Chapter 134: The Peacemaker (II)

Holmstede Air Force Base, located at the southern tip of the Florida Peninsula, just outside of Miami, Florida, USA

Accompanied by the clear electric bell and the noisy shouts of the ground staff, a group of silver-shining behemoths appeared on the runway of the airport. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

They are the world's largest military bomber at the moment, the B-36 Peacemaker with six propellers.

It was an ultra-long-range strategic bomber that set many records: it was the largest piston-engined aircraft in history to be mass-produced, the largest military aircraft in history, the first bomber that could carry all types of atomic bombs in the U.S. nuclear arsenal at the time without modification, and the first ever ultra-long-range strategic bomber capable of carrying intercontinental bombing missions across oceans.

Among the planes soaring in the sky in this era, the B-36 is the absolute "air giant", and the public relations department of the Convair company that produced it once published an article titled "Believe it or not" to describe to the public the huge B-36 "peacemaker": the maximum take-off weight is as high as 186 tons, which is equivalent to three B-29s, the largest bomber in World War II; It can carry thirty-nine tons of bombs, which is equivalent to lifting one P-24 (fully loaded) and another P-47 at the same time; Its ten engines produced 44,000 horsepower, equivalent to nine locomotives or 400 military trucks, and even two World War I-era coal-boiler "Dreadnoughts" (the total power of the Dreadnought was only 22,500 horsepower); And in order to drive such a powerful engine, it is loaded with enough fuel for the head of an internal combustion locomotive to travel ten times around the earth; Its high-altitude de-icing system provides enough heating for a six-hundred-room hotel; Its wingspan reaches seventy meters in length, which is twice the distance of the Wright brothers' first flight!

-- Compared to the size of the B-36 "Peacemaker", even the B-29 Super Flying Fortress is extraordinarily thin.

However, despite the fact that the B-36 "Peacemaker" is so large and bloated, under the full thrust of six piston engines (each with a power of up to 3,800 horsepower) and four turbojet engines (each with a maximum thrust of 23,000 N), it can reach a maximum speed of 685-700 km/h in combat conditions, which is not much different from the fastest fighter during World War II, and the ultimate flight altitude can reach 20,000 meters, reaching the stratosphere. There are also 16 guns for self-defense (six of which are equipped with double-barreled 20 mm guns in each of the active remote-controlled turrets, and two 20 mm cannons each in the nose and tail turrets). Of course, compared with the previous production of American bombers, the most significant improvement of the B-36 is its bomb load and range: during World War II, even the famous B-29 "Super Flying Fortress" strategic bomber had a maximum bomb load of only nine tons, while the B-36 could carry 39 tons of ammunition (including the heaviest nuclear bomb at the time); The B-29 has a maximum range of 6,700 kilometres, while the B-36 has a staggering 12,000 to 16,000 kilometres (the maximum range varies slightly from model to model, with the original model having a maximum range of only 12,000 kilometres) – in other words, there is hardly any target on Earth that is not within the range of its destruction. But it is ironic that such an aircraft, carefully prepared for a devastating nuclear war, was given the nickname "Peacemaker" by the US Air Force!

But when you think about it from another angle, the nickname seems quite apt - nuclear bombs bring peace!

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Such an unprecedented super-air monster as the B-36 had apparently surpassed the technological and industrial level of the time to a certain extent, and had led to a whole host of practical operational problems. For example, the noise generated by the nearly six-meter-diameter propeller cutting through the air at high altitude is so loud that the crew feels as if they are in a noisy printing shop, and if they do it for a long time, they are even in danger of hearing loss.

Even more problematic is the fact that the B-36 Peacemaker's propeller is mounted in the rear rather than the usual front, that is, a rare push-in type is used instead of the usual pull-in type. As a result, the engine layout was such a way that the air flow into the engine was insufficient - presumably due to the front wings, and the lack of air flow caused insufficient air cooling, which caused the engine to overheat and even misfire: all B-36 bombers suffered from engine overheating, which led to many horrific mid-air fires.

