Nazi Atomic bomb used in 1943

[Time Spy]

The following intercepted Japanese diplomatic signal was intercepted during World War 2: "Stockholm to Tokyo" No. 232.9 December 1944 (War Department), National Archives, RG 457, declassified October 1, 1978.

*my italics

This is not a fantasy or an illusion. The signal interception known as a MAGIC decrypt was kept classified after the war. The Japanese throughout WW2 had no knowledge that their encyphered diplomatic signals from Berlin and Stockholm were being read in London and Washington.

I am unsure where you have received such knowledge, but you are quie right. A nuclear bomb not detinated properly is nothing more than a massive C-4 bomb with a major explosion. However, that's all it was at Kursk, not to mention elsewhere. The Germans were quite compulsive and jumped the gun, not knowing the proper procedures in creating the after shock of a total after implosive reprocusion. They later sent Japan the heavy water in hope of a better result with a superior technology. Like it or not God works in mysterious ways. and decided enough was enough. Hate is unexceptable and can only be rewarded with a contemptable judgmental verdict. The whirlwind was sown, and thus was it reaped, although terrible as it was in innocent destruction. The end must become a means, when will we ever learn from our mistakes?

.

[tazjet]

Except that his scientists didn't know how to build one. Nor did they have a planet to make one. The closest thing they had to a plant that might have been able to do that was destroyed in March 1945.

Look closely at what the Americans and Soviets had to commit as resources to get it done then look at what Germany did - not even close.

Take a look at the weight of the first warheads made - how would the German's have lifted them? That is if they had made one.

Strangely skilled percision workers don't recall having made the materials or the mechanism to do all of this

Its all space gas.......

You assume wrongly that the only path to developing nuclear weapons is attaining critical mass. USA took that path because it was the least complicated method.

The Nazis however worked on a different principle these days referred to as Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) or Third Generation Nuclear weapons. The Nazi scientist who led the German WW2 Atomic bomb project Dr Kurt Diebner taught USA how to dispense with critical mass by adopting Nazi techniques when he was inducted into Operation Paperclip.

USA stopped using Mark III critical mass nuclear weapons in 1948 when Operation sandstone tested levitated Pu cores at Eniwetok in 1948.

[tazjet]

I went to the National Archive Online and tried to search for this document. I could not find it. Perhaps you would be so kind as to introduce some proof that it is real?

I have seen it all over the internet, thanks to google searches, but none of those quotes has a link to the original source, or a picture of the document. Given... a picture of the document does not really mean anything either.

Unless we can all read the document, then what you are posting is just hearsay.

It is not hearsay at all. If you are sufficiently interested to acquire it then follow this citation:

Declassified authority NND 947022

RG 0457 National Security Agency / Central Security Service, entry # A1 9004, Japanese Army Attache message translations

SRA 14,200 through 15,000 ("Translation Reports of Intercepted Japanese Army Attache signals Aug 25,1941 - Aug 1945")

With thanks to my friend William J Pellas who posted these pictures elsewhere here is the actual document:

Sounds like an interesting book.

Here is what Wikipedia has to say:

http://en.wikipedia...._weapon_program

Also here is a link to AboveTopSecret.com where this subject was discussed and dismissed a couple weeks ago. Apparently the warhead design is ridiculously inadiquite for what a nuclear device would need for critical mass.

http://www.abovetops...hread620332/pg1

Critical mass has not been a requirement in the US inventory since 1948. For example the nuclear warhead detonated by North Korea in February 2013 was 7 kilotons and used just 0.4 kilograms of Uranium -not 64kg (ie critical mass)

Wikipedia is a plethora of hearsay comments by multiple authors many of whom know less than they think they do.

Nazi scientists figured out how to compress deuterium sufficiently to ignite a fusion burn which then saturated a compressed fissile target with sufficient neutrons to replicate criticality in a "natural fissile Critical Mass"

[tazjet]

Disagree on your aircraft post,or are you saying the German Pilots were not as good ? The Spitfire was acknowledged by the German Pilots ,to be far superior to what they had....I didnt forget the other foreign nationals I just didnt have time to add them in at the time I posted . Ok you can shut up now, Cheers....

