V-2 with Chemical Warheads plans ?

[T. A. Gardner]

You are aware of just how many ultracentrifuges are required for a refining cascade, right? Thousands. IIRC the Iranian cascade has over 17,000 centrifuges in a single complex.

How many have been found in Germany? And in how many different places?

And, as the process gets towards 100% the difficulty rises exponentially. That is, refining uranium to say 10% enrichment is roughly twice as quick to do as refining it to, say, 30%. Each iteration of refining becomes more difficult and time consuming. That's why the Iranians have so many centrifuges and it's taking them so long to get to weapons grade material, just as it did with everyone else.

Thus, the German program, like the US program would have to be huge and there'd be lots of evidence of lots of centrifuges and other equipment for refining uranium to the 90% + enrichment necessary for a bomb. It wouldn't be nearly as hard using far fewer machines to get say, 3 to 5% enrichment, but that isn't bomb grade material even if it were called "enriched."

Thus, the proof necessary is twofold:

1. You'd have to be able to show the program was massive in size.

2. You'd have to have documentation of the enrichment level attained, and additional evidence of masses of depleted uranium used in the process of enrichment.

 

[Orionblamblam]

I have it, but I know the Standard Operating Procedure here. Ridicule followed by questioning the mental state of the poster(s). Followed by thread locking.

Uh-huh. Those with an actual case to make present their evidence. Those without a case complain about The Grand Conspiracy To Crush The Truth.

Present your convincing evidence that *all* the findings to date have been devastatingly wrong, for some reason.

Along with evidence of Nazi flying saucers, Nazi time machines, flown atomic powered aircraft, giant stealth flying wings, honorable politicians, global floods, faked moon missions... these things are promised, yet never seem to appear.

 

[edwest4]

Uh-huh. Those with an actual case to make present their evidence. Those without a case complain about The Grand Conspiracy To Crush The Truth.

Present your convincing evidence that *all* the findings to date have been devastatingly wrong, for some reason.

Along with evidence of Nazi flying saucers, Nazi time machines, flown atomic powered aircraft, giant stealth flying wings, honorable politicians, global floods, faked moon missions... these things are promised, yet never seem to appear.

As I recall, you were the lead cheerleader here when I did. "Off with his head!" Followed by the sound of well-oiled hinges and thread locking. Why should I subject myself to that again? Along with carefully worded statements that I was insane.

Back to my book...

 

[edwest4]

Uh-huh. Those with an actual case to make present their evidence. Those without a case complain about The Grand Conspiracy To Crush The Truth.

Present your convincing evidence that *all* the findings to date have been devastatingly wrong, for some reason.

Along with evidence of Nazi flying saucers, Nazi time machines, flown atomic powered aircraft, giant stealth flying wings, honorable politicians, global floods, faked moon missions... these things are promised, yet never seem to appear.

Pure toilet paper...

 

[Orionblamblam]

As I recall, you were the lead cheerleader here when I did.

I defy you to find people who see me as their "lead cheerleader."

"Off with his head!" Followed by the sound of well-oiled hinges and thread locking. Why should I subject myself to that again? Along with carefully worded statements that I was insane.

Prove us - and the entire world - wrong. Do It.

 

[edwest4]

I defy you to find people who see me as their "lead cheerleader."


Prove us - and the entire world - wrong. Do It.

So, the gauntlet has been thrown down. Alas, I must return to writing my book.

From the Forward: "I wrote this book partly to avoid the ranting online and inane video snippets."

The trauma, the trauma...

I didn't call you "my" main cheerleader but you did lead the pack in the insanity offense... for the prosecution.

 

[Orionblamblam]

you did lead the pack

Snerk. Ask around. See if you can find people who would follow me.
But hey. Write yer book. I'm sure it'll be a banger.

 

[edwest4]

Blasphemer! Sorry. That was directed at me...

 

[Nik]

Tangential, I've read that German attempts to build a nuclear 'pile' were greatly delayed as their graphite moderator had traces of eg Boron, which 'ate' precious neutrons instead of working as intended. US team, with better physics, sourced 'cleaner' graphite...

