Bombers in a world with no V2

[uk 75]

We may have done this one, but I'll try it anyway.(I think someone did a thread and story but with so many repeats on TV).

In an alternate Third Reich, the Nazis were so sceptical about rocketry that their efforts to develop a V weapon against the Allies were focussed on a family of Krupp super guns.

When the war ended, the US lead in bombers was maintained, but the Soviets still got their hands on a B29.

By the end of the 1950s the West was getting ready to fly Avro and North American supersonic bombers. The Soviets were working on a Tupolev design.
Events came to a head in 1962 when U2 recce photos showed a Kruppsupergun under construction on Cuba

 

[zen]

While German missile efforts fed lot into US and USSR developments. It sometimes gets overplayed as a factor.

We know UK efforts into missiles all through WWII nearly led to several weapons being brought into service.

 

[uk 75]

Zen
I was only trying to avoid the ballistic missile replacing the bomber.
However, I dont think anyone other than the Germans did any serious missile development. Most postwar missiles were derived from captured German weapons

 

[zen]

I think you can set back ballistic missiles by a lack of German effort during WWII. But it's a delay only.

Tactical rockets would continue.

As for SAMs Brakemine and Ben nearly went to service anyway.

And it's SAMs that drive up the costs for bombers.....making ballistic missiles more attractive.

 

[uk 75]

Oh well, so no point in this thread. Thanks!

 

[zen]

Well being fair, what this scenario gets is a longer period of the Bomber being the only viable means of delivering nuclear weapons and a different process of developing ballistic missiles.
I'm not sure how long we're talking about. Could be another decade or so.

Gyros will be key here.

 

[starviking]

The only factor which would prevent ICBM usage and reliance on bomber is a physical obstacle to their use. Charles Stross’ provides that in his story “Missile Gap”, which is an interesting read.

 

[Michel Van]

Other question what would the Nazi do with resource wasted in V2 production ?
Allot of stuff would end up in production like Me 262 or Tiger tank, but it would only delay Nazi capitulation...

After War the USA and USSR will use Bomber like B-36 and B-29copyski 1950s follow by Jet Age
but rocket will appear either as Air-air missile for Interceptors or ground-surface missile.
in fact the germans were working on those missiles during WW2

and one day a general will have idea "let us build much bigger missile and launch Nuke direct to enemies"
This World would see ICBM and Space flight just delay...

 

[uk 75]

Noting scepticism about my device of taking Von Braun and co out of missile develipment (reasonable I think given Hitler's tendency to meddle) I have tried without much luck to find any serious interest in big missiles as opposed to small anti air weapons and unguided Congreve/Katjuscha weapons.

Add to this the dominance of Curtis Le May in the US and a similar attitude in RAF Bomber Command. The US Army would have been quite happy with superguns in the absence of V2s.

Interest iin Space notably by the British Interplanetary Society or Goddard in the US would have had to find a Von Braun figure able to squeeze funds out of Governments.

 

[Pioneer]

What about scenario where Hitler's Nerobefehl (Nero Decree) issued on March 19, 1945 ordering the destruction of German infrastructure to prevent their use by Allied forces, nothing was to be spared that might potentially aid the Allies. This includes the brain trust and expertise of Germany's aeronautics and rocket engineers, scientists and intellectuals, who are order to be ruthlessly rounded up and executed, as well as related equipment for developing and manufacturing these 'Wunderwaffe' being destroyed.
Hitler realizing that Speer would almost certainly obstruct its execution, orders the the Reich Defense Commissars and Gauleiter, Nazi Party administrative officials, to carry out this decree, who intern use the Gestapo and SS to ruthlessly conduct this order....
Hence the likes of Operation Paperclip, Operation Osoaviakhim and T-Forces aren't as effective...
Hence there is no Wernher von Braun, Kurt H. Debus, Fritz Karl Preikschat, etc don't get to pass on their expertise and knowledge to the Allies..
So it is the emphasis becomes tgat of strategic bombers and inter-continental cruise missiles....
As stated ICBM inevitably happen, but much later than it would have with the influx of German brain trust.


