think there is little doubt the germans would have used them on the russians rather than the west.  a condor could have made a suicide run to moscow with one of the nukes and if it succeded it would have seriously hurt the soviets.  what to do with the 2nd bomb would have been the real question.  new york harbour via sub or london by air would be possibilities or better yet to just hold it as a threat.

 

japan at the end was so strapped it's hard to see them delivering a bomb successfully so perhaps using it against the american landings?

Ehran,

 

What would the Soviet response have been? Fight to the death? Surrender? Treaty?

 

Also, what of the response from the second country to suffer the nuclear fate?

 

If the Soviet's would have either surrendered or ceased hostilities, what of Germany's newfound ability to concentrate all their armies to the West?  What would the outcome have been?

Ehran,

 

What would the Soviet response have been? Fight to the death? Surrender? Treaty?

 

Also, what of the response from the second country to suffer the nuclear fate?

 

If the Soviet's would have either surrendered or ceased hostilities, what of Germany's newfound ability to concentrate all their armies to the West?  What would the outcome have been?

Please note - Hitler refrained from using poison gas - and the Germans had developed nerve gas before D-Day.  The reasoning was the allies also had gas and would retaliate in kind.  If the Germans has nukes and there was a hint the western alliance also had nukes - Hitler might have followed the same pattern of MAD.

 

As for the Soviet response - fight on and on and on until Stalin could beg, borrow or steal a bomb of his own.  Note the Soviets stole the US bomb designs and the B-29 design.

I have set up a scenario where the US did not, and could not, come up with a nuke, but only Germany or Japan could, and did, come up with the two the US actually developed.  If Germany had no counterthreat of a nuke, what would they have done to US/England and what would the US/English response have been?

The US did not have nerve gas but Hitler and his staff thought that the US did - so Hitler declined to use it even though it was available for D-Day.  Do some basic research here.....

 

Hitler liked wonder weapons but they were all conventional in nature.  He knew he could have used bio weapons or a dirty bomb to toast London or New York but he elected not to out of fear of retaliation.  The UK had a very active anthrax program by this time and I am sure the US could have easily mounted conventional gas attacks that would have devastated Germany as a whole. Berlin was aware of these facts.

 

Again, I suspect it would have not changed the outcome - just killed more in a shorter time - if it was used at all.

CBW were not used in WWII because of threats in degree, not in kind.  Though only Germany had nerve gas, they didn't use it because of the US threat of using chlorine and mustard gas, not because they thought the US had nerve gas.

 

In any event, it would have been a lot easier for the US to mount such an attack on Germany, obviously needing thousands of sorties to be as devastating as a nuclear device, than for Germany to drop 1 nuclear device on the US mainland.  So, I do not think the threat of mustard or chlorine, and probably even nerve gas, would have deterred Germany from using a nuke, especially once they saw the way the Eastern Front was going.

 

That being said, I still wonder whether the US would have continued the fight for Europe, if Germany would have nuked NY or Boston, and threatened additional nuke attacks?

Wrong - check your history Jackson - the Germans developed nerve gas (VR) using formulas they bought from the USA (Dupont) for insecticides.  The brain trust in Berlin noted that if they saw the deadly results from a slight modification in formulation then so the Americans would have seen the same thing as well.  Thus, they advised Hitler that the US had VR or worse.  It was simple logic - we had nearly a decade head start before we sold the formulas to Berlin.  Hitler opted not to us nerve gas at D-Day because he felt the US would respond in kind. 

 

You need a quick course in biotoxin weaponization and development.....

As for smashing NY or Chicago and then expecting the US to fold - would not have happened.  We would have not left two stones standing side by side in retaliation.  The same applies today - except 100 fold - we won't leave two molten rocks standing side by side.

Gotcha on the nerve gas.

 

But, you fail to address the nukes.  As much as the US proved its resiliency, determination and willingness to fight, I do not think that anyone, maybe in history, has proved that more than the Japanese in WWII.  If you look at the Casualty figures and see the lack of wounded, after almost every battle, you see how they were almost willing to throw themselves on the sword to win, or at least not to lose.  They almost literally starved their country to death for the war effort; they even put children with antiquated guns on the front.

 

However, even the Japanese realized how futile it would be to continue to fight, after they got hit with the second nuke, or as many now claim, even after the first nuke.  They were at least smart enough to realize when their goose was cooked.  And they then agreed to (almost) unconditional surrender and the subjugation/administration of their mainland by the US.

