Too Little, Too Late - The B-32 Dominator (1 Viewer)

I just missed the the B-36 in operation (I was born four years after it was retired), but I was told you could hear and feel the throbbing of their engines from miles away, even if you couldn't see them. Pretty weird . . .

POS. And I'm sticking with it. Operationally it would have been decimated.

Matt: Memory is kinda foggy, but I remember two stacks of six bunks,
a half decent galley (frozen meals prepared by the base mess hall). Lots
of fried chicken, or roast beef and hot dogs beans. For the life of me
I can't remember the "johns". I do remember the tail position had a
"relief tube", and I remember the sled on a pulley arrangement to get
to the tail. I never flew in a B-36 that had jets...... And yes, they
were very noisey. Two of them running on the tarmac and the ground
shook.

Charles

Its a flying building. Only thing missing was a gym. It's primary claim to fame should be that it was the precursor for the ISS.

Matt308 said:

It's primary claim to fame should be that it was the precursor for the ISS.

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Matt308 said:

POS. And I'm sticking with it. Operationally it would have been decimated.

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To decimate is to kill 1 in 10.

It comes from the Roman practice of collective punishment for cowardice or rebellion in the ranks, whereby they would execute one in ten of every solider in the cohort (usually through stoning or clubbing by his comrades).

Any yes, I know the modern usage means to "kill the majority", but I like being contrary sometimes

Your not being contrary, that was a good post! I didn't know that!!

Literally 'decimated' is maybe a good way to distinguish the requirements of conventional formation bombing and nuclear attack. If you can consistently shoot down 10% of the former you'll stop the bomber offensive pretty quickly; even if the opponent is geared up to pump out enough airplanes to keep going he won't be able to keep up with experienced crews at a sustained loss rate of 10% per sortie.

But, if you only down 10% of a nuclear attack force, you're doomed. Even if they have to come back a *few* times and you only down 10% per sortie that's not enough.

Based on a lot of the detailed chapters in Jacobsen "Convair B-36" on opposing fighters, radar, ECM etc I'd say the B-36 was a very credible nuclear bomber from the time it really worked (say '51-52) until around 1957.

SAC considered using B-36's as conventional bombers in Korea in 1951. I've seen primary source documents on that. Far East Air Force suggested it, LeMay (head of SAC) declined. The main reason given was urgent build up of the force, concentrating on training, and at the time (spring '51) there were only a few dozen B-36's actually fully operational per these memo's. But in formation bombing from any altitude where you could hit anything with conventional bombs, B-36's would also probably have been 'decimated' by MiG-15's at some point at least, as B-29's were, in daylight at least (B-29's went to all night missions in MiG Alley after October 1951).

Joe

Just crudely crunching numbers (and I emphasize crudely, given production timelines and variants that were not armed...):

~400 B-36s

versus

~12,000 MiG-15s

Not good odds to avoid a "decimation".

Completely agreed.

Soren said:

Completely agreed.

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Me too, that comparison *is* way too crude to mean anything. That is what you meant, right?

Joe

Sure why not. From now on I'll base all of my points in absolutes. It will make folks recognize the truth quicker.

Folks, I have to chime in here....

Considering this is all hypothetical, what time during the could war would of this happened? Early in the Korean War there were not a whole lot of B-36s built and a strike into USSR "would of" involved B-29s and B-50s. Are we considering part of the missions being flown at night and how about the ECM factor? At the same time, how many Mig-15 units would of been able to intercept incoming bombers? Did anyone ever research the fact that the Mig-15 had terrible environmental systems that would of make intercepting B-36s at altitude like going naked in Siberia in the middle of a winters' night?!?

By the mid and late 50s a strike from the US "would of" involved B-47 that were just as fast as the Mig-15 and a shade slower than the Mig-17. What about escorting fighters? I think all of this had to be factored in as it would of been obvious the B-36 wouldn't of attacked the USSR alone.

I think the B-36 served its purpose - it was "The Big Stick" and it kept the USSR at bay through out the 1950s. In retrospect, while may in the US were pointing at "The Red Herring" the USSR actually spent much of it's design efforts designing "interceptors" with close support capability and this could easily be seen in such aircraft as the Migs 19-23, the Sukhoi SU-7 and up as well as their home interceptors (ex. SU-15). I don't think they would of been doing that if they weren't worried about a massive aerial strike from the US.

We may look at the B-36 as a dinosaur but it came from an era where changing an engine required 20 guys and there was no EPA around complaining about all the engine oil under parked aircraft.

Well since the B-36 could not land on most runways, I am assuming that the scenario was strictly an intercontinental run with nukes at max range, no fighter support, and obviously no refueling capability. With the geographic location of most of the USSR (and Russian specifically) industry centrally located in the Eurasian land mass, this would have required long slow runs over significant amounts of defensive territory. Even with ECM, decimation was surely the order of the day for a 200knot aircraft. Even if they were flying at night at FL450.

FLYBOYJ said:

Folks, I have to chime in here....

