Bring back dropping fuels to 25%

[straffo]

Look like we didn't play the same game, perhaps it's due to timezone difference I don't know.

[Delirium]

Chop it was all the win the war...

It is simple Chop, if the fighters in the game affected the gameplay of the buffs half as much as the buffs affect the fighter combat you'd see tremendous complaints, adversity is not something bomber pilots do well with the exception is 999 and tatertot. While I don't agree with their gameplay, they don't always go to 20-25k which is invincibility in the MA (no one is up there and there are not winds to throw the bombs off course).

Bomber pilots don't want a challenge, evidenced by the easy mode bombing, formations, remote operated guns that are slaved to a single gun, targets very easily visualized on the field, and without any wind what-so-ever to affect bombing accuracy.

Bah, why do I bother even trying to argue... you had barely an hour in fighters and almost 101 hours in bombers as Dedalos posted.

[Saxman]

*Intentional interruption of the ChopSaw vs the World pissing match which is getting very tiring to read through.*

One thing that hasn't been fully answered by anyone here: If the complaints over the EZ-mode effectiveness of bombers were addressed (overly simplified bombsight, lack of wind, unrealistically soft targets, jabboing Lancs, lazer guns, firewalled throttle during bombing runs, etc. etc. ad nauseum) would THAT be satisfactory to allow bombers to have the greater impact (fuel to 25%, etc)?

[Masherbrum]

Originally posted by ChopSaw
And if fighters attacked in WWII in the manner they attack in MA, you'd be correct.  But they didn't.  They actually did it correctly.  Correctly is not sitting on a bombers six and expecting not to get shot.

You stated that it is effective to come from below into the belly guns of a bomber.  You say you shoot them down all the time with your Hurricane.  Now you complain the bomber guns are too good.  Which is it?

For the record, Karaya, your stated method of attack is not the one I refer to as correct.  If you were to advocate that tactic to someone who knew what they were doing you'd be laughed at.  Please.  Be my guest.  Tell Ack-Ack that's a good way to attack bombers.  He'll get a kick out of it.

Guys like you do it wrong, get shot down and then complain because you get shot down.  If you shoot the bomber down, you think you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread.  The fault is not with bomber guns.  It's with fighter pilots that don't want to do it correctly.  Fighter pilots who want their targets easy.

Again, I play the angles from underneath or HO.  AKAK is nada in a buff.  My tactics give 999000 and tatertot the fits, these two are THE BEST in the MA, bar NONE, and ask them if you question me.   Because you 1.) underestimate my abilites to destroy the piss out of buffs on a regular basis.  2.) underestimate the Hurricane. 3.) fail to realize I rarely attack buffs in a Hurricane, but often in an A-8, Ta-152, or 262.   However, if I have the fuel and stumble upon buffs while in a Hurricane, I'll bag 1 or 2 then land.

Now, back to the realism.  You are so wrong on many levels.  In WWII the waist gunners were useless (according to MANY books I have read, interviews, etc).  Survival depended on how tight the "BOX" was.  If Bombers were literally not almost hitting wings, etc, they were mincemeat (again, just going on what I have read, heard, seen, etc).  If pilots loosened up, they paid the price.  

Bombers did shoot down many Fw's, 109's, etc.  Fighters attacked at various places.  Most often, they attacked from the Buff's 6, WITH GREAT LETHALITY.  The JG26 (Abbeville Kids) HO'd bombers and were FEARED like no other squadron in ETO as for as being in a buff was concerned.   Also, the sun at angles they would annihilate buffs.  And in the MA as in WWII, the Belly of ANY BUFF was the most vulnerable point, though not used enough.   Bottom line, a chitload of bombers will shot down by fighters, then buff guns shooting fighters down.  It is VERY common knowledge that the "Buff Gunner Claims" were overstated and grossly inaccurate.  Not to take away from the utter balls it took to be in one, at any station.  

What I find funny is the B-24 had 2 less .50's but is more lethal than the 17.   I have yet to understand this fact in the MA.   In the MA, every gun that can track your plane, is firing at you.  I know dang well how easy it is to rack up buff gunning kills.  It is TOO EASY, I'm sorry, but it is.  

Karaya

[ChopSaw]

Originally posted by Delirium
Chop it was all the win the war...

It is simple Chop, if the fighters in the game affected the gameplay of the buffs half as much as the buffs affect the fighter combat you'd see tremendous complaints, adversity is not something bomber pilots do well with the exception is 999 and tatertot. While I don't agree with their gameplay, they don't always go to 20-25k which is invincibility in the MA (no one is up there and there are not winds to throw the bombs off course).

