WW2 Germany A-bomb targets

[Corinthian]

Say the A-bomb gets used on Nazi Germany first, what were the potential targets? Berlin on top of the list? Nuremberg?

[konev]

I would target a city where the effects (flash, shock wave) could be seen in Berlin.

 

1) Magdeburg

2) Potsdam

3) Frankufurt/Oder (if not already captured by USSR)

4) Dresden (if no February raids)

 

Next up would be where cities have already been bombed were it was a large population was still left with some war industries.

1) Kiel

2) Hanover

3) Frankfurt/Main

4) any Ruhr city

 

Now, depending on where the Soviet forces were, if East Prussia was still in German hands, a very good target would be Koenigsberg.

 

konev

[Marek Tucan]

Now, depending on where the Soviet forces were, if East Prussia was still in German hands, a very good target would be Koenigsberg.

 

Why? I would think it won't be importat enough, be it military or political sense...

[R011]

Say the A-bomb gets used on Nazi Germany first, what were the potential targets? Berlin on top of the list? Nuremberg?

That depends on whether they would try for a shock and awe demo, like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or wait until they could destroy Germany in a single massive attack. Berlin would be good as it provides a chance for killing Hitler, if he's there.

 

The disadvantage to the shock and awe approach is that it might not work. Hitler was no Hirohito. There was no Peace Party within the Nazi government. A one by one approach would give the Germans time to develop countermeasures, or coping strategies anyway, and to counter attack England with chemical weapons.

[Marek Tucan]

A one by one approach would give the Germans time to develop countermeasures, or coping strategies anyway, and to counter attack England with chemical weapons.

 

What countermeasures would Germans be able to realistically take?

As for attack over England, it'd be rather a symbolic action I believe - they won't be able to get there enough planes/rockets to make a concentrated chemical attack IMO and they would suffer much worse when the Allies launch their chemical agents in concentrated bomber raids...

[R011]

What countermeasures would Germans be able to realistically take?

As for attack over England, it'd be rather a symbolic action I believe - they won't be able to get there enough planes/rockets to make a concentrated chemical attack IMO and they would suffer much worse when the Allies launch their chemical agents in concentrated bomber raids...

Many of the same things they used to defend against conventional attack - dispersion, shelters, and so forth. They'd have a better idea of what the bombs could do next time they were used and build deeper shelters. They could also recover somewhat between attacks. One could be sure as well that any B-29's flying a particular profile would be vigourously attacked. The Allies would end up bombing most of Germany anyway with greater losses and a chance of losing intact bombs to the Germans. A single massive attack means the Germans could not recover.

 

How symbolic an attack on England might be would depend on Germany's state at the time of the attack. It would have to be considerably better than in real life or there would be little point in using a bomb. As I understand it, by late 1944, they had decided that using nuclear weapons was not necessary.

[swerve]

Say the A-bomb gets used on Nazi Germany first, what were the potential targets? Berlin on top of the list? Nuremberg?

 

Braunau-am-Inn.

[DougRichards]

Best targets in Germany for an A-Bomb attack?

 

Simple: the cities / ports / centres that the Soviet Army are about to move into.

 

Will both shock and awe the Germans, shock and awe the Soviets, and convince the Germans that they really should surrender to the western allies, because if the Soveits don't get them, the A-Bomb will.

[Redbeard]

By summer 1945 USA had three nukes available, one was used in the test and two on Japanese targets. AFAIK only one or two more would be ready before the end of 1945, and perhaps a handful or two in 1946.

 

If the scenrio is that the Germans can't be pressed back on the landfront to win the war that way I doubt if a few nukes will have them surrender. Their strategic production already was dispersed and/or protected enough to not be taken out by heavy bombing inkl. nukes, but eventually succumbed to the allied armies taking the areas providing them with rawmaterials. In this scenario however we must assume the Germans still have access to those (why else use the nukes) and i don't see why a nuking few already burned out cities will have the Germans give up. If so they should have when one of the last largely intact cities, Dresden, was flattened conventionally in early 1945.

