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How long would it take for Germany to develop a nuclear warhead?

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Deleted member 1235

Unconfirmed Member
tell germans to build anything and they'll have it sorted quick like.

Such an efficient people!
 

Slavik81

Member
Sir Fragula said:
That knowledge doesn't need to be transferred because it already exists. They build space rockets all the time - they have the delivery systems. They have an enrichment program. They have some of the brightest nuclear scientists in the world. They *have* the capacity and the capability.
Unless they already have actual blueprints and have already manufactured all the parts they need, it will still take over a month.
 

Phoenix

Member
Sir Fragula said:
That knowledge doesn't need to be transferred because it already exists. They build space rockets all the time - they have the delivery systems. They have an enrichment program. They have some of the brightest nuclear scientists in the world. They *have* the capacity and the capability.


There is a huge difference between building a rocket to deliver satellites and building one that needs a low CEP and hold/deliver a warhead. That's a specialized system and it must be designed and constructed. Nothing like that takes "a week" and you don't just glue a nuclear delivery system on a conventional rocket so that rules out "a month" as well.
 

Hari Seldon

Member
Sir Fragula said:
That knowledge doesn't need to be transferred because it already exists. They build space rockets all the time - they have the delivery systems. They have an enrichment program. They have some of the brightest nuclear scientists in the world. They *have* the capacity and the capability.

They have the ability to build cars but it takes a pretty damn long time for a car to go from concept to completion. There is just a lot of little shit beyond the "big picture" science stuff that goes into any finished product that has life and death safety requirements.

Sure they could put together some hack job real quick but it isn't going to be reliable.
 

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
To be honest, I think they could get it done in 2 years or less if the International Community didn't throw a hissy fit (Even then they would likely still get it done)
 
Mad Max said:
You realise the knowledge and technology is already there right? There doesn't need to be any transfer with a state that owns nuclear arms.
it's not just that, bro. we're talking about not only development, but design (requires time and precision), testing and retesting.

and testing again.

and testing.

and even then, testing isn't easy. the scale of safety measures that have to be employed greatly slow the process.

a nuclear device isn't something you slap together like the parts of a car. If months of testing and verification go into the design of the cars at your local automobile dealership, how much moreso for a nuclear device.

around a year, tops. though if we're not talking about something we would consider to be reliable (removal of most testing), it could be done faster.
 

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Slavik81 said:
Unless they already have actual blueprints and have already manufactured all the parts they need, it will still take over a month.
Oh, I'm sure that at some point past WW2 Germany entertained the idea of having its own nuclear devices. You can bet €20 that they have the blueprints somewhere.

Retrofitting a Taurus missile for short/medium range attacks should be easy peachy for them.
 

Mad Max

Member
Dreams-Visions said:
it's not just that, bro. we're talking about not only development, but design (requires time and precision), testing and retesting.

and testing again.

and testing.

and even then, testing isn't easy. the scale of safety measures that have to be employed greatly slow the process.

It depends really, what you say applies in peacetime obviously. But I assumed this was more of an early cold-war esque scenario, where safety takes a backseat.

Like I said, just look at how quickly the US and USSR built their warheads back in the 40's and 50's. (and they had to actually invent them) Now imagine a country that has all the technology, materials and a lot more knowledge doing this in 2011.

Dreams-Visions said:
a nuclear device isn't something you slap together like the parts of a car. If months of testing and verification go into the design of the cars at your local automobile dealership, how much moreso for a nuclear device.

It is actually, a modern car is more technologically advanced than a nuke. The difficulty with making nukes today is getting the materials (and having the equipment to create those), not building or designing them. Especially if we're just talking about a fission weapon.

Little Boy design:
Little_Boy_Internal_Components.png
 

speedpop

Has problems recognising girls
chicko1983 said:
so how long would it take for Australia to develop a nuclear warhead?

I know we dont need them as all our allies have them, but I have wondered if we could.
Quite a while. Even though Australia has one of the largest deposits of uranium in the world, there is not a single nuclear plant situated in the country. It'd probably take a few years to get the schematics all done and unlike other countries there is a massive section of uninhabited land to test it on.

At best it would be 5 years.
 

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
I really, really dislike quoting the Wikipedia in such matters, but...

While there are currently no known plans in Japan to produce nuclear weapons, it has been argued Japan has the technology, raw materials, and the capital to produce nuclear weapons within one year if necessary, and some analysts consider it a de facto nuclear state for this reason.[22] For this reason Japan is often said to be a "screwdriver's turn"[23][24] away from possessing nuclear weapons.

Significant amounts of reactor-grade plutonium are created as a by-product of the nuclear energy industry, and Japan was reported in December 1995 to have 4.7 tons of plutonium, enough for around 700 nuclear warheads. Japan also possesses an indigenous uranium enrichment plant[25] which could hypothetically be used to make highly enriched uranium suitable for weapon use. Japan has also developed the M-V three-stage solid fuel rocket, similar in design to the U.S. LGM-118A Peacekeeper ICBM, which could serve as a delivery vehicle.
That's for Japan. Germany, having generous natural reserves of uranium, enrichment plants, world class engineers and lots of experience with medium range missiles, could have an atomic weapon at whim.

Gravity bomb in days, or as much time as they need to gather and fix the components they already have; mere weeks for a retrofitted cruise missile; and not too many months for an early medium to long range ballistic missile.
 
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