B29 Superfortress and the atomic bomb

Duggy

You’re quite wrong !

Lively discussion with ‘edge’ is what all forums should be about – nothing wrong with that.

Very interesting discussion, the costs of weapons is something which seems to get pushed aside in many accounts of the wars and yet it has great relevance to modern times.

As usual its turned into a cockfight !!!
Brits V USA , grow up everyone.
The B-29 was the most expensive programme in WWII.
But it was worth it.
Its that simple.
On another note !!! So I get free advertising.
Its not the weapon, but how “Tactically” you use it

In the beginning— LINK -” Project Matterhorn” http://axis-and-allies-paintworks.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?4530

Thanks:very_drunk:

Archer: UK Ministry of Aviation had a section named PTCAn – Project Time & Cost Analysis, set up in the days before the first Resource System, PERT, arrived in UK in 1963. Tech.Costs was a team that developed their own should cost to assist Contracts Officers to arrive at fair prices, for aircraft production or for R&D. First run at should cost was…£ per lb. of empty airframe weight.

You’re an American and quite naturally you ‘bat’ for America. Try a bit more ‘balance’.

Quality trolling there, John. :eagerness:

JB

I understand your point but, if the ‘development of advanced systems’ to which you refer were part of the development costs of the B29 then those costs must have been or, should have been, amortized over the production run of just under four thousand units and therefore contributed to the 3 billion mentioned.

Without other confirmation, I would guess that the 3 billion or, whatever sum, covered development and production costs. It might also have included the support infrastructure; 8,000 feet runways, airfields, fuelling stores, hangars, spares and admin.

The Lanc ‘good aircraft as it was’ didn’t have to contribute much to the advanced ‘state of the art’ to which you refer. Two polar opposite design philosophies underpinned the development of the Lancaster and the B29.

The Lancaster, as with all British bomber designs did not go in for ‘frills’. The design concept was almost always based around maximum payload and maximum range from the engine power available. Because there were as many theories about bomber defence as there were days in the week, British bomber defences against fighter attack were a bit of a ‘mish-mash’ of conflicting ideas regarding armament, numbers of turrets and design and caliber of weapons.

If British designs made little effort to incorporate advanced technology, the same could not be said about the Americans. They pulled out all the stops to ensure that they made best use of the available but, sometimes untested technology – untested that is, in warzone conditions. The result was – on the face of it – impressive. But, being somewhat over complicated, the design was unreliable and created almost intractable maintenance and servicing problems.

You refer to the late 30’s Manchester and by implication its successor the Lancaster. The B29 was on the drawing board in 1938.

Back to my original point before we decided the Lancaster was better than the B-29…:)

Much of the money mentioned in the original post had to do with the development of advanced systems…the pressurization, electronics, and remote turrets, electronics, engines and the (trouble prone) props were pushing the “state of the art”.
(None of which the Lancaster had. Obviously, that’s why it was less expensive.)

Since those costs were held against the B-29 program, the 3 billion figure is artificially high.
The Lancaster, good aircraft as it was, didn’t contribute much to the advanced “state of the art” being based on the late 30s Manchester.

Due to the nature of the development of the Atomic Bomb, Britain and the US were equal partners in the project. Our Tube Alloys was absorbed by the Manhattan Project which developed the A Bomb. British members of the project were integrated to such an extent that they headed the teams and were team members. Avril Harriman said the success of the project was due to the British and the Maud Report (I have his letter as a copy)
The Lancaster was considered as the delivery system for the bomb. In fact it was measured up for the project and a Lancaster was at Wright Field for testing. If the weapon had been used in Europe the Lancaster would have delivered it. It was not used in the Pacific for the simple reason there was no infra structure for maintenance and the B-29 was thus allocated to the task. The modification to the B-29 bomb bay was termed “Silverplate”. It is not widely known that the B-29s in England and the Washington B.1 were nuclear capable from 1948.
The work with the A bomb, the b-29 and the protocols for the use of the bomb are in the Quebec Agreement of 1943. Both nations should be highly praised for what they did. The evidence would seem to suggest they worked it all out remarkably well and do so to this day. (Much of this is included in a book ISBN: 9780957344341.)

