Biggest Bomb Ever Designed

Discussion in 'Architecture & Engineering' started by OilIsMastery, Oct 19, 2008.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. rpenner Fully Wired Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,833
    Um, roll to disbelieve?
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. DwayneD.L.Rabon Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    999
    Well Rpenner
    you can look it up and read about it.

    Appearantly the Nazis where really big on gathering up uranium ore.

    DwayneD.L.Rabon
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. rpenner Fully Wired Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,833
    No, I cannot.

    You did not indicate where I could look it up. You did not indicate the date and location of the action. You did not indicate the delivery mechanism of a bomb that weighted more than 2000 tons (SI tons or Imperial short tons?).

    To research your deficient claim, I would have to become an expert on every person involved in WWII, which is simply beyond my capabilities, being a mere human. (wink!)
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Oli Heute der Enteteich... Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    11,888
    No, the Nazis didn't manufacture any nuclear bombs.

    Duh, yeah. And how were they going to deliver it?
    2,000 tons?
    Hardly. The Nazis didn't have anywhere near that amount of uranium at all.

    Pure crap.

    Defects in targeting?
    Do you speak English at all?
     
  8. rpenner Fully Wired Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,833
    For comparison, the Apollo rockets and the largest fixed-wing aircraft max out at about 250 tons of payload. A V-2 had a payload of less than 1 ton. The British "Grand Slam" bomb weighted only 11 tons. (All from Wikipedia articles of good standing.)
     
  9. kevinalm Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    993
    The Nazi's never even got a reactor working, let alone a bomb. And my understanding is that the consensis of the American scientists reviewing the Nasi reactor design is that it was so bad that if they had gotten it to go critical, the entire research team would probably have been fried by the almost complete lack of sheilding.
     
  10. MetaKron Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,502
    Totalitarian governments are generally ruled by those who do not tolerate scientific accuracy. Japan seems to sort of be an exception.
     
  11. kevinalm Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    993
    The major problem was that some time around '42 the German government had pulled almost all support for nuclear research, relegating it to a very low priority project. There were maybe a dozen or so workers involved seriously, and most of them part time.
     
  12. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,391
    That's great, but there are ships with payload capacities that easily exceed 2000 tons. The Soviet doomsday device that was supposedly contemplated as part of the "dead hand" system would have been transported that way.

    More generally, a weapon of that magnitude does not actually require a delivery system, since it destroys all possible targets on the planet regardless of where it is located upon detonation. For that reason, devices above a certain yield are sometimes referred to as "backyard bombs."
     
  13. fedr808 1100101 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,706
    A fusion bomb is the biggest badest bomb in all of human history. It has the power of several hundred fission bombs it's own size. And they are massive.
    Yet only 6 countries have created them and know how to, USA (first), Russia (second), Britain, France, Israel (though they dare not admit it), and some other country.
     
  14. fedr808 1100101 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,706
    Dude thats hilarious, "defects in targeting" It's a freaking nuclear bomb you cant miss. The US missed nagasaki by several miles and still roasted 90,000 people. You really cant miss. Also i think he meant 2,000 tons of raw uranium ore. And very little weapons grade uranium come out of ore. like a tiny amount.
     
  15. Oli Heute der Enteteich... Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    11,888
    That would be why the US and USSR spent so much time and effort reducing the CEP of their ICBMs then, neh?
    Accuracy counts...

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  16. kevinalm Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    993
    The Nagasaki bomb was off its intended target point by about 2 mi. The total destruction radius was only about 1 mi. Basically, they missed. Also, because of where it did detonate the geography (hills, etc.) sheilded a lot of the city. The high death toll was in part due to residential areas hit hard because the bomb _was_ off target.

    As to a German bomb, like I said before, they simply were no where near the point of knowing how to build one, let alone building one. Their interest in uranium ore was to try to build a reactor for preliminary research, and they hadn't even gotten to the point of starting a chain reaction in that. And the reactor design sucked, to put it buntly.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  17. DwayneD.L.Rabon Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    999


    Do You Oli Bath in your Crap,

    Why so Feeble minded Oli, you have weak brains or a lack of education on the issues. Do you speak dog language?
     
  18. Echo3Romeo One man wolfpack Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,196
    I remember seeing something on the History channel a while back about a Nazi plan to fly a bomber across the Atlantic and airburst a "dirty bomb" of natural uranium over New York City. In order to disseminate the contaminant by high explosive, the bomb itself was quite large and heavy, both due to the amount of uranium used as well as the mass of the HE deflagration charge. Of course it wasn't what we could call a "nuclear" weapon, but it raises the possibility of some confusion.

    Has anybody else heard of this? I can't find a source for it so I could be totally off base.
     
  19. kevinalm Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    993
    Nothing I've ever heard of. My gut feeling is that it's wrong, or maybe it was just speculation as to what sort of 'radiological' weapon WW2 german technology was capable of. From what I have seen on the state of Nazi nuclear research, it doesn't seem like something they would dream up or think worthwhile. Natural uranium is relatively tame, radiation wise.
     
  20. Nasor Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,231
    Seems unlikely. "Dirty bombs" aren't really nearly as dangerous as TV would have you believe. You could probably kill some people with it and you would probably raise the odds of everyone in the area eventually developing cancer by 5% or so, but you aren't really going to do much damage with anything like that.

    Also, uranium would be a bad choice for such a weapon because U238 isn't a radiation hazard. You would need to enrich it so that it had a large concentration of U235, and if you're able to do that, well, you might as well use the U235 to make a fission weapon. As I recall the Nazis weren't even trying to enrich uranium, they were trying to make plutonium in a breeder reactor (and failing miserably). But someone correct me if I'm wrong there...
     
  21. kevinalm Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    993
    They really hadn't gotten to the point of trying to breed plutonium. They hadn't even started a chain reaction in a pile yet. If you've seen pictures of their attempt you know that was probably a good thing for the researchers. Something like baling wire and chewing gum by way of a tinkertoy set.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    It had blocks of unenriched uranium tied on dangling wires like widely spaced beads on a string. Something like 15 or 20 of these strings hung from a frame which was to be lowered into a pool of heavy water. Control was to be by raising and lowering the assembly into and out of the pool. And not much sheilding. Scary.

    The main difficulty was not having an adequite supply of heavy water.
     
  22. MetaKron Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,502
    I doubt if their scientists wanted to seriously work on making an atom bomb.
     
  23. Echo3Romeo One man wolfpack Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,196
    I know it would be a shitty weapon from even a conceptual standpoint, but the Germans liked to pump one of those out every now and then.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page