B-29, will it be in the game?

[RyanCrierie]

While looking through the .dat files for the original Bombing the Reich, I found references to the B-29 in there; will the -29 be in the new game as an option?

Historically, we did have plans to convert about nine B-24 groups into B-29 groups if the ETO had continued on to Fall 1945. Also, we also had plans to base Silverplate (Atomic Bomb equipped) B-29s in Northern Ireland; they would climb up to altitude over Britain for the bomb runs on Germany; that plan was kept up to date, until around September 1944; when the defeat of Nazi Germany was all but assured; and atomic planning shifted to Japan.

EDIT: From "The Mighty Eigth War Manual" by Roger Freeman:

Had the war in europe continued into the summer and autumn of 1945, it was planned that nine B-29 groups would be based in the UK. This was to be achieved by converting groups in the 2nd Air Division from the B-24. At the close of 1944, it was expected that this would take place between June and September....The plan was apparently abandoned in February 1945.

[Hard Sarge]

There are a lot of planes and goodies in the data base that are not in the game

yes, there are some plans to add the 29 to the game along with a number of other planes, what where and how is the question right now

would it be possible in a "standard" campaign or should it be a what if campaign

if anything, I will try and post any news as we get farther along with what we plan to do, with in NDA limits

[Fred98]

It would need a counterbalance so that the German player would stil have the opportunity for a win.

[Augenstein]

I see a lot more important things to be included than the B-29. If the BTR team has time to add it make it available in very small numbers in later war..

[Hard Sarge]

It would need a counterbalance so that the German player would stil have the opportunity for a win.

why ?

did the LW have any chance for a win in real life

one of the real hassles in the game were all the changes to give the GE player a chance to win, to the point that the LW is a massive and almost undeatable enemy now (players of some skill can defeat them with a little work, newbies get crushed)

I would rather have a realstic game, instead of one where the GE can win based on a dream

base the chance of the GE winning the game on doing better then the GE did during the war, not on them winning the war

besides, the idea of adding in the 29 was to give the Allies a chance to counterbalance what the LW will get if it gets that far

[RyanCrierie]

besides, the idea of adding in the 29 was to give the Allies a chance to counterbalance what the LW will get if it gets that far

If you want to get evil, put the B-36 in; capable of bombing from 40,000 feet with 40 tons of bombs [:'(] It's not as far fetched as it sounds; if the US had kept pushing the B-36 program instead of continually delaying it and re-scheduling it's priority; it could have been available by 1945; it was of a much less advanced design structurally and fire control wise than the -29.

Hah. Sorry about that.

Seriously, there are some things which could be done to the combined game.

1.) Ruhrstahl X-7 Air to Air Wire Guided Missile
2.) Wasserfall SAM

Late 1945 tech; appears around the same time the B-29 would.

Now, these two are not "wunderweapons" which will knock down masses of bombers, or win the war on themselves; the X-7 needs a very large aircraft, probably something the size of a Ju-88 or bigger to launch and guide the weapon (remember it needs a guy controlling it with a joystick); and the P-51s can shoot down the Ju-88 before the X-7 impacts it's target.

The Wasserfall was a kludge of various technologies which could have been made to work marginally if Nazi Germany had had more time; but it would not be a one shot one kill weapon; By 1945; Allied ECM gear was capable of spoofing and jamming the Wasserfall transmissions needed to guide it; so in all probability the Wasserfall would be marginally more effective than 88mm FLAK; IE, instead of requiring something like x guns firing 12,000 rounds to down a B-17, you only need like 15~ wasserfalls, which ends up being cheaper anyway in the long run when you factor in the total economic costs of the 12,000 shells, etc.

A way the war extends into 1945 in the Grand campaign could be done by this; if you don't bomb Germany with the frequency that was done in real life by the RAF and USAAF; the Germans will divert their 88mm guns and crew to the ost-front to be used as anti-tank weapons; allowing them to hold off the Russians longer than in real life.

[RyanCrierie]

Some random thoughts; could the Allies get "what-if" Planes as well?

XB-27: High Altitude B-26 Maruauder; pressurized cockpit, 7 man crew, estimated top speed of 376 MPH. Was cancelled before anything was built.

XB-28 Dragon: High altitude B-25 Mitchell; 5 man crew in pressurized cabin, remotly controlled turrets, 372 MPH @ 25,000 ft; cruised at 255 MPH; and could fly 2,000 miles with 6,000 lbs. Was cancelled because most B-25 bombing was at low altitude anyway

[Fred98]

"Win" is defined as having more victory points than the opponent at the end of the game.

