Long range Luftwaffe bomber: attack on the USA

Shortround6 said:

The B-25 raid was obviously a stunt.
However the US, I don't believe, had never made any claims about enemy aircraft never being able to fly over America, The US, at times, had imposed a black out(not soon enough in some coastal areas).

As mentioned above the raid did result in different distribution of AA guns and crews and also affected the Deployment of some fighter squadrons.

Whether or not a single (or even a few) German raids would have changed US deployments is certainly subject to Question. The US kept around four hundred 120mm AA guns at home, only 4 went overseas. I have no idea how many smaller AA guns were kept in the US. The East Coast of the US was home to a number of fighter squadrons and airbases used for operational training with combat aircraft. With Chance Vought, Republic and Grumman all within a 100 miles of New York it often helped to have new squadrons working up with operational fighters close to the factories.

I am not sure that such small scale raids would really affect US planning or deployments to any extent.

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It would likely increase the combat readiness of the USAAF units in the Northeast and may move some fighter training units from the other parts of the country to the areas under some form of continuous air threat, but one raid probably wouldn't do much, as the German raids could never be more than pinpricks unless they used chemical or biological warfare agents, and probably not even then (and would the Germans really like responses to either in kind?)

Shortround6 said:

With Ships being torpedoed within sight of the coast the US citizens were aware of how close things might get.

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Certainly, the people in coastal communities knew of the potential dangers, as they would see the ships burning after being torpedoed and dealing with the corpses of sunken ships' crews washing up on their beaches. I think a fairly strong case could be made that the people on the East Coast, at least would react with less hysteria than the people in some other parts of the country. After all, there wasn't a mass round-up of German- and Italian-Americans on the East Coast, as there was of Japanese-Americans on the West.

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There are, of course, many possible routes from German-occupied Europe to the Northeast US or Washington, DC (perhaps a more valuable target).

Brest to New York is about 5400 km. It doesn't overfly the UK, but it does overfly the Canadian Maritimes; Brest-DC is about 5800 km, and overflies both the Maritimes and the Atlantic coastline. About the best possible route would be from La Coruna, in northwestern Spain, to New York, which would be about 5300 km and doesn't overfly either the UK or the Maritimes. I'm sure Franco would be cool with this, provided enough money is sent by Hitler. I'm equally sure the Galicians wouldn't mind, at all, when they start getting all that attention from USAAF and RAF bombers.

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Setting up radars in the Northeastern US would not be too hard. There were these guys in Cambridge, Massachusetts who were somewhat interested in radar. I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to get them involved in air defense radars for the US mainland

swampyankee said:

It would likely increase the combat readiness of the USAAF units in the Northeast and may move some fighter training units from the other parts of the country to the areas under some form of continuous air threat, but one raid probably wouldn't do much, as the German raids could never be more than pinpricks unless they used chemical or biological warfare agents

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The Germans didn't use biological warfare. They did use some chemical warfare on either Poland or the Soviet Union if I recall.

With a heckuva lot of, aircraft manufacturing on the US coasts (west coast, NAA, Boeing, Vega, Lockheed, among others, and Grumman, Bell, Curtiss, Republic, and Martin, among others) on the east coast, the US would have been difficult, at best, to attack. Yes, dispersals had aircraft companies in Kansas, Texas, Indiana, and Michigan, there would be no chance to do much damage. Just putting a few aircraft at each company's airfield would be bad news to anyone trying to do any real damage.

The Me264 -- likely the Amerika Bomber closest to actually being produced -- could carry a bomb load of about 4,000 kg to New York, from a base in Occupied France. To do so would require overflight of the Canadian Maritimes. It would be about a flight of about 31 hours, of which about 4 hours would likely be within visual observation range of people on the ground.

First flight:
Me264s (say a group of 18) set off from France. No one pays attention the first time, and they drop a collective 72,000 kg of bombs in the general vicinity of NYC. There is a very angry phone call from FIorello LaGuardia to FDR, then an equally annoyed call to Hap Arnold. This results in a lot of armed aircraft along the Me264's return route, but only one or two German aircraft get shot down.