By late in the war the Germans had lost their best pilots and had not trained sufficient new pilots nor due to fuel shortages trained pilots adequately, the reversal of the situation in 1939 and yes they did have superior aircraft in most respects except that they lacked the high temperature alloys necessary for high performance piston engines and increasingly had to make technology deal with lower and lower grades of fuel. The Me-262 however could use crude oil, diesel or coal tar.

[Quaentum]

It is not hearsay at all. If you are sufficiently interested to acquire it then follow this citation:

Declassified authority NND 947022

RG 0457 National Security Agency / Central Security Service, entry # A1 9004, Japanese Army Attache message translations

SRA 14,200 through 15,000 ("Translation Reports of Intercepted Japanese Army Attache signals Aug 25,1941 - Aug 1945")

With thanks to my friend William J Pellas who posted these pictures elsewhere here is the actual document:

Critical mass has not been a requirement in the US inventory since 1948. For example the nuclear warhead detonated by North Korea in February 2013 was 7 kilotons and used just 0.4 kilograms of Uranium -not 64kg (ie critical mass)

Wikipedia is a plethora of hearsay comments by multiple authors many of whom know less than they think they do.

Nazi scientists figured out how to compress deuterium sufficiently to ignite a fusion burn which then saturated a compressed fissile target with sufficient neutrons to replicate criticality in a "natural fissile Critical Mass"

There are some problems with the document:

It says: To Tokyo (Summer(Vice Chief, General Staff))

It seems that at that time there was no vice chief of the general staff

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Japanese_Army_General_Staff_Office

At the time the bombing was done south east of Kursk, the area was behind German lines so they would have been bombing their own troops and not the Russians.

http://www.naval-history.net/WW2CampaignsRussianFront.htm

The reference in December 1944 to the heavy water plant in Norway "Which has from time to time been bombed by English" was a plant that had been put out of operation in early 1943

These operations—codenamed "Grouse," "Freshman," and "Gunnerside"—finally managed to knock the plant out of production in early 1943.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_heavy_water_sabotage

Further: You have been here http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?184156-1944-MAGIC-decrypt-about-Nazi-nukes since 2010 posting about the same thing and some of the interesting parts about that site is they found that the rifle division was not in that area at the time the attack supposedly took place.

From just these few things I can say the document is most likely a fake

[jaylemurph]

From just these few things I can say the document is most likely a fake

....ahh, but do fakes count as hearsay?

--Jaylemurph

[keithisco]

.

.

The very last sentence in the Telegraph scanned report, tells us that "reliable agents in Germany reported that the bomb had been tested and proved a failure" ... is this a QED moment??

Edited March 12, 2013 by keithisco

[SHaYap]

Adolf would have just gave Eva a nice fireworks show if he had the nukes

http://www.evabraun.dk/

~edit : linkage

Edited March 12, 2013 by third_eye

[+DieChecker]

It is not hearsay at all. If you are sufficiently interested to acquire it then follow this citation:

Declassified authority NND 947022

RG 0457 National Security Agency / Central Security Service, entry # A1 9004, Japanese Army Attache message translations

SRA 14,200 through 15,000 ("Translation Reports of Intercepted Japanese Army Attache signals Aug 25,1941 - Aug 1945")

With thanks to my friend William J Pellas who posted these pictures elsewhere here is the actual document:

But, it WAS hearsay till evidence was presented. Thanks for doing so... If I said that my wife shot me, till I produced evidence she did, my testimony would be hearsay.

I'm going to chose for discussion purposes to believe these documents, but they still don't prove a nuclear attack in Russia in 1943. They say a "new kind of weapon" and then the report goes on to say that they are still working on the "atom splitting bomb".

Even if the attack occured, it might have been some other new weapon, like a fuel air bomb.

When did the US develop the technology to the point we could build a "5 kilogram" atomic bomb?? Even the Davy Crockett (1956) recoilless rifle delivered nuke had a warhead that was 23kg.

Critical mass has not been a requirement in the US inventory since 1948. For example the nuclear warhead detonated by North Korea in February 2013 was 7 kilotons and used just 0.4 kilograms of Uranium -not 64kg (ie critical mass)

Critical mass is subject to density and shape. So, basically the 64 kg is for a sphere just sitting there. But if explosives are used (Spherical or linear pressure) the Critical Mass is reduced such that only several kgs could be needed. The Hiroshima bomb had 6 kg in it.