Got to every PC wargame ever made and look for posts asking that allied weapons are beefed up in some way. They are easy to find.

Now search for posts asking to Axis weapons to be beefed up - hard to find.

Exception: fighting on the Eastern front. The request is always for the German firepower to be beefed up and never the Russian.


Ultimately, if players achieve the historical result the game should be a draw - anything else is a victory to one player or the other.

[Hard Sarge]

HI Joe
sorry if my post came across wrong, and if this one does it is not intended that way

got to disagree with you

when BTR came out, the uproar was that the GE player didn't stand a chance, most of the work in the first few patches and OOB's were to give the GE player a chance (so much was changed in the 410, that it became the wonderweapon, it could out dogfight any Allied plane, until the P-51 D came out and then, it held it's own vs it)

OOB 104-105 started to work on the Allied side to even them back up again, but then we found out about the plane slots numbers, we had added in too many units and the game could only hold planes for so many

the last OOB worked to lessing the plane totals, but by doing so, pushed the game back to a GE favor

and I got again, say I disagree with your statement

"Win" is defined as having more victory points than the opponent at the end of the game.

the GE does not get points in the game, the Allies do, by keeping the Allied point total below this or that level, the GE player wins the game (he does not outscore the Allied, he stops the Allies from scoreing enough to win)

for the bombers

the B-29 is on the list for Artwork to be made for it
I know we had talked about the B-36 as a what if, but do not see it on the art list

may need more talk on what the what if verison (if) will be and why and how to set up the reasons for it

there are some Allied what if's set up, but not really any of the ones you list, but I do not really see that they couldn't be, the stats are more importent then the art, and we can always mod the art of this or that to make it look like something else

something we can push about

I would like the idea of the GTA missles, but maybe we could work out a system, where you got to lose AA to place the GTA site ? maybe something where so many AA guns could be converted into a ATG Site point,and the point could be placed ??

(which would have to have some kind of production set up too, but just a working idea)

[Adnan Meshuggi]

the wasserfall-missle is a MUST for a what-if...

these nice babies were deadly, cause the counterweapons did NOT exist.
And they were finished in february 45, the broken down transport system avoided a defence-system with missles.

So, "if" the allied player does not disrupted the german railway/road network, in a whatif these weapons should be in. And should be very deadly... cause the huge firepower would have been deadly to combat boxes..

The production was cheap, the steering units could be mass produced and the hit chance should be in combat situations around 25-40% against high altitude attacks (in combat boxes even 60-80%)
The Flak-guns to be removed ? No sir... they would not move more 88mm-Flaks cause the transport system was the problem... but you should switch production to missles (but with a delay of 20* instead of 10*) and only from late44 on...

The problem for the game are numbers of german planes... in the air. Reduce em by 60-80% and the problem is solved.

The b29 is a must in the game... an emergency case for allied players (if losses of the other 4mots are to high, they start to equip them with b29s...

[Hard Sarge]

Well guess this is just my day to be disagreeable

one reason I think the Flak should be traded for the missles, is the Flak does not work right in the game

JC never understood or followed the idea of slant range with AA guns, so a gun 50 miles away can still fire at the bombers when it is over a different target

I have no hassle with the guns at the target fireing, I do not like every gun in the whole area being able to fire

plus a Allied player who does not pay attention to what he is doing, is going to be facing massive Flak traps at every site on the map, and if we are going to interduce a uber weapon, would like to decrease the Flak traps

info on the missle

http://www.luft46.com/missile/wasserfl.html

hmmm also looks like this would be a good choice for the random stat idea, it could be great, it could be a wonder weapon, or it could be a dud, it should have to be reseached

interesting

then again, there are more GTA missles too

[RyanCrierie]

ORIGINAL: Adnan Meshuggi
these nice babies were deadly, cause the counterweapons did NOT exist.
And they were finished in february 45, the broken down transport system avoided a defence-system with missles.

Actually, no.
1.) Wasserfall's engine shut down after 30 sec (instead of 45 sec as planned), due to design flaws inherent in the design which did not disappear even after redesigns; limiting it's range.

2.) The Guidance system was well....uhm, not very good.