Regarding the lack of ultra-centrifuges / diffusion cascades: Although documentation is limited, and munged by all sorts of wild hypotheses about 'anti-gravity', I'd argue that the infamous jumping 'Bell' was a Calutron. A 'preparative mass-spectrometer', it was a logical evolution from pre-war research tech, and was also used in US before the 'diffusion' process won. IIRC, the Manhattan Project 'borrowed' much of the US Fort Knox 'silver reserve' to craft their many Calutrons' magnetic coils. Silver being a better conductor than copper, the magnets needed less power and ran cooler, while copper was better kept for 'regular' industry...

If you've seen the way power-cables to eg arc-furnaces wriggle and writhe, and the way conductive material in next room to big NMR systems may dance, the similarities are apparent...

 

[Dilandu]

How many have been found in Germany? And in how many different places?

If I recall correctly, Wilhelm Groth managed to build exactly one (1) ultracentrifuge for isotope separation during WW2.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Tangential, I've read that German attempts to build a nuclear 'pile' were greatly delayed as their graphite moderator had traces of eg Boron, which 'ate' precious neutrons instead of working as intended. US team, with better physics, sourced 'cleaner' graphite...

Regarding the lack of ultra-centrifuges / diffusion cascades: Although documentation is limited, and munged by all sorts of wild hypotheses about 'anti-gravity', I'd argue that the infamous jumping 'Bell' was a Calutron. A 'preparative mass-spectrometer', it was a logical evolution from pre-war research tech, and was also used in US before the 'diffusion' process won. IIRC, the Manhattan Project 'borrowed' much of the US Fort Knox 'silver reserve' to craft their many Calutrons' magnetic coils. Silver being a better conductor than copper, the magnets needed less power and ran cooler, while copper was better kept for 'regular' industry...

If you've seen the way power-cables to eg arc-furnaces wriggle and writhe, and the way conductive material in next room to big NMR systems may dance, the similarities are apparent...

Yep, boron is a neutron "poison." The US physicists, like Sizlard and Fermi recognized this and worked with National Carbon a US graphite manufacturer (mostly brushes for electric motors) who hired their own physicists and chemists to develop a pure carbon version of graphite. This took National Carbon several years to perfect, but their product was ready for mass production before the US entered WW 2.

It was largely the difference between how German corporations and US ones operated that led to the incorrect conclusion on the German's part that graphite wouldn't work and their adoption of heavy water, a much harder to procure item, for construction of a fast fission reactor. The other thing the Germans hadn't realized is that graphite moderation versus heavy water would result in a useful rate of plutonium production as a side product (eg., as a breeder reactor).

At the time, the successful use of low enrichment uranium in a light water reactor was still unknown.

It's of note that the US successfully built a heavy water reactor, the CP-3 (Chicago Pile 3) with it going critical on 15/5/43. So, the US beat the Germans to that too.

 

[WatcherZero]

If I recall correctly, Wilhelm Groth managed to build exactly one (1) ultracentrifuge for isotope separation during WW2.

Indeed, they managed to reach 5% refinement in 1943 and then realised it would take a vastly larger setup to reach weapons grade, their request for the necessary resources to construct more was turned down.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

On my earlier mention of German v. US corporations...

At the time, Germany allowed monopolies by corporations. This meant that corporations that had one on some product had little incentive to innovate and potentially lose their monopoly by introducing a new or better product. That meant innovation was often outside of industry and particularly true of ones where a monopoly existed.

For the US on the other hand, monopolies weren't allowed, and corporations had to innovate or potentially die. Thus, in the US corporations were enthusiastic innovators and often paired up with universities and other research institutions to get things done. I don't know particularly what the graphite situation in Germany was at the time in terms of the number of companies in that industry, but I'd bet it was very few and they worked together to keep new players out of the market.

