German Bomber modified for A Bomb Delivery

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sagallacci
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Re: German Bomber modified for A Bomb Delivery

#46

Post by sagallacci » 10 Jul 2009, 10:38

The one, well of several, point that really puzzels me about all these claims of Axis atomics, is that of them remaining secret, especially with all the heat the Truman administration was under about, first, having spent billions on a weapon, was lacking a threat/target, and later, having used them on Japan, official to drive them to surrender, never brought up either German or Japanese weapons as part of a rationael?
And small details like total lack of corroberating evidence, especially radiological, but also practical, like the extensive refinement systems needed for U235 enrichment for bomb quality/quantity fuel.
Any big explosion, especially if it happened to involve military quality explosives, and even more so if some or all of it includes powdered aluminium and/or other metals as extenders/enhancers, is going to be big and bright, and unless you were unlucky enough to be looking in the wrong direction, would be hard to tell even about the flash during daylight.

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phylo_roadking
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Re: German Bomber modified for A Bomb Delivery

#47

Post by phylo_roadking » 10 Jul 2009, 14:50

some explosions would be not capable at all of creating a mushroom cloud, smaller ones just create a sort of fireball or something like that, you need something like 5 tonnes of TNT to create a proper mushroom cloud.
I've seen a mushroom cloud created with a closed tin with some flour in it and a campfire 8O The answer to creating a mushroom effect is how much material is lifted from the ground, how light it is/how small the particles are and thus how the hot air rising from the point of explosion lofts it.

For example - "airburst" atomic weapons over land were not expected to create a mushroom clould; only if the edge of the fireball touched the ground would pulverized ground material - soil, bricks, mortar, charred wood, charred people - be lofted by rising hot air. (Beneath The City Streets, Peter Laurie, Chap. 2 "What the H-Bomb does to people, houses and other things" - a useful primer if you can get hold of an old copy, I don't think its been reprinted since the "end" of the Cold War) {And in turn...it was of course pulverized ground material being lofted like this from the ground THROUGH the fireball to become irradiated - that would later deposit again as radioactive fall-out. Therefore, an "airburst" at a high enough altitude wouldn't generate fall-out.)


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LWD
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Re: German Bomber modified for A Bomb Delivery

#48

Post by LWD » 10 Jul 2009, 15:56

kriegsmarine221 wrote:some explosions would be not capable at all of creating a mushroom cloud, smaller ones just create a sort of fireball or something like that, you need something like 5 tonnes of TNT to create a proper mushroom cloud.
I would think that would be very dependent on atmospheric conditions. As I said I've seen them occur naturally. Also saw a formation much like a mushroom cloud as a result of a slash burn when they got a bad weather forecast and there was an inversion.

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phylo_roadking
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Re: German Bomber modified for A Bomb Delivery

#49

Post by phylo_roadking » 11 Jul 2009, 00:02

The one, well of several, point that really puzzels me about all these claims of Axis atomics, is that of them remaining secret...
Note: It does not seem very clear to me why these experiments took place in such crowded areas.
:lol:

stellung
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Re: German Bomber modified for A Bomb Delivery

#50

Post by stellung » 11 Jul 2009, 04:49

sagallacci wrote:The one, well of several, point that really puzzels me about all these claims of Axis atomics, is that of them remaining secret, especially with all the heat the Truman administration was under about, first, having spent billions on a weapon, was lacking a threat/target, and later, having used them on Japan, official to drive them to surrender, never brought up either German or Japanese weapons as part of a rationael?
And small details like total lack of corroberating evidence, especially radiological, but also practical, like the extensive refinement systems needed for U235 enrichment for bomb quality/quantity fuel.
Any big explosion, especially if it happened to involve military quality explosives, and even more so if some or all of it includes powdered aluminium and/or other metals as extenders/enhancers, is going to be big and bright, and unless you were unlucky enough to be looking in the wrong direction, would be hard to tell even about the flash during daylight.

The refining process occurred at the IG Farben Buna Werke in Poland. "The plants when completed were so enormous that they used more electricity than the entire city of Berlin." "... and not a single pound of Buna rubber was ever produced."

The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben by Joseph Borkin. Mr. Borkin's knowledge of IG Farben begins in 1934 and continues for 44 years as an investigator.

Before Leslie Groves began his work to determine how far along the Germans were, a certain principle was followed. "Given the secrecy involved, nothing was put in writing. It was agreed that Marshall would notify the head of G-2, Maj. Gen. George Strong while Groves would alert the OSS and ONI of his new responsibility."

"In attempting to locate plants [in Germany] that might be used to produce bomb material, Oppenheimer advised that they were unlikely to be 'smaller than one city block' and would require large amounts of power."

