V2 Rocket Warheads

[Scott Smith]

3) I made a mistake confusing cm and inches ...it's time to use SI units in America too. Only last year a probe launched towards Mars was lost for such an error...

Hear, hear, Gabriel. I wish we in the USA would just go to SI units already. No need to apologize. We are all friends here on the forum.

4) I confused Tall boy (10 ton English conventional bomb) with the Plutonium charged A- bomb throwed on Nagasaki.

There is also the Thin Man bomb. It was the original gun-type bomb used by the Little Boy but very long so that with a long gunbarrel the uranium would be at a very-high speed and prevent a "fizzle" when it reacted. It was determined that not much speed was needed for U-235 afterall, but plutonium was different because of the difficulty separating Pu 239/240 isotopes, which have different reactions. Therefore, a very fast-firing combination of mass was needed to produce the critical-mass before the reaction could partly fizzle and then blow itself apart harmlessly, thus ending the reaction before it could hardly begin. The problem was solved with the implosion design. Anyway, there are other possible designs that could have been done.

Probably the Germans would have simply built a bigger, probably two-stage, rocket that could lift a three-ton Little Boy type warhead. It would have taken some time to accomplish that so a conventional bomber, perhaps a jet, would have been a better delivery method had the Germans actually been able to build an atomic bomb.

A V-2, having a warhead less than a ton, has good payload and range by the standards of artillery, but doesn't have much range by comparison with even an ordinary fighter-bomber or RAF Mosquito aircraft. If it works it cannot be intercepted any more than an artillery shell, however.

[Scott Smith]

Scott Smith, another time you are demonstrating to be the very expert in V2/A4 of all the forum. Congratulations!

Thanks!

[Mark V]

TO MARKUS V:

I am not Markus (though that is real Finn name, so understandable error)

1) What kind of bio-weapons or chemicals requires ACTUALLY the high precision you are pretending? A moderate ground-wind could easily change the position an density of a lethal fog. This is a problem never solved at today.

CBW agents doesn't need accuracy in that meaning when talking about conventional ammunition, but you still couldn't just throw them to atmosphere and accomplish something.

Especially biological agents need precise initiation of dispersion system. Germs are very easily killed in open enviroment. Especially UV-radiation from sun kills them easily (UV-light is used in disinfection of room air for example). From the start of bio-weapon research the most demanding task has been protecting germs from enviroment (weaponizing the germs) until they could infect their victims and start multiply. Several methods have been used: Precise, high technology dispersion systems using sub-munitions, capsuling the germs, etc.. The task is still ongoing.

Chemical agents are also subjected to effects of enviroment, but the task is much easier and there is quite persistant agents (or bonding agents that could increase the persistence of agent). The problem when using chemical agents is that you need to accomplish concentration on the target that is effective (this is not really an issue on biological weapons), so there is still need to quite accurate dispersion system. For sure system with accuracy of dispersion between 3000 to 18000 feet is unacceptable. With such poor accuracy chemical agent (regardless of how effective agent is used) will be dispersed over such large volume of air (and to such high altitude that wind disperses agent to such large area) that effective concentration in target is not possible. It is though quite possible to develope a dispersion system using WW2-era technology that is suitable for dispersion of chemical agent, like Scott allready pointed out.

5)I remember you that the Nagasaki bomb exploded at lower ceiling respect with the previous ceiling scheduled by mean of a probable failure in baromether. The town was completely burned anyway.

Both, Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were deliberatelly exploded too low for maximum destroyed area for typical Japanese urban construction. It was done as safety precaution to accomplish at least some destruction over the target if yield of explosion would be lower than predicted. Quite understandable, especially in the case of Hiroshima bomb which was used without prior testing.

But this is good example to evaluate your 3000-18000 feet initiation system for weapons of mass-destruction, because 3000 feet is (roughly) the correct altitude for Fat Man for maximimum destroyed urban area (maximized 5 psi overpressure area). Make a guess, what would have been the effects (apart from killing the aircrew ) on ground straight under point of detonation if Fat Man would have been exploded at 18000 feet ?? I'll (or Scott) give you the right answer later....