From The Rocket and the Reich

The situation in guidance toward the target was even worse. From the outset, it was assumed that the final Wasserfall guidance system would be based upon a modification of one of the existing "Giant" radars into a guide beam that would slowly turn the vertically launched missile in the direction of the enemy aircraft and bring it into the target's vicinity. In the autumn of 1942 von Braun still believed, on the basis of information from Luftwaffe and industry experts, that the accuracy and discrimination of those radars would allow the guide beam to direct the missile to the target, whereupon a signal could be sent to trigger the warhead at its nearest approach. He and his informants significantly overestimated the capability of the radars, however, particularly in the case of a bomber stream, where they were unable to distinguish individual aircraft. Von Braun was nevertheless aware that a homing device in the missile would be desirable; by 1943 it became increasingly apparent that it would be a necessity if the missile was ever to come sufficiently close. Yet even the physical principle of a workable homing device was debatable in 1943-44, although infrared (heat-seeking) systems seemed the most promising.

In addition, the insufficient discriminatory capability of radar meant that Wasserfall needed a proximity fuse to trigger the warhead in the likely event of a near miss. Yet no such fuse was available. The United States was able to deploy a such a fuse on anti-aircraft shells in 1944, but only after a massive program to develop a miniature radar set that could withstand the shock of being fired out of an artillery piece. German resources were spread too thin to permit a similar success. Proximity fuse projects, like those to build homing devices, were started too late and were allowed to proliferate without adequate control from the Air Ministry, with the result that none produced a workable device during the war. Even with better management, however, it is unlikely that the Germans could ever have deployed enough proximity fuses or homing devices to affect the military situation even marginally, given their inferiority to the Allies in research and development resources and electronic technology.

3.) Wasserfall was essentially command guided; it was steered into it's target by radio transmissions from the ground; in essence, similar to the Henschel 293 Glide Bomb; of which the Allies had developed jammers against.

It's far more efficient than a 88mm Flak gun, but it's not a wunderweapon.

[RyanCrierie]

the B-29 is on the list for Artwork to be made for it

Whoohoo! By the way, I have the Standard Air Characteristics Sheet for the B-29 as well as the Pilot Manual for the B-29; if there's anything you need to know, just ask me.

I know we had talked about the B-36 as a what if, but do not see it on the art list
may need more talk on what the what if verison (if) will be and why and how to set up the reasons for it

Okay, the most likely version of the B-36 that would be developed during WWII would be the B-36B.

The B-36A was essentially a training and development testbed, to get the crews and maintenance people used to the new bomber; the B-36B was the first truly combat ready B-36 with all the defensive armament.

Statistics were:
B-36B
15 Man Crew
6 x R-4360-41 Wasp Majors of 3,500 hp
381 MPH top speed at combat weight.
236 MPH Cruise speed
42,500 ft service ceiling
2 x 20mm (Remotely Controlled Nose Turret) - 400 rounds
2 x 20mm (Remotely Controlled Retractable Upper Forward Turret #1) - 600 rounds
2 x 20mm (Remotely Controlled Retractable Upper Forward Turret #2) - 600 rounds
2 x 20mm (Remotely Controlled Retractable Upper Aft Turret #1) - 600 rounds
2 x 20mm (Remotely Controlled Retractable Upper Aft Turret #2) - 600 rounds
2 x 20mm (Remotely Controlled Retractable Lower Aft Turret #1) - 600 rounds
2 x 20mm (Remotely Controlled Retractable Lower Aft Turret #2) - 600 rounds
2 x 20mm (Remotely Controlled Radar Guided Tail Turret) - 600 rounds - Lethal up to 3,500 yds

THE GUNS:
Air Cooled, Electrically Heated Guns
Electrically Synchronized to fire between 550-720 RPM.
20mm Round used in them had a 2800 fps muzzle velocity and had a projectile weight of 0.29 lbs.

Gunners were requested to fire in two or three-second bursts, firing between
18 and 36 rounds from each gun

THE BOMBS:
It could lift the following bombloads to the following altitudes:

84,000 lbs to 30,000 ft
42,000 lbs to 40,000 ft

Carry 10,000 lbs to a radius of 5,000 miles unrefuelled.
Carry 86,000 lbs to a radius of 1,500 miles unrefuelled

The Uniform bombloads a B-36 could carry in it's bomb bays were:

2 x 43,000 lb bombs (86,000 lbs)
3 x 22,000 lb bombs (66,000 lbs)
4 x 12,000 lb bombs (48,000 lbs)
132 x 500 lb bombs (66,000 lbs)
72 x 1,000 lb bombs (72,000 lbs)
28 x 2,000 lb bombs (56,000 lbs)
12 x 4,000 lb bombs (48,000 lbs)
20 x 500 lb bombs (10,000 lbs)
10 x 1,000 lb bombs (10,000 lbs)
5 x 2,000 lb bombs (10,000 lbs)

That Enough for you?

