Hitler orders advanced intercontinental bomber projects into production to carry on his war plan for attacking Manhattan

Dilandu said:
Well, I calculated a bit... A Blohm & Voss BV.222 V1 flying boat have a range of about 6000 km with 4 tons of load. Its fuel capacity was about 3450 litres of aircraft fuel per engine - circa 15,7 tons.

So... four BV.222 flying boats, flying on 3000 km range, could carry enough fuel to completely refuel the fifth one, and return back.

Let's imagine nine BV.222 raid on New York. Eight boats are tankers, loaded only with fuel. The ninth one is the bomber. Five boats (four tankers and bomber) took off from Brest, fly Mid-Atlantic, land. The bomber is refueled. Empty tankers fly back to Brest.

Bomber came to North America, drop bombs on New York, and retreat to arranged rendezvous point. The second flight of four tankers took off, use radio navigation beacon of bomber to find it, and refuel it for return flight. All five boats returns to Brest.

Complicated, but seems somewhat possible... if enough BV.222 could be gathered.
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This was part of the plan I devised, but it works a bit differently.

The BV 222 are assembled at some point and made capable of carrying a bomb load of some significance. The target isn't New York City but rather Chicago and the area around it.
The Germans fit one of the Milch Cow U-boats to carry avgas and make it so the boat can refuel the seaplanes. This boat, in company with a regular U-boat go to a point off Greenland where they act both as a refueling point and weather ship. The BV 222 are loaded and flown to Norway. They then fly during a period of good weather to Greenland where they land in a secluded bay (this might also be changed to northern Canada) and are refueled and serviced.
The planes then take off and fly across Canada such as to arrive over Chicago either shortly after sunrise, or shortly before nightfall. I think the later would be preferable. The planes then bomb targets of opportunity in the Chicago area-- or things like known steel mills in Indiana-- before turning north again to fly back to Greenland. They refuel a second time there and then return to Norway.
The U-boats can help with navigation of the boats coming and going. Using frequencies of radio and equipment that is fairly directional, they can avoid detection by Allied naval forces. By keeping communications to a minimum prior to the mission, the Allies don't get any real heads up on what the German plan is.
Another advantage is unlike the East Coast of the US, the Chicago area is not blacked out to any extent. The lights of cities and towns show up very clearly and can be used as navigation aids for the planes. Also, unlike Long Island, Chicago isn't a heavily defended nest of resistance so surprise can be achieved easier.
 
Dilandu said:
Well, I calculated a bit... A Blohm & Voss BV.222 V1 flying boat have a range of about 6000 km with 4 tons of load. Its fuel capacity was about 3450 litres of aircraft fuel per engine - circa 15,7 tons.

So... four BV.222 flying boats, flying on 3000 km range, could carry enough fuel to completely refuel the fifth one, and return back.

Let's imagine nine BV.222 raid on New York. Eight boats are tankers, loaded only with fuel. The ninth one is the bomber. Five boats (four tankers and bomber) took off from Brest, fly Mid-Atlantic, land. The bomber is refueled. Empty tankers fly back to Brest.

Bomber came to North America, drop bombs on New York, and retreat to arranged rendezvous point. The second flight of four tankers took off, use radio navigation beacon of bomber to find it, and refuel it for return flight. All five boats returns to Brest.

Complicated, but seems somewhat possible... if enough BV.222 could be gathered.
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How do you say "Black Buck" in German ? ;)
 
Seems like an awful lot of effort and resources to deprive the United States of a Maceys (if they're lucky).
 
....and they are going to hit it, first time? Consider me incredulous. The fact remains it is a waste of resources for a strategic pinprick. By the time a suitable platform is available to the Germans, a reverse Doolittle Raid is monumentally academic.
 
Opportunistic Minnow said:
....and they are going to hit it, first time? Consider me incredulous. The fact remains it is a waste of resources for a strategic pinprick. By the time a suitable platform is available to the Germans, a reverse Doolittle Raid is monumentally academic.
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Sorry you feel this way. I suppose a few one ton bombs hitting a few skyscrapers does not count.

Meanwhile, at the London Stock Exchange:

www.nytimes.com

ROBOT RAIDS CURB TRADING IN LONDON; Exchange Floor Cleared When Bombs Appear, but Deals Are Made in Street CHEERFUL TONE IN MARKET War News Causes Expansion of Business, With Industrial Shares the Most Active ROBOT RAIDS CURB TRADING IN LONDON (Publi

Market reaction to war news
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
 
Since you mention London, "a few one ton bombs" wouldn't likely get my lot out of bed by that stage of the war. I have no cause to believe New Yorkers are particularly less hardy than Londoners. Assuming the bombers make the coast, let alone find the city, avoid getting bounced, everything works after a long cold-soak.....New York is just a bit further afield than Tangmere, say....
 
