And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Are you kidding? The B-29 was AWFUL. The only reason it ever went into production is because it was the single costliest weapons project of WW2. Had that abortion ever gotten unto combat in the ETO it would have suffered the same fate that it did when they tried to use them over Korea where they(the USAF brass) learned to their horror that what crew's were telling them since 1944 was all true. It took ONE pass from a Japanese fighter to burn a B-29. The only success they had in "daylight" bombing was by going so high that the Japanese couldn't get 90+% of their fighters up high enough to shoot them down.(and the B-29's couldn't hit anything on the ground smaller than Osaka) When the '29's switched to low level night attacks it got even worse. One flack hit to a wing or the fuselage almost always shot a B-29 down. Oh and B-29's often burn on the ground or in the air just "because". That's WHY so few are left. Had they ever had to face the much better German fighters of 1944-45. You can bet that the brass would have "pulled" them from combat just like they did in Korea. The losses would have been worse than 1943. The B-29 was a disaster on par with the two pocket battleships the US built and never used in combat, or even crewed, then "mothballed" the week the war ended (and scrapped in secret in the 50's- 60's while they were still brand new and almost unused) and the SB2C.---Ray
But would you want to sit there if somebody was firing a 20mm cannon at you in a head-to-head run?
ReplyDeleteAre you kidding? The B-29 was AWFUL. The only reason it ever went into production is because it was the single costliest weapons project of WW2. Had that abortion ever gotten unto combat in the ETO it would have suffered the same fate that it did when they tried to use them over Korea where they(the USAF brass) learned to their horror that what crew's were telling them since 1944 was all true. It took ONE pass from a Japanese fighter to burn a B-29. The only success they had in "daylight" bombing was by going so high that the Japanese couldn't get 90+% of their fighters up high enough to shoot them down.(and the B-29's couldn't hit anything on the ground smaller than Osaka) When the '29's switched to low level night attacks it got even worse. One flack hit to a wing or the fuselage almost always shot a B-29 down. Oh and B-29's often burn on the ground or in the air just "because". That's WHY so few are left. Had they ever had to face the much better German fighters of 1944-45. You can bet that the brass would have "pulled" them from combat just like they did in Korea. The losses would have been worse than 1943. The B-29 was a disaster on par with the two pocket battleships the US built and never used in combat, or even crewed, then "mothballed" the week the war ended (and scrapped in secret in the 50's- 60's while they were still brand new and almost unused) and the SB2C.---Ray
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