Even an F-15E is limited to approx +/- 60 degrees in the tech order due to "bad things" happening at more extreme angles, and we are using external carriage with explosive ejectors that shove the weapons away from the plane at a precise angle during release. Dropping gravity-release bombs from a bomb bay with a total relative "G force" vector more than 20ish degrees away from straight down out the bomb bay doors is just begging for either a weapon hangup in the racks, weapon to weapon contact and detonation, or a weapon to aircraft impact that could leave a live weapon bouncing around loose inside the bomb bay.
I heard a report of a B-1 release over Iraq where the pilot began to turn before the bomb bay was empty, and several bombs struck the bomb bay doors after only a 10-20 degree roll, causing minor damage. That's only a small roll while still in level flight, so imagine the damage in more extreme flight conditions?
As for the historical report of a B-17 "dive bombing", even a 10 degree dive is considered a dive bombing attack so without more details as to the actual dive angle and situation, there's no way that account, however true it may be, can possibly be used to justify the extreme dives possible, effective, and survivable in AH heavy bombers as currently modeled.
Maybe Pyro and HT could scrape together a bomb bay mockup in the computer and drop virtual bombs out of it from various roll and pitch angles. It ought to be visually apparent at what angle it's unlikely the bombs will cleanly exit the bomb bay, and those results could be used as force-limiting factors when bombs are released. The amount of G forces could also be varied since a bomb released at less than 1 G would drop more slowly as well and may not cleanly exit the bomb bay. If the relative force vector on the bay exceeds the limiting angle or the force component out of the bay is less than, say, .5 G's (for example), the bomb release would not be successful and would either hang up in the bay or the bombs could explode right there.
A simple virtual box with doors and racks of bombs sized according to a B-17 bomb bay might not take too long to model, and then it could just be rotated and accelerated in space as the weapons are released. Bomb to model and bomb to bomb contact would need to be modelled to really see the effects of the various angles on release, and bomb drag also would help show how various airflow angles affect a clean release as well.
The "problem" has been identified and there are a few ways to go about doing something about it. Right now, it's just a facet of the heavy bomber concept that simply isn't modelled so people are taking advantage of that hole in the aircraft model to do things that probably wouldn't be possible in real life. Without determining what the proper behaviour *should* be through some experimentation and design work however, any fixes are just gameplay adjustments instead of an actual addition or modification to the aircraft simulation. It is my understanding that this is why HT and Pyro have let it go on so long... They haven't had the time to properly simulate it to figure out the right way to add this to the bomber model to make it realistic instead of just a way to artifically limit gameplay.
IMHO
It doesn't matter to me personally because dive bombing goofs in the game simply don't affect me one way or another. It's a game and they're taking advantage of a game feature. The way I play the game only very rarely takes me into contact with people using this particular quirk of the simulation so it's an academic exercise to me. If the HTC crew has time to fix it right, good for them and good for us. If not, it doesn't affect me anyhow and I'll enjoy the nice new water and other enhancements they keep adding because those DO affect my gameplay and I appreciate their work.