"Oppenheimer also noted that a large chemical company, such as I.G. Farben, could carry out a bomb program."

"Further complicating the intelligence task was the fact that 'the physical nature of the plant is sufficiently flexible so that external inspection can probably not identify it.'"


Spying on the Bomb by Jeffrey T. Richelson.


OFFICE OF WAR MOBILIZATION AND RECONVERSION
WASHINGTON, D.C.

March 2, 1945

MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT
FROM: James F. Byrnes

I understand that the expenditures for the Manhattan project are approaching 2 billion dollars with no definite assurance yet of production.


From the FDR Library in Hyde Park, NY

sagallacci
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Re: German Bomber modified for A Bomb Delivery

#51

Post by sagallacci » 11 Jul 2009, 05:41

"Mushroom clouds" are basically convection rings, a hot bubble of air begins to rise and aerodynamic forces quickly squish it into a ring-shaped vortex. Loose smoke or condensation around the tight vortex make the bulk of the "mushroom" otherwise it would be simply a smoke ring. There is no size factor, it is all in the heat. A few oz. of Black Powder will generate a fine ring/cloud. Nuke airbursts will often create fine mushrooms as the bulk of the visible cloud at altitude is condensation rather than surface debris. There is great footage on youtube of nuke tests that include airbursts inwhich the whole evolution of fireball to hot ring to condensation caps and stems form is visible.

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Ironmachine
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Re: German Bomber modified for A Bomb Delivery

#52

Post by Ironmachine » 11 Jul 2009, 10:19

stellung wrote:The refining process occurred at the IG Farben Buna Werke in Poland. "The plants when completed were so enormous that they used more electricity than the entire city of Berlin." "... and not a single pound of Buna rubber was ever produced."

The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben by Joseph Borkin. Mr. Borkin's knowledge of IG Farben begins in 1934 and continues for 44 years as an investigator.
Perhaps you should take a look at what Boby posted in another thread; it comes from Tooze, Wages of Destruction, pp. 445-446:
The construction of IG Farben's plant at Monowitz claimed the lives of at least 30,000 inmates.51 In light of such horror, it is easier to think of Auschwitz as a place of pure negativity, of destruction pure and simple.52 Unfortunately, however, the reality is more complicated and disturbing. It is true, as is commonly remarked, that IG Auschwitz never produced any rubber. But by 1942 it was no longer simply a Buna facility. Under severe pressure from the Berlin authorities to justify their huge investment, IG's managers at Auschwitz decided in the summer of 1942 to start up methanol production at the earliest possible opportunity.53 Methanol was a vital ingredient of war production, both for aircraft fuel and as one of the basic ingredients in the manufacture of explosives.54 The first tanker load of methanol to leave Auschwitz-Monowitz in October 1943 was the occasion of a major celebration, to which IG not surprisingly - 446 - invited Camp Commandant Rudolf Hoess. By 1944 Speer's Armaments Ministry expected Auschwitz to account for one-tenth of the total supply of methanol. Heydebreck was scheduled for twice that much. When British and American bombers started doing serious damage to IG Farben's plant at Leuna in 1944, the Silesian complex stood ready.

According to the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Auschwitz and Heydebreck 'came to the rescue' of the German war effort in 1944.55 By the end of 1944 Auschwitz was responsible for 15 per cent of Germany's methanol production and, in acknowledgement of the plant's success, Dr Johann Giesen, the man responsible for the Auschwitz fuel
programme, was nominated by Speer's Armaments Ministry to take charge of the methanol sector across the Reich. Though it is certainly true that the expenditure of resources in Silesia was out of all proportion to the net benefit received, this was a question of timing, not inherent logic. The chief beneficiaries of Krauch's huge investment programme turned out to be the Soviets, who dismantled much of the high-pressure apparatus, and the Poles, who inherited the buildings and electricity generators. By the 1950s, the renamed facility at Auschwitz-Oswiecim was the hub of coal-based chemistry in the Silesian region. The plant also survived the fall of Communism and is today the third-largest producer of synthetic rubber in Europe, with capacity equal to roughly 5 per cent of global consumption. As of 2003, at least two of the world's leading tyre manufacturers source their rubber from the plant at Oswiecim, the foundations for which were laid in 1941, when Carl Krauch received his largest-ever allocation of steel. According to the records of the Four Year Plan, no less than 2.5 billion Reichsmarks were channelled into Krauch's chemicals projects in 1940 and 1941.56

51 Wagner, IG Auschwitz, p. 7, 10, 287

52 As Sybille Steinbacher has pointed out, the camp and industrial site were the foundation of a thriving experiment in urban Germanization in Eastern Silesia. See S. Steinbacher, 'Musterstadt' Auschwitz: Germanisierungspolitik und Judenmord in Ostoberschlesien (Munich, 2000).