The German military leadership was certainly subject to bouts of stupidity (80 cm guns , Stalingrad) but it wasn't subject to sustained bouts of suicidal stupidity. Bombing North America was far, far harder than bombing Britain, and that had failed to produce the desired military result. Air attacks on North America at the scale of those against Britain, which did not work, were simply impossible for German industry, even with the enslavement of much of Europe, and attacking any part of the US outside of a small portion, albeit a very important portion, was not feasible. The Germans would need to build hundreds of Amerika bombers; to do so would mean sacrificing thousands of tactical aircraft, including the fighters which were trying to keep the USAAF and RAF from destroying German production facilities and the cities which they were in and those which were helping to break up Soviet armies on the Eastern Front (where, it should be noted, about 3/4 of the German Army casualties were inflicted). Those German Amerika bombers could also not be escorted, so they would be sitting ducks to Allied fighters.

Germany was far closer to its limits of production than was the US, which could probably build more than enough fighters to cripple any possible German air offensive against the US.

As I said, or tried to say, there were a lot of fighters in the US in area of New York/New England. For instance Quonset point navel air station in Rhode Island was where the FAA trained their pilots to fly Corsairs.
Granted it was not a really integrated air defence system like England had but in 1943 there were a lot of fighters in the New York Area. And to get to New York flying down the east Coast you have to go near Portsmouth Naval yard, Boston naval yard, Newport RI (torpedo factory and naval war college among other things.) Basically a bunch of things they wouldn't want any sort of German attack or even recon to get near.

I could be wrong (obviously) but I think the biggest practical(?) effects would be if the Luftwaffe could sporadically drop bombs on any city(s) on the US coast. It would not really matter if the target was Bangor or New York City. If the pilots could find/drop a bomb on the target, the US high command would have to deploy men and material to at least appear to be doing something serious about the raids. A raid every 2 weeks+/- for example.

Finding the target would not be particularly difficult, as long as the 'America bomber' had the range and could arrive in the general area (~100 mile radius). There were plenty of German spies in the US, with access to radios, who could have used the radios to guide the bombers on their final leg to the target. Incidentally, there were quite a few German spies who routinely radioed messages concerning shipping movements to relay stations and subs off the coast.

In addition, although I have never really run across any conclusive evidence that the US was seriously worried about Germany developing the A-bomb, if there was serious concern I do not see the US higher ups having any choice but to take the threat very, very, very....very seriously. That would mean making extremely serious efforts to stop the raids and prevent any potential future dropping of an A-bomb.

There were routine ASW flights patrolling the coast as well as Navy/Coast Guard elements at sea. An inbound bomber or bombers run the risk of being spotted by them.
Then there's the bases that dotted the coastline that did have fighters on hand to intercept.

*IF* bombers were to get to the coast undetected, bombing run or not, they most certainly were not going to get home.

If I were going to plan such a mission I would time the attack for middle of the night. At an average of 150-200 mph the bomber could easily be out of range for a daytime intercept at sundown and at sunrise. I do not know what the records show, but off the top of my head I doubt that the successful intercept rate at night was even 10% in 1943. Does anyone have any kind of authoritative numbers for night intercepts during this period and later?

ThomasP said:

If I were going to plan such a mission I would time the attack for middle of the night. At an average of 150-200 mph the bomber could easily be out of range for a daytime intercept at sundown and at sunrise. I do not know what the records show, but off the top of my head I doubt that the successful intercept rate at night was even 10% in 1943. Does anyone have any kind of authoritative numbers for night intercepts during this period and later?

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What loss rate can germany sustain ? Every america bomber built means less of something else every litre of fuel used means less for other combat or training operations
Basic cost benefit unless your hurting america its costing to much , america had the production capacity and fuel supplies to respond germany didnt have the resources to waste on a limited propaganda program and certainly not enough resources to launch a sustained assault against america without seriously degrading european and russian operations.

True, but remember the conditions stated in the original post - the Luftwaffe has a bomber and fuel.

ThomasP said:

True, but remember the conditions stated in the original post - the Luftwaffe has a bomber and fuel.

