Was the B-29 Superfortress a Failure?

[pbehn]

Other sources may beg to differ on some of that?

Bomber specs

"The 1936 bomber specifications (B.12/36 and P.13/36) stated:

Consideration is to be given in design for fitting a light removable form of seating for the maximum number of personnel that can be accommodated within the fuselage when the aircraft is being used for reinforcing Overseas Commands.

This was certainly not demanding provision for troop carrying. Seating was to be fitted in the fuselage, not that the fuselage was to be designed to take seating. Moreover, it referred to the need to transport RAF ground crew to RAF Overseas Commands — a concomitant of the introduction of a reinforcement range into bomber requirements. Significantly, only after the 1936 bomber specifications had been issued did the Air Staff investigate using them as transports, and proposed a provisional allocation of funds for a new transport in case this was not possible. But when this proposition was discussed it was decided that one of the bombers 'must' be used as a transport. In a later lecture to the Higher Commanders' Course the point was made that these bombers 'will have all the necessary cabin space, lift capacity and range to fulfil the bomber transport primary role and its secondary functions as well'. Nevertheless, the lecturer noted that 'by reason of the multiplicity of internal installations in the fuselage the troops may not enjoy the same degree of comfort available in present types'. Indeed, when Bomber Command officers inspected the mock-up of the Supermarine design to B.12/36, far from finding accommodation for fully armed troops, they were concerned as to whether there was adequate room for the crew. They reported that headroom throughout the fuselage was restricted, and that even the captain and navigator did not have room to stand. Clearly a troop carrying requirement did not dominate — or even influence — the design of RAF bombers."

Surely the Stirling was most knackered by the limitation of its wingspan to 100ft, and the sub-divided bomb-bay and wing cells?

Be that as it may, there are pictures of the Stirling kitted out with seats Why else was it so huge when the bomb bay was no longer than a Lancaster and it couldnt actually load very big bombs. It was 17ft longer than a Lancaster with almost the same wingspan, literally a huge waste of space.
from wiki

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Be that as it may, there are pictures of the Stirling kitted out with seats Why else was it so huge when the bomb bay was no longer than a Lancaster and it couldnt actually load very big bombs. It was 17ft longer than a Lancaster with almost the same wingspan, literally a huge waste of space.
from wiki
View attachment 693942

Multirole designs had appeal, especially to cash-strapped operators?

 

[EwenS]

Spec P.13/36 that led to both the Manchester and Halifax also included a requirement to carry troops (IIRC 10 in number). That requirement wasn't dropped until 30 Jan 1940.

The Stirling couldn't carry bombs larger than 1,000lb due to the bomb bay being designed with a number of longitudinal girders dividing it into three long but narrow channels to contain the bombs.

The interior photo of the Stirling above is of the C.V version. That was the special Transport Command version produced in 1945. The original bomber versions of the Stirling, Manchester and Halifax were intended to have the troops sitting on fewer folding canvas seats along the rear fuselage side.

The idea however simply followed on from bomber designs going back into the 1920s intended for the Empire policing role.

 

[nuuumannn]

True Strategic effect is 300 bombers going after the enemies capital, and in one raid, burning out 16 square miles of the city, killing 125,000 people and making a million homeless for just 14 losses, many of these from the huge thermal updrafts.
By fall 1945, there USAAF had pretty much run out of targets in Japan and was throwing bombers at ever smaller towns and literally wiping them out.

Your definition is off. Strategic bombing as a definition is not determined by the aircraft nor the effect, but the mission and when it is carried out. Once upon a time, this was a strategic bomber.

DSC_0174

 

[GrauGeist]

And back in the day, this was a strategic bomber, too.

 

[nuuumannn]

And back in the day, this was a strategic bomber, too.

Perhaps the worst, but no less strategic in its operation than the B-29. L 31 was shot down by Wulstan Tempest of 39 (home Defence) Sqn, RFC on the night of 2 October 1916. Its entire crew died.

 

[pbehn]

And back in the day, this was a strategic bomber, too.

View attachment 693964

It just needed 2 or 3 thousand of them, maybe causing a firestorm would be a bit of an issue, but nothing that couldnt be sorted.

 

[GrauGeist]

The Airship campaign against England actually caused alot of damage out of the 50+ raids.

About a third of the airships were downed by defensive measures and it's a miracle that London (and surrounding towns) didn't suffer fires like during the Blitz.

 

[pbehn]

The Airship campaign against England actually caused alot of damage out of the 50+ raids.

