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YoursTruly posted:What exactly was Einstein imagining there? Just a big cargo ship with the bomb in it sailing right up to a major port? Prior to figuring out how to transport bombs by air, was there significant R&D done towards sea transport? I feel like the modern Poseidon torpedo is basically the culmination of this idea, but what were policy makers (be they Allied or Axis) thinking of as a delivery mechanism at the time? Were we ever "close" to seeing the first atom bomb used in warfare being detonated on a ship in port? Sailing a ship into a port and blowing it up wasn't an unheard of tactic in those times, e.g. the raid on St Nazaire during WW2. Einstein wasn't a military man though, so I imagine he was just using the first example that came to mind.
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Jul 25, 2020 15:48
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I don't think the US ever seriously considered using anything else besides dropping a nuclear device as a bomb. The B-29 was practically* purpose-built for it. I say this with an asterisk because the US already wanted an intercontinental bomber even with just a conventional payload, but since that project and the Manhattan Project were concurrent, they also planned ahead enough that they knew they were going to use the two together.
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Jul 25, 2020 15:58
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Kublai Khan was a goon -Eventually died due to sedentary lifestyle and overeating -Meltdown over how trips to Japan to experience authentic Japanese culture led to rejection
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Jul 25, 2020 16:02
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The B‐29 was chosen to deliver the bombs before the bombs had been designed. Silverplate, the plan the use the B‐29, begins in June of 1943. The USAAF takes delivery of the first planes in July. Oppenheimer gets security clearance later than month. Construction is underway at Los Alamos all that year. The B‐29 ended up having a maximum capacity of a little under twice the weight of Fat Man or Little Boy. It couldn’t have made the trip from Tinian carrying that much weight, but no one knew what range would be necessary at the time.
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Jul 25, 2020 16:13
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Cerebral Bore posted:Sailing a ship into a port and blowing it up wasn't an unheard of tactic in those times, e.g. the raid on St Nazaire during WW2. Einstein would not have known how big or small the bomb would be, the information to make such calculations simply did not exist prior to Manhattan, they just knew enough to be sure that such a weapon could be built. Also he would not have known about the B-29. Ultimately Einstein never worked on Manhattan; he was considered a security risk and was not given the clearance needed to work on the project, though it's likely he would have been consulted at some point. Richard Fenyman who did work on Manhattan was not considered a security risk despite breaking into as many safes as he could at Los Alamos. etalian posted:Another fun fact that despite the Manhattan Project being a really expensive project, the B-29 bomber project ended up being more expensive for a overall project cost (2 billion vs 3 billion USD) I'd like to know if that includes the cost of developing the B-32, which was developed in parallel as a backup in case the B-29 was drastically held up. In the end the B-29 program was delayed - but the B-32 program suffered more delays and became superfluous as the B-29 became a success. The scale and speed of development and production in the US during WW2 was just, um, insanely insane. also lol @ the Silverplate cover story: wikipedia posted:A cover story was devised that Silverplate was about modifying a Pullman car for use by President Franklin Roosevelt (Thin Man) and United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Fat Man) on a secret tour of the United States. The Thin Man device was found to be impractical and was superseded by the Little Boy design.
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Jul 26, 2020 13:31
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The Sausages posted:I know the german scientist thing is from like 5 pages ago but that was fascinating thanks for sharing it. Their presumptions vs. what I know of the Manhattan project are pretty amusing, but among other things this bit had be going WTF: The nuclear secrecy blogger did some research on this and he thinks that Graves (the guy in charge of the Manhattan project) sent the message secretly through the embassy in neutral Portugal in some weird and unauthorized attempt to gauge the German reaction.
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Jul 31, 2020 02:19
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That's an interesting theory and makes a lot of sense too, thanks.
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Aug 10, 2020 02:07
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| # ? May 8, 2024 08:43 |
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https://twitter.com/cjane87/status/1305580503479787521/photo/1 digging how in our current political environment its impossible to tell whether tilden is supposed to represent trump or biden
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Sep 15, 2020 04:55
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