What would you do if you had six A-bombs?

From a purely physical point of view, another potential WWII delivery mechanism with ample load-carrying capacity would be by railroad, on a perfectly ordinary freight train. Unfortunately, the practical obstacles would be numerous.  Right off the bat, it would be tricky to get the bomb into the target country undetected in the first place (by submarine at night would be a good option, if the country has a coastline) and loaded onto the desired train (presumably through an SOE-type covert operation), and for the bomb to remain hidden during any potential train inspections by the target country’s military or civilian security services (since I think wartime governments kept a close eye on trains in general).  Concealing it in a shipment of machinery might work best, especially if the shipment in question was protected from inspection by a real or forged shipping manifest declaring it to be restricted.  In occupied Europe, I believe that railroad workers were sometimes part of local resistance groups – so groups like that might have been able to help with the operation.  There would have been plenty of target choices, since just about every major city in the industrialized world during WWII was served by railroads.  The train timetables would have been a major wild card, however: they could have been disrupted by such factors as sabotage, air raids, and last-minute changes of destination or timing imposed by the authorities for various reasons (such as important military needs).  So using a nuclear bomb with a time-delay trigger would involve taking a risky guess on when (or even if) the train will actually arrive at its destination, as opposed to its scheduled time of arrival.  And of course, if something goes wrong with the timer or if the enemy’s security forces are on their toes, there’s the ghastly possibility that the bomb would fall unexploded into enemy hands and get used later against your own side.  So other than the fact that trains could carry a heavy A-bomb with ease, there would have been more potential for such an operation to go wrong than right.

@rjpeters70:

This is a great posting.  My only problem with a water surface detonation is that the water itself would absorb much of the blast, acting to suppress the yield effects.

I used THIS simulator to determine blast effects.

With a weapon of this size (15-20 KT), the differences in blast wave, radiation, and thermal effects are minimal, whether an airburst or a surface detonation.

An airburst would be better, but not significantly so.

So, while I think a surface detonation would do significant and some operational harm to the Dunkirk evacuation, and might do real damage to Suez, you wouldn’t get much bang for the buck with a Scapa Flow detonation.

The direct damage to ships is less important than radiation sickness affecting highly trained Royal Navy personnel.

In either case, the base will almost certainly be abandoned, which is the primary goal; either to force them to station at a base farther from operational areas, or from a base more exposed to air attack.

You might take out a battleship if you get to within say a tenth of a mile, but not much more than that (and trading a nuke for a battleship is not a good cost/benefit ratio).

Any ship within 1.5 km is going to sustain heavy damage. Any such ship will be heavily contaminated by radiation and will likely be unsalvageable. Any ship within 5 km is going to lose most of it’s crew to radiation sickness.

It is a significant blow. Certainly greater than Pearl Harbor. Certainly worth a nuke.

@CWO:

I’m wondering about the “suicide submarine” premise. 
…
Given Germany’s lack of a bushido tradition that included ritual suicide for warriors under certain circumstances, getting sailors to agree to a suicide attack (especially early in the war) would have probably been an even harder sell in Germany than in Japan.
…
So the psychological requirement for the “suicide submarine” premise is a bit problematic.

I considered that.

But consider also that Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union hold lots of power over their citizens.

It is not unrealistic to me that the threat of incarcerating or executing a sailors family might be used against sailors of “questionable” status to ensure their cooperation. Or perhaps freeing an already incarcerated family member if the sailor agrees to the mission.

Remember also that, at least for Scapa Flow, there are a number of old Navy veterans who would probably like nothing better than the chance to go out in such a fashion.

I simply don’t see Germany, Japan, or Russia having trouble finding “volunteers”. It’s the liberal democracies of the US and UK that will have an issue there, but they eventually have bombers that can actually perform the task.

@CWO:

From a purely physical point of view, another potential WWII delivery mechanism with ample load-carrying capacity would be by railroad, on a perfectly ordinary freight train.

I ruled out train delivery right away. Too many things can go wrong, and it severely limits your target options.

good post Aretaku!

@Aretaku:

It is not unrealistic to me that the threat of incarcerating or executing a sailors family might be used against sailors of “questionable” status to ensure their cooperation. Or perhaps freeing an already incarcerated family member if the sailor agrees to the mission.

