So as to not take over KiLtH's Bomber Wing thread, I'll post here a few observations regarding strategic bombing in the war arenas. Comments and corrections welcome.
First, the purpose and results of strategic (strat) bombing. Stat targets include those found at the airbases:
Radar (dar) - which "blinds" enemy,
Ordanance (ord) - which prevents use of bombs and rockets,
Troop Barracks (troops) - which takes paratroopers and supplies out,
Fuel Dumps (fuel) - which limit fuel loads to 75% and takes away drop tanks (DT's).
Strat Targets also include the
Strat Factories - radar, ammo, troop training, and fuel each used to resupply bases' strats;
Cities, which resupply strat facotries and the HQ; and the
HQ which coordinates dar to give us the radar bars (dar-bar). Strats run drone auto resupply trains, convoys, and barges on a regular basis... 5 minutes after one arrives, or is destroyed, another starts out.
The majority of strat targets require 250#'s of ord dropped on each target (AAA factory, Radar factory, Ammo factory, Fuel refinery Training facility, City building) within a strat target area to destroy it. Downtime is 3 hours, if not-resupplied. Approximately 75 minutes if fully auto resupplied, and over 2 hours if partially auto resupplied (meaning the supplying base is also under 50%). A strat target within a zone that is knocked below 50% capability has it's resupply effects lowered to 17% (1/6th) effectiveness.
In comparison, the strats at a Base stay down 2 hours if not resupplied, about 1 hour if drone resupplied, and about 75 minutes if paritally auto resupplied.
Thus; by bombing cities and strat factories, follow on attacks (porking) of bases's strat targets will have a greater and longer effect in the offensive operations of another Country in the arena, unless there is a large resupply effort by pilots of that country. This is not an effort that can be taken on by one or two pilots... this takes some cooperative effort.
Bomber FormationsThe best way to keep a formation of bombers together is to
not run at full throttle and engine rpm the whole trip.
A sequence of events that works for me:
- Spawn from a mission so Ord and Fuel options are the same.
- Hold on Runway, throttles closed, until every one has spawned.
- Set flaps to 0 (W Key)
- Flight lead should pull ahead a couple plane lengths on runway.
- At flight leaders command, all go to full throttle (manifold) and full engine rpm (keypad +)
- Autoclimbout, or Autoclimb (ALT-X) (which reportedly is a little more efficient) - this is flight leader's choice.
- Once you've achieved some altitude, lead sets a lower Manifold (throttle) and possibly lower RPM settings for group.
- Turns should be wide and shallow and made either with "turrent" turns -- rudder turn from turrent position and external view (F3), or with use of J and L Keys. Proper course planning will limit turns to few and shallow angle, and preferable after the group has leveled out.
By running less than full speed, pilots have enough "catch-up" power to make adjustments to maintain a tight effective formation.
You will lose planes in formation. People will go AFK. Some have their Manifold and RPM settings linked, and therefore will be unable to maintain the group's power settings. Some connection problems will arise, and large groups will experience poor frame rates.
Some will want to form up, then go back to full throttle again. I avoid this, I've seen the formations start to drift again once this is done. B-17's, B-24's, Lancs, JU-88's, and B-26's also tend to climb in altitude, even when in level flight, when at full throttle. If you are going after point targets... ie hangars and base strats... your calibration will be off. Many buff drivers can adjust for this, or salvo those targets, but the bombsight in AHII is capable of extreme accuracy to extreme heights, if you can keep you altitude steady and get a long calibration time. Carpet bombing strat factories, towns, and cities are less a problem, but I still set the group at less than full speed to keep the formation tight.
Formations in Practice.A good formation has the various flights staggered slightly vertically and horizontally. This opens up fields of fire for each flight to aid in their mutual defense against attacking planes. Below is a good example of spacing of bombers. The flights should try to keep spacing on each other, but the primary objective, once in formation, is to keep their spacing with their
assigned lead plane. The
/.wingman playername command can help. The idea is to keep the distance number between you and the lead plane to change as little as possible. Adjustments should be slight. The
J and L keys are best for this.
Also, it is a good idea to ensure that
Combat Trim is active. The little green light on the dash will tell you if combat trim is enabled. This is activated and deactivated by the Auto-Level (X), Auto-SPeed/Climb (ALTX), and Auto-Angle(SHIFT-X) keys.
The AttackDue to the size of Cities and factories in-game, it is best for formations to be 4 or 5 flights across, and however many flights deep as you have planes. Strat targets are best attacked North-South or East-West. Divide the target into "lanes" for each flight to be responsible for on the attack run. Large bomber groups attacking several targets with part of their load on each attack can also divide each lane into "spans".
Say you have 12 bombers attacking 3 strat targets: They form up 4 bombers across, and 3 deep, similar to the formation shown above. They divide the target into 4 lanes; outside left, inside left, inside right, outside right, corresponding to the flight positions in the formation.
Additionally, each row of bombers take a "span" of their lane. The first bomber on the far left front of the formation takes the first 1/3rd of the outside left lane of the target, and set's his salvo to 1/3rd his bomb load, and appropirate delay, as directed by the flight leader. The second bomber in that row attacks the middle 1/3rd of that lane. The rear bomber in that lane attacks the far 1/3rd of that lane.
Delay and SalvoThe ".delay #.##" and ".salvo #" commands come in handy with large bomber groups against strat targets.
One B-17 loaded with 16 - 250# bombs, with .delay 16 and .salvo 0.40 will walk their ord across a strat factory square's structures, when released at the first structure the bombers' sight passes over. With 12 500# bombs, the delay changes to 0.50, with a little poorer overlap. Width-wise, the bombs impact almost 1/4 of the width of the strat factory target area.
These bomb settings will cross about 1/2 of a City target area, but City buildings are spread out further than strat factories, so carpet bombing is less effective than area bombing groups of buildings.
The most strat targets that could be effectively targeted by a large bomber group would be 4. 1/4 of the bomb load on each target ( .salvo 4 of 250# bombs .delay 0.40) which would require at least 16 flights of bombers; 4 across, 4 deep....or up to 20 bombers; 5 across, 4 deep. Beyond that there will be a lot of extra ord placed on target. Having pilots divide their lanes into smaller spans than 1/4 of their length gets a little problematic.
Radio TrafficChatter should be limited on channels for larger groups. Fighter cover and bombers should have seperate tunned channels, and coordinate over local channel. Try to make use of the text buffer for most chatter, especially in enemy airspace and near the target. Keep the voice channels open to enemy spotting reports, warnings, and directions from the leaders. Leaders should also post directives in text as well as voice to make sure everyone get's the message. VOX goes out occassionally.
Gunners should be brought onboard well before you line up on target and start calibration. They should stay off the voice channel, except for warnings, but if you get an excitable kid that can't stay off the channel, just squelch him rather than get into a fight about radio discipline while on the bomb run.
