Could The USA/British Empire have won on their own?

[phylo_roadking]

The Führerbunker had a gas protection system and was probably protected by blast valves. I think it would survive the Hiroshima or Nagasaki explosion even if the hypocenter was directly above it.

If the blast doors were shut and the Bunker system pressurized. Unfortunately, it seems to have been open at all times there weren't raids going on....

[wm]

I think you are underestimating the ability of ANY nuclear weapon to cause damage other than the actual area covered by the fireball at Ground Zero;

But the fireball didn't even touch the ground in Hiroshima and in Nagasaki.

the initial shockwave for instance will cause damage to buildings out to 5-6 miles enough to render them uninhabitable and fit only for use as building materials to repair those damaged to a limited extent further out to 8-10 miles.

In fact, the 5psi destructive zone was quite limited (1 kilometer in Hiroshima). Here the zone is in blue, I think that outside the zone the buildings would be quite habitable. The moderate and light destruction zone is the outermost circle.

[phylo_roadking]

I think you are underestimating the ability of ANY nuclear weapon to cause damage other than the actual area covered by the fireball at Ground Zero;

But the fireball didn't even touch the ground in Hiroshima and in Nagasaki.

No, but the "devastated area" was IIRC the area charred by just the initial heat pulse. Also the shockwave?

In fact, the 5psi destructive zone was quite limited (1 kilometer in Hiroshima). Here the zone is in blue, I think that outside the zone the buildings would be quite habitable. The moderate and light destruction zone is the outermost circle.

According to any of the UKWMO effects calculators I've seen , I doubt this; they be sans roofs, all windows out, and with significant (but decreasing, obviously, the further out one goes) material adamage. For instance -

In fact, the 5psi destructive zone was quite limited (1 kilometer in Hiroshima).

...all 3 marks of the British "BRL" nuclear weapons effects calculators state that "isolated" fires as a result of the heat pulse from a 20Kt (~Nagasaki sized) bomb can still occur out to two miles for an air burst (1.5 miles for a ground burst) . In fact - the initial heat pulse could start isolated fires in flammable material right out to the 1 p.s.i. overpressure limit.

And as for Berlin - by 1945 it had lost a goodly part of its protection against heat pulse-propagated "isolated fires"...



As for the actual damage done - it's like medical triage; in the intermediate ranges it's all about the amount of time and effort requried to make them habitable Any building still standing can be repaired if it's safe to do so - but does it take hours, days, weeks,...or months?

And if this effort is put into Berlin - what is NOT available to fight the war or for war production elsewhere in Germany?


EDIT - looking at The Effects of Nuclear Weapons and its accompanying calculator disc, range for a 12kT (Hiroshima size) initiation to have direct radiation decline to ~20 Rem is 1.3 miles. At that range the thermal pulse is still easily enough to cause extensive second degree burns if exposed (~8 Cal/cm^2), but more importantly for this part of the discussion overpressure at 1.3 miles from Ground Zero is still around 3.5 psi and maximum windspeed is about 120mph; 3.5 psi will cause heavy damage to most "ordinary houses".

From what I can find so far - only depth below ground and four metres of concrete protect the Fuhrerbunker....the bunker internal doors are actually quite small and thin, so I would have severe reservations at 3.5psi overpressure that the air in the Bunker wouldn't simply be sucked out of it causing death by suffocation or lung rupture. I don't think the gas protection system is up to protecting against this; it was only for maintaining a positive airpressure differential inside the Bunker, so that in the event of a GAS attack, air would be exiting the Bunker's ventilation sytem rather than entering!

[gurn]

After dropping a bomb on Germany do the germkans reply by using what was left of their poison gas stock? I'd say yes.
I think that the war would be over before the nuke is ready for deployment antyway.I just can't see Britain still being in the war if Germany does not get distracted by the Soviet campaign.Fortunately for the world Hitler did not want a war with Britain because after Britain falls what reason would there be for the states to remain fighting the germans when it was the Japanese that attacked them?

[phylo_roadking]

After dropping a bomb on Germany do the germkans reply by using what was left of their poison gas stock? I'd say yes.

How and on who??? And of course they THEN trigger the Allies doing the same; they may not have Sarin or Tabun to reply with, but Mustard and other war gases would be deliverable in large enough quantities quickly enough, given that the British at least began producing and stockpiling gas, and developing up-to-date ordnance for its use, from 1940 onwards.

Can the Germans thus withstand BOTH an Atomic and a Gas attack?

EDIT: and of course - who would order such an attack?

[Carl Schwamberger]

....
I think that the war would be over before the nuke is ready for deployment antyway.I just can't see Britain still being in the war if Germany does not get distracted by the Soviet campaign. ...

Problem here is I've never seen anyone propose a supportable mechnaism by which Germany could have forced Britain out of the war in 1941. The leadership mistakes of 1940-41, the gaps in Axis naval capability, and some critical weaknesses in German air power make if extremely difficult for the Axis to do any more damage than it did to Britain and the Commonwealth in 1940. Tactical victorys here or there, or picking off a African colony nearly beyond the Axis logistics reach woud not cause Britain to 'surrender' or even ask for a armistice. That boat failed to dock in the summer of 1940 & it was not returning.

In the short run some aspects of no eastern front actually helps in 1941-42, no convoys to Murmmansk, no 100,000 tons of material per months sent around to build the infrastructure of the Persian supply route, not tanks or aircraft, chemicals, or trucks sent to the Red Army. All those resources can be applied to the destruction of the German submarines, defeating the Axis in Africa, or attritioning away the German AF. Certainly there would be 120 additional ground divisions available park on the Channel coast, but to what purpose? the Italian cargo fleet was near its limits for delivering air and ground combat units to Africa, so no advantage there. Similarly the rails & roads of Turkey and the Middle east to scarce to support much in the way of a Axis army. The fact is Germany just could not get at Britains throat. Sinking 4% or 5% of the annual cargo destined for the British Isles annually was painfull but a lot more than that was required to defeat Britain.

