A couple of interesting points.
For role playing:
Situation is as following:
Nov. 44, Two B-29 landing in Eastern Russia following battle damage over Japan (as historical), the crews are taken prisoner but are allowed to "escape" (as historical), the B-29 have to stay in Russia
Dez.44, The US sends a note of protest regarding the two B-29. (unhistorical but probable)
jan.45-april45, strategic bombing campaign carried out over Germany as historical, The SU notes that the majority of the campaign is relegated to secondary industrial infrastructures, which have no effect in the expected (short) remaining duration of war but almost the whole effort is concentrated on what will become the future soviet occupied zone of Eastern Germany. Stalin get´s angry.
april 45, a Yak-9 fighter forces a B-29 to land in the far east (as historical).
Several minor clashed of soviet and US fighters over central europe (as historical).
may 45, VE-day. Russia refuses to declare war on Japan following it´s non aggression pact with Japan. (unhistorical)
may, 45, The US refuse to send further land lease material to Russia (unhistorical)
june 45, the race for technology get´s out of controll. After some small command operations to "free" german scientist in estern Germany (Alsos, as historical), the US Army demolated facilities in Thuringia to prevent them from falling into SU hands. The SU does similar things in Austria.(ahistroical)
Both forces prepare operations of larger scale. Rumors are that Britain stores german captured weapons for a possible war against Russia
Jule 45, SU upbuild of power across the Elbe, Stalin is silly and somehow forced by the critical food situation to do something...
Tim,
A flightplan would be highly welcome! Perhaps You can help me here.
According to the flight engeneers manual posted by Micdrow, a B-29 at close to 130.000lbs gross take off weight needs est. 1200 gallons (7.200 lbs) of fuel
to climb to 30.000ft. altitude and it will cover a distance of ~320-340 mls during this climb (est.). Avg. speed for the climb is 224 mp/h so the B-29 might reach service altitude somewhere close to the german bay, approx. 1 hour and 30 minutes after take off. Can anyone doublecheck this?
A: CLIMB
Take off gross weight: ~130.000lbs (7.960 gallons = 47.760 lbs)
Fuel to climb to 30.000ft: 7.200 lbs (1.200 gallons)
Avg. TAS in climb: 170+278/2= 224 mp/h
Distance of climb covered until reaching service altitude: ~330 st.mls
Time covered to reach service altitude: 1:29
gross weight at service altitude: 122.800 lbs (40.560 lbs fuel left)
B: CRUISE TO TARGET
Distance left to target: 1.220 mls
cruise setting: 77% power (maximum cruise setting, necessary setting for 30.000ft. cruise altitude), each engine: 1.550 hp, 2150 rpm, auto rich, fuel flow: 155 gln/hr @ 25000ft. -how much at 30.000ft.?)
I originally wanted a lower cruise setting but this setting is necessary to keep the altitude high enough with the given gross weight.
Temp.: -44.4 degees C (-48 degress F)
IAS: 155 mp/h
TAS: ~250 mp/h (excluding wind factors, ~217 Kts)
one hour endurance at this setting= est. 620 gallons (3.720 lbs), adjusted for the avg. gross weight: 650 gallons (3.900 lbs) -absolutely not sure here-
avg. gross weight during cruise: 113.300 lbs
Time to destiny: 293 minutes (4,88 hours)
est. fuel consumption: 3.712 gallons (~19.000 lbs)
gross weight at target area: 103.800lbs (21.560 lbs fuel left)
C: BOMBING RUN
as suggested by Tim, 10 minutes @ military rating, including the 155 degrees about turn. Fuel flow is 290 for each engine (194 gallons or 1.160 lbs fuel total)
Nuke dropped.
flighttime before return cruise: 392 minutes (6.53 hrs or 6 hours and 32 minutes)
Gross weight before return cruise: 93.640lbs (20.400 lbs fuel or 3.400 gallons left)
With est. 43 % fuel left, is the B-29 able to reach England or for this matter bases at northern Italy? And, if the answer is yes, under which conditions (cruise setting)?