# Was the B-29 Superfortress a Failure?



## wuzak (Oct 19, 2022)



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## Macandy (Oct 19, 2022)

No

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## Barrett (Oct 24, 2022)

If ever there was a self-answering question...

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## Thumpalumpacus (Oct 24, 2022)

Bookmarked for future chuckles.

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## Shortround6 (Oct 24, 2022)

Without atomic bomb. 

Try doing that with B-17s or B-24s. 
Or the aerial mining of the costal waters. 
The B-29 was not a one trick pony.

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## NVSMITH (Oct 24, 2022)

Little known B-29 fact: The $3 billion cost of design and production (equivalent to $45 billion today), far exceeding the $1.9 billion cost of the Manhattan Project, made the B-29 program the most expensive of the war.

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## Macandy (Oct 26, 2022)

The B-29 was the first bomber able to deliver the strategic effects the bomber advocates dreamed of.
It was the first bomber with the performance and bomb load to able to be used to smash cities at will.
Nothing was the same after B San.

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## Snautzer01 (Oct 26, 2022)

Did it do what is was created for? Partly. The high altitude bit didnt worknout very well i believe. Wasn it leMay that changed to lower altitude and different pay load? Question is how much of the budget was spend on gear not used.

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## GrauGeist (Oct 26, 2022)

The shift from high altitude to medium and lower altitudes over Japan were due to the presence of the Jet Stream coupled with Japan's inability to cover their cities with effective AA and air defences.

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## Snautzer01 (Oct 26, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> The shift from high altitude to medium and lower altitudes over Japan were due to the presence of the Jet Stream coupled


Yes but it was build to just do that. Could a lesser developed airplane have done the same? Lets say Lancaster?

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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 26, 2022)

Snautzer01 said:


> Yes but it was build to just do that. Could a lesser developed airplane have done the same?* Lets say Lancaster*?


NO! The Lancaster was a generation behind the B-29. No one knew about the jet stream and things could have been a lot different if the B-29 didn't have to deal with it, in other words operated somewhere else.

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## Peter Gunn (Oct 26, 2022)

I was going for the one word answer but 
M
 Macandy
beat me to it.

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## Snautzer01 (Oct 26, 2022)

You say it yourself:it was designed to do a job it couldnt do. Whatever the reason behind it. And a generation behind a Lancaster did not help the german cities very much. Now i am not ill mouthing the Superfort for a minute here. For the jetstream thing: jetstreams could, no should have been known. Jet Stream - The balloon encyclopedia .


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## GrauGeist (Oct 26, 2022)

Snautzer01 said:


> Yes but it was build to just do that. Could a lesser developed airplane have done the same? Lets say Lancaster?


If the war in Europe had drug on longer than it actually did, the B-29 would have most likely entered operations there nd it would have been operated at designed high altitudes due to the extensive AA and interceptors.

The Lancaster was certainly a capable heavy bomber, but not as complex and capable as the B-29.

For range and lift, I'd say the B-19 was closer, with the exception of altitude.


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## pbehn (Oct 26, 2022)

I would say that it was worth the effort even if it didnt drop a bomb in anger, it formed the basis of post war civil aviation, leaving everyone else to catch up.


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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 26, 2022)

Snautzer01 said:


> *You say it yourself:it was designed to do a job it couldnt do*. Whatever the reason behind it. And a generation behind a Lancaster did not help the german cities very much. Now i am not ill mouthing the Superfort for a minute here. For the jetstream thing: jetstreams could, no should have been known. Jet Stream - The balloon encyclopedia .


You're comparing operations in two different parts of the world. The B-29 "could have" easily easily operated over Europe and accomplished the job of all the heavy bombers deployed there. The Lancaster did not have the range to operate in the Pacific in the same manner as the B-29.

The Jet stream was not fully known to the AAF until they had to fly into it.

The B-29 was used for many years after the war and was even flown by the RAF to REPLACE the Lancaster and Lincoln. This discussed many times before.

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## special ed (Oct 26, 2022)

The utility of the design allowed much longer use. The B-29 soldiered into the late fifties as B-29K & P. The continuation of the design as the B-377 and B-50 extended after the Lancaster and Lancastrian.. The various intel missions would have been nearly impossible for Lancasters. The followon Shackleton was the best utility of the Lancaster design. Only my view from the back of the room.

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## Peter Gunn (Oct 26, 2022)

FLYBOYJ said:


> You're comparing operations in two different parts of the world. The B-29 "could have" easily easily operated over Europe and accomplished the job of all the heavy bombers deployed there. The Lancaster did not have the range to operate in the Pacific in the same manner as the B-29.
> 
> The Jet stream was not fully known to the AAF until they had to fly into it.
> 
> The B-29 was used for many years after the war and was even flown by the RAF to REPLACE the Lancaster and Lincoln. This discussed many times before.


Totally agree. Harking back to an old argument over a different plane (P-51) and paraphrasing, the B-29 could do the Lancaster's job, but the Lancaster cannot do the B-29's job. (Note: this is NOT a knock on the Lancaster, just an observation).

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## Snautzer01 (Oct 26, 2022)

FLYBOYJ said:


> You're comparing operations in two different parts of the world. The B-29 "could have" easily easily operated over Europe and accomplished the job of all the heavy bombers deployed there. The Lancaster did not have the range to operate in the Pacific in the same manner as the B-29.
> 
> The Jet stream was not fully known to the AAF until they had to fly into it.
> 
> The B-29 was used for many years after the war and was even flown by the RAF to REPLACE the Lancaster and Lincoln. This discussed many times before.


The discussion is if design was a succes. For me that is taken the design brief and look how it panned out. What ever the reason high altitude bombing above Japan was not a succes. Ergo the Usaaf perhaps could have done with an other design less hindered with this high altitude stategy. The lancaster is an example for this and not the plane in this discussion.

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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 26, 2022)

Snautzer01 said:


> The discussion is if design was a succes.


And I think, based on it's longevity, operational history and capability, it was


Snautzer01 said:


> For me that is taken the design brief and look how it panned out. What ever the reason high altitude bombing above Japan was not a succes.


The high altitude campaign was obviously not a success but LeMay adjusted accordingly. But at the end of the day, the ultimate mission of the B-29 was to deliver an atomic weapon, I think that part of the mision was clearly successful


Snautzer01 said:


> Ergo the Usaaf perhaps could have done with an other design less hindered with this high altitude stategy. The lancaster is an example for this and not the plane in this discussion.


You brought up the Lancaster and again it clearly was not capable of not accomplishing the same mission as the B-29. The B-32 Dominator was the "back up" design and it too had issues during development. The "high altitude strategy" as you call it could have worked in other places during the same period. It was just a matter of situational bad luck that the 20AF had to deal with the jet stream which just so happened to be over Japan.

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## GrauGeist (Oct 26, 2022)

Keep in mind that the B-29 was perfect for the PTO, even if not used at it's designed altitudes, because of it's ability to carry a substantial load over great distances.

Many of the islands captured from the Japanese that were within suitable bomber range of the home islands, were also within range of Japanese attack - which was why Tinian was a main air base for B-29 operations as it was roughly 1,500 miles from Japan, virtually eliminating the possibility of attack.

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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 26, 2022)

What is not mentioned in the clip posted by the OP was the B-29s post war operations, Korea, reconnaissance and ELINT missions, and tanker conversions.

Oh and we forgot about the ultimate B-29 model - the B-29D which became the B-50

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## Snautzer01 (Oct 26, 2022)

You forget weather recon as in WB-29B

About Korea Lemay kept the better bombers for SAC







a crew member

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## SaparotRob (Oct 26, 2022)

Snautzer01 said:


> You forget weather recon as in WB-29B
> 
> About Korea Lemay kept the better bombers for SAC
> 
> ...


Are the reasons behind General LeMay's decision not to use the newer aircraft known?


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## Snautzer01 (Oct 26, 2022)

SAC soviet nuclear threat.


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## SaparotRob (Oct 26, 2022)

I thought he was SAC, essentially. What were SAC's reasons?


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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 26, 2022)

Snautzer01 said:


> You forget weather recon as in WB-29B


I said reconnaissance - that can include combat, weather, or ELINT


Snautzer01 said:


> About Korea Lemay kept the better bombers for SAC
> 
> View attachment 691979


He did


Snautzer01 said:


> a crew member
> 
> View attachment 691980


And by the early 1950s this was true. Additionally the B-29s were forced to fly at night because of the MiG-15 threat but still managed to drop over 160,000 tons of bombs while losing 20 aircraft in combat. I know other Korean War veterans who flew in the B-29 who felt differently.

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## Snautzer01 (Oct 26, 2022)

FLYBOYJ said:


> losing 20 aircraft in combat


34 were counted as combat loss 16 fighter 4 Flak (maker 20) but also 14 other causes . They flew 21000 sorties and 167000 tons of bombs. 
Not bad for then not first line aircraft i think. I read 1 loss per 1000 sorties according post war statistics

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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 26, 2022)

Snautzer01 said:


> 34 were counted as combat loss 16 fighter 4 Flak (maker 20) but also 14 other causes . They flew 21000 sorties and 167000 tons of bombs.
> *Not bad for then not first line aircraft i think. I read 1 loss per 1000 sorties according post war statistics*


Also consider it was flying against MiG-15s.

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## GrauGeist (Oct 26, 2022)

As an aside, the B-29, or rather a spin-off, is still in service today.

The B-377-SG (Super Guppy) is still used by NASA

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## Dash119 (Oct 26, 2022)

NVSMITH said:


> Little known B-29 fact: The $3 billion cost of design and production (equivalent to $45 billion today), far exceeding the $1.9 billion cost of the Manhattan Project, made the B-29 program the most expensive of the war.


I believe the Norden bombsight was the third most expensive program in the war. So Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a confluence of the three most expensive weapons programs of the war.


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## special ed (Oct 26, 2022)

A slight B-29 thread drift. In the late 50s, the youth pastor at our church had been a tail gunner on a B-29 during Korea. He said the MiGs would lob cannon shells from out of range of his .50s and be gone before he could return fire. He often could not track the MiG fast enough to fire. He said he promised God if he came back he would serve God. He came back, told his wife he was going to become a minister, she divorced him. He had four boys and I never took the chance to ask why they allowed him in combat with four sons.

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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 26, 2022)

special ed said:


> A slight B-29 thread drift. In the late 50s, the youth pastor at our church had been a tail gunner on a B-29 during Korea. He said the MiGs would lob cannon shells from out of range of his .50s and be gone before he could return fire. He often could not track the MiG fast enough to fire. He said he promised God if he came back he would serve God. He came back, told his wife he was going to become a minister, she divorced him. He had four boys and I never took the chance to ask why they allowed him in combat with four sons.


My uncle Bill went though the same thing. I spoke about him on here several times. Flew ELINT missions in RB-29s an RB-50. I think he was in the 91st SRS. He became a minister as well, his wife stayed by his side until he passed away about 20 years ago.

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## Thumpalumpacus (Oct 26, 2022)

Chief loved his -29 for 57 missions. The 58th saw him and his crew (he was the flight engineer) floating in the Yellow Sea for 14 hours before rescue. Shot down by flak, he still praised the bomber's ability to get them out of DPRK airspace so they didn't get tortured etc.

It was far and away the most capable bomber in production in the 40s, and holding the jet-stream against it isn't really apt, as _any_ bomber flying >25,000 ft over Japan would have experienced the exact same results dropping dumb iron bombs or incendiaries -- and in 1944-45 no other bomber could do anything close to hauling ten tons of bombs 1500 miles and return to base.

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## GrauGeist (Oct 26, 2022)

I met a B-29 pilot once, nice guy (don't recall his name), but we did have a friend of the family that served aboard B-29s during WWII, who was a radar operator.

He was aboard Enola Gay during the Nagasaki mission, too.

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## Snautzer01 (Oct 27, 2022)

Loss and Damage Rates for Major Strikes

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## Peter Gunn (Oct 27, 2022)

I can see 

 Snautzer01
point, and in fact can agree with it as well, after all, it WAS a high attitude design so natural phenomenon like the Jet Stream should be counted in the mix. That the U.S.A.A.F. adjusted to it and succeeded however, should also be added in.

As an aside, my uncle few a dozen night time Empire strikes, he never really talked about it no matter how much I pestered him as a kid. When I got a copy of his wartime diary I can see why. When he got back from the war he went a different route than theology as he opened a bar. His last one was about 1972 and was really nice, he was "that uncle", the one that gave you your first beer, would slip you $5.00 or more in your shirt pocket just for being there, etc... yeah, I miss him greatly.

I was reading through his diary a while back but stopped when I got to the part about fire bombing missions...

Low altitude, incendiary attacks. He writes about the mechs picking burned plywood and even newspapers out of the nacelles, but the real one that stuck was how they were all nauseated by the smell of burning human flesh. In an instant it dawned on me that in all the parties and open house type stuff at his bar, never once was there a cookout.

He had a love/hate relationship with the B-29, in the few times I could get him to talk he praised it's toughness (I believe that's the "Love" part). But he wouldn't even look at photo's of it and really, I believe carried around a lot of guilt in his later years.

I'll stop now, sorry for the dissertation, he was a pretty special guy to me if you couldn't tell and if I keep on, well let's just say my tear ducts work.

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## peiper (Oct 28, 2022)

NVSMITH said:


> Little known B-29 fact: The $3 billion cost of design and production (equivalent to $45 billion today), far exceeding the $1.9 billion cost of the Manhattan Project, made the B-29 program the most expensive of the war.


not even counting lives lost .....I've read that before.....does the 1.9 mil include labor costs?


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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 28, 2022)

peiper said:


> not even counting lives lost .....I've read that before.....does the 1.9 mil include labor costs?


Lives lost? During construction? When used against an enemy? What does that have to do with anything? 

And yes - it probably includes labor costs.


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## Snautzer01 (Oct 28, 2022)

How about xb-30 ? Boeing jumped the line i read. And boy isnt it pretty?


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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 28, 2022)

Snautzer01 said:


> How about xb-30 ? Boeing jumped the line i read. And boy isnt it pretty?


The XB-30 was Lockheed's proposal for a long range superbomber being solicited by the AAF. The other contributors were Douglas (XB-31) and Consolidated (XB-32). The Douglas design never really went anywhere, the Lockheed design eventually led to the development of the Constellation. Boeing and Consolidated were chosen to meet this requirement, the rest is history.


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## Shortround6 (Oct 28, 2022)

Talking about the money or lost opportunity or whatever about the B-29 leads us to try and figure out what to replace it with. 

Like 2-3 times as many B-17s/B-24s and number of workers/factories and so on. The number of crewmen(and training schools), the number of ground crew (and training schools) and, unknown at the time of starting the project, where are you going to park all the B-17s/ B-24s.

Or what were the Alternatives? The B-29 (like other planes) gained weight in the design process but it wound up over 40% heavier than the _proposed _weight of the XB-30.

Boeing had been toying with designing a super bomber since 1935-36 and went through at least 6 different design studies/project numbers before the USAAC issued the requirement. 
That is part of what gave them a head start. another part was that Boeing was working on Flying boat for the Navy. 





And some of the knowledge they gained on the wing carried over.

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## GrauGeist (Oct 28, 2022)

Snautzer01 said:


> How about xb-30 ? Boeing jumped the line i read. And boy isnt it pretty?


Lockheed's XB-30 was developed from the Constellation, so was bound to be good looking.

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## peiper (Oct 28, 2022)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Lives lost? During construction? When used against an enemy? What does that have to do with anything?
> 
> And yes - it probably includes labor costs.


I would put lives lost as ''_price_-less'''...
ok, it took a lot of $$$$ to train, equip, feed, house, etc the crews...the crew are part of the airplane-..also the ferrying crews......I would add all of that into the cost of the B29 program .....then the lives lost in combat


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## GrauGeist (Oct 28, 2022)

peiper said:


> I would put lives lost as ''_price_-less'''...
> ok, it took a lot of $$$$ to train, equip, feed, house, etc the crews...the crew are part of the airplane-..also the ferrying crews......I would add all of that into the cost of the B29 program .....then the lives lost in combat


But that's not how it works.

The "cost" quoted for the B-29 program is the end figure for the program: cost of design, development, production and delivery to the customer (USAAF).

If you want to associate the human element into the fiscal equation, then it would be the B-17 that cost more, since more were produced, staffed and subsequent crews KIA.

Roughly 470+ B-29s were lost to all causes in WWII while roughly 4,700+ B-17s were lost.


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## Snautzer01 (Oct 28, 2022)

FLYBOYJ said:


> the Lockheed design eventually led to the development of the Constellation


Yes Boeing had taken a head start out of there own pocket if i am not mistaken. And did that trick before as others had done. Does not mean it was the best proposal. What i have learned it was the best option for a most advanced bomber at the time that was beyond the the table napkin by far. Who would gamble on paper planes when a war is on?
I am not playing the what if game here. 
The B-29 did, what it was not supposed to do in the Japan war in ww2, brilliantly. No argument there. But as a armchair nobody i might think that in hind sight it can be argued a lesser developed airframe would have done just as good for perhaps less money. It did not happen for reasons. We might argue because we can on this one. It wont change history. 
But and that is the point, it wasn't created to do what it turned out to do. 

I do hope you can see the point in that.

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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 28, 2022)

Snautzer01 said:


> Yes Boeing had taken a head start out of there own pocket if i am not mistaken. And did that trick before as others had done. Does not mean it was the best proposal.


I believe it was


Snautzer01 said:


> What i have learned it was the best option for a most advanced bomber at the time that was beyond the the table napkin by far. Who would gamble on paper planes when a war is on?
> I am not playing the what if game here.
> The B-29 did, what it was not supposed to do in the Japan war in ww2, brilliantly. No argument there. But as a armchair nobody i might think that in hind sight it can be argued a lesser developed airframe would have done just as good for perhaps less money. It did not happen for reasons. We might argue because we can on this one. It wont change history.
> But and that is the point, it wasn't created to do what it turned out to do.
> ...


