WinSP MBT: Das Reich

[RecruitMonty]

Originally Posted by IronDuke99

I have been thinking about this and I wonder if the Western Allies would have used an A Bomb on Nazi Germany all that easily, unless they thought Germany was at all close to developing her own -when they most certainly would have, merely to get in before Hitler used his.

Germany had millions of slave workers, many from western nations, not to mention large numbers of Western Allied POWS, so I think the war has to be going very badly for the Western Allies, and very well for Germany, for an A bomb, or bombs get to be dropped there. Especially since conventional raids on Germany were devarstating city, after city (as they were also doing in Japan). There were not many Atomic bombs available in 1945-46 and no one much wanted to invade Japan...

So what? The Americans tested nukes well within reach of their own troops who were in little more than fox holes in the 50s. It is said they only figured out the dangers posed by radiation much later.

[MarkSheppard]

Originally Posted by RecruitMonty

It is said they only figured out the dangers posed by radiation much later.

During the Manhattan Project, fallout wasn't actually even taken seriously or known if at all -- hence the disbelief by Groves about radiation casualties at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in late August 1945 when Japanese news started talking about it.

Essentially in the Manhattan Project, radiation poisoning was considered to only be a danger to those within the prompt zone of the bomb -- e.g. those within 700 to 1000 meters of the device when it initiated -- and subject to about 10,000 Rads (100 Grays) of instantaneous ionizing radiation from the fission reaction itself.

This was considered to be of minor interest, as that zone nearly neatly overlapped the 20 PSI radius (600 meters out), where

"Heavily built concrete buildings are severely damaged or demolished."

Also, unlike TRINITY (100 foot tower), the Japanese attacks were airbursts at several thousand feet above ground level, so weren't considered to be at danger for causing a lot of contaminated ground.

Reference: (Groves disbelief of Japanese Radiation Poisoning)
Telephone Conversation between General Groves and Lt. Col. Rea, Oak Ridge Hospital, 9:00 a.m., 25 August 1945.