Why no B-29's in ETO?

[Simon Gunson]

Just guessing, but lack of power generating capacity would seem to be the limiting factor requiring use of 19th (or 9th) Century construction methods in China. I'm sure we shipped more complex equipment than concrete batch plants through L/L. Can't very well have a hand cranked mixer or aggregate feeder at the batch plant and expect to finish in the same century. Huge power draw, even for a portable plant.

Runway repair/maintenance with unskilled labor is fine - except that it also requires lots of skilled supervision.

Poking around a bit more on the 'net, the Corps of Engineers invented modern runway design and construction methods in WWII, necessitated by the development of heavy bombers. Before that, the Corps used highway designs. It's not just a matter of scaling up current methods. The knowledge simply didn't exist before very late in the 1930s. The Corps discovered some very complex interactions and produced the analytical methods to understand them. Lacking that, all there is is trial and error.

Just one more of those marvels of the Allied effort in WWII.

The Chinese used thousands of peasants cracking rocks into pebbles to create a coarse base for their runways in south west China. I guess it worked and I guess the 20th Air Force managed just fine without concrete runways?

[Carl Schwamberger]

Simon
thanks for the information. What do you recommend for reading on those points. Particularly on the Brit plans to build their version of the B29?

[Cantankerous]

Simon
thanks for the information. What do you recommend for reading on those points. Particularly on the Brit plans to build their version of the B29?

The Short S.36 Super Stirling was one advanced British heavy bomber design comparable to the B-29 Superfortress and B-32 Dominator in terms of wingspan. As noted in the book British Secret Projects 4: Bombers 1935-1950, Avro, Bristol, Handley Page, and Vickers envisaged designs for gigantic heavy bombers with wingspans ranging from 150 to 230 feet, including the Vickers High-Altitude Bomber with a 172 foot span and a 100-ton bomber designed by Bristol.

[EwenS]

The last two editions of The Aviation Historian contained articles on plans to produce the B29 and B32 in Britain

https://www.theaviationhistorian.com/pu ... tspage.pdf

https://www.theaviationhistorian.com/pu ... tspage.pdf

[Carl Schwamberger]

Thanks for the references. Useful items in understanding the pros and cons of atomic weapons in the 1940s.