I see the point but at the end of the day and in hindsight I still think the B-29 was the best option. Although the Constellation turned out to be a great machine in it's own right, it's questionable if a bomber version could have been developed quicker and cheaper and could have done the same job. Lockheed had their hand full with the P-38, Hudson/ Vega/ Ventura line, as well as license building B-17s.

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## Thumpalumpacus (Oct 28, 2022)

Shortround6 said:


> Talking about the money or lost opportunity or whatever about the B-29 leads us to try and figure out what to replace it with.
> 
> Like 2-3 times as many B-17s/B-24s and number of workers/factories and so on. The number of crewmen(and training schools), the number of ground crew (and training schools) and, unknown at the time of starting the project, where are you going to park all the B-17s/ B-24s.



And quite simply, Tinian would still have been too far away for LeMay's campaign to have gained traction by spring of 1945 with -17s and -24s, as it did historically with -29s. That's because even three times the number of bombers that can't reach the target are essentially zero value. 

You can bring the finest sword ever built to a shootout, but you're still bringing a knife to a gunfight.

The B-29's range changed everything in the PTO

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## GrauGeist (Oct 28, 2022)

The USAAF did have an available option before the B-29, but it was never given priority aince it was viewed as a testbed and that was the B-19 (XB-19).

The B-19 was submitted to the USAAC's XLRB proposal in 1935, so there was plenty of time to get it finalized and to be production ready before 1941.
And it was actually faster with the V-1710 engines than it was with the original R-3350 engines.

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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 28, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> The USAAF did have an available option before the B-29, but it was never given priority aince it was viewed as a testbed and that was the B-19 (XB-19).
> 
> The B-19 was submitted to the USAAC's XLRB proposal in 1935, so there was plenty of time to get it finalized and to be production ready before 1941.
> And it was actually faster with the V-1710 engines than it was with the original R-3350 engines.


The XB-19 would have had to go through a lot of refinements to make it combat capable. I don't know how much faster it was with the V-1710s, but I doubt it was able to go over 250 mph. It had a great range but a dismal service ceiling. I think we would have been polishing a turd if the XB-19 was attempted to fulfill the role the B-29 eventually did.

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## Thumpalumpacus (Oct 28, 2022)

FLYBOYJ said:


> The XB-19 would have had to go through a lot of refinements to make it combat capable. I don't know how much faster it was with the V-1710s, but I doubt it was able to go over 250 mph. It had a great range but a dismal service ceiling. I think we would have been polishing a turd if the XB-19 was attempted to fulfill the role the B-29 eventually did.



Agreed, slower, lower ceiling, smaller payload, range questionably similar to a-29;


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## GrauGeist (Oct 28, 2022)

The B-19 was a contemporary of the B-17, which went through quite a few upgrades during it's service life, both having their start in the mid-30's.

For what it's worth, the B-19's max. speed with R-3350s was 224mph with a cruise of 135mph.
With the Allison V-3420 (I meant to say "Twin V-1710 engines" above, btw), it's max. speed was 265mph @ 20,000 feet, it's cruise was upped to 185mph.

So yes, it's performance was not stellar, but again, as I mentioned earlier, it's development was not prioritized, so it's development after it's first flight (which took roughly six years from paper to flight) was virtually zero.

Had it been prioritized like the B-29, then development, modifications and upgrades would have seen a much different outcome - Boing submitted the B-29's proposal early in 1940 and the B-29 first flew four years later, almost to the date. If we put the same priority to the B-19, fours years after it's proposal would have been 1939...

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## Shortround6 (Oct 28, 2022)

Douglas didn't even want to complete it, and they were losing money every day on it. 
Douglas figured that the state of art in aerodynamics and _aircraft structure_ had passed it by. 
The Army insisted on completion to validate some of the calculations. But both Douglas and the Army knew they would never build another one. 
The DC-4E was started about the same time, 




It flew in June of 1938, was sold to Japan in late 1939, the Airlines didn't want it any more. Douglas was moving on to the DC-4 (C-54) and which would fly in Feb 1942.
Curtiss had flown the prototype of what would be the C-46 in March 1940 (and a mock up was displayed at the 1939 Worlds Fair).

The Consolidated B-24 prototype flew over 17 months before the XB-19.

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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 28, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> The B-19 was a contemporary of the B-17, which went through quite a few upgrades during it's service life, both having their start in the mid-30's.
> 
> For what it's worth, the B-19's max. speed with R-3350s was 224mph with a cruise of 135mph.
> With the Allison V-3420 (I meant to say "Twin V-1710 engines" above, btw), it's max. speed was 265mph @ 20,000 feet, it's cruise was upped to 185mph.
> ...


Still pretty hopeful - to be honest I don't think Douglas had the know how or manpower to pull it off. As mentioned by SR earlier, Boeing, on their own dime, was designing a superbomber 1935/36 so I really think they had a let up.

In the middle of it all they came out with this:

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## Shortround6 (Oct 28, 2022)

The Army doled out money a little bit at a time and the whole thing was running late. 
The problem is that even if they sped things up and got it done in 1939, you were buying 1937-39 Aerodynamics and structure. You would be building big, slightly newer, B-17s, not even big B-24s, let alone what the B-29 wound up as. 
With the same engines ( or even with V-3420s) you are going to wind up with more drag and more weight.

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## SaparotRob (Oct 28, 2022)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Still pretty hopeful - to be honest I don't think Douglas had the know how or manpower to pull it off. As mentioned by SR earlier, Boeing, on their own dime, was designing a superbomber 1935/36 so I really think they had a let up.
> 
> In the middle of it all they came out with this:
> 
> View attachment 692281


Definitely better looking than the Douglas.

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## fannum (Oct 29, 2022)

Too many of these replies miss important points. 
Comparison with any predecessor bombers is useless, as each was designed for different missions than those they actually wound up being assigned. 
None of the predecessor bombers had the speed and altitude capability to drop a nuclear bomb.
Many features wound up not being used, but performed well. That was the fault of the specifiers not being psychics as opposed to any blame of the designers and engineers.
Much of the design and trouble shooting effort went into the R3350, which performed admirably through VietNam in dozens of critical military and civil designs, including the DC-7, Connie, StratoCruiser, KC-97, AD, and Neptune, each at the peak of their role for decades. The refinement of pressurization made jetliners possible. And not only Americans benefited. Tupolev not only copied the B-29, but used the cockpit in the Tu-95 Bear, still in service.

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## Shortround6 (Oct 29, 2022)

fannum said:


> Too many of these replies miss important points.
> Comparison with any predecessor bombers is useless, as each was designed for different missions than those they actually wound up being assigned.


Well, some of the people that say it was a 'waste' don't come up with a viable alternative. Like either an existing, in production aircraft or an alternative that could have produced in the same time span and yet be cheaper. 
The older planes can't do it. But some people may need to be convinced. 


fannum said:


> Many features wound up not being used, but performed well. That was the fault of the specifiers not being psychics as opposed to any blame of the designers and engineers.


Some of this is also a matter of degree, People of the time knew about the jet stream. The reason that speed record setters flew from the west coast to the east coast of the US for many years before WW II. What they didn't know before WW II was how strong the jet stream was over Japan. That wasn't the only problem but yes, some of the objections do use hindsight.


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## GrauGeist (Oct 29, 2022)

fannum said:


> None of the predecessor bombers had the speed and altitude capability to drop a nuclear bomb.


That was an unexpected benefit of the B-29's design, not intentional.

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## fannum (Oct 29, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> That was an unexpected benefit of the B-29's design, not intentional.


What do you base that on? The nuclear mission was part of the design process, important parts of the specifications, but the reason withheld from all but a few. Marshall's bio touches on that, and so tightly controlled that less than a couple dozen knew of the linkage of the bomb and B-29 before late '44. Note that VP didn't even know of the device.


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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 29, 2022)

fannum said:


> What do you base that on? *The nuclear mission was part of the design process*, important parts of the specifications, but the reason withheld from all but a few.


It was not initially. 

The B-29 began development long before anyone was thinking about using it as the first nuclear delivery system (Boeing began studies as far back as 1938 into the development of a long range "superbomber"). The Official AAF solicitation that led to the B-29 was released in December, 1939 and I doubt anyone that far back envisioned "Boeing Model 345" as a nuclear bomber. If you have references to the contrary, please enlighten us.

As a matter of fact the Lancaster was briefly considered as the initial platform by Norman Ramsey, one of the architects of the atomic bomb, but that idea was quickly squashed by AAF brass.

Even after it was decided to put "all the eggs in one basket," modifications had to be made on the production line to those aircraft that would support the nuclear mission (Silverplate)

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## SplitRz (Oct 29, 2022)

fannum said:


> What do you base that on? The nuclear mission was part of the design process, important parts of the specifications, but the reason withheld from all but a few. Marshall's bio touches on that, and so tightly controlled that less than a couple dozen knew of the linkage of the bomb and B-29 before late '44. Note that VP didn't even know of the device.


Really?  This is something of a brain-tickler for me.

The design work on the B29 commenced in 1938, the air-corps issued the specification in 1939 - and Boeing submitted their design proposals in 1940. I'm not saying that the design didn't have changes incorporated into it during production for the aircraft that carried the bomb into action, but it sounds like a huge leap to assert that the nuclear mission was incorporated into the original specification in any meaningful way. Surely it was more simply being designed as a state of the art bomber, designed to carry as big a bombload as fast, high and far as possible and delivered as accurately as possible, with a view to potentially bombing Germany from the USA? Those parameters would apply to large conventional weapons regardless of any future 'wonder weapon' - which in 1939 was purely theoretical.

No one at that stage knew if the bomb was a viable proposition, how long it would take to produce, or what size, weight or operational conditions it would entail. The Manhattan project that would begin to answer those questions didn't even properly initiate until 1941 - around about the time that Boeing was ALREADY receiving its initial production orders.

So, like I said, I can understand potential nuclear carriage design features being added into the established basic design later on in the production run once the basics of the bomb had been calculated and confirmed later on through '42/3/4 and 5 but I'm finding the assertion that it went back further than that difficult to swallow at the moment.

"important parts of the specifications".... I'm not being confrontational, but like what? What would differentiate them from any other state of the art bomber design? Logic would dictate that if they were inherent to the idea that a nuclear role was predicted back at the initial specification and design stage, that they must surely have also been written into the Consolidated Model 33 / B32 as the back up? Were they?

Sorry - firing lots of questions there.

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## fannum (Oct 29, 2022)

Please, let's not nitpick and choose to interpret to fit your agenda. I know sites like this live on fans and minutiae, but let's leave the making data fit the agenda to the politicos.
Note that I said "design process" and not initial design. 
Remember that the B-32 was conceived as a follow-on to the B-24, using the same design team and much of the technology. It was also planned to have pressurization and integrated turret fire control, but that was dropped quickly, basically so the less complex B-32 could back up the B-29 if it was delayed. By the time they were in production, the top decision makers made both nuclear capable so from *some point in the process*, both the bomb and these aircraft were linked in their development.
They all were tied to the mission, with specifications of each interlinked.

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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 29, 2022)

fannum said:


> Please, let's not nitpick and choose to interpret to fit your agenda. I know sites like this live on fans and minutiae, but let's leave the making data fit the agenda to the politicos.
> Note that I said "design process" and not initial design.


Well it seems to me, by that statement you're trying to tip toe back - there's no political agenda here, just facts. Perhaps you should be more specific!


fannum said:


> Remember that the B-32 was conceived as a follow-on to the B-24, using the same design team and much of the technology. It was also planned to have pressurization and integrated turret fire control, but that was dropped quickly, basically so the less complex B-32 could back up the B-29 if it was delayed. *By the time they were in production, the top decision makers made both nuclear capable *so from *some point in the process*, both the bomb and these aircraft were linked in their development.
> They all were tied to the mission, with specifications of each interlinked.


I do not believe any B-32 was modified to carry a nuclear weapon, again, if you have a reference stating otherwise, please enlighten us and I'll accept your references with no agenda to the politicos!

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## fannum (Oct 29, 2022)

Let's not belabor history with semantics and nitpicking.
I believe I was clear, and some subsequent statements jumped back to 'initial specifications.'
Note this was an over 6 year design to mission process, and many changes were made as the reality of the conflict dictated. Both aircraft were designed with a bomb bay to accommodate the weapons and vice versa. The "Silverplate" mods were Boeing specific, and as far as I know, by that time, the B-29 had proven itself, and B-32s were no longer considered for the mission.
If you visit the nuclear museum at Kirtland AFB, they had exhibits dealing with weapon delivery, and how the 'devices' were adapted to fit the potential vehicles. The first packages were far too long, too wide and/or too heavy for previous aircraft. 
My key point is that the weapons and the aircraft were developed hand in hand.

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## Thumpalumpacus (Oct 29, 2022)

fannum said:


> My key point is that the weapons and the aircraft were developed hand in hand.



When the specification for what became the B-29 was released, there not only was not an atomic bomb in design, the proof-of-concept for that that weapon (Chicago, 1942) had not yet demonstrated the process of fission.

It follows that the design work on the B-29 was started without any nuclear weapons in mind except, perhaps, in the vaguest terms. The fact that the B-29 had to undertake Silverplate modifications in order to perform that mission is strong evidence that it was not designed to deliver the nukes that were eventually dropped.

That isn't semantics or nitpicking, it's just reading the design history of both programs.

No doubt that by 1942, mods to the B-29's design perhaps started being influenced by a possible nuclear mission, but even so, I think it's fair to say that it was not designed in conjunction with the first A-bombs, because the Boeing engineers had no idea what the Manhattan Project would present in terms of size and weight of ordnance. They didn't have the needed security clearances. But the historical timelines of both programs simply don't line up enough to allow for the plane to be designed for the bomb.

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## GrauGeist (Oct 29, 2022)

The Manhattan Project was able to create Plutonium in 1942 and it would be still two years before they would know if it would be able to work in a bomb.

The B-29 was modified through the Silverplate program to be capable of carrying either bomb and it was ONLY the Silverplates that were capable of it.

The B-32 would have needed extensive modifications to carry either one of the Atom bombs, because of it's two bomb bays in relation to the main wing.

The only other WWII bomber that saw service in WWII, that had the lift ability, range and large enough bomb bay, was the Lancaster.

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## SplitRz (Oct 29, 2022)

fannum said:


> Please, let's not nitpick and choose to interpret to fit your agenda. I know sites like this live on fans and minutiae, but let's leave the making data fit the agenda to the politicos.
> Note that I said "design process" and not initial design.
> Remember that the B-32 was conceived as a follow-on to the B-24, using the same design team and much of the technology. It was also planned to have pressurization and integrated turret fire control, but that was dropped quickly, basically so the less complex B-32 could back up the B-29 if it was delayed. By the time they were in production, the top decision makers made both nuclear capable so from *some point in the process*, both the bomb and these aircraft were linked in their development.
> They all were tied to the mission, with specifications of each interlinked.


I don't think Flyboy or I were 'nitpicking'. For my part, I was reacting to your exact words, if not their intended meaning. Even if both he and I (apparently coincidentally) misinterpreted them in the same way. You didn't say changes were made 'during development' or 'during production' - if you had, I doubt either of us would have questioned your premise at all. The difference historically speaking, between a purpose designed nuclear bomber and a bomber developed into being nuclear capable, would be pretty huge - and given the timeline, might start to stray into tin-foil hat/revisionist history territory (and it does happen round here from time to time!) GrauGeist pointed out that the B29s altitude and speed performance - the things you said which made it uniquely suited for it to carry out the nuclear role - were:

"... an unexpected benefit of the B-29's design, not intentional."

You challenged him and asked him where he got that, and then you stated that the nuclear role was part of the design and specification. But they _were_ coincidental (if opportune), weren't they?

The relatively moderate improvements to speed and altitude by removing defensive guns and crew during development of Silverplate only put a gloss on the performance of an aircraft that had its form and design set several years before. Your wording made it possibly sound like you were suggesting that a nuclear role had been secretly entered into the performance specification from the get-go. You can see that?
If your initial proposition was unclear to some, just clarify it - no need for pejorative terms. People will entirely understand and get it (I've confused yards for feet in an earlier post, giving a Dragon Rapide a Harrier-like take-off performance. I've just had to clarify that!  )

I have no idea what agenda you think either of us have. All I want to for my part is understand history and the tech. And as my knowledge is far from complete, I always like to ask questions and seek clarity! 

My agenda is simply to learn.

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## SplitRz (Oct 29, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> The only other WWII bomber that saw service in WWII, that had the lift ability, range and large enough bomb bay, was the Lancaster.


It just needed another 12,000ft of ceiling carrying that weight not to be reduced to aluminium ingots, I suspect 

Actually, thats an interesting point. Given that even Skyraiders were nuclear capable later on, what were the minimum distances dictated by speed and altitude to escape the blast of those early nukes? 

Lift, range and bomb bay aside, what about being able to get far enough away either through altitude or speed (or both) from the explosion?

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## GrauGeist (Oct 29, 2022)

I'm not sure of the minimum allowable clearance for the blast radius.
I know I've read it in the past, but I'm sitting on the porch, on this crappy cellphone at the moment - perhaps one of the others might know?

The Lancaster did improve over the years (as most types did) and I beleive in 1944, Avro made a limited production of Lancs that *may* have worked, it was the Mk.VI and had a performance close to what was required of the B-29.

We actually had a great discussion about this very thing a few years back, too.

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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 29, 2022)

fannum said:


> Let's not belabor history with semantics and nitpicking.


That's fine - I think my historical facts were quite clear and free of "semantics and nitpicking.


fannum said:


> I believe I was clear, and some subsequent statements jumped back to 'initial specifications.'


If you say so...


fannum said:


> Note this was an over 6 year design to mission process, and many changes were made as the reality of the conflict dictated.


Agree 100%


fannum said:


> Both aircraft were designed with a bomb bay to accommodate the weapons and vice versa. The "Silverplate" mods were Boeing specific, and as far as I know, by that time, the B-29 had proven itself,


*The only B-29s that had modified bomb bays were the Silverplate models.* Production model B-29s had bomb bay doors known as "Briggs Doors" which consisted of four units. The Silverplate prototype, known as "Pullman" began modifications in November 1943 and first flew at Muroc in March 1944. The first 17 Silverplate B-29s were ordered in August 1944.

