Could AH handle realistic bomber guns?

[Angus]

Creeping in slowly from the 6, well, that's a bit bad if there are escorts....
Anyway, I quite belive the 90% of kills came from the 6. And probably 95% of the shootings..
Now there is high 6, low 6, and ...the middle one

[Fury]

Here in AH, when you make a run on bombers you have every possible gun pointed at you.  With groups, that 3 times the possible number of guns pointing at you.

In real life, were there a lot of enemy pilots that attacked a group of three bombers by themselves?

In real life, would every gunner that was able to shoot at a single plane actually shoot at that single plane?

IRL, I can see a couple of gunners picking on a target, but not every possible gun in the group at once?  It seems they'd be looking for targets in addition to shooting, or they'd always have multiple targets to choose from?  Also, instead of one guy shooting and the other guns all shooting the same place (like AH now), you'd end up with 3,4 gunners (x3 planes...9 - 12 different gunners) all trying to aim independently while freezing their prettythang off and the plane/guns bouncing all over.....

IRL you'd have to be insane to attack a group of three bombers by yourself (just my opinion).

Right now in AH even adding one attacking friend to the mix, that's two of you attacking a bomber formation, greatly increases the kill chances.  Two planes ought to be able to send all three bombers home in short order.  There's just no way a single gunner can effectively take on two enemies at one time (assuming the attackers are coordinated enough in their runs).

I don't know how things happened IRL (lone attacks on bomber groups and how gunners picked their targets).  I need to watch more gun footage.

[Wotan]

What difference does it matter about wing span?

You would want to know total target area of the 109 or 190 from a full frontal view.  I could dig it up but even the test I mentioned (you find the results in the book I recomended above or search the forum because I posted the correct data a few times in the past) the tail gunner fired a 12 round burst and at  600 yards the dispersion was out to 28 ft or (I don't recall exact distance off hand) while on the ground.

Things will only get worse in the air. If you don't believe me or the book (actual war time tests) the read what Mr. Williams wrote.

I am not saying no fighter was ever damaged or shot down by bomber guns but the odds of getting a hit was rare. We both know that its just as rare to get 1 hit that would kill an aircraft outright. It would take more then 1 hit and more thne just a few hits spread out over the entire aircraft to bring it down. The ability to concentrate fire would be impossible.

I found it:

Taken right fromm the book:

Testing done by the USAAF found that the bullet pattern from a B-17 during ground testing had the following results for 12 rounds to 600yds:

ball turret > dia. 15' - 8.3mils
upper turret > dia. 21' - 11.7mils
chin turret > dia. 23' - 12.6 mils
waist(closed) dia. 26' - 14.3mils
side nose > dia. 34' - 18.7mils
tail turret > dia 45' - 25mils

For the B-24 it was:

ball turret > dia. 15' - 8.3mils
upper turret > dia. 20' - 11.2mils
nose turret > dia. 23' - 12.9mils (Emerson)
nose turret > dia. 35' - 19.3mils (Motor Prod.)
waist(closed) dia. 23' - 12.9mils
waist(open) dia. 63' - 35.6mils
tail turret > dia 35' - 19.3mils

It seems I was wrong it was 45 feet

Not only that I could post a ton of anecdotal LW pilot accounts to show my point.

The Sturmgruppe closed on the American Group's Low Squadron, as Hauptmann Wilhelm Moritz split his force into its three component Sturmstaffeln and directed them against different parts of the enemy formation. Leutnant Walther Hagenah was one of the German pilots who took part in the attack;

" My Staffel was in position about 1,000yd behind 'its' squadron of bombers.The Staffel leader ordered his aircraft into line abreast and, still in close formation, we advanced on the bombers. We were to advance like Frederick the Great's infantrymen, holding our fire until we could see 'the whites of the enemy's eyes'.''

The tactics of the Sturmgruppe were governed by the performance of the wing-mounted 3cm cannon. Although the hexogen high-explosive ammunition fired by this weapon was devastatingly effective, the gun's relatively low muzzle velocity meant that its accuracy fell off rapidly with range . With only 55 rounds per gun, sufficient for about five seconds' firing, the Sturmböcke could not afford to waste ammunition in wild shooting from long range. The sky was alive with a withering hail of defensive fire from the bombers. As the unwieldy fighters slowly advanced on the bombers, the Sturmbock pilots could only grit their teeth until they were right up close against the bombers. The huge bulk of the radial engine and the heavy armour plate around the cockpit allowed the Sturm force to press on with a certain impunity, as Hagenath remembers

" like the armoured knights in the Middle Ages, we were well protected . A Staffel might lose one or two aircraft during the advance, but the rest continued relentlessly on ."