As the first batch of prototypes in service, the twelve B-36 "Peacemakers" that appeared at Homestead Air Force Base in Florida are full of all kinds of minor problems, and the engine overheating is simply heart-wrenching. Crews who have gone to the skies have complained that the B-36 ultra-long-range bomber they operate is "two engines burning as soon as they go to the sky, and two engines are overheated and ready to turn into a big fireball...... But in spite of this, despite the military orders, in the face of the Pentagon's strict orders, these pilots gritted their teeth and wrote their wills, and then loaded the atomic bombs, incendiary bombs, high-explosive bombs, and propaganda bombs with great anxiety, and embarked on a journey to South America......

Fortunately, after several hours of long-haul flights, four B-36s "Peacemakers" broke down and had to make a temporary landing, and the Pentagon was forced to scale back the target, leaving Chile on the other side of the Andes out of the target range for the first nuclear explosion. But the remaining eight B-36 bombers, including four B-36 bombers carrying atomic bombs, made it to Brazil's southern border.

Then, the nightmare of death, which had been staged many times in Eurasia, finally befell the naïve and romantic people of South America.

-- In the face of B-36 "Peacemaker" ultra-long-range strategic bombers attacking at full speed from an altitude of 14,000 meters, in this era when there are no surface-to-air missiles, even if the air defense early warning radar responds in advance, the antiaircraft guns on the ground will not be able to hit such an altitude, and even if the fighters have time to take off to meet them, they will often not be able to fly so high -- especially when the armaments of the South American countries are generally backward and there are basically no advanced aircraft.

What's more, the B-36 "Peacemaker" is thicker and stronger than the B-29, and the self-defense firepower on the bomber is not vegetarian......

Therefore, eight B-36 "Peacemaker" ultra-long-range bombers advancing at full speed easily broke through the weak resistance of South American countries and sowed the Pandora's box of death and destruction on the most fertile and fertile plain of La Plata in the whole of South America.

Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, on the banks of the Río de la Plata, was the first to be hit by a 40,000-ton atomic bomb that accurately hit the city, killing 200,000 citizens, including President Perón and his wife, and destroying the entire Argentine central government. Then, on the other side of the Río de la Plata, Uruguay's capital, Montevideo, and the two northern Argentine cities, La Plata and Rosario, were also hit with a nuclear bomb...... In addition, several other Argentine cities were subjected to regular bombardment by B-36s and were dropped warning leaflets. Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, escaped for the time being because it was raining and the sky was overcast, and the bombers could not see the ground from above. As a result of this sudden change in the rear, the anti-American coalition forces of the three countries, which had already advanced deep into Brazil, were forced to temporarily halt.

However, for South America, which has been away from the war for too long, this is only the first wave of the "bald eagle punishment...... Three days later, a fleet of B-36 Peacemakers, laden with atomic bombs, roared again, dropping more atomic bombs on other cities in the La Plata River Valley. Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, was not spared this time, being razed to the ground by an atomic bomb. The temporary anchorage of the Soviet Atlantic Fleet, Porto Alegre, an important town in southern Brazil that had been occupied by the anti-American coalition, was also subjected to a nuclear explosion this time, and the entire fleet suffered heavy losses and was on the verge of collapse.

On the other hand, in the face of the rampant nuclear offensive of the US imperialist strategic air force, the strategic nuclear strike forces of the Soviet socialist camp were also not to be outdone, and immediately decided to take an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, nuclear bomb for nuclear bomb, and dispatched the latest long-range bomber group across the Pacific relay to take off from the forward air base that had just been built in the port of Antofagasta in northern Chile, and to attack Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, as well as São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and other cities, as well as the places where satellite reconnaissance showed that large airfields had been built. A full 20 atomic bombs were dropped in batches, completely ravaging the best of Brazil, blowing the largest country in South America into anarchy, and incidentally destroying five B-36 "Peacemakers" on the ground - because three of the B-36 "Peacemakers" also carried American atomic bombs, the result was a very serious large-scale nuclear leak after the destruction, which caused huge problems for the clean-up and reconstruction work: if anyone else would clean up this pile of radioactive rubble in the future......