Silverplate modified B-29s were actually completed at the Martin Facility, Omaha Nebraska.

_The first B-29 arrived at Wright Field, Ohio, on December 2 and underwent extensive modification to the bomb bay. To accommodate the length of the gun-type shaped weapon (Little Boy was originally supposed to be approximately 17 ft, but was later reduced to 10 ft), *engineers removed the B-29's four bomb bay doors and the fuselage section between the bays and replaced them with a single 33 ft bomb bay. *This modification project resulted in the removal of all the rear gun stations. Each plane was designed to carry either type of device; either Little Boy type in the forward bay or Fat Man type in the rear. New bomb suspensions and bracing were also implemented and separate twin-release mechanisms were mounted in each bay. Engineers also placed motion picture cameras in the bays to record the test of the new release mechanism._









Project Silverplate - Nuclear Museum


Project "Silverplate" was the code name for the program to produce a special version of the B-29 capable of delivering the atomic bomb.




www.atomicheritage.org





No semantics, no nitpicking, just facts!


fannum said:


> and B-32s were no longer considered for the mission.


So you agree, no B-32s were ever modified in the same fashion as Silverplate?


fannum said:


> If you visit the nuclear museum at Kirtland AFB, they had exhibits dealing with weapon delivery, and how the 'devices' were adapted to fit the potential vehicles. The first packages were far too long, too wide and/or too heavy for previous aircraft.


I have and there's also nice display at Wendover Airport with an actual "Little Boy" (of course de-armed) on display.


fannum said:


> My key point is that the weapons and the aircraft were developed hand in hand.


And my key point is they didn't start out that way - no nitpicking, no semantics, just facts!

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## Thumpalumpacus (Oct 29, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> I'm not sure of the minimum allowable clearance for the blast radius.
> I know I've read it in the past, but I'm sitting on the porch, on this crappy cellphone at the moment - perhaps one of the others might know?



I don't know the exactments, but I'm pretty sure there was a high-speed diving turn involved, at least with the two wartime drops. The toss-bombing thing with subsonic jets was also partly caused by the need to get away from blast-radius as well, to my understanding.

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## GrauGeist (Oct 30, 2022)

The yield of Little Boy and Fat man were much less than later versions.
Going by memory, the delivering B-29 and the monitoring B-29s were all at a level course.


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## wuzak (Oct 30, 2022)

fannum said:


> Note this was an over 6 year design to mission process, and many changes were made as the reality of the conflict dictated. Both aircraft were designed with a bomb bay to accommodate the weapons and vice versa.



Really?

The first nuclear device detonation was in July 1945. It was of the same design as Fat Man, which would be dropped on the second mission. Note that Fatman could not fit or be carried inside a standard B-29 bomb bay. It required a different rack system using a British-style single point lug (US bombs had 2 lugs).

The first bomb dropped over Japan was Little Boy. It was a gun type device. It too would not fit in a standard bomb bay, requiring a different bomb rack with a British-style single point lug.

But Little Boy was not the first gun type device. That was Thin Man, which used plutonium instead of uranium, and was 7 feet longer at 17 feet overall. Thin Man could not fit in the B-29's forward bomb bay, nor would it fit in the rear bomb bay. It was the reason the Lancaster was considered at all for carrying the bomb. It is why the B-29 modification program started, and why the first Silverplate modifications were more extensive than the production Silverplate versions.

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## Thumpalumpacus (Oct 30, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> The yield of Little Boy and Fat man were much less than later versions.
> Going by memory, the delivering B-29 and the monitoring B-29s were all at a level course.



These more or less repeat what I've read in books over the years:

_The bomber, piloted by the commander of the 509th Composite Group, Colonel Paul Tibbets, flew at low altitude on automatic pilot before climbing to 31,000 feet as it neared the target area. At approximately 8:15 a.m. Hiroshima time the Enola Gay released "Little Boy," its 9,700-pound *uranium gun-type bomb*, over the city. Tibbets immediately dove away to avoid the anticipated shock wave. _



Manhattan Project: The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima, August 6, 1945



_The device reached its detonation altitude of 1,890 feet agl in 83 seconds. In that brief time, Tibbets had to get the Enola Gay to a slant range of at least eight miles from the blast. Using an escape maneuver he had practiced over Utah, he muscled the airplane into a 60-degree-bank, 155-degree right turn. He lost 1,700 feet and leveled off heading directly away from the target at maximum power. This left his tail gunner, George Caron, with the best view of a sight "beyond imagination."_



https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2020/august/pilot/musings-enola-gay

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## GrauGeist (Oct 30, 2022)

Ok, found the thread about the Lancaster as a possible platform for Atom bomb delivery.

The reason why I thought it may be relevant, is because of the mountain of information regarding the B-29s involved.






The Lancaster as a potential nuclear bomber in 1945


Okay, so I thought instead of continuing to hijack the other thread, I'd make a new one, because despite my objection to the initial suggestion (and I'll reveal why soon) whykickamoocow's thoughts on this are intriguing and have some merit, and have obviously sparked a bit of discussion. So...



ww2aircraft.net

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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 30, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> Ok, found the thread about the Lancaster as a possible platform for Atom bomb delivery.
> 
> The reason why I thought it may be relevant, is because of the mountain of information regarding the B-29s involved.
> 
> ...


We had several threads about this, lots of information and many reasons to show that the use of the Lancaster was not a good idea in the end.


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## GrauGeist (Oct 30, 2022)

FLYBOYJ said:


> We had several threads about this, lots of information and many reasons to show that the use of the Lancaster was not a good idea in the end.


Agreed, however, aside from great data behind the Silverplates and the bombs, there's also several references where the higher-ups ruled out the Lancaster (for several reasons).

*if* the B-29 had been designed with atom bomb delivery in mind from the outset, here would not have been any discussion at all about the Lancaster as an option by the AAF.

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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 30, 2022)

I believe someone posted a pretty detailed drawing that showed Fat Man would not fit in the Lancaster, or it it did there was just about no clearance on either side of the bomb bay.

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## GrauGeist (Oct 30, 2022)

I recall that as well.

Without going through the thread, I seem to recall that Fat man was close to the dimensions (width) of the British Upkeep bomb that the Lanc delivered and that took some heavy mods and created quite a bit of drag, since it could not be carried completely in the bomb bay.

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## Snautzer01 (Oct 30, 2022)

The Lancaster as a potential nuclear bomber in 1945


That wasn't my point, the UK had to have a means of delivery otherwise the whole thing is a waste of time. The grand slam could be carried by a modified Lancaster and reduced performance in range was accepted. If it couldn't be carried by a modified Lancaster it wouldn't have left the drawing...



ww2aircraft.net


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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 30, 2022)

Snautzer01 said:


> The Lancaster as a potential nuclear bomber in 1945
> 
> 
> That wasn't my point, the UK had to have a means of delivery otherwise the whole thing is a waste of time. The grand slam could be carried by a modified Lancaster and reduced performance in range was accepted. If it couldn't be carried by a modified Lancaster it wouldn't have left the drawing...
> ...


That was a prototype Groundhog thread. There was a poster on that (and other) thread that gave the tone that commonwealth aircraft were ignored unjustly. After making some pretty ignorant statements and having several of our members call him out, the individual left the stage voluntarily


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## Thumpalumpacus (Oct 30, 2022)

That was the first long thread I read completely when I signed up. Made me wonder what I was getting into, lol.

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## Dana Bell (Oct 30, 2022)

I wasn't impressed with this video. There were so many simple mistakes (UAAC?) that everything else was thrown into doubt. I'm not certain which explanations were well researched and which ones were bunk.

Cheers,



Dana

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## SaparotRob (Oct 30, 2022)

You it's bad when I can find the errors.

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## Thumpalumpacus (Oct 30, 2022)

SaparotRob said:


> You it's bad when I can find the errors.



"You know* it's bad [...]"

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## Snautzer01 (Oct 30, 2022)

FLYBOYJ said:


> That was a prototype Groundhog thread. There was a poster on that (and other) thread that gave the tone that commonwealth aircraft were ignored unjustly. After making some pretty ignorant statements and having several of our members call him out, the individual left the stage voluntarily


Did anyone check the sources this person gave here in this post?.


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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 30, 2022)

Snautzer01 said:


> Did anyone check the sources this person gave here in this post?.


I did - some of his references were valid, some of his points were speculative based on very loose "what if" scenarios. For example, he did cite that Norman Ramsey, one of the architects of the bomb looked into using the Lancaster and did meet with Roy Chadwick. This was true but the final decision was not his and as history played out the B-29 was the chosen platform. He came up with very optimistic performance numbers where he felt the Lancaster VI was able to perform on par with the B-29. Bottom line, once it was decided to go forward with the Silverplate mod, the commitment was there and the poster who kept pushing the Lancaster nuke conspiracy theory probably just fed the "Black Lancaster" story which was utter BS!

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## Snautzer01 (Oct 30, 2022)

Thanks . Appreciated.

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## SplitRz (Oct 30, 2022)

FLYBOYJ said:


> I did - some of his references were valid, some of his points were speculative based on very loose "what if" scenarios. For example, he did cite that Norman Ramsey, one of the architects of the bomb looked into using the Lancaster and did meet with Roy Chadwick. This was true but the final decision was not his and as history played out the B-29 was the chosen platform. He came up with very optimistic performance numbers where he felt the Lancaster VI was able to perform on par with the B-29. Bottom line, once it was decided to go forward with the Silverplate mod, the commitment was there and the poster who kept pushing the Lancaster nuke conspiracy theory probably just fed the "Black Lancaster" story which was utter BS!



Sweet bejeebers. I can't believe that Mark Felton would have pedalled such obvious cack.

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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 30, 2022)

SplitRz said:


> Sweet bejeebers. I can't believe that Mark Felton would have pedalled such obvious cack.


Yep - and the conspiracy theories arose from the smoldering bovine fecal matter!

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## Snautzer01 (Oct 30, 2022)

Pumpkin bomb - Wikipedia the practised a lot over Japan with a copy of the bomb. Didnt know that. Pumpkin bomb - Wikipedia

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## SaparotRob (Oct 30, 2022)

Thumpalumpacus said:


> "You know* it's bad [...]"


Yeah, I *UN*fixed it. Should have left the error in.

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## Thumpalumpacus (Oct 30, 2022)

SaparotRob said:


> Yeah, I fixed it. Should have left the error in.



Dammit, there goes my joke!

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## SaparotRob (Oct 30, 2022)

Okay, the voices in my head were discussing the Atomic Lanc. The British Boing Washington bombers were acquired for their atomic bomb capabilities. If the Lanc was capable, why get the Boings? Were the Lancasters all scrapped by then?


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## GrauGeist (Oct 30, 2022)

The Lancasters stayed in service (although in dwindling numbers) until the early 50's.
The Lincoln, which was an upgraded Lanc, remained in service (in reduced numbers) until the early 60's.

The Washington (B-29s on loan to the RAF) operated alongside the Lincoln.


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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 30, 2022)

And the Washingtons were not nuclear capable.

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## GrauGeist (Oct 30, 2022)

Correct, most of the B-29s were production B-29s that went from the assembly line to storage due to the end of the war. A few were current operational aircraft with the USAF.

None were Silverplate or B-50 variants.


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## SaparotRob (Oct 30, 2022)

So only the Silverplates, *modified* B-29s (designed and manufactured *before* the revelation of the bombs dimensions) could carry A-bombs. The Lancaster, which was available during and post war, was superseded in part by the B-29, the Washington. The RAF must have seen some improved capability of the B-29 over the Lancaster. The Washington couldn't carry "A" weapons. The Lancaster was never actually modified for the job. 
I think I killed three birds with one stone.

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## pb43 (Oct 30, 2022)

Macandy said:


> The B-29 was the first bomber able to deliver the strategic effects the bomber advocates dreamed of.
> It was the first bomber with the performance and bomb load to able to be used to smash cities at will.
> Nothing was the same after B San.


You are forgetting that Britain had the Stirling, Lancaster and Halifax several years before the B-29 entered service in any numbers. That trio proved that they could deliver strategic bombing from 1942 on, two years before the B-29.

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## pb43 (Oct 30, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> I met a B-29 pilot once, nice guy (don't recall his name), but we did have a friend of the family that served aboard B-29s during WWII, who was a radar operator.
> 
> He was aboard Enola Gay during the Nagasaki mission, too.


To clarify:- "Enola Gay" flew Weather reconnaissance c/s Dimples 82, two hours ahead of "Bocks Car" on 9 August.


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## Thumpalumpacus (Oct 30, 2022)

pb43 said:


> You are forgetting that Britain had the Stirling, Lancaster and Halifax several years before the B-29 entered service in any numbers. That trio proved that they could deliver strategic bombing from 1942 on, two years before the B-29.



Used in numbers, the Lancaster was a primitive WMD. The difference was that the B-29 could do with 300 (Tokyo, Mar 1945) or the two A-bombs with one bomber apiece what took anywhere from 6-800 Lancs. The Superfort could also do it from a greater distance. So you're seeing force multiplication as tech rolls along.-- and that's what the -29 brought to the table.

The Lancaster was, I think we all agree, a fantastic bomber and very versatile. You're right that in 1943, it was top-tier, and in ETO was to remain so through to the end of the war. The B-29, being a later design, was simply more efficient at the task.

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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 30, 2022)

pb43 said:


> You are forgetting that Britain had the Stirling, Lancaster and Halifax several years before the B-29 entered service in any numbers. That trio proved that they could deliver strategic bombing from 1942 on, two years before the B-29.


And although all 3 aircraft made their contributions to the war effort, they were a generation behind the B-29.

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## Thumpalumpacus (Oct 30, 2022)

FLYBOYJ said:


> And although all 3 aircraft made their contributions to the war effort, they were a generation behind the B-29.



In 1943 the Brits had the best heavy-bombing force in the world (imo), once they sorted the navigation and targeting issues that hampered them in the early war. They did the best with what they had and were deadly when things came together on a mission.

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## GrauGeist (Oct 30, 2022)

pb43 said:


> To clarify:- "Enola Gay" flew Weather reconnaissance c/s Dimples 82, two hours ahead of "Bocks Car" on 9 August.


And to clarify further, Enola Gay was weather recon over Kokura (primary target) and Laggin' Dragon (Dimples 95) was weather recon over Nagasaki (secondary target).
Bockscar was accompanied by The Great Artiste (Dimples 89) which carried equipment to measure the bomb's blast and The Big Stink (Dumples 90) which was there to photograph and observe.

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## wuzak (Oct 30, 2022)

FLYBOYJ said:


> I believe someone posted a pretty detailed drawing that showed Fat Man would not fit in the Lancaster, or it it did there was just about no clearance on either side of the bomb bay.



I though there would be a ground clearance problem, as well as drag, du to the bulk of the bomb being external to the aircraft.


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## Shortround6 (Oct 30, 2022)

I believe there had to access to the bomb in flight for final arming. 
Could be wrong.

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## Thumpalumpacus (Oct 30, 2022)

Shortround6 said:


> I believe there had to access to the bomb in flight for final arming.
> Could be wrong.



It could be armed on the ground, but there was some nervousness about taking off in a pregnant cow with the world's first nuke already armed, from what I remember, so it was armed in flight. But I don't know if that was a requirement or not.


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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 30, 2022)

wuzak said:


> I though there would be a ground clearance problem, as well as drag, du to the bulk of the bomb being external to the aircraft.


Possibly, but I also believe there was a clearance issue within the aircraft

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## pb43 (Oct 30, 2022)

wuzak said:


> I though there would be a ground clearance problem, as well as drag, du to the bulk of the bomb being external to the aircraft.


Little Boy would have fitted, but the same problem of access for arming would have reared its ugly head, Not to mention that the lanc and Lincoln were unpressurised so have restricted service ceilings! The major reason why relatively few B-29s got shot down by fighters was thet they flew so high!


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## Thumpalumpacus (Oct 30, 2022)

pb43 said:


> Little Boy would have fitted, but the same problem of access for arming would have reared its ugly head, Not to mention that the lanc and Lincoln were unpressurised so have restricted service ceilings! The major reason why relatively few B-29s got shot down by fighters was thet they flew so high!



Their last six months' service over Japan were relatively low-level, under ten thousand feet, at night, in the firebombings. Minelaying as well was a low-level operation.

I don't know that the A-bomb _had_ to be armed during flight. I bet it was possible to arm on the ground and take off with it.


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## 45South (Oct 31, 2022)

wuzak said:


>



The wright engines were a failure. A lot of airman died because of this

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## GrauGeist (Oct 31, 2022)

45South said:


> The wright engines were a failure. A lot of airman died because of this


The R-3350 was most certainly not a failure - the rushed development caused complications that were eventually ironed out.
This holds true to many Allied and Axis types.
The wartime demand to get equipment into operation often times saw situations where modifications and upgrades were needed that would have taken much longer to debug during peacetime.


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## 45South (Oct 31, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> The R-3350 was most certainly not a failure - the rushed development caused complications that were eventually i
> This holds true to many Allied and Axis types.
> The wartime demand to get equipment into operation often times saw situations where modifications and upgrades were needed that would have taken much longer to debug during peacetime.


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## 45South (Oct 31, 2022)

You a Wright but the aircrew loses was terrible price to pay.


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## GrauGeist (Oct 31, 2022)

To be 100% honest, how many pilots and crew were lost to the early B-26?

How many pilots were lost to training from the transition from advanced trainer to assigned fighter?

How many Naval aviators were lost to carrier training?

How many were lost trying to learn the P-39's quirks?

Yes, the early R-3350 had it's issues and the early B-29 engine cowling design needed improvement, but during wartime, when the ability to gain the upper hand on the enemy hangs in the balance, risks must be taken.

Even many merchant mariners were lost due to a flaw in the construction of Liberty Ships and it took several disasters before the flaw was found and corrected.


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## wuzak (Oct 31, 2022)

pb43 said:


> Little Boy would have fitted, but the same problem of access for arming would have reared its ugly head,



Little Boy would have fitted inside the Mosquito, if the tail was changed to a British style round tail.

