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I dunno really. Maybe more advances into the fields of lasers and electronics with all of the suddenly unemployed physicists?

It's worth noting that the B-29 program (including production and R&D) actually cost the US more than the Manhattan Project in terms of money and material.

CaptHawkeye wrote:None whatsoever. The US ended up actually canceling a lot of stuff despite the Manhattan Project because it would unnecessary to win the war. I'm just curious to gauge what kind of stuff they could have opted to build minus the Manhattan Project. Probably not much though. As it was the resources that went into the A-bomb were not tactical or strategic and were largely infrastructure and financial based. Except for the use of a bomber capable of dropping the weapon.

The biggest boost would be that the US now has a lot more construction assets handy. That might easily go into completing the modernization of the US coastal defense system. Historically a lot of that work halted progressively between 1942-1944 because it was taking too many resources and clearly shore guns around places like Boston were just not very important to the war. But if the system was finished, hoards of existing 1890s batteries could be decommissioned and the net result would be a major net manpower savings. Other saved Manhattan Project resources could easily go into building extra guns and trucks to form more infantry units out of that saved manpower. Some of the Manhattan project workers themselves might just end up in uniform too. Plenty of unskilled labor was involved.

The US also had plenty of infrastructure projects it might like to engage in too. Work on the third set of Panama Canal locks might be able to go ahead or an actual railroad to Alaska instead of or besides the historical gravel highway. More synthetic rubber plants are another place we could have always used more effort, and some of the west coast railroad lines were heavily overtaxed and might stand improvement, the US did almost nothing to upgrade its railroad systems during the war.

A fair number of the people and resources that went into the Manhattan Project would also be suited for diversion into the radar industry. The US was already pretty nuts in this field compared to anyone else, but you can always do more. We might manage to get 3cm wavelength X-band radar in service more quickly as one possible result. The chemical industry would probably invest in more explosives production capability with its slice of the saved resources. Research on topics like shaped charges might benefit as well.

However the Manhattan Project pushed core research forward on a very diverse range of products. Entirely new transparent plastics had to be developed for example, to use in the optics of newly developed remote control equipment for working with highly radioactive materials. Some research like this would just have gone ahead anyway, and the real pay offs would come postwar.

What was the cost of the UK nuclear weapons program? Historically it took six years from program start to first successful test, benefiting from some research during WW2 and of course the American demonstration of basic feasibility. I don't know the total cost but it couldn't have been anywhere near the size of the Manhattan Project, given the severe post-war austerity that the UK was facing. Certainly the UK had access to a much smaller pool of qualified staff and (AFAIK) nothing like the massive espionage haul that the Soviets got out of their Manhattan Project spies. If we imagine that the Nazis got (remarkably) lucky on both the staff available and the program planning, would it be reasonable to compare the resources they need to the UK program rather than the US or Russian ones? If so, are these requirements within the scope of feasibility?

IIRC, the British nuclear program (Tube Alloy, right?) was actually falling behind the US program by 1941; even with the exchange of info about each others' respective nuclear programs. Weren't one of the biggest things plaguing British research their smaller scale operations? Six years from start to finish, sure. But, again, they had the benefit the Germans didn't. They knew the nuke was a definite possibility and they actually knew what they were doing thanks to their exchange of info with the Manhattan Project. Thus, they could abbreviate many of the steps most nuke programs at that time had to go through.

Then there's the other advantage of the UK still being relatively isolated from continental Europe. As the war proceeded, Germans had to cope with more and more strategic carpet bombings and encroaching enemy armies coming closer and closer. In contrast, Britian never had to deal with a ground war on its own territory and German aerial bombings became less and less frequent and massive as the war moved forward. In relative terms, the British can spare more resources for their program since they're not shouldering it alone and they don't have to frantically deal with a ground war coming closer into their territory every year, nor do they have to contend with massive bomber squadrons from two different air forces pounding their assets day and night.

NettiWelho wrote: By who and what army? honestly i cant see the führer/reichskanzler being kicked out of office for refusing to start another war(the guarantee of poland was made public, that with promise at munich id consider that a reasonable excuse to back off and triviliaze it in the inner ciricle), especially after the kind of power consolidation they have on his job

The "revenge for Versailles" line of political demagoguery in various forms was one of the core promises of the Nazi regime ; It could've been interpreted in several ways, but Poland was the big, glaring, obvious elephant in the room in the sense that a lot of people in Germany, Austria and Russia saw it as an artificial creation of the Versailles treaty.

Hitler might not have been literally thrown out of his office, but failure to deal with the problem of Poland (which was itself very belligerent, by the way: conceding on Danzig might've made it even bolder) would be a major blow to his administration.

This is foregoing the fact that the rapid remarmanent and economic mismanagement meant that Germany pretty much had to go to war by the time the Danzig Corridor became an issue.

NettiWelho wrote: I take you mean the internal political trends of germany? but yeah, id consider my knowledge on the subject greater than average but lacking for any serious debate without double-checking everything through google before submitting each post here making any statements concerning them

Well, you're in History. This forum has decently high standards for debate, alt-history or not.

NettiWelho wrote: yes, i am also generally aware of interwar events

Then you should know why "being nice" to Poland would be unacceptable in Germany, and viewed with suspicion in Poland. Hell, Germany was historically unable to forge an alliance with Pilsudski's Poland aimed at the Soviet Union ; That's how much distrust there was between both countries.

NettiWelho wrote: Then, like in my previous messages mentioned, germany drops pushing the issue any futher if the talks prove fruitless, preserving peace takes priority over regional gains

Danzig was a festering sore for a long time ; Do you really think the issue with it just sprung up overnight from Hitler's territorial ambitions?

NettiWelho wrote: as a side note:i was merely trying to present the most plausible chain of events for Nazi Germany acquiring nuclear weapons that i could muster, not claiming that "it was truly outrageous luck the events didnt unfold this way" or even a truly realistic scenario(this is kinda given since, as proven before, it did not even come close to nazis getting a nuke)

Unfortunately, WWII not happening doesn't mean Germany necessarily acquires nuclear weapons. There has to be a need for those superweapons, after all.

NettiWelho wrote: besides, its not alt-history if no changes the the real timeline are allowed to be made

It's not just a change, but a complete reversal of a huge chunk of Nazi policy. The same policy that got them into power in the first place.

Ilya Muromets wrote: They knew the nuke was a definite possibility and they actually knew what they were doing thanks to their exchange of info with the Manhattan Project. Thus, they could abbreviate many of the steps most nuke programs at that time had to go through.

Wasn't there a bit of a big spat between the US and UK in the late 40s/early 50s because US passed a bill that prevented the US giving any Manhattan Project info to the UK, which broke a deal that had been arranged by Churchill?

Again I preface this with IIRC since I'm only remembering vague generalities, but the Americans did support the Canadian Motreal Lab's heavy water project prior to the Quebec Agreement with Churchill. The Canadians did pass on what they learned from the Americans to the Brits. Also, in 1944, didn't a British delegation go to Los Alamos, with some of them put into the core research group? I'm not too sure about that part. Anyway, thing is, I recall that there was some information exchange and whatnot before things soured between them.