Superfort: Is This Reasonable?

[Daryl J.]

Would putting 3 SUU-11 miniguns in each bombay aimed to the left and depressed somewhat be reasonable space-wise for a Vietnam AB-29K?    Is there room for some kind of Gatling?   Other subtle SEA-climate mods would also occur such as ''metalizing'' control surfaces, different antennae, etc.

I've not yet decided whether or not to make this a Vietnam truck-buster or a Sub Killer but genuinely lack understanding regarding armaments. (...and they ate lambs and sloths and breakfast cereals.....)



TIA,
Daryl J.

[jcf]

Hi Daryl, sorry but I'm going to be a little bit JMN here, the B-29K designation was originally used for the hose tanker B-29 conversions, so AB-29K is an unlikely designation. N, Q and R were evidently not used on the B-29, I like 'Q'.
The 'K'  in the AB-26K designation was a sequential identifier that resulted from the post-1962 Tri-Service identifier standardization. The USN JD-1s became the UB-26J, and later the two RB-26Cs that were fitted with infrared sensors for operations in South Vietnam became RB-26Ls.

The B-29 would be poorly suited to Spooky gunship type operations for visibility reasons, especially with bomb bay mounted guns... transports were used in that role because of the better view of the target afforded by their layout. Guns in the belly below the wings would be very difficult to direct.

That said how about a Mukade (Centipede) type aircraft used in concert with B-57G Night Intruders for interdiction on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, etc.?



Two Mukade versions of the Fugaku six-engined heavy bomber were also proposed, an anti-bomber version with 96 20mm cannon designed to fly above B-29 formations and shoot downwards and an anti-ship version with 400 7.7mm machine guns.

So maybe an AB-29Q 'Street-Sweeper' with a mix of fixed angle 7.62mm Mini-guns and a pair of 20MM M61 Vulcans mounted in one bomb bay and loads of cluster munitions in the other bomb bay along with an infrared sensor suite and cameras in/under the nose?

Cheers, Jon

[Daryl J.]

Thanks muchly.   The question was rather JMN-ish to begin with.

Forward and down.....that's a thought.      Perhaps Capt's Smith and Wesson would have to be the crew.  OK...bad pun.    

If I build it this way, John, you'll get credit for the idea.



Daryl J.

[lenny100]

how about his idea
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2007/07/03/...mbs&Qis=XL#qdig

[PanzerWulff]

They actually had a weapon pack for the Martin built B-57 Canberra that replaced the bomb bay doors with a downward firing battery of 6 miniguns for ground attack.How many could they fit in a B-29's belly    
"Panzer"

[B777LR]

They actually had a weapon pack for the Martin built B-57 Canberra that replaced the bomb bay doors with a downward firing battery of 6 miniguns for ground attack.How many could they fit in a B-29's belly    
"Panzer"

Enough

Or how many large caliber cannons could they fit?

[Iranian F-14A]

The AC-123K (or NC-123K) Black Spot gunship did away with guns altogether and used a CBU system in which a target was detected by FLIR and or LLTV and then a selected number of bomblets were dropped on it.This would probbly be the best way of making a B-29 into a gunship.Maybe add a FLIR where the lower front turret is.To add a few downward firing guns sounds like a good idea and since the Superfortress had two main bombays,you could use the foreward for the guns,and the aft for the CBU dispenser.Personally,I'm thinking making it a full CBU bomber with FLIR and LLTV would make sense since taking a Superfort in on a straffing run at low level would be pretty close to suicide since it was such a large,slow moving plane.A ZSU-23-4 or an SA-7 would have an easy time with a B-29.At the very least if it didn't get shot down,it'd be a write off once it got back to base.


EDIT: I suppose if you want to really go out into left field,you could add some recoiless rifles and rocket propelled shells like the Germans had plans for in the last days of WWII.Just point them downward.It'd give a bit more standoff advantage and more bang for the buck over the standard 7.62mm shells of a minigun.