Others have addressed the need for access to arm the bombs.




pb43 said:


> Not to mention that the lanc and Lincoln were unpressurised so have restricted service ceilings! The major reason why relatively few B-29s got shot down by fighters was thet they flew so high!



Lancasters were restricted in their operating ceiling by the engines used (single stage Merlin 20-series, for the majority of production), aerodynamics and weight.

B-17s weren't pressurised either, yet they operated ~5-10,000ft higher.

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## pb43 (Oct 31, 2022)

Thumpalumpacus said:


> Their last six months' service over Japan were relatively low-level, under ten thousand feet, at night, in the firebombings. Minelaying as well was a low-level operation.
> 
> I don't know that the A-bomb _had_ to be armed during flight. I bet it was possible to arm on the ground and take off with it.


They NEVER took off with armed nuclear weapons, and the still don't. Modern weapons are automatically armed in a very similar fashion. The pit is removed until the weapon is armed. Either a weapons technician or the bombs arming mechanism inserts the pit and completes tamper and explosive lens shells. The early weapons stored the pits in special containers in the aircraft, rather than inside the bomb.

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## wuzak (Oct 31, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> The R-3350 was most certainly not a failure - the rushed development caused complications that were eventually ironed out.
> This holds true to many Allied and Axis types.
> The wartime demand to get equipment into operation often times saw situations where modifications and upgrades were needed that would have taken much longer to debug during peacetime.



Not sure that the R-3350 development could be called rushed.

It appears that the R-3350 was first run in the same month that the R2800 did. And the R-3350 certainly had more issues


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## wlewisiii (Oct 31, 2022)

45South said:


> The wright engines were a failure. A lot of airman died because of this


No. They were mother loving expensive, and we sent a lot of good men to the far beyond early because of those sons of bitches, but they were not a failure in the long run.


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## Shortround6 (Oct 31, 2022)

The Wright engines had a long and complicated history. The first engines that showed about the same time as the R-2800 were considerably different than the later engines used in the B-29s. For one thing crankcases were several inches shorter. The R-3350 engines were put on hold for a while Wright worked on the R-1820 and the R-2600 engines. AND they spent a crap load of time and engineering time on the R-2160 42 cylinder radial. After that got dropped they went back to the R-3350. 

We also have to divorce the R-3350 from the B-29. The B-29 did not cause the R-3350's problems, it might have made a bit worse but it did not cause them. What was fortunate, in a way, was that the demand for the B-29 program caused very few other aircraft to the use the R-3350 engines until it had been fixed. 
The C-69 used the R-3350 and had problems, but they only built 20 C-69s and slowly so the problems were not large compared to the B-29s. The C-69s didn't use turbos and were lighter so the engines weren't pushed as hard. They did have problems with overheating. 
If they had stopped the B-29 and built the B-32 in much larger numbers at the same time the result would have been much the same. A lot of crashes due to the engines. 
And there was no good substitute, The R-3350 was _rated_ at 2200hp max but 2000hp max continuous (like a long climb) while the R-2800 was 2000/2100hp max and 1600/1700hp max continuous (higher numbers are for the C series engines used on the P-47M/N) so you would need 5 or 6 R-2800s and different factories to supply engines. 
Or the Allison V-3420. But you either needed a new factory ( start building in 1942) or stop building P-39s, P-63s and P-38s.

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## Thumpalumpacus (Oct 31, 2022)

pb43 said:


> They NEVER took off with armed nuclear weapons, and the still don't. Modern weapons are automatically armed in a very similar fashion. The pit is removed until the weapon is armed. Either a weapons technician or the bombs arming mechanism inserts the pit and completes tamper and explosive lens shells. The early weapons stored the pits in special containers in the aircraft, rather than inside the bomb.



Right. That doesn't mean that they could not have, which was, after all, my question: could they have done so?


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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 31, 2022)

Thumpalumpacus said:


> Right. That doesn't mean that they could not have, which was, after all, my question: could they have done so?


They could have but doing so adds another risk to the mission.


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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 31, 2022)

45South said:


> The wright engines were a failure. A lot of airman died because of this


It was not by far. It had issues in it's early development and many aircraft were lost because of engine fires, but with almost 30,000 built it was far from a failure.

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## Thumpalumpacus (Oct 31, 2022)

FLYBOYJ said:


> They could have but doing so adds another risk to the mission.



That was my impression, but I have no sure knowledge.


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## SplitRz (Oct 31, 2022)

Thumpalumpacus said:


> Right. That doesn't mean that they could not have, which was, after all, my question: could they have done so?


Can I add an ancillary question to your? If they COULD have done so, WHY would they have done so?! 


Seems like a lot of reasons why you wouldn't. Sitting on a live and ready-to-go 'bucket of sunshine' in an age when a meaningful percentage of overloaded bombers might have a mechanical failure would seem a risk well beyond the lives of just the aircrew...

Maybe you MIGHT want to do it in a more modern setting if you were on a QRA mission close to the front line?


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## Thumpalumpacus (Oct 31, 2022)

SplitRz said:


> Can I add an ancillary question to your? If they COULD have done so, WHY would they have done so?!
> 
> 
> Seems like a lot of reasons why you wouldn't. Sitting on a live and ready-to-go 'bucket of sunshine' in an age when a meaningful percentage of overloaded bombers might have a mechanical failure would seem a risk well beyond the lives of just the aircrew...
> ...



Yeah, I'm not arguing that it would be advisable. I was originally discussing the supposed absolute requirement for in-flight access.

Of course you probably don't want to take off locked and loaded, but entertaining the hypothetical of the Lancaster dropping it, the lack of in-flight bomb-bay access was not necessarily a deal-breaker if it could be armed on the ground. Is that clearer?

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## SaparotRob (Oct 31, 2022)

The bombs were armed in the air so as to avoid accidentally nuking Tinian should the plane crash on take off.

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## special ed (Oct 31, 2022)

All of this back and forth has forced me to go through my stack of books. Fortunately, after only an hour I found "The Tibbets Story" almost where it should have been. Upon rereading portions, I found one thing I had forgotten. Tibbets was one of the first military pilots to test the 29. Planning tactics, he was disappointed with the high altitude performance:

" one thing we learned in this test program was the difficulty of maintaining control of the airplane while flying in the thin air at 30000 feet...it would be almost impossible to fly the B-29 at high altitude in the tight formations we had with the Fortress in raids over Europe....the B-29 assigned to me for these tests was fully equipped...weapons and armor plate...once, when it was down for maintenance I borrowed an aircraft (a school trainer) with tail guns only and no armament... The plane was 7000 pounds lighter, what a difference in performance...it was an unexpected payoff in fighter defense.... between 30 and 35 thousand feet, I could turn inside the P-47 used for attacking us... when he tried to get on our tail, I simply turned inside of him." 

The strategy for bomb delivery Tibbets worked out was to get 8 miles from the bomb drop (minimum recommended by scientists) by a sharp diving turn of 155 degrees which would put considerable strain on the airplane. The part I remembered reading best, was an attempt by Gen. LeMay to take the mission for the glory/publicity and have his operations officer fly the plane on the mission. Tibbets took Col. Blanchard on a pumpkin drop mission to Rota riding in the jump seat. After 11 months training all of Tibbets' crews knew their missions depended on exact timing and flying. They arrived at the aiming point at Rota exactly as estimated, dropped exactly on target, began the 155 degree diving turn with full power. Blanchard sat paralised by G forces, his face pale. They returned to Tinian within 15 seconds estimated of the ETA time. LeMay and Blanchard were satisfied and Tibbets did not have to go over LeMay's head to Arnold.

As to arming the bomb in flight, the decision to arm in flight was the thought a crash on takeoff would "wipe out half of the island." Captain "Deak" Parsons USN volunteered to arm it inflight. Parsons had previously sided with Gen. Groves and Oppenheimer against in flight arming.

The book is a good read, the first half is about a young Tibbets and his time in B-17s over Europe and Africa.

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## SaparotRob (Oct 31, 2022)

Of course, my takeaway is the B-17 flew better at high altitude than the B-29.


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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 31, 2022)

special ed said:


> All of this back and forth has forced me to go through my stack of books. Fortunately, after only an hour I found "The Tibbets Story" almost where it should have been. Upon rereading portions, I found one thing I had forgotten. Tibbets was one of the first military pilots to test the 29. Planning tactics, he was disappointed with the high altitude performance:
> 
> " one thing we learned in this test program was the difficulty of maintaining control of the airplane while flying in the thin air at 30000 feet...it would be almost impossible to fly the B-29 at high altitude in the tight formations we had with the Fortress in raids over Europe....the B-29 assigned to me for these tests was fully equipped...weapons and armor plate...once, when it was down for maintenance I borrowed an aircraft (a school trainer) with tail guns only and no armament... The plane was 7000 pounds lighter, what a difference in performance...it was an unexpected payoff in fighter defense.... between 30 and 35 thousand feet, I could turn inside the P-47 used for attacking us... when he tried to get on our tail, I simply turned inside of him."
> 
> ...


Great info - and then you have to look at the Silverplate B-29s. They were lighter and had slightly more powerful engines than the stock B-29s of the day.

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## special ed (Oct 31, 2022)

Could be why FIFI is so maneuverable.

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## Thumpalumpacus (Oct 31, 2022)

SaparotRob said:


> The bombs were armed in the air so as to avoid accidentally nuking Tinian should the plane crash on take off.



That's what I've read as well.


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## wuzak (Oct 31, 2022)

45South said:


> The wright engines were a failure. A lot of airman died because of this





FLYBOYJ said:


> It was not by far. It had issues in it's early development and many aircraft were lost because of engine fires, but with almost 30,000 built it was far from a failure.



It could be argued, when looking at early models, that the Merlin was a failure.

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## GrauGeist (Oct 31, 2022)

In regards to my earlier statement about the R-3350's - yes it did take quite a while to mature.
Granted, the first prototype ran in 1937, but due to the demand for the R-2600, development was not a priority.

The R-3350 is not fly until 1941, when it was tested in the B-19.

Even by 1943, with the R-3350's program ramped up, it was still having issues with the rear cylinders overheating and the lack of adequate clearance between the engine and B-29's cowling amplified the problem.

That and the issue of cylinder valve failures needed to be worked out.

But it took time and several changes to get the valve problem fixed as well as the low speed overheating corrected.

This is what I was referring to up-thread.

Perhaps if development of the R-3350 had begun in earnest from the start, these issues *may* have been ironed out by 1943.
Instead, it was a rush from 1941 to 1943 to get the engine set up and ready for the B-29 program.

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## EAIAnalog (Nov 1, 2022)

FLYBOYJ said:


> The first B-29 arrived at Wright Field, Ohio, on December 2 and underwent extensive modification to the bomb bay. To accommodate the length of the gun-type shaped weapon (Little Boy was originally supposed to be approximately 17 ft, but was later reduced to 10 ft), *engineers removed the B-29's four bomb bay doors and the fuselage section between the bays and replaced them with a single 33 ft bomb bay. *This modification project resulted in the removal of all the rear gun stations. Each plane was designed to carry either type of device; either Little Boy type in the forward bay or Fat Man type in the rear. New bomb suspensions and bracing were also implemented and separate twin-release mechanisms were mounted in each bay. Engineers also placed motion picture cameras in the bays to record the test of the new release mechanism.



As I read through this thread I ran across this, which I realize is a quote from another source. However the highlighted part of this quote makes no sense. The fuselage section between the bomb bays contains the main wing spar and the radar antenna. So I'm not sure what amazing modifications could be made to yield a 33 foot bomb bay. As I remember, Thin Man (the plutonium gun-bomb) was ~17 feet long, and there was an effort to figure out how to modify the forward bomb bay to accommodate its length. But that was abandoned when Little Boy (the uranium gun-bomb) was selected as it was only ~10 feet long (each bomb bay is approximately 12 feet long). Also, the bomb bays had to be modified internally to support a single bomb, since bombs were normally carried in racks on the sides of the bay.

The implication of the quote is that all Silverplate B-29's had a 33 foot bomb bay. But pictures of the Enola Gay show the normal forward and aft bomb bay door configuration. And pictures of her forward bomb bay looking aft show a pristine wing spar.

As an aside, no Little Boy style bomb was tested because the scientists were certain that it would work.

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## EwenS (Nov 1, 2022)

EAIAnalog said:


> As I read through this thread I ran across this, which I realize is a quote from another source. However the highlighted part of this quote makes no sense. The fuselage section between the bomb bays contains the main wing spar and the radar antenna. So I'm not sure what amazing modifications could be made to yield a 33 foot bomb bay. As I remember, Thin Man (the plutonium gun-bomb) was ~17 feet long, and there was an effort to figure out how to modify the forward bomb bay to accommodate its length. But that was abandoned when Little Boy (the uranium gun-bomb) was selected as it was only ~10 feet long (each bomb bay is approximately 12 feet long). Also, the bomb bays had to be modified internally to support a single bomb, since bombs were normally carried in racks on the sides of the bay.
> 
> The implication of the quote is that all Silverplate B-29's had a 33 foot bomb bay. But pictures of the Enola Gay show the normal forward and aft bomb bay door configuration. And pictures of her forward bomb bay looking aft show a pristine wing spar.
> 
> As an aside, no Little Boy style bomb was tested because the scientists were certain that it would work.


The description given in the Crowood book on the B-29 is this

"The bomb bay doors were removed from the two bomb bays and the standard bomb racks were removed. The radar radome was removed from the area between the bomb bays and two new, long bomb bay doors were installed, which covered the new single bomb bay. To transport the bomb, two glider tow cable attach-and-release mechanisms were modified and installed in the bomb bay; these connected to the two attachment lugs ofvthe Thin Man bomb."

Elsewhere I've read that some of the bulkheads under the wing spar were also cut away. Thin Man itself was suspended under the wing spar. It also retained the turrets.

These mods were only applied to the very first Silverplate aircraft B-29-5-BW 42-6259 assigned Secret Project Number MX-469 and codename Pullman.

Photos here:- (click on the description and history cross)









Mk1


Specifications DesignerLos Alamos Service1944 (Cancelled)TypeGunDimensions204″ x 23″Weight?Yield? Application PrototypeThin-Man Description & History Man’ weapon being develop…




nukecompendium.com





The other Silverplate conversions retained the separate bomb bays.

Later similar , but not identical, mods were made to B-29 converted to carry Grand Slam and T-12 Cloudmaker bombs.

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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 1, 2022)

EAIAnalog said:


> As I read through this thread I ran across this, which I realize is a quote from another source. However the highlighted part of this quote makes no sense. The fuselage section between the bomb bays contains the main wing spar and the radar antenna. So I'm not sure what amazing modifications could be made to yield a 33 foot bomb bay. As I remember, Thin Man (the plutonium gun-bomb) was ~17 feet long, and there was an effort to figure out how to modify the forward bomb bay to accommodate its length. But that was abandoned when Little Boy (the uranium gun-bomb) was selected as it was only ~10 feet long (each bomb bay is approximately 12 feet long). Also, the bomb bays had to be modified internally to support a single bomb, since bombs were normally carried in racks on the sides of the bay.
> 
> *The implication of the quote is that all Silverplate B-29's had a 33 foot bomb bay.* But pictures of the Enola Gay show the normal forward and aft bomb bay door configuration. And pictures of her forward bomb bay looking aft show a pristine wing spar.
> 
> As an aside, no Little Boy style bomb was tested because the scientists were certain that it would work.




From what I understand the modification I referenced was done outside of the factory (Wright Patterson) and it was the aircraft tested at Muroc, basically the Silverplate prototype. I don't know what was done to address the main spar but a major bulkhead was moved or cut to accommodate this so the modification was huge and time consuming.

My apologies if I gave the implication that this was done on all Silverplate B-29s

EDIT see post 137


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## EwenS (Nov 1, 2022)

B-29-5-BW 42-6259 was damaged in a landing accident in Dec 1944; transferred to storage at Davis-Monthan AAF; then assigned to Fort Worth AAF, Texas for use as an instructional aircraft. It was scrapped in May 1948.

The last 7 Silverplates also came from the Boeing Wichita factory. All the others came from the Martin Omaha factory.

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## EAIAnalog (Nov 2, 2022)

EwenS, thanks for the link. I hadn't seen any pictures of a B-29 modified to have those 33 foot bomb doors. To see what has been removed, check out the 3D walkthrough of the B-29 at the Museum of Flight. You can find it here. You can move from circle to circle, and do a 360 at each stop. The circles are where the camera was placed to take a bunch of pictures that were then stitched together to make the overall image.

If the S/N of the test aircraft is 42-6259, I think it was pulled from current inventory to do the modification testing. What I've read says the Enola Gay was the first Silverplate aircraft, and its S/N was 44-86292. According to Wikipedia, Col. Tibbets personally selected the aircraft on May 9, 1945, while it was still on the assembly line. The history write-up on the link says that the Thin Man design was abandoned on July 17, 1944. So that would mean the modification centers would not have to make any of the modifications required for the 33 foot bomb bay.


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## GrauGeist (Nov 2, 2022)

Thin Man was tested by the Wichita built B-29 (s/n 42959) and during one of the first test missions, the bomb prematurely dropped due to it's weight, causing a great deal of damage to the bomber. It was this incident that resulted in the modification to the British G-type suspension and F-type releases.

TBFs also dropped scale models of the bomb, exposing several design flaws.

By the way, Thin Man was named for FDR and Fat Man was for Churchill.

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## peiper (Nov 5, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> But that's not how it works.
> 
> The "cost" quoted for the B-29 program is the end figure for the program: cost of design, development, production and delivery to the customer (USAAF).
> 
> ...


....a weapon is worthless, etc if not used..its purpose was to be _deployed_ in WW2....so, you have to figure in the cost of training crews, and their deployment/use....
..I was referring to the B29s vs the Abombs, not B17s
...and, it cost mucho $$ to train the humans [ lives ]


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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 5, 2022)

peiper said:


> ....a weapon is worthless, etc if not used..its purpose was to be _deployed_ in WW2....so, you have to figure in the cost of training crews, and their deployment/use....
> ..I was referring to the B29s vs the Abombs, not B17s
> ...and, it cost mucho $$ to train the humans [ lives ]


And the B-29 "used..its purpose was to be _deployed_ in WW2" and then some. I suggest you do some research and find the missions the B-29s flew aside from dropping bombs. And please spare us your political rants, they will not be welcomed here.


