Long range Luftwaffe bomber: attack on the USA

[wuzak]

Just suppose that the Luftwaffe had a long range bomber in service by late 1943 that reach the US east cost with a small bomb load and return to base. The aircarft may be a Ju 290 or 390, Me 264 or He 177 derivative, it doesn't really matter.

And they had sufficient fuel to perform such attacks.

Should attacks on the US be by the bombers actually flying over US territory and dropping their bomb loads, or would attacking with aerial launched long range V-1s make more sense?

Could a V-1 type cruise missile be developed to hone in on radio signals?

 

[Shortround6]

Anything was possible.

Probable is something else, hanging a V-1 under any sort of WW II bomber on a transatlantic flight is going to cut hundreds of miles off the range/radius.

Navigation is going to be spot on or the V-1 (unless much improved) will be lucky to hit one of the five Burroughs of NYC and not New Jersey or outlying towns.

Maybe Boston is a better bet? except that Boston is tiny.

Even if you could home in on a radio signal, what signal are you homing in on? Commercial broadcast transmitter?

 

[jetcal1]

Anything was possible.

Probable is something else, hanging a V-1 under any sort of WW II bomber on a transatlantic flight is going to cut hundreds of miles off the range/radius.

Navigation is going to be spot on or the V-1 (unless much improved) will be lucky to hit one of the five Burroughs of NYC and not New Jersey or outlying towns.

Maybe Boston is a better bet? except that Boston is tiny.

Even if you could home in on a radio signal, what signal are you homing in on? Commercial broadcast transmitter?

Could a '40's vintage autopilot be coupled to an ADF?

 

[rednev]

What do you hope to achieve ?
Attacking the coastal fringe with a small bomb load is only going to strengthen american resolve .

 

[nuuumannn]

What do you hope to achieve?

There's merit in this question, quite apart from p!ssing off the Americans. In the 1940s - before atom bombs of course, a successful strategic bombing campaign was waged with lots of bombers. The 1,000 bomber raid against Cologne (Operation Milennium) might have been a propaganda effort with little military gain, but it demonstrated that lots of bombers brought about a lot more damage, and that lots of bombers were needed to wage a sustained campaign, if satisfactory (to those running the campaign, that is) results were to be attained. Bombing a city and causing a bit of damage doesn't require many bombers, but if you want it to really matter a large scale force attacking the major cities every single night causes enormous damage and demoralises civilians, not to mention the diversion of military resources, such as stationing anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, radar stations and fighter defence near all of the cities.

Sending bombers over in ones and twos, even to fire unguided missiles, at an individual city is pointless and a waste of effort if its not sustained. The Luftwaffe would have had to choose a suitable design and get building. Then of course there's the question of finding their way to the target area. Knickebein, X-Gerat and Y-Gerat don't work because they rely on ground stations broadcasting signals. The curvature of the earth would prevent Europe based signals from reaching across the Atlantic. Bouncing radio signals off the Ionosphere hadn't been discovered yet. Sure, you could use traditional navigation, like the RAF did, but to what result, particularly since the aircraft are large slow bombers covering enormous distances?

 

[ThomasP]

Hey guys,

IMO there would be three definite effects:

1. The positive effect on German morale, ie "Look at what we can do, and the Americans can barely touch us flying from England."

2 The negative effect on American morale, ie "Even though America is some 3,000 miles away from the ground conflict in Europe, our civilians are not safe (at least not on the east coast)."

3. The US would have to divert resources to defend the east coast areas within reach of the German bombers. This could have many secondary effects, such as slowing down the build-up for Pacific operations, reducing the Lend-Lease volumes, etc. Possibly even having to move manufacturing resources if the Germans were able to actually hit anything that mattered on a somewhat regular basis.

Another possible (probable?) effect would be to strengthen American resolve against the Germans.

Also, it is possible that the German high command would have had the war crime of deliberately targeting civilian populations by aerial bombardment added to the list at Nuremberg, after losing the war.

 

[nuuumannn]

it is possible that the German high command would have had the war crime of deliberately targeting civilian populations by aerial bombardment added to the list at Nuremberg, after losing the war.

They already did. The Nuremburg Charter identified the bombing of civilians as a war crime and the defendants were thus charged.

