Hitler decides on a bombing mission to the US

What if say in 1943 or early 44 Hitler decided to send a handful of aircraft to bomb the US for its propaganda value? Could he have pulled it off?
Now, in doing this the aircraft must return to base in Europe in order to gain the full value of being able to say they flew from Europe to the US and back along with being able to show it could be done again.

One way I see this might have actually worked is if Germany outfits say 6 to 8 of the available Bv 222 flying boats to carry a bombload of five hundred to two thousand Kg of bombs. These aircraft are then loaded with fuel and flown to a remote bay in upper Canada or Greenland where they meet a Milch küh U-boat(s) to refuel and take on their bomb load. From there they fly to the US and bomb a larger city. My suggestion is Chicago.
Why Chicago? It is just as close on a great circle route as New York. It is less likely to be well defended and less likely to expect attack giving the Germans the element of surprise.
The flight could leave from its U-boat refuelling point such as to arrive on target shortly after local sunrise making finding the target easy or they might bomb at night as the US was mostly not blacked out at the time.
The return trip is the reverse of the flight in.

The propaganda value for Germany at home would be tremendous. The US would likely have to over react to an extent to ensure it does not happen again.

 

I would equate it to the Doolittle raid on Tokyo. Pure propaganda value. Could he have pulled it off? Using the right aircraft, I would say yes. Would it spur radar development. I would say that the US already had Radar at this time but would spur a home defense system.

 

I would agree. Though the success of such a mission and the pilots returning alive, just seems improbable?

 

A raid of this type had been desired and planned starting in 39-40. The flying boats provided the most likely route to success. What stopped this then. The BV 222 took too long to make, Blohm and Voss had limited facilities to produce the plane (around one per month), they were also working on the BV 238.

The RLM tried to shift production to other vendors but no one else had bandwidth to pick it up. Focka Wolf had the most experience with large aircraft but were also swamped in this area with the FW 200, 300, and 400.

Another problem with your scenario is the transfer of the bomb load. The BV 222 could carry the bombs starting with the 500kg bomb and up, the load would never have been only 500kg but most likely 2000-4000kg Now how do you get the bombs from the sub into the plane and the bomb racks. This is why the bombs had to be loaded while the plane was at base. So why not refuel mid ocean with the bombs already on board. The plane had problems with landing and taking off in anything other than near perfect weather and sea conditions. So the predictability of weather canceled that mission.

As to your targets you are right in line with the German plan. New York, Chicago, and Detroit were considered.

As to America’s reaction, I think they may have gone along with the British and German shows of defense in the AA guns. I do not think that any other war effort would have been hindered as a result of this attack. In 43 and 44 there were plenty of DD to beef up the anti-sub defense with little impact to other roles. Radar advancement... I dont think so, however, a much more concerted effort to install and monitor radar, yes.

 

...planned...?

you mean someone in the Fuehrungsstab doodled something on the back of cigarette packet one time...

I don't how big New York or Chicago were during WWII but look at London which was a city that Hitler had some experience of bombing - over 1,000 square kilometers in area - you'd need one hundred bombers dropping ten bombs each to even land a single bomb per sq km....
I don't know about propaganda value - I doubt anyone would have even know that the event had occurred ...I reckon the Luftwaffe leadership realised pretty quickly - if it was ever considered seriously - that the value of such an undertaking would be precisely nil...

 

No I mean as the RLM laid out targets, and approaches, flight plans, bomb loads, plane requiremetns, began in-flight re-fueling tests, and built the Me 264, type planning.

Quite to the contrary it was seen as a good investment into long range bombers. The amount of material that the US would have had to put into defending its own cites was hoped to slow if not stop the US buildup of planes and equipment overseas. The attacks were always called harassment bombing, meant only to harass the enemy in his rear.

 

Nope, can't be done, i have read on this forum that the Germans were incapable of bombing east of the Urals, then if that is impossible then America is definately out of the question. Also surprise, surprise the Germans indeed develop a four engined heavy for the job tah duh (drums rolling) the Messerschmitt Me-264 Amerika Bomber, which had the capacity of delivering a light bombload to America and return back, say the Germans had say two dozen of these bombers and launched them in one raid over New York, methinks that would be more worth while in propaganda value that Chicago.

 

Rod, what you say reminds me of the Doolittle raid. A propaganda and morale building effort, that achieved nothing and was never repeated.

 

We were talking about using flying boats since the Germans did not have anything that could make the round trip compared to not having a land based bomber that could make the round trip to the Urals. Slight difference if you read the postings.

 

Roddoss, did you even read the previous posts? If the Germans had wanted to Bomb the US and not worried about getting the pilots back, they could have done it. While the ME 264 which I previously mentioned was developed for this purpose the Ta-400 and the BV-538 were competing designs that were superior to the Me-264 in several aspects. In fact after the ME-264 flying mock up had been tested, Miltch canceled the program. Only after the visit of Willy Messerschmitt with Herr Hitler was the program brought back at the request of Hitler. Had the effort not been made on the Me-264 more bandwidth would have been available for the more promising designs.