6) About the precision (calculated as diameter of highest probability of destruction centered on the main target) I remember you that soviet H-bombs were born only to solve this problem. If I want to destroy a whole town as New York by mean of a rocket draft bomb, it's necessary the bomb dropping in a circular area having a 50 km diameter centered on Manhattan. What kind of precision do you need using such a weapon? The term "precision" has been previously correlated to what?

Much more effective method is to use MIRVed warheads and spread the explosions over whole target area. Much less megatonnage is needed and you don't waste so much on overkill at zero-point. Look at the Poseidon SLBM, the ultimate citykiller. It used 10-14 small 40 kT warheads per missile.

Now I can only congratulate with you for the collaboration.Thank you.

Thank you to you also.


-----------


For Scott: I did knew about that captured Belgian Uranium ore, but to make things simpler (were talking about found Uranium deposits) left it out.

[gabriel pagliarani]

Markus,
aircrews WERE EXPENDED too! Enola Gay's aircrew was decimated by cancer. This is another horrible aspect of such "experiment". You have some strange ideas about nukes! As first you said that it was impossible to fit "Fat man" on a V2: ok! The main conclusion was that "Fat Man" surely wasn't fittable, but Thin Man it was on a 2 stages german rocket never built, but that germans were very close to do.(better: they had the technology to develope it in few months after May 45) Now do you wanna fit a MIRV on a V2. It was possible only in early 70s when MIRV became operative: MIRV was a technology based on TTL analog computer devices previously developed for Apollo Lunar missions.Computer was necessary to assign route( without any ground-telemetrical assistance) to any independent re-entry vehicle and to perform a lot of routines of a lot of miniaturized sub-systems that any vehicle has to manage during flight. CMOS devices removed them only few years later.Obviously nothing similar was on duty during '40s nor in Germany nor in SU nor in USA. John Von Neumann' s computing device was developed as duty for Manhattan Project then called ENIAC. It occupied the inner volume a fine villa do, and it was at least 1000 times less operative than your PC. Nothing similar was so little & light to fly, during 40s! Another error you have done, about strategy now, is about the use of redundance in warheads by mean of MIRVs. Do you never heard about suicide of contiguos H -explosions? If you 2 or more contiguos H-bombs explode simultaneously within the max .security range (from 20 to 80 km) the 1st bomb exploding only 0,0000000001 sec.before the others will kill immediately the other contiguos ones: the light runs so fast! ..so MIRVs were studied not to "saturate" a wider area, but they were studied to burn towns vey far one each other, without any territorial contiguity. Exactly the contrary of the super H-nukes ( 50 Mtons=50000"Fat man"!) developed by Russians...and the contrary you stated.

[Mark V]

Markus,
aircrews WERE EXPENDED too! Enola Gay's aircrew was decimated by cancer. This is another horrible aspect of such "experiment". You have some strange ideas about nukes! As first you said that it was impossible to fit "Fat man" on a V2: ok! The main conclusion was that "Fat Man" surely wasn't fittable, but Thin Man it was on a 2 stages german rocket never built, but that germans were very close to do.(better: they had the technology to develope it in few months after May 45) Now do you wanna fit a MIRV on a V2. It was possible only in early 70s when MIRV became operative: MIRV was a technology based on TTL analog computer devices previously developed for Apollo Lunar missions.Computer was necessary to assign route( without any ground-telemetrical assistance) to any independent re-entry vehicle and to perform a lot of routines of a lot of miniaturized sub-systems that any vehicle has to manage during flight. CMOS devices removed them only few years later.Obviously nothing similar was on duty during '40s nor in Germany nor in SU nor in USA. John Von Neumann' s computing device was developed as duty for Manhattan Project then called ENIAC. It occupied the inner volume a fine villa do, and it was at least 1000 times less operative than your PC. Nothing similar was so little & light to fly, during 40s! Another error you have done, about strategy now, is about the use of redundance in warheads by mean of MIRVs. Do you never heard about suicide of contiguos H -explosions? If you 2 or more contiguos H-bombs explode simultaneously within the max .security range (from 20 to 80 km) the 1st bomb exploding only 0,0000000001 sec.before the others will kill immediately the other contiguos ones: the light runs so fast! ..so MIRVs were studied not to "saturate" a wider area, but they were studied to burn towns vey far one each other, without any territorial contiguity. Exactly the contrary of the super H-nukes ( 50 Mtons=50000"Fat man"!) developed by Russians...and the contrary you stated.

