WI B-29 in 1942?

[Wanderer]

In 1940 the Military decides that the B-17 and B-24s aren't going to cut it, cancels those projects, and orders the B-29 into mass production.

What effects will this have for 1943 to 1945 when the numbers are sufficient for mass bomber raids.

[MKSheppard]

Nazi Germany collapses in 1944 or so; the B-29 flies higher and faster than the B-17 and B-24, and can deliver 20,000 lbs of bombs within a 1,384 mile combat radius at a combat ceiling of 37,000 feet.

By contrast the B-17G could only tote 4,000 lbs of bombs to a radius of 900~ miles at 25,000 feet.

Also, many of the early problems with the B-29 are likely to be ameloriated by the fact that England/Northern Ireland are much more temperate than the "hot and high" takeoffs of China, or the "even hotter" takeoffs from Tinian.

[Wanderer]

Nazi Germany collapses in 1944 or so; the B-29 flies higher and faster than the B-17 and B-24, and can deliver 20,000 lbs of bombs within a 1,384 mile combat radius at a combat ceiling of 37,000 feet.

What would the Luftwaffe have to do in order to

1) Get up there and not stall

2)Still pack enough punch to kill the B-29

3)Survive the B-29's radar controlled guns (at least I think they were radar control )

More specifically, what do you see them doing?

[MKSheppard]

What would the Luftwaffe have to do

Build more long-winged interceptors. Heavy development in high altitude engines. Basically, the FW-190 is completely awesome up to 20,000~ feet; with it's performance falling off heavily above 24,000 feet. It was already hard put to match B-17s and P-51s/P-47s flying some ten thousand feet above the bombers.

So there would be a much more intensive development of the FW-190C and FW-190D series. However; all this high altitude capability is going to cripple low altitude capability; which is needed to maintain superiority in the east, where combat is at very low altitudes.

[Simplicius]

Nazi Germany collapses in 1944 or so; the B-29 flies higher and faster than the B-17 and B-24, and can deliver 20,000 lbs of bombs within a 1,384 mile combat radius at a combat ceiling of 37,000 feet.

Unless the B-29 campaign somehow accelerates the advance of the Red Army into Berlin, I wouldn't expect the war to end much sooner than it did. It wasn't until 1944 that Germany's oil and transportation infrastructure were targeted to any significant extent and destruction of her industry began in earnest; to move that process forward requires the USAAF's planners not to spend 1942-1943 figuring out how to conduct a strategic air campaign as they did in real life. As able as the B-29 was, eliminating learning curves was not on its list of capabilities.

Additionally, given Hitler's capacity for self-delusion, I see no reason to anticipate a German surrender while he is still in charge and his regime is generally intact, regardless of a greater amount of destruction sown from the air. Which means we still must wait for the Red Army to turn up.

[MKSheppard]

As able as the B-29 was, eliminating learning curves was not on its list of capabilities.

The typical 8th Air Force raid on a target was around 130~ bombers, and the preferred bomb was the 500 lb GP bomb; since it allowed a nice mix between saturation of the target, and having enough explosive power to leave a decent crater on it's own.

The B-17 could carry twelve of those bombs. A single B-29 can carry forty.

So the difference between a typical 8th AF raid equipped with B-17s and one with B-29s is quite dramatic:

1,560 x 500 lb bombs (B-17)
5,200 x 500 lb bombs (B-29)

Basically, simply switching to B-29s triples the effectiveness of the 8th AF; it doesn't matter if you're horribly inaccurate, and half the bombs fall outside the target; if you're dropping three times as much.

It also flies significantly higher and faster than the B-17 and B-24, so losses are going to be significantly lesser; meaning that experience will rise faster than with the B-17/-24 force.

[Wanderer]

The B-17 could carry twelve of those bombs. A single B-29 can carry forty.

Out of morbid curiosity, how much more can they cram at the expense of range?

[MKSheppard]

Out of morbid curiosity, how much more can they cram at the expense of range?

That's the maximum bombload.

[Wanderer]

Out of morbid curiosity, how much more can they cram at the expense of range?

That's the maximum bombload.

Then the question is what is the range for those forty bombs in the bomb bay, plus the weight of the defensive armament and its ammo?

[MKSheppard]

Then the question is what is the range for those forty bombs in the bomb bay, plus the weight of the defensive armament and its ammo?

Link to SAC for P2B-1

1,384 nautical miles radius, so unrefuelled range is about 2,500 nautical miles nonstop.

[Wanderer]

Then the question is what is the range for those forty bombs in the bomb bay, plus the weight of the defensive armament and its ammo?

