Was the Germans first with the nuclear bomb?

As stated, the warheads used at Kursk, was at 2 to 5 Kg big, not 2 to 5 tonns...


Thus, I belive the germans had a gun capable of firing this shell, possibly a Thor heavy mortar or something.

Also remember, the anihilation of the 19th infantery hapend a few days prior to the main battle.

The Japanese envoy was most likly a part of the German forces. as the telegram was sent from neutral Sweden to Japan.

Even though Sweden was neutral in WW2, they had close relationships with the Germans, remember that the feared 88 was mainly developed in Sweden, and then sent to Germany for assembly before the Germans kontinued development and production once the Versail treaty was nullified.

The germans had 150mm heavy guns, and that should be enough to fire 2-5 Kg shell's with perhaps mininukes, a friend of mine said that the germans had been developing "nuke canons", but if they ever where finnished or if it was a special shell for the 150mm field gun i don't know.

reply to post by Phoebus


check out this gun:




and this mortar:





*They could launch very heavy shells.

I also did some Wiki, and found this:

Nuclear-Annie

280mm rail gun, looks very similar to Anzio Annie/Leopold railguns the Germans had during WW2, and they are the same dimmension, 280mm

The video you see here on this Youtube clip, is fired from Nuclear-Annie is on 15 Kilotonns, nice blast.


This is perhaps the strongest clue yet of a possible nuke cannon beeing possible at Kursk.

Wiki-on-NuclearAnnie
en.wikipedia.org...

Wiki-on-Leopold (Krupp K5 Railway gun)
en.wikipedia.org...

Was there any Karl/Leopold guns at Kursk?
Or did they use standard 250mm field gun?

**Editorial -
Came across this video on Youtube, ok, it might be fake, but take a look threw it, pics stated comming from nuclear blast in Stralsund, and epicenter of the "nuke" south of Kursk


[edit on 18-9-2009 by Phoebus]

[edit on 18-9-2009 by Phoebus]

Remember reading years ago that the Germans had actually managed to perfect the bomb but some of the senior people managed to hide this fact from Adolf & Co so that he couldn't use it, also always wondered how if the US was in such a rush to get the Manhattan project finished the managed to come up with two seemingly totally different bombs?

Wiki-Little boy


Wiki-Fat Man

reply to post by Exuberant1

We dropped an untested bomb on Nagasaki. We never tested Uranium bombs before.

Nope, the bomb dropped on nagasaki was implosion type plutonium bomb, and this type of device was tested by the trinity device.

The gun type u235 bomb used on hiroshima was not tested because it was garunteed to work, and the one bomb used up three years worth of u235 production, all of the u235 produced went into that one bomb so there was not enough material for a test weapon.



[edit on 18-9-2009 by punkinworks]

reply to post by solidshot


they came up with two different kinds of bomb because of the differnt types of material.
the u235 has a slow enough reaction, that just by smashing two pieces together, at a high enough velocity, is enough to start fission.
The gun type, little boy, was the first type developed and only works with u235.
U235 proved to be so difficult to manufacture that they also went with the pu239 bomb.
At first they the tried a gun type Pu bomb, thin man, but tests showed that the levels of Pu240 were much higher in the production Pu239 than they were in the laboratory made material, and it caused premature fission in a gun type bomb.
This premature fission broke up the pit before enough energy was released to start a full fleged fision reaction, a fizzle, basically a dirty bomb.

Thats when in 1944 J. tuck came up with the idea of explosive lenses to make a spherical shock wave in the implosion type bomb.
hence the 2 differnt types of bombs.

It took 130,000 people working at 30 differentt sites, more than a sixth of the nations electrical output and 2 billion dollars to develop the bomb, in a stable conflict free coutry.
Thats a long way fron a single lab in the basement, which is where the nazi program was.

If the nazis had developed the bomb it would have surely been used elsewhere.

But they just didnt have the resources or infrastructure for that at all.

reply to post by punkinworks

Yes. Ive read all the official info. I've also looked deeper, and have seen the evidence of the smuggling in of foreign scientists long before the official start of paperclip.

I feel like you are missing the point, and calling my research on this wasted is fairly ignorant. All you have done is spout off the official information that can be found in a five minute google search.

I hate to break it to you, but as with most every other "declassified" info, you aren't being told the whole story.

Also, talking about the first seven scientists from project paperclip is again fairly ignorant. There has never been an official release of all of the names. And there is rarely mention of those that were relocated to south america, africa, and other areas by the united states.

