@CWO:
A couple of comments on the original article:
“Although It is obvious that The first operational A-bomb was dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima, the U.S. found it desirable to imply that the Germans were far from being close to having an atomic weapon at the end of the war in 1945. Recently revealed information shows that this was not true and helps to explain why the Reich ordered the fighting to continue even into the streets of Berlin when it seemed obvious to everyone there simply was no hope. Its not a stretch to say that the top-secret project was actually only weeks away from completion, and even a casual study of Hitler shows he would not have hesitated to use it.”
The three links posted in that part of the article don’t work, so I couldn’t check the sources, but I wonder abour the statement that “its not a stretch to say that the top-secret project [to have an atomic weapon at the end of the war in 1945] was actually only weeks away from completion.” As far as I know, Germany never even got as far as having an operational nuclear reactor, let alone manufacturing enough fissionable material for an atomic bomb. The U.S. devoted massive resources to its Manhattan Project (whereas Germany did not), and even then it took America about two-and-a-half years to get from the first operational reactor to the first operational atomic bomb.
“For example, the battleship Bismark was sunk by a torpedo dropped by a biplane left over from WW I.”
The Bismarck had its rudder damaged by a Swordfish biplane. The damaged rudder delivered the Bismarck to the British fleet, but it didn’t sink the Bismarck. It took gunfire from the British battleships KGV and Rodney and some torpedoes from the British cruiser Dorsetshire to sink her…and even today, there is some dispute about whether it was battle damage or scuttling which ultimately finished her off. The Swordfish, by the way, was designed in the 1930s; it was not a WWI leftover.
You are right about the Swordfish. As you correctly pointed out, even though it was a biplane, the British did not put it into production until 1936.
Like you, I was unable to check the links about the German nuclear program which had originally been cited. But after some digging I was able to find this. If the claims cited in the article are correct (which is far from certain), Germany was very close to developing a nuclear device. (I.e., something a lot less powerful than the nuclear bombs the U.S. used to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but a lot more powerful than a conventional weapon.) A full-fledged nuclear bomb would have required a far greater amount of industrial capacity than Germany was in a position to allocate.
This being said, HortenFlyingWing wrote, in his original post, “don’t mind mis-spellings, and some errors here and there.” As IL pointed out, it’s been ten years since this thread has last been active. So that means that Horten and his friend have had plenty of time to correct those errors and come up with a better article! :) I liked the original article, but I’d like an error-free article even more.
