Amerika Bomber a complete waste of time and resources?

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Meeko987
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Amerika Bomber a complete waste of time and resources?

#1

Post by Meeko987 » 29 Jul 2017, 01:58

As the title asks would it of been pointless to fly all the way to America to drop a few bombs?

Surely it wouldn't affect America or the war effort?

And daft designs like this would of failed?
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Re: Amerika Bomber a complete waste of time and resources?

#2

Post by OpanaPointer » 29 Jul 2017, 03:33

Forum search shows 144 matches for "Amerika Bomber".
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Re: Amerika Bomber a complete waste of time and resources?

#3

Post by Stiltzkin » 29 Jul 2017, 03:40

As the title asks would it of been pointless to fly all the way to America to drop a few bombs?
Yes.
Surely it wouldn't affect America or the war effort?
No.
And daft designs like this would of failed?
No (they lived on).
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T. A. Gardner
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Re: Amerika Bomber a complete waste of time and resources?

#4

Post by T. A. Gardner » 29 Jul 2017, 04:22

Yes. Why? Because Germany could never build and maintain a fleet of such aircraft sufficient in size and capacity to do more than make a few initial attacks against the US before being obliterated.

Let's say Germany settles on some Amerika Bomber design that really does work. They build what? One a week? That's where their aircraft industry was with large 4 or 6 engine aircraft. So, they build up a squadron of a dozen and launch a strike. These 12 planes bomb New York City...

The US reacts by putting more AA, radar, picket ships at sea with radar, and defending fighters many crewed by advanced pilots in training with say 10 to 40 hours of time on a "real" fighter in place.

The next raid gets spotted hundreds of miles out to sea by a ship with radar and reported. The defenses are waiting the raid loaded for bear and heavy losses ensue.

The Germans build up their numbers and send say 24 planes. The Allies this time detect the raid off Europe and longer range fighters from Scotland and Iceland intercept causing losses. More fighters intercept over Canada. The raid is shot down entirely over several hours of interception.

Now what? Germany isn't going to have fighter escorts. The planes are very expensive to build and they'll never have many of them.

Aside from that, without good targeting information, the Germans aren't going to do damage to any important military target in the US. They don't even know, have the slightest clue, where most US arms factories are. That doesn't even include that the vast majority aren't in the Northeastern US.
For example, you want to bomb factories making B-24's... Those are outside Chicago, and in San Diego California. There's a plant that does most of the final installation of military equipment in Arizona. Your Amerika Bomber can't even reach those plants, assuming you somehow know about them.

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Re: Amerika Bomber a complete waste of time and resources?

#5

Post by maltesefalcon » 29 Jul 2017, 14:34

All good points above. England is half hour flight time from Luftwaffe bases. England has fewer resources than USA and is 1/50 the size. Yet the Germans could not even muster the resources and the will to bomb the English into surrender.

Couple this with the fact that the US coast is 5000 km from Europe. That means a flight duration that at least some of it will be during daylight hours. More dangerous. Barring bad storms you still have to contend with navigation errors over such a long flight. And any damage or mech failure will almost certainly lead to the loss of plane and entire crew.

There is hope for fighter escorts though. The Germans could use the same fighters that appeared off the coast of Iceland in the film U-571. :D

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Re: Amerika Bomber a complete waste of time and resources?

#6

Post by Meeko987 » 29 Jul 2017, 20:29

Never said they could do it....

I was just wondering why ideas such as this were even considered by the Germans at this point, maybe a few decades on they could attempt it but then again only if they magically won the war.

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Re: Amerika Bomber a complete waste of time and resources?

#7

Post by T. A. Gardner » 29 Jul 2017, 20:49

The best I could come up with for a scenario with Germany bombing the US, given actual resources, was to use BV 222 modified to carry a bomb load. The planes (maybe 6 at most) would fly to a predesignated bay on the Greenland or Canadian coast that was remote enough to not have an Allied presence. They'd be met by a U-boat or two, or other ship, loaded with fuel for them and refuel and perform maintenance. They'd then fly over inland Canada to attack Chicago, timing the attack to occur shortly before night fall.
They scatter small bombs (50 or 100 kg) and incendiaries over the city to cause the most widespread damage they can manage, even if most of it is superficial. That would have the greatest propaganda effect. The planes then fly back to the bay to top off before returning to Europe.