 

Therefore, I do not think that the US, after getting hit 1 or 2 times, thinking that Germany had many nukes, (like the US actually hinted to the Japanese), would have charged ahead at ALL costs for a fight to save Europe, at least until they discovered the bomb themselves.

I don't think you know Americans very well.  Remember, the US rushed headlong into the war because of an attack on what was considered US territory (Hawaii was not a state at that time).  I firmly believe that a nuclear attack on the US mainland by Germany would have provoked a ferocious response.  The United States maintained a very large chemical stockpile during the war, and I feel that the US would have unleashed it on Germany on a massive scale.  The US may not have had any nerve weapons in its stockpile, but I think that it would have quickly developed them and cut them loose on the Germans as well.  A Japanese nuclear attack on American forces would have also provoked a chemical weapons response. 

 

I think that the only thing that could have hurt the American resolve during WWII would have been years and years of protracted trench warfare with millions of senseless casualties such as was experienced in Europe during WWI, or even by the Russians on the Eastern Front during WWII. 

Smitty,

 

I think it is settled now that FDR wanted the US in the war long before 12-7-41. However, he could not get public support for a declaration.  While the Pearl Harbor attack will live in infamy, FDR was thrilled to be able to finally declare war on Germany and Japan.  The military was already galvanized, long before 12-7-41.  I don't think there was anything "headlong" about it.

 

Also, again, I think you underestimate the threat of nuclear attacks when you don't have the bomb.  Had Germany taken out NY and Boston, and then threatened to take out EVERY major US city in a week, with a barrage of single nuclear bombs obliterating city after city, I think the US would have ceased fighting.  While the US did back the war overwhelmingly, once Pearl was attacked, even the day before there was a tremendous % of Americans that not only preached isolationism, especially after the Great War's casualties, but in fact, openly supported Germany!  After the Great War the country did not want to fight other people's wars.  FDR even had to guise war aid under "Lend Lease" to give the English a chance.  In fact, at the start of WWII, the US had a policy of giving equal aid to all combatants, until Germany's first U-Boat campaign.

 

I think the US first would have sued for peace and then built their own nuke bombs as quickly as possible.  They then would have used them to obliterate Germany.

 

  You have to remember or recognise that at this time the production of the enriched fuel need for an atomic bomb was ridiculously expensive, slow and over all inefficient, most people would want an immediate response, so most likely every German city would of been gassed, something Hitler ( he had been gassed in WWI and the experience scarred him) did not want, hence Germany did not use it's limited gas stockpiles. It really all depends on what you know about your enemy and what he knows about you. There is too big of a line to make assumptions when it comes to making this kind of decision, Japan thought the attack on Pearl Harbour what put the US out of the Pacific War, they were wrong and look what happened.

 Taking out a city will most likely NOT cause your enemy to cease fighting, Germany damaged, in some cases like London and Liverpool quite heavily, almost every city they could reach here in England, we still fought, We razed Dresden among others in 1944, Germany did not surrender straight away, Japan had hardly any cities left by the time the atomic bombs were dropped, and even after Hiroshima there were many high ranking Japanese who still wanted to keep up the war. Trying to intimidate or embark on a campaign of terror against some one who can respond will usually provoke them to respond. Look at what is happening to terrorists these days.

 One thing that hasn't been addressed ver well is  what about the remaining countries? For example, the last response I read, use a U boat delivered nuke on London, etc. The brits would probably just move resources farther inland. Now if the Germans used one of their stategicbomber designs (see luft46.com, awesome site), and blew the crap out of the furthest city in England, then they would surrender, if they didn't count on millions of US shermans and B-24s eliminating everything in germany, by brute force.

 

If Japan had the bombs, they would probably nuke pearl harbor, just for shits and giggles, to prove they could eliminate the fleet there, assuming anything was stationed there. The second bomb, would probably be used for an attack on Los Angeles or San diego, probably delivered by ohka based off an I-400. Here, the US might surrender, or just move upopeation olympic, hoping the Japs wouldn't nuke their own soil. Then Russia and Britain would be left alone, against the Germans, Japs and Italians. Hey, sounds like September 1941 doesnt it. Im pretty sure Axis would win then.