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## GrauGeist (Nov 5, 2022)

The 3 billion dollar figure for the B-29 is _program_ cost (from drawing board to delivery).
This is the number used when comparing to the Manhattan Project's _program_ cost (1.9 billion).

So unless you're willing to factor in the Atomic Program's personnel cost (laborers, contractors, engineers, technicians, security, employee housing, medical expenses, material transportation, etc., etc., etc.), then stay with _program_ cost.

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## peiper (Nov 5, 2022)

FLYBOYJ said:


> And the B-29 "used..its purpose was to be _deployed_ in WW2" and then some. I suggest you do some research and find the missions the B-29s flew aside from dropping bombs. And please spare us your political rants, they will not be welcomed here.


HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH--political rants???!! HAHAHAHAHAHAH....do some research ahhahahahahhHAHHAHAHAH
woo hooo..not welcomed = HAHAHAHAHAHAH 
...wow--such a great welcome from you --HAHAHAHAHAHAH
....the subject was the cost of the B29s vs the A-bombs....this is really simple = the cost of the B29s is not just the development and manufacturing ..it includes the deployment and the crew costs


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## peiper (Nov 5, 2022)

FLYBOYJ said:


> And the B-29 "used..its purpose was to be _deployed_ in WW2" and then some. I suggest you do some research and find the missions the B-29s flew aside from dropping bombs. And please spare us your political rants, they will not be welcomed here.


o, yes, thanks for the reply


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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 5, 2022)

peiper said:


> HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH--political rants???!! HAHAHAHAHAHAH....do some research ahhahahahahhHAHHAHAHAH
> woo hooo..not welcomed = HAHAHAHAHAHAH
> ...wow--such a great welcome from you --HAHAHAHAHAHAH
> ....the subject was the cost of the B29s vs the A-bombs....this is really simple = the cost of the B29s is not just the development and manufacturing ..it includes the deployment and the crew costs


Great answer - so here's the deal - evidently you didn't read this when you joined the forum;






Terms and rules


You must agree to these terms and rules before using the site.



ww2aircraft.net





I suggest you read this *thoroughly*. 

My next welcome statement may not be so friendly.

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## Snautzer01 (Nov 5, 2022)

peiper said:


> HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH--political rants???!! HAHAHAHAHAHAH....do some research ahhahahahahhHAHHAHAHAH
> woo hooo..not welcomed = HAHAHAHAHAHAH
> ...wow--such a great welcome from you --HAHAHAHAHAHAH
> ....the subject was the cost of the B29s vs the A-bombs....this is really simple = the cost of the B29s is not just the development and manufacturing ..it includes the deployment and the crew costs

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## peiper (Nov 5, 2022)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Great answer - so here's the deal - evidently you didn't read this when you joined the forum;
> 
> 
> 
> ...


you are so welcoming ..thanks
1. I don't see anything about laughing in there
2. please specify my ''error'', because I don't see anything where I did not abide by the rules


Snautzer01 said:


> View attachment 693221


thanks......


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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 5, 2022)

peiper said:


> you are so welcoming ..thanks
> 1. I don't see anything about laughing in there
> 2. please specify my ''error'', because I don't see anything where I did not abide by the rules
> 
> thanks......


Good bye!

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## SaparotRob (Nov 5, 2022)

That was quick.

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## Snautzer01 (Nov 5, 2022)

Yes i thought i heard an out going swooshhh logging in.

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## mstennes (Nov 7, 2022)

Snautzer01 said:


> Yes but it was build to just do that. Could a lesser developed airplane have done the same? Lets say Lancaster?


No, the Lancaster could not have done what the 29 could and did. It had neither the range or the bomb bay size. The British did push the Lancaster to carry the atomic bomb the only problem was it was pushed to carry the Tall Man which was a gun type like Little Boy, the problem was it wouldn’t work and when redesigned we got Little Boy which was to large. The Lancaster also did not have range needed as well, the RAF even tried in flight refueling but the Air Corps wouldn’t allow it as to many things could go wrong.

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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 7, 2022)

mstennes said:


> The British did push the Lancaster to carry the atomic bomb


Did they? Do you have a reference for that? The only one with some clout who mentioned using the Lancaster was Norman Ramsey. It stopped there.

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## GrauGeist (Nov 7, 2022)

mstennes said:


> No, the Lancaster could not have done what the 29 could and did. It had neither the range or the bomb bay size. The British did push the Lancaster to carry the atomic bomb the only problem was it was pushed to carry the Tall Man which was a gun type like Little Boy, the problem was it wouldn’t work and when redesigned we got Little Boy which was to large. The Lancaster also did not have range needed as well, the RAF even tried in flight refueling but the Air Corps wouldn’t allow it as to many things could go wrong.


Already been discussed, the Lancaster was mentioned only a few times by USAAF heads and was ruled out for several reasons, one of which explaining why the Army Air force would need 15 or so Lancasters without ANY explanation.

As for range, the Lancaster could have done it with some changes to the location of the airbase (Iwo Jima instead of Tinian).

In regards to lifting ability:

Thin Man
Length: 17 feet
Diameter: 38 inches
Weight: 8,000 pounds

Little Boy
Length: 10 feet
Diameter: 28 inches
Weight: 9,700 pounds

Fat Man
Length: 10.6 feet
Diameter: 60 inches
Weight: 10,300 pounds

British conventional bombs carried by the Lancaster for comparison:

Grand Slam
Length: 26.5 feet
Diameter: 46 inches
Weight: 22,000 pounds

Tall Boy
Length: 21 feet
Diameter: 38 inches
Weight: 12,000 pounds

The Cookie HC series (Blockbuster) were smaller.


So as we can see here, the Lancaster could have carried ANY of the US Atom bombs.

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## nuuumannn (Nov 7, 2022)

Atom bomb carrying Lancasters, it was only a matter of time. Joe and Dave have said what's required - The Lancaster was never 'proposed' for dropping the bomb in action, it was suggested by Ramsay that it was the only aircraft that could carry Thin Man internally - Ramsay's words in a report dated September 1945:

"Except for the British Lancaster, all other aircraft would require such a bomb to be carried externally unless the aircraft were very drastically rebuilt."

In the same report he stated the following, which highlights that although the Lancaster might have been considered for trials, it was a proposal only and was never going to be put into practise:

"In the fall of 1943 it became apparent that plans for full scale tests should be started. In view of the critical shortage of B-29's it was at first proposed that a British Lancaster be used for the test work even though *a B-29 would almost certainly be used as the combat ship*."

The Lancaster simply did not have the performance to do it, nor did anything else in service use at that time, _other than the B-29_. We forget that the B-29 was a great leap in capability over what the status quo was.

Small addition to the discussion for clarification, the Thin Man bomb was abandoned because when it was first being developed it used plutonium, as we know, that element has to be refined from uranium, and it doesn't exist on its own as an element. The refining process at the Hanford, Washington State site created plutonium of a less than pure state, which jeopardised the effectiveness of whether or not a chain reaction would be created. Meanwhile, Manhattan Project scientists had toyed with the idea of using uranium 235 as the element of choice and although less stable than plutonium, it didn't require refining to the same extent and because of its lesser stability meant that the gun needn't be as long as if plutonium was used, so Thin Man effectively died when the discovery that U235 could be used instead of Hanford's impure plutonium. This is where Little Boy enters the room and U235 enrichment was done at Oak Ridge, Tennessee from March 1944 onwards, whereas beforehand, there were only Thin Man and Fat Man.

The origin of the names Fat Man and Thin Man come from Robert Serber a former student of Oppenheimer's; Thin Man came from the Robert Dalshiell detective novel of the same name and Fat Man was the name of Sydney Greenstreet's character in the 1941 film _The Maltese Falcon. _Little Boy was simply a contrast to Thin Man. Air Force personnel called them Roosevelt and Churchill for secrecy reasons

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## EwenS (Nov 8, 2022)

One further snippet not so far mentioned comes from an article in Aeroplane in Aug 2020 titled “Mission Improbable” was that Ramsey actually met with Roy Chadwick, designer of the Lancaster, to discuss the proposal to use the Lancaster.

In Oct 1943 Chadwick was in Canada overseeing Lancaster production there. The article then goes on -

“While there, Ramsey went to meet him. During their discussions, Ramsey produced illustrations of bomb casings of both kinds, gun-type and implosion type, and - without revealing their unique nature - asked whether a Lancaster could potentially carry them. Chadwick, somewhat intrigued, didn’t ask either, but assured Ramsey that it could.

Armed with Chadwick’s assurances, Ramsey returned to Los Alamos and briefed Parsons on the suitability of the Lancaster as a Thin Man carrier. At this stage the AAF had not been included in Manhattan discussions, but the project’s commander-in-chief Maj Gen Leslie Groves soon approached his equivalent within the AAF, Gen Henry H. ‘Hap’ Arnold. Groves was assured of AAF support, under the proviso that the AAF should provide the delivery platform and its crew. When the possibility of the Lancaster was put to them, both rejected it, insisting on the only American option: the B-29.”

Remember, all this was occurring in late 1943. The B-29 was going through a torrid time in its development and its deployment was being considered in terms of the first two bomb wings going to the CBI. Tinian’s invasion was still over 9 months away, and planning for it, except in the overall concept of a thrust across the Central Pacific, had still to begin.

The B-29 chosen for modification as a Thin Man carrier was the 58th aircraft off the production line and it was allocated for modification at Wright Field on 3rd Dec 1943.

So at that stage all talk of delivery of the atom bomb is about looking to the future. Use of the Lancaster as the delivery platform would have meant access to a base much closer to Japan than Tinian, unless of course aerial refuelling had been mastered sooner. And that was something that serious attention was paid to from later in 1944 when initial discussions were had about deploying Tiger Force to the Pacific.

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## Macandy (Nov 8, 2022)

They did use the Lancasters heavy bomb release mechanism though.


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## Macandy (Nov 8, 2022)

pb43 said:


> You are forgetting that Britain had the Stirling, Lancaster and Halifax several years before the B-29 entered service in any numbers. That trio proved that they could deliver strategic bombing from 1942 on, two years before the B-29.



The Stirling, Lancaster and Halifax were capable of many things, but delivering a strategic effect wasn't one of them.
It wasn't until late 44 that the RAF had enough heavies to thrown neigh on 1,000 a time at a target, but they still lacked the abuklity to deal knock out blows..

When B San came calling - whole Japanese cities died.


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## Macandy (Nov 8, 2022)

How advanced was the B-29?
It wasn't really until the arrival of the MiG 15 that the B-29 was in a bad place during daylight, although it held its own in Korea and casualty rates by WWII standards were very light.
This is a film of RAF trials showing tactics to deal with the Russian TU copy - even for post warjets, the B-29 was still a very tough target.


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## Geoffrey Sinclair (Nov 8, 2022)

Another option if things are desperate,. Avro Lincoln, first prototype first flight 9 June 1944, first production example in December 1944, all up 46 mark I and 10 mark II built to end May 1945, did not have the B-29 altitude performance but did have a longer range than the Lancaster.

Consolidated P4Y [NX21731], was it flying in 1939 with a pair of R-3350?

The monitoring of the fall out from the Krakatoa eruption showed there were strong winds in the upper atmosphere, and there were various reports pre WWII but it was not until post WWII the key data was determined. Like if they were seasonal, the average speeds, altitudes and so on.

Despatch on War Operations by Arthur Harris. Appendix J paragraph 48, 49.

"A radio technique was developed shortly before and during the war by which both winds and temperatures to levels beyond the troposphere were determined independent of cloud. This not only gave the meteorologist new and fairly plentiful data to great heights but also threw light on the general structure and circulation of the atmosphere. Perhaps one of the most striking early results was that wind velocities well over 200 miles per hour could exist at high altitude.

Brief mention may be made here of some advance in the science of meteorology during the war. An advance in the forecasting of fog has already been mentioned. The biggest step forward, however, came from the enhanced knowledge of the circulation in the upper atmosphere derived from a study of the new observational data obtained from high levels."

A Luftwaffe report noted for one raid into eastern Germany late in the war the route was around a pressure system, ensuring tail winds to and from the target. How much of this was planning is unknown. In contrast the early war period saw new weather effects being logged on a regular basis.

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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 8, 2022)

EwenS said:


> Armed with Chadwick’s assurances, Ramsey returned to Los Alamos and briefed Parsons on the suitability of the Lancaster as a Thin Man carrier. At this stage the AAF had not been included in Manhattan discussions, but the project’s commander-in-chief Maj Gen Leslie Groves soon approached his equivalent within the AAF, Gen Henry H. ‘Hap’ Arnold. Groves was assured of AAF support, under the proviso that the AAF should provide the delivery platform and its crew. *When the possibility of the Lancaster was put to them, both rejected it, insisting on the only American option: the B-29.”*


End of story!

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## Macandy (Nov 8, 2022)

It was politically unconscionable to NOT use a USAAF bomber!


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## SaparotRob (Nov 8, 2022)

You are all forgetting just how much better looking the B-29 is.

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## Snautzer01 (Nov 8, 2022)

SaparotRob said:


> You are all forgetting just how much better looking the B-29 is.


It is a sweet & slick looking beaut isnt it? Like a girl waayy, wayyyyyy out of your league.
On the other hand the Lancaster is the guy who will clear a bar for you, just because someone talked trash to you and he took offence. Kind of old school Millwall supporter.

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## Snautzer01 (Nov 8, 2022)

Macandy said:


> It was politically unconscionable to NOT use a USAAF bomber!


Perhaps but do read this thread. It is not only politics but just plain old hardware. 
If it does not fit, it cant. More simple as that it does not get.

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## Macandy (Nov 8, 2022)

SaparotRob said:


> You are all forgetting just how much better looking the B-29 is.




Not only better looking, but a far better war fighting machine in all respects.

Having been in a Lancaster, its a terrible place to be even in light summer clothes, in high altitude clothing - ugh! 
I was surprised to see a series of hooks by the rear door - 'what them?'
The crew hung up their chutes on them as there wasn't enough room to get about the plane with them on.

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## pbehn (Nov 8, 2022)

SaparotRob said:


> You are all forgetting just how much better looking the B-29 is.


As with the Spitfire, the only real consideration. All this talk of load and range, height and speed is complete baloney like "spanwise lift distribution" it just shows desperation.

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## SaparotRob (Nov 8, 2022)

So few understand.

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## SplitRz (Nov 8, 2022)

Macandy said:


> The Stirling, Lancaster and Halifax were capable of many things, but delivering a strategic effect wasn't one of them.
> It wasn't until late 44 that the RAF had enough heavies to thrown neigh on 1,000 a time at a target, but they still lacked the abuklity to deal knock out blows..
> 
> When B San came calling - whole Japanese cities died.



Eh? 

None of those three are tactical bombers. So what are they then?

What term would you use to describe nocturnal area bombing *other* than strategic?

I'm not getting into the rights or wrongs of the area bombing campaign, but cities like Hamburg suffered very much the same fate as those in Japan. 

And yes, it was more costly in aircrew and machines. But its intent was pretty much indivisible from the rationale for using the A-bomb. The area bombing campaign delivered a strategic effect. Maybe not to the extent that Harris imagined, but a very sizeable one, never the less.

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## pbehn (Nov 8, 2022)

SplitRz said:


> Eh?
> 
> You're at it *again*.....?!
> 
> ...


It is all hindsight, Hitler would not surrender under any circumstances and had no care what happened to Germany or anyone in it. If Japan had the same fruitcake in charge there were enough others like him to make the US keep dropping bombs until the USA got sick of it themselves. Fire bombing Tokyo didnt end the war as firebombing Hamburg didnt, they did reduce the enemy's ability to fight though.

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## SplitRz (Nov 8, 2022)

pbehn said:


> It is all hindsight, Hitler would not surrender under any circumstances and had no care what happened to Germany or anyone in it. If Japan had the same fruitcake in charge there were enough others like him to make the US keep dropping bombs until the USA got sick of it themselves. Fire bombing Tokyo didnt end the war as firebombing Hamburg didnt, they did reduce the enemy's ability to fight though.


Indeed. 

That Hiroshima *wasn't* a knock-out blow in and of itself, proves that the will might have been there to fight on. 

As I remember, the Japanese initially thought that the Americans couldn't possibly deliver another bomb of the same power in quick succession, necessitating the second drop.

Again, with hindsight, there seems to be some ambiguity as to how many more A-bombs the allies had ready to continue the campaign. Some sources suggest one, others between three and five available within the next three or four months.

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## pbehn (Nov 8, 2022)

SplitRz said:


> Indeed.
> 
> That Hiroshima *wasn't* a knock-out blow in and of itself, proves that the will might have been there to fight on.
> 
> ...


From what I read it was around 2 per month. The whole concept of strategic bombing depended on the idea that an opponent in a hopeless situation would give up. The idea that an opponent wouldnt give up and no means to make him surrender existed was never considered. There have been discussions here of when Hitlers situation became hopeless, some say from the start, or from 1940 when UK didnt surrender, or 1941 when Moscow wasnt taken, then the USA entering the war, Stalingrad, Kursk but it didnt matter, because the one person that mattered didnt care and the loyal few around him kept it like that. It defied all logic, and still does.

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## EwenS (Nov 8, 2022)

SplitRz said:


> Again, with hindsight, there seems to be some ambiguity as to how many more A-bombs the allies had ready to continue the campaign. Some sources suggest one, others between three and five available within the next three or four months.


I don't think that there was any ambiguity. One more ready by about 19th Aug plus a production schedule laid out in Maj Gen Groves memo of 30 July. See para 4.





Atomic Bomb: Decision -- Bomb Production Schedule, July 30, 1945


The Manhattan Project could make atomic bombs at an ever-increasing rate



www.dannen.com

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## special ed (Nov 8, 2022)

I point out to those modern folks who find the Bomb abhorrent, that without the Emperor making the decision to save his people, the island invasions schedule would have continued into 1947. The Japanese preparations for invasion included single shot 12 Gauge pipe guns for old men , boys and girls with knives and spears. With more younger draftees from the U.S., the mental duress for them would be greater when they must kill those the same age as their younger brothers and sisters. Without the Emperor's order, we could have insurgents even today.

