B-29 Losses

[GregP]

The B-29 had 371 combat losses in 34,000 sorties.

Methinks your namiong of Curtiss-Wright as "killers" is a bit of unrealistic. That is basically a 1.1% loss rate, counting actual combat losses. Not too bad in ANYBODY's book in WWII.

 

[Jabberwocky]

The B-29 had 371 combat losses in 34,000 sorties.

371 losses is for the XXI BC only. The XX BC also operated B-29s.

USAAF statistical digest gives 501 first line B-29 losses (combat and accident) from 31,387 total sorties and 29,153 effective sorties for the Twentieth Air Force (XX and XXI bomber commands) as a whole.

That's a loss rate of 1.57% per sortie and 1.72% per effective sortie.

Of the losses:

36.25% of the 130 losses for XX BC were due to enemy action. Of this percentage, 75.9% of losses were due to enemy fighters, the remainder to AAA.

35.3% of the 371 losses for XXI BC were due to enemy action. Of this percentage, 44.1% were due to fighters, 39.8% to AAA and the remaining 16.1% to a combination of both.

May 1945 was the worst month for B-29 losses, with 88 aircraft lost.

In return, B-29s claimed kills for a total of 1128 enemy aircraft. Of those, 914 were claimed as aerial kills.

Of the non-effective sorties, 73.6% were caused by mechanical issues, 26% due to 'other issues' and the remaining due to weather.

 

[GregP]

Still not a bad loss rate overall. Many OTHER aircraft also had relative high operational (non-combat) losses, too.

Also, earlier in this thread, someone said the germans would have stepped up the production of the Ta-152 if the B-29 had been assigned to the ETO.

I must heartily disagree. The B-29 was first deployed in march 1944 and would probably never have made the ETO until at least summer 1944, even if they wanted to use it there. By summer 1944, even teh germans knew the war was lost. They were getting pounded day and night by bombs. Don;t you think they put all their efforts into the Ta-152 that could be assigned? With national survival at stake, I don't think they held any effort in reserve so they could make great fighters in a post-war Germany. They DID put all their efforts into fighter development and they delivered about 43 Ta-152s.

The arrival of the B-29 would not have changed that at all becasue there was nothing more they could do.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

The B-29 was never intended for Europe. It was planned to have the B-32 replace both B-17 and B-24

 

[JoeB]

371 losses is for the XXI BC only. The XX BC also operated B-29s.

USAAF statistical digest gives 501 first line B-29 losses (combat and accident) from 31,387 total sorties and 29,153 effective sorties for the Twentieth Air Force (XX and XXI bomber commands) as a whole.

That's a loss rate of 1.57% per sortie and 1.72% per effective sortie.

Of the losses:

36.25% of the 130 losses for XX BC were due to enemy action. Of this percentage, 75.9% of losses were due to enemy fighters, the remainder to AAA.

35.3% of the 371 losses for XXI BC were due to enemy action. Of this percentage, 44.1% were due to fighters, 39.8% to AAA and the remaining 16.1% to a combination of both.

May 1945 was the worst month for B-29 losses, with 88 aircraft lost.

In return, B-29s claimed kills for a total of 1128 enemy aircraft. Of those, 914 were claimed as aerial kills.

Of the non-effective sorties, 73.6% were caused by mechanical issues, 26% due to 'other issues' and the remaining due to weather.

Here's the actual page for Stats Digest on losses from which I was quoting earlier. It's similar to but doesn't exactly agree with what you said. Note it includes both XX and XXI BC's and also 20th AF Fighters. For just 'Very Heavy Bomber', which would be B-29's, as I mentioned officially 74 were lost to enemy fighters and 19 to AA and fighters, besides 54 to AA and 267 to other causes on combat missions, 414 total on combat missions. However as I mentioned, the 267 would appear to include at least a fair number of a/c damaged by fighters or AA which ditched far from Japan or were destroyed in crashlandings, and it's not apparent whether any of the totals include a/c which were written off despite less than total destruction in crashlandings, or were converted to training-only status, which seems to have happened in some cases as well. The % of true of operational losses is not clear. Again see my analysis of B-29 losses to air action in Korea, where going through case by case in the original records, the total of loss/write offs related to or possibly related to enemy fighter action comes up somewhat higher than the total that was given in the USAF Stats Digest for that war.

