Super fortress and Atomic bomb against Germany

[Peg Leg Pom]

Originally Posted by stalkere

Air cover over Berlin at that point was probably problematical - and August was good weather. Now, would the targeteers realize they'd want to go for a "lay-down" cratering shot to get the Fuehrer bunker? Not the airburst they used in Japan?

Although, even an airburst is going to do a good job of blocking the exits, so the @#$ wil starve, if nothing else...and if he or his people try to dig out immediately, the radiation will make short work of them.

If you're going to do that you want to make sure the winds blowing west to east. "Whats that comrade your army's dying? Sorry to hear that but it's nothing to do with us. Hitler must have had something nasty in Berlin".

[Shooter]

Originally Posted by usertron2020

Based on this, there wasn't a plane in the Luftwaffe's inventory that could do the job.

Fighter-Interceptors can and do run with the engine at very high revs for the few minutes it takes to fight or climb to altitude. This gives them distinct advantages when compared to bombers which hold the same throttle pos for hours on end! No fighter plane from any Nation had any trouble reaching any even remotely contemporary bomber, ever!

The usable ceiling as defined by carriage of bombs and enough fuel to RTB ( WITH RESERVES!), of Allied bombers ranged from under 20,000' for the British Heavies, to 25-30,000 for the American planes with "Turbo-chargers", ie the B-17 and B-24 to 30-40,000' for the early B-29s which were also required to reduce bomb load and range to meet the higher altitudes. While the performance placards for all of these planes was substantially better than this, those numbers were acquired under test conditions WO load for the Brits! For the British, the published ceiling was how high was the plane when it ran out of fuel, or had some major system freeze up or fail. For the Americans it was that altitude where the rate of climb was 100 feet per minute with bombs and sufficient fuel remaining to land, and hopefully taxi to the hard stand?

This last got so bad that some American planes were REQUIRED to GLIDE for the LAST 200 MILES back to base in order to extend their range and increse ceiling over target! Not Joking! They would start their engines just before entering the landing pattern to have power for the controls! Or dead stick it if they failed math?

As you can see, there is a HUGE disparity between the British, (and German, Italian and Japanese planes too!) and the American planes with Turbos! This is caused by two things; First it is not possible to run any engine at full RPMs/Power for any significant length of time! You will certainly blow up or ruin the engine! It is absolutely imposable! So at reduced RPMs the efficiency of the super charger is reduced by the Square of the difference. IE if the RPMs are at 70%, the the blower can generate 49% of maximum pressure! So in the cruise, all planes with conventional super chargers must fly at lower altitudes. Turbo-chargers on the other hand have less back pressure the higher they go and thus spin faster and make more pressure, regardless of engine RPMs That is the entire difference between the whys of how come American bombers flew higher than their contemporaries.

PS. As an aside, we had full service turbos in 1930,or 31, IIRC! While other Nations, ALL IIRC, tried to make them, they just did not have the materials science that we did and they all failed until well after the war. Do not think that a running jet engine with a life measured in a few dozen hours is the same as a turbo charger with a life measured in hundreds, or later thousands of hours.

[usertron2020]

Shooter (are you still out there?)

As I said, my statement was going by the consensus at the time I posted. Then the Me-109K and 128mm AA guns were introduced.

What I haven't seen mentioned here but once was that single aircraft were taken to be photo-recon/weather planes and did not result in the "calling in of the clans" regarding air defenses. Otherwise, the Germans/Japanese are just wasting ammo/fuel/spare parts on one little plane. After the first A-Bomb goes, tho...

But imagine what the Japanese went through in those eight terrifying days between Hiroshima and the surrender declaration. Every single aircraft approaching your country becomes a potential atomic bomber, throwing every city in its path into a blind panic and the populations doing a "duck and cover" trying to find last moment protection. This is no way to live. In effect, simple overflights make for national shutdowns morning, noon, and night. I can't imagine things would be any different in Germany. Would the German Hitler Youth AA crews stay at their posts? Or flee in terror for the nearest (sturdy) bomb shelter? If even half of them do flee, the guns can't be operated. As to the pilots of the Luftwaffe? Sure, they can go after all those planes at once. But that late in the war there will be a lot more enemy planes arrayed against them. And if that bomb gets dropped, those interceptors in pursuit will never get away in time before-*

As I bellieve I posted earlier, even Nazi Germany will collapse politically before too long. I never knew the US would have 15 bombs by October 1st, though!

[MerryPrankster]

http://www.ieer.org/sdafiles/vol_4/4-3/4_3art1.html

Here's something to chew on. In TTL, you might still see Japan as the first atomic target, but if the ground situation is such that an atomic bomb might be necessary (perhaps no Bulge leads to a Soviets being momentarily checked in the east and the Western Allies aren't making sufficient headway), I don't think the article proves that the Bomb would NEVER be used against the Germans the way some people seem to believe.

Do you all think this article is accurate? The article has kind of an ideological slant, especially at the end, but that doesn't affect the veracity of their citations.

[sloreck]

B-29's over Germany could have had plenty of fighter escort. If they break away as the bomb run starts they can hustle at high speed out of the blast zone. In any case fighters usually did not go with bombers in to the target area, as enemy planes would break off to let flak fire freely. If, for a few months prior to the actual bomb drop you had B-29 raids with quite a few planes, and "recon" flights of 3 or so (bomb plane + photo planes) but with fighter escort, the LW (like the Japanese) sees those flights as hamrless, and in fact would not launch because they want to conserve limited fighters/fuel for the expected raid later on. Therefore when "Enola Gay" shows up over Berlin, expeect flak but no major fighter sweep..and if a few show up the escort shoud handle it.

[Michael B]

Originally Posted by sloreck

Therefore when "Enola Gay" shows up over Berlin, expeect flak but no major fighter sweep..and if a few show up the escort shoud handle it.

They would be probably ordered not to come back if the bomber is shot before dropped its "special weapon". After after there was a case where an Me 262 forced a stalemate on six Mustangs because it could get round the edge of a circle as fast as they could fly across it.

Not sure about no fighter sweeps as having lots of them around will keep the Germans at home. Thus if there are a hundred Mustangs over Berlin on A Day, the Germans would think nothing of it beyond staying on the ground. The fighters would have to be told by what time they should get out of town though.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by Michael B

They would be probably ordered not to come back if the bomber is shot before dropped its "special weapon". After after there was a case where an Me 262 forced a stalemate on six Mustangs because it could get round the edge of a circle as fast as they could fly across it.

Not sure about no fighter sweeps as having lots of them around will keep the Germans at home. Thus if there are a hundred Mustangs over Berlin on A Day, the Germans would think nothing of it beyond staying on the ground. The fighters would have to be told by what time they should get out of town though.

Given how unsafe those bombs actually were there's the possibility that hitting it with flack would trigger an air burst in itself.

[RamscoopRaider]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

Given how unsafe those bombs actually were there's the possibility that hitting it with flack would trigger an air burst in itself.

No, nuclear weapons are quite hard to detonate by accident and really quite safe (they just have an ungodly blast radius), at worst you would get a fizzile if the thing is hit

Everything has to go exactly right down to the microsecond in a nuclear bomb, one little error and no explosion but a fizzile