Earliest possible introduction of B-29 bomber?

Only a few hundred miles from Brazil actually.

How was it that the Japanese held Solomons was a problem and their presence in New Guinea such a threat? Those are closer to Australia than to Hokkaido. Geography is rather funny. Any operation the US actually mounts against Cuba starts not in Florida but from bases hundreds of miles away on the eastern sea frontier, although forward air bases in Florida could be mere minutes away. Charleston, Norfolk, New London, even Kings Bay is some distance. WW II would have been worse.

This has been a fascinating discussion of the B-29, but the distances involved here are immense. It is about 1500 miles from the southern coast of Cuba to the closest point in Brazil. It is about 3200 miles from the Canal Zone or Puerto Rico to Rio. You don't need a B-29 for this, you need a B-52 and aerial refueling. From the east coast of the US, Berlin was closer than Rio (4200 mi vs. 4800 mi). Because of island hopping, an air campaign against Japan was a far less daunting task, with there being a mere 1500 miles from Saipan to Tokyo.
 
This has been a fascinating discussion of the B-29, but the distances involved here are immense. It is about 1500 miles from the southern coast of Cuba to the closest point in Brazil. It is about 3200 miles from the Canal Zone or Puerto Rico to Rio. You don't need a B-29 for this, you need a B-52 and aerial refueling. From the east coast of the US, Berlin was closer than Rio (4200 mi vs. 4800 mi). Because of island hopping, an air campaign against Japan was a far less daunting task, with there being a mere 1500 miles from Saipan to Tokyo.

Hmm. Tinian to San Francisco (the real start and end points for your central Pacific offensive;
Tinian → San Francisco 5,698 miles And THAT is the short route.

I will need to do a map presentation later, but for now the endgoal of the campaign is here;

fernando_de_noronha_brazil.jpg


Ilhas de Fernando de Noronha

It is 4.600 miles from the main US east coast bases, bypasses the Caribbean and is 1501 miles from my bombing target Rio de Janeiro, and most importantly is well within TORCH capabilities for the US and impossible for the Brazilian Nazis to counter. *(They do not have the aircraft or runways.) I eliminate the Caribbean problem totally. Goodby Rio. The one hangup? I need a super fighter to escort the B-29s or I need this:

View_Ilha_Grande.JPG

Ilhas Grande, a tougher nut to crack for fighter bases. That is 6200 miles away and requires an OVERLORD.

Ilha_Grande_topographic_map-EN.png


It is like invading the channel islands prior to landing on Normandy.
 
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Hmm. Tinian to San Francisco (the real start and end points for your central Pacific offensive;
Tinian → San Francisco 5,698 miles And THAT is the short route...

That's better, but
Hmm. Tinian to San Francisco (the real start and end points for your central Pacific offensive;
Tinian → San Francisco 5,698 miles And THAT is the short route.

I will need to do a map presentation later, but for now the endgoal of the campaign is here...

Points noted. Another option is to shoot through the Panama Canal and down the west coast of South America and base in Chile or go around the Horn and approach the problem from the south. If Brazil has any bomber capability, getting a base up and running 300 or so miles off their coast is going to be a problem unless you can establish pretty clear air superiority. It's an interesting problem, though, with a lot of similarities to the Pacific campaign but some distinct differences, the main one being that getting to the large Brazilian cities involves a long overflight over enemy land territory, a problem that was not present in World War II either in the Pacific or, for the most part, in Europe.
 
So do I, eventually,l but the assumption is that Demerara-Mahaica province (British Guiana) is overrun by Brazilians attacking overland. The whole point of island airfields, is to avoid main force on main force after seizure and airfield construction. I want to bomb the Brazilians to the peace table; not shoot them.
 
So do I, eventually,l but the assumption is that Demerara-Mahaica province (British Guiana) is overrun by Brazilians attacking overland. The whole point of island airfields, is to avoid main force on main force after seizure and airfield construction. I want to bomb the Brazilians to the peace table; not shoot them.

From what I have heard from Guyanese, it isn't a place to take overland. More like the Kokoda trail, but without the trail.
 
I'm not sure how we've managed to declare war on Brazil but what about Wideawake on Ascension Island as a base?
 
That's better, but

Points noted. Another option is to shoot through the Panama Canal and down the west coast of South America and base in Chile or go around the Horn and approach the problem from the south. If Brazil has any bomber capability, getting a base up and running 300 or so miles off their coast is going to be a problem unless you can establish pretty clear air superiority. It's an interesting problem, though, with a lot of similarities to the Pacific campaign but some distinct differences, the main one being that getting to the large Brazilian cities involves a long overflight over enemy land territory, a problem that was not present in World War II either in the Pacific or, for the most part, in Europe.