Regards
Pioneer

 

[Rhinocrates]

An historical analogy I might think of is the development of electric cars. Electrics appeared very early on and had superior performance, but the development of the internal combustion engine rapidly overtook them. It's only now that electrics are once again overtaking (pun unintended) ICE with range and charge times still a problem - but they do offer superior performance otherwise in terms of torque, acceleration etc. This is a result not necessarily of technological potential, but a wholesale shift in investment focus. I could imagine then that spending is focussed on about improving and countering bombers, so doctrine and strategy become entrenched and ICBMs come later to break the stalemate. There are a number of other technologies that looked promising, but were put on the back burner for decades due to technical difficulties and the focus shifted to alternatives, but they are once again showing potential - tiltrotors and hypersonics for example.

In this scenario, suppose that the first practical ICBMs don't appear until the 70s (though tactical rocketry is common). I would suppose that perpetual readiness would be vital, so the nuclear powered strategic bombers would see service because of their loiter advantage. Development would be towards very high altitude and/or speed, so maybe hypersonics arrives sooner. There would be some pretty fearsome interceptors that would make the MiG-25 look tame (and defences against them - jamming, defensive guns, long-range escort fighters?). Maybe a real Firefox after all. Couple that with a persistent and more intense need for DEW and there might be more arctic development.

 

[riggerrob]

ATL Without the Nazi German rocket scientists, we would have to wait until Dr. Gerald Bull built his artillery range in Quebec during the early 1960s. Space Research Corporation used a pair of US Navy guns - welded end to end - to launch projectiles into the stratosphere. During an early 1960s tour, Dr. Bull bragged that he could shoot Moscow from his range along the Canada/US border.

 

[Archibald]

Avro 730
English Electric P.10 and P.42
Mirage IVB
B-58B
XB-70 Valkyrie
B-71
Myas-goddam-name - M-52

Also: Navaho, Burya, Regulus II ultra-long-range cruise missiles.

 

[Pioneer]

I'm still guessing, there might be a strong chance that the Soviets still develop and operationally deploy the first ICBM, even without the technical assistance of Nazi rocket scientists...people like Sergei Korolev and Vasily Mishin.....

Regards
Pioneer

 

[Fluff]

Your forgetting the Casablanca Treaty, of 1938, which banned non-air breathing aircraft above 500kg. This was due to the complete destruction of Guernica by 'unknown' forces, using 'big rockets'.

 

[Archibald]

I'm still guessing, there might be a strong chance that the Soviets still develop and operationally deploy the first ICBM, even without the technical assistance of Nazi rocket scientists...people like Sergei Korolev and Vasily Mishin.....

Regards
Pioneer

Mishin ? only good for alcohol-fueled rockets. Yangel and Chelomei, plus Glushko. You have a point about ICBM, compared to B-36s and B-52s (more accurately, 3Ms and M4s and Tu-95s) they were far less expensive to build. That's why Mister K. embraced them(R-7, R-9, R-16...)
That, and people like Thomas Power and Curtiss Lemay loved their bombers and initially at least, had little love for rockets...

 

[zen]

Where the Germans really did good work is on the gyros. I understand early US and UK efforts were using copies of those gyros?

 

[RanulfC]

Zen is correct that the "German" influence gets overplayed a lot. In fact Von Braun and company were 'stashed' in the middle of nowhere (New Mexico) specifically to let their 'knowledge' base degrade before they'd be sent back to Germany or released to commercial use. The US was highly UN-impressed over our captured V2 performance and believed the USSR had similar issues with their German scientists. The main impediment for US missile development post-war was budgetary rather than technical given the post-war concentration on 'normalization' and reduction of both the military and the military budget that was only reversed when Korea broke out.

The 'key'for the V2 was simply that it showed a production and operational missile was possible, with the advent of the Atomic Bomb that meant that development was pretty inevitable from that point since it was 'obviously' a path of development. In fact it came down to a very narrow decision by Von Karman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_von_Kármán) as head advisor to the USAF to push air-breathing 'robot' (cruise) missiles over the admittedly superior ballistic missiles that lead to the Air Force concentrating on them instead. He felt that solving the navigation and guidance issues over inter-continental distances would be easier to solve for the Inter-Continental Cruise Missile (ICCM) than for the ICBM. It turned out to be similar for both and in the end the ICBM had more utlity.
(The Soviet's initially made a similar decision but quickly realized the navigation and guidance issues were a bit easier for the ICBM than the ICCM whereas the USAF took a bit longer to come to the same conclusion)

Oddly the main supporter of post-war missile/rocket development in the US was Curtiss LeMay, (as head of R&D Command at the time) but once assigned to SAC he pushed bombers for the obvious reason.

