The Atomic Bomb - what if?

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#61

Found in 30 seconds on Wikipedia:

The Manhattan Project, or more formally, the Manhattan Engineering District, was an effort during World War II to develop the first nuclear weapons by the United States with assistance from the United Kingdom and Canada. Its research was directed by American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, and overall by General Leslie R. Groves after it became clear that a weapon based on nuclear fission was possible and that Nazi Germany was also investigating such weapons of its own

6/10, more research required.[/quote]

Do you need me to draw this on a chalk board for you?

The question is, why did Britain not have it’s own nuclear weapons program? They did not. I am asking why they did not even try.

#62

For the 16,294th time we rapidly realised that the western allies would get nuclear weapons faster if we co-operated, and that we couldn’t get a nuclear weapon working in the UK by ourselves by the end of the war given the prevailing situation. Hence the decision was made to put all our responses at the disposal of the US. When we were betrayed by the McMahon act at the end of WW2 (probably not intentionally - I strongly doubt McMahon had any idea of the level of cooperation that had been going on when he brought the act in) we rapidly developed our own weapons until the US finally realised tat the McMahon act was overtaken by events.

#63

You’ve already been told that Britain did have their own project (Tube Alloys Project) and that the Allies realised that it would make more sense to co-operate, so moved all of their research to Los Alamos, where they would have somewhere safe to conduct their testing.

This site (link) gives a list of all the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, including the large proportion of British scientists - the Manhattan Project would have taken far longer without some of them, who were world leaders in their fields at the time.

#64

IRONCHILD wrote

Do you need me to draw this on a chalk board for you?

The question is, why did Britain not have it’s own nuclear weapons program? They did not. I am asking why they did not even try.

TROLL POST (yet again)

This question has been answered, with references, a number of times.

TUBE ALLOYS project was the British atomic weapon project, which was absorbed into the MANHATTAN project. TUBE ALLOYS then became the cryptonym for plutonium.

I’m beginning to have a Groundhog day feeling . . . . .

#65

Here’s a link to a 4 part article I researched and wrote concerning the alternative- invasion! http://www.combatsim.com/review.php?id=721

#66

Nice, well written and well thought out.

Only 1 question. Are you seriously contending that the japanese had an Atomic programme and even an Atomic weapon?

#67

Some of it isn’t bad, but the bit about Japanese nuclear weapons is worthy of the tinfoil hat brigade. They were better than the Germans, but that really wasn’t hard (Heisenberg was a clown who wasn’t even vaguely close to calculating critical mass).
The Japanese had calculated critical mass, and had started work on gaseous diffusion. Only for the plant to burn down in an air raid. The following quote illustrates very nicely the state of the whole programme:

Nobuuji: If uranium is to be used as an explosive, 10kg is required. Why not use 10kg of a conventional explosive?

Nobuuji was Nishina’s boss…

#68

The biggest hole in your Japanese nuclear weapons story is simply logistics - you seem to be suggesting that the Japanese got more refined U-235 out of a smaller, less efficient plant built with far fewer resources and massively less scientific talent. In a fraction of the time. Sorry, but engineering simply doesn’t work like that. In reality Nishina was the best Japan had, and he had barely got any U-235 at all when his lab burned down and took his diffusion kit with it.

Oh, and that summarly also makes no mention of tentative US plans to use nuclear, biological and chemical weapons tactically in an assault on the home islands. It also doesn’t mention the way US bombing plans were revised in the light of the bombing survey of Germany, and the likely result of the revised plans (catastrophic famine starting in winter 1946 - there was a bad food shortage in Japan at the time anyway even with large scale US aid - destroying the bridges/railways as planned would have caused the inhabitants of the cities to die wholesale).

Still, not bad at all. Apologies if I missed anything out - I skimmed a few bits.

