B-29 Bomber, 5 surprising facts you're not likely aware of.
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- Опубликовано: 6 авг 2022
- Enclosed are 5 surprising facts of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. The facts are related to its operation during WWII including, B-29 kill Ratio, Firebomb damage vs. Atomic bomb damage, 210 B-29s could have produced the same damage as the atomic bomb, B-29s pressurization system.
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B-29 Bomber Gunnery Video:
ruclips.net/video/vwNPJgNEyMU/видео.html
B-29 Bomber Bombardier/Gunner Video:
ruclips.net/video/ltPYQfF2Oac/видео.html
B-29 5 Fascinating facts Video:
ruclips.net/video/ZuroPXzrUDg/видео.html
B-29 Bomber’s Tail Gunner Station Video:
ruclips.net/video/ltPYQfF2Oac/видео.html
B-17 vs. B-29 WWII Gunner Kill Ratios Video:
ruclips.net/video/jSwB1Mxaung/видео.html
B-29 Tail Gunner’s Radar Video:
ruclips.net/video/l-39wbSe_0k/видео.html
The guy who runs this channel is one of the most well-read RUclipsrs out there.
Being a tailgunner means not having to share your guns with anyone else.
Great stuff! Looking forward to your video series on the B-29's mind blowing true Fly By Wire gun laying system, way beyond just "remote control", the reason for its amazing kill ratio. The gunner told a central computer where the target was by aiming and tracking, and the central computer made calculations and aimed the guns where IT decided they needed to be aimed. Analog communication between sight, computer, and turrets by Selsyn synchros. Output was computed and never exactly the same as the input, making it a true Fly By Wire system 10 years before the concept was even experimented with for flight controls.
When the Russians "copied" the B-29s that had landed damaged on their territory they did it rivet by rivet but didn't even try to duplicate the remote gun system.
The air to air kill ratio is astonishing! Those remote turrets and advanced sighting system were an amazing design. It's especially interesting because ALL of the planes it shot down where fighters, while the P-51 was shooting down all types of aircraft rather than exclusively fighters. I hear they even shot down some jets in Korea.
The central fire control system worked great against Japanese interceptors during WWII, but not so well against enemy jet fighters during the Korean War. The gun systems were never recalibrated to handle the higher speeds of enemy jet fighters, which is why several B-29's were shot down by Russian Mig 15 jet fighters.
Another fine video. I’ve been an amateur aviation history buff for 50 years and I had thought that everything had already been said about the US bombing effort in WWII. Then, out of nowhere, you come forward with a fresh take on it that ties everything together and presents new data. Superb stuff, man.
The B29 program was the costliest US military project (cost to GDP ratio) in history. It cost more than the entire Manhattan Project.
The cost of a B-29 was almost three times that of a B-17, but it flew nearly three times as far while carrying three times the payload.
@@AndrewBlacker-wr2ve Yes. But what if the bombs were ready earlier and Britain had a Little Boy? Would you recommend a Lancaster for a mission to hit Berlin or some other German target?
@@AndrewBlacker-wr2ve after much of the Luftwaffe had been decimated, maybe a day raid? Throw in a couple escorts, mount a few decoy raids? Just wondering.
@@AndrewBlacker-wr2ve good points* But plenty of hindsight built in. Originally, I think the plan was for simultaneous drops on both Germany and Japan. With Churchill still in power, a drop on Germany was not inconceivable. IF, it’s only an if, the bomb was ready earlier, Britain had more of a role in deployment, and who knows, maybe Dresden hadn’t been torched yet.
@@orcstr8d if possibly being shot down or accidental detonation over friendly territory didn’t matter and loss of the crew after release was acceptable.
Even re-engined and stripped down a Lancaster would not have been able to reach 30,000+ feet or the speed necessary at that altitude, while carrying fuel and JUST the 9700 pound Little Boy. No radar, no monitoring equipment, etc.
After release it would not have been able to get far enough away for the aircraft to survive the shockwave. The “SilverPlate” B-29’s barely made it.