About a third of the airships were downed by defensive measures and it's a miracle that London (and surrounding towns) didn't suffer fires like during the Blitz.

The panic caused set the tone for thinking between the wars, many thought mass hysteria would cause a population to demand peace. Strange thing about these type of raids, like the high altitude raids in WW2, purely by chance or whatever, the damage caused was out of proportion to the tonnage dropped in most conventional raids.

 

[nuuumannn]

It just needed 2 or 3 thousand of them, maybe causing a firestorm would be a bit of an issue, but nothing that couldnt be sorted.

The only firestorm was the conflagration the thing became once set alight... On the night of 23/24 September 1916, two airships were shot down over Britain, L 32 and L 33, the latter's crew, struggling with their ship's gas cells deflating from an attack by an RFC aeroplane, watched L 32 explode in midair and descend in a fireball. It would have been a ghastly sight for even the hardiest airshipman. L 33 landed relatively intact in Essex and its crew survived, whereas L 32's burned to death.

it's a miracle that London (and surrounding towns) didn't suffer fires like during the Blitz.

It kind'a isn't, really . There were so many factors working against the airships that it was almost sheer luck that they got close enough to big centres to drop bombs on them at all. An airship ended up in Norwegian waters intending on attacking Britain, another on a raid against Edinburgh ended up crashing near Inverness. The failure rate was staggeringly high and statistically speaking, (apart from dedicated suicide units and operations) the Imperial German Navy Airship Division bears the dubious honour of suffering the highest ratio of deaths in action per head count of any armed force unit (across a campaign rather than in a single action). The German U boat arm during WW2 comes high up that list, too, but the Zeppelin unit tops it.

Statistically, the German airship raids looked like this:

"A total of 196 tons of bombs were dropped on Britain over 51 raids by airships between January 1915 and August 1918, causing the deaths of 557 people and injuring another 1,358."

I once wrote an article on the final ride of L 33 and included the following from the RAF's Operation Gomorrah as a means of comparison:

"By comparison, during Operation Gomorrah, the raiding of the German city of Hamburg over four nights in late July and early August 1943 by RAF Bomber Command, 2,630 British bombers dropped 8,759 tonnes of bombs, killing more than 41,800 and injuring over 37,000 people."

 

[SplitRz]

My grandmother, born in 1907, lived in South Croydon. She told me as a kid that her earliest memory was of being woken to people out in the street cheering. Going outside to see what they were celebrating, she said they were all pointing to a blazing airship in the distant sky.

Anyone with enough airship knowledge or resources to be able to hazard a guess as to which airship she might have seen?

 

[SaparotRob]

If anybody can figure that out I'd bet it would one of the Forum's members.

 

[GrauGeist]

One of the most spectacular airship downings near London, was of the German Navy's LZ-31 on the evening of 1 October 1916 near Potter's Bar.
It was seen by thousands as it burst into flames and plunged to earth.

 

[SplitRz]

One of the most spectacular airship downings near London, was of the German Navy's LZ-31 on the evening of 1 October 1916 near Potter's Bar.
It was seen by thousands as it burst into flames and plunged to earth.

Could be - though that's 35 or so kilometers from Croydon

 

[SplitRz]

Actually, I think you have it!

(And to keep this thread on topic, Mcandy - note the last bit in bold )

The final moments of SL.11 – now a flaring, roaring inferno – illuminated the countryside up to thirty miles away. Those watching had observed the final action in silence, but as the flames engulfed the stricken airship, the mood changed.

A Special Constable, viewing the destruction of SL.11 from some ten miles away, recalled the reaction of those around him:

"This harrowing spectacle was rendered still more terrible by the extraordinary cheers following prolonged tension that greeted the destruction of the great Baby-killer. Defiant, hard, merciless cheers they were, and wherever the cheers rose there was the same inexorable note in them."

People began to dance in the streets in celebration, and to this triumphant tumult was added the sound of bells, hooters and the screech of train whistles… and even bagpipes! At a stroke, Londoners no longer felt defenceless in the face of the Zeppelin menace that had haunted the city for the last fifteen months.

The doomed airship fell to earth at the village of Cuffley, near Potters Bar, in Hertfordshire.
When the elated Lt. Robinson finally arrived back at Suttons Farm, he had been in the air for three hours and thirty-seven minutes and his petrol tank was almost dry. He also discovered that the intense heat of the burning airship had scorched his jacket, and in his excitement he had managed to shoot away part of the centre section of the upper wing and the rear main spar of his own aircraft. He was fortunate to arrive back in one piece.

