Most overrated WWII weapon

@ABWorsham:

@Gamerman01:

Just look at it…

For the amount of money spent producing the B-29, it should be an awesome bomber. I’ve read that it was one of the more expensive planes to produce in history.

Have you seen or read about the B-29 that was landed on an ice field in the North Pole early in the Cold War and was frozen? There was reserach and recovery team sent to dig the plane out and recover it. Great story, terrible ending.

Did not know about that.  Crazy.  Yes, the amount of money spent on the bombers relative to their effectiveness is what I was getting at until I was attacked.

@ABWorsham:

I’ve read that it was one of the more expensive planes to produce in history.

I think each B-29 cost as much to produce as a Navy destroyer.  It was a very sophisticated plane for its time; one of its innovative features was that it was pressurized, and I believe it had a number of gun turrets that could be operated by remote control.

Yeah there were remote control turrets, it was quite the piece of engineering!

The Kee Bird was a United States Army Air Forces B-29-95-BW Superfortress, 45-21768, of the 46th Reconnaissance Squadron, that became marooned after making an emergency landing in northwest Greenland during a secret Cold War spying mission on 21 February 1947.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kee_Bird

Very interesting!

Carpet bombing of cities never did break the spirit of any enemy I am aware of.  As for bombing industry, I believe the accuracy of bombs dropped was something like on average a 5% chance the bomb would land within a mile of the target.

OK, after a bit of research the accuracy was a bit better but not by much!

In reality, the day bombing was “precision bombing” only in the sense that most bombs fell somewhere near a specific designated target such as a railway yard. Conventionally, the air forces designated as “the target area” a circle having a radius of 1000 feet around the aiming point of attack. While accuracy improved during the war, Survey studies show that, in the over-all, only about 20% of the bombs aimed at precision targets fell within this target area.[148] In the fall of 1944, only seven percent of all bombs dropped by the Eighth Air Force hit within 1,000 feet of their aim point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II

@BJCard:

Perhaps an overrated weapon would be the torpedo- not only did the American ones not work the first couple of years but many submarine kills were with the deck gun.

The American early-war dud torpedoes (I think they had defective detonators, which could be blamed on inadequate testing under realistic conditions) were certainly overrated.  On the other hand, the Japanese oxygen-fuelled Long Lance torpedo could be described as underrated: when the war started, the US had no idea that the Japanese Navy possessed the best torpedo in the world, with about twice the range of more conventional models.

@ABWorsham:

For the amount of money spent producing the B-29, it should be an awesome bomber. I’ve read that it was one of the more expensive planes to produce in history.

Cost means little, especially to the USA
My country would spend a boatload of money for the chance of saving 1 American life or the chance to damage the enemy at less risk to Americans.
That’s why we have cruise missiles, drones, and remote controlled stuff (like turrets).  It’s why we researched “Star Wars” in the 80’s.  It’s why we had a lot more armor plating in our fighters in the Pacific than the Japanese zeros.
The way I see it, the price tag has absolutely nothing to do with the effectiveness of a WWII weapon or whether it is overrated.

Overrated means a lot of people think it’s awesome but it’s really…… not so awesome.

@Gamerman01:

My country would spend a boatload of money for the chance of saving 1 American life or the chance to damage the enemy at less risk to Americans.

And now that I’m talking a bit about culture of WWII powers….
Who but freedom loving nations like the USA and UK would immediately set out to rebuild their conquered enemies?  Rome filled Carthage with salt.  If the Axis won <shudder>… what would have happened?

Japan is now governed by a constitutional monarchy and made better cars and electronics than America by the 80’s.
Germany is a federal, parliamentary, representative democratic republic.
Italy is a unitary, parliamentary republic.

:-o

People say a lot of crap about my country and a lot of it is at least partially true, but I am proud of the WWII performance of the USA (and Canada and UK), and even more proud of the reconstruction efforts in the aftermath, and the fact that we have been allies of Germany, Italy, and protector of Japan ever since.</shudder>

@Gamerman01:

My country would spend a boatload of money for the chance of saving 1 American life or the chance to damage the enemy at less risk to Americans. […] It’s why we had a lot more armor plating in our fighters in the Pacific than the Japanese zeros.

And on a related point, the US Navy in WWII put lots of effort into rescuing downed pilots, but wasn’t particularly bothered about the loss of aircraft as such.  Damaged or shot-down planes could easily be replaced (especially late in the war, when American industry had reached its full production potential), while aircraft crews by contrast were considered much more valuable than the machines they flew.  Which makes sense both from a humanitarian viewpoint and from the perspective how much of an investment was represented by a trained and experienced pilot.

And the protector of Germany, Italy, etc.