What's this obsession with Wall Street?

The City of London was bombed multiple times and the Stock Exchange was only shut for two days throughout the entire war (4 incendiaries and one nearby V-2) [edit - actually the second day was only partially shut as they used the basement - take that V-2!]. They just did more business on the telephone - something the US wasn't short of.
 
Hood said:
What's this obsession with Wall Street?

The City of London was bombed multiple times and the Stock Exchange was only shut for two days throughout the entire war (4 incendiaries and one nearby V-2). They just did more business on the telephone - something the US wasn't short of.
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Hitler falsely claimed that Wall Street and other big banks in the US were controlled by Jews.
 
Hood said:
What's this obsession with Wall Street?

The City of London was bombed multiple times and the Stock Exchange was only shut for two days throughout the entire war (4 incendiaries and one nearby V-2). They just did more business on the telephone - something the US wasn't short of.
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You don't know? The Great Depression, which spread to Europe, was caused by bankers - international bankers. Hitler promised the people jobs and no more money to the French. He was going to tidy things up in Europe. The thinking that this could only be a raid carried out by the appearance of nearby aircraft goes unexamined here. He 111s air-launched V-1s. Such stand-off weapons could be effective. Along with the V-3 weapon mentioned above.
 
There was never any effort to cripple or destroy Britain's mercantile and financial centre that was just as critical as Wall Street. The only concerted efforts at financial ruin was the wholesale robbery of national banks of overrun nations.

Hitler raved about a lot of stuff in between chewing carpets, doesn't mean it was a rational Luftwaffe list of bomb targets.

What He 111 has the range to cross the Atlantic lugging a couple of V-1s?
What V-3? Are you going to float the Hochdruckpumpe at Mimoyecques into mid-Atlantic or something?
 
Hood said:
There was never any effort to cripple or destroy Britain's mercantile and financial centre that was just as critical as Wall Street. The only concerted efforts at financial ruin was the wholesale robbery of national banks of overrun nations.

Hitler raved about a lot of stuff in between chewing carpets, doesn't mean it was a rational Luftwaffe list of bomb targets.

What He 111 has the range to cross the Atlantic lugging a couple of V-1s?
What V-3? Are you going to float the Hochdruckpumpe at Mimoyecques into mid-Atlantic or something?
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You obviously don't read my posts. V-3 was not the high-pressure pump but an American designation.
 
edwest2 said:
You obviously don't read my posts. V-3 was not the high-pressure pump but an American designation.
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I read it. It's journalistic invention. There was no German ICBM in December 1944.
 
Hood said:
edwest2 said:
You obviously don't read my posts. V-3 was not the high-pressure pump but an American designation.
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I read it. It's journalistic invention. There was no German ICBM in December 1944.
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The U.S. Air Force microfilm reference I quoted and the CIOS Report don't convince you? I hope you will understand that I will no longer reply to you about this topic.
 
You posted a link to a paywalled scan of a New York Times story on December 3 1944 - which judging by the tiny preview image it is about two paragraphs totalling eighteen sentences long. It's not even a frontpage headline but looks to be tucked inside on a page that's mostly fashion advertising.

I have no idea what USAF Microfilm Reel 43811 contains. Presumably by the date it contains a copy of the above newspaper clipping?

I'm sorry but as an historian I need far more concrete evidence the New York Times story was based on any factual evidence and the fact the USAAF may have taken a cutting of this story is less than stellar intelligence work on their part.
Unless you're implying at the USAAF was drip-feeding top secret CIOS reports to the New York Times? And again that would need evidence.

[and this discussion seems rather reminiscent to this - https://www.forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=103144 and it seems nobody brought the argument there 16 years ago either]
 
Dilandu said:
T. A. Gardner said:
The planes then bomb targets of opportunity in the Chicago area-- or things like known steel mills in Indiana
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Hm. The main problem would be to find such objects at night.
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That wouldn't be a huge problem given the targets and navigation points using towns or cities would be lit up as in peacetime since the US had no reason to impose blackouts on cities.
 
Who's fighting? As was pointed out, a similar discussion occurred on the Axis History Forum over a decade and a half ago. No historians bothered to look? I don't have a scanner.
 
edwest2 said:
Sorry you feel this way. I suppose a few one ton bombs hitting a few skyscrapers does not count.
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A few bombs, dropped from high altitude level bomber with rather poor bombsights, and most likely at night. Frankly, I put more faith in the ability of 1918's trans-atlantic Zeppelin raider to blast Wall Street into rubble. Zeppelins at least could hover, and - when not bothered with ground guns or fighters - could bomb with impressive accuracy.

