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The Luftwaffe did have bombers that could have mounted a raid *if* the Germans had set up clandestine fields in a chain across the North Atlantic or used their BV222 flying boats with refueling spots along the way.
But the logistics would have been extensive and most likely discovered via enigma.
Well there were shipyards at Portland, Maine that built Ocean & Liberty ships from 1941.You know, there really isn't anything in Maine worth bombing, is there?
USN naval base at Portsmouth NH. Major builder of submarines from 1917 to 1969.I stand corrected - Maine is now on the list.
Now about New Hampshire...
There's also the whole getting around England thing. The Azores could be used, by invasion, but I think the Germans were pretty busy for that sort of thing by 1943, when the relevant bombers might have been flying (after some extra effort).
I believe any bomber attack that long ranged wouldn't pay off in terms of the cost of developing and building a fleet of cutting edge bombers until we had nukes to reduce the number of aircraft per sortie by a factor of 1000.IIrc there were a couple of bases in New Jersey used to train and finish squadrons before deployment to ETO, I imagine they were on the table for air defense if push came to shove -- which it wouldn't given the lack of a suitable German bomber to do the mission.
A German air-strike upon the East Coast is something I regard as Wehraboo territory.
I believe any bomber attack that long ranged wouldn't pay off in terms of the cost of developing and building a fleet of cutting edge bombers until we had nukes to reduce the number of aircraft per sortie by a factor of 1000.
B-36 had engine problems that were infamous in SAC training, imagine it during a cross-atlantic flight into enemy territory, either germany or occupied europe, or flying across the pacific to the Urals and back?
Amerika bombers had barely the ordinance left and barely any defensive armament, even a flak blowing 100feet away and hitting one of the engines oil radiator would probably mean the entire loss of crew and aircraft, highly specialized and expensive crew trained in very long range flight.
Would be nice to have them in limited production, any eventual mission would prove any bombing attacks to be completely useless, however they would be extremely useful for Berlin-Tokyo flights or very long distance ocean patrols for u-boats.Which is why I regard it as sheer fantasy in an attempt to find a way for Germany to win WWII, i.e. "wehraboo".
The U.S. had the B-19 (though a one-off), which wad a result of the USAAC's prewar XLRB project.Didn't the Allies already have a bunch of functional long range bombers and maritime patrol aircraft? I never really checked out the Amerika Bomber. Was it longer ranged than the Martin Mariner ( which had the advantage of actually being produced and flown)? The U.S. did have a couple of "Berlin Bomber" designs which, like the Amerika Bomber, weren't very good either. Does it matter? U.S. aircraft design path wouldn't have changed its design path, IMHO.
Would be nice to have them in limited production, any eventual mission would prove any bombing attacks to be completely useless, however they would be extremely useful for Berlin-Tokyo flights or very long distance ocean patrols for u-boats.
Imagine a flight of them with 100 mile radars flying from occupied france to the azores or west of the irish coast, into the convoy lanes.
A earlier TU-114.
Post war would be interesting, B-52s would never see that kind of service aside from a few experiments, but if they had the german example and the Soviet one, would be interesting to see.
Slap a huge naval radar on it's nose, and load it up with harpoons or torpedos, probably would make the Pacific fleet into a sub-only force in a couple of sorties...
I meant it that it's naval role would probably inspire the b-52s, V-bombers to be adopted for naval ops like patrol or antiship missions like the tu-95 was.I wouldn't want to fly that Berlin-Tokyo mission.
Put them on the Azores, you'd probably see British F4Us flying against them?
As for post-war recon, perhaps ... but remember, jet fighters went from Gen1 to Gen3 between 1945 and 1960-ish.