Here it is next to one:
![Image](http://i55.tinypic.com/29vdmxt.jpg)
Excellent insight! As the concepts of the atomic bomb -- identified with New Mexico at the time -- and the Nazi "wonder weapons" seeped into the popular imagination in the late '40s, such a thing might very well have been an element of the "flying saucer craze" of the time ...pickelhaube wrote: Here is the coolest picture ever of the flying wing. They are uncrating it in Indiana. Right after the war.
Talk about Roswell . It looks just like a flying saucer. Maybe this started all of the hub bub.
And then there's this:aferguson wrote:that plus the fact that the germans were working on actual flying saucers (called flying discs at the time), some of which had mock ups or were partially constructed. No doubt some of that material was brought back to the US as well and experiments were conducted. All the secrecy being prompted by the threat/competition of the soviet union.
The timing of the whole ufo/roswell thing is just too coincidental for it not to be fall out from wwii german wonder weapons.
aferguson wrote:
The timing of the whole ufo/roswell thing is just too coincidental for it not to be fall out from wwii german wonder weapons.
... an image from the eastern Caucasus front in an alternative history in which Barbarossa started a few months earlier, Moscow and Leningrad were taken in the first campaign season, Stalingrad didn't become a quagmire, Overlord failed in the summer of 1945, and the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht are developing tactics in the winter of 1946-47 to deal with the accelerating atomic bombing campaign being carried out by the Eighth Air Force against the Fatherland ...normandy wrote:Pickel, how about this one?
Yes, I imagine the first few bombs would take out the remaining major cities in Germany as well as whatever industry still held out.aferguson wrote:"and the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht are developing tactics in the winter of 1946-47 to deal with the accelerating atomic bombing campaign being carried out by the Eighth Air Force against the Fatherland ..."
um, and what tactics might those be? I don't see that there would be much they could do about an 'atomic bombing campaign'.
... not to derail this thread yet again, but remember that in the real story, the US had exactly two functioning atomic bombs when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. After that, none. Now there was a production process underway, but it was by no means a matter of "mass production" yet.[CAT]CplSlade wrote:Yes, I imagine the first few bombs would take out the remaining major cities in Germany as well as whatever industry still held out.aferguson wrote:"and the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht are developing tactics in the winter of 1946-47 to deal with the accelerating atomic bombing campaign being carried out by the Eighth Air Force against the Fatherland ..."
um, and what tactics might those be? I don't see that there would be much they could do about an 'atomic bombing campaign'.
Although it would be cool telling the Soviets to enjoy the glowing, molten ruins of what was once Berlin.
[Someone holler if you think this is too off-topic, but since it directly impacts the scenarios in which the Horten would have been deployed .... ]aferguson wrote:but by late '46 atomic bomb production would have been quite refined and going full steam ahead and it would have been possible to produce bombs by the dozen at that point. Then you merely send over several hundred b-29's at a time, one of which is carrying an atomic bomb and the others regular bomb loads. The luftwaffe would have no way of knowing which plance carried the Bomb and the odds of them shooting down the right plane would be very slim. Almost every time the plane with the Bomb would get through.
As for reprisals, Hitler had the capability of launching chemical and bological attacks for most of wwii but refrained for fear of reprisals in kind from the allies (a surprising fact given his otherwise 'take no prisoners, sacrifice the german people for the good of the reich' attitude) That fear would have continued to deter him, even in the event of an atomic bombing campaign.
The biggest determent to an atomic bombing campaign would have been the allies themselves. Both from being sickened by the carnage the were bringing and from the threat of nuclear fallout to surrounding countries around germany. However, faced with the prospects of losing more allied lives it most likely would continue, unless public pressure in the US forced Truman to stop it.
It may have resulted in some kind of armistice, rather than the unconditional surrender of Germany, however, given that Overlord failed and the allies had no armies in europe.
From: http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/sci ... lBombs.htmProduction estimates given to Sec. Stimson in July 1945 projected a second plutonium bomb would be ready by Aug. 24, that 3 bombs should be available in September, and more each month - reaching 7 or more in December. Improvements in bomb design being prepared at the end of the war would have permitted one bomb to be produced for every 5 kg of plutonium or 12 kg of uranium in output. These improvements were apparently taken into account in this estimate. Assuming these bomb improvements were used, the October capacity would have permitted up to 6 bombs a month. Note that with the peak monthly plutonium and HEU production figures (19.4 kg and 69 kg respectively), production of close to 10 bombs a month was possible.