Forcing military personnel to go on a suicide mission by threatening to imprison or kill their relatives would undoubtedly work with some individuals, but this method also runs the risk of backfiring spectacularly.  Anybody coerced by such a method is going to be extremely resentful (to put it mildly) and some individuals placed into this position might respond by simply pretending to agree to take the atomic weapon into enemy territory on a suicide mission; upon arrival, they might well be brave enough or resentful enough to turn the weapon over to the other side and to urge them to use it to destroy the capital city and the leaders of the dictatorship which has threatened them and their families.  Some might be idealistic enough to sacrifice their family members to accomplish this; some might not believe their government’s promises that their relatives will not be harmed if they cooperate (governments who rule at gunpoint don’t score very highly on the credibility and trust scales); and some might conclude that the best chance their families have of surviving is to eliminate the dictatorship before the dictatorship can eliminate them. Personally, an atomic weapon is something I’d only place in the hands of people in whom I have absolute trust, not in the hands of people I’ve threatened and antagonized.

@CWO:

@Aretaku:

It is not unrealistic to me that the threat of incarcerating or executing a sailors family might be used against sailors of “questionable” status to ensure their cooperation. Or perhaps freeing an already incarcerated family member if the sailor agrees to the mission.

Forcing military personnel to go on a suicide mission by threatening to imprison or kill their relatives would undoubtedly work with some individuals, but this method also runs the risk of backfiring spectacularly.Â

It worked in some ways for the Germans. But as you said CWO Marc, it might be a diffrent story if you trust forced men to a suicide run with a weapon like the a-bomb for a suicide mission.
But I just wanted to mention that there had been ways by the German used to send you for a suicide run, they just called it by a other name.  :wink:

A Luftwaffe suicide squadron (the Leonidas Squadron) was set up in the last year of the war, with the backing of such people as Otto Skorzeny and Hanna Reitsch, but it’s interesting to note that its own commander (Werner Baumbach) regarded the unit as wasteful and unnecessary, that Baumbach’s boss (Hermann Göring) was uninterested in the concept, and that Göring’s boss (Adolf Hitler) dismissed as “un-Germanic” the idea of suicide attacks despite his well-known proclivity for ordering entire armies to stand their ground and face annihiliation rather than allowing them to retreat.  Other than flying a handful of suicide missions in the last days of the war, the squadron wasn’t used.  One odd fact connected to this outfit is that it was supposed to be equiped with a piloted version of the V-1 flying bomb, the Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg, which would make an intriguing addition to HBG’s line-up of German miracle weapon plastic sculpts.

@Aretaku:

Russia: Petlyakov Pe-8
Germany: Heinkel He 177
Britain: Avro Manchester
France: Farman F.220
Japan: Mitsubishi Ki-20
USA: Boeing B-17
Italy: NONE

These are your only airborne options for weapon delivery at the onset of war in 1939.

Great post! :)

In the closing days of the war, Germany was in the process of designing a different payload delivery option: the Aggregate Series rockets. The rocket commonly known as the V2 was part of the Aggregate Series. (In addition to being known as the V2, it was also known as the A4.)

Toward the end of the war, the Germans were in the process of designing the A12. This rocket would have been capable of putting 10 tons of cargo into low Earth orbit. This might well have proved an excellent delivery weapon for nuclear payloads: the world’s first ICBM.

I would hold the world ransom demanding $1 million and hold my pinkie finger to my mouth.

It is not my normal policy to gravedig, but I wanted to address this point.

@CWO:

Forcing military personnel to go on a suicide mission by threatening to imprison or kill their relatives would undoubtedly work with some individuals, but this method also runs the risk of backfiring spectacularly.  Anybody coerced by such a method is going to be extremely resentful (to put it mildly) and some individuals placed into this position might respond by simply pretending to agree to take the atomic weapon into enemy territory on a suicide mission; upon arrival, they might well be brave enough or resentful enough to turn the weapon over to the other side and to urge them to use it to destroy the capital city and the leaders of the dictatorship which has threatened them and their families.  Some might be idealistic enough to sacrifice their family members to accomplish this; some might not believe their government’s promises that their relatives will not be harmed if they cooperate (governments who rule at gunpoint don’t score very highly on the credibility and trust scales); and some might conclude that the best chance their families have of surviving is to eliminate the dictatorship before the dictatorship can eliminate them. Personally, an atomic weapon is something I’d only place in the hands of people in whom I have absolute trust, not in the hands of people I’ve threatened and antagonized.

All of this is certainly true. However, there is a way around the problem.

Naval mine technology of the era could easily be adapted to utilize a nuclear weapon, with a timed detonator, and towed to the target by a fully manned (and fully loyal) submarine crew.

It would take some specialized training for deployment in shallow water. It would also require some technological modifications, as the mine would need to surface just prior to detonation. These challenges are easily manageable by any navy of the war.

So forget all about those suicide missions.

I got 6 A-Bombs ? I would nuke Sweden