The SAAF Forum

Hi Dingo
Not trying to be pedantic, but remember that the Raptor II is quite a bit different from the original Raptor used to destroy the bridge in the final phase of the bush war.

You can find some nice photo's of the Raptor and Buc in the book "SAAF at War".

For your info: The Raptor II has a rocket assembly and slightly different tail-wing and main wing attachment to that of the original Raptor. The original was a glide "bomb" only weapon....

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Da-di-da-da-da

It's strange how uncle Sam tells who and who may not, build nuclear bombs. So I wonder - who tells Uncle Sam if he is allowed or not, to make nukes.

Damn Yanks - think they rule the world.

Can't recall them ever giving anyone permission in the past, can you? As to telling anyone they cannot, how would they enforce it? Historically, and very naively, they assumed that several decades would pass before anyone else would have the capability. It came as rather a shock when the USSR managed one just four years after Hiroshima and an even bigger shock when the USSR managed a practical H-bomb ahead of them. They could not stop Britain, France, China, India, Israel, South Africa, Pakistan or North Korea building bombs, could they - even if they would have liked to.



Most don't think that - they know that. How often do you hear POTUS described as the Leader of the Free World. Even if he does not have the support of the majority of voters in his own country, let alone the world.

One of my favourite charts - http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/n559/eugenegriessel/The_USA.jpg

That is because the Soviets had spies all over the USA, they had no idea, they were focused on the enemy of the time, USSR was a friend, or suppose to be. Mean time the progress and secrets of the bomb were flowing to Moscow. In a meeting between the three big leaders, Roosevelt told Stalin they had a new powerful secret weapon that will change things, expecting a reaction and give him an upper hand in the meeting. Stalin did not flinch, he probably knew all about it. The OSS, (replaced by CIA) had no system in place to spy on the USSR, a big shot in Germany spying on the USSR was hired by the OSS in secrte, he formed the "Gehlen Organisation" who reconnected with their spies in the USSR, they brought home the first picture of a Mig-15. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesnachrichtendienst

Difficult to find out how close Germany was, they did work on systems to deliver it, but that seems to be way ahead of what they had. Decades later it came out that Japan did detonate an experimental device in Northern Korea, they moved it there to get away from the bombing in Japan. The facility in Japan, the Japs destroyed what they could before the Americans got to it, then the Americans destroyed it even more, as I understand it, not bothering to see how far they got.

That is the popular view - and the incorrect one. Certainly the Soviet union had agents in the USA but it also had the very first nuclear weapons research program of any country - pre-dating the second world war. The agents in the Manhattan project were very few and as most of the Manhattan project very compartmented they gained little of the overall picture. The most significant piece of information they got was from David Greenglass who would supply technical details of the explosive lens for the plutonium bomb. In some ways the very knowledge that the USA was working on a bomb helped the Russians and of course their failures, in a broad sense, aided the USSR in not pursuing dead ends. But the Russian bombs were largely a Russian effort. Espionage contributed little practical information. Even in the H-bomb, which once one had an A-bomb became almost obvious, the contribution of espionage was not great, albeit greater than the A-bomb.

As for the alleged Japanese bomb - it has as much substance as the alleged German one. No evidence, just some recently raised ideas by authors of doubtful knowledge and integrity.
Whether Heisenberg deliberately miscalculated the amount of fissile material needed or did so accidentally we will never know but Germany never had a reactor gain critical status and Japan never even planned one.

Germany almost certainly never had one, but they were seemingly on track for getting one. The America bomber project was more or less founded on the availability of a weapon by the time the project reached fruition (and thank god it didn't), perhaps the same or following year as the project was initiated. I am however trying to recall information I heard years ago, so dates are far from accurate. I do know that the batwing bomber would've been able to drop its payload on any coastal city in the united states long before anyone knew what was going on. It was bad enough that the batwing fighter wouldn't have given us (england) time to scramble an egg before hitting its target.

But I think we've drifted off-topic a touch...

I know wiki is not trusted, but

Shortly after North Korea detonated their first bomb, I saw a documentary on the Japanese bomb, which grabbed my attention as I had never heard of the Japanese working on an atomic bomb. An elderly scientist said they did detonate a devise just before the Russians came. In the quote above, it say's US intelligence knew of a planed test. There are claims that these scientists never came home.
That would not surprise me, in Germany, the Russians were going into the other Western allied sectors looking for people of interest and kidnapping them. And US intelligence was trying to pick them up before the Russians found them, despite not knowing why the Russians wanted them.
The bottom line is, the Russians know the answer to this question. Did they know about it, and at the last moment declare war on Japan to get this prise?

An interesting and unsupported take on history unsupported by any evidence. I suggest you read up on the Yalta and Potsdam conferences.

I know - we thoroughly, on a history group elsewhere, discussed the man when his book asserting that Germany had exploded an atom bomb first came out about 5 or 6 years ago. In historical circles he is known as a "controversial" author at best and I will not, in a polite group, say what he is generally called. Try reading David Irving's, yes I know the man is a raving anti-semite, "the Virus House". You can get it online - and see just how close the Germans really were to a bomb. At least the facts in his book are endorsed by many top scientists on both sides of the war divide.

Available here: http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/VirusHouse/VH.zip

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A plan is simply a basis for change.

Quite agree on David Irving.

His personal politics may be questionable, but he has written several epic historical studies, in some instances the best in their category. His research has always been top notch, and his personal beliefs shouldn't detract from some of his best books.

The Mares Nest is the very first resource I always haul out when the German V-weapons programs need clarification. Never found a single better resource.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 5828_n.jpg

Bucc with H3

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 4987_n.jpg

F1az with H2

*Not mine,so here are links.*

Thanks, I've never seen either of these pics before.

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A plan is simply a basis for change.