Bomber pilots don't want a challenge, evidenced by the easy mode bombing, formations, remote operated guns that are slaved to a single gun, targets very easily visualized on the field, and without any wind what-so-ever to affect bombing accuracy.

Bah, why do I bother even trying to argue... you had barely an hour in fighters and almost 101 hours in bombers as Dedalos posted.

 I’m not sure what you were trying to say with your first sentence, so I can’t respond to it.  Sorry.

I disagree with you on the adversity issue.  Bomber pilots love it.  At least I do and those bomber pilots I know do.  Nothing gets a grin on my face faster than being attacked by a fighter or a pair of fighters that show some promise of knowing what they’re doing.  Nothing disappoints us faster than some poor guy crawling up on our six at co-altitude.  We take pride in developing tactics and strategy enabling us to deliver presents to our enemy.

To see an example of this, take a look at HQ raids.  In AH2 it is nearly impossible to kill an HQ unless its country is literally being over run (i.e. surrounded by enemy airfields and/or vehicle bases).  In spite of this you see bomber pilots attempting to kill it.  They are well aware that even if they knock it down, it’ll be supplied and back up in as short a period of time as 5 minutes.  They are well aware they probably won’t be able to knock it down.   They spend 30 minutes and more getting there to try to achieve this.  Finally, they are very well aware they will be facing fast, small, agile and heavily armed 163’s when they get there.  Why else other than to seek adversity do they do this?

Compare that to the furballer who loves the furball because of the overwhelming number of his team mates which allows him to fly in safety and pick off the out numbered enemy.  I’m not suggesting that this is the category you fit into, but I’m sure you’ve seen many fighter pilots who do this.

Wind really wouldn’t be an issue for bombers and it has a tendency to give an advantage to one side or the other.  As I have previously stated in this thread I fly at 14K or sometimes 15K in bombers.  I do this because there is a cloud layer I often can’t see through at 16K and above.  To my mind this is as restrictive as the winds used to be.  It has a tendency to keep bombers low.  Even if there weren’t the cloud layer, how many pilots have the patience to go to 20-25K just to bomb a field?  The sole exception to the cloud layer phenomena is, of course, HQ’s.  For some reason the area around HQ’s is kept free of cloud layers and bombers can come in at extreme altitudes and still see the target.  Even when I performed one man HQ raids back in AH1, the wind presented me with only a minor challenge and unless I got shot down I was able to deliver the package with a 100% accuracy rate even on something as large as Pizza.

While my time in AH2’s MA has indeed been predominately in bombers, it has not insulated me from the concerns of fighters.  In AH1 I flew fighters most of the time and often you could find me defending a field with 25% fuel.  In AH2 I fly fighters a lot less than I did.  In both cases I have friends and squad mates who fly fighters.  I discuss issues with these people and listen to their input.  Now in AH2 and before in AH1.

[Masherbrum]

Wind most DEFINATELY would be a factor.  But in here, it isn't.  

Karaya

[ChopSaw]

Originally posted by Saxman
*Intentional interruption of the ChopSaw vs the World pissing match which is getting very tiring to read through.*

One thing that hasn't been fully answered by anyone here: If the complaints over the EZ-mode effectiveness of bombers were addressed (overly simplified bombsight, lack of wind, unrealistically soft targets, jabboing Lancs, lazer guns, firewalled throttle during bombing runs, etc. etc. ad nauseum) would THAT be satisfactory to allow bombers to have the greater impact (fuel to 25%, etc)?

Sorry you feel it’s me against the world or indeed against anyone.  As far as this being a very tiring read for you, I’m not aware of anyone forcing you to do it.

The “over simplified” bomb sight is really not an issue with regards to accuracy.  In AH1 I was able to do far greater damage than I am in AH2.  I was dead on accurate and my bombs didn’t have the dispersion effect that is current in AH1.

The wind issue I addressed just above.  If you want it back I’ve personally no objections.  It really won’t affect me or the majority of bombers as long as it’s kept at the old AH1 altitudes.  It would, however, give one side or the other an advantage due to head and/or tail winds.  Might be fun.

I don’t Jabo my heavy bombers and in fact I’ve been a proponent of coming up with a fix for that problem on other threads.  It seems absurd that they should be able to do it.

