RIP Edward Teller

such as insisting the Me-263 be a ground
support fighter bomber instead of a B-17/B-24 interceptor.


obvious typo - 262 was the jet fighter, 263 was a prototype follow-on a/c to
the 163 rocket fighter.

G

From: Chad Irby

snip

The big problem for the German program was Heisenberg. Before the war,
he'd calculated some fission cross-sections incorractly, and apparently
never recalculated them. He thought the mass for a chain reaction was
something on the order of forty *tons*.

snip



OK, we know the bombs didn't need 40 tons of either uranium or plutonium.

Given the size and weight of Fatman or Littleboy type bombs just what would the
Germans, let alone the Japanese, have used to deliver them? Other than by
submarine or surface vessel I can't imagine how they would have been able to.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

B2431 wrote:

From: Chad Irby

snip

The big problem for the German program was Heisenberg. Before the war,
he'd calculated some fission cross-sections incorractly, and apparently
never recalculated them. He thought the mass for a chain reaction was
something on the order of forty *tons*.

snip



OK, we know the bombs didn't need 40 tons of either uranium or plutonium.

Given the size and weight of Fatman or Littleboy type bombs just what would the
Germans, let alone the Japanese, have used to deliver them? Other than by
submarine or surface vessel I can't imagine how they would have been able to.

Fat Man (for certain) and Little Boy (I think) were much heavier than they had to
be, because their casings were constructed out of thick armor steel to prevent them
from being damaged by flak etc. IIRR, without the thick steel armor the bombs
would have weighed somewhere in the 3-5,000 lb. range. IIRC, the thick steel also
improved the yield slightly by increasing the containment for some fraction of a
second longer, but probably not enough to matter. If the Germans had been willing
to do without that protection (as we were with later weapons), then they almost
certainly could have delivered Little Boy; Fat Man would have presented space
problems, but they might have been able to modify an He-177 or similar. I don't
know how big the bomb bay of the He-177 was, or its arrangement.

Guy

In article ,
(B2431) wrote:

OK, we know the bombs didn't need 40 tons of either uranium or plutonium.

Given the size and weight of Fatman or Littleboy type bombs just what
would the Germans, let alone the Japanese, have used to deliver them?
Other than by submarine or surface vessel I can't imagine how they
would have been able to.

They had some very interesting bombers on the drawing boards that they
never built because they didn't have a mission for them. They could
have stuck one on one of their big seaplanes and refueled it in
mid-Atlantic (they did something similar to get planes to South America
from Africa) for a one-way trip, though.

Dornier had a huge seaplane (the Do 214) that could have made the trip
with a *very* big bomb, but design work was discontinued in 1943 because
they didn't have anything worth hauling across the Atlantic.

Focke-Wulf was working on the FW 238, which could have carried a 12000
pound bomb load across the Atlantic, and might have made it back.
Germany cancelled all heavy bomber work before they got much past design
work, but it would have been ready by 1944 if the Germans knew they had
a nuke to drop.

Given the motivation, it's pretty obvious that the Nazis could have made
something to get a city-killing bomb across the Atlantic. At the very
least, they could have gotten several across the Channel... and one or
two nukes in June of 1944 would have ruined the Allied offensive after
D-day.

--


Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

Teller was not German, but a Hungarian Jew. He fled from the facists
ruling Hungary in 1926, at age of 17. He obtained his Ph.D. in Germany
in 1930 and wrote many papers on quantum mechanics there. No atomic
bomb work, as the fission reaction was then still unknown. Once the
Nazis took over, he knew he had to get out ASAP. He left around
1935.

So, Teller was long gone by the time nuclear fission was discovered
(1939), and it's most unlikely he'd have told the Nazis how to make a bomb.

This is from Richard Rhodes' book, "The Making of the Atomic Bomb."

Mark

ArtKramr wrote:
Subject: RIP Edward Teller
From: Aerophotos
Date: 9/12/03 7:54 PM Pacific Daylight Time


hooray the most evil person ever to exist in the world is now dead


He could have stayed in Germany and given Hitler the atom bomb. Be thankful for
little things.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

"Teller took his Ph.D. under Heisenberg at Leipzig in 1930..."

Richard Rhodes, "The Making of the Atomic Bomb"

Chad Irby wrote:
In article ,
(ArtKramr) wrote:


Well, it would have been Teller plus Heisenburg working side by side.
You seem to know the outcome of that combination for sure. I am not
so sure, But I guess we'll never know for sure. will we?


I dunno.

Considering the epic nature of Heisenberg's ego, and having met Teller
once about 30 years back, my big prediction would have been a fast chain
reaction and blood on the floor...