All of this matters little as the Germans were too far behind in the development of long range bombers to aid their cause. And as I also mentioned this "problem" arose because Germany had no strategic bombing doctrine. I personally don’t think that it was a problem as the effort to outcome ratio of strategic bombing is rather low IMO.

Yes the raids would have been similar to the Doolittle raid, and the Germans new this when the projects were planned.

 

Never underestimate the value of morale and propaganda. A bold and daring attack would have been well received by the Germans and its allies. Other than that, it would have little physical value. The resources that may be diverted would be minimal. It would make American communities more vigilant. I think it would also cause the U.S. to make a show of force/bravado that would counter the German effort. Of course, the problem with daring attacks is that they are dependant on numerous unknowns going correctly. Otherwise, they are huge flops like the attempt to rescue the hostages in Iran under the Carter abomination.

 

I am not so sure it would have a big morale and propaganda effect on the population since I have talked to older people who lived on the Texas Gulf Coast and they told of many nights where they could see cargo ships on fire from U-Boats during the early part of the war and they never feared of an invasion on anything such as that. They just felt sorry for the crews of the ships and hoped the sharks did not eat them before morning.

Also if the flying boat attacks did happen, the government probably would have had a news black out like they did for the Japanese fire bomb ballons in the northwest US.

 

And you haven't read mine, the fact is that the Messerschmitt was designed to deliver a light bombload to New York and return to Germany or a heavy bombload to New York and ditch on the way home and the crew picked up by U-Boat, and if by chance the Me-264 was able to complete a round trip from Germany to New York and return then why could it not fly from a forward base say in Ukraine to east of the Urals and back, considering it can on a one way trip fly from Germany to Japan.

 

The Doolittle raid was far from pure propaganda. It had a significant impact on the war although this was admitedly due to the Japanese over reaction to it.

The US also had a pretty extensive home defense system at the time. There were a huge number of AA guns devoted to continental defence until fairly late in the war. Indeed one of the reasons the US didn't go to a 90mm tank or AT gun earlier was that all the 90mm guns were going to AAA.

 

I did read it. Your first sentence was "Nope, can't be done..." and out from left field you brought up bombing the Urals which has nothing to do with this thread. Also, ditching the land based bombers at sea would not be considered a success. Even Goebbels could not pull out a propaganda coup with that. Was the ME-264 even available? Whereas the Flying boats were.

 

Roddoss, I did read your posts, you speculated that the Me 264 could have bombed NY. I had mentioned that before. The Me 264 was built as a flying test model but never started into production for lack of capacity. Yes if it had been built, it could have bombed industry in the Urals. But what would the point be in that. The Germans knew better than anyone that strategic bombing was not worth the effort unless you could hit a vital spot like oil/gasoline.

Who is to say that an attack on America would not have been over reacted to like the Japanese did to the Doolittle raid?

 

you can speculate also with FAGr 5's Ju 390 that was suppose to have reached just outside of New York in 1944...........myth, but the capability was there

 

The Ju 390 was a promising desing, in fact it was this plane that prompted Miltch to try and cancel development of the Me 264. The other plane that was supposed to be suitable for this long range mission was the Ta 400.

 

The way I had such a mission figured was that the Germans could have taken the 5 available and completed at least one additional Bv 222 transports and converted them for a bombing role by adding say, three bomb racks under each wing inboard. For a US bombing mission they might have been fitted to carry a total of 12 250 kg bombs each.
Additional fuel tankage could have been put into the fuselage as it was primarily cargo space as it was. Let's assume a flying range of about 3,500 miles maximum with the modifications.
Additionally, they could be fitted with radio navigation equipment including sets compatable with the KM. A Hohenweil radar set could also be installed for navigation and station keeping purposes. Each aircraft would have several extra crew aboard for in-flight maintenance (the engines are partially accessable in flight) and to allow reliefs for the length of the flight.
The mission would fly out of northern Norway to avoid Iceland and possible interception following a great circle route to Chicago. This takes the aircraft over mostly barren parts of Canada and Greenland minimizing chances for detection. The mission could have been flown in say, June or July of 1943 maybe even a month or two earlier.
The KM has a supply sub sent to refuel the aircraft on the return leg only. They have sufficent flying range to make the target and then get over Northern Canada or to Greenland where an isolated and suitable bay is chosen for the refueling.
At the time, the US Navy is the primary military arm flying out of the Chicago area (carrier landing practice on the Great Lakes aboard Wolverine and Sable) with the aircraft normally ashore at locations like NAS Midway (today's Midway airport). The nearest AAF bases are places like Wright field in Ohio.
All the German aircraft have to do is successfully navigate to the target arriving there shortly after dawn. This way they will be landing at the refueling point in daylight. For the night flight they maintain formation by using their navigation lights. Although this would not normally have been the practice given the expectation of no enemy encounters enroute it would be safe to do so.