 

IMO the Japanese gave up in 1945 because they already were rock bottom importwise and had to face mass starvation. That only makes the nuking of Japan even more wise, as it saved not only military personel on both sides, but also many million civilian Japanese. But Germany never was anywhere near that situation in WWII and Hitler would be cynical enough to just consider another deleted city less mouths to feed.

 

If Germany is to be nuked into submission it would be by tactical nukes taking out her field battalions one by one and strategic nukes taking out her (underground) production plants one by one, but I think we are in the late 40s or early 50s before enough nukes would be avaliable for that and might mean nuclear winter et al. So - no way out of plainly winning the war on land.

 

Regards

 

Steffen Redbeard

[swerve]

...

If the scenrio is that the Germans can't be pressed back on the landfront to win the war that way I doubt if a few nukes will have them surrender. Their strategic production already was dispersed and/or protected enough to not be taken out by heavy bombing inkl. nukes, but eventually succumbed to the allied armies taking the areas providing them with rawmaterials. ...

Regards

 

Steffen Redbeard

 

And the breakdown of the transport system under the bombing, so that what was produced often couldn't be used, both materials & finished products. Lots of tanks, aircraft, guns, shells, fuses etc. captured unused at the end of the war, sitting where made, missing a vital component or unable to be delivered.

[JWB]

Here is an estimate of the nuclear arsenal. > http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nudb/datab19.asp But it must be remembered that when the war ended the production program was shuttered. Had the 3 weapons not been enough production would have continued. According to Hans Bethe it was possible to produce 2 Pu weapons and 2 U weapons per months by early Nov 1945.

[Nick Sumner]

Here is an estimate of the nuclear arsenal. > http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nudb/datab19.asp But it must be remembered that when the war ended the production program was shuttered. Had the 3 weapons not been enough production would have continued. According to Hans Bethe it was possible to produce 2 Pu weapons and 2 U weapons per months by early Nov 1945.

 

I don't mean to be picky but is that data reliable? It is just that a suspicious sort such as I might feel that the 'Natural Resources Defence Council' could have an agenda that might place a question mark over the data.

 

Just asking.

[Olof Larsson]

Say the A-bomb gets used on Nazi Germany first, what were the potential targets? Berlin on top of the list? Nuremberg?

 

Trying to change Hitlers mind seems unlikely.

But one might change the mind of the officers corp and the soldiers,

i.e. to try to get das Heer to give up en masse and/or to overthrow the regime.

 

I see two ways of doing this.

 

1 - Kill Hitler. With him dead, Himmler, Bormann and Göring would fight for power

(or try to cut a personal deal with the western allies)

and the offficers corp would not be bound by oath to any of them.

 

2 - Demonstrate the destructive power of the nuclear bomb and threaten to use is against german cities.

 

Say by first dropping leaflets over the entire front-line, declaring that tomorrow at H-hours

we will use a new "wunderwaffen" close behind the german front at coordinates X,Y.

Unless the soldiers of the wehrmacht have started to lay down their arms at this point,

or we have clear signs that the wehrmachts have initiated operation, aiming to overthrow the nazi leadership

we see no option than to start using this new weapon, against german cities.

[Marek Tucan]

2 - Demonstrate the destructive power of the nuclear bomb and threaten to use is against german cities.

 

Say by first dropping leaflets over the entire front-line, declaring that tomorrow at H-hours

we will use a new "wunderwaffen" close behind the german front at coordinates X,Y.

Unless the soldiers of the wehrmacht have started to lay down their arms at this point,

or we have clear signs that the wehrmachts have initiated operation, aiming to overthrow the nazi leadership

we see no option than to start using this new weapon, against german cities.

 

At best local effect IMHO - German troops were fairly disciplined and won't surrender/revolt just due to same radio messages from the sector of frontline where the demonstration mushroom rose. My bet would be first nuke to some well-known German city, most likely Berlin, and just then the leaflets. "See. What we managed in Hamburg with thousand of aircraft, we can now manage with a single plane."

