Hitler's Bombe: Fact or No?

[Sava]

Hitler would have used a bomb if he had one, so I say NO

[Dis]

nein

[Alexander's Horse]

A book I was reading recently about the end of the war, claimed in passing that Hitler developed the first flying saucer - which reached speeds of 1800mph in any direction and was made up of a catherine wheel of jet engines.....the author offhandedly then said the scientists had been captured by the Russians so we don't know anything about that project....

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
It is well known the nazis built a small

No they didn't.

As of 1945 the only working nuclear reactors ever built were in the US

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
I believe that the Germans were supposed to have developed a "dirty bomb", not an actual atomic weapon, but instead a convential high explosive bomb containing radioactive material

The Germans didn't have access to enough pure high-activity radionuclides at any point to make such a design feasible.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
I believe that the Germans were supposed to have developed a "dirty bomb", not an actual atomic weapon, but instead a convential high explosive bomb containing radioactive material. Had the long range "New York" bomber been completed it might have carried such a weapon, but by 1945 even delivering a bomb to a less distant allied target like London or Moscow became increasingly difficult. In the end Hitler ordered Germany destroyed because of its failure to execute his will, but his henchmen no longer obeyed him.

dirty bombs have no tactical use, especially back in those days.

as a terror weapon on the other hand...

[Nostromo]

The Germans didn't have access to enough pure high-activity radionuclides at any point to make such a design feasible.

For what it's worth, I read in the book "A bodyguard of lies" that the germans had in fact access to uranium, somewhere in scandinavia irc, but that the allies made sure that the germans didn't get their hands on it.

[KrazyHorse]

Naturally occurring uranium is insufficiently active to make a "dirty bomb" worth it.

Even U-235 only has a specific activity of ~8*10^7 Bq/kg

Pu-239 has a specific activity of ~2*10^12 Bq/kg for comparison purposes. Radium 226 is around 10^13 Bq/kg

[KrazyHorse]

A radiation bomb with naturally occurring uranium would almost be a joke. Much more efficient to kill people with high explosives than to fly planeloads of the stuff in order to raise the activity rate high enough to be a concern.

To get the real nasty **** which would be suitable for dirty bombs you need a breeder reactor.

[KrazyHorse]

Which, again, the Germans did not have.

They were never within 3 years of getting a nuclear bomb.

Fermi built his reactor at U of Chicago in 1942. The first weapon was produced in the summer of 1945, and the US sure as hell poured a lot more effort into it than the germans could have.

[Dis]

and take a look at how difficult it was for even the U.S. to produce the bomb.

Getting together enough U-235 proved difficult. Though the U.S. did have better results with plutonium. Oak Ridge consumed 10% of all electricity consumed in the U.S.

[Ted Striker]

[Mr. Harley]

Copy of my post in the WW2 thread.

Reference the A-bomb, the Nazis really were not that close. Between the British commando raids on the Norwegian heavy water supplies/production, and the number of scientists who had fled the Facist regimes in Germany and Italy, they were at a huge disadvantage. They had a limited number of people working on the problem, and had gotten into a practical blind alley - heavy water as the moderator for the reactor, which has real problems from an engineering standpoint. Read the first link that shows how Fermi engineered the first working nuclear reactor. He did some truly brilliant work, and ended up using Cadmium rods and then graphite blocks as a moderator - which are much easier to use from an engineering standpoint. www.ces.clemson.edu/linux/fermi.pdf
Also check out the attached document file from a different source, boredofstudies.org.

The Nazis are not that close. The Yanks are going to have the first A-bomb, period. I to had seen the recent claims about a Nazi dirty bomb, thanks for the info on that.

[Zoid]

Hmpff, another so called "historian" takes something tangible and then blow it completely out of proportion. Like Jutta Rabe (Estonia) they probably do it purely for the money. This is almost as bad as the Da Vinci Code...

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Kamrat X
This is almost as bad as the Da Vinci Code...

How is this as bad as a book listed as fiction?