No B-29s land in the USSR

Supposing the B-29s that landed in the USSR instead land elsewhere or crash so horrifically that little to nothing is salvagable from them, what is the effect on the Cold War and Soviet technological development?
 
Supposing the B-29s that landed in the USSR instead land elsewhere or crash so horrifically that little to nothing is salvagable from them, what is the effect on the Cold War and Soviet technological development?

Sone other design in place of the Tu-4. Maybe something based off the b-17 or 24.
 
"There are no secrets from the KGB." It's quite possible the Russians would have got their hands on the blueprints and engineering documents. Some "true believer" at Boeing might have passed them along. Not as useful as a complete B-29 but perhaps good enough to guide Russian designers developing their own long range bombers.
 
Development on the Tu-64 would have continued. From my copy of Unflown Wings - Soviet/Russian Unrealised Aircraft Projects 1025-2010:

In September 1943 the Tupolev OKB was asked to prepare a draft project and mock-up of a heavy high-altitude bomber with Shvetsov M-71TK-M radial engines, pressurized cabins, and a defensive armament of 20mm cannons. It was to have the following performance figures: maximum speed 500 km/h at 10,000 m; range 5,000 km at a speed of 400 km/h with a full bomb load; range 6,000 km with a bomb load of 7,000-8,000 kg; bomb bay capacity 10,000 kg.

2IqfQZF.jpg
 
Supposing the B-29s that landed in the USSR instead land elsewhere or crash so horrifically that little to nothing is salvagable from them, what is the effect on the Cold War and Soviet technological development?
If they could get the plans for the Atomic Bomb, a bomber is child's play
 
If they could get the plans for the Atomic Bomb, a bomber is child's play
Actually not. They already had the basic research for atomic research, the breakthrough was getting the math right for 'explosive lenses' and realising how that improved the power of a small amount of fissile material. That combined with some basic chemical engineering processing on a massive scale (something the Soviets had proven themselves good at) provided the bomb. The spying helped focus them on the paths that were successful instead of having to figure them out by making mistakes.

Building a B-29 involved taking thousands of drawing of very precise parts and having them made and assembled to very strict tolerances by factories spread across the country. The Soviets usually solved the problem of coordinating production by having large centralized factories such as 'tankograd' that took raw materials and converted it into a finished weapon. COnverting detailed schematics to Soviet standards, making machine tools and production jigs to make the parts and assemblies and then having all the components fit together was either at the very edge or beyond the capabilities of the Soviet Union at the time. The weapons the successfully built were designed to optimize the Soviet production methods.

When they had the B-29 as a reference they could literally take it apart measure and diagram the components then have them built by factories that were given soviet style plans to use. As it was a few components gave them major problems. The landing gear was such a problem that they did attempt to steal the plans of the subassemblies as well as acquire working examples in the late 1940s and early '50s AND WERE CAUGHT trying to get them out of the country.
 
That combined with some basic chemical engineering processing
Dealing with UF6 isn't basic chemical engineering.Separating Plutonium from irradiated Uranium isn't basic Chemical Engineering.

by 1942, the US had made more Uranium Metal than Germany would do in the entire War
 
When the Soviets copied B-29s, they made as few changes as they possibly could with Soviet engines and cannon instead of .50 cal machine guns. On the B-29 the center of the control wheels for the pilot and co-pilot had the Boeing logo on them, so did the first batches of the Tu-4s.
 
As noted, the Soviets probably turn to an indigenous design that manages roughly similar performance. Maybe it's somewhat inferior or maybe it's somewhat better, but that's hard to predict. Regardless, the ability to successfully reverse engineer the B-29 and mass produce it shows that the Soviets already had the industrial and technical means to produce such an aircraft.

Dealing with UF6 isn't basic chemical engineering.Separating Plutonium from irradiated Uranium isn't basic Chemical Engineering.

By today's standards it is, or at least the information on how to do it is, but even in the 1940s Soviet scientists and engineers figured out that sort of stuff even before their information was confirmed by intelligence. Even just translating the information required a degree of understanding of what was being said and what it meant. Common consensus in the scholarly community is that the atomic spies sped up the Soviets between six months to a year, which isn't that big a difference and would still have seen the Soviets acquire the bomb in a shorter timeframe then, for example, the British did when they embarked on their own independent (again) crash program in 1945.
 
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It is one thing to replicate an existing design that is relatively proven (like the B-29), although of course the 1945 B-29 had its issues still, compared to starting with a blank sheet of paper and designing everything from the ground up. It will take longer to design a B-29/Tu-4 equivalent from start than it will to copy an existing B-29, and there will be a more extensive flight testing program than with a copy. IMHO there is no doubt the Soviets could build a long range bomber more or less equivalent to the B-29, just that it would come in to active service later than they did with the Tu-4 "B-29ski".
 