For context note that the total combat mission loss rate of B-17's and B-24's in WWII was only slightly higher than that quoted for the B-29, 1.6-some % for both. We're accumstomed perhaps to thinking of the very difficult missions of those earlier bombers over Germany in 1943-44 with significantly higher loss rates, but they were also used against weaker opposition over occupied Europe, weak in some cases in the Pacific, and often weak in 1945 in all theaters. And the opposition to B-29 operations in summer 1945, when the B-29 force was much bigger than it had been in late 44-early 45, got to be quite weak.

The B-29 was not crippled in its effectiveness by bad engines in 1944-45. The really crippling engine problems were what delayed the plane until then. But the residual engine problems were a serious factor in mission planning well into 1945, and alone enough to discard the idea of using the planes in 'high speed formations'. That idea isn't necessarily practical for any WWII bombers, but the B-29's of the early campaign v Japan could not take any unecessary stress on the their engines without elevating losses to probably wipe out any benefit. As it was, operations evolved to lower altitude, even in daylight, to reduce engine strain, though also to get better accuracy. B-29 operational loss rates in Korea were considerably lower than in WWII, but even then very high compared to what we're accustomed to for later generation a/c. Engines like the R-3350 were highly complex machines compared to either earlier a/c piston engines, or fundamentally simpler gas turbine engines later.

Army Air Forces in World War II

Joe

 

[Vincenzo]

Are available the losses in not combat mission?

 

[davparlr]

For context note that the total combat mission loss rate of B-17's and B-24's in WWII was only slightly higher than that quoted for the B-29, 1.6-some % for both.

We must remember that the B-29 carried over 3 times the typical bomb load of the B-17/24 so the loss per lb of bombs delivered is significantly less.

but the B-29's of the early campaign v Japan could not take any unecessary stress on the their engines without elevating losses to probably wipe out any benefit. As it was, operations evolved to lower altitude, even in daylight, to reduce engine strain, though also to get better accuracy. B-29 operational loss rates in Korea were considerably lower than in WWII, but even then very high compared to what we're accustomed to for later generation a/c. Engines like the R-3350 were highly complex machines compared to either earlier a/c piston engines, or fundamentally simpler gas turbine engines later.

Again, the missions to Japan, by definition, was highly stressed at max performance. ETO missions would have been different. They could be flown with 10,000 lbs less weight and less than half the flying time per mission. Trading off the stress accumulated on a mission to Tokyo in comparison a mission to Berlin, the Berlin aircraft performance could significantly be improved without exceeding the accumulated stress of a Tokyo mission.

 

[wuzak]

The B-29 was never intended for Europe. It was planned to have the B-32 replace both B-17 and B-24

Is this really the case, or was the B-32 simply a backup in case the B-29 program hit problems?

 

[Southron]

I have absolutely no doubt that many B-29 pilots that survived the war will speak highly of the B-29. That is kinda like the stories among sailors that dolphins would find shipwrecked sailors in the water and push them to the beach-saving their lives. These sailors would praise dolphins and credit them with human like intelligence.

Then someone realized that dolphins are just "playful animals" and they like to push things around in the water. Of course, the sailors that got pushed out to sea by dolphins were never heard from again!!!!

Sadly, a lot of B-29 crew members died because of the problems with the early Curtiss-Wright R 3350's and they aren't around to tell us what happened to them or what a killer the airplane they were in was.

There is a reason the Curtiss-Wright company "downsized" following World War II and those early R 3350's had a lot to do with it!

 

[JoeB]

1. We must remember that the B-29 carried over 3 times the typical bomb load of the B-17/24 so the loss per lb of bombs delivered is significantly less.

2. Again, the missions to Japan, by definition, was highly stressed at max performance. ETO missions would have been different. They could be flown with 10,000 lbs less weight and less than half the flying time per mission. Trading off the stress accumulated on a mission to Tokyo in comparison a mission to Berlin, the Berlin aircraft performance could significantly be improved without exceeding the accumulated stress of a Tokyo mission.

1. Sorry, that doesn't make basic sense. The *number* of losses was smaller per lb of bombs dropped, but a % is a %. At 1.6% loss per sortie you've got to produce a whole new set of airplanes every 62 missions (to keep the bombing force constantly the same size), whether big planes or small planes. And while the big plane carries more bombs, it obviously also costs more to make. And the B-29 cost an extremely large amount of money to develop, by the standards of that time, as opposed to the earlier types, or evolutionary developments thereof (the B-32 was more along that line, an evolution of earlier Consolidated designs).

Anyway loss rate is very heavily influenced by opposition, obviously. It's just interesting that the B-17 and B-24 loss rates were practically identical, and also about the same as the B-29. That doesn't itself prove that all three planes were equally vulnerable in the same exact conditions; they didn't necessarily experience the same conditions on average, though the loss rates did come out about the same.