53 See the comments made by Himmler during his visit to IG's building site on 18 July 1942. IMT, IG Farben Case VIII, NI-14551, pp. 477-478

54 The role of the IG Farben manager Johann Giesen, who was later employed in the Swiss chemicals industry, in the development of methanol production at Auschwitz has been highlighted by Lukas Straumann in his contribution to the OnlineReports.che website, 'Das dunkelste Kapitel in Christoph Blochers Ems Chemie'. See also J. R. White, 'Target Auschwitz: Historical and Hypothetical German Responses to Allied Attack', Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 16 (2002), pp. 54-76

55 USSBS, Over-all Report (European War) (Washington, 1945), p. 51

56 D. Petzina, Autarkiepolitik in Dritten Reich (Stuttgart, 1968), p. 183
Yes, no rubber was produced. But the activity of the factory can be explained without using some weird theories about German atomic bombs.
So did Mr. Borkin actually write anything about the refining process? Or it is just that you are selectively quoting to support your points?

stellung
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Re: German Bomber modified for A Bomb Delivery

#53

Post by stellung » 13 Jul 2009, 01:57

Your information is incomplete. Mr. Borkin does refer to "... a modest stream of fuel..." coming from the plant. The full extent of German synthetic fuel production would not be known until shortly after the end of hostilities. The Germans did not simply hope that the Allies would stop bombing obvious targets but dispersed production and sent some of it underground.

The following is derived from "Investigation by the U.S. Government Technical Oil Mission" which was presented at the twenty-fifth annual meeting of the American Petroleum Institute. Chicago, November 14, 1945. The heading of the list is:

Germany's Largest Synthetic Fuel-Producing Installations


Reichs-Marineamt
Betriebstoff Laboratorium
Rhenanin-Ossag (Mineralowerke A.G.)
Deutsche Vacuum Oel A.G.
I.G. Farbenindustrie A.G. - Leuna
I.G. Farbenindustrie A.B. - Ludwigshafen-Opau
Braunkohle Benzin A.G.:
Brabag I
Brabag II
Brabag IV
Gelsenberg Benzin A.G.
Hydrierwerke Scholven A.G.
Union Rheinische Braunkohlen Kraftstoff A.G.
Ruhrol A.G.
Wintershall A.G.
Ruhrchemie und Ruhrbenzin A.G.
Friedrich Krupp
Klochner Werke A.G. Gewerkschaft "Victor"
Hoesch Benzin A.G.
Gewerkschaft Stein:
Kohlenbergwerk
Rheinpreussen
Chemische Werke, Essener Stein-Kohle A.G.
Braunkohle-Benzin A.G.:
Brabag III
Schaffgotsche Benzin A.G.
Kaiser Wilhelm Insitute fur Kohlenforschung
Studien und Verwertungs G.m.b.H.

Once again, only the largest are listed, so the list is only partial.

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LWD
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Re: German Bomber modified for A Bomb Delivery

#54

Post by LWD » 13 Jul 2009, 02:24

stellung wrote:Your information is incomplete. Mr. Borkin does refer to "... a modest stream of fuel..." coming from the plant. The full extent of German synthetic fuel production would not be known until shortly after the end of hostilities. The Germans did not simply hope that the Allies would stop bombing obvious targets but dispersed production and sent some of it underground.
...l.
How is this relevant to the topic at hand?

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Ironmachine
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Re: German Bomber modified for A Bomb Delivery

#55

Post by Ironmachine » 13 Jul 2009, 08:18

Stellung, you made a very simple statement:
The refining process occurred at the IG Farben Buna Werke in Poland.
Then, as the only support for it, you quoted the following sentences from The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben by Joseph Borking:
"The plants when completed were so enormous that they used more electricity than the entire city of Berlin." "... and not a single pound of Buna rubber was ever produced."
There is not even a mention to the refining process in the Borking's words that you have quoted. So I repeat my question: did Mr. Borkin actually write anything about the refining process in his book? Or it is just that you, by selectively quoting Mr. Borking to show that no rubber was produced at Buna Werke, are trying to make the suggestion that something extrange was happening there, and of course it could not be anything more ( :roll: ) that the refining process?

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Re: German Bomber modified for A Bomb Delivery

#56

Post by stellung » 13 Jul 2009, 21:32

Detective work requires the assembly of clues. The I.G. Farben facility in Poland was not listed in the list I posted. Since Mr. Borkin was an official U.S. Government investigator, he was no doubt working under various secrecy laws that were still in effect at the time his book was published.