Regardless the effect is still called Critical Mass. It is the bringing together of the materials to a denisty that it will self sustain the reaction that is called Critical Mass, not the numeric weight/mass that is required in room temperature and pressure.

Can you point me to where the N Koreans used only 0.4 kg of Uranium? I'm finding sites saying it was a 0.4 kiloton reaction, but not 0.4 kg of uranium....

The minimum mass of fissile material that can sustain a nuclear chain reaction is called a critical mass and depends on the density, shape, and type of fissile material, as well as the effectiveness of any surrounding material (called a reflector or tamper) at reflecting neutrons back into the fissioning mass. Critical masses in spherical geometry for weapon-grade materials are as follows:

Uranium-235 Plutonium-239

Bare sphere: 56 kg 11 kg

Thick Tamper: 15 kg 5 kg

The critical mass of compressed fissile material decreases as the inverse square of the density achieved. Since critical mass decreases rapidly as density increases, the implosion technique can make do with substantially less nuclear material than the gun-assembly method. The "Fat Man" atomic bomb that destroyed Nagasaki in 1945 used 6.2 kilograms of plutonium and produced an explosive yield of 21-23 kilotons [a 1987 reassessment of the Japanese bombings placed the yield at 21 Kt]. Until January 1994, the Department of Energy (DOE) estimated that 8 kilograms would typically be needed to make a small nuclear weapon. Subsequently, however, DOE reduced the estimate of the amount of plutonium needed to 4 kilograms. Some US scientists believe that 1 kilogram of plutonium will suffice.

http://www.fas.org/n...nuke/design.htm

Nazi scientists figured out how to compress deuterium sufficiently to ignite a fusion burn which then saturated a compressed fissile target with sufficient neutrons to replicate criticality in a "natural fissile Critical Mass"

This again is either opinion or hearsay.

So now you are saying the Germans invented Fusion? And fission? It might have been possible, but I've yet to see evidence that it happened. AFAIK the deuterium plants they had never really produced even a fraction of the deuterium they would have needed. But, that might just be History-written-by-the-Conquorer talking....

Edited March 12, 2013 by DieChecker

[keninsc]

Does it not strike you as odd that such a secret project would have been known to an ally? We told no one until Pottsdamn about our project......of course Stalin already knew about it.

The Germans never had a bomb or a program to speak of.

[tazjet]

Does it not strike you as odd that such a secret project would have been known to an ally? We told no one until Pottsdamn about our project......of course Stalin already knew about it.

The Germans never had a bomb or a program to speak of.

Actually during his trial for war crimes the romanian leader Marshal Antonescu revealed a month before he was hung that Hitler had told him at a conference in early August 1944 of a Uranium atom splitting weapon of devastating force.

Until the day he was lynched Mussolini also spoke relentlessly of Hitler's atomic weapon.

....and of course Mussolini sent a correspondent to witness a test blast at Rugen on the Baltic from a hermetically sealed bunker which Romersa recounted he shared with several Japanese VIP military attaches.

No this does not strike me as odd. USA did not entirely trust the Soviets which is why USA did not share that information but they entirely shared with Great Britain.

Hitler was in a weakened position by late 1944 and particularly in the east with Romania gaurding his flanks and supplying vital oil, Hitler needed to reassure it's leader to keep supporting the Nazi cause. Additionally USA had already communicated a warning to Hitler about his Atomic weapons project via the German legation in Lisbon in July 1944 so it was hardly secret any longer.

The same is true of Japan. Germany desperately needed rubber and tungsten from Japan and japan required german technologies. Hitler had to ensure he did not lose Japanese support and there was a price.

[tazjet]

But, it WAS hearsay till evidence was presented. Thanks for doing so... If I said that my wife shot me, till I produced evidence she did, my testimony would be hearsay.

No it was a citation of an existing declassified archive.

I'm going to chose for discussion purposes to believe these documents, but they still don't prove a nuclear attack in Russia in 1943. They say a "new kind of weapon" and then the report goes on to say that they are still working on the "atom splitting bomb".

