Fantastic find, hopefully this can be sorted on the Dev server and the Washington can have its uniquely British bomb load ready for when the update releases.
On a separate note, for those complaining about a bomber being a pointless addition because of the current state of bomber gameplay, I’d like to point out that gameplay deficiencies are temporary, but securing important historical vehicles for the tech tree is permanent.
Sure, bombers currently suck, but nuclear thunder/strategic bombing was a huge success for gaijin and it will almost certainly be making a bigger return and expanding to different BR brackets. If/when that time comes, it will be fantastic to have already secured our post-war strategic bomber for the tech tree.
They are described as a “medium bomber” in the Operations Record Books, and only carried conventional bombs. They were only a stopgap until the Canberra entered service, and I haven’t seen any info on them being modified for carriage of nuclear freefall bombs. They’re just regular B-29As.
Somewhat. The Canberra was in service very shortly after we acquired the Washington (a little over a year), with the intention being that the Canberra took on the tactical bomber role and the Washington took on the strategic bomber role - if we wanted to drop bombs on the frontline or forward bases, we would use the Canberra. If we wanted to drop bombs on cities or factories well behind the frontline, we would use the Washington.
The Washington was primarily a stopgap until our jet powered strategic bombers (the V bombers) were ready.
It’s not a completely copy-paste. If you have taken your time reading other comments here, you would have seen that they have found that it can use the British bombs IRL. There’s a good chance it will have its own British bomb load.
Washington B.1 is very much needed to fill the gap in the bomber line between Rank IV and Rank V.