 

[ThomasP]

I know. Sorry, I was being a bit sarcastic and ironic. The idea that the Germans would be tried for something that the UK and US had planned to do from before the war even started is a sore point for me. The fact that the UK and US did such a thing is an even bigger sore point.

 

[rednev]

Civilians make the guns civilians make the tanks civilians feed the troops and i am guessing most of the troops where made by civilians.
ethics and war are strange bed fellows

 

[Peter Gunn]

Were there no P-38's stationed as interceptors on either the west or east coast in 1943? Not sure it would divert that much from the AAF inventory that was already there for just that purpose.

 

[swampyankee]

Hey guys,

IMO there would be three definite effects:

1. The positive effect on German morale, ie "Look at what we can do, and the Americans can barely touch us flying from England."

The U-boats were already "touching" us.

2 The negative effect on American morale, ie "Even though America is some 3,000 miles away from the ground conflict in Europe, our civilians are not safe (at least not on the east coast)."

While pre-war thought, as expressed by people like Douhet, was that civilian morale would collapse because of aerial bombardment, this never happened in WW2. Indeed, had the aerial bombardment theorists actually read some history, they would find that civilian morale could actually be quite robust, even more robust than that of armed forces. Witness the Paris Commune.

3. The US would have to divert resources to defend the east coast areas within reach of the German bombers. This could have many secondary effects, such as slowing down the build-up for Pacific operations, reducing the Lend-Lease volumes, etc. Possibly even having to move manufacturing resources if the Germans were able to actually hit anything that mattered on a somewhat regular basis.

One of the reasons why there is a lot of aircraft manufacturing in Kansas is that the government did just that. On the other hand, the Germans would have even more trouble getting bombs on target than did Bomber Command and the Eighth Air Force in Europe: they have 3,000 miles of navigational errors to correct. While it's unlikely they'd miss the country, which both RAF and USAAF bombers did during WW2, dropping a few random 250 kg bombs in New York is mostly going to piss them off.

Another social issue is that the reason that US citizens of Japanese descent were move from California was because they were viewed as a threat due to their ancestry. On the East Coast, German and Italian resident aliens weren't rounded up and tossed in concentration camps; it's certainly possible that German-Americans, especially resident aliens and immigrants, would find themselves treated with equal consideration as were the Nisei. (as an aside, there were probably far more instances of German-Americans being involved in espionage and sabotage than Japanese-Americans, although it must be added that the Northeast US, where the percentage of immigrants was highest, was also much more susceptible to sabotage than California, which was comparatively less industrialized. The fact that the Norden bombsight was compromised in 1940 by a German-American worker is well known. In WW1, the Black Tom explosions are widely considered to have been sabotage by German-Americans, although the evidence linking those to sabotage is not entirely convincing)

Another possible (probable?) effect would be to strengthen American resolve against the Germans.

It would certainly weaken the efforts in the Pacific. This may lengthen the war in the Pacific, as the Germans would have also directly attacked the US.

Also, it is possible that the German high command would have had the war crime of deliberately targeting civilian populations by aerial bombardment added to the list at Nuremberg, after losing the war.

 

[Admiral Beez]

What do you hope to achieve ?
Attacking the coastal fringe with a small bomb load is only going to strengthen american resolve .

That was my thinking as well. Without WMD nor hundreds of available aircraft this sounds about as effective as the Japanese balloon bombs.

If the Germans did assemble a few hundred long range bombers the US would soon install radar to detect them. And a hundred or more Junkers Ju 390-sized bombers plodding along at about 190 knots IAS (and ground speed will be less as they're flying into the jet stream) at 25,000-30,000 feet or so would be detected by US ground-based radar many miles out, sufficiently that a massive Air Force interception would be ready to meet these poor, unescorted bastards. And how do you keep a fleet of bombers together through thousands of miles flying into often bad weather, night, etc?

But this does present some questions on the US response, and possible overreaction. What fighters does the US divert from the ETO, PTO and Lend Lease to protect its shores? And then we must consider what the Germans give up to build a long range bomber force.

As for radar, can the US stick it the top of skyscrapers to get the best distance? And could we see any early NORAD with Canada-USA cooperation on continental air defence, since the Germans may fly the curvature to come across Newfoundland to hit NYC?

 

[Shortround6]

Uh, Guys, look at maps, to get to New York the great circle routes are going to come in over Boston and/or down the Maine coast. yes they can dog leg around a bit. But unless you appouch New York from the South east you have 60-100 miles of land to fly over or next to (counts flying down the south side of long Island).

