Originally posted by FiLtH
With practice ted I hope to see that. But just staying within 100 of the lead plane will be a start. If the lead maintains a 45 manifold or so, it allows others to catch it if they stray. It takes a bit of concentration to fly a long mission close.
As far as bombing, I'm thinking full salvo with the proper delay set, and dropping when the lead does. Hence the need for close formation at drop. That way the pilots can concentrate on holding formation and not getting all separated, which always ruins it.
Agree with holding a lower MAN and RPM setting on lead. I usually lower MAN and RPM on runs to increase accuracy by eliminating the inherent climb of B-24's and B-17's.... but also important to hold formation together. I've been in some runs where once formed, they open back up to the firewall, but if there are any turns en route, the formation tends to seperate again. The few I've run I leave the lead at one setting throughout. A few pilots get a little impatient, and some follow the old adage that "speed is life" or "speed is armor", but a good formation is much more effective defensively than having the throttles up against the gates.
There are always those that wander AFK for a few minutes, and drift, they need the formation kept at steady, lower-than-full-speed to help them get back into the box. "Turrent turns" easier to conduct than Land J keys for those that can. J&L keys for fine tuning. Final turn and level well before over the target. Not so much concentration as cooperation and (lot's of) patience and the right knowledge, IMHO.
Full salvo probably good on one area target with smaller group. A larger group gives you more tactical options..... say, 1/2 to 1/3rd of a salvo per target. A bomber leader can set up "lanes" - far left, inside left, middle, inside right, far right - to correspond to each pilot's location within the box (front to back, left to right) - as well as "spans" for each "lane" - first half, far half, first third, middle third, and so forth - for example, on a city, the first third of the formation is responsible for the first 1/3rd of the target area. The middle of the box target the middle third, the trail planes the far third. On the ground, you get a rolling bomb wave effect straight through the target.
The appropriate salvo and delay can be a trick to get right, with various pilot numbers and plane types.
I know in WWII, they all dropped with the lead, but they also would have far more bombers in the air over a similarly sized, but far less well defined, target (a large brown square on a green field...hmmmmm).... you can adjust to the game dynamics and still look good doing it, as well as become highly effective.
That tactical capability has a strategic value: Depending on the zone involved, you can hit a city to reduce resup of factories, then a factory or two or three to limit resup of bases in that zone. The effects can last hours, unlike the 15 minutes a hangar stays flat, or base strats getting resupped in an hour or less.
A thought..... after a few of these runs, can you imagine a box of Ar234's making the run sometime? That would be wild. S.A.C.
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edit... arena limitation may hit this idea..... plenty of times I was unable to get into the arena I wanted, because of the caps, so the "when and where" may need to be a little flexible, with a fall back position in case the primary arena is full.
