Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

[Gunstar]

The Nazi never fail to provide some of the best pulp.

 

Link

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

Interesting stuff. But, by that time the Luftwaffe had more than enough problems just keeping their conventional aircraft operating.

 

Then too, a lot of this was really-out-there concepts originally not expected to be even vaguely practical for at least another decade, and simply fast-tracked when it all started falling apart. One saw much the same notions in 'Popular Mechanics' magazines and so forth pre-war.

 

And finally, the Nazis were not exactly the first Germans to come up with the 'Amerika Bomber' idea. They really were not as original as people think, on many counts. 'The World's Worst Aircaft' by James Gilbert has a chapter titled 'Forssman's Folly'.

 

During World War One (yes, ONE!), there was this flamboyant character named Villehad Forssman working for the Germans as an aircraft designer (and, arguably, also their resident Mad Scientist). Note that aircraft design at that time was still very much hit-or-miss (literally), and Forssman's various ideas and designs seemed to have a failure rate well beyond the norm (one of his aircraft broke in half whilst engine-testing on the ground ). But Forssman had the support of various ... Top Men, who kept him employed.

 

His crowning glory had to be his long-range bomber - a ten-engined triplane with a wingspan greater than a Boeing 707's, intended to fly as far as New York, drop its bombs and then return. Never completed (as far as we know ...), all blueprints were destroyed just before the Armistice, and the only surviving component was a landing wheel (diameter of seven feet, eight inches ).

[LordGhee]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

SO THAT THE BOMBER CAPTAIN AMERICAN WAS ON WE HE WAS LOST.

 

Lord Ghee

[DusterBoy]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

I've actually nicked that for my own Champs campaign, booting it forward a couple of decades. I've seen a couple of documentaries on this plan and I think that their grasp was exceeding their reach, by a quite considerable margin.

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

SO THAT THE BOMBER CAPTAIN AMERICAN WAS ON WE HE WAS LOST.

 

Ohhh-kay.

 

I'm gonna assume that made sense to somebody else. Because it sure didn't to me.

[DusterBoy]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

I think it means it's the bomber that Captain America was on when he was lost. Which is pretty strange, since I didn't know Cap was on a bomber when he was lost.

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

I think it means it's the bomber that Captain America was on when he was lost. Which is pretty strange' date=' since I didn't know Cap was on a bomber when he was lost.[/quote']

 

Thought Cap'n'Bucky were hanging onto a rocket of some kind, actually.

[Susano]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

Thought Cap'n'Bucky were hanging onto a rocket of some kind' date=' actually.[/quote']

 

That's what I recall as well.

 

In an issue of Digital Hero, I have an article titled "Look! Up in the Sky!", which has stats for the Arado A.R. E.555-1, a rather cool-looking jet-powered bomber.

 

 

Not the sub-orbital Amerika Bomber... but still a great foe for your pulp-era Allied air fighters.

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

Way cool. Kind of like an ancestor to the Avengers' Quinjets.

[wcw43921]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

The Nazi never fail to provide some of the best pulp.

 

Link

 

The most cool thing about the Amerika Bomber? The fact that it would have been launched off a ramp--just like Fireball XL5--

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oboly57qxjg

[Narratio]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

Last R&R I recieved the complete run of Fireball XL5 on DVD... My childhood game running happily back to me.

[LordGhee]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

for your information

 

From the Wiki article on Captain

 

In late April 1945, during the closing days of World War II, Captain America and Bucky try to stop the villainous Baron Zemo from destroying an experimental drone plane. Zemo launches the plane with an armed explosive on it, with Rogers and Barnes in hot pursuit. They reach the plane just before it takes off, but when Bucky tries to defuse the bomb, it explodes in mid-air. The young man is believed killed, and Rogers is hurled into the freezing waters of the North Atlantic. Neither body is found, and both are presumed dead. It is later revealed that neither character actually died.

 

 

The Plane took off from a rail ramp, I remember it bieing a ratiz revenge weapon but I read it in my youth many moons ago.