No but it now obliges you to disprove the claim. The 19th Vorezneyh Rifles Division was lost on the southwest outskirts of Karkov in May-June 1943 and the soviet High Command lost all contact with this unit. The unit was subsequently reformed. German General Erhard raus recounted in his diary an aerial attack on these Soviet forces with aerial mines which caused earthquakes and left giant mushroom clouds of smoke above burning Soviet tanks.

Even if the attack occured, it might have been some other new weapon, like a fuel air bomb.

Also the Germans were very clear about the coal dust bomb developed by Zippermayer that this was a Fuel Air Explosive (FAE) and the Germans in their accounts themselves did not confuse between FAE and Atomic weapons.

When did the US develop the technology to the point we could build a "5 kilogram" atomic bomb?? Even the Davy Crockett (1956) recoilless rifle delivered nuke had a warhead that was 23kg.

US abilities is not the benchmark. Edward Teller father of the H-bomb noted that USA owed a great deal to wartime Nazi nuclear research on the question of compressing Deuterium. Put more bluntly Nazi technology with respect to sub-critical nukes was superior in 1942 to US abilities in 1952.

Critical mass is subject to density and shape. So, basically the 64 kg is for a sphere just sitting there. But if explosives are used (Spherical or linear pressure) the Critical Mass is reduced such that only several kgs could be needed. The Hiroshima bomb had 6 kg in it.

No you do not understand nuclear physics at all. The Hiroshima bomb required a 64kg lump of HEU and only 780 grams at the centre of the core underwent fission because only the 235U at the centre had a long enogh mean free path for neutrons to experience fission. 98.6% of the Uranium 235 away from the core was wasted and excluded from the explosion.

Critical mass is determined by several factors:

1) Isotope purity

2) Geometry

3) core temperature

4) Neutron density

5) Compression

...etc

Regardless the effect is still called Critical Mass.

No, it is not, "Critical Mass" is not the same as criticality. these are two different concepts

It is the bringing together of the materials to a denisty that it will self sustain the reaction that is called Critical Mass, not the numeric weight/mass that is required in room temperature and pressure.

You are citing the requirements of 70 year old First Generation nuclear weapons.

The Russians published a scientific paper in 1946 about the principles of using compression to ignite a Third Generation nuclear warhead. This was three years before they exploded their first bomb and 8 years before USA had the technology. Where did they get that technology if not from the German scientists they recruited?

Can you point me to where the N Koreans used only 0.4 kg of Uranium? I'm finding sites saying it was a 0.4 kiloton reaction, but not 0.4 kg of uranium....

BBC news revealed it was a sub-critical weapon of 7 kilotons and that equates fission of just 0.4 kg. (ie 77 grams per Kiloton)

So now you are saying the Germans invented Fusion? And fission? It might have been possible, but I've yet to see evidence that it happened. AFAIK the deuterium plants they had never really produced even a fraction of the deuterium they would have needed. But, that might just be History-written-by-the-Conquorer talking....

According to Norsk Hydro records and to postwar accounts by Dr Paul Harteck Germany shipped 6,200kg of Deuterium from Saheim in Norway to Myrow in Silesia in March 1944 a month after the Hydro ferry was sunk with 618kg. Also the Nazis had a sulphide exchange plant west of Kiel mass producing Deuterium.

No nuclear weapons were theorised as early as 1914 in Germany. In Japan Dr Asada proposed developing nuclear weapons to the IJN in 1937 and in 1938 Dr Hasigawara proposed developing thermonuclear weapons in Japan. Nuclear fusion was understood in principle from the 1930s. In October 1936 Dr Richter discovered how to create artificial nuclear fusion by injecting Deuterium into the plasma flux of Lithium in an electric arc furnace at Falkenwerke in Eger, Czechoslovakia.

The problem of igniting a fusion reaction is how to induce sufficient compression at the same time. Gottfreide Guderley solved this problem with the Hohlraum concept in late 1942 and Edward Teller acknowledged this after the war.

Edited March 13, 2013 by tazjet

[+DieChecker]

No it was a citation of an existing declassified archive.

That was not proven till just now. Before now this was hearsay. What was to stop someone from just making stuff up and claiming it came from a government document? Just about anyone with a printer and scissors could make a fake document.

