Posted on 06/27/2021 2:31:48 PM PDT by fugazi
The monstrous XB-19 made its maiden flight today at Santa Monica, Calif.. Douglas' long-range bomber prototype had a 212-foot wingspan, longer than today's B-52 Stratofortress (185') or a Boeing 747 (195'). Designers boasted it had a 5,000-mile combat range -- meaning it could take off from the United States, bomb targets in occupied Europe, then return to the U.S.. Ferry trips could cover well over 7,000 miles (New York City to Moscow is less than 5,000) and the plane could remain aloft for 55 hours.
The world's largest and most powerful aircraft of its time was sure impressive on paper, but the B-19 never became operational. The war ended before it was ready, and plans to convert the bomber into a cargo ship were eventually scrapped. Click here for the October 1940 edition of Popular Science, which features the B-19.
[caption id="attachment_13385" align="aligncenter" width="543"]
Illustration by Dan Berryman[/caption]
Dean, who also knocked in two runs as the A's defeated the Yanks 7-6, is picked up by the Indians later in the season. Dean joins the service in 1943, playing baseball for Army Air Corps and serving in the Pacific Theater.
Like how the Navy establishment loved battleships. But there weren't any glorious old-fashioned battleship-versus-battleship shootouts during the second world war but we had an incredible amount of bang for our buck from the rather less glamorous destroyers.
The B-36 comes to mind as too big, too complicated, and an easy target for early Russian fighters.
B-19 Cockpit https://jalopnik.com/americas-real-wwii-flying-fortress-was-the-massive-doug-1632864365
Rtmrmber when it was display3ed at Chicago’s then named Municipal (later named Midway) airport
Holy crap!
My great-uncle flew on a Peacemaker. “Six (engines) turning and four burning.” Or as some crews said, “two turning, two burning, two smoking, two choking and two more unaccounted for.”
On the subject of economy, the B-36 illustrates the principle that it’s better to have a few really dependable engines than it is to have a lot of questionable ones.
It would appear that the B-19 lost out to the B-36, an even bigger and longer ranged bomber that was based, like Howard Hughes ‘Spruce Goose’ on UK loss to Germany. 230ft wingspan, 6 piston engines (initially) and a 10,000 mile range, it went into service for the USAF / SAC in 1949. The boast / gripe was that it only landed to reenlist the aircrew. The Jimmy Stewart movie “Strategic Air Command” (1955) was almost a documentary about this amazing US Bomber.
There was a battleship-to-battleship shootout at the Battle of the Surigao Strait in 1944.
Best kept secret of WW2? A Mosquito had the same bomb load capability as a B-17.
...there weren’t any glorious old-fashioned battleship-versus-battleship shootouts...
What about Washington vs. Kirishima?
https://www.historylink.org/File/7128
http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/Our_Culture/one_marine_one_ship.htm
Washington and South Dakota
versus
Kirishima
Correct...
USS West Virginia BB-48 fired 91 16”/45 AP projectiles during the battle.
“heavily damaged” is an understatement. Both were sunk.
An interesting note: The engineering departments of both West Virginia and California were crewed by surviving engineers from USS Yorktown, after she was sunk at Midway.
those snipes with names starting with A through M went to West Virginia, those with names starting with N through Z went to California. My dad went to West Virginia.
Kind of like when I went through Mech fundamentals
at Memphis in 1965.
One day the instructors came in and said everbody
on the left side of the room is a hydraulics man
and every body on the right side is a metal smith.
USMC nothing like it.
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