So, when the boron contamination problem came up, German industry was like Figure it out and come back when you have a solution... to the physicists, they saw it as a waste of their time to spend money on developing a new product when they had a solid, and controlled, market already. In the US, the corporation(s) saw this as a potential new market and worked with researchers, physicists, and chemists to find a solution and way to manufacture a new product.

 

[Yellow Palace]

They aren't. Allies greatly overestimated the actual state of German nuclear research. They knew that Germany was one of the leading nations in atomic research in 1930s, and assumed that they MUST have well-developed nuclear program. The total inability of Allied intelligence to find anything about it was interpreted as total secrecy surrounded German atomic project - and therefore the assumption was made that it must be something VERY important, if Germans put so much efforts in hiding it.

Quite so. The extent to which the Allies were concerned about the German nuclear weapons program is, I think, clear from the effort expended to destroy the heavy water production facilities at Vemork.

The Allies (and possibly Britain in particular) consistently overestimated German capabilities, never quite realising the extent to which economic weakness and organisational dysfunction crippled the German war effort.

 

[Hood]

Need I remind folks of Rule #2 of the forum?

• Posts on alien UFOs, speculative Nazi wunderwaffen/flying saucers/atomic bombs, general conspiracy theories, alien crashes, moon landing denial and the like are specifically discouraged and would be better posted elsewhere.

We've been there done that and got the T-shirt. No point raking it all over again as the outcome is always the same.

Just because the Allies worried about V-1s, V-2s, atomic bombs, flying wings, nerve gas, Werewolves etc. doesn't mean that those fears were irrational but sometimes their fears turned out to be chimeras. Of course they were right to worry and not take chances - the Western Allies were probably too cautious during 1944-45.

V-1 reports talking about the number of houses destroyed is simply a reflection of how the Allies were analysing their own bombing campaign - the amount of German workers dehoused. Partially feeding into that was worries about public morale and Britain's own lack of construction materials. But there was no real economic damage caused, certainly nothing on the scale to hamper war production. Given that South East England was packed with thousands of airfields, barracks, ports, depots and all manner of military facilities its amazing that the V-1s and V-2s missed them all!

Arguably the storm that destroyed Mulberry A did far more to hamper the Allied European campaign than any weapons system the Germans could devise.

 

[edwest4]

Tangential, I've read that German attempts to build a nuclear 'pile' were greatly delayed as their graphite moderator had traces of eg Boron, which 'ate' precious neutrons instead of working as intended. US team, with better physics, sourced 'cleaner' graphite...

Regarding the lack of ultra-centrifuges / diffusion cascades: Although documentation is limited, and munged by all sorts of wild hypotheses about 'anti-gravity', I'd argue that the infamous jumping 'Bell' was a Calutron. A 'preparative mass-spectrometer', it was a logical evolution from pre-war research tech, and was also used in US before the 'diffusion' process won. IIRC, the Manhattan Project 'borrowed' much of the US Fort Knox 'silver reserve' to craft their many Calutrons' magnetic coils. Silver being a better conductor than copper, the magnets needed less power and ran cooler, while copper was better kept for 'regular' industry...

If you've seen the way power-cables to eg arc-furnaces wriggle and writhe, and the way conductive material in next room to big NMR systems may dance, the similarities are apparent...

Atomic pile was the term used prior to nuclear reactor. The first successful pile experiment in the U.S. was Chicago Pile-1. An Alsos Mission document dated 2 May 1945 makes reference to "successful pile experiments" carried out in Germany, where this occurred and the scientists involved. It is reproduced in Atomversuche in Deutschland by Guenter Nagel, page 335..

 

[edwest4]

Quite so. The extent to which the Allies were concerned about the German nuclear weapons program is, I think, clear from the effort expended to destroy the heavy water production facilities at Vemork.

The Allies (and possibly Britain in particular) consistently overestimated German capabilities, never quite realising the extent to which economic weakness and organisational dysfunction crippled the German war effort.

The attack on Vemork was of no consequence. Producing heavy water was no secret and the world's largest chemical cartel at the time, I.G. Farben, certainly had the knowledge and equipment to carry this out inside Germany. This was done at the Linde Eismaschinen AG in Britz. (See: Physics and National Socialism, page 151.)