Additionally, no access to the bomb bay means no way to prime the device post takeoff.
The Lancaster being mentioned as an “option” was an error of gross ignorance by someone only considering the length of its bomb bay and the length of the original design of the gun-type device. Redesign of the device meant that the one and only B-29 that had been modified for testing, to make its two bomb bays one longer bomb bay, was returned to its original two bomb bay design.
Fun fact, in the development of another WW2 icon, the Spitfire, also care was taken to ensure a slippery surface. However, ease of construction was also considered. If I remember correctly, the prototype Spitfire was flush riveted. Somwhere in the stage of testing split pea's were glued over the flush rivets to test the effect of dome headed rivets on aerodynamic drag. By progressively removing those pea's, they were able to determine the optimum mix between drag and ease of construction
Flush rivits are really only necessary on the front 1/3 or so of the plane. Beyond that, they're in the boundary layer and don't make much of a difference. Many Russian jets are still built this way.
Cool!
My paternal grandfather perished in one of these in 1951. The bailout procedure was to go out the bomb bay because he was in the rear gunners station. Unfortunately it was a training flight and according to the accident report one of the junior enlisted, first to bail out, pulled his chute too soon which then trapped everyone behind it.
I've got a ton of interesting paperwork and pictures from his service in WWII as a gunner (A-20s and B-25s in the Pacific), then the 50s air force. In addition I also have the accident report. If you're interested in any of this let me know.
Another 10/10! It's not just that you present information but it is organized in the best way possible for understanding. Thanks again.
Awesome, thank you!
you make the best videos on RUclips. I am not joking... I learn so much. Thank you for what you do.
Wow, thank you!
Incredible engineering, even after all these years. But it’s also pretty grim. They were used later to absolutely devastate North Korea. By the end of the war people were forced to live in caves.
You mean North Korea forced its citizens to live im caves. Probably still does.
B-29 didn't do so well against Mig-15s. They required fighter escorts.
Great information. Thanks.
A "Hemisphere Defence Weapon" with a "shirt-sleeve working environment", gotta love the B29.
I honestly never realized a B-24 was as big as a B-17, until I saw that chart. B-29's are cool.
Morethan 900 B-29s? That is insane. I never realized it was so mass produced.
What’s even more insane from that graph is out of 1654 B-29s built during ww2 only 73 were shot down by Japanese fighters. While the RAF had 95 bombers shot down in just one night on 30st / 31st March 1944 on just one mission over Nuremberg, Germany.
Great quality video!
Very detailed information 👍
Great stuff!
5:14 Another surprising fact is, out of the 1654 B-29s built during ww2 only 73 were shot down by Japanese fighters. To put this into context the RAF had 95 bombers shot down in just one night on the 30st / 31st March 1944 on just one mission over Nuremberg, Germany.
always great information.....well done
That B-29 was an amazing plane.
I worked with someone who was a pilot of B29’s in the Atomic Squadron. When they practiced the escape maneuvers that they would have to do after dropping an atomic bomb afterwards the engines would be replaced. Many times, after just one flight.
Would love to see some videos on the B-36. I know it wasn't WW2 per se, but designed and such during WW2 from lessons learned. Cheers brother! Thanks for great videos. I've learned tons.
One of my late uncle (on dad's side) was a tail gunner on a B-29 during the Pacific Theater.
EXCELLENT
OUTSTANDING 🇺🇸
Wow, thank you, I'd been wondering about the B-29 becoming unpressurised in combat conditions.
It would be interesting to know when the decision would be taken, and how it all happened. Did they have a radius of action planned, and let the air out?
It is said, mes amis, that sometime after the first B-29 aeroplatform did a low level recon-mission o'er Tokyo, the Empress Nagako (the wife of Emperor Hirohito), wrote in a letter:
“Every day from morning to night, B-29's fly freely over the palace making an enormous noise. As I sit at my desk writing and look up at the sky, countless numbers are passing over. Unfortunately... the B-29 is a splendid plane.”