As far as laser guns, I’ll simply repeat what I said in other postings in this thread.  According to what I’ve been told by Skuzzy, the guns are operating more in a shotgun fashion than in a laser fashion.  The practical upshot of this is that the bombers guns simply don’t reach out as far as they did with significant damage as they did in AH1.  Simply put, they’ve already been nerfed to fighter complaint specifications.

Oddly enough this created an interesting situation.  Fighter pilots are approaching bombers differently in AH2 than they did in AH1.  After my hiatus from AH, I came back to the new AH2.  At first I thought there were an inordinate number of newbie’s who didn’t understand the danger in approaching from a bombers six.  Also, I was dismayed to find that my gunnery skills had apparently atrophied during my hiatus.  After a couple of weeks I came to understand that my gunnery skills hadn’t atrophied that much and also that the majority of fighter pilots weren’t as afraid of bomber guns as they had been for good reason.  I then inquired of HTC and received Skuzzys’ response.  The guns were nerfed from what they had been in AH1 and the pilots were using poorer attack vectors.  Since this means they still get shot down, they still complain about it.

By “unrealistically soft targets” I assume you mean targets that can be taken down by gun and cannon fire and don’t seem as if they should be.  If that is the case, I agree with you as I have in previous postings on this thread.  It doesn’t seem realistic to me that a fighter should be able to take ammo bunkers or for that matter fuel bunkers down with its guns.  I and others feel it should require ordnance.

I don’t think fire walled throttles is a problem and therefore have no solution.  If you took that away from bombers, you’d have to do the same to fighters.  Now THAT would raise complaints.  We also don’t have issues of fuel mixture for particular altitudes.  We have what amount to autopilot in every aircraft in the game.  We don’t have to worry about manually trimming our aircraft and most people don’t know how to feather their props.  Having to worry about all these minor things would get in the way of the game more than need be the case.

[ChopSaw]

Originally posted by Masherbrum
Again, I play the angles from underneath or HO.  AKAK is nada in a buff.  My tactics give 999000 and tatertot the fits, these two are THE BEST in the MA, bar NONE, and ask them if you question me.   Because you 1.) underestimate my abilites to destroy the piss out of buffs on a regular basis.  2.) underestimate the Hurricane. 3.) fail to realize I rarely attack buffs in a Hurricane, but often in an A-8, Ta-152, or 262.   However, if I have the fuel and stumble upon buffs while in a Hurricane, I'll bag 1 or 2 then land.

Now, back to the realism.  You are so wrong on many levels.  In WWII the waist gunners were useless (according to MANY books I have read, interviews, etc).  Survival depended on how tight the "BOX" was.  If Bombers were literally not almost hitting wings, etc, they were mincemeat (again, just going on what I have read, heard, seen, etc).  If pilots loosened up, they paid the price.  

Bombers did shoot down many Fw's, 109's, etc.  Fighters attacked at various places.  Most often, they attacked from the Buff's 6, WITH GREAT LETHALITY.  The JG26 (Abbeville Kids) HO'd bombers and were FEARED like no other squadron in ETO as for as being in a buff was concerned.   Also, the sun at angles they would annihilate buffs.  And in the MA as in WWII, the Belly of ANY BUFF was the most vulnerable point, though not used enough.   Bottom line, a chitload of bombers will shot down by fighters, then buff guns shooting fighters down.  It is VERY common knowledge that the "Buff Gunner Claims" were overstated and grossly inaccurate.  Not to take away from the utter balls it took to be in one, at any station.  

What I find funny is the B-24 had 2 less .50's but is more lethal than the 17.   I have yet to understand this fact in the MA.   In the MA, every gun that can track your plane, is firing at you.  I know dang well how easy it is to rack up buff gunning kills.  It is TOO EASY, I'm sorry, but it is.

HOing does give me fits.  Not enough fighters pursue this tactic and I find I get too little practice defending against it to be good at it.  Most fighters who come from below into my belly guns do a poor job of it and go down.  I have said that some of them seem to be better at the tactic than others.

I did not say Ack-Ack spent a great deal of time in a buff.  His experience in a buff has nothing to do with the situation.  What he IS good at is shooting buffs down.  He’s very, very good at it and he would view the tactic of coming from below as undesirable against anything other than a Lancaster.  To the best of my knowledge he never used that tactic.