No but it now obliges you to disprove the claim. The 19th Vorezneyh Rifles Division was lost on the southwest outskirts of Karkov in May-June 1943 and the soviet High Command lost all contact with this unit. The unit was subsequently reformed. German General Erhard raus recounted in his diary an aerial attack on these Soviet forces with aerial mines which caused earthquakes and left giant mushroom clouds of smoke above burning Soviet tanks.

The burden of proof is always on those making a claim, not on those questioning it.

It seems General Raus liked to talk about earthquakes and mushroom clouds...

General Raus the officer commanding the city takes up the story:

".... Within a few minutes heavily laden Stukas came on in wedge formation and unloaded their cargoes of destruction in well timed dives on the enemy tanks caught in this congested area. Dark fountains of earth erupted skyward and were followed by heavy thunderclaps and shocks that resembled an earthquake. These were the heaviest, two-ton bombs, designed for use against battleships, which were all that Luftflotte 4 had left to counter the Russian attack. Soon all the villages occupied by Soviet tanks lay in flames. A sea of dust and smoke clouds illuminated by the setting sun hung over the brook valley, while dark mushrooms of smoke from burning tanks stood out in stark contrast...."

http://en.wikipedia....nsive_Operation

Also the Germans were very clear about the coal dust bomb developed by Zippermayer that this was a Fuel Air Explosive (FAE) and the Germans in their accounts themselves did not confuse between FAE and Atomic weapons.

That is an assumption and an opinion. There is no way to know that the person making this document knew anything of the difference between such explosive devices. Indeed the technical level of the document would seem to infer a person who knew very little of explosives or science.

US abilities is not the benchmark. Edward Teller father of the H-bomb noted that USA owed a great deal to wartime Nazi nuclear research on the question of compressing Deuterium. Put more bluntly Nazi technology with respect to sub-critical nukes was superior in 1942 to US abilities in 1952.

I'd argue that US abilities ARE a benchmark. Is it really possible to compare WW2 technical ability with todays technical ability and claim that they made 5 kg nukes in resource deprived war torn Germany, when the best the trillions of dollars the US spent over the next 50+ years was a warhead weighing 20 kg? You are claiming that 1942 Germany nuclear weapon technology is even superior to Todays technology?

No you do not understand nuclear physics at all. The Hiroshima bomb required a 64kg lump of HEU and only 780 grams at the centre of the core underwent fission because only the 235U at the centre had a long enogh mean free path for neutrons to experience fission. 98.6% of the Uranium 235 away from the core was wasted and excluded from the explosion.

Critical mass is determined by several factors:

1) Isotope purity

2) Geometry

3) core temperature

4) Neutron density

5) Compression

...etc

I have to admit that here you are correct. I went back and re-read about this. It appears I was thinking of the Nagasaki bomb with 6 kg of Plutonium.

No, it is not, "Critical Mass" is not the same as criticality. these are two different concepts

Technically, I believe you are correct, but for general purposes the terms are interchangable. Critical Mass is the point where criticality happens, and is dependant on all the things you listed earlier...

The point and therefore the mass where criticality occurs may be changed by modifying certain attributes such as fuel, shape, temperature, density and the installation of a neutron-reflective substance. These attributes have complex interactions and interdependencies. This section explains only the simplest ideal cases.

http://en.wikipedia....i/Critical_mass (wiki, true, but for general purposes, it is correct)

You are citing the requirements of 70 year old First Generation nuclear weapons.

The Russians published a scientific paper in 1946 about the principles of using compression to ignite a Third Generation nuclear warhead. This was three years before they exploded their first bomb and 8 years before USA had the technology. Where did they get that technology if not from the German scientists they recruited?

The compression affects the density, which affects the point of Critical Mass... the point of criticality. They are the same thing.

BBC news revealed it was a sub-critical weapon of 7 kilotons and that equates fission of just 0.4 kg. (ie 77 grams per Kiloton)

OK. I will try to look it up...

According to Norsk Hydro records and to postwar accounts by Dr Paul Harteck Germany shipped 6,200kg of Deuterium from Saheim in Norway to Myrow in Silesia in March 1944 a month after the Hydro ferry was sunk with 618kg. Also the Nazis had a sulphide exchange plant west of Kiel mass producing Deuterium.

I don't know enough about this point. I'll have to educate myself before I can comment more. My previous comment was based on Television shows I've watched.

