14.04.2010, 07:38
Just to be a smartass to ACE-OF-ACES:
As a matter of fact, the Americans had exactly three nuclear bombs at their disposal, of which one was detonated at the Nevada Test Site (Trinity). They had put billions of dollars into building these three bombs. After the war, it took them quite some time to build new ones because the uranium and plutonium weren't readily available. There was a huge discussion going on around Little Boy and Fat Man being dropped over Hiroshima & Nagasaki because many people involved in the development didn't see them as weapons - more as a threat to avoid future wars, not for actually killing people. A lot of scientists left the project afterwards, horrified by the outcome of their work. Also, dropping the third of three prototypes left the US with exactly zero A-bombs to threaten anyone.
So, the worst thing that could have happened would have been two nuclear bombs dropped onto Germany. Not that much, considering the scattering of all the development and testing sites. But, as was said before, the Germans didn't have anything to build new planes from. If you start to discuss 1946-what-if scenarios, you have to come up with some more history-changing in the process. Which, of course, can lead to all kinds of new assumptions and developments.
And before somebody comes up with the old Germany-almost-had-a-nuclear-bomb-built-by-Heisenberg: NO. Read BOOKS about it. I recommend "Heisenberg's War". (Sorry, I'm getting tired of reading stuff like this... IF you want to phantasize, do it RIGHT.)
As a matter of fact, the Americans had exactly three nuclear bombs at their disposal, of which one was detonated at the Nevada Test Site (Trinity). They had put billions of dollars into building these three bombs. After the war, it took them quite some time to build new ones because the uranium and plutonium weren't readily available. There was a huge discussion going on around Little Boy and Fat Man being dropped over Hiroshima & Nagasaki because many people involved in the development didn't see them as weapons - more as a threat to avoid future wars, not for actually killing people. A lot of scientists left the project afterwards, horrified by the outcome of their work. Also, dropping the third of three prototypes left the US with exactly zero A-bombs to threaten anyone.
So, the worst thing that could have happened would have been two nuclear bombs dropped onto Germany. Not that much, considering the scattering of all the development and testing sites. But, as was said before, the Germans didn't have anything to build new planes from. If you start to discuss 1946-what-if scenarios, you have to come up with some more history-changing in the process. Which, of course, can lead to all kinds of new assumptions and developments.
And before somebody comes up with the old Germany-almost-had-a-nuclear-bomb-built-by-Heisenberg: NO. Read BOOKS about it. I recommend "Heisenberg's War". (Sorry, I'm getting tired of reading stuff like this... IF you want to phantasize, do it RIGHT.)