In addition, the Soviet Air Force also nuclear bombed the Bolivian capital Sucre -- because after the United States bombed Argentina and other countries, the Bolivian government, which had just surrendered to the armistice, felt that a turning point was coming, and immediately tore up the armistice agreement and rejoined the Allied camp led by the United States, in an attempt to take advantage of the opportunity to make a false threat to its neighbors, but forgot that the Soviets' strategic bomber group was still beside it...... As a result, the Bolivian government's self-inflicted cleverness turned into suicide in the blink of an eye, and the capital Sucre and most of the central government team were reduced to ashes in the mushroom cloud of the Soviet atomic bomb......

Since the large airports in Brazil have been destroyed, for the sake of safety, the B-36 "Peacemaker" group, which has lost its relay station in Brazil, has no choice but to shrink its combat radius, and instead of trying to make an expedition to Chile and Argentina, the target of the punitive nuclear explosion has shifted to the northern part of South America, Ecuador and Peru, which are closer to the US mainland, and have successively nuclear bombed Quito, the capital of Ecuador, and Lima, the capital of Peru. The Soviet Union also retaliated, first carrying out a nuclear attack on Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, and then nuclear bombing the colonial capitals of the Netherlands, France, and Britain in Guiana, forcing the governments of these three countries to move to the Caribbean again, such as Churchill who moved the British Empire's government-in-exile to the Cayman Islands, Dutch Queen Wilhelmina moved to the Antilles with her court and cabinet in exile, and Charles de Gaulle's Free France moved to Martinique...... Thanks to these old powers, they are really big and have a lot of land to settle down in.

Due to the technological limitations of this era, the strategic air forces of the United States and the Soviet Union could relatively easily penetrate the defense at high altitudes and drop atomic bombs on enemy cities, but it was very difficult to establish a solid territorial air defense system to intercept enemy bombers carrying nuclear bombs outside the country -- as a result, with mushroom clouds rising into the sky over the land of Latin America, all the people of South America, who were once romantic and happy, had to seriously face a desperate choice: Do you choose the American atomic bomb or the Soviet atomic bomb? No matter which one you choose, you can die with no bones left!

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By the end of 1947, except for Chile, which was the most geographically remote in the whole of South America, and Colombia, which was deeply mired in the Red and White Civil War and fought inextricably, had been blessed by misfortune and had escaped the catastrophe by luck and had not yet been bombed by nuclear bombs, all other South American countries, whether pro-American or anti-American, had endured more than one atomic bomb, and all major cities were reduced to radiated ruins in the mushroom cloud, and tens of millions of people died.

Moreover, the vast majority of South American countries have fallen into a dark age of government dysfunction and social order collapse after being bombarded with nuclear bombs. As for the ground war between the pro-American and anti-American camps, it has basically stopped -- because the rear of their countries has been destroyed by nuclear explosions, the armies of all sides have fallen into an unprecedented dilemma of paralysis of command and cut off logistics, and their morale has fallen to the point of collapse, and there is no point in continuing to fight.

It can be seen from this that the B-36 ultra-long-range bomber, equipped with an atomic bomb, really lives up to its name as a "peacemaker" -- in the final analysis, war still needs people to start it, and as long as everyone is almost dead, the war is bound to be immovable, and the world will naturally be at peace......

With the escalation of nuclear retaliation and counter-retaliation, hundreds of mushroom clouds have risen one after another across South America. Seeing that the U.S. military put on such a scorched earth strategy, the Russians couldn't help but think of their country's past when they used General Winter and burned Moscow to drag Emperor Napoleon to death, so after repeatedly weighing the command, the Kremlin had to completely abandon the plan of "striding forward in one go, using South America as a springboard to attack the US mainland", but recalled the fleet and air force sent to South America, and re-threw a mess full of radiation ruins to the Americans.

After confirming that the combined fleet of the Soviets and the Japanese Navy had withdrawn, the Pentagon stopped bombing South American countries and withdrew the ground troops trapped in Brazil and other places, leaving only some motley troops symbolically in a few coastal strongholds, and then retreated to the homeland to lick their wounds and recuperate, leaving the South American countries that "restored peace" to fend for themselves.

In this way, the round of life-and-death struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union in South America ended with the devastating blow to the countries of South America.

Then, in the midst of an unprecedented catastrophe of hunger, war, and turmoil, humanity across the globe ushered in the coldest winter of the century...... (To be continued.) )