The Big One

Blair152

Banned
This is about the Stuart Slade AH novel The Big One, which I have to confess, I haven't read, except for an excerpt on Amazon. The plot is that by
1947, (two years after World War II ended IOTL), World War II is still going
on, Germany controls most of Europe, and the United States sends Convair
B-36 bombers to nuke Germany. Given the fact that the Convair B-36 Peacekeeper was in development before World War II, WI the B-36 was developed in time for World War II?
 

Blair152

Banned
well, exelent premise, a timeline would be perfect . continue please.:)
Thank you. As I said before, except for an excerpt at www.amazon.com , I
haven't read it. He's also written Ride of the Valkyries, which is about the XB-70 Valkyrie, which by then, is entering service with SAC as the B-70 Valkyrie. The TL begins in 1947 and continues through the present. Ride of
the Valkyries is set in 1972.
 
Pushing it forward faster is likely going to exacerbate the problems with it, which really will make it the flying death trap. "Billion dollar blunder" indeed in this case.
 
I´ve read it ( the first book, the rest I didn´t even try )

IMHO is "Yet another WWII dystopia", I didn´t like it too much, and I think the POD ( "Halifax gives a coup and surrender/allies with the Nazis" ) quite ASB, but well ...

Ah, Presidents Georges, Patton and Zukhov IIRC ...

EDTI : As if OTL WWII was not enough dystopia ...
 
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CalBear

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The B-36 would have been an absolute revolution in WW II, the B-29's impact squared. A single B-36 could haul the same bomb load to any part of Germany that took 18 B-17s to carry and could do so from above the max ceiling of any fighter (and most AAA) available.

This being said, the B-36 was a "Bridge too far" for the technology of the era. It is doubtful that the aircraft could have been used as a regular part of an on-going bombing campaign due to the serious mechanical issues with the aircraft.

I will leave unsaid the vast majority of my comments regarding basing a T/L on a Amazon blurb beyond the position that it is ill-advised.
 
The B-36 would have been an absolute revolution in WW II, the B-29's impact squared.
Jep. Although the B-36 in TBO isn't exactly the same as the OTL later one.
IIRC part of the reasoning behind TBO is that a lot of the resources spent OTL on other projects are funneled into the B-36 program.
Because of the early loss of England, it's also very clear in '40 that there won't be an unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Northsea and the drive for an continental bomber is huge.

This being said, the B-36 was a "Bridge too far" for the technology of the era. It is doubtful that the aircraft could have been used as a regular part of an on-going bombing campaign due to the serious mechanical issues with the aircraft.
It's not used in a on-going bombing campaign. It's a single strike.

Also, the way Stuart Slade has built his case (IIRC there's a FAQ somewhere around in which he refutes most, if not all, the arguments you could have against the technical possibilities in his novel) it's technically possible what he suggests.

I will leave unsaid the vast majority of my comments regarding basing a T/L on a Amazon blurb beyond the position that it is ill-advised.
I understand.
I also wonder why people, including myself, keep responding to the gazillion threads bard32 keeps spamming. Is it like the fascination one can have for a trainwreck happening in front of your eyes? :p
 

CalBear

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...

I understand.
I also wonder why people, including myself, keep responding to the gazillion threads bard32 keeps spamming. Is it like the fascination one can have for a trainwreck happening in front of your eyes? :p

That is one of my on-going theories. There is also the chance that, while the OP is off the wall, a reasonable deiscussion can be craft out of it. The Sherman Tank thread actually has a few good posts, even if none are by our favorite OP.
 

Blair152

Banned
The B-36 would have been an absolute revolution in WW II, the B-29's impact squared. A single B-36 could haul the same bomb load to any part of Germany that took 18 B-17s to carry and could do so from above the max ceiling of any fighter (and most AAA) available.

This being said, the B-36 was a "Bridge too far" for the technology of the era. It is doubtful that the aircraft could have been used as a regular part of an on-going bombing campaign due to the serious mechanical issues with the aircraft.