Not taking issue with the stats but considering a different point of view..... Stating that only 210 B29s with conventional loads could inflict the same damage done by the atomic bomb over Hiroshima is an interesting way to look at it. The converse is how many crews would you risk on such a mission, lose the element of surprise by such a large formation and the cost to other bombing operations. Since the purpose of war and combat is to inflict losses on the enemy with the least risk and cost to your side, I would proffer to consider how much damage could be done by the 210 B29s equipped with Atomic bombs.
Robb, interestingly, in the case of Nagasaki, any surprise intent was ruined. By the time the nuclear bombs were available, Japan had almost no fuel or capable fighter pilots, so they had pretty much stopped trying to attack the B-29's. Their ground-based anti-aircraft guns were pretty ineffective. As the nuclear bombs were complex and very new technology, the USAAF regarded it critical to get good photos of the bomb going off, the mushroom cloud, and the damage done. So their sent two B-29's, one to drop the bomb and clear out quick before it went off, and the other, carrying no load, to take photos from safe distances. The bomb B-29 arrived over the target on schedule but there was no sign of the camera plane. So the bomb plane flew around in circles for a couple of hours, waiting. Eventually the Japanese decided to dispatch a fighter plane from another city, but the bomb B-29 got critically low on fuel, so they dropped the bomb anyway and cleared out. When they got back to base, they got emergency clearance to fly straight in, but the engines cut out from lack of fuel while they were rolling down the runway - that's how fine they cut it.
This mix up meant they had to drop the bomb through cloud immediately the captain made the decision, which is why they were quite away from the intended target point. This targeting error (over a mile) has been cited by certain ignorant authors and RUclipsrs as evidence that the Norden bombsight was a useless scam, but that is not so.
I don't actually think surprise arrival of the B-29 was needed or intended. From the USAAF point of view, it was good that the Japanese would be well aware that ONE B-29 could now destroy an entire city area with just one bomb.
@@keithammleter3824 and the Russians. Also it should be noted that the USA only had two atom bombs. It would be years before they had 200.
@@jeremypnet : True. The Russians would have known the US had only 2 bombs though, via their British scientist mole who was cleared to work in the US wartime nuclear weapon project.
Actually, the Manhattan Project scientist had enough material to make one more atomic bomb by wars end. That never came to pass because the Japanese surrendered unconditionally.
@@jimfinlaw4537and had the capability to produce 2 more per month, the next two being available sometimes (reports of exact timetable vary) in the fall.
good stuff
Fascinating machine...greets from Germany :)
great video, wondering where all that footage from the 29 turrets?
The air to air kill ratio is astonishing! Those remote turrets and advanced sighting system were an amazing design. It's especially interesting because ALL of the planes it shot down where fighters, while the P-51 was shooting down all types of aircraft rather than exclusively fighters. I hear they even shot down some jets in Korea.
My next video presentation will be focused on the B29 gun system
Always like vids on the B 36. Technically a WWII design.
This has become my favorite world War II aviation channel..
I liked this.
The surprising fact about the B-29 that I can't get over is that Boeing spent more money developing the B-29 than the cost of developing the atomic bomb. Just how? It combines a number of features and technologies that hadn't been combined before, but I don't think there's any new tech on it.
Not so - you are totally wrong. The idea of the B-29 cost more to develop than the atomic bomb is a modern urban myth. The $3 billion was the all up cost to mass produce close to 4,000 aircraft as well as the design/development & prototyping cost. The design/development/prototyping cost was only about $0.5 billion (at least that's what Boeing charged the US Govt plus what the USAAF spent on evaluation).
As the Manhattan project produced only 3 bombs (one used as a test prototype and 2 dropped on Japan), the Manhattan project costs were virtually all research, design, and development - an entirely different situation.
The 29 had number of problems that took a lot of man-hours to sort out. Like any new plane.
@@orbitalair2103 : It certainly did. Not $2.5 billion worth of problems though.
