I hate buffs above 25k

[Zigrat]

I take offense to that, as do my fellow knights.

Show me where a knight was EVER above 27k, and ill eat my shirt.


You are full of it.

[Tac]

Toad, I was in B-26 FIGHTER because NO plane could ever climb to the 30k+ alt you dweebs were in. Matter of fact, when your raid was E of the vbase (the one thats East of HQ) I had taken off 23 in a B-26, dropped all bombs and went straight east. I knew that none of our fighters would make it that high (aside from becoming flying targets). I kept climbing towards A1 hoping to catch you people on the way back from the raid. and I did. I was at 29k (the b-26 will crawl like 10ft per minute on autoclimb at that alt) when I passed a b-17 at near co-alt (I think I was a bit lower)  and some other buff that was WAY, WAY higher than I was.

My goal from the beggining was to get at least one of you 30k+ dweebs.

Now, lets see it from another point of view. You folks climbed to bomb a field that is at ground level. I climbed to get you guys..and ended up catching you over A1. Thats... lets see... 29k minus the 10k alt of A1... ooh that makes me a 19k Buff dweeb!!!!

I got it on film, my gunner has it on film. When the raid was detected at strato alt, many knights intercepting turned their films on.

Its 3:12 am right now, I just logged off and Knights owned 3/4ths of the map. Before the raid we owned 1/4th. Moral of the story: 30k+ raids just bring forth the outrage of the entire group. That allowed us to coordinate and kick the stuffing outta you. We flattened your city and HQ and took all core fields except 8 and 11.

*SPANK* *SPANK* Bad bishcuits!

BTW, this film, I hope, will help show how easily a buff becomes a fighter. I was amazed how a b-26 turned like a zeke at that alt, dived to 400 mph with no problem, rudder slips to kill speed... and best of all, I had a Turbolaser gunner to ping others from insane ranges. what a rush!  

[This message has been edited by Tac (edited 08-15-2000).]

[eddiek]

I know how frustrated it is to try and intercept a buff that high.
But just think how long that guy took to get that high!  Takes more patience than I have, that is for sure.  Took me forever to get one up to just 15K the other night, so if someone takes one up that high, he was sure dedicated to whatever mission he was on.  Gotta admire that much, to say the least.
Problem is, by the time guys realize that #1, the con is a buff, and #2, how high it is, they are already out of position to do a well planned intercept, unlike in RL WW2, when the LW had hours to get their ships upstairs to intercept the incoming bomber streams.
The way I see it, you have choice of a)fly all your sorties at high alt, in order to catch that stray buff(s), or b)let the guy go, maybe try and catch him later and shoot him down.
The bottom line, as I see it, is that some guys don't like it when they get caught out of position, at a disadvantage, whatever.
Blame yourself if you find yourself lower than an enemy.  You chose to level at your alt, he chose to climb higher.  Your fault, not his.  
I am in total agreement about the buffs over-performances at higher alts, and I think all the fighters do not perform as they should at the higher alts.  You get a fighter up to over 400 at 25K, and the stall horn should not start blaring as soon as you raise the nose......makes no sense to me.
Maybe HTC will look into the matter, and see if the modeling is off on the fighters, as I think that is where the problem lies.


PS--Did not see Tac's post til after i sent mine.....for the record, I do not fly bishops........lol.  And I rarely fly buffs anyway.

[This message has been edited by eddiek (edited 08-15-2000).]

[bloom25]

Two things:  First of all, IMO bombers should be only allowed to bomb accurately at semi-realistic altitudes of around 20k feet max.  There is nothing more annoying than a bomber at 35k.

Second, the bomber guns and toughness are just perfect.  I have film after film of one pass kills on bombers in a p51 and p47.  (Probably the hardest planes to kill a bomber in, except for the 202.)  Saturday night I managed to destroy or badly damage, an entire group of 4 rook bombers with a p51.  (Even have it on film, if I can find it.   )  I got kill credits for 2 of them, and assists on the others.  Doing this I took no pings, even though I made 3 passes on one of the b17s.  I received no damage whatsoever and had to RTB because of low fuel and ammo.  Given 2k of alt above a bomber I personally find them an easy kill.

I'll add some films of 1 pass bomber kills just for the viewing pleasure of seeing bombers go down in flames.  