I will leave unsaid the vast majority of my comments regarding basing a T/L on a Amazon blurb beyond the position that it is ill-advised.
That's right CalBear. The B-29 was the first pressurized bomber. The B-36
was unique-----Don't quote me on this I may be wrong. Six, or eight, pusher propellers in the early versions. Later versions had four jet engines. Not a true turboprop by any stretch of the imagine since the pusher props were driven by traditional piston engines.
 
Blair, here's a run down of some of the mechanical problems:

The B-36A couldn't fight--the electrically operated cannon were so trouble-prone they were simply eliminated--much less scramble to retaliate, and it ended up becoming little more than a crew trainer. Twenty-two were delivered, each virtually handmade, and "so flimsily built," says Jim Little, who served on one after it was converted to an RB-36E, "that the upper wing skin would actually pull loose from the wing ribs." Sometimes, Little recalls in the book RB-36 Days at Rapid City, "you would meet [the plane] with a crew of 30 or 40 sheet metal men."

The propellers were reversible for braking on landing, but sometimes they reversed in flight or while the airplane was straining to take off--at least once with fatal consequences. The stainless steel firewalls enclosing the engines cracked. The cylinders overheated. Lead in the gasoline fouled the spark plugs at cruising speed. Each airplane had 336 spark plugs, and after a flight lasting a day and a half, a mechanic would have to haul a bucket of replacement plugs to the airplane to service all six engines. The engines leaked oil, and sometimes a flight engineer had to shut one down because it had exhausted its allotment of 150 gallons.

Then there was the "wet wing." The outboard fuel tanks were formed by the wing panels and sealed at the junctions, and after the wing flexed for a few hundred hours the sealant was apt to fail. Jim Little recalls that one airplane leaked so badly "the ground underneath was just purple [from the dye in the high-octane gasoline]--it was raining fuel under that airplane."
http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/B-36-Bomber-at-the-Crossroads.html?c=y&page=4

This is for the B-36A, which was delivered in Aug. '45.
Now, if you want to produce this beast in time to be effective before that, as your OP says, as I said above, you will be getting an even more problematic version of this aircraft, as I said before.
 

Blair152

Banned
Blair, here's a run down of some of the mechanical problems:


http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/B-36-Bomber-at-the-Crossroads.html?c=y&page=4

This is for the B-36A, which was delivered in Aug. '45.
Now, if you want to produce this beast in time to be effective before that, as your OP says, as I said above, you will be getting an even more problematic version of this aircraft, as I said before.
The Northrop XB-35 was the rival of the B-36. The XB-35 was a flying wing.
So were its replacements, the XB-49 and the YB-49. The YB-49, of which
several prototypes were built, and was well on its way to production, was
cancelled when one of the prototypes crashed, and the Air Force cancelled
the program. Due to its inherent instability, the flying wing had to wait until fly-by-wire technology came along to make it possible. The B-36 was
only in service for ten years-----from 1949 to 1959.
 
well I'm guessing that you could get a working reliable B-36 earlier if you had the USAAF concentrate on developing jet engines earlier which is possible. But this has butterflies that make effects that change much more than just the earlier production of a bomber.

I suppose that your best bet to get a drive to develope the B-36 faster would be to have the bomber mafia stay more influential(if that's even possible) after the unescorted bomber raids met with disaster. The only way to let the bombers reach their target without catastrophic losses and still avoid using fighter escorts is to fly above enemy fighter cover and AA, but then again it's far more practical to just develop the mustang in stead.

Really, the scenario is mostly a non starter, but it is technically possible, just really impractical.
 
The Northrop XB-35 was the rival of the B-36. The XB-35 was a flying wing.
So were its replacements, the XB-49 and the YB-49. The YB-49, of which
several prototypes were built, and was well on its way to production, was
cancelled when one of the prototypes crashed, and the Air Force cancelled
the program. Due to its inherent instability, the flying wing had to wait until fly-by-wire technology came along to make it possible. The B-36 was
only in service for ten years-----from 1949 to 1959.

Ermmm... Yes, and your point is?

None of that addresses the objections made.
 
I found the war scenario posited by Slade very believable.

The Post-War? Not so much (particularly when the randomoid Caliphate showed up).

Also, the book, while well researched, is in serious need of good editing.
 
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