JB

You’re an American and quite naturally you ‘bat’ for America. Try a bit more ‘balance’. I’m fairly familiar with the histories of both Haig and Montgomery but I’m mystified by your claim of ‘parochialism’ in their respect.

You might not want to admit it but, Ernest King of the USN was unrelenting in his opposition to British influence and participation during WW2. Because of his opposition to the British experience of convoy protection and the adoption of British tactics in the Battle of the Atlantic, many good American and foreign crews lost their lives at sea due to U-boat attacks along the Eastern seaboard of the USA because King would not adapt.

Admiral King was also adamant – a position he maintained thru out the war until over ruled, that the British would not BE ALLOWED to assist in the final stage of the Pacific campaign. Much like the Allies resisted American participation at the end of WW1. (Irony)

Both of the above examples demonstrate parochialism. We won’t discuss the reluctance of the USAAF to adopt the Mustang which was seen as ‘too British !’ Parochial is too inadequate !

On the subject of colonies we – the British and Americans – had a common interest. You mention American territories. Like the Philippines perhaps ? That was an American colony plus all the other Pacific tidbits ?

I call 400 Mk4 Lancasters and their support personnel destined to form Tiger Force as quite a serious contribution. It was the obduracy of the American military in refusing to share their airbases thus necessitating the intervention of Churchill that reduced that force to 200 Lancasters and some reluctantly offered US bases on Okinawa.

JB, I’ve written this to you on a previous occasion; my admiration as a former soldier goes to the US forces who fought the Pacific campaign against a fanatical enemy who offered and sought no quarter. Your forces did extraordinarily well. On the downside, the USA hasn’t always been Britains best friend and has often conspired to increase American influence at the expense of the British.

Into 1960s UK MoD guessed programme total R&D costs against a formula of £ per pound weight.

Going slightly off-topic, but would you happen to have a reference for that point? Was this on purely experimental projects, military type procurement or also on civil a/c modified for military use?

jg: unit prices/programme costs: I have seen £55,000/Lancaster and $250K/B-29 (1944=£62K). Functional costing/cost effectiveness (“biggest bang for the buck”) were 1960s innovations admitted by ADP machines replacing scribes’ manual ledgers. Procurement decisions were then scarcely affected by cash cost as that was unmeasurable, beyond “2 engines dearer than 1”. Into 1960s UK MoD guessed programme total R&D costs against a formula of £ per pound weight.

John Green

I’m glad you see the author of a book whose title proclaims the Lancaster as the”greatest” as unbiased and objective. 🙂
From my vantage point, I don’t think the UK was all that serious about the Tiger Force.
After VE day it looks like the UK began to demob. Certainly the promised long range Lancasters weren’t thick on the ground.
Again, the UK wasn’t that active in the Pacific ocean, most of their efforts was in Southeast Asia and India Burma. Again it looked like they were more interested in getting back their colonies than a strategic effort against the Japanese homeland.
The Americans were interested in ending the war in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the attack on other American territories.

And the US reluctance to assist in recovering those colonies had nothing to do with this resource allocation? Likewise the US putting every obstacle in the way of allies being involved in capturing Japanese territory (the Australians certainly didn’t prefer to be doing mopping up ops away from the main effort in 44-45).
The Americans were interested in furthering their interests, just like everyone else.

John Green

I’m glad you see the author of a book whose title proclaims the Lancaster as the”greatest” as unbiased and objective. 🙂
From my vantage point, I don’t think the UK was all that serious about the Tiger Force.
After VE day it looks like the UK began to demob. Certainly the promised long range Lancasters weren’t thick on the ground.
Again, the UK wasn’t that active in the Pacific ocean, most of their efforts was in Southeast Asia and India Burma. Again it looked like they were more interested in getting back their colonies than a strategic effort against the Japanese homeland.
The Americans were interested in ending the war in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the attack on other American territories.