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Then havoc night fighter first used by the british in 1941 , p61 first flight 1942 operational 44 but i am sure that could have been moved forward if german raids became a problem.
Even with a 10% percent interception rate and a lesser shoot down rate with a large night fighter force loses will become unsustainable.and every raid the defences will get stronger,
radars will improve

wuzak said:

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?

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Would attacking with submarine launched V-1s make more sense?

gjs238 said:

Would attacking with submarine launched V-1s make more sense?

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Short term, perhaps, but who would want to cart a few tons of liquid oxygen around in a submarine that's going to be spending most of its time on the surface -- or at least where it can be spotted by radar?

Considering that the V-2 didn't get into service until 1944, and by that time Germany's chance of victory was rapidly approaching zero. The best they could do was delay the inevitable. Delay Allied victory too long, and a) the Soviet stop line approaches the Rhine or b) a few dozen B-29s get assigned to Europe to carry Fat Man, Little Boy, and their less coyly named production variants.

gjs238 said:

Would attacking with submarine launched V-1s make more sense?

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V1 range 250 km accuracy early 31 km circle later 19 km warhead 850 kg cost to build a submarine ? man power on a u boat including vi techs ?
As a one off a very expensive way to lob not much at something somewhere near the coast .
The cost to mount a sustained campaign remembering germany lost 39 u boats in 4 months from september 43 without trying to get close to the american coast ?
never going to be cost effective.

From Wikipedia:

Bombardment of Ellwood
Main article: Bombardment of Ellwood
The United States continent was first shelled by the Axis on February 23, 1942, when the Japanese submarine I-17 attacked the Ellwood Oil Field west of Goleta, near Santa Barbara, California. Although only a pumphouse and catwalk at one oil well were damaged, I-17 captain Nishino Kozo radioed Tokyo that he had left Santa Barbara in flames. No casualties were reported and the total cost of the damage was officially estimated at approximately $500–1,000.[37] News of the shelling triggered an invasion scare along the West Coast.[38]

Bombardment of Estevan Point Lighthouse
More than five Japanese submarines operated in Western Canada during 1941 and 1942. On June 20, 1942, the Japanese submarine I-26, under the command of Yokota Minoru,[39] fired 25–30 rounds of 5.5-inch shells at the Estevan Point lighthouse on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, but failed to hit its target.[40] Though no casualties were reported, the subsequent decision to turn off the lights of outer stations caused difficulties for coastal shipping activity.[41]

Bombardment of Fort Stevens
See also: Bombardment of Fort Stevens
In what became the second attack on a continental American military installation during World War II, the Japanese submarine I-25, under the command of Tagami Meiji,[42] surfaced near the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon on the night of June 21 and June 22, 1942, and fired shells toward Fort Stevens. The only damage officially recorded was to a baseball field's backstop. Probably the most significant damage was a shell that damaged some large phone cables. The Fort Stevens gunners were refused permission to return fire for fear of revealing the guns' location and/or range limitations to the sub. American aircraft on training flights spotted the submarine, which was subsequently attacked by a US bomber, but escaped.

Lookout Air Raids
Main article: Lookout Air Raids

Nobuo Fujita standing by his E14Y
The Lookout Air Raids occurred on September 9, 1942. The second location to be subject to aerial bombing in the continental United States by a foreign power occurred when an attempt to start a forest fire was made by a Japanese Yokosuka E14Y1 "Glen" seaplane dropping two 80 kg (180 lb) incendiary bombs over Mount Emily, near Brookings, Oregon. The seaplane, piloted by Nobuo Fujita, had been launched from the Japanese submarine aircraft carrier I-25. No significant damage was officially reported following the attack, nor after a repeat attempt on September 29.

Fire balloon attacks
Main article: Fu-Go balloon bomb

Mitchell Monument
Between November 1944 and April 1945, the Japanese Navy launched over 9,000 fire balloons toward North America. Carried by the recently discovered Pacific jet stream, they were to sail over the Pacific Ocean and land in North America, where the Japanese hoped they would start forest fires and cause other damage. About three hundred were reported as reaching North America, but little damage was caused.