Link to SAC for P2B-1

1,384 nautical miles radius, so unrefuelled range is about 2,500 nautical miles nonstop.

Thanks Shep.

[Wanderer]

Shep were any studies done on making the two bombays just one big one?

I was thinking if that were done, then could it carry the Grand Slam bomb or Tallboy or would the B-29 be unable to carry those bombs.

[Starglider]

Didn't the B-29 have serious engine problems that weren't completely fixed until it had been in service for some time, and which essentially precluded an earlier introduction?

[Sidewinder]

If the B-29 is put in service early, the Germans will undoubtably push the Me-262 into service AS A FIGHTER early. This may be a bad thing, considering a jet's speed and rate of climb, or a good thing, considering the unreliability of WWII German jet engines (I expect a lot of Luftwaffe pilots to be injured or killed when those engines fail in midair) and their expense (which means there's less money to pay for piston-engined aircraft).

[Stuart]

If the B-29 is put in service early, the Germans will undoubtably push the Me-262 into service AS A FIGHTER early. This may be a bad thing, considering a jet's speed and rate of climb, or a good thing, considering the unreliability of WWII German jet engines (I expect a lot of Luftwaffe pilots to be injured or killed when those engines fail in midair) and their expense (which means there's less money to pay for piston-engined aircraft).

The belief that the Me-262 was delayed by Hitler's bomber-fixation has been pretty throughly discredited. The major cause for its delays were difficulties with its engines. The same applies to the B-29; the early days with its engines were a true horror story (Saint Curtis wrote a good book on the B-29 that goes into the problems with the R-3350).

The interesting thing is that the B-29 airframe could also take the R-4360 that was used to power the B-36 - essentially that was what the B-50 was. It might well be that if the B-29 was to be brought forward, it may be decided to use the R-4360 instead (the 4360 had problems all of its own but there's a lot to be said for sving problems with one engine design rather than two).

So, we might see the "B-50" in service instead of the B-29 - and that brings a lot of new factors in with it.

[Sidewinder]

The belief that the Me-262 was delayed by Hitler's bomber-fixation has been pretty throughly discredited. The major cause for its delays were difficulties with its engines.

I know, but having Superfortresses rain bombs from altitudes existing Luftwaffe planes are unable to reach would very likely kill Hitler's obsession with having a German version of the RAF Mosquito (which, IIRC, was the reason he wanted a bomber variant of the Me-262).

The same applies to the B-29; the early days with its engines were a true horror story (Saint Curtis wrote a good book on the B-29 that goes into the problems with the R-3350).

Did problems with the B-29's engines delay its entry to service? What problems are they? Unreliability? Overheating? Expense? Maintenance requirements that made the B-29 a hangar queen? A combination of the above?

[K. A. Pital]

Me-292's engine problems were too huge for Germans to overcome in 1943; there's no way they'd do it any faster than they did in reality.

[Simplicius]

It also flies significantly higher and faster than the B-17 and B-24, so losses are going to be significantly lesser; meaning that experience will rise faster than with the B-17/-24 force.

That occurred to me well after I had posted; the campaign against the ball bearing factories was eventually called off because losses were unacceptably high and employing B-29s would have prevented that.

Basically, simply switching to B-29s triples the effectiveness of the 8th AF; it doesn't matter if you're horribly inaccurate, and half the bombs fall outside the target; if you're dropping three times as much.

Yes, but this was not my point. Simply dropping more bombs on the same sets of targets at the same time periods as in OTL is not going to bring Germany to its knees any faster. For the strategic air campaign to have a telling effect on the war sooner than it did in real life, USAAF planners would have to choose important target sets sooner than they did in real life. This requires either the Schweinfurt raids to be successful - which the B-29 makes possible - and the ball bearing industry to be as critical a target as planners expected, or else the 1944 bombing campaigns to occur sooner than they did - which requires planners to reason differently than they did in real life, something I don't expect the possession of B-29s alone sufficient to induce given that this was the first real strategic air campaign these people had waged.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Won't dropping bombs at a higher altitude result in a higher spread in the bomb landing area? Will this affect the accuracy and the % hit?

[Sea Skimmer]

In 1940 the Military decides that the B-17 and B-24s aren't going to cut it, cancels those projects, and orders the B-29 into mass production.