2. The answer here also relates to point 1. The B-29 was justified mainly by its ability to range from the Marianas to Japan and back with considerable payload, not by its speed or max payload, and again the money spent on developing the B-29 was extravagent even by US WWII military spending standards. OTOH that range was just not required in the ETO, and the theoretically greater speed and altitude capablities of the B-29 would have been only moderate advantages in Europe: bombers couldn't practically formate at near their top speeds, and B-29's proved they were too inaccurate from 30k ft in the campaign against Japan, and would similarly have been in ETO.

If the USAAF didn't have a plane like the B-29, bases would have had to have been seized considerably closer to Japan than the Marianas to start the bombing campaign against Japan in earnest. That's the big difference between the B-29 and sticking w/ the earlier generation US bombers; that plus ability to lift the then very heavy early A-bombs.

Joe

 

[wuzak]

and B-29's proved they were too inaccurate from 30k ft in the campaign against Japan, and would similarly have been in ETO.

Would that be any different than B-17s bombing from 30k feet?

One thing is for sure - if crews in the ETO had B-29s to replace their B-17s fewer men would have suffered from frostbite.

 

[Siegfried]

The B-29 has a kind of Consolidated herritage as well. George Schairer was instrumental in getting the Davis wing put into the B-24. He was hired into Boeing by the test pilot Edmund T. "Eddie" Allen who latter lost his life a B-29 that crashed due to an engine fire. Schairer then went on to do the wing on the B-29 and of course was responsible for getting swept wings on to the B-47. In some cases wars can go differently but for people like these.

 

[GregP]

The B-32 was ostensibly produced in case the B-29 failed, at least that is the popular claptrap.

It may well have been the planeed replacement for the B-17 / B-24's but, if so, was overtaken by the development of jet engines. Once the B-45 flew, almost every piston design for a bomber was more or less put "on hold" to allow the maturation of jet engines. Naturally the military wanted the jets, and would wait for them to be "practical."

Still, I think the B-32 would have been a good aircraft.

 

[Vincenzo]

Would that be any different than B-17s bombing from 30k feet?

i think not, but B-17 not bombing from 30k, maybe around 25k, somewhere there were statistical data but i can't find it


edit, for clear it's not that B-17 can not bombing from 30k but that commonly not bombing from so high altitude

 

[Shortround6]

The B-32 was ostensibly produced in case the B-29 failed, at least that is the popular claptrap.

It may well have been the planeed replacement for the B-17 / B-24's but, if so, was overtaken by the development of jet engines. Once the B-45 flew, almost every piston design for a bomber was more or less put "on hold" to allow the maturation of jet engines. Naturally the military wanted the jets, and would wait for them to be "practical."

Still, I think the B-32 would have been a good aircraft.

I am not so sure about the "claptrap" except in the case of the B-32 being put on "hold" once the B-45 flew.
B-45 didn't fly until March of 1947? A little late to put a hold on the B-32 program which effectively stopped in Oct 1945 when production was halted with the 118 aircraft. By that time most of the bugs had been worked out of the B-29 and the B-29/B-50 could hold the peace time Air Force until the jets showed up.

 

[JoeB]

Would that be any different than B-17s bombing from 30k feet?

No, but B-17's didn't bomb from 30k ft in Europe, typically more like low-mid 20's which also eventually became typical for B-29's over Japan (on daylight bombing missions, night fire bombing and minelaying missions were flown at much lower altitudes). B-17's in theory could bomb from 30k. The plane's turbocharged engines gave it excellent altitude performance, and B-17's did fly that high on some early missions in the Pacific, to avoid fighter interception, but lacked adequate accuracy.

Anyway a lot of the discussion on thread is about the altitude challenge B-29's presented to Japanese fighters or would to German fighters, but the basic problem that's being ignored there is proven inadequate accuracy bombing from that high up. B-29's would have had to abandon very high altitude bombing in ETO just like they did over Japan, to hit stuff, the main idea of bombing. So the altitude capabilities of the plane were not practically speaking a big advantage, as far as conventional bombing anyway.

Joe

 

[davparlr]

1. Sorry, that doesn't make basic sense. The *number* of losses was smaller per lb of bombs dropped, but a % is a %. At 1.6% loss per sortie you've got to produce a whole new set of airplanes every 62 missions (to keep the bombing force constantly the same size), whether big planes or small planes. And while the big plane carries more bombs, it obviously also costs more to make. And the B-29 cost an extremely large amount of money to develop, by the standards of that time, as opposed to the earlier types, or evolutionary developments thereof (the B-32 was more along that line, an evolution of earlier Consolidated designs).