Positioned now about 100yd behind the bombers the Staffel leader barked out the order to open fire

' Pauke ! Pauke ! ..'.

From such a range the Staffel could hardly miss, and the 3cm explosive rounds struck home . Just 2 rounds could take the tail off a B-17 , and a B-24's fuselage structure was not as sturdy. The enemy bombers literally fell apart in front of the Sturmgruppe.

Also remember that the formation they were engaging are much larger and more disciplined then what you see in AH.

I believe Hohun made a post that calculated hit probability using the numbers above verse the total area of a 109 / 190 frontal view. I will see if I can find it.

I looked into this stuff a while back . I talked with a few bomber gunner's themselves. Almost universally they would say hitting a 109 or 190 was all but impossible. An ex-squaddies dad was a Tail Gunner on a B-24 and confirmed just what Mr. Williams said.

[Kweassa]

I would like to add, that another reason 'proper way to attack' rarely works is because the buff guns shoot through the drones.

 I usually try to 'peel off' the bombers one by one, hitting the outer drones. At certain angles, due to friendly fire issue, I'll get to face the guns from only one bomber, right?

- Wrong.

[Karnak]

I recall reading one Lancaster tail gunner saying that he prefered the quad of .303s with lots of ammo to the dual .50s because the tracers had intimidation factor and it wasn't like the tail gun was likely to be shooting anything down.

Of course some kills were obtained.  You repeat an unlikely scenario enough and it will eventually happen, but from his statement it sounds like he thought many more Luftwaffe nightfighters were scared off by the sudden tracer fire than were shot down or even damaged.

[Raptor]

Most Realistic Bomber Mission  I've been was in H2H.
Normally there is a limit of 8 players per room, but 2 people joined at the same time so there were 9 people.
We had 3 b17 formations and 2 b24 formations (a total of 15 bombers).
The other team had 4 FW190a-8s.
This was arranged ahead of time so the 190s knew where to find us and were all flying in a formation together.
5 minutes before host thought we would encounter the 190s, he asked both teams to turn off all icons, we all confirmed we had icons off before starting (dont know if everyone kept them off, but most of us did)

The first attack from the 190s we were at 20k and they were as well so they didnt have the alt advantage they had hoped for. we only lost 1 b24.
Second attack we lost another b24 and the lead bomber lost an engine.
Third attack the knights upped doras and 109g10s and were above us and could offer a better fight. Here we lost 2 b17's and 2 more b24s. I took a fuel leak and the lead bomber lost another engine so I had to take over calibrating. Our target was an HQ (Paris), I would calibrate and everyone would drop when I dropped my bombs.
By the end of the mission we lost 53.3% of our original formation of 15 bombers.
7 190s (3 waves of 4 fighters, so out of 12 in all) were downed and the rest either ran out of fuel or were forced to land from damage.

[Ecliptik]

The 190's probably did better than they might have historically.  Only 4 fighters at a time attacking a close knit formation of 15 B-17's and B-24's would have been very dangerous for the fighters.   That's a lot of defensive firepower focused on very few targets.

[LePaul]

9 FPS ?  Ouch

[Raptor]

thats a screen shot someone else took, I got around 20-30 on average

[MOIL]

Just a snipet, more A/C were shot down by Anti-Aircraft fire than other A/C.

Have a nice day;)

[Ecliptik]

That's because more aircraft were flown against ground targets than against other aircraft.

[hitech]

Wotan: Use the .target command and fly a b17, check each guns diserpsion diamater.

You might be suprised.


HiTech

[DarkglamJG52]

Buff hunting art

[Krusty]

Heh, Raptor, I still say had we not been 5k lower than you we'd have plowed through you head-on and done more damage in the first wave

There was a 109??? I thought we'd all agreed to doras for second wave.. D'oh! Oh well. After we lost some players things went to heck.

[Krusty]

Originally posted by hitech
Wotan: Use the .target command and fly a b17, check each guns diserpsion diamater.

You might be suprised.


HiTech

Dispersion might be correct, but I don't think the gunsite always is. People always talk about the B17 or the B24 because they only fly the bombers with the super heavy gun placements.

However I was in a Ju88A-4 and trying to shoot down a hurc on attacking me. He ended up doing a dead six, and I was too mesmerized by the absurdity of not being able to hit him that I didn't jink or turn. Anyways I FINALLY found the spot I needed to aim at to hit him. And in level flight (on the deck) with him literally 500d off my tail sitting level and steady as you please (firing away at me of course) I had to aim 2 plane heights above him (got a screenshot) to score any hits. Level, steady flight. distance of 500. Both planes basically stationary. And the gunsite was way way way off from where the bullets were hitting. No wonder I couldn't hit him.