Brazil_routes.png


I have done a quick look at it. Going through the Andes is suicide. The logical route is the mid and south Atlantic with a stop back position at Ascension. You can base bombers out of there. You need mid air refueling, a 1950s technology to make it work. Not happy about it, either. Means suicide missions, like the B-29s would have flown out of the UK to reach Moscow in the late 40s.

Brazil_routes.png
 
That didn't work in OTL against Germany or Japan. Why would it happen here?

It did work against Japan. The Americans did not invade the home islands and incur 500,000 dead and 1,000,000 wounded. Getting in range, island hopping, is not the same as land invasion. Brazil is a tough proposition but they can be blockaded and bombed to the table. It would not be pretty, but it is doable. This is South America. Geography works with the Americans if they can get in close enough. Carve Brazil up by geographic section, using their poor internal roads and geographical barriers against them; one region at a time.

Note, this is a mere paper exercise based on the OP premise which I find entirely fictional. I would be extremely opposed to anyone assuming this work up is not anything but a facetious paper what-if exercise like ... "what it would take to invade Mars".
 
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SsgtC

Banned
It did work against Japan. The Americans did not invade the home islands and incur 500,000 dead and 1,000,000 wounded. Getting in range, island hopping, is not the same as land invasion. Brazil is a tough proposition but they can be blockaded and bombed to the table. It would not be pretty, but it is doable. This is South America. Geography works with the Americans if they can get in close enough. Carve Brazil up like a turkey.

Note, this is a mere paper exercise based on the OP premise which I find entirely fictional. I would be extremely opposed to anyone assuming this work up is not anything but a facetious paper what-if exercise like ... "what it would take to invade Mars".

That is a grossly simplified view of the Pacific War. Japan has no intention of surrendering from the bombing. Not even the Nuclear bombs convinced them to surrender. They helped, but they weren't decisive. What pushed Japan to give up was the USSR declaring war. The Japanese DID NOT want the Soviets occupying them.

It is a fallacy of the first order to say that strategic bombing was the sole cause of Japan's surrender. And it will most definitely not force Brazil to surrender either. Unlike Japan, Brazil does not need to import food to feed their population. So bombing and a blockade will not end the war. You're going to need boots on the ground to take Rio, Sao Paulo and Brasilia.
 
That is a grossly simplified view of the Pacific War. Japan has no intention of surrendering from the bombing. Not even the Nuclear bombs convinced them to surrender. They helped, but they weren't decisive. What pushed Japan to give up was the USSR declaring war. The Japanese DID NOT want the Soviets occupying them.

It is a fallacy of the first order to say that strategic bombing was the sole cause of Japan's surrender. And it will most definitely not force Brazil to surrender either. Unlike Japan, Brazil does not need to import food to feed their population. So bombing and a blockade will not end the war. You're going to need boots on the ground to take Rio, Sao Paulo and Brasilia.

1. Mass starvation by submarine blockade, (Japan) Estimated deaths 1946 5-7 million. No Russians needed at all. But about the A-bomb question, there is a credible theory that the bombs were rushed to tip the Japanese into a face-saving surrender, not because the Japanese were afraid of losing Hokkaido, (No way the Russians could do it, Look at the mess they made of the Kuriles, the Japanese slaughtered them when they tried. It was a US gift after the surrender.) The Americans (Truman) did not want Russians butting into an American victory after the Japanese sued for peace.
2. City killing (note the term?) Means putting the urban populations through de-housing on the road into the countryside. Death by exposure. Add another 1,000,000. And that is before the A-bombs. Lemay.
3. Brazil's internal; communications (today) are nothing as sophisticated as Japan's were in 1944. That country is vulnerable to so many social splinter pressures it is a miracle they keep it together. Internal communications by road and rail is Soviet Union primitive into the interior. Once the coast is gone, they are done.
4. I wrote Brazil is a tough nut to crack, but I believe it is doable. I was asked how. YMMV. My opinion is not gospel.
 

CalBear

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It did work against Japan. The Americans did not invade the home islands and incur 500,000 dead and 1,000,000 wounded. Getting in range, island hopping, is not the same as land invasion. Brazil is a tough proposition but they can be blockaded and bombed to the table. It would not be pretty, but it is doable. This is South America. Geography works with the Americans if they can get in close enough. Carve Brazil up by geographic section, using their poor internal roads and geographical barriers against them; one region at a time.

Note, this is a mere paper exercise based on the OP premise which I find entirely fictional. I would be extremely opposed to anyone assuming this work up is not anything but a facetious paper what-if exercise like ... "what it would take to invade Mars".
Actually it didn't.

What took the Empire down was a combination of two nuclear weapons AND the entry of the Soviet Union into the War.