[Olof Larsson]

At best local effect IMHO - German troops were fairly disciplined and won't surrender/revolt just due to same radio messages from the sector of frontline where the demonstration mushroom rose. My bet would be first nuke to some well-known German city, most likely Berlin, and just then the leaflets. "See. What we managed in Hamburg with thousand of aircraft, we can now manage with a single plane."

 

The idea would not be to get the individual german soldier to lay down his arms, but rather to weaken his resolve.

Trinity for-instance, was felt 100 miles away, it was seen 150 miles away,

and it could be heard from 200 miles away.

 

If those distances were 50 miles less in Europe, (50, 100 and 150 miles respectively) a bomb could still be heard

from the Northsea to Stuttgart, seen from Brussels to Frankfurt and felt from Cologne to the Saarland.

Thats a very considerable part of the frontline, where the german soldiers know that the enemy

has weapon of unpresedented destructiveness and that that weapon might be used against their own hometown.

 

 

The primary goal however, would be to convince the german generals and fieldmarshals,

that this is a war that can only be lost, and that it's up to them to decide, how many german civilians that must die first.

 

Furthermore to convince them that the only way to avoid the anialation of entire german cities

by a single bomb, from a single aircraft, is to order your troops to lay down their arms and/or to head for Berlin.

 

Furthermore to convince them, that this is no time to be careful and discrete

(to avoid the attention of the Gestapo),

but that they are running out of time and they have to act with grate haste.

 

 

If I wanted to cause german soldiers to surrender, then I would rather do a Cobra/Market Garden deal.

I.e. to concentrate my efforts (nuclear, conventional bombers, air-borne troops and armour)

along a narrow section of the front, hoping to cause a section of the front to cave in,

and a large part of the entire west-front to fall in dissaray,

muck like the very local efforts of Cobra, started an offensive that led to the liberation of most of France.

 

 

The two tactics might be combined I guess.

First the leaflets, then the show of force,

and if that doesn't work, use your B-29's, Lancasters, B-17's and B-24's

for combined nuclear/conventional No-BALL raids in your avenue of attack,

followed by artillery, paratroopers and armour that advances through the breach.

[JWB]

I don't mean to be picky but is that data reliable? It is just that a suspicious sort such as I might feel that the 'Natural Resources Defence Council' could have an agenda that might place a question mark over the data.

 

Just asking.

It is about as accurate as can be had considering the dynamic nature of nuclear production and testing. It is not as if on Jan 1 1946 there were 6 bombs and it stayed that way until Jan 1 1947 when suddenly there were 25. Number lists also don't take into account how much slack there was in the production lines. I doubt NRDC would have much of an agenda to manipulate stats for such a long time ago. Arsenal of Democracy has USA owning 9 weapons in 1946.

[Redbeard]

And the breakdown of the transport system under the bombing, so that what was produced often couldn't be used, both materials & finished products. Lots of tanks, aircraft, guns, shells, fuses etc. captured unused at the end of the war, sitting where made, missing a vital component or unable to be delivered.

By December 1944 the German railways unseen got 24 Divisions in place for the Bulge - not that much of a breakdown. AFAIK the Germans until very late in the war (1945) could move Divisions from one front to another much faster than the allies, and that the efficiency of the German railways was a main reason for that. Of course the advantage of the interior lines played a part too, but nevertheless the result was very effective logistics. As far as I can see it was only when the allies from bases on the continent could have large numbers of fighterbombers in the air over Germany that the railways seriously started to drop in efficiency (spring 45). I guess the simple fact of the light hours increasing each day from 22nd of December also had a role.

 

I think the general lesson of going for railway hubs, bridges with heavy or medium bombers etc. was that they were operational again surprisingly fast and trains could be redirected until then. Only when large numbers of figtherbombers started chewing up rollig stock faster than it could be produced did railway efficiency seriously drop.

 

Regards

 

Steffen Redbeard