Please dont insult my research. As Ive said, ive looked beyond the five minute goole search. You should try it.

reply to post by Exuberant1


No, they were not. Their best scientists were Jewish and they had left early in the program.
No one knew what an atomic bomb would do and after every blockbuster strike, the Germans would check the crater with Geiger counters to see if a nuke had been dropped. If the Germans had made a bomb, it would have been used to defend Germany.

reply to post by solidshot


Yes two different bombs.

One plutonium and the other uranium. We had to make sure either would work there was actually a race between the two development teams. Sorry no Germans.

Nice bit of intriguing fictitious conspiracy though.

reply to post by The-Hammer


The two types of bombs were not a race between development teams.
They first started with the gun type bomb(u235).

The gun type bomb , it was called thin man, was not suitable for use with pu239 because the mass produced pu239 was not as pure as the laboratory pu239 and contained more of the more reactive pu240.
This excess pu240 caused spontaneous fission in a gun type bomb, the fission proceeded too fast, causing the pit to break up before fission was complete and caused a fizzle.
Thats why in 1944 they went to the implosion type device desigend by a scientist named Tuck.

Found this on the Discovery Channel site:

"The Atomic Bomb

In 1938 Germany succeeded in splitting the atom. German chemist Otto Hahn and scientist Werner Heisenberg then carried out research into what the best materials and methods would be for building a successful atomic bomb. But the research was never given the full support of the Nazi government.

Hitler believed that Germany would win the war quickly and it was clear that the development of the atom bomb would be costly and could take years. So research was directed into long-range weapons instead, which could be used more rapidly in the war effort.

Atomic research did continue in Germany during the war, but on a smaller scale. The Nazis believed that America didn't have a nuclear development programme and so weren't concerned with perfecting their own atomic bomb.

In fact, the USA was carrying out extensive research, initiated by Dr. Leo Szilard - a Hungarian refugee who had fled from Nazi persecution. Albert Einstein, whose “Theory of Relativity” eventually led to creation of the atomic bomb, supported Szilard in his work. A German-Jew, Einstein lived in America in self-imposed exile.

Germany refused to believe that the Americans had successfully built an atomic bomb, even after it was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945."

rofl this whole forum is awesome. Except for the fact i haven't seen a single post on the Japanese nuclear test. I watch it on history channel 2 years ago. So i doubt it to be false if it was on tv. An Italian envoy witnessed it from a ship. If you dig into the Japanese bomb you will see that the info is out there. Like the uranium bomb it took all the Japaneses uranium to test. Which is weird considering they could have held the Americans off if they did a live test on american forces. But this is all in the past lets just all hope people never get a nuclear device dropped on them again.

Its scary to think though. The Japanese had a bomb. Or if that crazy bastard Hitler got his hands on one what would the world be like today...

It's a great forum with loads of diversity and discussion, yeah.

reply to post by Phoebus


I've been waiting for two pages for someone to point out the obvious regarding the German use of nuclear weapons at Kursk. According to the OP's sources, the 'super munitions' used by the Germans weighed between 2 and 5 kilos. There's no way those were nuclear weapons. How can I say this with any certainty? Basic physics. To have a nuclear initiation, you need a critical mass of nuclear material. At standard density, the critical mass for U-235 is ~52 kilos, and the critical mass of plutonium is between 9 and 10 kilos, depending on whether you're discussing Pu-238 or Pu-239. Thus, a device in the 2 to 5 kilo range simply isn't large enough to carry a critical mass of nuclear material, never mind a fusing system, the conventional explosives needed to initiate the device, or a shell casing capable of standing the (non-trivial) stresses of being fired from an artillery piece, or dropped from an aircraft.

If I might be forgiven a bit of a personal commentary, I don't understand the continued belief that Nazi Germany was a land of super-science and ultra-technology. If the Napkinwaffe apologists are to be believed, the German military had stealth aircraft, moon bases, electromagnetic and chemical-based super-weapons that could devastate the planet, nuclear weapons, and God alone knows what else...and yet not a single one of these 'ultimate weapons' seems to have been used in the defense of strategically vital objectives (Berlin, perhaps?). I'm not saying that the Germans weren't technically adept...but they weren't generations ahead of the rest of the world. To use one (often-mentioned) example of German technological superiority, the Me-262 was, indeed, the first jet fighter to enter service (18 July, 1942)..but the Gloster Meteor wasn't terribly far behind (27 July, 1942). The Germans had some good engineers, and some good theoreticians, but they weren't 'miles ahead' of the Allied powers (who weren't exactly lacking in the 'genius' department, either).