This stunt would have no value beyond propaganda value. It would have been difficult and expensive to do for the results obtained, and it's unlikely it could be repeated successfully (not that I wouldn't expect the Germans to try it again if it succeeded the first time... they almost certainly would have).

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Re: Amerika Bomber a complete waste of time and resources?

#8

Post by maltesefalcon » 29 Jul 2017, 21:02

Meeko987 wrote:Never said they could do it....

I was just wondering why ideas such as this were even considered by the Germans at this point, maybe a few decades on they could attempt it but then again only if they magically won the war.
"As the title asks would it of been pointless to fly all the way to America to drop a few bombs?"

This is from the OP. Its a bit ambiguous but I would interpret this as saying they could do it, but with dubious results.

I am curious though. Why would Germany even bother to bomb the USA decades later if they had magically won the war?

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Re: Amerika Bomber a complete waste of time and resources?

#9

Post by OpanaPointer » 30 Jul 2017, 20:19

maltesefalcon wrote:
I am curious though. Why would Germany even bother to bomb the USA decades later if they had magically won the war?
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Re: Amerika Bomber a complete waste of time and resources?

#10

Post by thaddeus_c » 31 Jul 2017, 13:11

Meeko987 wrote:Never said they could do it....

I was just wondering why ideas such as this were even considered by the Germans at this point
they may have thought they were closer to nuke than they were and began work on delivery aircraft

and/or

force US to adopt costly wartime measures such as blackouts,etc.

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Re: Amerika Bomber a complete waste of time and resources?

#11

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 31 Jul 2017, 13:44

T. A. Gardner wrote:The best I could come up with for a scenario with Germany bombing the US, given actual resources, was to use BV 222 modified to carry a bomb load. The planes (maybe 6 at most) would fly to a predesignated bay on the Greenland or Canadian coast that was remote enough to not have an Allied presence. They'd be met by a U-boat or two, or other ship, loaded with fuel for them and refuel and perform maintenance. They'd then fly over inland Canada to attack Chicago, timing the attack to occur shortly before night fall.
They scatter small bombs (50 or 100 kg) and incendiaries over the city to cause the most widespread damage they can manage, even if most of it is superficial. That would have the greatest propaganda effect. The planes then fly back to the bay to top off before returning to Europe.

This stunt would have no value beyond propaganda value. It would have been difficult and expensive to do for the results obtained, and it's unlikely it could be repeated successfully (not that I wouldn't expect the Germans to try it again if it succeeded the first time... they almost certainly would have).
A Italian plan (Navy?) proposed something like this, tho the refuel point was mid Atlantic. I'm unsure if that would have been better or worse than a Greenland bay.

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Re: Amerika Bomber a complete waste of time and resources?

#12

Post by maltesefalcon » 31 Jul 2017, 15:12

thaddeus_c wrote:
Meeko987 wrote:Never said they could do it....

I was just wondering why ideas such as this were even considered by the Germans at this point
they may have thought they were closer to nuke than they were and began work on delivery aircraft

and/or

force US to adopt costly wartime measures such as blackouts,etc.

Perhaps on the verge of the Solobonite weapon?

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Re: Amerika Bomber a complete waste of time and resources?

#13

Post by Paul Lakowski » 31 Jul 2017, 15:13

Actually the Me-261 could fill the role of nuisance bomber over NYC and the east coast dropping a dozen incendiary bombs per sortie....which if needed could become couple of nerve gas bombs per sortie.

The prototype could manage 385mph clean and the payload -range figures in 1941 while reaching 9km practical ceiling & 10-11 km maximum altitude.

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Re: Amerika Bomber a complete waste of time and resources?

#14

Post by T. A. Gardner » 31 Jul 2017, 16:48

Once radar came into widespread use for early warning, the jig was pretty much up. At best, the Germans might get in a raid or two before the US and Canada started putting up an early warning system of radar that could detect the approach of a raid hours before it arrived over its target. These radars could be on ships at sea, in Iceland, Greenland, northern Canada, etc., and as much as a thousand miles from the actual target.

With an early warning system like that, and literally hours of intercept time, the raid would have been shot to pieces, if not shot down entirely. Given the lack of escort fighters, the Germans would be finished at that point. The losses would be unsustainable.

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Re: Amerika Bomber a complete waste of time and resources?

#15

Post by BDV » 31 Jul 2017, 16:50

Maybe low volume high value exchanges with the Japanese would have been a more useful employment for such long range device?
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