Would the atomic bomb had been used against Germany (and what would the consequences have been) ?

From what I've read if he were in the bunker he would probably have been safe at least from the direct effects of the bomb. This would especially be the case as they would have used an air burst. How long he would have been out of contact though is an interesting question and if he was not in the bunker the odds change a bit.

 

Good discussion, keep it going guys!!!

 

I think if I was looking for spot to pour out a little bucket of sun shine the Reich Chancellory would have been at the top of my list. I don't think Albert Speer took air bust detonation of atomic weapons into account when he designed the Fuher Bunker.

 

Yes, the salient point I feel. Killing off Hitler at the same time as demonstrating the awesome power of the Atom bomb would surely have forced Germany to surrender. The only problem with bombing Hitler`s bunker is it was in the middle of Berlin and therefore huge numbers of people would have been killed.

 

Just hope you don´t miss and drop it on the Red Army....

 

He didn't. But he didn't need to. There was 4 meters of over-engineered rebar above the bunker, which was well below ground level at 8.5 meters under the garden. The bunker was two levels, with Hitler in the lower levels. It could've sustained a hit from anything during WW2, except the Tallboy. An air bursting atomic weapon wouldn't cause enough damage. The atomics were not measured in Megatons like todays thermonuclear weapons, but merely in kilotons.
Re: Tallboys
"The bomb was designed to impact close to the target, slide into the soil or rock beneath or around the target, and then detonate, transferring all of its energy into the structure, or creating a camouflet (cavern or crater) into which the target would fall.
This 'earthquake' effect caused more damage than even a direct hit that penetrated the armour of a target, since even a burst inside a bunker would only damage the immediate surroundings, with the blast dissipating rapidly through the air. An earthquake impact shook the whole target, and caused major structural damage to all parts of it, making repair uneconomic."



Above ground concrete structures still standing in Hiroshima

 

Of course if he came out soon after the blast the potential for a leathal dose of radiation was certainly there. Not much was understood by anyone at that point in time about the dangers of radiation.

 

I have seen these pictures before, but every time a wide landscape photo of the devastation the atom bomb produced is released, the result is still unbelievable.

 

So if we assume Hitler wasn`t killed by the Atom bomb, what do we think he, or his henchmen, would have done (surrender-wise) ?
If there was no surrender what would the German army have done as city after city was flattened, literally ? What would the SS have done ? How many Atom bombs would have to have been dropped before sanity prevailed and Hitler deposed so that Germany could surrender?

 

I was thinking more along the lines of the enormous fireball sucking up all of the oxygen.

 

I don't think nukes work that way. Now if it created a fire storm perhaps. Not sure if the conditions were right for one in Berlin though. It's certainly a possiblity though. Even more likely if they went for a "surface" detonation where the fireball just touched the ground.

 

It was pretty much it's own fire storm consuming all of the oxygen. If you watch color footage of the bombing you will see a bright flash and a large orange ball; those are both indicative of heat and fire.

 

Say for instance Hitler and his staff would have survived the initial blast, seems to me that they would have been buried in a lot of rubble or sealed in or even crushed by collapsing support and overhead structures of the Furherbunker. Of course as mentioned earlier by lwd, they would have been fairly well microwaved to say the least. That would've at least caused Hitler's tooth brush mustache to fall off.

Of course the bombs would have been delivered well before the Red Army closed in on Berlin as to not p1$$ in their cornflakes so to speak. Not only would that have been counter-productive in the "one for all and all for one" alliance, but extremely rude of us as well.

To make sure that we got him, we could have just dropped both bombs in quick succession, like on the same day a few hours later. Talk about a double tap!

If the ensuing firestorm erupted like formerjughead proposes, then that occurrence along with the atomic double tap would surely get the job done. I think. Who knows. Couldn't hurt. We could always make more and drop them as well. Then maybe the Japanese would take note and either fall on their samurai swords or give up sooner.

Great discussion gents.

 

No, they wouldn't have been microwaved, nor had the oxygen burnt from the rooms, nor would the structure collapse...


The energy released from a nuclear weapon detonated in the troposphere can be divided into four basic categories:[1]

• Blast—40–50% of total energy
• Thermal radiation—30–50% of total energy
• Ionizing radiation—5% of total energy (more in a neutron bomb)
• Residual radiation—5–10% of total energy

The exact proportion depending on the design of the bomb, and the media surrounding it (water/air).
For air bursts at or near sea-level, 50–60% of the explosion's energy goes into the blast wave, depending on the size and the yield of the bomb. As a general rule, the blast fraction is higher for low yield weapons (such as the atomic weapons used on Japan).

Much of the destruction caused by a nuclear explosion is due to blast effects. Most buildings, except reinforced or blast-resistant structures, will suffer moderate damage when subjected to overpressures of only 35.5 kilopascals (kPa) (5.15 pounds-force per square inch or 0.35 atm).

Most of the material damage caused by a nuclear air burst is caused by a combination of the high static overpressures and the blast winds. The long compression of the blast wave weakens structures, which are then torn apart by the blast winds. The compression, vacuum and drag phases together may last several seconds or longer, and exert forces many times greater than the strongest hurricane.

