Was the B-29 Superfortress a Failure?

[GrauGeist]

Thin Man was tested by the Wichita built B-29 (s/n 42959) and during one of the first test missions, the bomb prematurely dropped due to it's weight, causing a great deal of damage to the bomber. It was this incident that resulted in the modification to the British G-type suspension and F-type releases.

TBFs also dropped scale models of the bomb, exposing several design flaws.

By the way, Thin Man was named for FDR and Fat Man was for Churchill.

 

[peiper]

But that's not how it works.

The "cost" quoted for the B-29 program is the end figure for the program: cost of design, development, production and delivery to the customer (USAAF).

If you want to associate the human element into the fiscal equation, then it would be the B-17 that cost more, since more were produced, staffed and subsequent crews KIA.

Roughly 470+ B-29s were lost to all causes in WWII while roughly 4,700+ B-17s were lost.

....a weapon is worthless, etc if not used..its purpose was to be deployed in WW2....so, you have to figure in the cost of training crews, and their deployment/use....
..I was referring to the B29s vs the Abombs, not B17s
...and, it cost mucho $$ to train the humans [ lives ]

 

[FLYBOYJ]

....a weapon is worthless, etc if not used..its purpose was to be deployed in WW2....so, you have to figure in the cost of training crews, and their deployment/use....
..I was referring to the B29s vs the Abombs, not B17s
...and, it cost mucho $$ to train the humans [ lives ]

And the B-29 "used..its purpose was to be deployed in WW2" and then some. I suggest you do some research and find the missions the B-29s flew aside from dropping bombs. And please spare us your political rants, they will not be welcomed here.

 

[GrauGeist]

The 3 billion dollar figure for the B-29 is program cost (from drawing board to delivery).
This is the number used when comparing to the Manhattan Project's program cost (1.9 billion).

So unless you're willing to factor in the Atomic Program's personnel cost (laborers, contractors, engineers, technicians, security, employee housing, medical expenses, material transportation, etc., etc., etc.), then stay with program cost.

 

[peiper]

And the B-29 "used..its purpose was to be deployed in WW2" and then some. I suggest you do some research and find the missions the B-29s flew aside from dropping bombs. And please spare us your political rants, they will not be welcomed here.

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH--political rants???!! HAHAHAHAHAHAH....do some research ahhahahahahhHAHHAHAHAH
woo hooo..not welcomed = HAHAHAHAHAHAH
...wow--such a great welcome from you --HAHAHAHAHAHAH
....the subject was the cost of the B29s vs the A-bombs....this is really simple = the cost of the B29s is not just the development and manufacturing ..it includes the deployment and the crew costs

 

[peiper]

And the B-29 "used..its purpose was to be deployed in WW2" and then some. I suggest you do some research and find the missions the B-29s flew aside from dropping bombs. And please spare us your political rants, they will not be welcomed here.

o, yes, thanks for the reply

 

[FLYBOYJ]

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH--political rants???!! HAHAHAHAHAHAH....do some research ahhahahahahhHAHHAHAHAH
woo hooo..not welcomed = HAHAHAHAHAHAH
...wow--such a great welcome from you --HAHAHAHAHAHAH
....the subject was the cost of the B29s vs the A-bombs....this is really simple = the cost of the B29s is not just the development and manufacturing ..it includes the deployment and the crew costs

Great answer - so here's the deal - evidently you didn't read this when you joined the forum;

Terms and rules

You must agree to these terms and rules before using the site.

ww2aircraft.net

I suggest you read this thoroughly.

My next welcome statement may not be so friendly.

 

[Snautzer01]

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH--political rants???!! HAHAHAHAHAHAH....do some research ahhahahahahhHAHHAHAHAH
woo hooo..not welcomed = HAHAHAHAHAHAH
...wow--such a great welcome from you --HAHAHAHAHAHAH
....the subject was the cost of the B29s vs the A-bombs....this is really simple = the cost of the B29s is not just the development and manufacturing ..it includes the deployment and the crew costs

 

[peiper]

Great answer - so here's the deal - evidently you didn't read this when you joined the forum;

Terms and rules

You must agree to these terms and rules before using the site.

ww2aircraft.net

I suggest you read this thoroughly.

