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The B-29 had 371 combat losses in 34,000 sorties.
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.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.
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.
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.
The B-29 was never intended for Europe. It was planned to have the B-32 replace both B-17 and B-24
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).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.
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?
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.
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.Would that be any different than B-17s bombing from 30k feet?
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).
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.
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.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 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. and B-29's proved they were too inaccurate from 30k ft in the campaign against Japan, and would similarly have been in ETO.
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.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.