ED: I was about to post a comment to this post on Reddit. But, then I realized that I’d rather just put it on here instead.
It’s a vast and fascinating subject.
The post is titled “TIL The B-29 bomber program was the most expensive project of WWII, costing roughly ~50% more than the entire Manhattan Project”.
What an interesting topic!
The story of the development of the Superfortress is a fascinating one. And the cost of converting bombers to carry atomic weapons was relatively minor ($60 million). Silverplate consisted mostly of enlarging the bomb bay and stripping out unnecessary weight (e.g. defensive weaponry).
Significantly, the nominal cost of the Norden bombsight development alone was $1.1 billion. But only a fraction of those were deployed to B-29s. And its efficacy was dubious at best.
For context, the U.S. spent far more on producing tanks ($6 billion). Artillery expenses were $3.5 billion — and that doesn’t include the shells.
In comparison, Germany spent roughly $2 billion developing and producing their V-2 (A4) rocket program. It’s difficult to establish consistent conversion of Reichsmarks to US dollars.
In terms of R&D, the costs of Anglo-American efforts at developing radar technology might exceed that of any of the other programs. But data on that subject is elusive.