@ABWorsham:

@Gamerman01:

@ABWorsham:

For the amount of money spent producing the B-29, it should be an awesome bomber. I’ve read that it was one of the more expensive planes to produce in history.

Cost means little, especially to the USA

The U.S is my country also, sadly you are correct, thats why the U.S has Trillions in debt.

Without getting into politics, much of that debt is from the last 25 years or so, not from WWII.  We did have a lot of debt from WWII as a percentage of GDP, but the postwar boom alleviated that somewhat.

-B-29 Superfortress bombing of Tokyo March 9 & 10 1945 destroyed 286,358 buildings (16 square miles), killed roughly a hundred thousand, injured over 120 thousand, and displaced over a million.
-B-29 casualties: 14

The first B-29 combat mission was flown on 5 June 1944, with 77 B-29s bombing the railroad shops in Bangkok and Thailand. Five B-29s were lost during the mission, none to hostile fire.

On 15 June 1944, 68 B-29s bombed the Imperial Iron and Steel Works at Yahata Japan. The first B-29 combat losses occurred during this raid, with one B-29 destroyed on the ground by Japanese fighters after an emergency landing in China, one lost to anti-aircraft fire over Yawata.

Postwar, several RAF Bomber Command squadrons were equipped with B-29s loaned from USAF stocks. The aircraft were known as the Washington B.1 in RAF service

In fact the Soviets copied the B-29 design (however backwards) for their own  Tupolev Tu-4.

I use the definition of overrated as; Thought of as most important by modern people, after the fact.

I am not sure whether I think (german) subs or strategic bombers are most overrated from the war. I will make a case for the bombers.

I also think the strategic bombers did little for the wareffort, at least when it comes in bombing of industry and population.

I think the net sum of moral for the nation being bombed is one of defiance, rather than dispair. Just look at reactions to 9/11, US was “never” more committed to fight the enemy, it united the nation, more than it caused a loss of moral.

the effect on industry is also negligable, at (I have only read about the germans). When russia took silesia in january 1945, it is estimated that it did a bigger damage for the total german war production (that is the production form jan-may 1945), than the all stratigic bombing of germany in WW2 combined.

When it comes to japan, the number for people that got killed is high, and they will be when you drop firebombs on houses made of paper. But most of the dead where civilians, it was also in the later part of the war.

the nuke is more difficult to assess, I know there is legitimate disagreement of whether the russian invasion of manchuria or the bombs or a combination was what made japan surrender.

HOWEVER, bombers have been very valuable after the war, and the dropping of the nukes was probably more valuable for the cold war than WW2.

It is very ignorant to call strategic bombers overrated.
the allied bombing plan starting in 42 was to destroy city crnters and kill/displace as many civilians as possible. And they did this EXTREMELY well

You might call them overrated in the very early stages of the war, but once they figured it out strategic bombing was awe inspiring destruction

On topic I’d say the most overrated weapons system in the war was the battleship.
WWII marked the end of an era on the high seas and the beginning of the new age of aircraft carriers.
Some of the largest and most expensive BBs (Bismarck, Yamamoto) were ineffective and sunk relatively easy by aircraft.

One could also make a case for the me-262

Bringing up 9/11 here is a huge reach.

There are so many huge, relevant, obvious differences I won’t bother to list them.

I just can’t let that citing of 9/11 sit.  I’m restraining myself, here, so I’ll just say apples and oranges

Some facts to consider:

The winning side did a lot more bombing than the losing side.
London was ripe for invasion after all the bombing but UK was not invaded at all
USA and UK especially made a concentrated, concerted effort, risking the lives and wellbeing of many, many pilots and a ton of resources in order to carry out bombings.  They would not have continued this for years if they were not completely convinced that it was the most effective way to go.  You armchair generals think you know better?  :lol:

Speaking of London, that makes me think…
Try to imagine WWII without any of the bombings from either side

It is very ignorant to call strategic bombers overrated.
the allied bombing plan starting in 42 was to destroy city crnters and kill/displace as many civilians as possible. And they did this EXTREMELY well

Heavy bombers might have been extremely good at killing civilians.  But killing civilians is a very very poor way of bring a war to a close.  The bombing of civilians in cities did nothing but galvanize the civilians against the bombing nation!

Gamerman, why do you think the 9/11 comparison is such a reach?  If the intent of the 9/11 bombers was to scare off the US from middle east activities I think that goal was a spectacular failure.  As was bombing london a failure to bring the British to their knees as was bombing the Germans a failure to bring their citizens to the point of surrender.

You say London was ripe for invasion during the bombing of London?  I don’t think so.  The people of England were FAR FAR from the point of wanting to surrender.  The bombing of London’s purpose was to make the English give up, how did that work for the Nazis?  How did the bombing of Dresdon work as far as making the Germans was to surrender?