@@keithammleter3824 Production of the Plutonium and enriched uranium were colossally expensive and responsible for most of the expense. They allegedly had more bombs in theatre when the war ended (at least one), and were ramping up to produce 3 to 5 bombs a month.
@@blurglide : Actually, if you read up on the Manhattan Project, you'll find that they made only 3 bombs: One Little Boy type they let off in the Nevada desert to verify it would work, a second Little Boy type that they dropped on Hiroshima Naval Base, and a Fat Man type that they dropped on Nagasaki. They had made nearly enough plutonium to make another (4th) Fat Man type bomb. That was it.
After the war they began another programme to make more weapons to keep up with Russia, and there was a technical breakthrough in the early 1950's that allowed them to increase the yield (the Little Boys were pretty inefficient) and make warheads small enough and cheap enough to be fired out of field guns.
To ramp up production to 3 to 5 bombs a month if Japan had not surrendered would have been completely impossible - with the knowhow they had then, it would have required about 35 to 60 Manhattan Projects and 15 to 30 billion US dollars, roughly one seventh of the USA's entire GDP at the time.
Thank you for putting the atomic bombs in perspective. Or putting the firebombs* in perspective!
11:1 kill ratio! WOW! 'MERICA! F* YEAH! That's phenomenal for a bomber!!
Any chance of a video about B-29 performance in the Korean War?
There's a great walk around of the 'Doc' B-29 on Erik Johnston's RUclips channel.
Do you think the quality (or lack there of) of Japanese pilots at that stage of the war affected the air to air lethality of the B-29?
Probably not that much, engagements with B29's weren't maneuvering fight's like against another fighter where experience makes all the difference, instead they were attack runs on an aircraft that was flying along straight and level where the experience of veteran dogfighting pilots wouldn't have any kind of advantage over a replacement pilot.
They weren't flying against another pilot where the name of the game was out maneuvering him and getting behind him, they were flying against the analog fire control computer where all the dogfighting experience in the world wasn't going to help you.
Late war Japanese planes were of poor quality and they were short on gas. They had lost all there experienced pilots but so had the Germans.
@@dukecraig2402 Did'nt B 29s have radar directed 20 mm rear turret. They were also pretty fast. Originally a high altitude bomber, Lemay converted them to low level bombing.
The B-29 was upgraded to the B-50. Boeing also proposed the XB-54 Ultrafortress. A stretched fuselage, taller tail, increased wingspan and other upgrades. The USAF ordered some but the order was cancelled before construction could begin.
they dumped that design in favor of something called the B52…
Don’t forget the people on the atomic targets were not in air raid shelters as single planes weren’t a threat. If they saw 210+ bombers they’d have run to shelters reducing the effects of conventional or fire bombing.
Their area would still be burnt and destroyed but casualties vastly reduced so until they realised to run if any plane came each target city hit by atomic bombs would yield high casualties if not damaged previously by normal raids.
For more information on the Moral, Political and Strategic justification behind the devastating bombing of Japan watch Earl Morris' award winning documentary: "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara". McNamara was an Officer in Gen. Curtis Lemay's command and was "a part of the mechanism" that planned and directed the attacks. There is so much in this movie I can't begin to describe it, but anyone watching these videos (and reading this Comment) would likely be fascinated. I've probably watched it a dozen times.
The guns on the b29. Was run by 4 separate analog computers that weigh 50 pounds each. Each in its own armored box.
Although as far as physical destruction is concern 210 B-29 bombers might have equalled one atomic bomb it is probably inaccurate to conclude that they would have inflicted that same number of casualties. First of all, the atom bomb was new to warfare so the Japanese had no way to prepare for an explosion of that magnitude. Secondly, thousands of bombs does not equal one gigantic explosion. It is possible for the residents of Hiroshima to find refuge in a multitude of shelters when the attack consists of 210 planes carpet bombing thousands of bombs the same can not be said when the challenge consists of one bomber dropping one powerful bomb.
