# b29 and meteor video 1948



## woljags (Dec 28, 2011)

_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dMog3T3CAc_


----------



## fubar57 (Dec 28, 2011)

Great link Woljags. Lots of other great videos on the right too. Just watched the one called Lockheed P-38 Flight Characteristics. Some good cockpit film.

Geo


----------



## woljags (Dec 28, 2011)

nice,i'm quite new to the surfing part of the internet,it amazes me just whats out there


----------



## Airframes (Dec 28, 2011)

Good find Bob, interesting footage.


----------



## vikingBerserker (Dec 28, 2011)

I agree, very interseting.


----------



## wheelsup_cavu (Dec 29, 2011)

Nice find. 



Wheels


----------



## Park (Dec 30, 2011)

That was cool! But why was the RAF concerned about shooting down B-29's ?


----------



## fubar57 (Dec 30, 2011)

The RAF had B-29s(Washington) and the USSR had the copy Tu-4 so I think the RAF were using them to find the Tu-4's blind spots. Compliments of the internet









Geo


----------



## marshall (Dec 30, 2011)

Park said:


> That was cool! But why was the RAF concerned about shooting down B-29's ?



As stated by fubar, RAF was concerned with shooting down Tu-4's.


----------



## syscom3 (Dec 30, 2011)

This was a great find!


----------



## pbfoot (Dec 30, 2011)

I think it would more in the line of how to use the Meteor for interceptions the jet was still very new technology


----------



## woljags (Dec 31, 2011)

thank chaps pleased you liked it,i'll keep looking around to see if i can find anymore interesting bits and bobs


----------



## Glider (Jan 1, 2012)

I wonder if the RAF camera gun shots were ever shown to the USAAF B29 crews, I suspect they would have been a bit depressing


----------



## syscom3 (Jan 1, 2012)

And the B29 gun camera films would have been just as depressing to the RAF pilots.


----------



## Matt308 (Jan 1, 2012)

Yeah a good propaganda film. Amazing how many MiG-15s were dispatched by B-29 gunners. Certainly not enough to warrant more prop bombers with turrets, but enough to warrant a "don't Eff with me" bomber scare. Now think about a fighter with speed 100 knots+ slower and quickly this becomes a high anxiety activity.


----------



## Glider (Jan 2, 2012)

Does anyone have any knowledge about Mig 15 losses to B29's?


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Jan 2, 2012)

Glider said:


> Does anyone have any knowledge about Mig 15 losses to B29's?


JoeB posted info on this a while back. I think about 25 MiG-15s were claimed or credited by B-29 gunners but only one could be confirmed according to Soviet sources.


----------



## marshall (Jan 2, 2012)

Glider said:


> Does anyone have any knowledge about Mig 15 losses to B29's?



On wiki You can find 27 MiG-15 claimed by B-29s. The source is Futrell 1976. I don't know what book is that.



And this is a quote from B-29 in Korean War



> When the Korean War ended on July 27, 1953, the B-29s had flown over 21,000 sorties, nearly 167,000 tons of bombs had been dropped, and 34 B-29s had been lost in combat (16 to fighters, four to flak, and fourteen to other causes). B-29 gunners had accounted for 34 Communist fighters (16 of these being MiG-15s) probably destroyed another 17 (all MiG-15s) and damaged 11 (all MiG-15s). Losses were less than 1 per 1000 sorties.





And a quote from another site http://www.kmike.com/NoSweat/Pages/MigAlley.htm



> We lost 34 B-29s in combat, several others (perhaps 48 more) to operational accidents related to equipment failure, severe weather, etc. And we lost several B-29's in the night raids of late December 1952 and through Spring of 1953


----------



## Glider (Jan 2, 2012)

Thank you both, 34 seems to be the common number for losses with some gray areas around the extras. The articles you posted I found very instructive and depressing.
B29's that couldn't take anything bigger than a 1000lb bomb, nightfighters that has to be supplied by the Marines, radars that couldn't tell altitude, B29's that shot at each other at night. Not good

As for the Mig 15 losses, I admit to going with a much lower number than 27 but 1 would seem too low.


----------



## JoeB (Jan 2, 2012)

FLYBOYJ said:


> JoeB posted info on this a while back. I think about 25 MiG-15s were claimed or credited by B-29 gunners but only one could be confirmed according to Soviet sources.


The official total over Korea was 27 MiG-15's credited to B-29 types, (ie including B-29 and RB-29). Of those 27 only one possibly corresponds to a real MiG loss, a PLAAF a/c lost July 9, 1951. There is an overlapping F-86 claim, and only 1 MiG was lost, but Chinese accounts seem to say the a/c was lost to B-29's. Two Soviet MiG's were downed by B-29's according to their accounts, one on Dec 6 1950, and one the night of August 23-24, 1952. In both cases B-29's fired on MiG's and believed they'd hit them, per original combat reports, but were not awarded victory credits. So only 1 of the 27 official victories checks out, but as many as 3 MiG's appear to have been shot down. 

Nothing like this is ever 100% certain, but there isn't a great deal of uncertainty because Soviet operations in Korea are very well documented, and the Chinese don't claim to have shot down any B-29's or even engaged any other than that one incident. Likewise the North Koreans don't claim to have shot down B-29's with MiG-15's, and they didn't even operate the type until after B-29's shifted to night operations. 

The B-29 proved quite vulnerable to jet fighters in daylight. The 12+* lost or irreparably damaged by MiG's in daylight were concentrated on fairly few missions where formations of MiG's got a solid crack at them. On those missions, loss rates were quite high for conventional bombing. But, effective defense against nuclear attack would require very high loss rate to be inflicted. Moreover, nuclear bombers going after targets like cities could easily operate at night, and while MiG's in Korea downed or irreparably damaged 8+* B-29's in night operations from May 1952 to January 1953 (they kept trying after that but w/o further success), the per sortie loss rate of the B-29's in those operations was quite low. OTOH radar equipped jet night fighters would have been more dangerous, even with Meteor rather than MiG-15performance...clearly the B-29/Tu-4 were losing some credibility as a nuclear deterrent by ca. 1950 from the attacker's POV, though OTOH defenders could hardly rest assured they'd prevent *any* nuclear bombs from such a/c falling on their cities.

*20 B-29/RB-29 were certainly lost to MiG's in Korea or else damaged by them and known never to have been repaired; 1 was certainly lost but the cause is uncertain (AA per surviving crew members, on a night where Soviet AA and MiG's both made claims), 2 damaged by MiG's and possibly never repaired, 1 damaged by MiG or AA (again w/ claims by both) and possibly never repaired.

Joe


----------

