Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: NEARY on February 08, 2009, 11:05:34 PM
-
ok so i heard a story about this from one of my friends but i forgot what the amerika bomber was.
does anyone have any good information about it
-
The Wikipedia article is actually not a bad way to start with:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika_Bomber
-
moin
maybe he is talking about this bird.
(http://combatavia.info/ta400_1.jpg)
or the nurflügler projeckt with turbins.
cu chris3
-
It's a deluded fantasy that had a snowball's chance in hell of being what the Nazi's wanted it to be.
That's all you need to know. It was a design on paper (one of tens of thousands at the end of the war) where any radical, outlandish idea was entertained by Hitler and his cronies to fight back in a losing war. Had they the pilots, I'm sure they would have gone kamikaze, like the Japanese (they even tried ramming units, but not many did the deed).
-
i think the best thing that the germans could have used was the longer range v2 that they were developing
-
Desperation is a stinky cologne.
-
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Junkers_Ju_390.jpg)
The Ju 390 was selected from several design proposals as Luftwaffe's "Amerika bomber". Two were built before all bomber projects were cancelled in 1944 in favour of fighter production. One reportedly served with the infamous KG 200 unit, and allegedly flew a 32 hour recce flight from France to within 12 miles of New York and back. The world's first intercontinental bomber.
-
It was a weird dream of the Nazis to be able to bomb the USA into submission while they couldn't do it to England (From occupied France the distance is very small).
But of course they were dabbling with Nuke ideas...
-
Try going through the Luft '46 site.
http://www.luft46.com/prototyp/me264.html
-
It was a weird dream of the Nazis to be able to bomb the USA into submission while they couldn't do it to England (From occupied France the distance is very small).
But of course they were dabbling with Nuke ideas...
Not quite right. Actually the "Amerika bomber" was a pre-war idea fostered by Goering and made "official" by Hitler in 1940. The project plan was completed in 1942.
Also, the Germans never seriously tried to develop a nuclear weapon. To put it in simple terms the scientists in Germany and America both said the same thing: That an atomic bomb was possible, but that it would take a few years and vast resources to develop it. Germany didn't have "a few years". Germany needed weapons that would win the war quickly, so they didn't go for the A-bomb, but only funded a small research project. America on the other hand knew the the war would be a protracted one; even if all of Europe and Russia were defeated by Germany, America would still have to fight on for years. So for the American strategists spending a few years and vast resources on an atomic "super weapon" made perfect sense.
-
It was a weird dream of the Nazis to be able to bomb the USA into submission while they couldn't do it to England (From occupied France the distance is very small).
But of course they were dabbling with Nuke ideas...
We did the same thing in '41; started designing a contingency bomber for trans-Atlantic attacks should the UK start speaking German.
The bomber finally flew in August of '46.
-
Not quite right. Actually the "Amerika bomber" was a pre-war idea fostered by Goering and made "official" by Hitler in 1940. The project plan was completed in 1942.
Also, the Germans never seriously tried to develop a nuclear weapon. To put it in simple terms the scientists in Germany and America both said the same thing: That an atomic bomb was possible, but that it would take a few years and vast resources to develop it. Germany didn't have "a few years". Germany needed weapons that would win the war quickly, so they didn't go for the A-bomb, but only funded a small research project. America on the other hand knew the the war would be a protracted one; even if all of Europe and Russia were defeated by Germany, America would still have to fight on for years. So for the American strategists spending a few years and vast resources on an atomic "super weapon" made perfect sense.
From the idea until non-completion there was a whole WW2. By 1940 it was pretty clear that Hitler could not bomb the British into submission, - after 1940, massed attacks in daylight were put off the table. So an America-bomber with a conventional payload is just plain stupid.
As for the nuclear idea, in 1941 or so, it was yet not known whether the Germans could develop a nuke or not. Well it was certainly NOT known to the allies, since they put some effort into disrupting the German nuclear program. And was it clear to the Germans that their effort would not work? I guess they found out while at it.