Unit cost is certainly an issue, however, so are lives, development cost were already justified in the PTO. Per cent loss per sortie is not relevant unless efficiency of sortie is included. Since the B-29 can carry over three times the bomb load of a B-17, and the number of bombs on target is critical (it has been reported that 7% of bombs will fall into 1k ft circle), then for equal number of bombs released, therefore an equivalent target kill probability, less than one third B-29 sorties would be required. 300 B-29 sorties would have the same target destruction effectivity as 1000 B-17 sorties. On that particular mission, 16 B-17s and 160 crew members would be lost, whereas 5 B-29s and 55 crewmembers would be lost.

2.

Anyway loss rate is very heavily influenced by opposition, obviously. It's just interesting that the B-17 and B-24 loss rates were practically identical, and also about the same as the B-29. That doesn't itself prove that all three planes were equally vulnerable in the same exact conditions; they didn't necessarily experience the same conditions on average, though the loss rates did come out about the same.

Yes, but for identical opposition, the B-29 is going to be far more effective in that it is higher, faster cruising , and has a faster combat run. Flak coverage would be significantly reduced to almost pin points. Interceptor performance, needing to go five to ten thousand feet higher, would be affected by time and fuel use to get up them, would be significantly reduced in maneuver with reattacks virtually impossible, and have limited time to engage due to ingress and egress being significantly less. It is not realistic to believe their loss rates would be equal to the B-17 or B-24 in the same environment.

3. OTOH that range was just not required in the ETO, and the theoretically greater speed and altitude capablities of the B-29 would have been only moderate advantages in Europe: bombers couldn't practically formate at near their top speeds,

I don't see a problem here. As long as normal rate power was maintained or time limits on Mil power was adhered to, high speed formation flying should be no problem. Mission planning for bombers did not include rapid changes in direction, not necessarily due to engine limitations but rather keeping vast herds of bombers together. I am not sure where you get this.

4. and B-29's proved they were too inaccurate from 30k ft in the campaign against Japan, and would similarly have been in ETO.

I disagree with this. Over Japan the Jet Stream flows mainly west to east while the attack route is South to North. With strong cross winds, accurate weapon release is extremely difficult. In Europe the attack route is roughly west to east so small cross winds can be handled and targeting resolutions should be much simpler.

The B-2 bomber was designed to drop dumb bombs (these bombs had funny little yellow and black decals on the side) from much higher altitudes and strike targets much more accurately than that required in WW2, all the while, blind. While the B-2 has a sophisticated astro-inertial guidance systems and radar, neither of these would have been more accurate than the optical system on the B-29. Of course the bombs of the B-2 were aerodynamically designed and defined whereas the WW2 bombs were not, which would certainly affect accuracy. In any event, properly planned and properly flown, bombers in Europe should have been reasonably accurate from 30+ ft, which was most likely impossible over Japan due to the strong cross wind and lack of mission planning options.

 

[JoeB]

1. Unit cost is certainly an issue, however, so are lives, development cost were already justified in the PTO. Per cent loss per sortie is not relevant unless efficiency of sortie is included. Since the B-29 can carry over three times the bomb load of a B-17, and the number of bombs on target is critical (it has been reported that 7% of bombs will fall into 1k ft circle), then for equal number of bombs released, therefore an equivalent target kill probability, less than one third B-29 sorties would be required. 300 B-29 sorties would have the same target destruction effectivity as 1000 B-17 sorties. On that particular mission, 16 B-17s and 160 crew members would be lost, whereas 5 B-29s and 55 crewmembers would be lost.

2. Yes, but for identical opposition, the B-29 is going to be far more effective in that it is higher, faster cruising , and has a faster combat run.

3. I disagree with this. Over Japan the Jet Stream flows mainly west to east while the attack route is South to North. With strong cross winds, accurate weapon release is extremely difficult. In Europe the attack route is roughly west to east so small cross winds can be handled and targeting resolutions should be much simpler.

4. The B-2 bomber was designed to drop dumb bombs (these bombs had funny little yellow and black decals on the side) from much higher altitudes and strike targets much more accurately than that required in WW2, all the while, blind.

5. In any event, properly planned and properly flown, bombers in Europe should have been reasonably accurate from 30+ ft, which was most likely impossible over Japan due to the strong cross wind and lack of mission planning options.

1. My point was that it's nonsense to directly compare a similar loss ratio to a larger bomb load and conclude the plane with the bigger bomb load is automatically more effective per loss. The bigger plane will cost more, depends how much more. I'm not ruling out that the B-29 would be more effective in the long run if you took all the correct factors into account.

