Lazer Buff guns

[PuckHead]

Nah AH2 buff guns don't scare me with people in them, now the AI buffs will prolly be a different story. I suck in fighters but give me a p51d, and a 3k alt advantage my record against bombers is pretty darn good even against the dreaded KI's(thanks to watching skatsr over and over).


Puck

[Bruno]

Originally posted by Morpheus
Hey bruno, what else other than the convergence being 500 and not 600 was wrong big guy?

wrong? I used the word incorrect....



EDIT:

When I did the test I had tracers off so I only saw the pattern at 600 yards. I gotta PM saying 'check 500'.

[dedalos]

Originally posted by Simaril


I'm not sure I'd agree that there's that big of a problem.

First, as to being "overpowered." In the December tour, look at the kills per deaths for level bombers. I rounded to the nearest thousand, checking model vs all countries.

Kills: 29,000
Deaths: 78,000

That's a KPD of 0.37. This means that level bombers did slightly worse than the Hurri2D (the one with 40mm) and a bit better than the C.202. Would you want to weaken the attacking power of either of those rides?
 

Great stats.  Can you tell how many of those buffs died from a colision with the CV, Droping bombs too low, or got PWNed by a FH?

Now as to the realism argument: In real life, a single fighter attacking a bomber foramtion --even 3 buffs -- had to be careful. The lowly Betty was lethal when first encountered, because pilots came up the six -- and were shredded. Once the real life pilots saw the dangers, and learned smarted attacks, they could take them apart.  In europe, if the buffs were as vulnerable as it sounds in this thread, why'd the luftwaffe even bother to go to head on attacks? Why not just park on the 6 and shred the buffs?
 [/B]

And yet, all the gun cam films from WWII that I have seen, show a german plane parked on a buffs 6 firing short bursts.

Are you really saing that 1.5K wing removals from a few pings of 303s are realistik?

As far as the CT/TOD goes, I would not wory about it for a long time.  FPS and warping will be so bad around big buff formations that all this will not be an issue.

[Urchin]

Simaril.... take the kills of and deaths by GVs out of the mix, the K/D will probably drop even lower.  

Dedalos, the gun camera clips that you've seen have one thing in common.  In all of them, the tail gunner is dead or otherwise incapacitated.  The .303s maximum range is shorter than 1.5k, as well, unless somethings been changed in the couple years since I tested it.  IIRC, the .50 went out to ~1400 yards before disappearing, the .303 was considerably shorter.

[jaxxo]

comparing kills to death with buffs is highly subjective..as is any stat..getting in the air is half the battle..ive seen one newb launch over 10 sorties in less than 5 minutes..thats 30 planes he augered trying to take off into a mountain.. wish there was a stat for deaths after being pinged by a ftr or ack etc...

[999000]

Simaril, Big SIR!
Nice to see a well rounded educated response sir!
999000

[Simaril]

I agree that the stats arent proof of anything -- but it does make it harder to argue that buffs are overwhelming and armed with lazers.

I'd think the better, more convincing stats come from the KPDs of people who make a point of killing buffs, like SkatSr.

Experience in the MA pretty consistantly shows that the majority of deaths to buffs come from those who use suicidal attack profiles. Low deltaV, low delta angles almost all the time -- so even weak gunners get kills. How many conga lines do you think will form up behind buffs tonite? That's not HTs fault, its not the models fault.

I've only been hit at appropriate setup ranges -- well beyond 1k -- very rarely. I cant remember ever dying to it. The pings I take at those ranges are annoying, not deadly -- and if I get an oil hit, i go home. I'm betting that most recollections of being 1 ping killed by 303s at 1.5K are either honestly incorrect or exaggerated. I'd love to see the film...but even if it HAS happened, I'll bet its about as frequent as losing a fighter to falling bombs.

[Hajo]

Morph makes a good point.  I have a nice collection of LW guncam showing LW fighters, 109s, 110s, Me410s, and 190s attacking a formation in unison.
the most sickening part of the film I saw was a single 190 dirctly on the 6 of a B17 just laying into it with all guns.  It took out the electrical system completely, all turret guns dropped and completely devasted that B17.  Parts were falling from the 17 in huge chunks.....even a prop came off.

Another good point brought forth was allowing ony 1 bomber per flight.  That sounds more realistic to me.  If countries wish to bomb they should get several gents or ladies to fly them as stated before in tight formation for mutual defense as they did in WWII.  LeMay designed the Box formation for that reason.  Heck...if they can have more then one buff allow the fighter pilots to have an Al wingman.

