Enola Gay over Berlin?

lancer21 said:
As to R4M rockets, how many R4M rockets can be built for every V-1 and/or for every Me-163? There were 30,000 V-1 built, so if 10 R4Ms can be built for every V-1, that's 300,000 R4M rockets, though that might be too conservative. Perhaps say 500,000 is more realistic. By the same metric, if we have the 6000 V-2s converted to R4Ms instead, considering that it cost about 20 (!) times more than V-1 to built, then that would be 6 to 10 million R4M rockets, so we actually got to the number in the OP. However, for the rockets to have an impact they need to be ready 1 year earlier.
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Didn't R4Ms have an acoustic proximity fuze, tuned to the 200hz sound of a B17**? B29s have a different engine tonal, so the Germans would have to get that frequency to set the prox fuze for B29s.

** That's a very distinctive sound, if you're outside and ever hear an odd almost musical sound that's basically constant pitch, LOOK UP! You'll almost certainly see a B17.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Didn't R4Ms have an acoustic proximity fuze, tuned to the 200hz sound of a B17**? B29s have a different engine tonal, so the Germans would have to get that frequency to set the prox fuze for B29s.

** That's a very distinctive sound, if you're outside and ever hear an odd almost musical sound that's basically constant pitch, LOOK UP! You'll almost certainly see a B17.
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It seems you are refering to the X-4 wire guided air-to-air missile which indeed had an acoustic fuse. The R4M unguided rocket just had an impact and time fuse.
 
martinbayer said:
I have no reason to doubt your qualifications, but based on fundamental logic I continue to extremely strongly dispute the assertion that both Frankfurt and Stuttgart could have been taken out *simultaneously* by either a *single* Little Boy or Fat Man.
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I realized that my original reasoning was faulty - in order to impact both Frankfurt and Stuttgart to equal effect, you'd have to bomb the location equidistant between them, which happens to be the small town of Hirschhorn on the Neckar river of about 3500 people as of 2022. I still severely doubt though that a Little Boy or Fat Man airburst at that target would have notably impacted either Frankfurt or Stuttgart.
 
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martinbayer said:
Firstly, you could easily have checked out and debunked that patently false assertion by applying basic critical thinking and simple online research, so my best recommendation would be to not ever consult that particular physician with any potential health problems at all. Secondly, there is an *extremely* good reason why physician and geographer are two very distinct professions. Thirdly, to me it appears that consistently medical doctors have to pass a much lower bar of scientific scrutiny than say mechanical, let alone aerospace, engineering doctors. Nuff said.
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Martin,

Try to keep some perspective. I worked at a major hospital. I doubt aerospace engineers carry malpractice insurance.
 
edwest4 said:
Martin,

Try to keep some perspective. I worked at a major hospital. I doubt aerospace engineers carry malpractice insurance.
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Right - I would not want a say electrical engineer to perform surgery on me any more than I would trust a say endocrinologist to perform accurate weapons damage assessments.
 
lancer21 said:
It seems you are refering to the X-4 wire guided air-to-air missile which indeed had an acoustic fuse. The R4M unguided rocket just had an impact and time fuse.
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The X-4 had an acoustic fuse called Kranich (Crane). There were no B-29s to worry about. The U.S. had sent the Russians four examples under Lend-Lease. They kept them. Reverse-engineered them and created the first Russian atomic bomber, the Tu-4. I can imagine being a young airman being briefed in 1949. "They look just like B-29s except they have these big, red stars."
 
martinbayer said:
Firstly, you could easily have checked out and debunked that patently false assertion by applying basic critical thinking and simple online research, so my best recommendation would be to not ever consult that particular physician with any potential health problems at all. Secondly, there is an *extremely* good reason why physician and geographer are two very distinct professions. Thirdly, to me it appears that consistently medical doctors have to pass a much lower bar of scientific scrutiny than say mechanical, let alone aerospace, engineering doctors. Nuff said.
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PhDs are research-based doctorates; MD and its kin (LLD, EdD, PharmD, etc) are not. PhDs are more work, in that they require original research, but I don't know if they "harder" in any quantifiable way.
 
jstar said:
Pretty sure the B-29's in Russian hands were all emergency landings, when they ran into trouble over Japan, and were surely not lend-lease,
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Thank you. It seems that what passes for "scholarship" online distracted me.
 
martinbayer said:
I realized that my original reasoning was faulty - in order to impact both Frankfurt and Stuttgart to equal effect, you'd have to bomb the location equidistant between them, which happens to be the small town of Hirschhorn on the Neckar river of about 3500 people as of 2022. I still severely doubt though that a Little Boy or Fat Man airburst at that target would have notably impacted either Frankfurt or Stuttgart.
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You would basically need a ground-burst with just the right wind patterns to affect both cities with one bomb. A 20 kiloton air-burst would have minimal effects outside of a about a 1km radius.
 
edwest4 said:
PEs? ??
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Professional Engineers. If I recall, they're roughly equivalent to Chartered Engineers in the UK.

To qualify as a PE, the requirements are usually a) Bachelor's degree from an accredited university b) 5 years of work experience under a PE, and c) passing the PE exams, which are broadly based and 16 hours long.
 

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