No nuclear weapons were theorised as early as 1914 in Germany. In Japan Dr Asada proposed developing nuclear weapons to the IJN in 1937 and in 1938 Dr Hasigawara proposed developing thermonuclear weapons in Japan. Nuclear fusion was understood in principle from the 1930s. In October 1936 Dr Richter discovered how to create artificial nuclear fusion by injecting Deuterium into the plasma flux of Lithium in an electric arc furnace at Falkenwerke in Eger, Czechoslovakia.

The problem of igniting a fusion reaction is how to induce sufficient compression at the same time. Gottfreide Guderley solved this problem with the Hohlraum concept in late 1942 and Edward Teller acknowledged this after the war.

I'll attempt to read up on this stuff. Sounds like interesting reading.

Edited March 13, 2013 by DieChecker

[keninsc]

Actually during his trial for war crimes the romanian leader Marshal Antonescu revealed a month before he was hung that Hitler had told him at a conference in early August 1944 of a Uranium atom splitting weapon of devastating force.

Until the day he was lynched Mussolini also spoke relentlessly of Hitler's atomic weapon.

....and of course Mussolini sent a correspondent to witness a test blast at Rugen on the Baltic from a hermetically sealed bunker which Romersa recounted he shared with several Japanese VIP military attaches.

No this does not strike me as odd. USA did not entirely trust the Soviets which is why USA did not share that information but they entirely shared with Great Britain.

Hitler was in a weakened position by late 1944 and particularly in the east with Romania gaurding his flanks and supplying vital oil, Hitler needed to reassure it's leader to keep supporting the Nazi cause. Additionally USA had already communicated a warning to Hitler about his Atomic weapons project via the German legation in Lisbon in July 1944 so it was hardly secret any longer.

The same is true of Japan. Germany desperately needed rubber and tungsten from Japan and japan required german technologies. Hitler had to ensure he did not lose Japanese support and there was a price.

In August, 1944 Hitler was getting his goose stepping ass kicked on two fronts. Germany simply didn't have the means or material to produce Plutonium in any quantity. If they had then we'd have scattered to radioactive stuff all over from the bombing that we and the Brits were giving them. Also keep in mind the TVA's Oakridge facility was where we were making our plutonium and at best we could only make about 10 to 15 grams a day.....that's grams a day. No bombings, no war, no straiffing from enemy war planes. That's the hard part in making a nuke, building the bomb is pretty easy, shoot you can almost make one in your basement, if you have the plutonium and uranium.

As far as Hitler having knowledge of suck a weapon in August, 1944, just about every physicist on the planet had figured out that a bomb was possible and it's reasonable that they would have told Hitler about it and he in turn told it to someone else. However, knowing it was possible doesn't equate to having an active bomb program. Shortly after that the war was over and we raped Germany for any sign of a bomb program and found nothing.

[SHaYap]

Curios to know, with what we now know, is it possible to build a very crude and basic atomic bomb, with klunky turn key battery operated device if all the main core components (have no idea what is or not) are available, in a small building apartment ?

I think its a scare monger rumor, dirty bomb yes .... but a true blue fusion/fission device, highly improbable ?

[keninsc]

Horse feathers, building a bomb is easy. If you can build a car in your garage then you have just about everything you need to build a bomb at hand. The mechanics of building a nuke is not that difficult. Yes, a real fissionable nuke. That's a gun bomb like the one dropped on Hiroshima. The other type is a little more difficult but isn't that much more difficult to build. That's why security agencies from various countries get all upset when plutonium is missing or when the old Soviet Union fell apart and all those damned old nukes were suddenly without a lot of high security.

Abdul and the boys can build a nuke pretty easily when you got the the go metal. Strap it on a camel and walk him into Tel Aviv, or anywhere for that matter.

[+DieChecker]

Curios to know, with what we now know, is it possible to build a very crude and basic atomic bomb, with klunky turn key battery operated device if all the main core components (have no idea what is or not) are available, in a small building apartment ?

I think its a scare monger rumor, dirty bomb yes .... but a true blue fusion/fission device, highly improbable ?

I agree with Ken, building a multi kilo-ton warhead is not so hard. Any nation with Uranium or Plutonium can google basically how to get started. There is even lots of diagrams on how to do it online. It is building a high yield mega-ton bomb that requires very precise placement of an explosive shell. Kilotons bombs are much easier to build.