WHY WOULD IT BE DEVELOPED:
A reasonable scenario I would postulate, is Japan winning a Midway victory; which sets back the US' Pacific campaign by a year or two; making the B-29 sort of superflous, as the US will not be able to seize islands close enough to Japan until much later in the war for serious bombing; making the B-36 more attractive. If this does happen, the majority of B-36s would be dedicated to the Pacific anyway; any chance of them showing up in Europe would be very very rare.

there are some Allied what if's set up, but not really any of the ones you list, but I do not really see that they couldn't be, the stats are more importent then the art, and we can always mod the art of this or that to make it look like something else

Excellent.

I would like the idea of the GTA missles, but maybe we could work out a system, where you got to lose AA to place the GTA site ? maybe something where so many AA guns could be converted into a ATG Site point,and the point could be placed ??

Thats exactly what I was thinking too, you'd have to convert Flak units or what not into Wasserfall units.

[Fred98]

A "what if" scenario is fine. But the "normal" scenarios ought to take precedence.

I still take the view that if the players achieve the historical result, they ought to achieve a draw - even if the Luftwaffe gets shot out of the sky - which was itself the historical result.

To "balance" the game by giving one side a Uber weapon moves it from wargame to fantasy game - please don't take that path.

[Fred98]

I can imagine that if the German player is particulairy good and the war lasts longer than expected that B29s come into play to finish off Germany.

[Adnan Meshuggi]

ORIGINAL: RyanCrierie

ORIGINAL: Adnan Meshuggi
these nice babies were deadly, cause the counterweapons did NOT exist.
And they were finished in february 45, the broken down transport system avoided a defence-system with missles.

Actually, no.
1.) Wasserfall's engine shut down after 30 sec (instead of 45 sec as planned), due to design flaws inherent in the design which did not disappear even after redesigns; limiting it's range.

Your source say so ? What stage of development do you speak about ?
As is said, in a "what if" this missle could "end" the allied bombing campagin by mid-high level attacks of daylight combat boxes...

The germans had similar "proximity fuses but could not produce em in the numbers needed for small calibre ammo... but we speak about huge missles, around 8 meters large.. you do not need hundred of thousends of these parts... 5000 are enough (if used in the missles and "hit")

The guidance system was not perfect, but the germans had two versions, guided by radio and with wire.

The main problem was not to develop the weapon and use it, but to transport the parts in time for the "end" of the war.

So, as i said, in a what-if, this is a terrible anti-plane weapon. It is 10x cheaper as the ammo for one kill with flak and the material you need is even lesser.

Also, please think about the warhead... you could kill a bomber from 100m distance, so you need not to be to exact... with combat boxes this end deadly for the bombers.

It is no "überwaffe" that could win the war, but its effects are
a.) the american bombers have to fly lowlevel (short reaction time for the missle crews) that makes em vulnurable for conventionel flak
b.) the combat box will not be used anymore... so the self defence is reduced (higher loss ratio) and the hit chance is reduced too...

The idea of "research, do not know how long you need and be surprized what the weapon could reach" should be the best way in a what if... but the game sadly can´t do it.

And - if you have historical results the chance of showing the weapons is low. But if the allied is not good enough, the chance for this weapons will increase

(sure - we got the problem of double benefits... the german industry produce more and better planes AND recive better weapons earlier...
But this force the allied player to do better as historical or avoid to be worser, and AS is then the most important point. As it was in real life.

2.) The Guidance system was well....uhm, not very good.