And Germans did not have neither radar bombsight, nor general-purpose guided munition to use.
 
Hood said:
What's this obsession with Wall Street?
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Well, Nazi propaganda was that US is nation of "bankers and moneylenders", and Hitler seems to be at least semi-believing (hard to tell for sure about madman) that if he threatened to destroy their banks and exchanges, they would be too scared to continue the war. Detached from reality? Obvious, but frankly, nearly everything Germany done from 1939 to 1945 was detached from reality to various degree.
 
Hood said:
What V-3? Are you going to float the Hochdruckpumpe at Mimoyecques into mid-Atlantic or something?
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No, the Allies did not exactly knew that multi-chambered strategic gun is V-3. They thought that V-3 is some kind of new long-range missile - which was more consistent with V-1 as flying bomb and V-2 as ballistic missile.

If I recall correctly, a lot of rumors about the possible existence of some long-range German missile were based on the results of 1944s exploration of captured German missile base La Coupole in Pa-de-Calais. The exits through which loaded V-2 missiles were supposed to be transported to the launch pads were much bigger than V-2 missile itself. The natural assumption was, of course, that they were prepared for some other, bigger weapon - and since Nazi propaganda threatened to use "secret weapons" against America too, it was assumed that Germans worked on some kind of intercontinental missile, half as big and twice as heavy as V-2.
 
Dilandu said:
edwest2 said:
Sorry you feel this way. I suppose a few one ton bombs hitting a few skyscrapers does not count.
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A few bombs, dropped from high altitude level bomber with rather poor bombsights, and most likely at night. Frankly, I put more faith in the ability of 1918's trans-atlantic Zeppelin raider to blast Wall Street into rubble.
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Hmmm... Ol' LZ130 scuttling/self-immolating herself over New York would likely cause far more havoc than this notional raid. It still wouldn't affect the course of the war one iota. The idea you could force a nation to the negotiation table by bombarding it's cities for a protracted period had been proven demonstrably false before the Me-264 ever flew. One night over New York (and they are only going to get one night - if that) isn't going to weaken resolves but redouble them.

Does anyone know what the MTBF of a BMW 801 is by the end of '44? Early '45? One cough and the loss of a thousand feet or so and it's a harrowing abort or a swim. Do these hapless aviators get some training flights beforehand or are they expected to navigate the Atlantic first time? I know the lights of Broadway shine bright but you can't follow them all the way across. There is no magenta line in the 1940s!

This whole concept smacks of naivete. Even if the Luftwaffe are wildly successful, all they achieve is to egg the US's front door. While the avalanche falls about them regardless.
 
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Opportunistic Minnow said:
Hmmm... Ol' LZ130 scuttling/self-immolating herself over New York would likely cause far more havoc than this notional raid.
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Well, I meant the 1918 planned raid of L-70 type "high climber" zeppelin on New York or Boston. Imperial Germany put a lot of thinking into the very careful preparations, but run out of time.
 
Dilandu said:
Opportunistic Minnow said:
Hmmm... Ol' LZ130 scuttling/self-immolating herself over New York would likely cause far more havoc than this notional raid.
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Well, I meant the 1918 planned raid of L-70 type "high climber" zeppelin on New York or Boston. Imperial Germany put a lot of thinking into the very careful preparations, but run out of time.
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Oh, I know. Your post lead me to muse on Zeppelins and everytime that happens, Hindenburg comes up.
 
The BV 222 are assembled at some point and made capable of carrying a bomb load of some significance. The target isn't New York City but rather Chicago and the area around it Meanwhile, in the UJS General Marshall says "We'll see your BV-222 and raise you a couple B-29 squadrons"
BTW, I lived in the steel mill belt sojuthj of Chicago back in the day, and believe me, the bombers would have no trouble finding steel mills at night. They lit up the sky for miles around.
 
Just thought about it... Graz Zeppelin II with Me-262 hanged underneath. Slow cruise across the Atlantic, as airships excel to do; and then release the Me-262 to play havoc over New York.

Half-joking of course !
 
Dilandu said:
newsdeskdan said:
Firstly, and oddly, the Germans don't seem to have known exactly how far it was from the west coast of France to Manhatten.
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Maybe Germans were worried that airfields in Western France would be too vulnerable to attacks?
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Notwithstanding the general implausibility of such a raid achieving very much, and the lack of any aircraft capable of carrying it out...

The great circle route from western France to the eastern United States would overfly Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, substantially reducing the likelihood of surprise and increasing opportunity for attack. In fact, the great circle route from Mont de Marsan to New York passes within 40km of Boston!