 

[Orionblamblam]

The Allies (and possibly Britain in particular) consistently overestimated German capabilities, never quite realising the extent to which economic weakness and organisational dysfunction crippled the German war effort.

And had the Germans actually developed any sort of meaningful atomic program, at the end of the war (VJ-Day) the Allies would have been loud as hell about it. "We developed the A-Bomb to counter the Nazi threat but it turns out there really wasn't one" does not sound great. "We invaded Iraq to shut down Saddams WMD program but it turns out he was just faking it for propaganda purposes" turned whole governments upside down in a way that "We were right" wouldn't have.

After the war governs fell all over themselves to produce German aeronautical and rocketry engineers and scientists. Atomic scientists? Hmmm... I don't recall the US or the Soviets or the Brits or the French stocking their own programs with former Nazi scientists.

 

[edwest4]

And had the Germans actually developed any sort of meaningful atomic program, at the end of the war (VJ-Day) the Allies would have been loud as hell about it. "We developed the A-Bomb to counter the Nazi threat but it turns out there really wasn't one" does not sound great. "We invaded Iraq to shut down Saddams WMD program but it turns out he was just faking it for propaganda purposes" turned whole governments upside down in a way that "We were right" wouldn't have.

After the war governs fell all over themselves to produce German aeronautical and rocketry engineers and scientists. Atomic scientists? Hmmm... I don't recall the US or the Soviets or the Brits or the French stocking their own programs with former Nazi scientists.

Hilarious. So only the mostly widely distributed stories count as history. Anything else? No.

Stalin's Captive - Nikolaus Riehl and the Soviet Race for the Bomb by Nikolaus Riehl and Frederick Seitz.

Manfred von Ardenne worked for the Reichspost and developed the plasma-ionic separation device. He was captured by the Russians.


From the Nonproliferation Review, Summer 2000.

The Russians seized a 60 ton cyclotron and a plasma-ionic isotope separation installation at the workshop of Manfred von Ardenne. In Austria, the Russians acquired nearly 340 kg of metallic uranium.

 

[Scott Kenny]

If I recall correctly, Wilhelm Groth managed to build exactly one (1) ultracentrifuge for isotope separation during WW2.

Combined reply:

Indeed, they managed to reach 5% refinement in 1943 and then realised it would take a vastly larger setup to reach weapons grade, their request for the necessary resources to construct more was turned down.

So a laboratory/proof of concept unit.

Hilarious. So only the mostly widely distributed stories count as history. Anything else? No.

Stalin's Captive - Nikolaus Riehl and the Soviet Race for the Bomb by Nikolaus Riehl and Frederick Seitz.

Manfred von Ardenne worked for the Reichspost and developed the plasma-ionic separation device. He was captured by the Russians.


From the Nonproliferation Review, Summer 2000.

The Russians seized a 60 ton cyclotron and a plasma-ionic isotope separation installation at the workshop of Manfred von Ardenne. In Austria, the Russians acquired nearly 340 kg of metallic uranium.

And what was the enrichment status of said uranium? Raw? 5%?

 

[Dilandu]

And had the Germans actually developed any sort of meaningful atomic program, at the end of the war (VJ-Day) the Allies would have been loud as hell about it. "We developed the A-Bomb to counter the Nazi threat but it turns out there really wasn't one" does not sound great. "We invaded Iraq to shut down Saddams WMD program but it turns out he was just faking it for propaganda purposes" turned whole governments upside down in a way that "We were right" wouldn't have.

And USSR would also boast "saving the world from Nazi superweapon". Stalin was not the man, who would miss such opportunity for improving USSR image.

 

[Dilandu]

Atomic scientists? Hmmm... I don't recall the US or the Soviets or the Brits or the French stocking their own programs with former Nazi scientists.