My next welcome statement may not be so friendly.

you are so welcoming ..thanks
1. I don't see anything about laughing in there
2. please specify my ''error'', because I don't see anything where I did not abide by the rules

View attachment 693221

thanks......

 

[FLYBOYJ]

you are so welcoming ..thanks
1. I don't see anything about laughing in there
2. please specify my ''error'', because I don't see anything where I did not abide by the rules

thanks......

Good bye!

 

[SaparotRob]

That was quick.

 

[Snautzer01]

Yes i thought i heard an out going swooshhh logging in.

 

[mstennes]

Yes but it was build to just do that. Could a lesser developed airplane have done the same? Lets say Lancaster?

No, the Lancaster could not have done what the 29 could and did. It had neither the range or the bomb bay size. The British did push the Lancaster to carry the atomic bomb the only problem was it was pushed to carry the Tall Man which was a gun type like Little Boy, the problem was it wouldn't work and when redesigned we got Little Boy which was to large. The Lancaster also did not have range needed as well, the RAF even tried in flight refueling but the Air Corps wouldn't allow it as to many things could go wrong.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

The British did push the Lancaster to carry the atomic bomb

Did they? Do you have a reference for that? The only one with some clout who mentioned using the Lancaster was Norman Ramsey. It stopped there.

 

[GrauGeist]

No, the Lancaster could not have done what the 29 could and did. It had neither the range or the bomb bay size. The British did push the Lancaster to carry the atomic bomb the only problem was it was pushed to carry the Tall Man which was a gun type like Little Boy, the problem was it wouldn't work and when redesigned we got Little Boy which was to large. The Lancaster also did not have range needed as well, the RAF even tried in flight refueling but the Air Corps wouldn't allow it as to many things could go wrong.

Already been discussed, the Lancaster was mentioned only a few times by USAAF heads and was ruled out for several reasons, one of which explaining why the Army Air force would need 15 or so Lancasters without ANY explanation.

As for range, the Lancaster could have done it with some changes to the location of the airbase (Iwo Jima instead of Tinian).

In regards to lifting ability:

Thin Man
Length: 17 feet
Diameter: 38 inches
Weight: 8,000 pounds

Little Boy
Length: 10 feet
Diameter: 28 inches
Weight: 9,700 pounds

Fat Man
Length: 10.6 feet
Diameter: 60 inches
Weight: 10,300 pounds

British conventional bombs carried by the Lancaster for comparison:

Grand Slam
Length: 26.5 feet
Diameter: 46 inches
Weight: 22,000 pounds

Tall Boy
Length: 21 feet
Diameter: 38 inches
Weight: 12,000 pounds

The Cookie HC series (Blockbuster) were smaller.


So as we can see here, the Lancaster could have carried ANY of the US Atom bombs.

 

[nuuumannn]

Atom bomb carrying Lancasters, it was only a matter of time. Joe and Dave have said what's required - The Lancaster was never 'proposed' for dropping the bomb in action, it was suggested by Ramsay that it was the only aircraft that could carry Thin Man internally - Ramsay's words in a report dated September 1945:

"Except for the British Lancaster, all other aircraft would require such a bomb to be carried externally unless the aircraft were very drastically rebuilt."

In the same report he stated the following, which highlights that although the Lancaster might have been considered for trials, it was a proposal only and was never going to be put into practise:

"In the fall of 1943 it became apparent that plans for full scale tests should be started. In view of the critical shortage of B-29's it was at first proposed that a British Lancaster be used for the test work even though a B-29 would almost certainly be used as the combat ship."

The Lancaster simply did not have the performance to do it, nor did anything else in service use at that time, other than the B-29. We forget that the B-29 was a great leap in capability over what the status quo was.