reply to post by Brother Stormhammer


for you (and everyone )

The first artillery test was on May 25, 1953 at the Nevada Test Site. Fired as part of Operation Upshot-Knothole and codenamed Shot GRABLE, a 280 mm (11 inch) shell with a gun-type fission warhead was fired 10,000 m (6.2 miles) and detonated 160 m (525 ft) above the ground with an estimated yield of 15 kilotons. This was the only nuclear artillery shell ever actually fired in the US test program. The shell was 1384 mm (4.5 ft) long and weighed 365 kg (805 lb); it was fired from a special artillery piece, nicknamed "Atomic Annie", built by the Artillery Test Unit of Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

385kg was the weight of the T-124 shell using the W9 warhead.

sure alot more than 5kg

reply to post by Harlequin


Mr stormhammer was refering to the mass of the actual pit, for pu its around 10kg.

Which is only about the size of as tennis ball or so.

reply to post by Harlequin


As punkinworks already mentioned (thanks, BTW!) the masses I mentioned in my post were the masses for *only* the fissionable material needed, not masses for the entire device and artillery shell. Your post regarding the mass of the nuclear artillery shell tested by the US Army just reinforces my point, which was that the OP's source, which claims that the Nazis used 'nuclear weapons' that weighed 3-5kg, is pure Bravo-Sierra.

By the time the brits had the gloster, the germans was allready outrunning the yanks in Italy, Arado 234's were faster then the new US jet they were trying the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star, and the germans had several planes in production.

The newly approved Gotha GO229 (Horton Ho IX) - In production

ME262 and SEVERAL variants, including a 50mm bomber killer that during test flight took down 4 B-17's alone on a single mission.

Focke Wulf TA (Kurt Tank - lead designer) 183 - In production - resembles the Mig-17 that showed up in the Korean war.

Heinkel He 162 Salamander - Active duty

Arado 234 - Active duty (Bomber/recognance plane)

and many more.
----
This is only planes, on the tanks side, remember - 75% of ALL german tanks destroyed during WW2 was due to Artillery, breakdown, theire own crew and planes, very few tanks were destroyed by other tanks or AT guns.

example of the power of the german 88mm KWK 56 gun:
a Sherman tank was knocked out by a Tiger tank, the shell went threw 6 house made of brick before striking the Sherman, 3 of the crew died in the tank.

----

Sea - Submarine that the germans had, Type 21, is the grandfather of ALL moddern submarines, unsurpased at both speed and range for it's type.
----

But I am looking for what hapend to the russians on the eastern front, what then did totaly oblitherate the troops??

What kind of shell was used, might even been bigger then 5 KG, could have done this karnage?
Could it have been a "sub-critical" explotion, a small nuke, but big enough to whipe them out?

What removed the concentration camp at Stralsund from the face of the earth??

reply to post by Phoebus


Let’s not get carried away with thinking that the Nazi’s were somehow technological masters, because they were not.

The Nazi aircraft programme had collapsed and most designs were fantasy and a symptom of complete loss of coherence. The Nazi’s may have run out a few interesting aircraft – all were too late and NONE threatened allied air superiority. Not one jot. The one’s that did fly did so in a hostile environment, in small numbers and with only limited effect on the war.

Contrary to what you say, the Gotha 229 was not in production – only prototypes were built. Not sure of the Italian reference.

I would be interested in the source that 75% of German tanks were destroyed by artillery et al – but that may be believable. We all know that the Germans created exceptional tanks, but coming on scene (had the war gone on a bit longer) were some exceptional UK and US designs, although in the great scheme of things the German tanks were unable to contend with the fact that they were on the losing side!

The 88mm was an exceptional weapon – but all sides fielded such exceptional weapons. The up-gunned Sherman, the Firefly used the British 17 pounder (76mm) which was capable of defeating German tanks – for example.

The Type 21 submarine never successfully sailed. The design of the boat was merely an evolution of what went before – nothing special. In the context of WW2 where 850+ u-boats were sunk in action and the allies had won the Battle of the Atlantic, such a design was (again) too late.

Now - on topic. The Germans did not develop the atom bomb. They neither had the industry, the science, the time nor the ability. Had they successfully exploded such a device – of whatever size – I am sure we would know about it officially, rather than flaky YouTube opinion-gibberish!

Regards