1) I do not underestimate your abilities to destroy anything on a regular basis.  I don’t know your abilities and it would be foolish to form an opinion based upon zero evidence.  I do note, however, your comments on “buff laser guns” and so will speculate that your tactics are leaving something to be desired.  A correct attack against a bomber leaves the fighter untouched or barely scratched and the bombers dead.  The reason I referred you to Ack-Ack is because the mother shot me down on a regular basis with his P38, usually denying me gun solutions of any kind.
2) I emphatically do not underestimate the Hurricane.  Though slow, it turns on a dime and has an enormous amount of fire power.  As I wrote in response to you earlier, I use more than the usual amount of ammo to shoot them down because I want them out of my sky as soon as possible.  They concern me more than most other planes, but they are slow and it takes them a much longer time to catch up with me than other fighter craft.
3) Perhaps the reason I fail to understand you rarely attack buffs in a Hurricane is because you told me that's what you did.

You're right.  HOing is a more successful method of attack than sitting on a bombers six.  When you start talking about "from the sun at angles", you're getting closer to what I term a correct attack.  I would have to agree with you that the belly of a buff is not as defensible as its six, but I do not agree that it is the most vulnerable area of the buff.

Yes, "a watermelon load of bombers" did get shot down.  Perhaps more than buff's shot down fighters.  If there were as many fighters attacking bombers in MA as there were in WWII the statistic would be very much the same.  Every time I get into a crowd of fighters, say 4 or more, I go down.

If you're interested in realism, how realistic is it for a fighter to sit on my six at d1.0 and pound me with cannon?  To me that seems a lot farther than a cannon ought to be able to fire with enough accuracy to do critical damage.

If your allegation is true, it's a puzzler.  I wasn't aware that B-24's were more lethal than B-17's.  I would guess that it may seem that way because a B-24's are used so much more than the B-17's.  The B-24's even have a partially blocked view in the tail gun position.  You'd think that would make them less lethal.  The two additional guns you mention in the B-17 are located to either side of the nose.  They're single guns the same as you find in the waist gunner positions.  Most fighters are attacking from the rear and would never face those.

You're right.  It is easy to rack up "buff gunning kills".  That's not because the buff guns are too good.  It's because most fighter pilots are using ridiculous attack vectors.  They aren't coming in from high angles nor are they HOing.  In AH1 most attacked from high angles often sandwiching buffs between two fighters and only newbie's sat on a buffs six.

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by ChopSaw
DREDIOCK,

Thanks for your input.  How long did you find your group of six could maintain the suppression and for how many bases back of the front line?  Also, please speculate on how you believe your tactic would work today in AH2 with the closer spacing of the fields.

Finally; why did you do it?  To tick people off or did you find it an effective strategy for winning the war or at least contribute to your side winning the war?

We could maintain it as long as we wanted.
Depthwise usually only front line unless the horde was particularly active is a certain area. then we could go 2-3 bases in. but that was usually the exeption rather then the rule.
Typically it was primarily front line bases. Or those of strategic importance.

Unlike what you see most 1 dimentional squads do And from what I've seen most squads in the game think, and operate1 dimensionally Or I shoulld say whoever plans out their missions does(No offence to anyone intended)
We didnt always all attack the same base at the same time but often would simultaneously attack several bases at the same time or sequentially depending on need or desired effect.

Dispite our small numbers we were very effective at what we did because of the way we went about it.

Our tactics would hold up very well in todays AHII again because of the way we went about it. We were very detail oriented in not only what we attacked but how and where right down to which direction each of us would come in at, what our secondary targets would be should the pimary targets already be destroyed, and where our rallying point would be.

There was much more to it then that and I could probably write a book on a better way to implement strategy & tactics at the squad and joint squad operational level.(inasmuch as I planned many of our operations) But I think You get the point to what I am getting at.

In fact I beleive our tactics woud hold up very well even in todays AH without the fuel being porkable to 25%

Why we did it. Primarily our goal was to slow down and harrass the horde as much as possible. You would rarely find us attacking bases that werent currently launching large numbers of AC. We usually attacked strength.
Or support of strength. As the horde moved. So did we When we did attack less active bases. It was in anticipation of the hordes next move. Thus denying them. For a while that next move.

Occasionally Nads (our then CO) would like to pork fuel just to be a PIA and piss people off (Not something I particularly agreed with as I tend to think more in terms of what will be the most helpful to the Knights. and just running around porking fuel just because. Isnt always the most helpful
Just as porking Hangars isnt always the most helpful
But yea, We sometimes did it just to piss people off.
but again, that intent wasnt the norm.
Typcally when we porked something, there was a specific reason behind it.