Care to read my posts tiny bit more carefully. Firstly then you would not call me continuously as Markus, without taking any notice about my correction in my previous post. Why an earth i continue answering these, when it is apparent that you don't even read the views of your discussion partner.

Secondly. My answer about MIRVed warheads was answer to your post about high-megatonnage hydrogen warheads developed by Soviets. Everyone who can read english would understand that i didn't in any way suggested that that technology would be available for V-2.

Thirdly. The Fat Man was impossible to fit to V-2 and so was Thin Man impossible to be mounted on any missile, because it was never build. It was (mainly) an Plutonium gun design which was discarded because it was apparent that even the supergrade Plutonium which was produced during wartime hurry had so high spontaneous fission rate that successfull nuclear assembly with it was impossible. Ofcourse Thin Man would have worked with HEU, but using it with Uranium would have been overkill, because much lower velocities were enough to make Uranium bomb to work. Thin Man was technological dead-end. Instead engineers of Manhattan project developed much easier Little Boy design as backup HEU-weapon to assure some nuclear capacity in time when implosion design for Plutonium was still uncertain to work.

Fouthly. I am well aware of "killing-of-brothers" aspect of MIRVed warheads. It needs carefull targeting planning to avoid it, but it does not change the fact that MIRved warheads is ideal for city-killer (retaliation) ballistic missile.

Fifthly. 50 Megatons is nowhere near 50000 Fat Mans.

Sixthly. Care to answer my quizz on my previous post ??

[gabriel pagliarani]

Sorry Mark V,
I am old and my own memory lacks. Do you ask me if I have understood your questions? I just told you not at all: probably I am growing idiot. I resumed all the statements in the previous posts, but there is always an error of yours. Thin man equivalent has been made only few months after WW2! As Scott Smith said the implosive technology had been choosen only because previously tested and the Nagasaki bomb was Pu239+Pu240 charged. The additive technology was studied and finally choosen in order to reduce the grossweight of the A-bomb for airborne carriers. Do you want to know the real meaning because V2 cannot be a "first generation A-bomb" carrier? Simple reply: the grossweight. About MIRV's "brother killing feature" light run 1km in 3.3 microseconds, 10km in 33 micros. and 100km in 330 micros. If you want a simultaneous contigueus explosion centered 50km one each other or detonation occurs with a maximum time lap of 175 microseconds (actually impossible) or you must wait some hours for a second detonation. This is the reason of super H-bombs. About power if 1kiloton=1000tons of TNT=1 Hiroshima, then 1 Megaton=1000x1000kilotons=1000 Hiroshima. Then 50 Megatons=50000 Hiroshima. I said before 1Hiroshima=1Fat man but this is only a conventional charge...no one is 100%sure of the real power of that bomb because nobody was there to measure it. Someone said 1Hiroshima= 1000 tons of TNT= 1kiloton, someone else said 1 Hiroshima= 2.5 kilotons. It is not a 100% phisical measurement, so you are free to choose your own opinion about. It is impossible to measure exactly such a phoenomenon like a nuke only by effects in air.

[Scott Smith]

I f the crew of the Enola Gay all died of cancer it was probably in their old age from cigarette smoking, because I don't think they were exposed to much radiation. Here's an interesting interview with Col. Tibbets on Marcus' other forum:

VERY Interesting Paul Tibbets Interview

Also, if my memory serves, the equivalent yields of TNT (in short-tons, I think) for the first three atomic bombs was as follows:

Trinity: 18 kilotons
Little Boy: 11 kilotons
Fat Man: 20 kilotons

[gabriel pagliarani]

.. how many short -tons are there in 1 metric ton? but the measurement of destructive power of any bomb is always related to ground effects in a para-scientific way. I have read that a bomb exploding on water surface or partially close to the sea or a water basin has an elastic mirror-alike reaction toward the target that causes a great amplification in destruction. Both jap towns were on the sea instead of Trinity. This is the reason of nuke tests or rough computer simulations: the effects of a nuke are not so easily predictable. About Paul Tibbets I hope sincerely you are right because I stopped with cigarettes 12 years ago in the while my wife is still smoking..eh!eh! I have good chance to become an happy "widow"!