Conventional vs Atomic. 210 v 1. That's efficiency for you.
This puts a little different view on our dropping the nuclear bombs. The B-29s with conventional bombs could have delivered the same blow but with possibly less psychological impact, possibly allowing the was to continue even longer.
Wow! Only 210.
easy to have a higher kill rate when you’re facing green, barely trained pilots while the one you’re compared to faced battle-hardened pilots
👍👍👍👊👊
Do B24
I wonder what flush rivets would have done to improve the B17's performance?
Not much - perhaps not even measurable. The B-17 was much slower, so the boundary layer (still air next to surfaces) was thicker, covering rivet heads. The B-17 had lots of holes and protuberances (guns) adding lots of drag. And its wheel did not fully retract.
Flush rivets go back before the B-17. If flush rivets would have made a noticeable difference, Boeing would have used them, given that the B-17 was a no-expense-spared military plane.
The DC3/C-47 and other large planes of similar vintage and speeds did not use flush rivets for the same reason, even when they didn't have guns and gun turrets sticking out.
There's a youtube comparison somewhere between the F6F Hellcat and F4U Corsair, same engine. The Corsair used flush riveting and a lot of other expensive tricks to get maximum performance, and cost 2-3 times as much. One of the Hellcat's design goals was the big wing for maneuverability and ease of landing on carriers, at the expense of speed. I don't remember much of the details now, other than trivia like the Hellcat did use some flush riveting in the most important areas. Might be worth trying to find that video again.
@@grizwoldphantasia5005 The F4U did not use rivets - it was welded. The F6F had a 1600 kW engine and could reach 629 km/hr. The F4U had a 1770 kW engine and could reach 717 km/hr. So it looks like a 10% increase in engine power gave a 14% increase in speed. But that's not comparing apples with apples. There are many other small differences - eg a dog leg in the F4U wing near the fuselage was found to reduce drag significantly, by being radial and thus not compressing air against the fuselage.
Howard Hughes famously had a racing plane in which he had the standard rivets replaced with flush rivets. It would be good to know what difference it made, but I was unable to find a source.
Modern racing planes can be had with and without flush rivets but I was unable to find quantified data on performance difference.
@@keithammleter3824 Literally no weapons system is "no expense spared". Every nation, even the USA, is constrained by the resources it can bring to bear, in terms of labour and materials. Increase the cost of a B-17 by 20% and you can have fewer B-17s. That's one reason why the P-51 replaced the P-38 and P-47: it was half the price.
@@harryspeakup8452 : True. I think that you and I are actually in agreement in that flush riveting would only have been used on the B-17 if it made a useful difference worth the money. But it didn't, so they didn't waste the money.
Don't know if true or not, but I had read somewhere that some crew members were concerned that if there was rapid decompression in a compartment while a crew member was in the tunnel, he could be shot out like a bullet.
There were examples on some of the early production B29's of the waist gunners plexiglass viewing blisters popping out at altitude, whether or not any crewmen were sucked out through them I don't know but the blisters popping out did happen.
More like sucked.
there is actual precedent for it so they aren’t without justification for being concerned
210 bombers would have been seen and Hiroshima would've been put to the alarm of aerial strike. Many people would've fled to the shelters and the overall damage and casualty rate would've been much lower even without fallout casualties. One lone B-29 was not deemed a threat and thought of as a scout and therefor a surprise was complete.
All of the nuclear bomb hate simply ignores the fact that the firebombing of Japanese cities was a far more lethal and effective way to completely decimate the ability of the industries in any Japanese city to help the war effort against America.
Anyone who wants to whine about that should look at the history of the behavior of the Japanese military as it committed atrocities everywhere it went just for the fun of it.
1945 Japan was'nt giving up so it was going to be burnt into the ground.
Curtis Lemay had seen the devastation in places like Iwo Jima and was determined to never hold back as long as the Japanese military was determined to die by suicide and take every living thing it could with them.
Hence the firebombing.