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## GrauGeist (Nov 8, 2022)

An interesting bit of history that gets overlooked, regarding the Atomic bombings:
In the days after the attack, the Japanese mobilized it's fleet of suicide attack boats to assist in evacuating the injured.

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## mstennes (Nov 8, 2022)

The Thin Man (gun type) was a British design but for what ever reason (I can’t remember the exact reason now) it was deemed to have design errors and was redesigned into the Little Boy which also was a gun type. While the Thin Man would have fit into the Lancaster, it was also deemed to have to short of a range. I posted earlier that the RAF was working in flight refueling but was deemed to risky for the atomic mission.

The Silverplate -29’s did have bomb bay modifications to allow 100% inflight access to the bomb, but the engines and cooling were extensively modified and some notes were taken from what was being done to-29’s flying missions already and that was the remove all the defensive weapons except the tail guns.

My dad flew -29’s in the pacific and had a live hate relationship with them. He said losses were also from running out of fuel, engine fires on take off as well. The standard procedure if you lost a engine on take off was not go around, but get over the ocean drop your bombs and ditch.

He also talked about the overheating issues being so bad this is what prompted the removal of the guns to lighten the load. He also said they could be a nightmare flying in formation as the flight engineer was constantly working the controls to increase or decrease the inlets to keep them from overheating.

If you research the issues with the -29’s you will see what a huge portion of the Silverplate mods were as they had to be addressed before any nuclear weapons could safely be carried on them.

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## nuuumannn (Nov 8, 2022)

EwenS said:


> In Oct 1943 Chadwick was in Canada overseeing Lancaster production there. The article then goes on -
> 
> “While there, Ramsey went to meet him. During their discussions, Ramsey produced illustrations of bomb casings of both kinds, gun-type and implosion type, and - without revealing their unique nature - asked whether a Lancaster could potentially carry them. Chadwick, somewhat intrigued, didn’t ask either, but assured Ramsey that it could.
> 
> Armed with Chadwick’s assurances, Ramsey returned to Los Alamos and briefed Parsons on the suitability of the Lancaster as a Thin Man carrier. At this stage the AAF had not been included in Manhattan discussions, but the project’s commander-in-chief Maj Gen Leslie Groves soon approached his equivalent within the AAF, Gen Henry H. ‘Hap’ Arnold. Groves was assured of AAF support, under the proviso that the AAF should provide the delivery platform and its crew. When the possibility of the Lancaster was put to them, both rejected it, insisting on the only American option: the B-29.”



There was a debate over the exact transaction that went on between Chadwick and Ramsey on this forum when my article was first published and a few stated that because Chadwick had assured Ramsey that the Lanc could carry the shapes, it was a given it could carry the Fat Man bomb and thus perform the mission, whose diameter suspended below the aircraft would have produced severe aerodynamic disadvantages to the operational parameters. The problems with this is that Chadwick had no idea of what the shapes were meant to represent (he was not on the secret list), nor is there any evidence that he was given parameters representing mission information, and significantly, nor do we know exactly what it was that Chadwick was shown. There's no evidence that exact weapon dimensions and weight and so forth were offered, only rough estimates, so drawing conclusions from this is sketchy to say the least.



Macandy said:


> They did use the Lancasters heavy bomb release mechanism though.



I think Dave (Graugeist) already mentioned this. The British bomb carrier fitted to Lancasters for carriage of the Tall Boy was used following a failure of the multiple pick-up points during an airborne trial of Thin Man aboard the B-29 converted to carry it, which damaged the aircraft. It made sense to have one carry point.


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## nuuumannn (Nov 8, 2022)

mstennes said:


> The Thin Man (gun type) was a British design but for what ever reason (I can’t remember the exact reason now) it was deemed to have design errors and was redesigned into the Little Boy which also was a gun type.



The concept of the gun type weapon was the work of US born physicist Robert Serber, who was brought into the Manhattan Project by Oppenheimer (Serber was also the origin of the bombs' names, their shape dictated them - see my post above). The work on designing the bomb's physical characteristics was done jointly, but the proximity fuse and subsequent supply of the barrel for the Thin Man were done by William 'Deak' Parsons, as he was a navy man and got his contacts through the service to build the barrel. The navy carried out the first ballistics trials for Thin Man, dropping scale dummies, which were known as the Sewer Pipe Bomb from a US Navy Grumman Avenger at Dahlgren, Virginia. As for the decision to discard Thin Man for Little Boy, I mention this in my post above - the plutonium refined at the Hanford site was unstable and work had been done on U235, which was less stable, but meant that the gun needn't be as long, which effectively killed the Thin Man bomb because of its 17-foot length.

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## nuuumannn (Nov 8, 2022)

mstennes said:


> I posted earlier that the RAF was working in flight refueling but was deemed to risky for the atomic mission.



The RAF in-flight refuelling efforts had nothing to do with the atom bomb project. This was to aid the RAF's Tiger Force; its effort to supply bombers against Japan in the final months of the war once the war ended in Europe. Tiger Force was not going to be ready at least until the very end of 1945, but the atom bombs put an end to its use. It's worth noting that the Lancaster was never seriously considered for the mission, not by the Americans and no evidence exists the British put anything into place to support it. As mentioned above, the Lancaster was suggested as the only aircraft that could carry the Thin Man internally of existing bombers back in 1943. It was not stated anywhere that it was under consideration for the mission. This suggestion in a paper by Ramsey in 1943 has subsequently morphed into a desire to use it as the carrier aircraft through the magic of the internet, which is entirely fictitious. The Americans were adamant that the carrier aircraft was going to be the B-29 from the outset, despite whatever discussions Ramsey had with Chadwick. Ramsey did propose that Lancasters be used for trials owing to the lack of B-29s in 1943, but this was turned down and not actioned. Subsequent supply of the Silverplate B-29s negated this at any rate.

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## nuuumannn (Nov 8, 2022)

Geoffrey Sinclair said:


> Another option if things are desperate,. Avro Lincoln, first prototype first flight 9 June 1944, first production example in December 1944, all up 46 mark I and 10 mark II built to end May 1945, did not have the B-29 altitude performance but did have a longer range than the Lancaster.



There's a whole thread on this. Let's not forget that the Lincoln first entered RAF service in August 1945, _three_ bombers were supplied to 57 Sqn at East Kirkby. Hardly enough time for preparation. I'd suggest going through the thread on this forum but be careful not to step in the brown stuff on your way through it...



Macandy said:


> It was politically unconscionable to NOT use a USAAF bomber!



Yes indeed. When Groves first discussed it with Arnold, he insisted that if the USAAF is involved, it be a US aircraft right from the outset. The Lancaster was never in the running.



SaparotRob said:


> You are all forgetting just how much better looking the B-29 is.



Yes! You can have bacon, my friend!


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## nuuumannn (Nov 8, 2022)

Macandy said:


> Not only better looking, but a far better war fighting machine in all respects.



Agree. While I too have clambered aboard a Lancaster for that special experience (on a few occasions, I enjoyed cranking those gun turrets around! Been aboard a B-17 too) the B-29 was far superior to everything else at the time, and this is what people forget about it. It was such a _big _leap in capability that it changed the game. There had been bombers before that could fly as high as it, there had been bombers that could fly as fast as it, there had been bombers that could carry its warload and bombers that could fly further, and there had been pressurised bombers and bombers fitted with remotely operated gun turrets, but _no _bomber combined all of these facets into one workable airframe, until the B-29. In the Lancaster's favour though, was its Merlins - far more reliable than the B-29's Duplex Cyclones.

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## nuuumannn (Nov 8, 2022)

mstennes said:


> The Thin Man (gun type) was a British design but for what ever reason (I can’t remember the exact reason now)



To add to this, perhaps you mean the Maud Report, which was British? This basically confirmed that the process of nuclear fission that was created by splitting atoms, which led to a chain reaction could be used as a weapon. This was wholeheartedly embraced within the Manhattan Project and gave it extra impetus. This led to a meeting called by Oppenheimer that gathered the cache of scientists together with the aim of designing a practicable weapon, which is when Robert Serber outlined the gun type proposal. Although executed in the United States, which was the best place to do it because of the need for secrecy and isolation, as well as a bigger resource pool than anywhere else, the Manhattan Project was a truly international effort. There were scientists from all over the world, including those from as far afield as New Zealand, and it took full advantage of the European Fascist regimes' racist policies that drove many of the best and brightest scientists away.

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## Macandy (Nov 10, 2022)

SplitRz said:


> Eh?
> 
> None of those three are tactical bombers. So what are they then?
> 
> ...



They were de facto medium bombers - they lacked the range and bomb load to be strategic weapons and even an RAF maximum effort couldn't smash a city

True Strategic effect is 300 bombers going after the enemies capital, and in one raid, burning out 16 square miles of the city, killing 125,000 people and making a million homeless for just 14 losses, many of these from the huge thermal updrafts.
By fall 1945, there USAAF had pretty much run out of targets in Japan and was throwing bombers at ever smaller towns and literally wiping them out.


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## pbehn (Nov 10, 2022)

Macandy said:


> They were de facto medium bombers - they lacked the range and bomb load to be strategic weapons and even an RAF maximum effort couldn't smash a city
> 
> True Strategic effect is 300 bombers going after the enemies capital, and in one raid, burning out 16 square miles of the city, killing 125,000 people and making a million homeless for just 14 losses, many of these from the huge thermal updrafts.
> By fall 1945, there USAAF had pretty much run out of targets in Japan and was throwing bombers at ever smaller towns and literally wiping them out.


That is pure hindsight, your 300 bombers wouldnt set fire to 16 square miles of any European or US Capital, and would suffer such losses that it was never repeated again. Tokyo was made largely of wood how many capital cities were made of wood? You mean the USA's most expensive weapon programme was to set fire to wood, that is true genius, however I believe there was more to it. May I respectfully point out that burning the enemy's wooden capital didnt end the war.

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## EwenS (Nov 10, 2022)

Macandy said:


> They were de facto medium bombers - they lacked the range and bomb load to be strategic weapons and even an RAF maximum effort couldn't smash a city
> 
> True Strategic effect is 300 bombers going after the enemies capital, and in one raid, burning out 16 square miles of the city, killing 125,000 people and making a million homeless for just 14 losses, many of these from the huge thermal updrafts.
> By fall 1945, there USAAF had pretty much run out of targets in Japan and was throwing bombers at ever smaller towns and literally wiping them out.


Which ignores a number of significant differences between the targets in Japan and Germany.

Buildings in Europe were largely constructed of brick and stone with solid roofs. Much more difficult to make burn without first breaking down walls and roofs to let the incendiaries inside to do their work. Hence the mixed loads favoured by Bomber Command. And Bomber Command raids could produce firestorms. One of the biggest in Hamburg in July 1943, Operation Gomorrah. The difference in construction is demonstrated by what was left.








Bombing of Hamburg in World War II - Wikipedia







en.m.wikipedia.org





On the other hand Japanese houses were built of timber & paper. Many fewer brick & stone structures. That is why many photos of burnt out Japanese towns and cities show only the brick fireplaces and chimneys remaining. Much easier to burn out completely. Here is Tokyo immediately post war.








Bombing of Tokyo - Wikipedia







en.m.wikipedia.org





And let’s not forget that these successful fire raids on Japanese cities occurred after the decision to bomb at night from lower altitudes. XXI Bomber Command had flown 6 missions in Jan/Feb 1945 where incendiaries exceeded HE, 3 against engine factories and 3 against cities. Of the latter, 2 were at night and all at 22,000-30,000 feet. All were deemed unsuccessful.

And the first low level night incendiary raid to Tokyo on 9/10 March 1945 was the very first time XX AF actually was able to put 300+ aircraft over a target due to the arrival of a third Bomb Wing in that AF, the 314th BW. That mission and the ones that followed, saw a significant increase in bomb loads able to be carried by each aircraft (they were increased from an average of 3 tons to 6.5 tons) due to the lower altitude and reduced gun armament. 

Looking through the data I have, it is striking that of all the 331 missions flown by XXI Bomber Command from the Marianas, only 15 involved more than 300 aircraft.

By the end of the first 5 urban area attacks between 9 & 19 March 1945, XXI Bomber Command was running out of incendiary bombs and both flight and ground crews were exhausted by the pace of operations. Success or failure of incendiary missions depended on the following factors in order of importance:-

Pattern density - 0.3 tons of M-69 incendiaries per acre was necessary, but could not guarantee success.
Area density - concentration of bomb loads, their location and how accurately they were delivered.
Type of bomb - the M-69 proved best.
Time - compression of time and concentration in space, to allow individual fires to merge and prevent firefighters gaining control.
Surface winds - helped spread fires.
Precipitation - proved less of a problem than anticipated.

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## pbehn (Nov 10, 2022)

EwenS said:


> Which ignores a number of significant differences between the targets in Japan and Germany.
> 
> Buildings in Europe were largely constructed of brick and stone with solid roofs.


Even within that description which is largely true, cities had other differences. Old cities especially ports like Hamburg had lots of buildings close together, while more modern cities like Berlin had large boulevards and park spaces. An attack which worked well on Hamburg didnt on Berlin.

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## GrauGeist (Nov 10, 2022)

Many cities with older quarters were likely to burn, like London and Chongqin.

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## Thumpalumpacus (Nov 10, 2022)

Macandy said:


> They were de facto medium bombers - they lacked the range and bomb load to be strategic weapons and even an RAF maximum effort couldn't smash a city
> 
> True Strategic effect is 300 bombers going after the enemies capital, and in one raid, burning out 16 square miles of the city, killing 125,000 people and making a million homeless for just 14 losses, many of these from the huge thermal updrafts.
> By fall 1945, there USAAF had pretty much run out of targets in Japan and was throwing bombers at ever smaller towns and literally wiping them out.



I'd say14,000 lbs payload per plane is pretty darn strategic when you've got raids from 400-800 bombers. Granted that none could do what the B-29 did, but as 
P
 pbehn
points out the target circumstances were much different. All the same, Bomber Command torched more than a few German cities and those bombers and their crews were integral to the accomplishments.

They were not in any sense of the phrase "medium bombers". The B-29 was not the Only True Scotsman, it was simply much better than the others. They were still strategic in usage and capability compared to the capabilities of the medium bombers of the day.

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## EwenS (Nov 10, 2022)

Macandy said:


> They were de facto medium bombers - they lacked the range ......


The spec for the B-29 called for a very long range bomber with a range of c5,000 miles with a 2,000lb bomb load.

But the distances involved in the European airwar were far less than the Pacific where the B-29 was eventually used. So why design and build a bomber for something that wasn't required?

London to Berlin - 600 miles
Marianas to Tokyo - 1,500 miles

Until thoughts turned to sending bombers to the Pacific in 1944 the RAF didn't need a bomber with the range of a B-29.

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## SplitRz (Nov 10, 2022)

Macandy said:


> They were de facto medium bombers - they lacked the range and bomb load to be strategic weapons and even an RAF maximum effort couldn't smash a city


'De facto' medium bombers....  Even though they carried more bombs as far as just about any contemporary aircraft when they went into service?

Not for the first time, your elastic definitions seem more like personal assertions made to back up an earlier questionable generalisation.

Here's Wikis definition of a Strategic Bomber...

"_A *strategic bomber* is a *medium- to long-range* penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating the enemy's capacity to wage war. Unlike tactical bombers, penetrators, fighter-bombers, and attack aircraft, which are used in air interdiction operations to attack enemy combatants and military equipment, strategic bombers are designed to fly into enemy territory to destroy strategic targets (e.g., infrastructure, logistics, military installations, factories, etc.)._"

Britannica.com says -

"*St*_*rategic bombing*, approach to aerial bombardment designed to destroy a country's ability to wage war by demoralizing civilians and targeting features of an enemy's infrastructure—such as factories, railways, and refineries—that are essential for the production and supply of war materials._"

Definitions.net says -

"_Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in total war with the goal of defeating the enemy by destroying its morale or its economic ability to produce and transport materiel to the theatres of military operations, or both. It is a systematically organized and executed attack from the air which can utilize strategic bombers, long- or medium-range missiles, or nuclear-armed fighter-bomber aircraft to attack targets deemed vital to the enemy's war-making capability. One of the strategies of war is to demoralize the enemy, so that peace or surrender becomes preferable to continuing the conflict. Strategic bombing has been used to this end_."

I could go on but its getting boring. But I have yet to find mention of the magic McCandy range statistic that earns the distinction of when a bomber dropping ordinance to achieve the above objective becomes 'de facto strategic'. Nor can I find a statistic or metric giving a minimum bombload, or a defined minimum level of annihilation.

As for the potential effects of these apparently non strategic medium bombers that couldn't smash a city...?

Memories of the Hamburg Raid - History Learning Site

_"Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary that the devastation caused at Hamburg was so great that it was the first time that he had considered a negotiated peace with the Allies – regardless of his public stance of defiance. The Gestapo and other forms of internal security were put on full alert to ensure that as little as was possible about the destruction of Hamburg leaked out to the German public at large._"

... how far down this rabbit hole do you want to continue?

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## Thumpalumpacus (Nov 10, 2022)

EwenS said:


> The spec for the B-29 called for a very long range bomber with a range of c5,000 miles with a 2,000lb bomb load.
> 
> But the distances involved in the European airwar were far less than the Pacific where the B-29 was eventually used. So why design and build a bomber for something that wasn't required?
> 
> ...



Right -- the RAF needed bombers for its mission at hand and didn't have a lot of money to blue-sky designs. The Brits didn't have the money to throw at a problem like America did, so they had to perforce stay focused -- and whether we're talking bombers or fighters, they did a great job of producing what was needed in (generally) good time for it to be useful.

Even the Stirling, the least of the lot, was far superior to any medium bomber for range and payload, so calling it a "medium bomber" is nonsense. I'd love a medium that could haul six tons of bombs 650 miles radius.

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## SaparotRob (Nov 10, 2022)

Does anyone know the "climb to cockpit" time for the Sterling?