Here's the film of the above.  (About 430k or so, but all of it is action.  Would be better if you had the RW voice chatter.   )

bombers.ahf

Here's some other (smaller) films:

You might notice that shot poorly in a couple of these films, but still managed to win.  I think the worst damage I take is a broken radiator to an ackstar.

poorpass.ahf

killb26.ahf

p47bomber.ahf

p51vb17.ahf

p51vb172.ahf

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bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS

[This message has been edited by bloom25 (edited 08-15-2000).]

[Downtown]

Bloom what were the altitude of those fights, and personally I think a lone pony should expend all of its ammo to get one B-17. (Unless it's real good shooting, short burst that take out the engines or explode the bombs.)

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"Downtown" Lincoln Brown.
    lkbrown1@tir.com    
 http://www.tir.com/~lkbrown1
Wrecking Crews "Drag and Die Guy"
Hals und beinbruch!

[funked]

Grunherz I think that was 170 IAS, not TAS.  Flying 170 TAS at 25,000 feet would have a fully loaded B-17G on the verge of falling out of the air.

Top speeds are given in TAS.

[HABICHT]

i met an former b17 navigator (35 sorties)
in seattle 1 week ago. we had a nice conver
sation. i asked him for their combat alt
(because of the AH strato buffs :-)) his
answer was around 25k maximum. escort higher
and ...germans highest :-).
i belive THIS man, not some "may i have heard" things.

HABiCHT out
PS. diddlying strato buffs...

[funked]

Keep in mind that station keeping for a big bomber formation was a full-time task, and required good control.  You couldn't do tac-turns or other tricks to stay in position during course changes.  This means two things:

1.  The bombers didn't operate at highest altitude they could attain because they needed a margin of maneuverability.

2.  The lead bombers didn't operate at full throttle, because the formation would not have been able to stay together.

In AH we have bombers carrying a tiny fuel load that don't have to worry about formation flying.  It is quite logical that they can fly higher and faster than a fully loaded bomber that has to stay in a very tight 3-dimensional formation.

[This message has been edited by funked (edited 08-15-2000).]

[StSanta]

Safety.

 

Might be hard to see, but the altitude at the pic is 30k.

Safety.

Anyone who spends time climbing with a B17 to 31k can only be classified in my book as two things; one who thinks about safety and...

one who is UTTERLY boring. Man, what patience it must take! And the excitement must rival that of watching grass grow, or paint dry.

C'mon guys, for everyones sake, make scrambles worthwhile. It'll be fun for you, the escorts and us. And all sides will have casualties.

The result of this toejamty dweebery is that what used to be very amusing (scramble missions) now is dull and it's hard to find players who are willing to scramble.

"Big deal, they're 32k+, nothing we can do anyhow".

For your information, when the kniggits had A1, we ran several bombing missios to bish and rook hq. On those I joined, the buffs didn't go above 23k.

This is REASONABLE. If you do not think so, and you have all kinds of excuses, I shall not say anything more; when you argue with a fool, a casual observer cannot tell the difference.



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StSanta
JG54 "Grünherz"
"If you died a stones throw from your wingie; you did no wrong". - Hangtime

[Jigster]

 

Originally posted by funked:
Keep in mind that station keeping for a big bomber formation was a full-time task, and required good control.  You couldn't do tac-turns or other tricks to stay in position during course changes.  This means two things:

1.  The bombers didn't operate at highest altitude they could attain because they needed a margin of maneuverability.

2.  The lead bombers didn't operate at full throttle, because the formation would not have been able to stay together.

In AH we have bombers carrying a tiny fuel load that don't have to worry about formation flying.  It is quite logical that they can fly higher and faster than a fully loaded bomber that has to stay in a very tight 3-dimensional formation.

[This message has been edited by funked (edited 08-15-2000).]

Which was what I was getting at, it was the orders that kept the B-17's low, not the pilots. We don't have freezing and other stuff so I come to expect better altitude preformence.

And well, if you stay within the structual limits of an aircraft it should be possible to do anything you want. As I said before...we don't have the modeling yet to produced the effect of pulling the massive weight of a bomber yoke in a manuver. It took two strong guys just to put a B-17 through a cork screw. No wonder we can do steep turns and manuvers.

