Pepe,
Which Amerika-Bomber are you thinking about for use?
Conventional bombers
The most promising proposals were based on conventional principles of aircraft design and would have yielded aircraft very similar in configuration and capability to the Allied heavy bombers of the day, with many of the developed designs going with
tricycle landing gear for their undercarriage, a relatively new feature for large German military aircraft designs of that era. These included the
Messerschmitt Me 264 (an all-new design, and the first one completed and flown), the
Focke-Wulf Fw 300 (based on the existing
Fw 200),
Focke Wulf Ta 400, and the
Junkers Ju 390 (based on the
Ju 290), as well as the
Heinkel He 277, which from its design's ongoing development through 1943, eventually ended up as worthy to compete for the "Amerika-Bomber" role. Prototypes of the Me 264 were built, but it was the Ju 390 that was selected for production. Three prototypes of the Me 264 design, and a verified pair of the Ju 390 design were constructed before the programmes were abandoned. It has been claimed[SUP]
[4][/SUP] in a number of postwar World War II air combat subject books, that in early 1944 the second prototype of the Ju 390 made a trans-Atlantic flight to within 20 km (12 mi) of the northeast U.S. coast.
Huckepack Projekt (Piggyback Project)
One idea similar to
Mistel-Gespann was to have a
Heinkel He 177 bomber carry a
Dornier Do 217, powered with an additional
Lorin-Staustrahltriebwerk (
Lorin-
ramjet), as far as possible over the Atlantic before releasing it. For the Do-217 it would have been a one-way trip. The plane would be ditched off the east coast, and its crew would be picked up by a U-boat that was waiting nearby. When plans had advanced far enough, the lack of fuel and the loss of the base at
Bordeaux prevented a test. The project was abandoned after the forced move to
Istres increased the distance too much.
Atomic bomber
The controversial
revisionist British historian
David Irving stated that a method of bombing
New York City was discussed at several Luftwaffe conferences in May and June 1942. One idea that received a lot of attention was the Huckepack Projekt (piggyback project). Initially Field-Marshal
Erhard Milch vetoed the plan due to the small payload that would be delivered for such a massive project. However, on June 4, 1942,
Erhard Milch and
Albert Speer attended a lecture by
Werner Heisenberg on atomic fission at the
Harnack-Haus.[SUP]
[5][/SUP] After the lecture, Speer asked Heisenberg if this research could design an
atom bomb. Heisenberg replied that it could be done, but would take as long as two years. Speer then asked how large a bomb would need to be to destroy a city to which Heisenberg replied the size of a football.[SUP]
[2][/SUP] Heisenberg requested funds, rare materials, and scientists be released from the army to continue their research. The Huckepack Projekt was brought up again at multiple joint conferences between the Luftwaffe and
Kriegsmarine. However, after a few weeks the plan was abandoned on August 21, 1942. Air Staff General Kreipe wrote in his diary that the German Navy could not supply a
U-boat offshore of the United States to pick up the aircrew. The plan saw no further development, since the Kriegsmarine would not cooperate with the Luftwaffe.[SUP]
[2][/SUP]