Near Bly, Oregon, six people (five children and a woman) became the only deaths due to an enemy balloon bomb attack in the United States when a balloon bomb exploded.[43] The site is marked by a stone monument at the Mitchell Recreation Area in the Fremont-Winema National Forest.

A fire balloon is also considered to be a possible cause of the third fire in the Tillamook Burn in Oregon. One member of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion died while responding to a fire in the Umpqua National Forest near Roseburg, Oregon, on August 6, 1945; other casualties of the 555th were two fractures and 20 other injuries.

ThomasP said:

If I were going to plan such a mission I would time the attack for middle of the night.

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Again, going back to my original post, how do they find their target? WW2 bombers didn't have inertial navigation systems, at night they had a guy taking star fixes using a sextant, dropping flares out the bottom of the aircraft to measure drift and drawing lines on a piece of paper with a slide rule. It was all very Thor Heyerdahl crossing the Pacific on a raft. After RAF Bomber Command had started night raids against Germany, the Butt Report was released in 1941 that had sobering statistics regarding how the British were doing - from Wikipedia:

"The results, first circulated on 18 August 1941, were a shock to many, though not necessarily to those within the RAF, who knew the difficulty of night navigation and target finding.
Postwar studies confirmed Butt's assessment, showing that 49% of Bomber Command bombs dropped between May 1940 and May 1941 fell in open country. As Butt did not include those aircraft that did not bomb because of equipment failure, enemy action, weather or which failed to find the target, only about 5% of bombers setting out bombed within 5 mi (8.0 km) of the target."

And that was navigating over known countries toward cities and industrial centres. Explain how the Germans would do better over water and the desolate countryside of North America. The Germans didn't have aircraft mounted ground mapping radar, and even then WW2 era ground mapping radar didn't do so well over water.

ThomasP said:

True, but remember the conditions stated in the original post - the Luftwaffe has a bomber and fuel.

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Again, as I said in the beginning, unless you are able to mount a sustained bombing campaign, what exactly will you achieve? A wholesale waste of a bomber and fuel.

nuuumannn said:

Explain how the Germans would do better over water and the desolate countryside of North America.

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Well, the water is certainly a problem but the proponents will (and have) claimed either U-boats with radio beacons or spies/agents on the ground with radios. How long lasting these solutions are (surface U-boat transmits radio signal for several hours without the Allies catching on when long transmissions to U-Boat headquarters was responsible for a fair number meeting their end? ) or shore based radio direction finders.

I do take exception to New England being described as desolate though, except for Maine

Hey nuuumannn,

As ShortRound6 mentions above, U-boats could be used for mid-&open-ocean navigation aid, and as I mentioned spies could be used for final homing. The U-boats would not have to transmit for long periods since the 'America bomber' would simply fly to a general area, transmit a hello to the U-boat, and the U-boat would then begin to transmit - less than an hour for sure, probably less than a half hour, and maybe even less. The U-boats would not be too vulnerable(?) as they would be operating in open waters off the shipping lanes. I say this because it is my understanding that the Allies never really got a handle on the U-boats that transmitted from significant distances away from the convoys. HuffDuff was used for shorter distances, usually on or near the shipping lanes. While longer-range radio intercepts occurred, they were usually not useful for prosecution unless the rendezvous was between subs and/or surface vessels. When the long-range aircraft (Vikings for example) used the subs for nav aids the subs were usually relatively safe.

As for finding the target in the terminal phase, even pre-WWII UK and US long range planes routinely crossed the Atlantic and Pacific and found their destinations. UK and US navigation training was high quality to allow the planes to arrive within a known area (specifics depended on what routes were being flown) sometimes using commercial radio stations or dedicated radio navigation aids for finding their final destination.

Can you imagine what effort it would take to prevent such broadcasts from radios operated by spies along the East Coast, combing through New York city would be a massive undertaking all by its self. Germany made it dangerous but never managed to stop underground radio transmissions, even under such a totalitarian regime.

Given the Luftwaffe's notoriously lax signal security, the raid's target and course would probably be known before the bomber(s) left the runway, as would the locations of the beacon submarines.