And the enromous wing area has side effects other then stability...The B-17, when loaded with a typical AH bomb/fuel load has a lower wing loading then some fighters.

It may not be historically correct but it is modeled pretty good within the parameters of the sim.

- Dweeb

[Rickenbacker]

Let the buffs climb as high as their wings will carry (I think this is pretty well modeled, actually, they _should_ be able to fly higher than the fighters). Just don't let them see any targets from that alt. That way if you want to hit a field from 30K, you have to get five or ten bombers together and carpet bomb the little square waaay down there, without knowing what you hit.



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Rickenbacker (Ricken)

-ISAF- the Independent Swedish Air Force

[Toad]

Zigrat,

I don't aim to offend. Just a simple statement of fact. On one of those raids I was at 29K in a 51 and a flight of B-17's came at me, their course basically HO. I zoomed up and while still ~1.0 below them took pings from a belly gun. Top of my "zoom" was about 30k + 1k yards gun range puts it around 33k. It happened. Sorry if that upsets you.

Now we have the same case here. I don't do buffs. Last night was my first sortie this camp I think and the Mission Planner killed me on T/O, so I re-upped and tagged along.

4 buffs went to your HQ. NONE of us bombed above 30.5K. I was at that alt and I was the highest. I was the last one on the run in from the IP and the rest were below me.

Now, that's apparently not what your fighters saw. I can't help that.

But comparing the two incidents, maybe there's an altimeter problem.

LOL TAC. A Buff used as a FIGHTER? I simply can't believe Knightland would allow it! After all the complaints about other countries doing it. Did they send you to an FEB and take your wings?  

G-A-M-E.

[Zigrat]

certainly wasn't one of my raids then. I have never made a raid above 27k. Usually 25k more typical.

[Ripsnort]

 

Originally posted by Zigrat:
certainly wasn't one of my raids then. I have never made a raid above 27k. Usually 25k more typical.

Zig, you are not online 24 hours a day (I don't think!) so claiming that  "Knights don't buff over 25k" is unfounding.  However, I will say that while you and I, Cave, and a few other 'Generals' are online, we've never gone above 25k in buffs simply because it takes too long and effectivity is null when trying to bomb at altitudes  higher than that.  Besides, most Knight Buffers I know "like" the cons to come and attack, this way our escorts have something to do!

[Maxopti1]

I think about to be the reason of the resentment of Zigrat.
But in this discussion, there is a fundamental misunderstanding.
I was not going to bomb, that had done it already to 18K.
I reentered to my airport and I have seen a high dot that approached, I have simply reached, for as possible, the quota of my chaser.
There has not succeeded, Zigrat continues me for at least 10 min, looking for a position of advantage for attack me, when to believed be able to him do, he has carried his attack.
If we have climbed much is only because he delayed to attach me.
But if I looks at that he comes me behind and I try to oppose his attack, he seems me a little bit paradoxical that he demanded that checks also the altimeter.
I am me simply defended, the fact that has detached him a wing, doesn't depend certainly from the quota to which we flew.
Immediately after Zigrat has told me on the channel 1 that I was an alt dweeb.
I have begged pardon, also if I don't believe be obliged to me apologize for nothing.
I have used the guns when Zigrat was to less of 1K of distance and I shoot in deflection, I have not done anything else other than to defend me.
Don't I have this type of problems or discussions with the Bishops, do they fly to normal altitudes, but the Knights, do they often fly to altitudes of 30K and over and do they have the very bad custom of attach the same target in group, that they expect, that the others stays to 20K to become to shoot down from them?
All what I succeed to understand from this topic he is that to any pilots, he doesn't like shoot down, above all from the bombardiers.
I have bad newses for them, withered the time, more the pilots of bombardiers learn to use the guns, for you will be more and more difficult be able to go out uninjured from an attack to a bombardier, not because the bombardiers are overmodelled, but because the experience increases and you not develop new tactics.
Identical thing will be verified with the vehicles, after an initial period in which he looked as if the vehicles are easy preys, today many pilots could be in serious difficulty to attack a vehicle property managed from who he has done experience.

Cheers.

Max
PS: If you don't want the others to climb to 30K, don't fly at 30K.  


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When you are flown, there is an only certainty:
In a way or in the other, to earth you will return.

[This message has been edited by Maxopti1 (edited 08-15-2000).]