WW-II Heavy Bomber. B-32

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Al

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Even if you are a WWII Junkie (Which I am) You may never heard of this plane. It was a "Backup to the B-29 just in case the B-29 program failed. Its Contract was signed the same day as the B-29 contract.

Ultimately (obviously) the B-29 succeeded and only 117 copies of this plane were completed.

Amazing that the U.S. hedged its bets on the Plutonium and the U-235 bomb and succeeded in building both, And even with the U-235 bomb, both Centrifuge and gaseous diffusion were tried. (gaseous diffusion won out). SAmazing the resources that were developed during the War.

General Grove (who headed up Manhattan Project), many times faced with different options for important things, frequentlyh chose both options..lol.
 
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Originally Posted By: L_Sludger
Its a shame that there are no surviving examples.

Yea..for sure. I bought a $50 (Paid $35) book from Amazon written by a guy that eats, sleeps, WWII aircraft. He spent many years writing it. It has glossyz1x2c3V4ages and mega pictures. An amazing book..Similar to the Book I have on the Pratt R-2800 engine. Arguably the best engine to come out of WWII. It powered 3 out of 4 of our frontline fighters....Yea I realize there was the Merlin.
wink.gif



61UgSLHcOzL._AC_UL115_.jpg
 
Originally Posted By: Al
General Grove (who headed up Manhattan Project), many times faced with different options for important things, frequentlyh chose both options..lol.


Smart man, if you can pursue both (which the Military was happy to do, it seems) then it makes sense to go that route and not lose time trying one, only to switch to another.
 
Originally Posted By: Donald
The US cannot afford two options to be designed/developed these days. But hopefully with computer simulations we no longer need to.
Of course we can. You're talking about the military. We spend more money on weapons of war than 90 percent of the rest of the world put together.
 
Originally Posted By: Al
Even if you are a WWII Junkie (Which I am) You may never heard of this plane. It was a "Backup to the B-29 just in case the B-29 program failed. Its Contract was signed the same day as the B-29 contract.

Ultimately (obviously) the B-29 succeeded and only 117 copies of this plane were completed.

Amazing that the U.S. hedged its bets on the Plutonium and the U-235 bomb and succeeded in building both, And even with the U-235 bomb, both Centrifuge and gaseous diffusion were tried. (gaseous diffusion won out). SAmazing the resources that were developed during the War.

General Grove (who headed up Manhattan Project), many times faced with different options for important things, frequentlyh chose both options..lol.
The plutonium core for the Trinity shot, about as big as a small orange and weighing about fourteen pounds, cost several hundred million dollars in 1944/45 dollars. Rode down US-85 on the back seat of an Army staff core as little Hosteen slept in his Albuquerque bed only five miles away. The Los Alamos scientists were fairly certain the U-235 gun bomb would work but bets were being made at the Trinity site on whether the implosion "Fat Man" gadget would work at all.
 
Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: L_Sludger
Its a shame that there are no surviving examples.

Yea..for sure. I bought a $50 (Paid $35) book from Amazon written by a guy that eats, sleeps, WWII aircraft. He spent many years writing it. It has glossyz1x2c3V4ages and mega pictures. An amazing book..Similar to the Book I have on the Pratt R-2800 engine. Arguably the best engine to come out of WWII. It powered 3 out of 4 of our frontline fighters....Yea I realize there was the Merlin.
wink.gif



61UgSLHcOzL._AC_UL115_.jpg



Why doesn't the Allison ever get any love?
Never mind answering that, it's a rhetorical question. In some ways the Allison was a better engine than the Merlin, but the Merlin had the two-stage supercharger, which gave it better altitude performance. Allison was late in designing their two-stage supercharged engine because the USAAF kept telling them that the GE turbosupercharger would be used to give the Allison altitude performance. But when war came, bombers got priority for turbosupercharger production, leaving Allison out in the cold. Then they developed their auxiliary stage blower, but too late.
 
Had Packard not begun Merlin production, the Allison V-12 would have likely received more attention and development spending.
FWIR, the Packard production folks laughed at RR's primitive production methods and production tolerances. If you wanted a good Merlin, you bought one Packard had built.
 