 

Lord Ghee

[Tasha]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

The Nazi never fail to provide some of the best pulp.

 

Link

 

Actually that was the most radical of the 5 plans to create the "America Bomber"

 

Most of the rest were fairly conventional bombers that were reminiscent of a B17 or a B29

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_264 BTW they actually created 2 prototypes before production issues forced Germany to focus on fighter airplanes.

 

Here's the Wikipedia entry on the whole project and the various proposals

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_Bomber

 

Enjoy.

Tasha

 

PS My last Champions Campaign used a ton of Nazi Superscience (for the Villains), leading me to do a ton of research on the weird stuff that was proposed in the latter years of the war.

[Susano]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

I have a pile of images of prototype German aircraft designs from WWII. Most were just that, images, but man, you can get a lot of milage if you wanted to run something like Crimson Skies with more believable designs. After all, they don't have to be Nazi fighter planes.

 

Hmm... if anyone writes this stuff up (esp. using Hero Designer) send me a copy, please? I'd love to add it to the Vehicles section of the webpage.

[DusterBoy]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

FIREBALL XL-5 FOR THE WIN!

 

(Now we just need to build it, just to watch Gerry Anderson's reaction)

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

lets not forget the sub launched V1 Rocket project, which we later used some of the ideas from for the Regulus project among other things

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

If it was the idea I read of, basically a V-2 inside a submersible capsule, intended to be towed within strike range by a U-boat. Given the obvious engineering challenges and the even more obvious Allied ASW, it is hard to see how this particular idea could have been made to work within any meaningful timeframe.

 

The later Regulus project made use of the MUCH larger subs that were in service by then - large enough to carry the missile in a capsule on the sub's exterior.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

just re-read a great book on cold war submarine intel ops called Blind Mans Bluff, it starts off just after WW2

[megaplayboy]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

If it was the idea I read of, basically a V-2 inside a submersible capsule, intended to be towed within strike range by a U-boat. Given the obvious engineering challenges and the even more obvious Allied ASW, it is hard to see how this particular idea could have been made to work within any meaningful timeframe.

 

The later Regulus project made use of the MUCH larger subs that were in service by then - large enough to carry the missile in a capsule on the sub's exterior.

 

For a really radically different storyline....the Nazis succeed in building a weaker A-bomb(the Diebner device mentioned by My Tank is Fight), 3 of them in fact, and modify 3 V-2 rockets to fire them, albeit with shorter range (around 1 km). But they have no sub large enough to carry them close to American cities. But Japan still does...the I-400 class subs are hastily modified, making dangerous trips to transport the rockets close enough to hit their three targets (LA, NY, and the central airbase from which the B-29s fly to hit Japan)...

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

Diesel-powered flying boats catapult launched from hydroplaning cargo ships turned merchant raiders.

More of a 30s thing, I grant you, but there you go.

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

just re-read a great book on cold war submarine intel ops called Blind Mans Bluff' date=' it starts off just after WW2[/quote']

 

Yeah, the book describes some amazing stuff that went on. Recommended reading.

[Escafarc]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

here a more modern Russian thingamabob:

http://igor113.livejournal.com/51213.html

 

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

except thats not an quite an aircraft. I dont speak russian, but the jet engines on stub wings at the nose are a dead givewaway to what that actually is, thats an Ekranoplan, what NATO called "The Caspian Sea Monster" a hybrid aircraft and hovercraft

 

yeah its probably sad I could ID the photo without the URL or captioning

 

one of the neatest ideas ever

[Susano]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

except thats not an quite an aircraft. I dont speak russian, but the jet engines on stub wings at the nose are a dead givewaway to what that actually is, thats an Ekranoplan, probably what NATO called "The Caspian Sea Monster"

a WIGE Craft.

 

Images further down the page show the missile tubes, so yeah, I think it is.

[Escafarc]

Re: Nazi Germany's Secret Plan to Bomb New York

 

True, but in a Pulp game who to say what exactly it could do?