A bomber to hit the USA with would thereby only be practical with a non-conventional payload. Despite the fact that a proper raid on a target like a tall-built U.S. metropolis would have yealded very high casualties.
-
Keep in mind that many top-rank nazi (and Luftwaffe!) leaders had severe delusions about the impact of any conventional strikes upon the moral of the American general public & leadership.
-
Keep in mind that many top-rank nazi (and Luftwaffe!) leaders had severe delusions about the impact of any conventional strikes upon the moral of the American general public & leadership.
<entire paragraph deleted in an attempt to stall the moral and political debate>
[Y]ou can add the Kriegsmarine. Operation Drumbeat and all that.
-
i think the best thing that the germans could have used was the longer range v2 that they were developing
V2 is a perfect example of the muddled thinking that kept German production from reaching its potential. It did not come anywhere near the destructive power needed to justify the utterly massive expenditure of resources required by its development and deployment.
Technically impressive, yes. But strategically useless. Remember that the entire payload was about 1000kg....and that a single B-24 was able to deliver two and a half TIMES that amount on a long range mission.
And the V-2 cost about $2 billion in development alone. Not to mention the costs of production, the production materials it consumed, the factory and labor production it required, and the literally thousands of lives (primarily of slave laborers) lost during those processes. Could those resources have changed history had they been spent on more mundane tanks, planes, and equipment? We'll never know.
Marvellous as it was, the V2 demonstrates more about Germany's "Cloud cuckoo land" production system than it does her technical wizardry.
-
"The world's first intercontinental bomber."
NOT. a marine recce plane doing one stripped down, long range recce mission suddenly becomes an
intercontinental bomber? lol.
The B-29 was defacto the first true intercontinental bomber and the Axis had nothing that could
approach it's performance be it range, speed, payload etc. the JU-390 was a wanna be.
-
Maybe the Germans were dabbling with the idea that the USA would rect as slowly to an air raid as to the submarine attacks, maybe...
-
Maybe the Germans were dabbling with the idea that the USA would rect as slowly to an air raid as to the submarine attacks, maybe...
I think it's more along the lines of giving someone a bloody nose and see if they still have the desire to fight. The V1/V2 were terror weapons, but by the time they became available the English were committed and it was too late. The biggest military in the world is useless if you don't have the will to use it.
Personally I don't think the Germans were nuts, they were trying to bluff their way out with high tech wizardry.
-
It's a deluded fantasy that had a snowball's chance in hell of being what the Nazi's wanted it to be.
That's all you need to know. It was a design on paper (one of tens of thousands at the end of the war) where any radical, outlandish idea was entertained by Hitler and his cronies to fight back in a losing war. Had they the pilots, I'm sure they would have gone kamikaze, like the Japanese (they even tried ramming units, but not many did the deed).
Oscar Boesh was a pilot in one of these ramming units. I have spoken to him at 2 symposiums about his time in the Luftwaffe. He told me ramming was a last ditch resort. The oath that was taken by said pilots was that they were to make sure that they at least shot 1 bomber down per sortie, If you ran out of ammo then ramming was the only choice, However ramming a bomber was not meant to be an act of suicide. The pilot was suppose to ram the tail of the bomber and bail out.
-
I remembered it from a book I read as a kid as the "New York" bomber. Took me a while to find to book. Me264. only 2 made it to completion. One destroyed on the ground at Lechfield in 44 and the other destroyed at the Messerschmitt factory. The 3rd was never completed.
4 engine bird.
(http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s199/guppy35/NYBomber.jpg)
-
I'm guessing we started working on the B36 about the same time (They've got one in Dayton, DWARFS the B52) Was it able to hit Europe from US soil?
-
Except as a deterrent I think the B36 was pretty much a failure but at least it never had to fight. When it first came out no fighter could reach it and when some were developed that could they could not manuever with it or fire their guns without falling out of the sky. One question I have is did the status of the reports on nukes dropped into British Columbia or New Mexico ever become declassified? That would make some good reading maybe.