#69

I liked it, but, I would also like to add that even without the A-Bombs, the strategic bombing would have continued. Also the US Navy along with the RN would have continued to hit anything that moved. Ships would have roamed almost at will up and down the coast and shelled what they could.

I did however read some US deliberations recently about the invasion. Atomic weapons being in their infancy, the US had a plan to clear the beaches and the immediate inland areas with several A-Bombs. Obviously radiation isnt a key factor then, but just imagine if that had gone ahead?

#70

Thw whole story is there including all the details about Japanese nuke program simply because the story has been around since 1946 with fairly credible information and was published in mainstream newspapers. This was before the Enquirer. That part is presented in context with the invasion format to give the reader all possible scenarios no matter how implausible.

The main thrust was to show some of the declassified material that discussed probable casualties. There was a lot of underestimating of the Japanese also plus missed intelligence.

#71

Fair enough - you might want to be a little more careful about how you present some of the more controversial stuff though. That reads like the nuclear bomb stuff is undisputed fact, which is very much not the case.

#72

Hey some people don’t believe the Germans built prototype flying discs either. The question we must ask is how can we be absolutely sure it didn’t occur?

#73

Fine if the statement is that they never existed. If you’re making a statement that something happened, you should be able to back this statement up to a reasonable standard of proof (I tend to take beyond reasonable doubt for a statement that something happened, and balance of probabilities for saying it probably happened). If something might have happened (i.e. less than 50% chance of it actually having taken place) say so rather than saying it happened. To do anything else is downright misleading IMHO.

#74

Again I maintain that this story began in 1946 not today when wackos dream up all sorts of junk and manufacture evidence and use PhotoShop to enhance their hijinx. In 1946 journalists didn’t attempt perpetrate BS almost for the sake it as they do today. Many of the details came from a Japanese who was at the facility.

Certainly an attempt to perpetrate a fraud such as this could not be guaranteed. IE., nobody knew that this segment of North Korea would not be inspected by the US or GB to this day. The original journalist couldn’t have picked a better place but could not have known North Korea would become allied with comunist Russia and China and no American would ever inspect the area ever.

And there are some other books from as long ago as 1985 in the bibliography that might be of interest if you can find them.

Regardless of whether the Japs would have used a bomb to nuke our invasion fleet Typhoon Louise would have decimated it even better. As it was hundreds of ship were destroyed. That’s another wild card factor that no one even knows about when they talk of invasion vs A-bomb. :slight_smile:

#75

I believe Russia was dabbling in trying to develop an atomic bomb. They were at least entertaining the thought. I have read about a young man low on the “totum pole” at Los Alamos that was passing information from the Manhattan Project on to the Russians. How serious the Russians were in trying to come up with anything of their own is questionable. One thing is for certain. Stalin knew that the United States was working on the project and the progress they were making long before Roosevelt personally let him in on the United States efforts.

#76

The young man you probably have in mind was Klaus Fuchs.
The Soviet Union was doing rather rather more than dabbling, as described here.

Welcome to the forums.

#77

Yes, that was the young man’s name! I couldn’t remember it. It has been quite some time since I read about it. What I read that mentioned him was not concentrating on the Soviet’s efforts at developing an atomic weapon. It was actually mentioned in a book I read on the Manhattan Project. I have never looked any further into the Soviet’s efforts.

#78

Ive never heard of this Typhoon, have you any information on just how many ships were destroyed and how many men killed?

#79

Firefly- yeah here’s the link to the entire article again http://www.combatsim.com/review.php?id=721 but 403 ships were either sunk, destroyed beyond repair or scrapped. Today, October 9th is the 60 anniversary of Typhoon Louise. I never found causualty figures but it was acknowledged as the worse disaster to befall the USN in its history. Even if they was not a large loss of life, and I don’t think there was, the havoc to an assembled invasion fleet would have required a complete reorganization and resupply effort had, say, 1000 ships been wrecked.

#80

Sir what is the biggest megaton atomic bomb ever made?