Originally Posted By: BrocLuno
Ditto for marine engines. Packard was the way to go for many boat engines
smile.gif

My ignorance will show here, but wasn't Packard something like the (1990s) Lexus of its day? High tech, high quality, good quality of craftsmanship?
 
Originally Posted By: L_Sludger
Originally Posted By: Donald
The US cannot afford two options to be designed/developed these days. But hopefully with computer simulations we no longer need to.
Of course we can. You're talking about the military. We spend more money on weapons of war than 90 percent of the rest of the world put together.


Are you suggesting we should go back to using sticks and stones?
 
Originally Posted By: grampi
Originally Posted By: L_Sludger
Originally Posted By: Donald
The US cannot afford two options to be designed/developed these days. But hopefully with computer simulations we no longer need to.
Of course we can. You're talking about the military. We spend more money on weapons of war than 90 percent of the rest of the world put together.


Are you suggesting we should go back to using sticks and stones?


The only Lexus remotely comparable to a pre-war Packard would have been the original LS.
Same attention to detail and mechanical design and construction quality resulting in very long vehicle life.
Old school Benzes also qualify.
 
Is it truth or legend that the Manhattan Project scientists weren't 100% sure that detonation would not cause a chain reaction in the atmosphere that could either be doomsday for the world or at least contaminate a much much larger region that expected?
 
Originally Posted By: L_Sludger
Originally Posted By: grampi
Originally Posted By: L_Sludger
Originally Posted By: Donald
The US cannot afford two options to be designed/developed these days. But hopefully with computer simulations we no longer need to.
Of course we can. You're talking about the military. We spend more money on weapons of war than 90 percent of the rest of the world put together.


Are you suggesting we should go back to using sticks and stones?
I'm telling Donald that we can afford anything we want.


and pay cash ?

or borrow ?
 
I believe it was Fermi who speculated that the Trinity shot might ignite the atmosphere. Individuals on Sandia crest east of Albuquerque saw the explosion. I think the distance is probably a hundred air miles.
 
When you own the world's reserve currency and can borrow money nearly free with nearly zero inflation, what difference does it make?
 
borrow...that implies "paying back".

Who is being borrowed from when you clearly are bigger than everything ?
 
Originally Posted By: HosteenJorje
I believe it was Fermi who speculated that the Trinity shot might ignite the atmosphere. Individuals on Sandia crest east of Albuquerque saw the explosion. I think the distance is probably a hundred air miles.


The thermonuclear Castle Bravo shot was three times more powerful than predicted- 15 megatons instead of 5 megatons. The fallout and radiation endangered some of the support equipment and personnel- as well as the ill-fated Japanese fishing boat Lucky Dragon No. 5. That incident inspired the 1954 Toho film Gojira- a much darker film than the re-edited and dubbed US version Godzilla King of the Monsters.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
borrow...that implies "paying back".

Who is being borrowed from when you clearly are bigger than everything ?


When other nations hold your currency in their reserves (about 60% of foreign reserves are held in dollars) that means there is a continuing demand for your dollars. They do this to make their currency more stable (harder for others to speculate on or have "runs" on their currency). A small country alone can not defend its currency. That generated dollar demand means that US Treasury rates stay relatively low (if there was lower demand for dollar instruments the Treasury would have to offer higher rates to attract buyers thus driving up the cost of borrowing for everyone). By being the largest economy and reserve we "insure" the other currencies.

Our rates stay relatively low and with that we provide many common goods - like collective defense among others. You know all those "statistics" about how the US defense budget is larger than "X" number of countries combined? That low interest, reserve currency is what pays for that collective defense at affordable rates but, low or not, the US taxpayer is on the hook. Other countries get to spend relatively more on social programs. Everybody wins except outsiders like the old Soviet Union or Communist China. Look up "Bretton Woods" or other about reserve currency.

If your concern is about "beggaring thy neighbor" policies and who has the power take a long look at Germany's export driven policies within the Euro that has ruined most of Southern Europe and leads the other Euro countries by the nose. The Euro members can no longer adjust their own currencies because they use the Euro so they go deeper in the hole buying German exports that keep Germans employed while it hollows out their own industries. The Germans run that train. Do you see any "everybody wins" scenarios there like Bretton Woods?

Nothing's perfect but some are more fair than others.
 
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