VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, [5], 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 09:01:36 03/02/10 Tue
Author: Bill
Author Host/IP: 70.21.202.20
Subject: Re: The Story is....
In reply to: Fred 's message, "The Story is...." on 18:35:26 02/21/10 Sun

I believe it may have been the history channel that had an hour episode dedicated to the atomic program in the US with a comparison to those in Germany and Japan. The Germans were thought to have been a lot farther along in atomic research than where they actually were when the allies finally got to look at the research and the facillities and go through the documentation.
Not sure if that also covered the attempt to send nuclear material to Japan or if it was covered in one of the series on weapons and technology under development during the war.
The logistics of the war and weapons development in the axis countries caused many things to be put on hold or underdeveloped thanks to other priorities or the decisions of the high command. Hitler was often meddling in things or taking away needed resources in favor of things he personally wanted to push. In Japan they may have been progressing well but the resources were often not available for completion and while the Japanese had a fine manufacturing base it was making airplanes primarilly by the end of the war even though they did not have trained pilots for them owing to the way they trained their personell from before the war which was less able to fill the need than the way the allies were doing it especially the US who did not need to worry much about interference from outside at the time.
On the atomics I believe that the Germans were proceeding in a direction that the US and allied scientists had decided was not the optimum route so they were behind in the development process and not capable of building any bombs at the time and probably would have been years behind had they not surrendered under pressure.
On that front it has often been pointed out that Hitler and his crowd decided to begin the war too soon for the Germans to win it. had they waited longer and built up their military resources they might have been the victors and the world would be a much different place than what came to be.
Don't underestimate the axis powers though they might have been a lot more successful than they were had they not acted when they did.
Much of German and even Japanese technology was ahead of the curve at the beginning of the war but there was not nearly as much development after the war began in those countries as was possible for the allies especially once the US was involved and there was a relatively untouchable location for getting ahead of the curve or if not for mass production that put strength of numbers against better technology in something of an unbeatable mix.
When the manufacturing abillities of the Soviet Union were upgraded for maximum production the war was really over and only a matter of time. Higher quality weaponry only really came into the mix once the germans were out and the atomic bomb drops finally convinced the japanese they could not win, a tragic ending but one that probably halted a massive death toll that would have been inevitable had there been an invasion of the main islands.
I doubt the German fissionables were either of the quality necessary or were taken in time to contribute to the war project. They were most likely refined after the war and used in whatever was on the development program weather weapons or power development is irrelevant.

b

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

Forum timezone: GMT-5
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.