With a strike radius of 6500km, it's possible to fly from Mont de Marsan to a point about 700km off the US east coast, then turn to hit cities as far north as Boston, or as far south as Norfolk, with minimal overflight.
 
Archibald said:
Just thought about it... Graz Zeppelin II with Me-262 hanged underneath. Slow cruise across the Atlantic, as airships excel to do; and then release the Me-262 to play havoc over New York.

Half-joking of course !
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But what happens when the first 262 lights its engines and ignites all that hydrogen?
 
My opinion can best be summed up by the following:

QUESTION: Is Nazi Germany technically capable of designing and constructing a heavy bomber able to reach the US Eastern Seaboard with a significant bomb-load and return to its base in Occupied France?

ANSWER: Yes.

QUESTION: Given its other obligations on land, sea and the air, can it build and maintain enough of them to have any significant material effect on the war?

ANSWER: No.
 
pathology_doc said:
My opinion can best be summed up by the following:

QUESTION: Is Nazi Germany technically capable of designing and constructing a heavy bomber able to reach the US Eastern Seaboard with a significant bomb-load and return to its base in Occupied France?

ANSWER: Yes.

QUESTION: Given its other obligations on land, sea and the air, can it build and maintain enough of them to have any significant material effect on the war?

ANSWER: No.
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Add this:

QUESTION: Was the German aircraft industry capable of serial production of such an aircraft on a scale that was militarily useful?

ANSWER: No.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
pathology_doc said:
My opinion can best be summed up by the following:

QUESTION: Is Nazi Germany technically capable of designing and constructing a heavy bomber able to reach the US Eastern Seaboard with a significant bomb-load and return to its base in Occupied France?

ANSWER: Yes.

QUESTION: Given its other obligations on land, sea and the air, can it build and maintain enough of them to have any significant material effect on the war?

ANSWER: No.
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Add this:

QUESTION: Was the German aircraft industry capable of serial production of such an aircraft on a scale that was militarily useful?

ANSWER: No.
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Your question is basically my second question rephrased.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
QUESTION: Was the German aircraft industry capable of serial production of such an aircraft on a scale that was militarily useful?
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To clarify - German aircraft industry have enough problems with even prototypes. A lot of experience was lost in 1930s, when little interest was paid to heavy bombers. If I recall correctly, even developing something like chassis for heavy bomber suddenly turned into a problem.
 
Dilandu said:
A lot of experience was lost in 1930s
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yeah that Issue the rowdy little Austrian had with Jews
Allot Jews suddenly were without Job, then later hunted down and exterminated.
Those who fled The Third Reich offers there skill to the British and US war Effort

One of then Abraham Wald notice the USAAF their evaluations of Aircraft armour is terrible wrong.
That their analyst was on surviving aircraft, not the shot down, They modified the armour on Bombers.
Herman Göring not even interested on evaluations of Luftwaffe Aircraft armour...


While Nazis forbid use of "Jewish science"because of this
Weizsäcker beliefen that working Atomic Bomb needed around 50 ton Uranium to work.
in mean time were Jewish scientist in US cooking plutonium for first Atomic Bomb prototypes...
 
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Michel Van said:
yeah that Issue the rowdy little Austrian had with Jews
Allot Jews suddenly were without Job, then later hunted down and exterminated.
Those who fled The Third Reich offers there skill to the British and US war Effort
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Not only that, but the usual Nazi approach to managing anything was incredibly chaotic and inefficient. They distrusted intellectuals and any methodical work, instead idolizing the "genius insight" that "supermen" were supposed to produce on demand. They put in charge of engineering groups military officers with little to no technical experience, and pushed young, inexperienced engineers far above their competence. And, of course, Nazi with their "survival of the strongest" ideology just LOVED competition; they constantly put engineering groups against each other, causing useless waste of time and resources. Basically, the further the whole things went, the more chaotic and inefficient everything in Germany become.
 
Dilandu said:
T. A. Gardner said:
QUESTION: Was the German aircraft industry capable of serial production of such an aircraft on a scale that was militarily useful?
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To clarify - German aircraft industry have enough problems with even prototypes. A lot of experience was lost in 1930s, when little interest was paid to heavy bombers. If I recall correctly, even developing something like chassis for heavy bomber suddenly turned into a problem.
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If you look at similar planes Germany did try to produce, the numbers are always miniscule. The He 177, a rough equivalent of a B-17, B-24, or Lancaster bomber in complexity was being produced at a rate of about 1 a day at the most. For the Ju 290 it was about 1 a week at most. Something on the scale of the B-29--less some of the systems like the very complex fire controls--or B-32 would result in at most about one or two planes a week, maybe a bit more if the program were really being pushed.

What would really kill the program is every plane would be essentially a hand-built one-off with modifications being introduced with each new one on the line.
 

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