That doesn’t really work, people aren’t thinking this all the way through. In 1940 development on the B-29 had only barely begun under the ‘hemisphere defence’ requirement convinced at the outbreak of WW2. The plane didn’t fly until late 1942, and in early 1943 one of the prototypes crashed, killing several designers in the process. Production did not begin until late 1943, with only about 75 aircraft produced that year. The plane had endless problems in development and production and the process of debugging the first several hundred production aircraft was very protracted. Each one had to have thousands of changes made at the depot level before being fit for combat, and this nearly got the entire program canceled on its own.

At best production and entry into service could each be advanced by several months, six months at best. That means the US has no heavy bombers in action until late 1943 and it would not have significant numbers until mid 1944. That means we can’t build up lots of experience operating and training crews for four engine bombers beforehand. By the end of 1944 we’d have a flood of the aircraft from three or four factories , but still nothing like the numbers the B-17 and B-24 gave us.

Basically, simply switching to B-29s triples the effectiveness of the 8th AF; it doesn't matter if you're horribly inaccurate, and half the bombs fall outside the target; if you're dropping three times as much.

It also has close to twice the empty weight of a B-17 and its MUCH harder to build with all those thousands of countersunk rivets, we aren’t going to get nearly as many B-29s as we did B-17s/24s. Once we had the P-51D it hardly mattered what bomber we flew, and before the limited numbers of the B-29 are going to mean very heavy losses vs. whatever the Luftwaffe is flying. The Japanese shot down quite a few B-29s, the Germans can certainly counter that aircraft.

In the interim 1942-43 period meanwhile, when the US has no four engine planes bombing in daylight at all, the Germans will concentrate all the fighters they again against an RAF night bombing offensive.. This will almost certainly inflict probative losses and force an end to the Bomber Command blitz well before the B-29 is ready. I mean really, as it was everyone pretty much had to call off the bomber war over Germany already in the winter of 1943/44 because of heavy losses. Without all those B-17s being shot down the Lancaster swarm is just doomed.

[Sea Skimmer]

3)Survive the B-29's radar controlled guns (at least I think they were radar control )

The B-29 had five gun positions, a tail gunner position and four remote controlled turrets. The fire control system didn’t have radar, it was a remote control system which had four sighting stations linked to four computers. Each sighting station could control one, two, three or even all four turrets, the master gunner assigned whatever turret he wanted to the sighting station he wanted using a set of switches. However the system never worked well. The computer had a major time lag in its commands, forcing gunners to massively lead targets (lead was supposed to be auto calculated) and to make things worse it was near impossible to keep the turrets and sighting stations properly aligned. Ultimately Curtiss E Lemay simply ordered all the remote guns ripped out, only the tail guns which had direct human control stayed, with the bombers switching to night bombing tactics at low level at the same time.

Won't dropping bombs at a higher altitude result in a higher spread in the bomb landing area? Will this affect the accuracy and the % hit?

It can and did, B-29 high altitude bombing accuracy was not very good, one of several factors which eventually caused the plane to be shifted to fairly low level night area bombing. Unfortunately German cities don’t burn as well as Japanese ones, and Japan had maybe 1/100th as much flak as the Germans do so this tactic can't be used in Europe.



As for the engines, the R-3350 was a hot running engine built out of magnesium, the early ones burst into flames all the freaking time until they made repeated modifications of the engine and engine housings. What’s worse, since an engine fire was almost by default a magnesium fire ,the aluminum in the wing would begin burning away almost at once. A B-29 engine fire could then burn off the entire wing in a matter of seconds in the worst cases. The engine also had serious mixture control problems, solved in the end only by replacing the carburetors with fuel injection, it also burned up its values, and in the end it was simply very advanced and complicated for its time.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

What possessed them to use Magnesium, which is one of the most reactive metals in the world, in an engine which would be burning hot?

[Vehrec]

Because it is strong and light and it doesn't use the same strategic resource as the skin of the aircraft. It is very well suited for areospace operations despite the fire risk.

[Dark Flame]

Because it is strong and light and it doesn't use the same strategic resource as the skin of the aircraft. It is very well suited for areospace operations despite the fire risk.

Then why can't they use that magnesium to replace some of the aluminum in the body of the airplane so they can use that aluminum in the engines?

[Master Arachnos]

Shep were any studies done on making the two bombays just one big one?

I was thinking if that were done, then could it carry the Grand Slam bomb or Tallboy or would the B-29 be unable to carry those bombs.

Could'nt the B-29 already carry 1 grandslam or 2 tallboys (altho not in the bomb-bay itself i think), or am I getting my B-29 mixed up with my B-50..

and instead of those nasty unreliable US engines just take the sensible appraoch and license build Napier Sabres