Germans try this stunt more than about twice and the US puts radar picket ships 60-100 miles off shore.

Chances of getting damaged aircraft back to France????

 

[Admiral Beez]

Long range V-2 is the way to go.

 

[GrauGeist]

The Japanese were the ones who actually managed to land hits on the US (with little effect, save for the "Battle of Los Angeles") with their Subs, sub-launched aircraft and of course, the Fu-Go balloons.

The Germans had been looking at a way to bomb U.S. proper from the start as well as attacking Manhattan (because of word of a secret project) but the only effective technology they had at hand, that could have done it, was their planned Aggregat 9/10 rockets.

 

[Admiral Beez]

If the Germans wanted to knock the USA out of the war they shouldn't have declared war on the US. Instead, after Pearl Harbour let the Japanese distract America while you focus everything on winning in Russia. For that matter, stay out of Greece and North Africa, just send everything to Russia. If you win in Russia you can circle back to take North Africa, etc., and if you lose in Russia there's no point, since you've lost the war.

 

[Shortround6]

You do realize that Ploiesti is around 200 miles from the Greek border?

Once Mussolini screws up the Greek Invasion and Greece allies with Great Britain, Germany has little choice in cleaning out Greece of allied troops.

While Bulgaria was dependent on Germany they officially stayed Neutral until March 1st 1941. They also never declared war against the Soviet Union or sent troops to fight in Russian although Bulgarian troops in the Balkans did allow the redeployment of German/Italian troops elsewhere.

The whole southern flank of the German attack on Russia was too exposed/uncertain to leave on the back burner for very long, everything might go OK, everything could turn pig poop in a few weeks.

 

[Zipper730]

Attacking the coastal fringe with a small bomb load is only going to strengthen american resolve.

Yeah, and we were building P-61's already. Considering that we were already operating off the United Kingdom, we would turn the full force of our bombers on the cities of Germany instead of some pretense of a targeted attack on railway yards, factories, and stuff like that.

They already did. The Nuremburg Charter identified the bombing of civilians as a war crime and the defendants were thus charged.

Were any convicted on that specific charge?

The idea that the Germans would be tried for something that the UK and US had planned to do from before the war even started is a sore point for me.

That, I understand: The aerial bombing policies practiced by most all sides was frank barbarism -- some were even involved in the act before the official start of the war. Germany (Madrid and Guernica) & Japan (Chongqing) definitely were.

The fact that the UK and US did such a thing is an even bigger sore point.

That's why war-crimes legislation fail to stop powerful and/or desperate nations from engaging in the practice. You only get tried if you lose, unless the matter manages to get a huge enough public outcry (I can only think of one case, My Lai).

1. For the powerful nation...
   • There is a presumption that they will win, and since only the losers pay for their crimes, they often engage in these practices when they're expedient...
   • Some powerful nations are dictatorships: Dictators don't like to lose their power, and many have aggrieved lots of people to get where they were. They'd be afraid of similar treatment from the occupying side, or the possibility that they might be handed over to the people they aggrieved.
2. For the desperate nation...
   • They have poor odds of victory.
   • Upon defeat, they might be handled badly by the other side.
   • Even if their methods would only force a draw, and that could result in a treaty that would end the war: Who will question the methods by which they used?

Nations of moderate power tend to follow these rules because they aren't too small to be desperate, and not too powerful to be guaranteed a win...

 

[pbehn]

To do it with one plane for propaganda takes a huge effort, to do it on a regular basis would be a massive and useless distraction from other efforts. If it was successful one time it would never be repeated and would be a suicide mission for a big expensive plane and crew.

 

[nuuumannn]

Sorry, I was being a bit sarcastic and ironic.

Understand, but if the result of WW2 were reversed, you can see pretty much how the Nazis would have handled the leaders of the losing countries. To the victor goes the spoils.

I don't wish to engage in the morality of strategic bombing here; that's not what this thread is about, but if we are going to point fingers, every one of the major protagonists of WW2 were guilty of it. The fact is, that it happened meant that the leadership of each of the countries involved felt it was a necessary means to achieve their aims, rightly or wrongly and as observers of history we should deal with that as rationally and thoughtfully as we can.