[LWD]

After dropping a bomb on Germany do the germkans reply by using what was left of their poison gas stock? I'd say yes.

How and on who??? And of course they THEN trigger the Allies doing the same; they may not have Sarin or Tabun to reply with, but Mustard and other war gases would be deliverable in large enough quantities quickly enough, given that the British at least began producing and stockpiling gas, and developing up-to-date ordnance for its use, from 1940 onwards.
...

Wasn't the mustard gas at Bari from US stocks? This: http://fhp.osd.mil/CBexposures/ww2mustard.jsp
would seem to indicate so:

The John Harvey was loaded with two thousand M41-A1 100 lb mustard bombs at the Baltimore cargo port. The John Harvey sailed for Norfolk on October 15, 1943 and then onto Oran, Algeria by convoy arriving on November 2, 1943. From Oran, it proceeded in convoy to Augusta, Sicily and then to Bari arriving at Bari on November 28, 1943.

[phylo_roadking]

Yes, both nations retained a vestigial chemical warfare establishment during the interwar period, then expanded it rapidly on the outbreak of each nation's wars; if you search, you'll find a thread in the UK Section discussing the BEF's stocks of war gases and means of deploying them in France in 1940...and at least two discussing the many aspects of the rapid expansion of the UK mustard production in the summer of 1940 and its planned deployment in the event of invasion. Meanwhile the development and updating of its means of deployment continued through until around 1943 IIRC.

[Teske]

They would have great difficulty getting a foothold on the continent and not being thrown out again.

[Teske]

Until the first atom bomb is dropped...

Which would be a little bit more complicated than you imply.

[Teske]

Against a germany winning 2 nukes woundt do much.

I think you underestimate the effect a weapon that can wipe a medium-sized city off the map can have on a nation's will for continuing the fight, especially when said nation has virtually no recourse.

In the first place you would have to get the bomb to its destination.

[Teske]

Tough to see how the Germans can stop the USAAF.

But how do you guarantee that the aircraft carrying the bomb would not be shot down?

[Teske]

they were never real short of aircraft even with the eastern front

If you look at some of the threads generated by Guaporense....Britain on her own equalled Germany in total airframes and various aircraft types; add American production on top of that.....

The suprising thing is quite how few aircraft the Germans actually mustered against the Allies in total during the war.

They could muster more than enough to inflict serious enough losses on the bombers.

[Teske]

Killing Hitler is not necessary.

The actual physical damage might have been restricted to a small area (wiki states 1km radius from ground zero for Hiroshima), the psychological effects of such an attack would be catastrophic and spread like wildfire. Add to that an allied leaflet campaign announcing further bombings until the government accepts surrender terms, and it won't be long before the Swiss intermediates start calling.

The large black hole in your argument is that the airxraft with the the bomb could be downed.

[phylo_roadking]

Teske, can you post lists of questions in a single post? They'd be much easier to address that way.

They would have great difficulty getting a foothold on the continent and not being thrown out again.

There are a number of places such as Brittany or the Cotentin Peninsula where geography would have assisted greatly - there's at least two long threads in this Section dealing with the former, one of them VERY detailed...or of course what Churchill pressed for for some time, heading BACK to the North Norway Enclave!

But the secret is actually what the British planned on for several years after Dunkirk - to put just enough on the Continent at one place to defeat what was there to oppose them....and before more could be brought up, allowing them THEN to consolidate their bridgehead. That's why some of the late 1940-1941 divison counts for a European break-in seem so small; they weren't intending to fight ALL the German Army....just those within reach to buy time to establish a strong bridgehead.

In the first place you would have to get the bomb to its destination

Which would be a little bit more complicated than you imply.

But how do you guarantee that the aircraft carrying the bomb would not be shot down?

The large black hole in your argument is that the airxraft with the the bomb could be downed.

This was discussed a long time ago. The mision profile I posted up at the time was...a NIGHT raid...or group of raids on the Continent by Bomber Command, including a 1,000 Bomber Raid on Berlin...remembering that by 1945 Bomber Command could ideally field up tp 3,500 four engined heavies! Other missions flown on the same night would be by the remainder of the Heavy Force - or the Mosquito bombers of the FNSF.

All these hit the Kamhuber Line across a few boxes in a more massive Bomber Stream than ever before - thus overloading those boxes' ability to deal with more than a few dozen AT MOST; and near the end of the Stream, a flight of three Lancasters (or Lincolns by that date) stripped out like 617 Sqn's Lancasters and at the very top of their operational ceiling would cross to the Continent above the main Bomber Stream, accompanied by Mosquito NFs.

That's the mission profile available with historically-available aircraft, utilising the known problems with the German night defences...but there IS another option

Also historically, during the war Barnes Wallis desiogned a couple of very high altitude Wellington pressurized versions; what's REALLY needed to ensure delivery of the Atomic Bomb to Berlin is a pressurized, very high altitude version of the Lancaster/Lincoln...although it SHOULD be noted that postwar the RAF used Lincolns as atomic bombers, because of its altitude advantage over the Lancaster

In other words - all that's really needed to deliver an Atomic Bomb to Berlin is a bomber that flies higher than any Luftwaffe nightfighter. The standard Lincoln's service ceiling equals the He 219 at 30,500 ft...but the question is, what's the Lincoln's actual maximum ceiling?

In fact - a lightened Lincoln, using Merlin 114 engines, and carrying a rocket assisted bomb similar in size and weight to a 12,000lb Tallboy bomb, was able to achieve 42,000 ft...!