[SHaYap]

kilotons ain't exactly pea beans, that's not comfortable to know to tell truth

[+DieChecker]

BBC news revealed it was a sub-critical weapon of 7 kilotons and that equates fission of just 0.4 kg. (ie 77 grams per Kiloton)

I checked BBC News online and could not find that. I only found a poster there that said that it was a 7 kt explosioni with a 0.4 kg charge. I'll keep looking around trying different search engines and words, but so far I've not found this to be a true fact.

[keninsc]

I agree with Ken, building a multi kilo-ton warhead is not so hard. Any nation with Uranium or Plutonium can google basically how to get started. There is even lots of diagrams on how to do it online. It is building a high yield mega-ton bomb that requires very precise placement of an explosive shell. Kilotons bombs are much easier to build.

Yeah, when you get into the hydrogen bomb stuff then it gets pretty picky and you have to work with tolerances that split the hair on the proverbial gnat's a$$. Can't do that in your basement, but the thing was so simple they didn't even bother to test it before they dropped it on Hiroshima.

....but remember, Hiroshima was only a 6 kiloton blast and Nagasaki was around 9 kilotons. If you combined both explosions you'd still be short of the 20 - 30 kilotons the individual MERV from a single rocket and they usually carry between six and twelve MERVs.....and don't use half the fissonable material the first two bombs did.

Edited March 14, 2013 by keninsc

[badeskov]

<snip>

The 19th Vorezneyh Rifles Division was lost on the southwest outskirts of Karkov in May-June 1943 and the soviet High Command lost all contact with this unit. The unit was subsequently reformed. German General Erhard raus recounted in his diary an aerial attack on these Soviet forces with aerial mines which caused earthquakes and left giant mushroom clouds of smoke above burning Soviet tanks.

<snip>

Pardon me for barging in, but could you elaborate a little bit on the quoted above? The 19th Voronezh Rifle Division was not lost, nor was contact lost with it during that period in 1943. It was heavily engaged in the defense of Kharkov and through a series of attacks and counter attacks by German and Soviet forces saw both sides heavily decimated and constantly under-strength.

Besides that, some 6 million Soviet troops were committed to the area as were some 2 millions German troops. If indeed a nuclear device had been detonated and wiped out whole divisions, we would know.

Cheers,

Badeskov

[keninsc]

You couldn't help but know, it's a nuke. One goes off and there's tons of evidence of it, radiation, fall out, millions of slowly dying. blind "survivors". No to mention things would have suddenly shifted to Hitler's favor rather than the Red Army's and Stalin. The only reason we were successful on DDay was because Hitler was too busy worrying about the Russians. And, if he'd had a nuke program he could have stopped the allied invasion with but one maybe two nukes.

[badeskov]

You couldn't help but know, it's a nuke. One goes off and there's tons of evidence of it, radiation, fall out, millions of slowly dying. blind "survivors". No to mention things would have suddenly shifted to Hitler's favor rather than the Red Army's and Stalin. The only reason we were successful on DDay was because Hitler was too busy worrying about the Russians. And, if he'd had a nuke program he could have stopped the allied invasion with but one maybe two nukes.

Yeah, one would think that it would be rather obvious if Hitler had been using nukes during WWII. As you correctly state, he could have blown massive holes in the Soviet defenses on the Eastern front and obliterated the Allied invasion forces on D-Day

Cheers,

Badeskov

[+DieChecker]

Ahh... But they were only "little" nukes... 5 kg each, and several were apparently hand thrown and wiped out the Division like the lightning at the end of Raiders of the Lost Arc. Not a man was spared. ,,,,, At least according to the "Official" government document that is being presented.

[badeskov]

Ahh... But they were only "little" nukes... 5 kg each, and several were apparently hand thrown and wiped out the Division like the lightning at the end of Raiders of the Lost Arc. Not a man was spared. ,,,,, At least according to the "Official" government document that is being presented.

"Little" nukes, hmmm...wonder what "little" means in this respect. And hand thrown? I certainly hope they had some fairly long timer settings on those, otherwise I would think they would be running out of grenadiers rather fast.

Cheers,

Badeskov