[Scott Smith]

A short-ton is 2000 pounds or 909 kilograms. A long-ton (also spelled tonne to differentiate the two) is 1000 kilograms or 2,200 pounds. Americans always think of short-tons. It gets confusing, especially if one doesn't know which is being referred to, such as when all other units are SI.

The yield of the explosive will always be an absolute energy value, usually converted to an equivalent in energy from the explosion of TNT. This value has no bearing on what actual blast damage was wrought upon a target for different explosives or applications, just the amount of energy released by the bomb.

[gabriel pagliarani]

The SI unit for energy is the joule: I never heard about an equivalence between kton TNT and Mega-Peta-Tera-joules. Simply it is impossible because there is no way (actually) to measure a so wide amount of energy without destroying the testing equipment in the while! But it is possible to measure only all the effects related to it. Note that the same problem is actually achieved by phisics while measuring the Sun activity: the amounts of energy involved has been extimated by mean of external temperature, intensity of magnetic fields, height of protuberances et cetera. Also the reproducibility of such phoenomenon is extremely variable. But for military use a destruction-scale is enough as Beaufort scale is enough for sailors! Nobody can say to the sailor wow many energy is there in a incoming tempest, but if he encounters level 7 winds he really knows that is time to change route...

[Scott Smith]

I suppose they could measure it in gigawatt-hours or something like that. I don't know how they measure the energy exactly. Probably it is in a certain range. Fermi, I think it was, measured the energy of the Trinity blast by dropping bits of paper to see how far the shockwave took them. It was a surprisingly accurate method, IIRC.

[gabriel pagliarani]

Exactly! Fermi used a deductive empyric method. It was not really correlated to the event but if you compare the same kind of measurements from event to event you will be able to say if an event is more poweful than the others. Do you remember the rockets launched before Bikini tests? The smoke stream lines were used exactly as the pieces of paper of Fermi. More the deflection of stream-lines the more was the energy released. You seems to be very skilled about Fermi! I have studied his experiment of fixion in Via Panisperna during 1933 and I was graduated by a "relatio" about it..

[Mark V]

Sorry Mark V,
I am old and my own memory lacks. Do you ask me if I have understood your questions?

My question was: What if Fat Man would have been exploded at 18.000 feet ??

Since you would not want to give answer, i'll give it to you; The effects (if not looking straight up to explosion) would have been almost nil. OK, some roof tiles misplaced, paint dropping from ceiling of buildings and few cracked windows, but even unprotected person straight under detonation would have been quite safe.

My point: Even with such powerfull weapon as nuclear bomb you still need reasonable accurate detonation altitude to accomplish anything.

I resumed all the statements in the previous posts, but there is always an error of yours.

Would you please show my errors in my previous post ??

On the contrary, you just throw opinions and when faced with more accurate information just disregard it and move to next wild opinion (mostly spiced up with numbers pulled out of hat). Sorry, if this sounds harsh, but this is how a feel your last posts.

You have claimed in this thread (i have left all errors in numbers and names out, none of us is perfect and like stated previously we are all friends here):

- implosion nuclear bomb would have easy to minituarize
- there is no difference on spreading CBW agent at 3000 feet, or spreading it to 18000 feet
- Uranium from Congo had not been found
- V-2 with landing-parachute retarded warhead would have been feasible with WW2 era technology

Every time faced with more accurate information you just skip the issue and continue to next claim, but seemingly determined to "revenge" to the poor person who in good faith just wants to share some information that has accumulated during years.

Thin man equivalent has been made only few months after WW2!

During 40s, 50s and 60s there were numerous experimental nuclear assembly experiments. Some were successfull, some were not. High speed plutonium gun is definately the latter category. Different implosion techniques can fullfill most roles, and those where it is not ideal can be fullfilled by HEU-gun assemblies.

In this thread we were discussing about the Thin Man plutonium-gun (secondary fuel HEU) design that predecessed the deployed designs, HEU-gun Little Boy and Plutonium spherical implosion Fat Man.

As Scott Smith said the implosive technology had been choosen only because previously tested and the Nagasaki bomb was Pu239+Pu240 charged.

I don't want to talk on behalf of Scott by i think he didn't say anything like that. He said that there were alternatives for (spherical) implosion on Plutonium bomb, but the fast-gun was not alternative. Don't you get that it didn't work with Plutonium !!