-
I'm guessing we started working on the B36 about the same time (They've got one in Dayton, DWARFS the B52) Was it able to hit Europe from US soil?
That's the one with the six-foot tunnel in it's wings, correct?
-
That's the one with the six-foot tunnel in it's wings, correct?
negative, 6 engines, all pushers...was used in Korean era as nuke carrier(http://tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:MpoCXkhQgHj57M:http://www.techimo.com/forum/attachments/imo-community/19054d1202269772-counting-1000-images-b-36_1.jpg)
-
negative, 6 engines, all pushers...was used in Korean era as nuke carrier(http://tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:MpoCXkhQgHj57M:http://www.techimo.com/forum/attachments/imo-community/19054d1202269772-counting-1000-images-b-36_1.jpg)
"The scale of the B-36 can be best appreciated by considering the 2.13m/7ft-high tunnel that passed withing the wings to allow inflight maintenance of the outer engines."
The Complete Guide to Fighters and Bombers of the World, Francis Crosby, Hermes Publishing, London, 2006,
Page 429
-
The B36 was also a step backwards in some small measure due to the amount of magnesium in its structure. Every one of them that crashed also burned so you can imagine what a good cannon hit would do to it.
-
"The scale of the B-36 can be best appreciated by considering the 2.13m/7ft-high tunnel that passed withing the wings to allow inflight maintenance of the outer engines."
The Complete Guide to Fighters and Bombers of the World, Francis Crosby, Hermes Publishing, London, 2006,
Page 429
I stand corrected---from your description, I was picturing something like in that Indiana Jones movie :lol
-
B36 vs B29
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/B-29_and_B-36.jpg)
Later versions of the B36 added 4 jet engines to the 6 pushers-
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Convair_B-36_Peacemaker.jpg)
-
I stand corrected---from your description, I was picturing something like in that Indiana Jones movie :lol
lol. Yeah, I had trouble (still do) picturing that tunnel lol. I think it was only in the jet-equipped model's, as it says the "outer" engines...
-
lol. Yeah, I had trouble (still do) picturing that tunnel lol. I think it was only in the jet-equipped model's, as it says the "outer" engines...
A tunnel isn't going to help you get though the pylons into the turbines. If you want to look at engines, you need to look at engines that live inside wings. If you want to look at the turbines, land and open the inspection covers.
-
A tunnel isn't going to help you get though the pylons into the turbines. If you want to look at engines, you need to look at engines that live inside wings. If you want to look at the turbines, land and open the inspection covers.
But see that then begs the question, why would only the outer prop engines require inflight maintenance? Why not just say for servicing all engines?
-
Normally inner engines are near the thicker wing roots, and you can have crawl spaces to get to them (if that is part of the design, several planes have done similar things) but usually the outer engines are on the thinner part of the wing.
I think the tunnels are just a testament to how gigantic the design was, so much so that even with 6 engines the outer most engines STILL have 6-foot tunnels leading to them.
-
"but usually the outer engines are on the thinner part of the wing.".
USUALLY? I cannot recall a wing that goes thicker on the outboard...sorry :D
-
"but usually the outer engines are on the thinner part of the wing.".
USUALLY? I cannot recall a wing that goes thicker on the outboard...sorry :D
The XF-91 certainly looks like the wing is thicker at the tips than at the root. Even the chord is greater at the tip.
(http://wherewolf.narod.ru/drawings/XF-91_small.jpg)
http://wherewolf.narod.ru/drawings/Drawings1.htm
-
Not much of a crawl space there :devil
-
The XF-91 certainly looks like the wing is thicker at the tips than at the root. Even the chord is greater at the tip.
(http://wherewolf.narod.ru/drawings/XF-91_small.jpg)
http://wherewolf.narod.ru/drawings/Drawings1.htm
I believe that was a try at lowering the pressure buildup at the root.