Excellent video & analysis. Too bad you weren't born in time to contribute to the WWII Strategic Bombing Analysis. I think the best points of this video were the insignificant damage caused by the A-bombs, and the B-29's vs P-51's kill ratio against Japanese fighter aircraft. I suggest you start thinking about moving on to analyse our later - and losing - wars against Vietnam, Iraq, & Afghanistan. Very little has been done to debunk those debacles.
Regarding the segment of actual bomb damage of the atomic weapons vs. comparable conventional bombing, I recall reading that a member of the IJ supreme war council said that the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria was much more compelling, in his opinion, for Japan's surrender than news of the dropping of the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki that same day. This makes sense in view of Japan's general attitudes towards bombing casualties vs. Japan's protracted and desperate efforts to have the Soviets assist them in negotiating an acceptable peace with the US. Hirohito's capitulation announcement TO THE PUBLIC on August 15 didn't even mention the Soviets while being very specific regarding "a new and most cruel bomb". However, in Hirohito's August 17 "Rescript to the Soldiers and Sailors" announcement TO THE MILITARY did not refer to the atomic bombs but instead described the Soviet declaration of war as "endangering the very foundation of the Empire's existence."
One is for domestic audience, the other is for overseas colonys.
P51's didn't do the # of sorties that b29s did
I'm havin' a lil trouble w/the math @3min. If 13,791 bombs were dropped, totalling 93,243 tons, that equates to an avg bomb weight of approx. 13,000lbs/bomb. We all know that's simply not possible, so what am I missing?? 🤔
93000÷14000= 6.64
14000 bombs x 6.64= 93000 pounds
The 13,717 number is the number of aircraft that were flown aka number of sorties. The bomb weight figure you come up with will be the average total weight of bombs per aircraft.
How many B29`s became victims of engine fires ?Iwo jima saved more B29´crew than marines lost their lives conquering the island
What happened if a fat crewmember got stuck in the tunnel ,?
He stayed there til he lost weight.
Can you find what the Soviet Union did with the 845 Tupolev TU-4 after they built them?
Interesting, but incendiaries are not napalm and fragmentation bombs are not cluster bombs.
The incendiary bomb of choice adopted for the Japanese firebombing campaign was the napalm filled M-69 bomblet released from canisters. Although not specified in the document, the WWII M-29 fragmentation bomb is considered a cluster bomb. I'll release a video documentation the bomb types dropped by B-29s in the future.
Thank you for your video thought it was pretty cool I love all things worldwide too. I didn't realize it be 29 was such a leap over the b17 I didn't know or that they were pressurized if there's a huge difference wouldn't imagine the way we've dies had a little electric blows electric suits oxygen you know in order to I don't think the gloves were electric and they had to wear those gloves and they were firing if their skin touched any metal anything at the altitudes they were their fingers would have stuck to the metal or the trigger or whatever and they couldn't pull it off it was a lot of casualties anyway thanks sincerely bought the wine bedroom guitarist PSI I subscribed pretty cool pretty cool stuffs
Were the B-29 kills what was claimed by the crews or has it been verified using Japanese records? Kill claims by all sides during the war are quite problematic. If a B-17 or B-29 squadron claimed 26 aircraft shot down but the German or Japanese records show 9 planes went missing that day, it can be assumed that there was a nearly 400% inflation of the numbers. I would really like there to be more confirmation records than what USAAF stated, they had a good reason to allow overclaiming as a justification for the expense of the four engine bomber program as well as proving the efficacy of self defending bombers to get through to the target.
Same applies to the P-51 claims though
I knew most of the facts except the Air to Air kill ratio and the number of B-29's it would have taken to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Fascinating. However, although I understand this was total war, knowing as I do first hand what happens to people burning, injured and dying in fire, it’s important to spare a thought for the terrible, unimaginable human suffering that was going on 30,000ft below these aircraft.
I'll forward your concerns to Nanking.
Can you spare a thought for the 120,000 people per month (mostly civilians) that the Japanese were killing in the countries they occupied?