Scott propably ment that there is several different implosion designs available for Plutonium assembly and he is right.


What was needed to accomplish the objectives of Manhattan project was a weapon that could use Plutonium, a fissionable material which showed more promise for quantity production fast (and fullfilled that promise fully in 1945). Americans also build vast uranium enrichment capacity starting from war years, but the costs were huge and it did take time to develope effective processes and build enrichment facilities. Enrichment of HEU for Little Boy was tremendeous task, but it was needed because HEU-gun (take notice - the "slow" gun) was quite certain to work and would have given at least very limited capacity if implosion bomb design would have failed. But it didn't fail, and when successfull spherical implosion design (Mk-III) was on hand it served as only available bomb design for years. It could use both, Plutonium and HEU, or even composite cores.

The additive technology was studied and finally choosen in order to reduce the grossweight of the A-bomb for airborne carriers.

Sorry, i didn't get that. ?!?! What do you mean ??

Do you want to know the real meaning because V2 cannot be a "first generation A-bomb" carrier? Simple reply: the grossweight.

What i wrote in my first post in this thread ---- Exactly that !!

About MIRV's "brother killing feature" light run 1km in 3.3 microseconds, 10km in 33 micros. and 100km in 330 micros. If you want a simultaneous contigueus explosion centered 50km one each other or detonation occurs with a maximum time lap of 175 microseconds (actually impossible) or you must wait some hours for a second detonation. This is the reason of super H-bombs.

Like i posted previously you need carefull targeting planning to avoid "brotherkill", but don't exaggerate.

You don't need hours to wait. Most modern warheads are hardened against radiation (to protect them against nuclear tipped ABMs and to protect them against "brotherkill").

I don't have information how severe radiation exposure modern warheads can take. And you don't either. These are the most well kept secrets of nuclear powers.

We have to form our opinion on regard of what kind of design has proved to be most successfull over times (talking all the time about retaliatory weapons - mostly SLBMs) and MIRVs have proved to be the clear winners and multimegaton class warheads have been fallen to obscurity.

Early multimegaton missiles (Titan II, SS-9) were developed to kill cities indeed, and they had such poor accuracy that even with 10-20 megaton warheads they couldn't do anything else either.

Later Soviet big-guns (some SS-18 mods) were developed on my opinion mostly against enemys command and control structure. To put it straightly - to turn Cheyenne Mountain to Cheyenne Lake.

About power if 1kiloton=1000tons of TNT=1 Hiroshima, then 1 Megaton=1000x1000kilotons=1000 Hiroshima. Then 50 Megatons=50000 Hiroshima.

Hiroshima bomb was not 1 kt.

Predicted yield was 13.4 kt. Estimates about actual yield vary between 11 kt - 18 kt


(BTW. The 50+ megaton weapon that you continuosly refer is actually a 100 megaton weapon. It was tested with tungsten tertiary tamper to keep the fallout down. The actual weapon was 100 megaton, alltough there is possibility that 50+ megaton low-yield mod was also weaponized)

I said before 1Hiroshima=1Fat man but this is only a conventional charge...no one is 100%sure of the real power of that bomb because nobody was there to measure it. Someone said 1Hiroshima= 1000 tons of TNT= 1kiloton, someone else said 1 Hiroshima= 2.5 kilotons. It is not a 100% phisical measurement, so you are free to choose your own opinion about. It is impossible to measure exactly such a phoenomenon like a nuke only by effects in air.

Fat Man was about 20-22 kt. So it was little bit more powerfull than Little Boy. Fat Man yield can be stated more accurately because same assembly had been exploded earlier.

One thing is sure: Neither of them was even near 1 kt !


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.. how many short -tons are there in 1 metric ton? but the measurement of destructive power of any bomb is always related to ground effects in a para-scientific way.

There is nothing "para" on yield of nuclear weapons, after all we are talking about physical phenomenon that could be measured, not some out-of-the-world experience.




OK. That is enough. I am getting sick and tired about this worthless discussion... I don't think other members are getting anything valuable from this...

[gabriel pagliarani]

Like do you want, Mark V. Stop it now, I don't like stupid querelle too.

[Mark V]

Like do you want, Mark V. Stop it now, I don't like stupid querelle too.

I will leave this thread. Undefeated, because you never could post anything to back-up your claims and never did respond to any of my questions.