This is coolbert: Here is an interesting site to go to for information about the aircraft designs the Germans were working on at the end of the war. Some very sophisticated stuff the Germans had in mind, but never got the time to develop to fruition. You can see that a lot of this stuff probably influenced modern aircraft design for decades after the end of the war, and is probably doing so now, even as we speak. Go to the site at click here.

And now for the German a-bomb project. As said in another post, it has long been held that German a-bomb development was only in the rudimentary stage and could not have posed a threat to the U.S. Well, read this first before accepting the story that is generally told. From that same site about aircraft development click here.

My comments:

Now, this design perhaps has merit. The problem U.S. a-bomb designers faced from the start was how to bring the fissile matter together fast enough to start and sustain a nuclear detonation. This was a major problem. Not only having the fissile matter was sufficient. The fissile matter had to be brought together quick enough to achieve a critical mass and create a sustained nuclear reaction that produces the bomb. U.S. designers solved this problem [with British help] by using an implosion technique for the plutonium bomb. Shaped charges drive the wedge, pie-shaped plutonium segments together so quickly as to create the nuclear reaction. A gun type uranium bomb was also utilized for the a-bomb design using enriched uranium. A plug of uranium would be shot at a mass of similar matter fast enough to cause the critical mass to form in the split second required for the nuclear reaction to occur. I would assume with the Virus House weapon a pancaking effect was desired by the designers. They had not solved in an elegant manner the bringing together of the uranium quick enough to form the critical mass. This was a possible answer. The bomb dropping at incredible velocity would impact and the layers of uranium pancake on one another so fast as to create a critical mass and the nuclear reaction. Plus the little ball of beryllium/polonium seems to be included for the sole purpose of assisting the nuclear chain reaction. It would not be for any other reason. So perhaps the Germans were further along than what we have been led to believe?

coolbert.