Amerika Bomber - Feasibility

Feasibility

According to British Intelligence, a German prisoner of war was quoted saying that since the beginning of 1944, “…regular air travel between Germany and Japan established for the transport of high officials,” took place with the Messerschmitt Me 264. The distance from Frankfurt, Germany to Tokyo, Japan is 9,160 km (5,691 mi) whereas the distance from New York City, New York to Paris, France is 5,840 km (3,628 mi) to put this in perspective. Although in the case of bombing New York City, that distance must be doubled to 11,680 km (7,256 mi) as the bomber will not be able to land as it did in Tokyo. The only German World War II aircraft built that had anything close to this specified range was the Messerschmitt Me 261 Adolfine, with a maximum range of 11,025 km (6,850 mi). For the bomber to be an effective weapon, these engineering challenges need to be addressed. Had Hitler spent more time and resources on this project, it may have had a chance of working. However, unless Germany developed an atomic bomb, which would have taken even more time and resources, it is unlikely this aircraft would have made a big impact on the outcome of the war.

Historian James P. Duffy believed that Germany had no central authority over the development and construction of advanced weaponry. Because of this, German scientists were forced to compete for resources that were already scarce due to the war. Hitler was often swayed to spend more time, money and resources on his “miracle weapons” or projects that were exciting and new, but less likely to be successful. As a result insufficient attention was given to the Amerika-Bomber project. The project failed to come to fruition, not because the transatlantic bomber was not feasible, but because the Nazis were unable to manufacture enough parts to produce the aircraft. The Allied bombing was so intense near the end of the war it disrupted the German supply chain. Also, the German war machine was running very low on supplies, particularly fuel and kept what little was left for defense.

Ultimately, all of these projects were deemed too expensive and ambitious and were thus abandoned. They continued to be of interest to aerospace engineers, as the British Air Ministry considered development of the Ho XVIII for an airliner after the war. Likewise, the theoretical groundwork done on the Silbervogel would prove seminal to lifting body designs of the space age.