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## Thumpalumpacus (Nov 10, 2022)

SaparotRob said:


> Does anyone know the "climb to cockpit" time for the Sterling?



I don't have that answer, but I believe the crew had to don oxygen gear before starting that trek.

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## pbehn (Nov 10, 2022)

SaparotRob said:


> Does anyone know the "climb to cockpit" time for the Sterling?


It usually involved a game of snooker in the billiard room so it was quite a while.

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## Thumpalumpacus (Nov 10, 2022)

pbehn said:


> It usually involved a game of snooker in the billiard room so it was quite a while.



Relief stations were built into the ladders, right?

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## GrauGeist (Nov 10, 2022)

I'd also suggest that at the time that Britain was designing their medium/heavy bombers, continental Europe was it's main priority.

The Pacific and it's Commonwealth would be a secondary concern and of no consequence if Britain was not able to defend and save the UK.

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## nuuumannn (Nov 10, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> I'd also suggest that at the time that Britain was designing their medium/heavy bombers, continental Europe was it's main priority.
> 
> The Pacific and it's Commonwealth would be a secondary concern and of no consequence if Britain was not able to defend and save the UK.



Exactly. It's like during the Cold War, Britain didn't need big gas guzzling ICBMs with massive range; the Soviet Union was just over there. When it came to the crunch, American citizens had time to hide under a table, say a few "Hail Marys" and kiss their *sses goodbye, whereas British citizens only had time to shrug their shoulders and complain about the weather one last time...

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## pbehn (Nov 10, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> I'd also suggest that at the time that Britain was designing their medium/heavy bombers, continental Europe was it's main priority.
> 
> The Pacific and it's Commonwealth would be a secondary concern and of no consequence if Britain was not able to defend and save the UK.


The Stirling was supposed to be able to carry people and cargo as well as bombs, for work in the commonwealth but not a Pacific theatre where Japan had taken a huge amount of territory. Designed to do everything, it was pretty useless at anything.

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## SplitRz (Nov 10, 2022)

pbehn said:


> The Stirling was supposed to be able to carry people and cargo as well as bombs, for work in the commonwealth but not a Pacific theatre where Japan had taken a huge amount of territory. Designed to do everything, it was pretty useless at anything.


Other sources may beg to differ on some of that? 

Bomber specs

"The 1936 bomber specifications (B.12/36 and P.13/36) stated:

_Consideration is to be given in design for fitting a light removable form of seating for the maximum number of personnel that can be accommodated within the fuselage when the aircraft is being used for reinforcing Overseas Commands._

*This was certainly not demanding provision for troop carrying. Seating was to be fitted in the fuselage, not that the fuselage was to be designed to take seating*. Moreover, it referred to the need to transport RAF ground crew to RAF Overseas Commands — a concomitant of the introduction of a reinforcement range into bomber requirements. Significantly, only after the 1936 bomber specifications had been issued did the Air Staff investigate using them as transports, and proposed a provisional allocation of funds for a new transport in case this was not possible. But when this proposition was discussed it was decided that one of the bombers 'must' be used as a transport. In a later lecture to the Higher Commanders' Course the point was made that these bombers 'will have all the necessary cabin space, lift capacity and range to fulfil the bomber transport primary role and its secondary functions as well'. Nevertheless, the lecturer noted that 'by reason of the multiplicity of internal installations in the fuselage the troops may not enjoy the same degree of comfort available in present types'. Indeed, when Bomber Command officers inspected the mock-up of the Supermarine design to B.12/36, far from finding accommodation for fully armed troops, they were concerned as to whether there was adequate room for the crew. They reported that headroom throughout the fuselage was restricted, and that even the captain and navigator did not have room to stand. *Clearly a troop carrying requirement did not dominate — or even influence — the design of RAF bombers."*

Surely the Stirling was most knackered by the limitation of its wingspan to 100ft, and the sub-divided bomb-bay and wing cells?


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## pbehn (Nov 10, 2022)

SplitRz said:


> Other sources may beg to differ on some of that?
> 
> Bomber specs
> 
> ...


Be that as it may, there are pictures of the Stirling kitted out with seats Why else was it so huge when the bomb bay was no longer than a Lancaster and it couldnt actually load very big bombs. It was 17ft longer than a Lancaster with almost the same wingspan, literally a huge waste of space.
from wiki

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## Thumpalumpacus (Nov 10, 2022)

pbehn said:


> Be that as it may, there are pictures of the Stirling kitted out with seats Why else was it so huge when the bomb bay was no longer than a Lancaster and it couldnt actually load very big bombs. It was 17ft longer than a Lancaster with almost the same wingspan, literally a huge waste of space.
> from wiki
> View attachment 693942



Multirole designs had appeal, especially to cash-strapped operators?


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## EwenS (Nov 10, 2022)

Spec P.13/36 that led to both the Manchester and Halifax also included a requirement to carry troops (IIRC 10 in number). That requirement wasn't dropped until 30 Jan 1940.

The Stirling couldn't carry bombs larger than 1,000lb due to the bomb bay being designed with a number of longitudinal girders dividing it into three long but narrow channels to contain the bombs.

The interior photo of the Stirling above is of the C.V version. That was the special Transport Command version produced in 1945. The original bomber versions of the Stirling, Manchester and Halifax were intended to have the troops sitting on fewer folding canvas seats along the rear fuselage side.

The idea however simply followed on from bomber designs going back into the 1920s intended for the Empire policing role.

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## nuuumannn (Nov 10, 2022)

Macandy said:


> True Strategic effect is 300 bombers going after the enemies capital, and in one raid, burning out 16 square miles of the city, killing 125,000 people and making a million homeless for just 14 losses, many of these from the huge thermal updrafts.
> By fall 1945, there USAAF had pretty much run out of targets in Japan and was throwing bombers at ever smaller towns and literally wiping them out.



Your definition is off. Strategic bombing as a definition is not determined by the aircraft nor the effect, but the mission and when it is carried out. Once upon a time,_ this _was a strategic bomber.




DSC_0174

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## GrauGeist (Nov 10, 2022)

And back in the day, this was a strategic bomber, too.

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## nuuumannn (Nov 10, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> And back in the day, this was a strategic bomber, too.



Perhaps the worst, but no less strategic in its operation than the B-29. L 31 was shot down by Wulstan Tempest of 39 (home Defence) Sqn, RFC on the night of 2 October 1916. Its entire crew died.


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## pbehn (Nov 10, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> And back in the day, this was a strategic bomber, too.
> 
> View attachment 693964


It just needed 2 or 3 thousand of them, maybe causing a firestorm would be a bit of an issue, but nothing that couldnt be sorted.

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## GrauGeist (Nov 10, 2022)

The Airship campaign against England actually caused alot of damage out of the 50+ raids.

About a third of the airships were downed by defensive measures and it's a miracle that London (and surrounding towns) didn't suffer fires like during the Blitz.

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## pbehn (Nov 10, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> The Airship campaign against England actually caused alot of damage out of the 50+ raids.
> 
> About a third of the airships were downed by defensive measures and it's a miracle that London (and surrounding towns) didn't suffer fires like during the Blitz.


The panic caused set the tone for thinking between the wars, many thought mass hysteria would cause a population to demand peace. Strange thing about these type of raids, like the high altitude raids in WW2, purely by chance or whatever, the damage caused was out of proportion to the tonnage dropped in most conventional raids.

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## nuuumannn (Nov 10, 2022)

pbehn said:


> It just needed 2 or 3 thousand of them, maybe causing a firestorm would be a bit of an issue, but nothing that couldnt be sorted.



The only firestorm was the conflagration the thing became once set alight... On the night of 23/24 September 1916, two airships were shot down over Britain, L 32 and L 33, the latter's crew, struggling with their ship's gas cells deflating from an attack by an RFC aeroplane, watched L 32 explode in midair and descend in a fireball. It would have been a ghastly sight for even the hardiest airshipman. L 33 landed relatively intact in Essex and its crew survived, whereas L 32's burned to death.



GrauGeist said:


> it's a miracle that London (and surrounding towns) didn't suffer fires like during the Blitz.



It kind'a isn't, really . There were so many factors working against the airships that it was almost sheer luck that they got close enough to big centres to drop bombs on them at all. An airship ended up in Norwegian waters intending on attacking Britain, another on a raid against Edinburgh ended up crashing near Inverness. The failure rate was staggeringly high and statistically speaking, (apart from dedicated suicide units and operations) the Imperial German Navy Airship Division bears the dubious honour of suffering the highest ratio of deaths in action per head count of any armed force unit (across a campaign rather than in a single action). The German U boat arm during WW2 comes high up that list, too, but the Zeppelin unit tops it.

Statistically, the German airship raids looked like this:

"A total of 196 tons of bombs were dropped on Britain over 51 raids by airships between January 1915 and August 1918, causing the deaths of 557 people and injuring another 1,358."

I once wrote an article on the final ride of L 33 and included the following from the RAF's Operation Gomorrah as a means of comparison:

"By comparison, during Operation _Gomorrah_, the raiding of the German city of Hamburg over four nights in late July and early August 1943 by RAF Bomber Command, 2,630 British bombers dropped 8,759 tonnes of bombs, killing more than 41,800 and injuring over 37,000 people."

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## SplitRz (Nov 12, 2022)

My grandmother, born in 1907, lived in South Croydon. She told me as a kid that her earliest memory was of being woken to people out in the street cheering. Going outside to see what they were celebrating, she said they were all pointing to a blazing airship in the distant sky.

Anyone with enough airship knowledge or resources to be able to hazard a guess as to which airship she might have seen?

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## SaparotRob (Nov 12, 2022)

If anybody can figure that out I'd bet it would one of the Forum's members.

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## GrauGeist (Nov 12, 2022)

One of the most spectacular airship downings near London, was of the German Navy's LZ-31 on the evening of 1 October 1916 near Potter's Bar.
It was seen by thousands as it burst into flames and plunged to earth.


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## SplitRz (Nov 12, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> One of the most spectacular airship downings near London, was of the German Navy's LZ-31 on the evening of 1 October 1916 near Potter's Bar.
> It was seen by thousands as it burst into flames and plunged to earth.


Could be - though that's 35 or so kilometers from Croydon


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## SplitRz (Nov 12, 2022)

Actually, I think you have it!

(And to keep this thread on topic, Mcandy - note the last bit in bold  )



> The final moments of SL.11 – now a flaring, roaring inferno – illuminated the countryside up to thirty miles away. Those watching had observed the final action in silence, but as the flames engulfed the stricken airship, the mood changed.
> 
> A Special Constable, viewing the destruction of SL.11 from some ten miles away, recalled the reaction of those around him:
> 
> ...

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## Tom Graham (Nov 13, 2022)

wuzak said:


>



It might be helpful to start here.


Bombing accuracy : USAAF heavy and medium bombers in the ETO / the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Military Analysis Division.


There were many factors in the ETO which caused USAAF bombing accuracy to fall below expectations.

Altitude was one of them. The average bombing altitude was about 20,000 ft.(See item 14). Well below the service ceilings of B17s & B24s.

When LeMay was sent from Europe to clean up the mess, he must have been aware of this. The Jetstream over Japan was 30,000 to 40,000 ft. Fly at 20,000 ft, it's mostly over the ocean & and there is little danger from the defenses, was the obvious answer.

But then the other factors come in to play. The accuracy would then be the same as that which required the excuses (explanations) shown in that document.

In that case the Top Brass would have had answer some question which they would have preferred not to.

Enter Plan B. Area bombing at night.

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## nuuumannn (Nov 13, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> One of the most spectacular airship downings near London, was of the German Navy's LZ-31 on the evening of 1 October 1916 near Potter's Bar.
> It was seen by thousands as it burst into flames and plunged to earth.



Just a wee clarification, the airship shot down on the night of 1 October 1916 was L 31, or LZ 72. LZ 31 was a different airship that was designated L 6 in service and going back to reasons why the airship campaign was so flawed, L 6 was destroyed by fire inside its hangar in September 1916, taking L 9 (LZ 36) with it in the conflagration.

Zeppelin assigned their own designations to their airships, with the prefix "LZ", whereas in navy service these ships received an "L" designator, which was painted on their flanks. This was slightly different practise to Army Zeppelins, which used the Zeppelin company designator and, just to confuse, also a "Z" designator as well!

To add to Splitarz' post about SL 11, ships with "SL" were built by the Schutte Lanz company of Mannheim and were wooden hulled ships. SL 11 was the first to be shot down over Britain in a night raid, but oddly, when it was brought down it was mistakenly thought to be L 21 and this is embossed on Leefe-Robinson's grave site in North London!

Carry on...

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## SaparotRob (Nov 13, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> One of the most spectacular airship downings near London, was of the German Navy's LZ-31 on the evening of 1 October 1916 near Potter's Bar.
> It was seen by thousands as it burst into flames and plunged to earth.


That must have been one popular bar.

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## GrauGeist (Nov 13, 2022)

Yeah, I was going by memory, couldn't remember if it was Army or Navy, just the number 31, so I went with LZ.

I suppose I could have googled it...

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## Shortround6 (Nov 13, 2022)

SplitRz said:


> *Clearly a troop carrying requirement did not dominate — or even influence — the design of RAF bombers."*


Actually it did. Some of the earlier requirements spelled out the capacity of the bombers when used as a transport.
The 1936 Specification did not, Supermarine may have take advantage of the that, Shorts may have been afraid that the Air Ministry might change their minds and go back to requiring a large troop capacity and so designed it in. Somebody may have correspondence about this. 

AS 23 bomber transport




predecessor of the Whitley. The Harrow and the Bristol Bombay were built to the same or follow up requirement. 
HP Harrows were issued to 5 RAF bomber squadrons, it part because there wasn't anything better and in part because they were better than the HP Heyford which was not built to a dual role specification.

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## nuuumannn (Nov 13, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> Yeah, I was going by memory, couldn't remember if it was Army or Navy, just the number 31, so I went with LZ.



I'm shocked, Dave, not your usual degree of care... Are you feeling okay?


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## GrauGeist (Nov 13, 2022)

nuuumannn said:


> I'm shocked, Dave, not your usual degree of care... Are you feeling okay?


Actually, no - not having a good life at the moment.

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## Macandy (Nov 14, 2022)

pbehn said:


> Be that as it may, there are pictures of the Stirling kitted out with seats Why else was it so huge when the bomb bay was no longer than a Lancaster and it couldnt actually load very big bombs. It was 17ft longer than a Lancaster with almost the same wingspan, literally a huge waste of space.
> from wiki
> View attachment 693942




The Stirling was a good idea crippled be reusing the wrong ideas.
It was a bad bomber, but its draggy high lift wing from the Sunderland made it a half decent transport.


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## pbehn (Nov 14, 2022)

Macandy said:


> The Stirling was a good idea crippled be reusing the wrong ideas.
> It was a bad bomber, but its draggy high lift wing from the Sunderland made it a half decent transport.


As a transport, it made a great glider tug.

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## Macandy (Nov 14, 2022)

pbehn said:


> As a transport, it made a great glider tug.



Indeed!


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## Tom Graham (Nov 15, 2022)

wuzak said:


>



Nobody has mentioned the "Battle of Kansas" or "Operation Matterhorn", so here are a couple of links.








Battle of Kansas - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org












Operation Matterhorn - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org

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## Tom Graham (Nov 15, 2022)

Shortround6 said:


> View attachment 691693
> 
> Without atomic bomb.
> 
> ...


In Tokyo, like all Japanese cities house were built of wood. They burnt very easily. The surviving buildings are built of bricks or concrete. Fire bombing European cities required explosive bombs to destroy the roof and give access to the interior for the incendiaries. The exterior remained standing but the interiors were gutted.
See here:


Shortround6 said:


> View attachment 691693
> 
> Without atomic bomb.
> 
> ...





Shortround6 said:


> The B-29 was not a one trick pony.


Japanese houses were built of wood, they burnt very well in SUMMER. The surviving buildings you can see are built from brick or concrete. European house were built of brick. They required demolition of the roof by explosive bombs, to give access to the interiors for incendiaries. 
You can see how it worked here:


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## SplitRz (Nov 15, 2022)

Shortround6 said:


> Actually it did. Some of the earlier requirements spelled out the capacity of the bombers when used as a transport.
> The 1936 Specification did not, Supermarine may have take advantage of the that, Shorts may have been afraid that the Air Ministry might change their minds and go back to requiring a large troop capacity and so designed it in. Somebody may have correspondence about this.
> 
> AS 23 bomber transport
> ...


I know - but the the quote I highlighted in bold earlier refers to the specification that the main RAF heavies were built to - *Spec P.13/36* "Twin-engined medium bomber for "world-wide use" (Halifax and Manchester/Lancaster built to this - ended up as four engined bombers - absolutely no reference to functionality incorporated into the design for troop transport that I can find - any use as such afterwards was as adaptation)

McAndy and Pbehn mention the provision of troop transport and the incorporation of that functionality being incorporated into the design and specification and mention the Stirling in particular - but again, this was built to a different specification - spec *B.12/36* . This specifically required a four-engined bomber - of the designs for which, only the Stirling went into production. I can't find any written proof so far that troop transport was 'designed in' to this either as of yet

Production aircraft like the AW 23 and the Bombay were designed to spec Air Ministry Specification C.26/31 - issued five years before and very different in nature. The Bombay proved to be an exceedingly useful aircraft, as it happened.