-
http://www.amazon.com/Luftwaffe-over-America-Secret-United/dp/185367608X
I just finished reading this. Got it for $8 in the bargain bin at Barnes and Noble. Wasn't the best book I've ready. I was actually disappointed with the writing style. Anyways, it specifically covers this subject on the bombers and techniques (mainly mid air refueling or at sea refueling with sea planes) to accomplish it.
Sum it up, the Germans did have the capacity or really the skill to develop bombers that could reach America. By the time they really wanted to have the bombers, all the current factories were slated and packed with fighter production which simply didn't have the capacity for large bombers. Too little, too late in the war.
-
V2 is a perfect example of the muddled thinking that kept German production from reaching its potential. It did not come anywhere near the destructive power needed to justify the utterly massive expenditure of resources required by its development and deployment.
Technically impressive, yes. But strategically useless. Remember that the entire payload was about 1000kg....and that a single B-24 was able to deliver two and a half TIMES that amount on a long range mission.
And the V-2 cost about $2 billion in development alone. Not to mention the costs of production, the production materials it consumed, the factory and labor production it required, and the literally thousands of lives (primarily of slave laborers) lost during those processes. Could those resources have changed history had they been spent on more mundane tanks, planes, and equipment? We'll never know.
Marvellous as it was, the V2 demonstrates more about Germany's "Cloud cuckoo land" production system than it does her technical wizardry.
Unlike a B-24 (or the JU-88s et. al. of the BoB), the V2 could NOT be intercepted. It would seem that point alone would make it worth developing.
-
What was it's accuracy?Anything within 15 miles? Useless for naught but killing women and children, unless they could have improved upon that
-
What was it's accuracy?Anything within 15 miles? Useless for naught but killing women and children, unless they could have improved upon that
It has been pretty well established that the Germans were not alone in killing women and children with fairly inaccurate targeting techniques -- that is, when the women and children were not actually the targets, which they often were.
This site (http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/v2.htm) claims that, had it not been for the British disinformation campaign about where the rockets were hitting, they would have acheived a hit radius of 6km. If your goal is to kill civilians, that's close enough.
Depending on your goal, the rocket makes sense. Develop a payload large enough (e.g. nukes), and they are your best bet that the payload will be delivered.
My basic point was that the whole "strategically useless" and "waste of resources" arguments are fine with the benefit of hindsight. But in the moment, there were certainly reasons to go that path beyond the cliche' "delusional nazi" position.
-
It has been pretty well established that the Germans were not alone in killing women and children with fairly inaccurate targeting techniques -- that is, when the women and children were not actually the targets, which they often were.
This site (http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/v2.htm) claims that, had it not been for the British disinformation campaign about where the rockets were hitting, they would have acheived a hit radius of 6km. If your goal is to kill civilians, that's close enough.
Depending on your goal, the rocket makes sense. Develop a payload large enough (e.g. nukes), and they are your best bet that the payload will be delivered.
My basic point was that the whole "strategically useless" and "waste of resources" arguments are fine with the benefit of hindsight. But in the moment, there were certainly reasons to go that path beyond the cliche' "delusional nazi" position.
Yup, they killed a lot of them for sure (often intentionally) but if the Allies wanted to erase a 'ball-bearing' factory, they could flatten it, along with the portion of the city in which it was located. Can't see a V2 doing that---just hitting the city was all they could muster, thus it was useless for strategic purposes
-
"Sum it up, the Germans did have the capacity or really the skill to develop bombers that could reach America. By the time they really wanted to have the bombers, all the current factories were slated and packed with fighter production which simply didn't have the capacity for large bombers. Too little, too late in the war."
Actually, to sum it up... the Germans blew it big time for as early as 42 and 43 they could not even hit the Russian factories to put the smallest dent in the Russian war machine. Let alone cross the Atlantic to bomb the US and return home or even down to South America.
-
So, in truth, the whole plan was plain silly. As I said before, since a nation could not be bombed into submission nor to a strategic loss with only 30 miles of crossing, the idea of a USA bomber is completely silly. Unless there is a chance of something else than a conventional loadout.