Survivability is highly dependent on factors such as if one is indoors or out, the size of the explosion, the proximity to the explosion, and to a lesser degree the direction of the wind carrying fallout. Death is highly likely and radiation poisoning is almost certain if one is caught in the open with no terrain or building masking effects within a radius of 0–3 km from a 1 megaton airburst, and the 50% chance of death from the blast extends out to ~8 km from the same 1 megaton atmospheric explosion.


Further Evidence: the events in Japan themselves:

Little boy exploded at 600m (a little under 2000ft.) altitude over Hiroshima. It created a blast equivalent to 16 kilotons of TNT (67 TJ).The weapon was considered very inefficient, with only 1.7% of its material fissioning. The radius of total destruction was about 1 mile (1.6 km), with resulting fires across 4.4 square miles.

Some 70,000–80,000 people, of whom 20,000 were soldiers, or around 30% of the population of Hiroshima, were killed by the blast and resultant firestorm.

Some of the reinforced concrete buildings in Hiroshima had been very strongly constructed because of the earthquake danger in Japan, and their framework did not collapse even though they were fairly close to the blast centre. Since the bomb detonated in the air, the blast was directed more downward than sideways, which was largely responsible for the survival of the Prefectural Industrial Promotional Hall, now commonly known as the Genbaku, (A-bomb) dome. This building was designed and built by the Czech architect Jan Letzel, and was only 150 m (490 ft) from ground zero.

Eizō Nomura was the closest known survivor, who was in the basement of a reinforced concrete building (it remained as the Rest House after the war) only 170 metres (560 ft) from ground zero (the hypocenter) at the time of the attack. He lived into his 80s. Akiko Takakura was among the closest survivors to the hypocenter of the blast. She had been in the solidly-built Bank of Hiroshima only 300 meters (980 ft) from ground-zero at the time of the attack.

Fat Man exploded at 469 m (1,539 ft) above the ground halfway between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works in the south and the Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works (Torpedo Works) in the north. This was nearly 3 km (1.9 mi) northwest of the planned hypocenter; the blast was confined to the Urakami Valley and a major portion of the city was protected by the intervening hills. The resulting explosion had a blast yield equivalent to 21 kt (88 TJ). The explosion generated heat estimated at 3,900 °C (7,050 °F) and winds that were estimated at 1,005 km/h (624 mph).

The radius of total destruction was about 1 mi (1.6 km), followed by fires across the northern portion of the city to 2 mi (3.2 km) south of the bomb.

Shielding from gamma rays requires large amounts of mass, in contrast to alpha particles which can be blocked by paper or skin, and beta particles which can be shielded by foil. Gamma rays are better absorbed by materials with high atomic numbers and high density, although neither effect is important compared to the total mass per area in the path of the gamma ray. For this reason, a lead shield is only modestly better (20–30% better) as a gamma shield, than an equal mass of another shielding material such as aluminium, concrete, water or soil; lead's major advantage is not in lower weight, but rather its compactness due to its higher density. Protective clothing, goggles and respirators can protect from internal contact with or ingestion of alpha or beta emitting particles, but provide no protection from gamma radiation from external sources.

How the amount of shielding reduces the intensity of radiation exponentially depends on the thickness.
This means when added thicknesses are used, the shielding multiplies. For example, a practical shield in a fallout shelter is ten halving-thicknesses of packed dirt, which is 90 cm (3 ft) of dirt. This reduces gamma rays to 1/1024 of their original intensity (1/2 multiplied by itself ten times).


The Fuhrer Bunker had 4 meters of packed dirt, half a meter of top soil, and 4m of over-engineered concrete rebar... (iow, the gamma radiation penetrating the bunker would be far less than 1/1,000,000,000,000,000,000 that experienced outside. The Gamma radiation penetrating the bunker would be so minimal, you get more gamma radiation hitting you on a normal day outside from the rest of the universe.

At Hiroshima, the bomb missed the aiming point by 800 feet; at Nagasaki, the Fat Man bomb missed its planned aiming point by nearly 2 miles. The Allies were, to my knowledge, unaware of the location.

The Fuhrer bunker was filtered air (in case of chemical attack), with multiple blast doors, it was underground. No Air bursting atomic weapon in the possession of the US armed forces in 1945 was going to do the job, unless he blundered outside, and wallowed in fallout.

A near-miss ground explosion would've made a big enough crater, and generated enough force. But how near, is anyone's guess. B-29's at altitude were still not really accurate enough to reliably achieve the desired result in this case.

 

You could use facts and statistics to prove anything that's even remotely true Mr. Funnyman....

Ok, so now I'm going with the ground detonation theory now. Big boom, big hole, problem solved. Prove that one away!

 

(I did: you have to have a near miss of the calibre a B-29 at high altitude can't guarantee... And the Allies weren't sure where it was...)

 

Carpet bombing.

 

LOL! That'll do the trick. Don't forget to look out for the Yamamoto under sail.... ;o)

 

Great! Now what?