Randy

 

[1635yankee]

Some seem to forget that the liquid-fueled rocket wasn't invented in Germany; it was invented in Massachusetts, by a gentleman by the name of Robert Goddard. The V-2 was just an extension of rocket artillery, a concept that predated WW2 -- and Germany -- by more than a few years.

The concept of wing sweep was well-known before WW2 (see: Fifth Volta Conference). Robert Jones was working on analysis of swept-wings with subsonic leading edges during the war, but was directed to more immediately applicable work(swept wings with supersonic leading edges were actually worked on earlier).

Net result? Nil, except that a few nazi war criminals don't get jobs in the US.

 

[riggerrob]

Without V2, the rest of the world would not bother with liquid-fueled rockets for another few decades.
A simple point of departure is too many liquid-fueled rockets exploding during testing and Adolf Hitler dismissing them as "Jewish science." Ideally, a rocket test explosion kills Hitler or Goering before 1939.
Late war Hitler orders un-used naval guns be fired at Allied transportation hubs. That destruction reaffirms faith in ultra-heavy siege artillery.

Armies still field rockets with solid fuel (Katusha and bazooka) but acknowledge their inaccuracy.
After British operational research teams conclude that rockets fired from Typhoons rarely hit Panzers, air force use of rockets is down-played. USAF fighters retain guns all the way through the Vietnam War and kill more Migs during the early phases.

OTL USAF and USN fighters fired plenty of missiles at NVAF Migs, but they were terribly unreliable.

 

[1635yankee]

Without V2, the rest of the world would not bother with liquid-fueled rockets for another few decades.
A simple point of departure is too many liquid-fueled rockets exploding during testing and Adolf Hitler dismissing them as "Jewish science." Ideally, a rocket test explosion kills Hitler or Goering before 1939.
Late war Hitler orders un-used naval guns be fired at Allied transportation hubs. That destruction reaffirms faith in ultra-heavy siege artillery.

Armies still field rockets with solid fuel (Katusha and bazooka) but acknowledge their inaccuracy.
After British operational research teams conclude that rockets fired from Typhoons rarely hit Panzers, air force use of rockets is down-played. USAF fighters retain guns all the way through the Vietnam War and kill more Migs during the early phases.

OTL USAF and USN fighters fired plenty of missiles at NVAF Migs, but they were terribly unreliable.

Which transportation hubs? Most of the critical ones were a bit outside of the range of any kind of conventional artillery and by the time Allied transportation hubs came within range of converted naval guns, the Germans had so much damage to their ground transport infrastructure that they couldn't deploy railroad artillery. That technology existed during WW1, where even the heaviest artillery had no significant effect on transportation hubs.

During WW2, the US initiated development of a radar-guided weapon (the Bat) in early 1941, and at roughly the same time it funded development of glide bombs (GB-1). There was also the early Interstate TDR, and the late war JB-3 Tiamat air-air missile.

I stand by my conclusion: no net effect on history. Just because the Germans didn't do something doesn't mean that nobody else could think of it.

 

[Siberia]

Events came to a head in 1962 when U2 recce photos showed a Kruppsupergun under construction on Cuba.

Maybe I'm missing something but why would they build super heavy artillery? Surely they'd be better off stationing bombers in Cuba since they would have a longer operational range and be more mobile.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Arguably, a well built and defended supergun complex would require less overall support infrastructure & associated long term expenditure. Not to mention you wouldn't be always able to guarantee to have bombers ready for deployment from such forward bases in Cuba when you need them. Reaction time / time to target would likely be yet another consideration, especially given that any available supersonic bombers during this period, whether strategic or otherwise, would probably be reserved for deployment from the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations.

 

[riggerrob]

POD 1962, one of Dr. Gerald Bull's "superguns" was being shipped to the HARP Range in Barabados when it was hijacked by the Cuban Navy and installed in a Cuban tunnel. Whether Bull was involved with the Cuban project was never entirely clear ... especially after he fell out of favour with the Canadian Government.

 

[Wirbelwind]

Boring but accurate answer: not much changes because V-2 was special as a scientific achievement and laughable as a effective weapon. The concept of "unmanned rocket powered airplane that carries a bomb" is quite a simple one and is a logical development of the several other early cruise missile analogs, people were kicking around with the concept since literally 1917. It would have the benefit of preventing some Nazis from getting jobs postwar and preventing a bunch of werhby nonsense.

Fun answer: superguns and nuclear powered bombers.