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## SplitRz (Nov 15, 2022)

Aha, no less that the lazy mans research tool, wiki:

"_The Air Ministry published Specification B.12/36, for a high-speed, long-range, four-engined strategic bomber aircraft that would be capable of being designed and constructed at speed.[4] The bomb load was to be a maximum of 14,000 lb (6,350 kg) carried to a range of 2,000 miles (3218 km) or a lesser payload of 8,000 lb (3,629 kg) to 3,000 miles (4,800 km) (very demanding for the era). It was to have a crew of six and was to have a normal all-up weight of 48,000 lb, while a maximum overload weight of 65,000 lb was also envisioned.[4] The aircraft would have to be capable of cruising at speeds of 230 mph or greater while flying at 15,000 ft (4,600 m), carrying three gun turrets (located in the nose, amidships, and rear positions) for defence.[5]

*The aircraft should also be able to be used as a troop transport for 24 soldiers and be able to use catapult assistance for takeoff when heavily laden.[6][5] The concept was that the aircraft would fly troops to far corners of the British Empire and then support them with bombing. To help with this task, as well as ease production, it needed to be able to be broken down into parts, for transport by train.[7] Since it could be operating from limited "back country" airfields, it needed to lift off from a 500 ft (150 m) runway and be able to clear 50 ft (15 m) trees at the end, a specification with which most small aircraft would have a problem today. Aviation author Geoffrey Norris observed that the stringent requirements given in the specification for the prospective aircraft to be able to make use of existing infrastructure, specifically the specified maximum wingspan of 100 feet, adversely affected the Stirling's performance, such as its relatively low ceiling and its inability to carry anything larger than 500 lb bombs.[4]"*_

So transport capability WAS built into the Stirling. But it was built to a different spec than the Lancaster or Halifax. So in case anyone is still awake, we can rewind back to the initial postulation that the Lancaster was a compromised design because troop transportation capability was built into its inherent design.

*It wasn't* - but it was for the Stirling  [and relax!]

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## Thumpalumpacus (Nov 15, 2022)

Tom Graham said:


> Japanese houses were built of wood, they burnt very well in SUMMER.



Tokyo was firebombed the first time at the end of winter. The buildings went up fine.

Ambient temperature is only rarely a factor in structural fires -- especially ones started by gasoline-based incendiaries in the first place.

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## Shortround6 (Nov 15, 2022)

It wasn't just that the B-29 could set fire to cities. That was more a function of the actual bombs. 

It was that they could destroy a city using around 300 bombers rather than 1000 bombers. Add do it from longer range. 

The other Japanese cities also use wood construction. More square miles of Tokyo were destroyed than in either atomic bomb blast.

The B-29 could perform a number of missions, using a variety of weapons and do it at longer ranges using fewer aircraft than any other bomber if the time.

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## EwenS (Nov 15, 2022)

P.13/36 That led to the Manchester (and the following Lancaster) and Halifax DID include a troop carrying requirement. As I previously noted that was not dropped until 30 Jan 1940. Other initial requirements like dive bombing, catapult launch and torpedo dropping had been dropped at different points earlier in the design process. I extracted that from a history of the Manchester bomber. Can't now recall how many troops it was for.

And the claim that the wingspan of the Stirling was limited to 99ft to fit existing infrastructure (specifically hangars) is a myth. By the time Spec B.12/36 was drawn up, the RAF was already building hangars on its airfields plenty wide enough to take it.

The Type A Aeroplane Shed designed in 1924 and erected from 1925 became the standard RAF inter-war hangar until the mid-1930s. It spanned 122ft with the doors opening across the full width. With a clear door height of 30ft it could even accommodate the Stirling's great height. Subsequent types were even wider and taller.

I researched the history of the Manchester/Halifax a few years ago and posted this on another site

"Not sure about B.12/36 (4 engined heavy bomber), that led to the Stirling, as I can't find much on the details of the original spec, but P.13/36 (the 2 engined medium or "small heavy" bomber) did contain a dive bombing requirement, as you correctly note, along with the torpedo bombing and catapulting requirements - initially.

The winner of P.13/36 was the Avro Manchester with the Handley Page HP.56 chosen as a second back-up type to meet the requirement. Both were to be fitted with RR Vulture engines. Both designs were signed off by the Air Ministry early in 1937.

The torpedo dropping requirement of P.13/36 was then dropped on 26 Aug 1937.

The catapult launch requirement was dropped on 4 July 1938. However it seems that the weight saving this should have generated could not be taken advantage of in the first 20 Avro Manchester airframes as they were already on the production lines, and it is not clear if it was ever designed out, according to Robert Kirby's "The Avro Manchester". Why the weight saving from this and not the dive bombing requirement is specifically noted in more than one book I know not. It is also odd that the first production Manchesters did not come off the production line until July 1939, if 20 were already on it in July 1938.

The dive bombing requirement was dropped on 11 Aug 1938 as the 60 degree angle required was considered unobtainable.

The troop carrying requirement also in the original specification was not dropped until 30 January 1940.

By mid-1937 the Air Ministry was becoming concerned about progress with the Vulture, and the ability of RR to deliver enough engines. In July that year the Air Ministry decided that the HP aircraft should be fitted with 4 engines. At the same time they were giving Avro a production contract for 200 Manchesters. HP went back to the drawing board and re-designed the HP.56 into the HP.57 Halifax by the end of that year, with manufacture of the prototype beginning in March 1938. So HP were able to take advantage of all the deletions from the spec. before the prototype Halifax progressed very far in its build.

So I'm not sure if it is Chadwick's "determination to meet the spec" , as you put it, or his being locked into delivering what had been signed off by the Air Ministry earlier in 1937. I've read a comment to suggest that it had been reported to the Air Ministry that "from the moment Avro's Roy Chadwick knew that HP was going to build a four-engine machine, he became dissatisfied with his Manchester design". If he was so dis-satisfied it took him until 18th April 1940 to write to the Air Ministry making proposals for Manchester variants, the last of which is the Manchester III/Lancaster I (last as it wasn't his preferred idea or last for effect?). In mid-1940 BT308 was pulled from the Manchester production line, converted, and first flew as a Lancaster in Jan 1941, with production switching over from October 1941 after completion of the initial production order for 200 Manchesters.

Why choose the HP design over the Avro one in 1937 for the 4 engine conversion? One reason might be that Avro were the competion winners and were promising prototype delivery within an estimated 12 months of selection (contract award 30 April 1937, delivery eventually slipped to July 1939) while HP were looking at 21 months (contract award on 30 April 1937, delivery slipped after re-design, which was estimated to have cost 6 months, to Oct 1939). Later Chadwick admitted "that it was his inexperience in designing large all-metal aircraft of the rigidity demanded by the specification that had led, in part, to the aircraft coming out overweight" (Kirby again). It is perhaps fortunate therefore that Avro was later able to benefit from that inexperience through the massive weight lifting capacity of the Lancaster as much as the requirements built into the original spec. that couldn't be changed."

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## EwenS (Nov 15, 2022)

Thumpalumpacus said:


> Tokyo was firebombed the first time at the end of winter. The buildings went up fine.
> 
> Ambient temperature is only rarely a factor in structural fires -- especially ones started by gasoline-based incendiaries in the first place.


As I noted previously there were 3 firebombing raids against Japanese cities in Jan/Feb 1945. While the buildings burned just fine, the raids themselves were considered failures because they didn't achieve the mass firestorm effect hoped for.

In post #186 I set out the factors considered necessary for a successful firestorm. Precipitation was considered the least important.

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## Peter Gunn (Nov 15, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> Actually, no - not having a good life at the moment.


Hang in there bud, we're all in this together, we're always here for you!

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## Macandy (Nov 16, 2022)

Ill see your Lancaster and raise ya

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## nuuumannn (Nov 17, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> Actually, no - not having a good life at the moment.



Hang in there, buddy.


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## nuuumannn (Nov 17, 2022)

EwenS said:


> Later Chadwick admitted "that it was his inexperience in designing large all-metal aircraft of the rigidity demanded by the specification that had led, in part, to the aircraft coming out overweight" (Kirby again). It is perhaps fortunate therefore that Avro was later able to benefit from that inexperience through the massive weight lifting capacity of the Lancaster as much as the requirements built into the original spec. that couldn't be changed."



This is an interesting point, and it explains a lot. The Manchester was Avro's first all-metal monoplane the company put into production of its own design. In the late 1930s it was a big gamble awarding the contract to Avro as the only all-metal modern aircraft the firm built in that time was the Bristol Blenheim under licence. Avro's workforce essentially learned metal working techniques from Bristol to build the Blenheim; it had not produced such a thing before. The Anson and its previous aircraft on the production lines were of earlier vintage, metal structures covered in fabric and still working in wood with the Anson's wings, so a big change on the factory floor. 

Sheet metal fabrication is quite a different discipline to welding steel structures and cladding them in fabric and adding wood. Tooling is different as well. A production line would need a compressed air supply that maintained a constant pressure across the entire shop floor for the operation of rivet guns across the entire production line, for example, as well as the side shops for operating benders etc. A vast amount of expenditure would have been needed before Avro built the Blenheims to enable increased sheet metal fabrication. There's no doubt that English wheels and benders etc would have already been available within Avro's facilities, but there's a big difference between having one or two in a side shop making cowls for Ansons and fabricating an entire aircraft structure, so a lot more tooling was required.

These things illustrate what Avro was up against just to build the Blenheim and from that work it deemed itself confident enough to design and fabricate an advanced bomber like the Manchester. It also explains the issues the type suffered, aerodynamically and systems-wise.

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## nuuumannn (Nov 19, 2022)

Shortround6 said:


> The B-29 could perform a number of missions, using a variety of weapons and do it at longer ranges using fewer aircraft than any other bomber if the time.



Yup, whilst operating in performance parameters, e.g. altitudes, speeds and distances that no single bomber beforehand had been able to achieve, meanwhile offering a shirt sleeve environment on board. The B-29 was a game changer.

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## EwenS (Nov 22, 2022)

Macandy said:


> Ill see your Lancaster and raise ya
> 
> View attachment 694699


This photo that has appeared many times has always puzzled me. With two Grand Slams totalling 44,000lb aboard, just how much fuel was it carrying? And therefore what was its potential range? Were they even filled with explosives or sand ballast or effectively just aerodynamic test shapes?

The USAAF tested a B-29 at Eglin AFB in Florida between Feb & June 1945 carrying a single 12,000lb Tallboy in a modified bomb bay (similar arrangement to that very first Silverplate aircraft but with the bomb carried semi-internally). They found the range of the aircraft reduced to 1,320 miles (with the hope of increasing it to 1,500 miles with further bomb door modifications. In other words about 300-500 miles less than normal), service ceiling was 27,000ft and the time to climb from 5,000ft to 27,000ft increased by 15 mins. Tests were then being continued with Grand Slam.

Here is a report from June 1945 on the results of those tests. Unfortunately the reproduction of the photos is too poor to make out much of the bomb bay detail.


https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADB972848.pdf



The proposal was to create one specialist bomb group to deploy these weapons against Japan. Anyone happen to know if this got beyond a proposal in WW2? I know that come Korea in 1950 a small group of crews in the 19th BG had been trained to drop the VB-13 Tarzon bombs (based on Tallboy) from similarly modified aircraft. In WW2 the 19th BG had already deployed to the Marianas by the time the Eglin tests were carried out.

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## SplitRz (Nov 22, 2022)

EwenS said:


> This photo that has appeared many times has always puzzled me. With two Grand Slams totalling 44,000lb aboard, just how much fuel was it carrying? And therefore what was its potential range? Were they even filled with explosives or sand ballast or effectively just aerodynamic test shapes?


At 22,000lbs, its not as if they can be dropped separately either, is it?

That on top of the penalties you describe, makes its difficult to imagine a sensible operational reason for carrying two Grand Slams. I suspect this was primarily and engineering challenge and a propaganda opportunity.

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## GrauGeist (Nov 22, 2022)

SplitRz said:


> At 22,000lbs, its not as if they can be dropped separately either, is it?
> 
> That on top of the penalties you describe, makes its difficult to imagine a sensible operational reason for carrying two Grand Slams. I suspect this was primarily and engineering challenge and a propaganda opportunity.


They were intended to be used against hardened Japanese positions but the war ended before they could be used.

Nothing "propeganda" about it.


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## EwenS (Nov 22, 2022)

Well who knows when they might have become operational with the USAAF given that the Tallboy tests only started in Feb 1945. That photo dates to 1946 IIRC.

For Operation Olympic the RAF Special Missions Wing of Tiger Force was expected to be in place on Okinawa. That comprised 9 and 617 Lancaster quadrons equipped with Tallboy. IIRC proposed targets included the rail tunnel between Kyushu and Honshu completed in 1942.

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## SplitRz (Nov 22, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> They were intended to be used against hardened Japanese positions but the war ended before they could be used.
> 
> Nothing "propeganda" about it.


I'm very much aware of the point and purpose of a grand slam bomb.

But why for the sake of Pete carry two? Given they're mounted to either side of the centreline of the aircraft, you'd have to release both at the same time which (along with being potentially catastrophic I would have thought in the case of one hanging-up) seems more than a *just a little* redundant. And if the don't both drop at _precisely_ the same moment, you're also going to throw the trim of the aircraft (to put it mildly!) and put accuracy way off - and that was one of the fundamental merits of the bomb.

Why not carry one, faster and further (and more safely and effectively) ? Because the twin bomb-bays of the B29 demand external carriage under the wings?

Carrying two for a total of 44,000lbs probably brings the B29 down in performance to the range and speed of a Lancaster carrying a tallboy, which, given I've not been previously aware of extensively hardened Japanese positions looks like a massive case of over-egging the pudding.

I think EwenS's post illustrates the issue perfectly:

"_Well who knows when they might have become operational with the USAAF given that the *Tallboy tests only started in Feb 1945*. That photo dates to *1946* IIRC."_

To me this smacks of doing something to prove it could be done, but probably after the practicalities of whether it was the best way had ceased to be important.

Its interesting to note that the B36 went on to be tested carrying two T12s. I might have a dig about there to see the whys and wherefores - and hw well it worked out in practice.

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## pbehn (Nov 22, 2022)

EwenS said:


> This photo that has appeared many times has always puzzled me. With two Grand Slams totalling 44,000lb aboard, just how much fuel was it carrying? And therefore what was its potential range? Were they even filled with explosives or sand ballast or effectively just aerodynamic test shapes?


I dont know the answer but what I do know is it took an age to put the explosive a bucket full at a time in and allow it to cool, according to wiki there were 4,200Kg of explosive in the Grand Slam's 10,200 total weight. Below pics of the bombs before explosive and tail added.
.

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## Dash119 (Nov 22, 2022)

Tallboy(12,000lb.) tests - Feb 1945 - In time to be of use during the war.
Grand Slam(22,000lb.) tests - 1946? - Post-war testing?


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## SplitRz (Nov 22, 2022)

Dash119 said:


> Tallboy(12,000lb.) tests - Feb 1945 - In time to be of use during the war.
> Grand Slam(22,000lb.) tests - 1946? - Post-war testing?


That's about the measure of it regarding B29 carriage.

Of course both were used operationally by the RAF in Europe.


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## wuzak (Nov 22, 2022)

Could it be that teh B-29 testing two Grand Slams in 1946 had upgraded engines of ~2,800hp, compared to the wartime production B-29s with 2,200hp engines?

That is a 27% increase in power.


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## EwenS (Nov 23, 2022)

Dash119 said:


> Tallboy(12,000lb.) tests - Feb 1945 - In time to be of use during the war.
> Grand Slam(22,000lb.) tests - 1946? - Post-war testing?


Read the official report I posted in post #239. Tests *STARTED *in Feb 1945. The report was dated *30 JUNE 1945* and recommended training of a special unit to drop them and modifications to future aircraft conversions. So no way were they going to be capable of being used by the USAAF in a WW2 ending as historical in Aug 1945. It would have been 1946 before they could have been deployed.

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## GrauGeist (Nov 23, 2022)

I believe development of the U.S. version of the Tallboy, the T-10 (which was further developed into the M121), was started in late 1944 - the VB-13 "Tarzon" started in February 1945.


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## EwenS (Nov 23, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> I believe development of the U.S. version of the Tallboy, the T-10 (which was further developed into the M121), was started in late 1944 - the VB-13 "Tarzon" started in February 1945.


By Oct 1944, US Tallboy monthly production had reached 110, rising to 150 per month by the end of the year with more in 1945. I'm not sure when it started. Production methods were different in the USA. Without US production the squadrons would have run out of bombs to drop.

In total 835 Tallboys were aimed operationally at targets in WW2, plus 8 more dropped accidentally inbound / outbound from the target plus 29 jettisonned or abandoned plus 7 in aircraft shot down without dropping them. Total ependiture 879 plus a few for trials. By just 2 squadrons. 

Grand Slam cases were ordered from the USA in Sept 1944 and were expected to start arriving in the UK by the end of the year. After much chopping & changing 200 were ordered in the USA and 25 at home. All were to be filled in Britain.

40 Grand Slams were aimed at targets and 2 jettisoned. Total 42 plus trials weapons. The first operational drop was on 14 March 1945.

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## GrauGeist (Nov 23, 2022)

I recall reading about the U.S. versions of the Tallboy/Grand Slam bombs in Bill Gunston's book (don't remember the title, but I'll search for it) and he covers development of the T-10, T-12, T-14 and their derivatives in pretty good detail.


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## EwenS (Nov 24, 2022)

GrauGeist said:


> I recall reading about the U.S. versions of the Tallboy/Grand Slam bombs in Bill Gunston's book (don't remember the title, but I'll search for it) and he covers development of the T-10, T-12, T-14 and their derivatives in pretty good detail.


Not sure how much development was left for the US to do. Construction methods were changed to ease mass production. IIRC British manufacturers had difficulties welding the steel thicknesses involved in making these bombs.

Links to T-10 here.





Bomb, 12000 lb GP, T10


Description British Tail Pistol No. 58 Mk 1 is used at present, but these will eventually be replaced with the Air Arming Fuzes T723, placed 120º apart in the base plate. The fu




bulletpicker.com




A note in the US Bombs and Fuses manual of 1945.
“The T-10 is the American designation for the British 12,000lb D.P. (Deep Penetration) ‘Tallboy’ bomb”

And T-14





Bomb, 22000 lb GP, T14


Description Three British Tail Pistols No. 58 Mk 1 are used at present, but these will eventually be replaced with the Air Arming Fuzes T723, placed in a straight line across th




bulletpicker.com




Again from the linked manual
“The T-14 is American designation for the British 22,000 lb D.P. ‘Grand Slam’

Now the 12,000lb VB-13 Tarzon and the 44,000lb T-12 Cloudmaker were US developments.

Edit:- the T-10 & T-14 even continued to use British fuzes.

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