Well, Ardenne worked in USSR from 1945 till 1955. He was actually quite eager to do it, since he realized that Americans would not need him, but USSR would pay him handsomely. His laboratory with all personnel was moved to Sukhumi, where von Ardenne worked quite sucsessfully on the problem of isotope separation (thus proving the point, that it was all matter of management). After 1955, when it became clear, that Soviet atomic science advanced well beyond von Ardenne experience, he retired and went to Dresden, where he lead a research insitution.

 

[edwest4]

From the Deutsches Museum site:


"Füßl probably caused the greatest stir in his career with the publication of the papers on the German nuclear program during the Nazi era. On December 18, 1998, the archive of the Deutsches Museum was able to take over the secret documents. The originals were confiscated in Germany in 1944 and 1945 by a special commando of the US armed forces called "Alsos" - or can be traced back to the interrogations by that special commando.
"These documents now total 11,602 pages. This includes a July 17, 1940 report by the physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker entitled "One Possibility of Generating Energy from 238U," which he wrote for the Nazi Army Ordnance Office. In it he describes, among other things, that a new fissile element must be created in nuclear reactors - months before plutonium was discovered in the USA. Weizsäcker also points out that the new element could be used to build very small machines, then as an explosive and, by mixing it in, to convert other elements in large quantities: "So he recognized the potential of nuclear fission for the construction of nuclear weapons and measured that Plutonium plays a crucial role as a fissile material in weapons production," says Füßl. The secrecy of the documents was maintained even after the end of the Second World War. This is shown by the "Restricted data" and "Caution" stamps that were placed on the papers in 1946."

 

[Scott Kenny]

From the Deutsches Museum site:


"Füßl probably caused the greatest stir in his career with the publication of the papers on the German nuclear program during the Nazi era. On December 18, 1998, the archive of the Deutsches Museum was able to take over the secret documents. The originals were confiscated in Germany in 1944 and 1945 by a special commando of the US armed forces called "Alsos" - or can be traced back to the interrogations by that special commando.
"These documents now total 11,602 pages. This includes a July 17, 1940 report by the physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker entitled "One Possibility of Generating Energy from 238U," which he wrote for the Nazi Army Ordnance Office. In it he describes, among other things, that a new fissile element must be created in nuclear reactors - months before plutonium was discovered in the USA. Weizsäcker also points out that the new element could be used to build very small machines, then as an explosive and, by mixing it in, to convert other elements in large quantities: "So he recognized the potential of nuclear fission for the construction of nuclear weapons and measured that Plutonium plays a crucial role as a fissile material in weapons production," says Füßl. The secrecy of the documents was maintained even after the end of the Second World War. This is shown by the "Restricted data" and "Caution" stamps that were placed on the papers in 1946."

That's theoretical work, not a bomb program.

Of that pile of 340kg of metallic uranium found in Austria, how much was U235? I'm betting about 2kg of fissionable uranium (0.72% in raw metal), not enough for even one bomb.

If you're looking for signs of a weapons program, you'd want to look for yellowcake or uranium hexafluoride. Or functional reactors breeding plutonium.

Any signs of either one in Nazi Germany?

 

[TsrJoe]

I thought the thread was intended to cover chemical warheads ? either way thread belongs in the speculative/theoretical section methinks ?

 

[T. A. Gardner]

You'd also think that the Alsos Mission to Germany would have produced papers in meticulous detail of the German program if there was one. These guys documented all sorts of odd, mundane, industrial activities in Germany, and they were specifically tasked to look for and document the German nuclear program.

Oddly, the mission did document, in detail, German mining of radioactive ores like uranium and thorium, examined the half-complete reactor Heisenberg had assembled at Haigerloch, collected truckloads of uranium ore (unenriched), along with about 1.5 tons of uranium metal in ingots.

So, one would presume that they would have equally documented capturing enriched uranium in equal detail, if they had. But there is nothing in their documents showing that they did.

 

[GTX]

Locking thread - I was going to try to clean it up but it would have meant deleting approx half the thread. if anyone has information pertaining to the original thread topic (V-2 with Chemical Warheads) then message a Moderator to have it added in.