@@atomicshadowman9143
You should also forward some of those concerns to the children of the men killed at Pearl Harbor who grew up without a dad.
Well deserved suffering.
War is hell. We never learn apparently.
Do we have data for japanese fighter losses to back up the claims of the B29 gunners? even gun cameras cannot confirm if a fighter actually crashed. Over-claiming by B17 and B24 gunners was a big thing in the ETO
crashing fireballs and sheered-off wings not good enough for you?
@@bostonrailfan2427 No. There is always a difference between claims and losses. Two gun cams showing the same fighter explode from different angles can result in two claims for one loss. This is just fog of war. You need data from both sides to scientifically back up losses, always.
@@NachtJaeger110 I thought the same… in the European Threatre US Bomber formations frequently overclaimed fighter kills at a rate of 6 or 7 claimed to 1 actual loss recorded by the Luftwaffe.
Got to be careful about applying that rate to a different setting, but without any evidence from Japanese records the B-29 claims could easily be x5 what was actually lost. Still, even at that rate the Superfortresses’ probably shot down more interceptors than they lost bombers, a remarkable achievement given the raids were unescorted deep into enemy airspace.
Your claim of the use of napalm being used is incorrect. Incendiary bombs were used yes but the types were not napalm. There were other smaller incendiary bombs which were often similar to thermite. Many more of these could be carried and when dropped would start more fires scattered over a larger area. That combined with typical Japanese construction would lead to the firestorm. Napalm is jellied gasoline or jet fuel which weighs more, takes more space etc.
If false, we'll give this Encyclopedia of WW2 Bomber knowledge a pass on that one screw-up. :) I have no clue how I would have ever encountered all of this info without this channel. Amazing.
The main incendiary bomblet adopted for the firebombing raids over Japan was the M-69. It contained a fill of Napalm. I'll do a full-up video on the usage of napalm bombs over Japan in the future.
@@WWIIUSBombers Thanks. Your channel is amazing. I have to assume in this area you simply more than we do. :) Great job. Keep it up. You earned the "alert me" button today. Upgraded from a regular subscription.
Flames Over Tokyo by Bartlett Kerr is good read about the fire bombing campaign over Japan. Talks about the development of the M69 fire bomb in particular.
First!
Don't know what prize you should receive????
Do you want a cookie?
After watching WWII US Bomber's tp class videos on bombing accuracy etc in Europe, this one is somewhat of a dissappointment.
I think most, if not almost all, people who are interested in the B-29 and the war against Japan would know the facts presented in this video.
The presenter repeatedly used the the word "only" in citing the number of B-29 bombing runs (210) to get the same damage as one nuclear bomb. This implies that the presenter believes that non-nuclear bombing was a good option, presumably because of avoiding radiation. This was not so.
The Japanese government showed no sign of surrendering, even though almost all of their cities had been destroyed, and had been actively and vigorously preparing hot defence against invasion. When US and Australian (BCOF) forces did enter Japan upon surrender, one of their tasks was to to destroy the huge quantities of weapons and ammunition accumulated for fighting the expected invasion.
The immense damage caused by the two nuclear bombs used compared to normal bombs is what convinced the Emperor and his minions that they should stop the war and thus surrender. It made them think that just a few more B-29 flights would destroy Japan completely, and perhaps the next one would destroy the emperor. In Japanese culture, the personal risk to the emperor was far more important than say the personal risk to a western president or prime minister.
So, it wasn't that "only" 210 B-29 flights with standard bombs could do the same job as one with nuclear, it's that one nuclear bomb flight was thousands of times more strategically effective. Remember, the Japanese leadership and the emperor back then didn't know that a) the US then didn't actually have any more nuclear bombs, and b) they had no idea how many nuclear bombs one B-29 could carry, or whether such bombs could be made and delivered in even larger sizes.
The nuclear bombs caused a lot of horrible suffering. But so did and could non nuclear bombing. Almost all the suffering was not due to nuclear radiation, it was due to thermal radiation (heat). The nuclear bombs were not "only" 210 times more physically effective, they were the deciding factor in promptly stopping the war - the benefit to both Japan and the US was incalculable.