With the arrival of daylight, an extraordinary exodus began from London and the surrounding districts. Tens of thousands of curious sightseers headed for Cuffley that morning, by train, motorcar, cart, bicycle and on foot, to see the wreckage for themselves – and to hunt for souvenirs. The Press dubbed it 'Zepp Sunday', while The Times referred to the whole episode as 'the greatest free show London has ever enjoyed.'

In a year that so far had brought nothing but bad news from the war, including the seemingly endless casualty lists from the Battle of the Somme, here, at last, was something positive to report. The newspapers filled their columns with stories of the destruction of SL.11 – the first airship shot down over mainland Britain – and elevated Lt. Robinson to celebrity status. The government was not slow to react either; just five days later, he received the Victoria Cross from the King at Windsor Castle. The souvenir industry was quick to cash in too; producing numerous lurid postcards of Robinson's deed, while the Red Cross sold off much of the wire salvaged from the wreck as souvenirs to raise funds.

And from the moment William Leefe Robinson's bullets set SL.11 on fire in the early hours of Sunday 3 September 1916, the air war over Britain changed dramatically.

The German army had never fully embraced the use of their airships in an overseas strategic bombing role and, following the loss of SL.11, they turned away from it entirely. The army looked instead to aircraft to take the war to London and in the summer of 1917 unleashed the Gotha bomber on the city in broad daylight. But that is another story.

 

[Tom Graham]

It might be helpful to start here.

Bombing accuracy : USAAF heavy and medium bombers in the ETO / the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Military Analysis Division.

There were many factors in the ETO which caused USAAF bombing accuracy to fall below expectations.

Altitude was one of them. The average bombing altitude was about 20,000 ft.(See item 14). Well below the service ceilings of B17s & B24s.

When LeMay was sent from Europe to clean up the mess, he must have been aware of this. The Jetstream over Japan was 30,000 to 40,000 ft. Fly at 20,000 ft, it's mostly over the ocean & and there is little danger from the defenses, was the obvious answer.

But then the other factors come in to play. The accuracy would then be the same as that which required the excuses (explanations) shown in that document.

In that case the Top Brass would have had answer some question which they would have preferred not to.

Enter Plan B. Area bombing at night.

 

[nuuumannn]

One of the most spectacular airship downings near London, was of the German Navy's LZ-31 on the evening of 1 October 1916 near Potter's Bar.
It was seen by thousands as it burst into flames and plunged to earth.

Just a wee clarification, the airship shot down on the night of 1 October 1916 was L 31, or LZ 72. LZ 31 was a different airship that was designated L 6 in service and going back to reasons why the airship campaign was so flawed, L 6 was destroyed by fire inside its hangar in September 1916, taking L 9 (LZ 36) with it in the conflagration.

Zeppelin assigned their own designations to their airships, with the prefix "LZ", whereas in navy service these ships received an "L" designator, which was painted on their flanks. This was slightly different practise to Army Zeppelins, which used the Zeppelin company designator and, just to confuse, also a "Z" designator as well!

To add to Splitarz' post about SL 11, ships with "SL" were built by the Schutte Lanz company of Mannheim and were wooden hulled ships. SL 11 was the first to be shot down over Britain in a night raid, but oddly, when it was brought down it was mistakenly thought to be L 21 and this is embossed on Leefe-Robinson's grave site in North London!

Carry on...

 

[SaparotRob]

One of the most spectacular airship downings near London, was of the German Navy's LZ-31 on the evening of 1 October 1916 near Potter's Bar.
It was seen by thousands as it burst into flames and plunged to earth.

That must have been one popular bar.

 

[GrauGeist]

Yeah, I was going by memory, couldn't remember if it was Army or Navy, just the number 31, so I went with LZ.

I suppose I could have googled it...

 

[Shortround6]

Clearly a troop carrying requirement did not dominate — or even influence — the design of RAF bombers."

Actually it did. Some of the earlier requirements spelled out the capacity of the bombers when used as a transport.
The 1936 Specification did not, Supermarine may have take advantage of the that, Shorts may have been afraid that the Air Ministry might change their minds and go back to requiring a large troop capacity and so designed it in. Somebody may have correspondence about this.

AS 23 bomber transport

predecessor of the Whitley. The Harrow and the Bristol Bombay were built to the same or follow up requirement.
HP Harrows were issued to 5 RAF bomber squadrons, it part because there wasn't anything better and in part because they were better than the HP Heyford which was not built to a dual role specification.