To get the material for a 'dirty' atomic bomb, you need a working nuclear reactor.
The germans didn't have one, so no 'dirty' bomb.
Not true Redcoat. That may be so for the Plutonium bomb but not a Uranium bomb.
Fritz Houtermans was pushing for a Plutonium bomb and the Leipzeig sphere appears to have been an attempt to irridate U238 with neutrons from radium to breed plutonium. Heavy water was important as a moderator for a reactor, thus the Norwegian Voermark plant was part of the Plutonium project.
On the other hand a different team went down the "right track" of developing the uranium gaseous centrifuge under Dr Paul Harteck and Dr Max von Ardenne. Professor Kurt Diebner used the uranium to develop a uranium A-bomb for Heerswaffenamt Forschungstelle E.
Following July 1944's bomb plot against Hitler, Himmler took control of Heerswaffenamt.
My own researches indicate that Dr Erich Bagge developed the gaseous uranium centrifuge in 1942 and by April 1944 Nazi Germany put Uranium centrifuges into large scale production.
Professor Kurt Diebner developed the Nazi Uranium A-bomb program. Dr Werner Heisenburg was involved with nuclear fission reactors and failed attempts to breed Plutonium. These scientists were involved with unrelated projects.
Building a centrifuge to enrich uranium does not require a reactor. One takes Uranium oxide (Yellow cake) and mixes this with hydroflouric acid to make a gaseous compound called Uranium hexaflouride. One starts with a hollow, cylindrical rotor. Fill it with gaseous uranium. At the rotor's bottom, use pulsating magnetic fields (much like those of an electric motor) to spin it fast enough to throw the heavier U-238 toward the wall, letting the U-235 accumulate near the center. Slightly heating the bottom of the gaseous mix would produce currents that would tend to move the U-238 down and the U-235 up, where scoops could gather the isotopes. That is why they are sometimes called isotope sluces. germany developed this from 1942.
I don't accept that the bombs at Rugen Island and Ohrdruf concentration camps were dirty bombs. Eye witnesses to the Ohrdruf blast noted a flash at night so bright that they could read a newspaper. the victims were burned as was typical of nuclear blast. That is not the tell tale of a dirty bomb.
It's a pity my reply to Peter Evans at LEMB was not also published here. The interesting point is that the Ju-287V1 bomber had the forward fuselage from an He-177 and tail from a Ju-388. The bomb bay however was not that of a typical He-177, but apparently had exactly the same dimensions as the V38 aircraft converted at letov in 1942 to be a nuclear bomber.
Horst Lommel's book on the Ju-287 does not repudiate claims about the purpose of the V38 Grief. Instead it deepens the mystery and poses a new question whether the Ju-287 was intended as a fast nuclear bomber to stike London ?
After all if as self evident the Ju-287 builders were trying to speed production with off the shelf parts from existing aircraft and make the Ju-287 a snap to fit, aircraft, then why not just use a standard He-177 fuselage with standard bomb bay ?
Why go to the extra effort of a Grief fuselage with an extra large bomb bay ?
by Francis on 15 Apr 2005 09:38 