When the Soviets copied B-29s, they made as few changes as they possibly could with Soviet engines and cannon instead of .50 cal machine guns. On the B-29 the center of the control wheels for the pilot and co-pilot had the Boeing logo on them, so did the first batches of the Tu-4s.
I thought that, like the story of the copied "damage repair patch" was a joke? I know the engineers were unhappy at being told to make a carbon copy rather than improve the design (many in the Bureau, including Tupolev himself, thought there were several areas where they could do better), and this led to some fairly annoyed jokes, whichn were then reported by the CIA as fact?

On topic, Tupolev invenyted the all metaled, 4 engined monoplane, ie the ANT-6. He also had overseen the development of the Pe-8.
The USSR had not made many 4 engined heavies, due to a percieved lack of need, not capabikity. They were already changing that policy even before B-29 landed in the USSR.
No B-29, Tupolev design a large heavy bomber regardless.....
They were not stupid.
 

DougM

Donor
Don’t underestimate the complexity of the B-29. The program cost for design and manufacturing was about 3 Billion but the A-Bomb was about 2 Billion.
So the B-29 was not a small undertaking. And at the time the USSR had nothing even close to the B-29.
Could the develop one eventually? Sure, but when, at what cost and how well? Look at the continuing attempts to build a jet intercontinental bomber. It took forever to get it right and then they hardly built any of them. Vs the US B-52 being built in the hundreds and decades earlier.
The USSR was not that great at building aircraft (remember the concord-ski?) even the MiG 15 was as much the result of German research and English derived engines as it was anything to do with the Soviets.

So personally I think no B-29s and you don’t see a bomber equivalent for at least 5 years after the original date and a delay of pretty much every bomber down the line of about 5 years. And as it was the Russian bomber was already getting obsolete when it entered service being 5-7 years later will make it all but useless as anything other then a practice design to learn from on the way to designing something better.
 
Don’t underestimate the complexity of the B-29. The program cost for design and manufacturing was about 3 Billion but the A-Bomb was about 2 Billion.
The backup plan of the B-32 Dominator, without the pressurization and remote gun computer systems, was 123 million for the 100 or so examples built between Sand Diego and Fort Worth from existing B-24 lines. It was a shoestring, barely funded program, but still had the same range, speed and payload as the B-29. Toss another billion at Convair, and yeah, the remote guns and pressurization could have been worked out too.

In the USSR, people at Wright would have been sent to the Gulag, or just plain shot for their effort on the R-3350
In the US, it took Dodge, who had never built an aircraft engine, let alone a high HP example, to fix most of the problems and then mass produce reliable examples.

Same for Boeing. subcontractors like Bell and Martin solved a lot of problems
 
Don’t underestimate the complexity of the B-29. The program cost for design and manufacturing was about 3 Billion but the A-Bomb was about 2 Billion.
So the B-29 was not a small undertaking. And at the time the USSR had nothing even close to the B-29.

And yet the Soviets somehow managed to quite adequately copy this massively complex and not small undertaking and mass produce it in large numbers within the space of a couple years. Seems to me that what’s being underestimated here isn’t the complexity of the B-29, but the abilities of the Soviets...

In the USSR, people at Wright would have been sent to the Gulag, or just plain shot for their effort on the R-3350

A case in point being nonsense like this. We have solid examples of industrial engineers in the USSR continuing work on projects that were unapproved or even against orders without being punished, yet nonsense like this still gets peddled. Working on a project was not remotely considered adequate criteria for getting sent to the gulag.

Let’s look at an actual wholly domestic strategic bomber design of the Soviets from roughly the same period: the Tu-16. Development on the Tu-16 began in 1950. First prototype flew in 1952. First operational Tu-16 units were stood up in 1954. Total development time 4 years, little different from that of the Tu-4. So clearly, this supposition about the Soviets taking until the mid-1950s to get a nuclear capable prop bomber is nonsense.
 
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Deleted member 1487

Basically looks like this Soviet aircraft was 'inspired' by the Me 264...
There is a resemblance:
Me264
264-2.gif

upload_2019-8-6_8-11-31.jpeg


Tupolev
2IqfQZF.jpg



Though to be fair there are differences, the Soviet design as a different nose and longer one, while having a shorter, thicker aft section, while the Messerschmitt is longer and thinner at the back. If it was from 1943 then I doubt they knew about the ME264.

Or this
4590435038_fe5c881fde_z.jpg
famous Douglas pre-war airliner. USSR was building the DC-2 under license, and received a good number of C-47s under LL
You sure? That doesn't look like any Douglas aircraft I can find in terms of the tail. I think that's a post-war design from another company that would have come after WW2 and the Soviets wouldn't have known about when designing the Tu-64.
 
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