Destroying Hiroshima (a huge naval base then not in much use due the Jap fleet already sunk) with 210 B-29 flights would not have made the Japanese surrender. Nor would 210 B-29's over Nagasaki.
You're getting too much use out of "only". This is just reporting an interesting factual comparison done by the USAF itself, not an ideological rant.
@@grizwoldphantasia5005 : You have a point, but this sort of language is how urban myths via Chinese whispers get started. I haven't checked his reference, but the repeated use of the word "only" may make viewers think that only 420 (total for the 2 bombed sites) more B-29 flights were needed to get Japan to surrender. That's not correct, not even remotely near correct.
If WWII US Bombers had not used the word "only" then his presentation would be better in this respect.
There is a lot of people in today's world who think that the US did a major war crime by using the two nuclear bombs and thus causing ongoing suffering that would not have occurred with standard bombs. His repeated use of the word "only" suggests WWII US Bombers is one of them. If so, he is entitled to his opinion, but it is only an opinion, and should be isolated from factual data.
It is up to WWII US Bombers to respond, if he wishes, to clarify his intention.
The bombing raids in Japan often used 200+ aircraft with 334 being used to bomb Tokyo. The point the bombing report made was that the same type of result could have been achieved using conventional explosives and ONE bombing operation with multiple aircraft - with the aircraft count needed for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Psychologically, for the Japanese, they could do the math and figure that if one bomber could level an entire city with an atomic bomb, and the United States had enough planes to send 300+ on one bombing raid, if all of the planes were equipped with the atomic bomb, there would be nothing left of Japan with one bombing operation.
@@buckhorncortez : Almost. But don't forget that virtually all their other cities had already been levelled by carpet bombing. Very little of their total land area and rural towns had been touched, and there was a migration underway of homeless city people to the rural areas.
The emperor and his entourage, necessarily living in a huge palace complex and not able to go anywhere else for comfort and cultural reasons, thought they could be next, and that was at least as important in their decision to call a halt as the perceived total destruction of all Japan.
Note that the USA had stipulated that surrender be announced by the Emperor to broadcast his own voice making a surrender over broadcast radio (Japanese national broadcast network). He recorded his speech on a 78 RPM disk, and elaborate skull duggery was used by court minions to secretly transport it to the Tokyo studio for immediate broadcast. They did that because it was most likely that the army, if they had known, would have intercepted the disk and prevented its broadcast. The army was far from being wholly in favour of surrendering even then. But an explicit public directive from the emperor could not be ignored nor disobeyed.
The US Government was very smart in stipulating that the emperor broadcast his own voice - though he had never broadcast or speak in public before and it nearly didn't come off for a couple of reasons: 1) the mindset of the army as I have explained, and 2) the emperor spoke only special court language. But the national broadcaster had announcer say words to the effect of "Here is Emperor Hirohito who is commanding you all." Then they played the recording, then the announcer said "That was Emperor Hirohito speaking in court language. And now, here is his command in standard Japanese." And read a written translation provided by a court official.
Nobody today is 100% sure just exactly what the emperor did say - only he, his court officials, and a few university boffins could thoroughly understand court language, and it is no longer used. And he turned out to be a rotten speaker. But it worked anyway. The army stopped and allowed US forces to invade Japan without fighting.
The translation did not contain any word that means "surrender". A Japanese emperor was thought to be a god and thus cannot surrender. But it directed that all opposition to the Americans cease, and that did the trick. The USA was again very astute in treating it as meeting their terms stipulating unconditional surrender.
There were 1000 plane raids on Germany.
Is “intent was to destroy Japans cities with napalm” literally correct? The intent was to destroy Japans cities with fire - fire started with bombs that spread small amounts of napalm, not the antipersonnel weapon of Korea and Vietnam. This would also assume all incendiaries used were the napalm M69.