Small addition to the discussion for clarification, the Thin Man bomb was abandoned because when it was first being developed it used plutonium, as we know, that element has to be refined from uranium, and it doesn't exist on its own as an element. The refining process at the Hanford, Washington State site created plutonium of a less than pure state, which jeopardised the effectiveness of whether or not a chain reaction would be created. Meanwhile, Manhattan Project scientists had toyed with the idea of using uranium 235 as the element of choice and although less stable than plutonium, it didn't require refining to the same extent and because of its lesser stability meant that the gun needn't be as long as if plutonium was used, so Thin Man effectively died when the discovery that U235 could be used instead of Hanford's impure plutonium. This is where Little Boy enters the room and U235 enrichment was done at Oak Ridge, Tennessee from March 1944 onwards, whereas beforehand, there were only Thin Man and Fat Man.

The origin of the names Fat Man and Thin Man come from Robert Serber a former student of Oppenheimer's; Thin Man came from the Robert Dalshiell detective novel of the same name and Fat Man was the name of Sydney Greenstreet's character in the 1941 film The Maltese Falcon. Little Boy was simply a contrast to Thin Man. Air Force personnel called them Roosevelt and Churchill for secrecy reasons

 

[EwenS]

One further snippet not so far mentioned comes from an article in Aeroplane in Aug 2020 titled "Mission Improbable" was that Ramsey actually met with Roy Chadwick, designer of the Lancaster, to discuss the proposal to use the Lancaster.

In Oct 1943 Chadwick was in Canada overseeing Lancaster production there. The article then goes on -

"While there, Ramsey went to meet him. During their discussions, Ramsey produced illustrations of bomb casings of both kinds, gun-type and implosion type, and - without revealing their unique nature - asked whether a Lancaster could potentially carry them. Chadwick, somewhat intrigued, didn't ask either, but assured Ramsey that it could.

Armed with Chadwick's assurances, Ramsey returned to Los Alamos and briefed Parsons on the suitability of the Lancaster as a Thin Man carrier. At this stage the AAF had not been included in Manhattan discussions, but the project's commander-in-chief Maj Gen Leslie Groves soon approached his equivalent within the AAF, Gen Henry H. 'Hap' Arnold. Groves was assured of AAF support, under the proviso that the AAF should provide the delivery platform and its crew. When the possibility of the Lancaster was put to them, both rejected it, insisting on the only American option: the B-29."

Remember, all this was occurring in late 1943. The B-29 was going through a torrid time in its development and its deployment was being considered in terms of the first two bomb wings going to the CBI. Tinian's invasion was still over 9 months away, and planning for it, except in the overall concept of a thrust across the Central Pacific, had still to begin.

The B-29 chosen for modification as a Thin Man carrier was the 58th aircraft off the production line and it was allocated for modification at Wright Field on 3rd Dec 1943.

So at that stage all talk of delivery of the atom bomb is about looking to the future. Use of the Lancaster as the delivery platform would have meant access to a base much closer to Japan than Tinian, unless of course aerial refuelling had been mastered sooner. And that was something that serious attention was paid to from later in 1944 when initial discussions were had about deploying Tiger Force to the Pacific.

 

[Macandy]

They did use the Lancasters heavy bomb release mechanism though.

 

[Macandy]

You are forgetting that Britain had the Stirling, Lancaster and Halifax several years before the B-29 entered service in any numbers. That trio proved that they could deliver strategic bombing from 1942 on, two years before the B-29.

The Stirling, Lancaster and Halifax were capable of many things, but delivering a strategic effect wasn't one of them.
It wasn't until late 44 that the RAF had enough heavies to thrown neigh on 1,000 a time at a target, but they still lacked the abuklity to deal knock out blows..

When B San came calling - whole Japanese cities died.

 

[Macandy]

How advanced was the B-29?
It wasn't really until the arrival of the MiG 15 that the B-29 was in a bad place during daylight, although it held its own in Korea and casualty rates by WWII standards were very light.
This is a film of RAF trials showing tactics to deal with the Russian TU copy - even for post warjets, the B-29 was still a very tough target.