A convincing case for a uranium enrichment facility is made in Critical Mass by Carter P. Hydrick. Among those consulted for this book were the head of the Texas A&M Nuclear Engineering Department, Dr. John Poston, Sr., Dr. Bernhard Wehring of the University of Texas J.J. Pickle Nuclear Research Center, and Drs. Sandy Bergen, Harlow Russ, Edward Hammel and John Allred – all retired from the National Atomic Laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, and the late Clarence Larsen, formerly director of the Oak Ridge calutrons...

Mr. Hydrick also consults with buna rubber experts who confirm the idea that relative to the power consumed, no buna was produced there. However, the plant was given very high priority, involving the Army, Air Force and SS. Even though producing buna, or fuel, were both well known at the time, the problems and delays in getting the facility operational mirrored similar work in the United States.

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Ironmachine
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Re: German Bomber modified for A Bomb Delivery

#57

Post by Ironmachine » 13 Jul 2009, 22:16

So in plain words:
You have no real proofs to support your theory, and there is nothing in Borkin's book related to a supposed refining process. :roll:

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Re: German Bomber modified for A Bomb Delivery

#58

Post by phylo_roadking » 13 Jul 2009, 23:51

Detective work requires the assembly of clues.
...but NOT circumstantial evidence. That there was a large chemical installation consuming large amounts of power over several years, and getting the support of various agencies...while not managing to visibly produce very much of anything - is NOT prima facie evidence that it intended to produce something else; it merely proves it was a CRAP Buna plant! :lol:

ALL sides and nations indulged at various times in expensive projects and plans that came to nothing AND often despite someone's support ramming the idea through and supporting it...but ESPECIALLY in Germany; look for instance at the history of the RLM's procurement process... 8O

Stellung - as I've said before - you and everyone else looking at this have committed the CLASSIC mistake of intelligence analysis - Hitler did it in June 1940 when analysing the success of first his diplomatic overtures to the UK, and then the German psi-war ops...Beppo Schmidt did it during the BoB...the U.S.Army right up to Eisenhower did it in late 1944-early 1945 over the issue of the Alpine Redoubt. They started with an end point...and THEN went looking for evidence to establish the truth of that - and THAT is recognised as the WRONG way to go about the whole process.

You're supposed to look at the evidence and see what IT tells you - and draw your conclusions from IT; NOT look at evidence and interpret it in terms of it proving your hypopthesis. By starting with an unsupported conclusion - that Germany exploded an atomic bomb - anyone can interpret the existing evidence, or even in some cases ABSENCE of evidence :lol:...in terms of whether or not it supports the hypothesis...

But you're NOT supposed to "interpret" evidence! It either supports your hypothesis or argues against it. But you don't twist it to fit. You for instance are starting with the idea that the Buna Plant produced enriched nuclear material BECAUSE it didn't produce much else, was highly secret therefore NOONE knows what went on there - so it MUST have been nuclear enrichment...

No - organisations, particularly commercial enterprises in receipt of government money...tend to be highly secret with the evidence of any FAILURE on their part to deliver. BECAUSE THE MONEY STOPS. Youre' regarding the secrecy as something sinister - when in reality it's completely in line with the interpretation that IG Farben were being very secret about the abject failure of the plant to produce what it was built for! And...oh look! the plant didn't produce any synthetic rubber despite the investment. We have a FULL logic chain without room for any sinister weapons programme.

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Re: German Bomber modified for A Bomb Delivery

#59

Post by sagallacci » 19 Jul 2009, 06:57

Going back to the original thread for a sec.
My mention of the structural diagram of the He177 simply illustrates that there is simply nothing to the notion that He177V38 "must" have been modified for an atomic bomb, or for that matter, any over-size ordinance. The stripped out belly is just that. A fuel tank pallet or even simply a light-weight fairing could have easily been put in in place of the usual divided bomb bay structure, especially if the machine was being used for other systems testing (some sources suggest radar or other electronic stuff) and they simply wanted to save some weight to improve the beast's mileage.

I find it telling that so many details about WWII German atomics didn't surface until AFTER detailed technical information about US atomics (especially Chuck Hansen's work) were published. Especially as some details were TOO closely matching, but in ways making no sense to the situation.

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Re: German Bomber modified for A Bomb Delivery

#60

Post by stellung » 21 Jul 2009, 03:21

Your assumption is incorrect. A secret interrogation facility in the United States was told by a German scientist before VE day that "we are enriching uranium." The other document I reference refers to a test in Germany in 1944. It was Top Secret. It was not declassified for many years.

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