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Wargaming is not history. It uses historical facts but it doesn't discover any new facts nor does it get into why A did B but rather just uses the point that A can do B, C or D and plays with the results. Discovering Finding new historical facts and trying to understand why A did B in the light of what we know and what new facts are added to our knowledge is the real stuff of history.
Wargaming is not history. It uses historical facts but it doesn't discover any new facts nor does it get into why A did B but rather just uses the point that A can do B, C or D and plays with the results. Discovering Finding new historical facts and trying to understand why A did B in the light of what we know and what new facts are added to our knowledge is the real stuff of history.
War gaming is what-iffing.
BTW, I have a Masters in History from Purdue, '04.
*The. U.S. would still get nuclear weapons in 1945, Germany wouldn't, and given the Europe First policy that would still manifest itself, the first nuclear weapons used in combat would be used against Germany.
In short, given the natures of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, it is highly implausible that Germany would not attack the USSR, but that if that extremely far-fetched scenario happened it would not lead to a Germany victory of any sort. Germany would either get overrun by a fully-prepared USSR that attacked first, pummeled with nuclear weapons from B-29s based in the UK until it capitulated, or both.
If the UK were available as a bomb base, B-29s wouldn't even have been needed to drop nukes on Germany. The B-17G had a max payload of 11,500 #, well in excess of both Little Boy & Fat Man bomb weights. Given the difficulties of uranium, subsequent bombs would have likely been plutonium-based Fat Man - which still weighed less than the max bomb load.
Which is all to the good, the B-29 was an excellent bird, but @ the cutting edge, cranky, prone to fires, other mechanical breakdowns. The only reason to proceed with B-29 nuclear bombings of Germany would have been if the UK were unavailable - the missions could have been flown from N. Africa or even Italy (& if from Italy, again, B-17s could have been used).
If the UK were available as a bomb base, B-29s wouldn't even have been needed to drop nukes on Germany. The B-17G had a max payload of 11,500 #, well in excess of both Little Boy & Fat Man bomb weights. Given the difficulties of uranium, subsequent bombs would have likely been plutonium-based Fat Man - which still weighed less than the max bomb load.
Which is all to the good, the B-29 was an excellent bird, but @ the cutting edge, cranky, prone to fires, other mechanical breakdowns. The only reason to proceed with B-29 nuclear bombings of Germany would have been if the UK were unavailable - the missions could have been flown from N. Africa or even Italy (& if from Italy, again, B-17s could have been used).
The issue wasn't just one of payload weight - it was a volume issue.
The early atomic weapons were very large. As it was, the Silverplate B-29s had to be modified to handle the size of the bombs. And the B-29 was a much bigger aircraft than the B-17 - higher, wider, longer. Higher speed and service ceilings were also issues - the threat of losing an aircraft with a nuclear payload over enemy territory was of great concern.
In addition, weight remained an issue because of then addition of special bomb-release mechanisms to accommodate the large devices, as well as a plethora of platforms for monitoring the combat use of the nuclear weapons - bearing in mind that only one atomic bomb was tested before Hiroshima, and there was still a great deal to be learned about them (and the Hiroshima drop was the first-ever detonation of a plutonium implosion-type weapon).
Only the Superfortresses and the British Avro Lancasters were conceivable delivery platforms, and the Lancaster probably only for Little Boy types (even the Lanc probably couldn't have handled Fat Man). In any case, obviously the American aircraft was the one of those two that were going to get used.
Oh well. If the B-17s couldn't carry the release gear, then they couldn't. Although as platforms for observing bomb drops, I would think fleets of B-17s, if necessary, could have done the job. Still, it would have made sense to keep spare B-29 airframes & parts on hand - just in case.
What if Germany managed to remain in peace with Soviet Union?
Would Germany have won the war?
No; rather, Germany would have imploded once Stalin would have turned off the tap of Soviet resources into Germany. Indeed, due to the British blockade, Germany was overwhelmingly dependent on Soviet imports; thus, for Germany, the only way to achieve economic security was to either end its war with Britain (which proved to be impossible) or to successfully defeat and conquer the Soviet Union.
If the UK were available as a bomb base, B-29s wouldn't even have been needed to drop nukes on Germany. The B-17G had a max payload of 11,500 #, well in excess of both Little Boy & Fat Man bomb weights. Given the difficulties of uranium, subsequent bombs would have likely been plutonium-based Fat Man - which still weighed less than the max bomb load.
Which is all to the good, the B-29 was an excellent bird, but @ the cutting edge, cranky, prone to fires, other mechanical breakdowns. The only reason to proceed with B-29 nuclear bombings of Germany would have been if the UK were unavailable - the missions could have been flown from N. Africa or even Italy (& if from Italy, again, B-17s could have been used).
To be clearer, I have read on here in other threads (I have not actually read the source material) that had Japan not surrendered after Nagasaki, that a succession of implosion-type bombs would have been made available, some plutonium fueled, some uranium fueled. There was no problem with highly enriched uranium, as such, just that the gun type bomb like Little Boy was terribly inefficient, wasted expensive material, and was more dangerous to handle than the Fat Man design.
Unsettimati is correct that the Lancaster was the only other aircraft actually available that could carry these early nuclear bombs.
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The Shortening of the Way