Alertken
After too many years of reading about WWII aircraft I recently read that “Very Heavy” term did apply to range.

The American military were/are famous/infamous for their parochialism.

And that’s NEVER been said about the UK mitary! 😉
I’ll politely poo point to Haig and th e commanders of WWI, and the nutty Monty in WWII.

Be interesting to check the cost effectiveness of the B29 against that of the later marks of Lancasters.

Three billion ? Would that be a British billion – a thousand million or, an American billion – a million million ?

Is that just development costs or, does it include production ? Just under 4,000 B29’s were built so, dividing one sum by the other would give a per unit cost.

And equally so for the Lancaster; whatever those costs were ?

My guess is that given the scale and numbers of the B29’s defensive armament, the radar and navigational equipment plus 12 crew that the Lancaster would have cost between one quarter and one third of the total costs of the B29 program.

Perhaps David Edgerton’s “British War Machine” has the answer.

All history is heavy with hindsight.

The American military were/are famous/infamous for their parochialism.

There’s some hindsight here. Very Heavy was not synonomous with B-29.

5 VHBs (XB-29-33) were funded to Study, Spring,1940; 3 were funded to prototype+production; a Very Very Heavy prototype was funded 16/10/41.
In Fall,1942 Arnold:
– assigned VHBs (not explicitly B-29) to the Pacific Theater, to utilise range, not payload;
– cancelled Martin XB-33A (prototypes in build, 400 Production Lot in procurement) and assigned Martin to the B-29 Production Program;
– discussed licence production of B-29 with a UK Team inc. AVM Sorley…from which we may presume he was disposed to bet more on success of B-29 (first flight 21/9/42) than on Consolidated B-32 (f/f 9/9/42)…or: Consolidated, not Boeing, had won the VVHB, XB-36, and was trying to do both in parallel. Maybe the disruption of organising a licencee was unwelcome. Disruption was the sole reason for lapse of all UK/US licence discussions. Lancaster, Typhoon were explored for US-, B-29, P-51B for UK-production, all abandoned as not justifying the pain. Nothing to do with jealousy, not-invented-here. Just unnecessary. The primary reason for shadows churning product out faster than parents was that standard Lots, one mod.configuration, were placed there, mod. introduction being at parents, disrupting output. Licencing is far worse – funny fasteners, weird drawings…

So: was Lanc “better” than B-29. Well of course not. It wasn’t even “better” than B-24. Tasks, Threats, Time…when Procurers establish the fact of delivery of Type X – so much superior to its predecessor – the User joyously puts it to novel use: Adm. Nimitz: B-29’s “phenomenal” effectiveness…though not in the prime Design Role: “a ton of (mines) probably did (more for us) than a ton of incendiaries on (Jap. cities).” S.Budiansky,Air Power,Viking,2003, P340.

A-Bombs had nothing to do with any of this. B-47/1946 was the first type designed in knowledge of anyBomb’s shape, weight, size. Lancaster was not rejected as platform because it was Limey, but because there was no reason to not make do and mend with inventory already in Theater. B-29, engine warts and all, was a known piece of kit, with tow bars and tires on hand.

So: was $3Bn. squandered? Well, not if you accept High Policy of visiting hard rain upon Nippon. And the reason we did that was to minimise Allied casualties on the beaches. (RAF Tiger Force would have been assigned to “the softening up process (v.) Japan” M.Gilbert,Road to Victory, Heinemann, 1987, P957: CAS Portal had thought Windsor onway for 1946 when so advising PM at Quebec, 9/44).

JB

Some of us ‘know’ that you have a star spangled banner tattooed on your forehead but, that aside, Leo McKinstry’s “Lancaster”, ‘The second World War’s greatest bomber’, has some trenchant observations to make about the B29 and American attitudes to its principal ally during the Pacific campaign.