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by Saxman
*Intentional interruption of the ChopSaw vs the World pissing match which is getting very tiring to read through.*

One thing that hasn't been fully answered by anyone here: If the complaints over the EZ-mode effectiveness of bombers were addressed (overly simplified bombsight, lack of wind, unrealistically soft targets, jabboing Lancs, lazer guns, firewalled throttle during bombing runs, etc. etc. ad nauseum) would THAT be satisfactory to allow bombers to have the greater impact (fuel to 25%, etc)?

Which targets are unrealistically soft?

Remember this was the 1940's not the 1990s

While we have ammo "bunkers" here most of the time the ammo wasnt kept in a bunker but in a dump where something as small as a well placed handgranade was able to make the whole place go poof.

It undoubtedly took considerably less then a couple thousand pounds of bombs to do devestating damage to a hangar or a barracks or fuel tanks.

If anything I think these targets are harder then their real life counterparts.
And for the games sake they probably should be.

What IS missing though that I'd like to see is secondary explosions when ammo bunkers and fuel tanks are hit. Instead of a simple "BOOM"
I'd like to see multiple explosions "BOOM Bada boom BOOM boom boom" with parts & debris flying high into the air And massive fires at the strat targets complete with the thermal updrafts that would effect the planes overhead

[Gato]

This is a war sim. That is why there is strat to begin with.  All strat should be able to be taken down.  That is part of a war effort.  The complaint is when fuel is down, it kills furballing.  Why not have an area between the countries where nothing can be taken down, no bases taken.  This could be the place the dedicated furballers could go to fight.  That would leave the rest of the arena to the game of war!  With furball bases and tank town areas, you make it perfect for the people who just want to shoot someone.  Don't have these bases count toward the total in a country,so the map can still be won or lost.

Fuel burns!  Fuel tanks can be destroyed by MG's, Ammo bunkers are hardened and should take more than MG/cannons to blow them up.  If fuel on a base is down, it is resupplied from the refinery, but it the refinery is down, no resupply!

On another note:  How can you launch LVT's when the carrier is down?????

Another option would be to have two main arenas.  One for furballers only with no bases to take or strat to kill.  The other for a total war effort.  This could be the way to stop the fight between the two sides and it would only take server power to do.  

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by Gato

On another note:  How can you launch LVT's when the carrier is down?????

 

Because as often as not the landing craft would also launch not just from the carriers but also from the support ships

[Gato]

Originally posted by DREDIOCK
Because as often as not the landing craft would also launch not just from the carriers but also from the support ships

That is true of today, but not so much in WWII, at least not the ships being used in here.  Unless I misunderstand the ships being used.  IF that is the case,then I'm sorry for making more of a fool of myself.  

[dedalos]

Originally posted by Gato
This is a war sim. That is why there is strat to begin with.  All strat should be able to be taken down.  That is part of a war effort.  The complaint is when fuel is down, it kills furballing.  

For the 1,000,000,000,000 time, that is not what the complain is about.  25% is plenty for furbaling.  When fuel is down to 25% 2 or 3 bases dip, it prevents people from upping fighters, getting some alt and either attack other bases, or deffend.  No furbaler ever loads more than 50% fuel.

The problem is that you guys really cant come out and say that you want to be able to bomb or take bases unoposed (unless you go off line), so you start the furbaler crap and come up with the original idea of sending anyone that could potentialy mess with your base capture, to a different arena or place on the map.

[Gato]

Originally posted by dedalos
For the 1,000,000,000,000 time, that is not what the complain is about.  25% is plenty for furbaling.  When fuel is down to 25% 2 or 3 bases dip, it prevents people from upping fighters, getting some alt and either attack other bases, or deffend.  No furbaler ever loads more than 50% fuel.

The problem is that you guys really cant come out and say that you want to be able to bomb or take bases unoposed (unless you go off line), so you start the furbaler crap and come up with the original idea of sending anyone that could potentialy mess with your base capture, to a different arena or place on the map.

Just like so many, you are taking what is said and turning it around.  I didn't say fuel being down to 25% stopped furballing, I said the 'complaint' is that.  The reason to be able to take fuel down IS to limit the fighters and range, at least for a short time.  There is NO other reason to do it!  It is the furballers who keep saying strat is not needed, not the base takers (toolsheders).  Sneaking a base is fun, but taking a base is more fun when there is someone defending it.  Then it becames more than just a "free for all" and strategy comes into play.  With taking fuel down is a duel edged sword for a base.  As with ords, FH, BH,VH, or even the town, it would not come back just by taking the base.  It would take time and leaves the base open for a recapture.

Now, lets see if someone can misquote this and turn it around!