Prior to that point the Japanese terms for peace included allowing them to retain all regions conquered that were not colonies of the Allied Nations (provided they were immediately given independence), no occupation, no supervised disarmament, and no external war crime tribunals. In return they would end hostilities and the Allies would end all embargoes. Simply put the Japanese wanted conditions that they might have gotten if they were winning the war.

The Japanese absorbed Hiroshima. Even after Nagasaki AND the Red Army entry into Manchuria there was resistance to surrender (the Japanese experts had even managed, with minimal data, to determine the number of special weapons available to the Americans, indicating that one, maybe two more attacks might be in the immediate offing). There was an actual coup attempt by IJA field grade officers that came closer to success than most folks realize.
 
The Japanese senior military (this includes the emperor) was in a state of denial. Maybe the Manchurian shock brought them to reality, or maybe not. I doubt it. Here is why.

I do not subscribe to the Russian theory, simply because the Japanese used the Russians as their conduit to the Americans starting in July 45. Note that their ambassador in Moscow (the Americans had broken into Russian and Japanese diplomatic traffic.) told the Tokyo regime that the Russians were not sending true messages to the Americans and were not reliable intermediaries. Yet the Japanese persisted. Then that poor gentlemen, Kantaro Suzuki, used an unfortunate kanji; Mokusatsu, when he was asked about the Potsdam Declaration. That was it as far as the Americans were concerned. Russians or no Russians it would be war to the knife. There was intense debate about whether to demonstrate the atomic bombs or use them in certain American quarters. I'm not sure modern Americans understand what the debate was about. It was a question of basically three things...

1. America's economy was finally at the breaking point. The money, the resources, the manpower was at its limit.
2. The Navy way would kill 10 million or more Japanese and take 18 months. With Japan so destroyed; it could very well degenerate into a repeat of 1880s east Asia only with 20th century weapons. WW II up until 1945 had been bad enough. Imagine another 35-40 million killed as civil war in China and violent de-colonization erupts all through the Western Pacific as the Japanese lose policing power before the Allies can get in to maintain some order? THAT was what Suzuki was worried about.
3. Russian American clash. The prize; Japan. Truman was afraid of that outcome. The bomb was his declaration to Moscow; "Hands off."

As an addendum; the Army way would have killed about 4-6 million Japanese and taken about 12-16 months. The Russians would have tried for Hokkaido and screwed it up and screamed for American help. Or if they were smart, they would have chewed on Manchuria and Korea and laughed as the Americans bled out hundreds of thousands of dead and made themselves infamous as butchers in East Asia. Did one know that just to make the landings on Kyushu, the Americans were prepared to use "special munitions" in Ford manufactured copies of German V-1 buzz bombs? In other words, the Americans were prepared to break treaties and international conventions just to get ashore? That is how savage the end game was. Russians were irrelevant and the Japanese certainly knew it. It was the Americans coming for them, not Moscow.

Finally: the Japanese estimated the US had two bombs (6 assemblies waiting on Hanford plutonium). The next American strikes would be on the Kanto plain. One knows what that means? The Japanese quit. Nagasaki was enough. Hirohito said so.
 
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Try as hard as I might, I just can't come up with any real similarity between the Japanese and the typical Brazilian. Bushido is not a way of life, nor ancestor and Emperor worship, in Brazil. Carnival and Kamikaze are not from the same Latin stem. I don't see any Carioca Kiri-ing their Hara, 'cause their honor has been besmirched. Obviously, a campaign against Brazil is going to be conducted with any number of differing basic assumptions. Bet the U.S. could move very deliberately with mostly naval and marine forces, do a de-cap on the government, and offer generous, readily accepted terms...
 
Did one know that just to make the landings on Kyushu, the Americans were prepared to use "special munitions" in Ford manufactured copies of German V-1 buzz bombs? In other words, the Americans were prepared to break treaties and international conventions just to get ashore?

The Geneva Protocol of 1925 prohibited the “Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare.” This agreement was signed by those who had used gas in the Great War — Austria, Britain, France, Germany and Russia, but while the U.S. signed the protocol, the Senate did not ratify it until 1975.

So the US was actually good to spray Lewisite and drop Anthrax bombs, but chose not to in WWI.

Before the War, Curtiss A-12 Shrikes were set for Chemical spraying gear
 
Ok Guys, Did I miss some transition between B-32s over Tokyo and problems with Brazil? Being new to these forums, are there some rules I should learn?

Dynasoar

Nope, just the usual goings-on here. We are in an alternate world where the USA is squaring off against a Nazi-style Brazil. Which begs a question, who got to to play the part of France?

Another question, which plane would have been better to attack Mucho Grande, the B-29 or the B-32?
 
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