Considering this is all hypothetical, what time during the could war would of this happened? Early in the Korean War there were not a whole lot of B-36s built and a strike into USSR "would of" involved B-29s and B-50s. Are we considering part of the missions being flown at night and how about the ECM factor? At the same time, how many Mig-15 units would of been able to intercept incoming bombers? .

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This is the point. In Korea B-29's went up against MiG-15's. At night, even without (USAF/USMC nightfighter) escorts, B-29's were shot down by MiG's a very small % of the time, less than 1% per sortie. And it took the particular MiG unit hunting them, the 351st Fighter Regiment, months of combat to gain the skills to intercept B-29's effectively at night, over a very limited area, with GCI radar and radar controlled searchlights, lacking any radar on the MiG's themselves. The MiG unit which took over in February 1953, the 298th Regiment, never built up their skills enough to down any B-29's before the armistice in July.

Still, the rate of B-29 loss became worrisome in Nov '52-Jan '53. But that was because the B-29's had to go back and bomb the same area night after night, a war of attrition. Against nuclear attacks, the Soviet defence would have been totally ineffective. 1% loss in a nuclear attack, so what?

Expand this to the whole Soviet Union, much of which lacked any radar coverage at the time, 100's of targets, not one small area, and no way could early-mid '50's Soviet defences have stopped devastating nuclear attacks by planes like the B-36, or even B-29/50, in night hours. The big advantage of the B-36's over the earlier planes was it could reach a lot further, and carry the huge H-bombs of the time, before they were miniaturized. By ca. 1957 there was enough radar coverage, and radar equipped Soviet night fighters, that this was changing.

Since the B-36 missions would be so long, and some Soviet latitudes so high, attacks esp. in summer might have to occur in daylight (OTOH Warsaw Pact planning at least later on was apparently for attacks in winter, to get cover from weather and longer hours of darkness in Europe). But still, I think those claiming the B-36 was ineffective are neglecting how big a place the USSR was to defend, nothing like compact North Korea. Also the B-36's especially from around 1954 were flying higher, up to 50k, and it's hard to see planes against the sky background up there, as tests and exercises showed, again for fighters lacking their own AI radar. But main point is you can shoot down, 10, 20, 30% of a nuclear attack and still fail miserably. When we compare to WWII/Korea conventional cases, we're talking about where 1-5% losses could seriously undermine a bomber offensive, and 10% generally made it prohibitive.

Joe

Great points Joe and I think a lot of what you stated affected Soviet defense doctrine for many years and it's evident on the emphasis they placed on "interceptors."

Agreed good post. However, I dispute that some assumptions regarding GCI capability around primary targets may offset your loss suppositions. The B-36 flew for most of the 50s, was (initially at least) a maintenance nightmare whose sortie rate was severely curtailed. Given that most aircraft would be unable to fly at max altitude with a heavy load out, the altitude defense seems much less effective, and perhaps very unlikely to avoid performance envelopes of Soviet interceptors.

FlyboyJ is exactly right that the whole Soviet GCI doctrine was developed during these years and based upon western tactics. However, I think we tend to underestimate the effectiveness border radar may have had, coupled with target defences. Certainly this is a multi-element problem, but the following were working against a successful overall mission assumed to be total annihilation -

- B-36 aircraft fleet size, reduced by sortie rate and aircraft geographic capability
- B-36 loadout (weapon effectiveness) for max range operations. They weren't flying 10,000nm at FL500 with the thermonuclear bomb of the era. They likely were carry a weapon of SIGNIFICANTLY less yield.
- B-36 defensive weapon capability were marginally effective as evidenced by their ultimate removal
- Targets necessary to declare mission success (mutual assured destruction accomplished) were large in numbers.
- Target diversity in a 8.7Million square mile geography meant few B-36s per target and likely only one
- Sheer number of interceptors scrambled to seek out aircraft whose inbound run was likely 4 to 5 hours
- Ability to obtain target run altitudes under max range + weapon loading that exceeded max altitude of interceptors was unlikely
- Effectivity of ECM by individual aircraft elements would likely have been counterproductive to minimizing detection.

Surely some would have gotten through and caused horrific destruction, but recall that the Russians had moved the majority of war production facilities to deep internal locations as part of the lessons learned from WWII. Thus targets were diverse and geographically isolated. I stick with my conclusion that the B-36 fleet would be decimated and unable to cripple the Soviet war machine.

I recognize that our conclusions are based upon our hypothetical scenarios, but again I am under the impression that we are talking about a super-long range penetration bomber over hostile territory with no friendly support. The classic SAC mission that was used to sell the B-36 to begin with. Just don't believe it would have ever lived up to the hype. Thank God for submarines.

Matt308 said:

Thank God for submarines.

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Summer of 52, I worked near the end of the runway at Kelly Field In SA. They were bringing in burn casualties from Korea to BAMC in the XC 99( I think there was only one of them) and the noise and vibration when that airplane took off is hard to describe. I mentioned this once before but a hammer laid on a shelf in the houses we were sheetrocking would vibrate all over the shelf during takeoff. I wonder how many nuclear warheads the US had during the time the B36 was active? I would be surprised if the B36 in combat could operate much above 40,000 ft.