From The Rocket and the Reich

The situation in guidance toward the target was even worse. From the outset, it was assumed that the final Wasserfall guidance system would be based upon a modification of one of the existing "Giant" radars into a guide beam that would slowly turn the vertically launched missile in the direction of the enemy aircraft and bring it into the target's vicinity. In the autumn of 1942 von Braun still believed, on the basis of information from Luftwaffe and industry experts, that the accuracy and discrimination of those radars would allow the guide beam to direct the missile to the target, whereupon a signal could be sent to trigger the warhead at its nearest approach. He and his informants significantly overestimated the capability of the radars, however, particularly in the case of a bomber stream, where they were unable to distinguish individual aircraft. Von Braun was nevertheless aware that a homing device in the missile would be desirable; by 1943 it became increasingly apparent that it would be a necessity if the missile was ever to come sufficiently close. Yet even the physical principle of a workable homing device was debatable in 1943-44, although infrared (heat-seeking) systems seemed the most promising.

In addition, the insufficient discriminatory capability of radar meant that Wasserfall needed a proximity fuse to trigger the warhead in the likely event of a near miss. Yet no such fuse was available. The United States was able to deploy a such a fuse on anti-aircraft shells in 1944, but only after a massive program to develop a miniature radar set that could withstand the shock of being fired out of an artillery piece. German resources were spread too thin to permit a similar success. Proximity fuse projects, like those to build homing devices, were started too late and were allowed to proliferate without adequate control from the Air Ministry, with the result that none produced a workable device during the war. Even with better management, however, it is unlikely that the Germans could ever have deployed enough proximity fuses or homing devices to affect the military situation even marginally, given their inferiority to the Allies in research and development resources and electronic technology.

3.) Wasserfall was essentially command guided; it was steered into it's target by radio transmissions from the ground; in essence, similar to the Henschel 293 Glide Bomb; of which the Allies had developed jammers against.

It's far more efficient than a 88mm Flak gun, but it's not a wunderweapon.

[RyanCrierie]

Your source say so ? What stage of development do you speak about ?

My Source is The Rocket and the Reich. This is what it says:

Wasserfall's propulsion and tankage system displayed a number of other serious design problems. The injector plate was inefficient, and the bursting membranes in the lines failed to function as planned, causing explosions at ignition. When the engine did operate in flight, thrust was poor, and shutdown came after about thirty seconds (instead of forty-five) because maneuvering threw the propellants around, uncovering the tank drains. The result was that the engine ingested nitrogen pressurization gas along with the oxidizer and fuel, leading to substandard performance and early cutoffs. Obviously, the range and effectiveness of Wasserfall would be severely curtailed if that problem could not be fixed. The original solution of Roth's group did not work. According to the Luftwaffe officer appointed to oversee the Wasserfall schedule in November, the project leadershiphad been far too slow to react to the problem. A contest was eventually held to gather suggestions. It was won by Werner Dahm, but his idea apparently did not definitively solve the gas-ingestion problem either, so the situation was little improved at the end of January 1945.

The germans had similar "proximity fuses but could not produce em in the numbers needed for small calibre ammo

I have to ask what you're on. The Germans as far as I know never had any proximity fuze programs anywhere near service entry at all; production VT Fuses were US-only; and even we were unable to fit them into anything less than a 3" (76mm) shell, hence the post-war USN's fixtation on rapid fire 3" guns to replace 40mm.

Also, please think about the warhead... you could kill a bomber from 100m distance, so you need not to be to exact... with combat boxes this end deadly for the bombers.

88mm Flak was capable of inflicting serious damage out to 200 yards (182m); and yet this didn't stop the USAAF from using combat boxes.

a.) the american bombers have to fly lowlevel (short reaction time for the missle crews) that makes em vulnurable for conventionel flak

b.) the combat box will not be used anymore... so the self defence is reduced (higher loss ratio) and the hit chance is reduced too...

Yet this did not happen when the USAAF was faced with dense and heavy Flak Belts; on one mission over Meisburg in 1944; the USAAF had 50~ bombers lost or crippled from Flak.

The true effect of Wasserfall is this:

In 1942 it cost 3,343 x 88mm calibre shells to down a bomber; for a total cost of 267,440 reichsmarks ($107,000).

By 1944; it took 33,500 x 88mm shells to down a bomber; for a cost of 2,680,000 reichsmarks ($1,072,240).

Wasserfall optimistically was supposed to cost between 7,000–10,000 Reichsmarks ($2,800-$4,000); so even if it cost 40 of them to bring down a single B-17; you would only be out $112,000 to $160,000 for each bomber downed.

It makes the German Flak Arm much cheaper; which means that more of the guns and ammunition formerly destined to be used in shooting down B-17s can be redirected to the battlefronts as anti-tank weapons and general artillery; meaning both Western and Eastern Allies can be held off longer; giving you much more playtime [:D]