A-Bombing Germany

[brad]

yhea it would be a modified lanck or a b36

 

[brad]

wow only 16 votes slow pole

 

[Lightning Guy]

I was talking about the time required to pressurize a Lanc and equip it with Griffons. Thanks for taking a quote out of context.

And I don't know about time delay fuzes but I do know that the post-war Lincoln (a Lanc with more powerful engines basically) had to enter a dive in order to escape the blast radius of a nuke.

 

[brad]

time delayed nuck dont they explowed in air couldnt they make it blow when it hit the floor

 

[plan_D]

Time delay fuse makes sure you can get out the way, or cause even more damage when the enemy thinks its a dud. They can explode in the air, if you set it to do so. Normal bombs exploded when they hit the deck.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

different bombs are detonated in different ways, a nuke could be set to a timer so it would explode as long as you wanted after it landed.................

 

[plan_D]

Thank you, Lanc. For clearing that up, it confused me so much...really..

 

[Lightning Guy]

I believe most nukes were actually intended to detonate at low altitude.

 

[brad]

yhea about 3000ft but why if they want an air craft to get out of the way cant they make the nuke explode when it hits the deck

 

[Lightning Guy]

I think you would lose a lot of the power if you had a ground detetation. But I'm not sure it really matters when you are dropping a nuke anyway.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

not really, although bombs do have more effect if they explode in the air, unless is a specail one like the tall boy and grand slam..............

 

[Gemhorse]

The B-29 had an extensive pressurisation system built into it, including a tunnel that went from the front cabin, nearly half the length to the remote gunners, then the rear gunner in a separate cocoon. - All the Lancaster needed was the front cabin area pressurised. Also, it was built with the main wing spar out to the first engine nacelle each side as the primary element that everything else was built onto...it was sort of a T section, which gave great strength to the overall design, and the outer wings would've been strengthened as the latter Shackleton was...The A-bomb was designed to go off above ground; they were delicate, where a quantity of uranium/plutonium had to slide the length and collide with material at the other end to create the fission to critical mass, thus exploding...I think it may have been an altitude-fuse device that set that in motion, at least in those early ones...Gai-jin does indeed refer to 'whites', it actually means 'barbarian', which us 'honkeys' were referred to by the Japanese, who felt we were 'unclean and uncivilised'...James Clavell wrote a series of books centred around Japan, most remember his book 'Shogun', but his last one was called 'Gai-jin', about Admiral Peary's landings in Japan in the late 1800's...Anyway, IMHO, the Lancaster could've been modified to do the deed, the Griffons were capable of 2000+ hp each, the B-29's 2200hp engines had more plane to pull, the Wright R3350's had alot of development problems...they only really started getting them right prior to the nuking...

 

[plan_D]

I don't think the Nuke was set to explode at 3000 ft, that's a bit too high. But it would have been an above ground explosion. Most of the time normal bombs were ground detonated because you wanted to cause damage, not always kill a lot of people.
Exploding above ground spreads it more, which you don't want to do if you're trying to destroy buildings. Artillery shells fired on troop concentrations are a different matter, where the shells would ideally explode above ground spreading shrapnel over the troops causing mass injury, and death.

Yes, I always thought the Gai-jin was the reference to whites by the Japanese.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

whereas the tall boy and grand slam were detonated about 100ft below ground to give a devistating earthquake effect.........

 

[Lightning Guy]

There have been some studies about developing Nukes that would detonate under ground. Supposedly it would limit the fall out. I imagine its affect would be much like a Grand Slam.

 

[cheddar cheese]

cool 8)

 

[Gemhorse]

I think they were the tests at Bikini Atoll and the Marshall Islands, back in the '60's...'rather more' powerful than a Grand Slam...they still can't let the Marshall Islanders back there...they're US Welfare beneficiaries, still living on another island...

 

[Lightning Guy]

Those weren't unground detonations though. Those were underwater and were designed to see what a nuke would do to a carrier group. These penatrating nukes are something new. They are designed to take out underground caves that conventional bunker busters can't reach.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

they do the same in the bond film "view to a kill", which is sooooo the best bond film....................

 

[ahanswurst]

Without a doubt it would have been a B-29 to drop an atomic bomb on Germany if need be. But the Russians would have leveled Germany before an atomic bomb was needed. When The Russians captured Berlin and took German prisoners back to Russia. The History Channel had a series on the fall of Berlin and they said that 3/4's of the German prisoners taken by the Russians disappeared without a trace after they were marched back to Russia. I think the atomic bomb would never have been needed in Germany. The Russian troops were well equipped by that stage of the war. The History channel also said that in the Berlin area that most of the German females were raped numerous times by the Russian soldiers and a lot of German women commited suicide to escape that fate.