wuzak
Captain
That late in the war?
Can we say P-51H, anyone?
Maybe even the P-80A.
B-29 vs Me264
- Thread starter KraziKanuK
- Start date
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Maybe even the P-80A.
That late in the war?
Can we say P-51H, anyone?
Or just shoot'em down with our newly developed surface-to-air missiles.
It is a an alternate history scenario after all...
Conslaw
Senior Airman
The failure of any other nation, Allied or Axis, to produce a plane on the par of the B-29 shows how superlative it was. The B-29 was a triumph of engineering, persistence and money. It was an advanced design, but that wasn't enough to get the plane into service in time to be useful. The US government threw huge sums of money at the project to build multiple giant factories and the infrastructure to support them. They essentially froze the design at the point where the plane could fly from the factories, then they sent the "finished" planes to Kansas to be truly finished in "The Battle of Kansas". In a way, that was hugely inefficient, doing a lot of work outside the assembly line context; but on the other hand, eliminating avoidable change orders enabled the assembly lines to keep going. When it came time to deploy the planes, the USAAF had to deploy massive resources to send the planes more than halfway around the world for deployment in China, to be supplied by air "over the hump" from India. They had to use manual labor to build massive airdromes in China, only to abandon them soon afterward when missions from China yielded disappointing results and massive new bases in the Marianas became available.
soulezoo
Senior Airman
That late in the war, a carrier in the Mid Atlantic equipped with Bearcats (maybe Tigercats?) would be a nasty surprise to slow moving bombers trying to transit to the US as well.
High wing load on the Me-264 (as seen when testing the V1) carried a host of problems in performance and handling abilities. This is the reason the Luftwaffe preferred the Ju-290. The Me-264 sahould have been refesigned, which in 43 was already a non-starter and led to the cancellation in 44. The engines were great, being the 801Gs, and the range (as reported by sonderkommando Nebel) was indeed over 9'000 miles.
Peter Gunn
Master Sergeant
He is not a troll, and he admitted mistake...
cherry blossom
Senior Airman
- 513
- Apr 23, 2007
If we just look at the empty weights, the Me 264 has a lower wing loading than the B-29. The high wing loading arises because the Me 264 had tanks large enough to carry a proportionally larger quantity of fuel. Landing the Me 264 shouldn't necessarily have been any harder than landing a B-29. The problem was take off, which is why I suggested using the most powerful engines available to limit the runway length necessary.
wuzak
Captain
With RATO the Me 264 took approximately 1,600m to take off, without RATO it was 2,400m.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Geo was accused of being a troll in another thread, so we're having a little fun (as usual).
Ah ok
To follow up on Conslaws comments...
The B-29 was the costliest, US weapons system in WWII. I would argue that the bomber was rarely used as designed until Korea. The first few high-level bombing raids yielded terrible results. Japan had a fairly consistent, what we now call, jet stream. It dissipated the bombs dropped from above 30,000 and the bombsights could not account for it. Thus no effective bombing campaign could be conducted at over 30,000 feet.
When LeMay replaced Hansel he quickly realized this and switched from bombing factories and facilities to terror bombing, eventually killing over a million civilians. The Japanese were defenseless against these firebomb attacks. Many were flown at 7,000 ft.
Most of the B-29 were flying below 10,000 feet. The very expensive pressurized system was not used. The very expensive remote-controlled fire-control system not used either as LeMay had them removed to increase the bomb load. The way the Super Fortress was used, made a farce of all it's innovations and it was incredibly costly.
I want to make it clear that I am not denigrating the incredible feat of creating and building these aircraft. Circumstances just negated many of the incredible advances when the bomber was used over Japan.
Interesting to note, my research for the World War Three 1946 book series, has led me to believe that Moscow and the area of the Soviet Secret Cities and manufacturing centers in the Urals also had long periods of a strong jet stream that would have been a challenge in any conventional bombing campaign.
The B-29 was the costliest, US weapons system in WWII. I would argue that the bomber was rarely used as designed until Korea. The first few high-level bombing raids yielded terrible results. Japan had a fairly consistent, what we now call, jet stream. It dissipated the bombs dropped from above 30,000 and the bombsights could not account for it. Thus no effective bombing campaign could be conducted at over 30,000 feet.
When LeMay replaced Hansel he quickly realized this and switched from bombing factories and facilities to terror bombing, eventually killing over a million civilians. The Japanese were defenseless against these firebomb attacks. Many were flown at 7,000 ft.
Most of the B-29 were flying below 10,000 feet. The very expensive pressurized system was not used. The very expensive remote-controlled fire-control system not used either as LeMay had them removed to increase the bomb load. The way the Super Fortress was used, made a farce of all it's innovations and it was incredibly costly.
I want to make it clear that I am not denigrating the incredible feat of creating and building these aircraft. Circumstances just negated many of the incredible advances when the bomber was used over Japan.
Interesting to note, my research for the World War Three 1946 book series, has led me to believe that Moscow and the area of the Soviet Secret Cities and manufacturing centers in the Urals also had long periods of a strong jet stream that would have been a challenge in any conventional bombing campaign.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Post #349 is where it all began nd you know we're going to get some mileage out of it
F4U Corsair vs P-51 Mustang
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