly in 'V-weapon' form

... lets get back to the modelling  

cheers, Joe

[Geoff]

Joe,
IIRC U-235 has to be obtained from U-238 which is in the ore. I don't think U-235 exists in any quantity in a "natural" state. But U-235 would certainly need special handling.

I read 2 books in the past ,"Vengeance" and "The Nuclear Axis" both by Phillip Henshall which covers the various theories on the Axis nuclear and WMD projects. I can recommend them for Wif backstories.

[Martin H]

heres a pair ofgerman nukes carriers built by Geoff P for the sigs "Instant sunshine" mini theme from August 2005

[PR19_Kit]

Martin,

I'm darned if I'd like to be flying one of those into action, specially the Stuka!

As you'd only be a very short distance from Ground Zero (or should that be Grund Null......?) the chances of survival would be minute, of not non-existant! Maybe the crews were suicide squad members? (there must be a VERY long German word for that....)

But of course if the bomb makers had got the calcs all wrong, as it seemed they had, the darn things wouldn't have gone off anyway...... 

[Geoff]

The Stuka and -109 were based on artwork in Friedrich Georg's book "Hitler's Miracle Weapons Vol-1" and were for suicide attacks.
It's alleged that the Germans had developed a small fission weapon weighing about 250Kgs, but there is no estimate of their yield.

[Hobbes]

not the forum for a discussion on U.234 and its Uranium cargo and slightly off the intended topic matter, but would Uranium in its ore form require specially lined containers and 'safe' handling 'just in case' theres enough published material on the submarine and its 'amended' manifest to make one wonder if the cargo was actually in its 'enriched' form?

Uranium ore doesn't need much special handling. It's an alpha emitter, meaning that a thin layer of any material around the uranium ore will contain the radiation. It is poisonous so it has to be treated with some care.

The Germans never succeeded in enriching Uranium. They were working on several enrichment processes but were thwarted by material shortages, infighting and Allied bombing (the factory producing ultracentrifuges was bombed twice, in both cases destroying prototypes and all design schematics, setting back production by 6 months).

It's unlikely that captured Uranium ended up in the original bombs; the Americans had 350 tons of U at their disposal at the start of the Manhattan project; the Germans never had more than 6 tons of refined (not even enriched) U.

edit: the Germans had access to over 1000 tons of uranium ore. They processed only ~ 6 tons into metallic uranium for use in reactor experiments but could have made much more.

[TsrJoe]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/01/obituaries/01LANS.html?ex=1129435200&en=b98c9e6cd3411635&ei=5070

an interesting obituary ...

[TsrJoe]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4598955.stm

speculative but interesting nontheless ...

[sagallacci]

Looks like a gun type weapon, a much more likely configuration for a whiffy German nuke. For the real thing, the important detail would be to authenticate  the documents. There are tons of fakes out in the market, usually copies of copies, or modern recreations, "based on wartime material".
But for this whiffy excercise, the design does appear to be credible, in the sense of having a chance of actually working (ignoring the lack of 235 to fuel it or even anyone with the full grasp of the physics to understand whether or not it might function available to work on it)

[TsrJoe]

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,3247.0.html

it gets somewhat antagonistic and deliberately provocative in some parts but an interesting thread ...

[dogsbody]

Thanks for all the info, guys. I've got a couple of ideas I'm going to try out now.

[TsrJoe]

http://www.inteligenciaartificial.cl/ciencia/quimica/wuwa.htm

a 'dodgy' site but the reactor images might be of interest ...