But you leave out the biggest 'cost' of the B-29 program in context of WWII, which was time. Time is money in the economy, but time is even more critical in all out war. In real history, by the time B-29's were available in significant numbers in truly operational units, the bombing campaign in Europe was basically over. Even the B-29 force flying from the Marianas in Nov 44-Feb 45 in the initial high altitude campaign was small by 8th/15th AF standards, and the bombing campaign in ETO mainly won by then; the earlier B-29 force flying from China from mid 44 smaller still.

Sometimes we get going on 'what ifs' excluding/modifying certain facts of real history, then make other statements selectively using actual history which don't really make sense, and I think that's what you are doing here. It doesn't make much sense to point out the eventually higher efficiency of the mature B-29, which is typical of any larger plane, 'economy of scale' , but to ignore the fact that in real history the protracted development and debugging of the B-29 took too long for the plane to have been of much use in the war in Europe.

2. This is just repeating an assertion which has already been refuted with historical facts:
-it was seldom practical for bombers to fly formations close to their max speeds, and especially dicey for the B-29 with immature R-3350's especially prior to around late spring of '45, when the war in Europe was over.
-bombers with WWII bombing technology could not hit accurately from 30k ft.

3. This is not correct. Although the targets in Japan lay mainly north of the Marianas, the bombers were able to choose initial points relative to the targets in order to have (what they believed were) the most favorable heading relative to the wind. Bomb runs were not made with known crosswinds. This is in another category of web board silliness, assuming the planners in WWII ignored obvious and easy solutions to problems.

4. This is entirely irrelevant, besides being debateable. B-2's always use JDAM's to get adequate conventional bombing accuracy from high altitude, but in any case WWII bombers had WWII technology, not the B-2's. A slightly more relevant comparison might be B-52's in combat in Vietnam with conventional unguided bombs, where bombing altitudes exceeded 30k ft, and accuracy was adequate using strictly radar bombing techniques. But even those radar bombing systems were far superior to those available in WWII.

5. There is not only no evidence to support that statement, but it's specifically contradicted by operational history in both Europe and the Pacific. The 8th/15th AF's struggled mightily to attain what they viewed as adequate accuracy in European conditions even bombing from the mid 20's kt; any lower elevated vulnerability to AA fire too much but raising bombing alt would have been quite out of the question, on accuracy grounds. A given bombing technology is going to miss by more the higher the plane flies, simple physics, and the B-29 in general didn't have revolutionarily better systems than late war B-17/24's (an exception was B-29's fitted with APQ-7 which attained radar bombing accuracy comparable to [practically achievable, not theoretically achievable] daylight bombing, but even those a/c bombed from less than 20k ft at night, a small % of the B-29's in the final weeks of the Pac War). There's a huge literature on the USAAF's struggles with bombing accuracy in the ETO, perhaps you should read some of it.

And the direct evidence of B-29 operations over Japan shows that the initial altitudes sometimes exceeding 30k were reduced to more like 27k after LeMay took over in late January 1945. Then when B-29's returned to some day missions in April (after the night fire raids in March) altitudes were more like 24-5, similar to the older bombers in Europe: one big reason was to hit stuff, and the other was to reduce engine strain and resultant operational losses even with ~230-250mph typical cruise speeds, again putting paid to the idea of prolonged military power operations by B-29's at that time. "Blankets of Fire" by Werrell is a good book on the B-29 over Japan.

Joe

 

[michaelmaltby]

Korean War: The Boeing B-29 Superfortress Served Throughout the Air War

Interesting narrative on B-29 operations during the Korean war -- by 1950 the USAF had mastered the complexities of the B-29 and moved on to even more complicated (sophisticated) systems. Korea was a real test of the B-29 crews and bombing strategy.

Worth reading.

MM

 

[GregP]

JoeB, your #4 staement is incorrect, as far as I know. The B-29 WAS deisgned to bomb from 30,000 feet with accuracy. The issue over Japan WAS the jetstream.

That is from B-29 crewmembers. When they combed lower, it was at night, mostly ... or ina high-speed descent from 30,000+ feet to gain speed over the target and in egress in the slight dive. The B-29 performed VERY well, espcially considering it was ordered off the drawing board into production with basically no service prototypes flying to "debug" ... it went straight into production. Sure, they had a few issues. So dd the P-51. the P-38, the B-17, the B-24, the He-177, Fw 190, etc. Nothing to write home about, and all issues were corrected.