Modern Politics - Kvetching For Nuclear War

submitted by [deleted] from (self.debatealtright)

sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]TheJamesRocket 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

They seem to forget that Hitler sank a lot of money into the nuclear program and Heisenberg headed it.

The Germans actually spent very little money on nuclear research. In 1943, their budget for the Uranverein was a mere 2 million reichsmarks. But by 1943, the Americans had already spent 500 million dollars on the Manhattan project. This was a huge difference.

They might've gotten somewhere had the Norweigan commandos not sunk their heavy water shipment and if the Luftwaffe managed to hold back the allied air campaign over Europe.

They could have built a self-sustaining reactor, but that in itself wouldn't have meant much. In order to transmutate uranium into plutonium, you need to build gigantic nuclear reactors. This would have been way beyond the abilitys of the Germans, unless they had been willing to devote a much larger budget to the Uranverein.

Hitler's own scatter-brain contributed to the failure as instead of devoting Germany's limited resources to a few important projects, he went for a variety of failed wunderwaffe: Stealth Bombers, Maus tanks, railguns and so on.

Thats true, but most of these projects weren't approved until late in the war, after Germany had lost any real hope of winning.

[–]casparvoneverecBig tiddy respecter 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The first bomb over Hiroshima was a uranium bomb. It didn't need Plutonium- 239.

And Hitler's constant interference delayed the introduction of the Me 262 and the Stg 44. The Me 262 might've altered the outcome of the war if it was introduced in 1943. He also wasted Germany's resources on building AA guns and shells that were extremely unlikely to bring down allied bombers. 40% of the German military budget in 1943-44 was wasted on AA guns and shells. For the same price and aluminum, they could've made 35,000 extra fighters and that could've actually changed the outcome of the war by defeating the allied air campaign.

In any case, the blame for Germany's defeat falls mostly on two individuals: Hitler and Goering. Hitler ruined the German war effort by neglecting total mobilization till it was too late and with idiotic military decisions, and Goering stifled the development of new Luftwaffe platforms, stopped the development of a naval aviation arm and prevented it from developing any strategic bombing capabiliy.