Quote:
Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic
If the British had continued their own programme instead of halting it to give their information and their researchers to the US, they likely would have had a bomb available to them around the same time as the Manhattan Project delivered its first weapon and possibly before.
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Not a chance.
When America and Britain started to cooperate in 1940 they compared their work, and it was discovered that British research was more advanced and that Britain was spending more on research.
Once America put its full resources into the project the roles soon reversed heavily in favour of America. By 1942 Britain was spending about $2 million on R&D compare with America who was spending about $30 million on R&D, plus another $100 million on construction projects related to atomic research. This unequal balance remained if not increased until 1945. After the completion of the Manhattan Project the US conceded that early British research and scientists were helpful but not vital to the project, and that the US would have built an atomic bomb without British assistance. Although the US also conceded that without ongoing active British assistance they would not have had an atomic device by 1945.
For Britain to have built an atomic bomb without US cooperation it was estimated that it would have cost $12 million in R&D, and a nuclear reactor would have had to have been built (probably in Canada) costing $20 million and taking 5 years to construct, while industrial facilities, heavy water and uranium metal would have cost another $40 million. The project would involve over 20,000 highly skilled workers, half a million tons of steel and 500,000 kw of electricity, and all this during WW2 without any disruption. British participation in the Manhattan Project gave it a lot of data and expertise that it would have taken a lot longer to compile without its cooperation with the US, and even the success of Hurricane in 1952 was not without gaps in technology.