Also....in the guncam I have the LW did not shy away from attacking these formations.  they came headon...oblique actually from any angle to attack them.  A single bomber had no chance.  The fifties couldn't protect it very well from one determined FW Pilot.

Also....dive bombing heavy bombers is unrealistic and games the game here.  And then after dive bombing flying the formation and turning them like Don Gentile in his B Pony is rediculous.  It's gotten out of hand to the point that oft times bombers don't fly over 4 to 5K to hit an enemy base so that fighters can't atttack from underneath and gives the bomber pilot the advantage of forcing the fighters to stay co alt or better to stay in better view and eliminate the attack of the underside of the bomber.  And the bombers fly straight through the ack below 4K and maybe one engine gets smoked.  After dropping ord the low level buffs turn around and take the ack out with their 50s cals.  Don't think that happened in the real world.

[storch]

morpheus does have a good point.  so much so that I would consider using him for a dart.

[27th]

I agree with DREDIOCK and FiLTH..

From my experience, I fly bombers 95% of the time and took me a while to be effecient on the guns.

99% of the time people dont know how to attack and know when to give up. C'mon you're attacking a set of 3 from a single fighter.(a majority of the time)

 In WW2 the Luftwaffe attack in packs against a pack of B17's..etc

Are guns in bombers inaccurate? Not enough to make a difference.
No one knows if all planes are accurate I mean.. did you fly one in combat?

Make a difference in your performance, when to quit and head home when you know you cant take 3 bombers all by yourself.

And by the way.. bomber pilots like myself fly AH almost daily.. so i get a lot of gunnery practice.

27th

[Booz]

I'm agreeing with Simaril, as another dedicated buff hunter (62-5, mostly in jugs) I don't see the problem either when the attack is set up properly. There's maybe only 4 or 5 buff gunners in the whole arena that are dangerous when you don't give them the easy kill flying in the 6 cone.

  On the other hand, I usually hold 1.0 k:d in buffs myself but I keep that by flying at alt on my runs.  I'd estimate there's about 15-20% of the arena flyers that know how to attack a bomber effectively. Luckily for bombers, they're not the only ones hunting buffs

[Kweassa]

That's because you probably haven't met anyone who knows to gun properly, Booz.

 I guarantee it - if its someone like 999 or tatertot, it doesn't matter if you are overhead, under, sideways, or HO. You may be able to knock out one~two buffs in the first pass, but whatever your approach, you are gonna be hurt, and really bad.

 The only way to really safely knock buffs out, is to go at least 3 vs 1. Three interceptors against one formation, all of them approaching at different directions.

[gatt]

Ah! Should be interesting to know which plane is the deadliest buff hunter in the game, in # of kills and k/d ratio.

One should keep in mind that hunting buffs with a P-47N or a K-4 are two slightly different things, hence tactics. I've seen some wonderful AH films of Ponies and Jugs hunting buffs at (+/-) 20K, with tactics you cant easily use in a K-4 or even in a (plenty of ammo) 190A-8.

I mean, posts, replies and (so called) whines about buff hunting and gunners lethality have to be judged cautiously, considering first the fighter and then the tactic used.

Hmmm, am I posting something understandable?  

[Booz]

I've run into tatertot, he's one of the 5 buff gunners I respect but he's only 44-74 gunning in buffs even if you give him Ki's. How many of those were GV kills?

You yourself are 26-2 vs the big buffs Kweassa, are you saying guns are too deadly or are all those coordinated attacks? I usually kill em solo.

 Btw, I just checked Shawk... 117-0 vs buffs.

[Booz]

Originally posted by gatt
Ah! Should be interesting to know which plane is the deadliest buff hunter in the game, in # of kills and k/d ratio.

 I'd bet on the F4U1-C leading the pack, it's the ultimate CV defense bird. Lots of lower targets (almost all cv attackers are under 12k) and it wins if it hits.

 As far as buff gunnery goes, I think the modelling is good for the game. But I DO think that the calibration routine needs to go back to the more difficult mode, it's too easy for a single buff formation that gets through to disrupt the circle jerks' game. Accuracy with the harder mode was still possible, you just had to get 18k+ to be allowed the opportunity to calibrate well, not as many are willling to take that time. It would eliminate a lot of the 10-6k hangar banger dweebs that unfairly disrupt action flying unrealistically in MA, they may still come but they'd miss much much more.