J99Eingehirner Wrote: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.)
I know a thing or two about the ABOMBS
First things first the Trinity site is in New Mexico, not Nevada
I should know in that I work at the White Sands test facility in NM were the Trinity site resides
I drive by the Trinity site all the time
Been in it many times
We do alot of our current testing just a mile or two from it
Second thing to note is we build them to use aginst Germany
Thus had Germany figured out a way to extend the war such that they were a still a real threat
That all these 'what-if' Ta183 guys think they were (read the phantasy I was addressing with my ABOMB reference)
Instead of the last gasp one foot in the grave bunch that they were
Than you can bet one of the two left if not both would have been used on Germany
As for making more
You can also bet the US could have produced more ABOMBS before the first Ta183 ever took flight
Be sure
So gold star for effort on trying to be a smart ass wrt to my point
But you unknowingly just help drive my point home
Thanks!
PS if you or anyone else want to know what I mean by last gasp wrt the state of Germany near the end, Simply take a look at Hitlers health near the end, in that his health equates to the health of Germany itself near the end