-
So, in truth, the whole plan was plain silly. As I said before, since a nation could not be bombed into submission nor to a strategic loss with only 30 miles of crossing, the idea of a USA bomber is completely silly. Unless there is a chance of something else than a conventional loadout.
Bombing Tokyo in 1942 was silly too.
wrongway
-
Trans Atlantic flights would have been very fuel intensive. This is what a nation reduced to towing their marvelous jet fighters to the runway with oxen in order to save fuel was talking about.
-
Bombing Tokyo in 1942 was silly too.
wrongway
Well, that one was just for the Ego....
Anyway, what Karnak said :aok
-
Even if the Germans were able to send large amounts of bombers to US soil what impact would they have been able to make considering the size of the US? Maybe they could have reduced New York city to rubble but that was being done to every major city in Germany towards wars end and that didn't seem to force the Germans to the peace table. The Germans also bombed London pretty effectively and that didn't send England to the peace table either. So bombing US soil would have been a waste of German resources. That being said if they were able to produce atomic weapons then maybe intercontinental bombers would have changed things.
-
Psychological. Like I said, the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo. The balloons carrying explosives that Japan sent across the Pacific that did manage to land in North America were never reported during the war.
Figure one German bomb on the U.S. where it could be a threat to the general population could cause a panic amongst civilians. Look at the panics on the west coast over the possibility of a Japanese attack.
On the other hand, U-boats sinking ships right off shore didn't seem to concern the population as a whole.
wrongway
-
I had an interesting debate with myself about what would happen if germany hadn't halted its strategic bombing development and had deployed this aircraft and the Ju390 and the heinkel Long range bomber designs. with this came the frightening possibility that bombers could reach the Ural Mountains and Russian production and also reach ALL the airbases in England. and possibly if Japan hadn't attacked the US an Invasion of the British isles and an eventual long range air war with the united states.
The complete destruction of human society aside a cross atlantic air war wouldve been very cool and interesting. maybe if we could put these "what if" scenarios to Aces High we could have P 80 Shooting stars Vs Me262s and TA 185s and Mig 15s
-
The German bombers could reach ALL the airbases in the UK as soon as the war broke out in 1939. The first time the Spitfire drew blood was over Edinburgh (Scotland) in 1939.
However their escorts couldn't....
Which is another point of how silly the whole affair was.
The crossing from France to the east coast is about 6.000 km. If you want to hit a target on the west coast, you would have to cross a hostile territory some odd 4000 km. Then return :devil
Sorry Fritzies, what was not even do-able over the 30 km of the English channel is definately not possible over the Atlantic.
As a sidenote, German bombers did occasionally venture over Iceland with hit & run tactics. Sometimes there was success, sometimes they got shot down. My mother witnessed a chase when she was a kid - the German came low over the farm at full speed, and quickly after it, 2 American fighters.
The distance there (From bases in Mid-Norway) would be some odd 1.400 km, never under 1.000 km.
-
Sorry Fritzies, what was not even do-able over the 30 km of the English channel is definately not possible over the Atlantic.
Keep in mind that the Channel was a relatively small, but heavily defended area. It would have instead been impossible for the allies to defend all of the Atlantic.
Added to that, the channel was almost completely covered with radar, and the Atlantic wasn't :)
-
The straight N-S line of the U.S. coast was well awake before the Germans had anything that could reach there. There is a claim that a German bomber saw the lights of NY, but it is debated since it should have been picked up.
Also bear in mind that the length of the British lines of network are not that little.
Then comes the enormous depth of the US territory. The industrial core of the USA is not scattered along the east coast I'm afraid.
Now try to imagine a Crippled German bomber jettisoning it's bombs into the Atlantic after being mauled by intercepting P47's, and trying to glide across the pond :devil
-
Sorry to resurrect an old thread but i didnt realise the Italians were in on the America bomber idea also ..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savoia-Marchetti_SM.95