Its maritime strike capability was limited
Why was that? It carried two large aerial mines and used its range and navigational capabilities to use that capacity to great effect in the inland seas of Japan.
And its ability to carry oversize loads, meant that if the Allies had decided to develop glide bombs like the germans had, then it would have been the well positioned to carry them.
as was its ability to provide ground support to battlefield situations.
I assume you mean it couldnt be used in a tactical situation, which is true, because
IT WAS NEVER designed for that role. Your line of reasoning also suggests that no four engined "heavy bomber" could be used in that role either.
But then the inverse of your logic is the A20/B25/B26 and Mossie couldnt be used in long range missions either.
I read that the 3500 B-29s produced cost more to build than the entire 19000 B-24 program. How would 3500 B-29s fare, compared to 19000 B-24s over germany?
One B29 could carry an atomic bomb, with an effective payload of 15,000 tons. How about that?
The B24's were simpler to design and build and were in mass production 2 years before the B29 had any meaningful production. And we know one thing for sure, the B24 could not have bombed Japan from the Mariana's.
They would have been cut to pieces, simply because there would not have been enough of them. If we assume similar deployment rates to Germany as was done historically in the PTO, th en ther would have been about 300 by the end of 1944, rising to about 500 by March 1945. At that same time, ther were thousands of B-24s and B-17s battling the Luftwaffe. I doubt that the B-29, despite its higher individual survivability, would have fared better overall, when viewed as agroup. There simply were not enough of them, and that was because they cost so much per unit to produce.
Why do you assume they would have been cut to pieces. They were not immune to the LW but they sure would have been less vulnerable to most of the LW fighters. And if they were used as night bombers, they would have even less loses. And dont forget, most B29 loses in the Pacific were due to the plane [damaged] having to fly 1600 miles back to their bases. Now if that range was only a few hundred miles like that in Europe, the B29 loses would be even less.
So while I agree they are the best from a technological point of view, from an operations point of view I see them as having rather limited potential in the WWII context.
Limited potential? How about burning Japan to the ground.
How bout bring ECM dedicated aircraft to a new level of capabilities.
How about mining the inland seas and immobilizing the Japanese coastal traffic.
How about dropping two nuclear weapons.
You call that "limited"?
The B29 was the result of the lessons learned from the Lanc, B17 and B24. Each one of those three planes showed what was good and bad about their designs as intended for strategic warfare, and the B29 by design or not, minimized the bad points and integrated the good points (to one degree or another) into a single platform.