Resurrecting this thread a little bit to pontificate a bit on the Middle Eastern Theater of War. I recently got my hands on Michael Cohen's
Fighting WW3 From the Middle East: Allied Contingency Plans, 1945-1954, which not only discusses US and British (mainly British) war planning for the Middle East in this period but also relates these war plans to military and political realities in the region. The US left most of the specific defense planning for this region to the British, so it's their plans we have to turn too.
The nearest such plan, Sanddown technically post-dates the POD, being drafted in July/August of 1948 for a war in 1949 but it's the closest to a specific war plan for the region I've seen rather then the more overarching US Pincher-series which dominate this time period. The plan identified four potential strategic defense lines: the outer-ring, the inner ring, the Lebanon-Jordan line, and the Ramallah line. The outer-ring encompasses the series of mountains and mount passes in a broad semi-circle across Southeastern Anatolia down through coastal Iran. The Inner Ring . Given the utter lack of military resources and their proximity to the initial start of the Soviet assault, no hope was given to defending inner ring save as delaying. Not even that much was achievable for the outer-ring, save in so far as the Turks could manage on their own. The Lebanon-Jordan line was deemed a feasible line for a stand, but the British doubted they could achieve more then delay even if they had everything in place and so concluded it would all come down to the Ramallah line ( the dotted line in the picture below). Once that was breached, the Suez Canal and Abu Sueir air base would be within range of Soviet short-range tactical air and hence would be easily within Soviet capacity to be neutralized. The initial Soviet assault along the Eastern Anatolia and Iran-Iraq routes would be combined to equal some 30-35 western divisions at the outset, but by the time the Soviets reach Israel and West Jordan, the logistical bottlenecks, occupation demands, and needs to secure LOCs were projected to reduce this down to around 9 to 11 divisions by the time they hit the Lebanon-Jordan and Ramallah lines. On the whole, the British expected to have a little over 8 Anglo-American divisions, plus Arab Legion and Israelis forces (although the latter were never explicitly counted). So in sum, the British based their hopes that they could confront the Soviets on more-or-less equal numerical terms by the time the Soviets reached the Ramallah Line.
However, Cohen notes that there was significant disconnect between political and military realities and what the plan called for. In addition to noting that the plans demanded more military resources to be deployed already in region at the start of the war then actually ever existed in this time period and was impossibly optimistic about the timeframes for reinforcement given persisting logistical and military weakness, he also observes that pre-war cooperation between the UK and Israel that would be required to make these plans work never occurred. There were attempts made to open discussion in 1949, after the PoD, but they tended to founder on British reluctance to subordinate their relation with Arab countries to that of Israel, the Israelis (understandable) unwillingness to be subordinated, and the Americans lack of interest in getting involved in the whole mess (Cohen observes that the US had a contradictory policy of not getting involved in regional politics despite the fact their use of regional bases would require them to do so). Given that the OPs posited WW3 in June 1948, Anglo-American troops would be inserting themselves into the dead middle of the first Arab-Israelis War. The possibility of their entire defense of the region, such as it exists, collapsing due to the political complications this could cause is quite real. Expecting the Arab Legion and Israelis to smoothly join together when just a little while ago they would have been machine gunning each other is one rather glaring problem, as is the Israelis reaction to possibly having to abandon half their country should the Allies be forced to fall back to the Ramallah line.
Cohen, in summing it all up, states:
In retrospect, Allied contingency plans appear as little short of a farce! With the wisdom of hindsight, one might now ask what was the point of it all? Did the planners not realize how far their drawing-board schemes were removed from reality?
The Soviets could have conquered the Middle East with relative ease at any time during the first decade after the war, although they would have had to run the risk of nuclear retaliation. In 1949, Britain lost American military commitment to the Middle East. And the main strategic function of that theatre, to serve as a launching platform for the Allied strategic air offensive, was in fact never consummated. Even if the runways at Abu Sueir were readied for the B-29s*, the special refueling system they needed was never installed.
Both the Americans and the British knew that there was no question of manning the optimal defense line, the Outer Ring, in the foreseeable future. Nor were there sufficient forces even to hold the Inner Ring.
-Pg 328
Of course, Cohen goes onto observe:
But the historian is required also to ask what were the alternatives open to the Allies? Should they have simply abdicated power to the Soviets, and evacuated the Middle East? Had the Soviets established themselves consequently in the Near and Middle East, would Britain have felt safer? Would not NATO have been outflanked?
It has been suggested recently that the COS (Chief of Staffs) tended 'to plan on the basis of geostrategic concepts rather than economic or political reality'. The inference appears to be that the COS should have taken into account factors other than military and strategic requirements.
However, it was the CoS's duty to recommend to the government the best military measures to protect the nation's interests, and to warn of the risks if their recommendations were not adopted. Indeed, in respect of the need to hold Abu Sueir, the COS argued that nothing less than Britain's very survival as a state was dependent upon it. It was the government's, not the military's responsibility to define national priorities, to distribute the nation's resources as it saw fit - and to bear responsibility for the consequences.
-Pg 328-329
What matters to us is less that latter conclusion, but the consequences he alludes too had a full war actually broken out given that the military, political, and economic requirements for a successful defense of the Middle East were not yet met.
Given the above military political difficulties, I have to reassess that the likelihood of the Soviets seizing the Suez region is higher then I originally anticipated. If that happens, then it's a massive setback to the US plans for an atomic bombing campaign. The Trans-Volga-Ural and West Siberian industries would be pushed out of range and the proportion of Soviet petroleum targets which are within of range of B-29s drops from 72% to 12% and within range of B-50s from 94% to 25%, and this is without taking into account the fact that the approach from the Middle East was less well defended by Soviet air defenses in the late-40s then the approach from Britain. While it probably doesn't change the ultimate outcome, the US simply has to wait to push out more B-47s and B-36s, it does lengthen the war even further then I anticipated and give the Soviets more chance to get in atomic counter-punches and do overall more damage.
*And they weren't: Cohen observes that the lengthening didn't occur until 1950.
No It don't tell us how the flights would work out, any more than, for example, Korean events- but it does tell us the the flights could have been flown with readily prepared aircraft.
The Korean War actually is much more closer to what reality would look like, given that they were actual combat missions against armed opposition rather then the trick flights which devoted their weight to fuel and were devoid of any armaments. If anything, the Korean War was far more favorable to the USAF then a WW3 scenario, given that the B-29s only had to cover a much smaller distance in enemy controlled territory from bases in quite close proximity, encountered much weaker opposition, and had to deal with enemies bases and air defense posts that were beyond the target they were trying to get at rather then between them and the targets, and could count on significant escorts from nearby US fighter bases. None of this is true for raids in a late-40s WW3 scenario.
In any case, USAAC/USAF documentation is quite explicit on the actual combat radius of a B-29S and B-50S when loaded down with an atomic bomb: 1,600 and 2,000 miles respectively. So talk about 10,000 mile atomic bomb strikes in the late-40s is pure persiflage.