During 1943, Ralph Sorley, the assistant chief of technical requirements on the Air Staff was in discussions with MAP over the future of the Handley Page Halifax and the Avro Lancaster. Bigger and longer range types were in demand such as the proposed Vickers Windsor and ‘an anglicized version of the vast, new American heavyweight; the Boeing B29’.

Part of the discussions were concerned with the further development of the Lancaster equipped with the newish supercharged, two stage 60 series Merlin. This engine would give the Lancaster an effective ceiling of 30,000 feet. The new advanced version of the Lancaster was called the Mk 1V and subsequently renamed the Lincoln 1.

Ralph Sorley believed that the future of bomber development lay with the American B29 and thought that we should build a British version. There were technical difficulties adapting American production B29’s for night bombing over Occupied Europe and the project was abandoned. By late 1943, MAP decided that the future for bomber production lay with the Lancaster Mk4 and the vickers Windsor. Churchill, by this account, wasn’t impressed by this failure to match the Americans.

McKinstry goes onto write that the Americans had during 1943 considered the Lancaster for a highly specialized role in the Pacific campaign becaus of its unique loading capacity. With the atomic bomb under development, and the B29 still in early preparation, the U.S. needed an aircraft capable of loading a 17 feet long weapon. Apart from the B29 only the Lancaster would have been suitable with even the B29 requiring extensive modification so that the atomic weapon could extend into both front and rear bomb bays. Except for the Lancaster, all other aircraft under consideration would require the weapon to be carried externally.

The fly in the ointment was that the USAAF was reluctant to permit this new and devastating Allied weapon to be carried in a British aircraft ! As the B29 program was Hap Arnold’s baby, The use of the Lancaster was never again mentioned.

Four hundred Mk.4 Lancasters carrying a fuel load of 3,650 galls. 8,000 lbs payload and a potential range of 4,340 miles were to form the nucleus of the airborne component of Tiger Force. There were technical problems with these machines connected mostly with fuel storage and supply.

The central problem with the use of the British Tiger Force in the Pacific was primarily political . The Americans did not want our presence in what they regarded as their exclusive war. When defeat came to Japan, it had to be seen as a defeat at the hands of the Americans only.

McKinstry writes that the Americans never understood what the Lancaster could do. It could lift a payload of 18,000 lbs of bombs from a six thousand feet runway; the B29 required 8,000. At the same range the Lancaster could drop a greater weight of incendiary bombs over Japanese targets than even the B29.

Eventually, in mid 1945, the Americans reluctantly agreed that the British could share facilities on Okinawa. The British operation was scaled down to 220 aircraft and support.

For my money, Leo McKinstry’s epic does full justice to the story of the Lancaster and in so doing, explodes a few myths about the supposed superiority of the B29. During those wearisome days of WW2 the either/or question of effective bomber design was answered either side of the Atlantic by asking another question: do you want to drop a lot of bombs on the enemy with scant regard for the comfort and safety of your crews or, do you want to drop not as many bombs but have your crews drop them in shirt sleeve comfort ?

A pretty interesting demonstration of just a part of the technological advances made in the development of the B-29:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h4yBxydz0E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nskFayhBcy0

JB writes that it was ‘money well spent’. But, was it ?

Really?:)
I realize this is not the forum to suggest anything other than British aircraft were the best in the world, but could the Lancaster performed the missions flown by the B-29s aagainst Japanese homeland…to say nothing of the atomic role post war?

The Lancaster couldn’t do the job of the B-29.
It’s 1500 miles from Tinian to Tokyo….that’s each way plus you’d have to build in extra range for time over target (or targets further afield than Tokyo).

The range of a Mk 1 with bomb load was 1660 miles.
The long range Lancaster, let alone the Lincoln were not available in 1944. That, plus the obvious fact that the RAF never flew heavy bombers against mainland Japan makes the point moot.
According to Putnam’s Avro Aircraft book, the Mk 1 Vulcan would have had a hard time doing the mission with a range of 3000 miles.

And if the Lancaster was superior, why did the RAF use Washingtons to replace Lincolns post war…aside from they were more modern and free?