London Blitz vs V1

34,000 V-1s were produced by Fiesler, Volkswagen, and the Mittelwerke.
Unit cost was RM 5000. Of all those produced only around 5000 found
their targets in the UK and Belgium. That makes it 20% effective of
those launched, the remaining number found stockpiled. It was a cost
effective weapon compared to a Mark IV tank (RM 100,000) but
militarily of little value. As a psychological/nuisance weapon it did
well but did not in any way deter the Allies from bombing Germany and
grabbing land. The Germans would have done better to replace the
amatol warhead with a radiological warhead. London and Antwerp would
have then been contaminated and abandoned.

Rob

The Germans conducted many nuclear experiments with minimal shielding,
so they would probably have not considered it a useful weapon. But if
they did consider it viable, could they have laid their hands on enough
material to use it in warheads?

Actually, the Germans were constructing two such spherical devices in
1945 which relied on spaced uranium plates, a detonator held in a
crushing mechanism, and the entire sphere filled with kerosene. The
idea was to place the radiological sphere inside an SC-series bomb and
drop it from the Sanger bomber (a project which was reactivated in Feb
'45). Upon impact the crusher would force the detonator material into
the smashed plates of uranium and cause fission while the kerosene
blew the fission material all over the place. The target was NYC. This
could have also been placed in a V-2 launched by a Type XXI sub-towed
Prufstand XII launch container of which 3 were completed by war's end.
But the war ended before any of these plans came to anything. The
French captured the two radiological weapons under construction and
destroyed them. The Prufstand XII containers were discovered at
Stettin. And the Sanger bomber was discovered at a plant in Lofer in
the bare mock-up stage.
A more advanced radiological weapon would have been detonated over the
target cities making the weapon more effective. See Schiffer's book on
the Sanger bomber for more details.



Even if they had been able to, I don't think the allies would have
abandoned these cities - ignorance of radiation sickness reigned supreme
until the long-term effects of it were found some time after the
Hiroshima raid.

The Allies weren't completely ignorant on the dangers of fission
material. The US constructed a giant collector called the "Dumbo" to
collect plutonium debris in case the test A-bomb blew up in NM. I
think "Dumbo" still survives. If NYC was hit similar large Dumbo-type
containers would have been used to collect the debris and the
radiation levels would have been studied. I think the cities would
have been abandoned because we would have investigated any attack
against us more thouroughly and intensely than those conducted in
Japan after Aug 6/9.

Rob

"robert arndt" wrote in message
om...
The Allies weren't completely ignorant on the dangers of fission
material. The US constructed a giant collector called the "Dumbo" to
collect plutonium debris in case the test A-bomb blew up in NM. I
think "Dumbo" still survives. If NYC was hit similar large Dumbo-type
containers would have been used to collect the debris and the
radiation levels would have been studied.

Jumbo wasn't designed for collecting debris. It was a huge 200 ton
pressure
vessel. The bomb was to be put inside prior to the test, if the silly
thing fizzled
the pressure vessel was to prevent anything from getting out.
Moving a tub that big through a population site gathering up bits and
pieces would
have caused even more contamination. Better a group of trained people with
man-portable
gear.