Okay lets discuss the bombers role in AH gameplay!

[GrinBird]

Jihad your example with the B17s is okay. It shows that even a massive attack with 24 heavy bombers on an airfield, had only little effect.
To compare I can give an example from David Crooks diary "The Spitfirepilot":
The time is the difficult days of BoB just before Luftwaffe decided to switch to bombing Cities instead of trying to destroy RAF. The stage is an AirBase in the southern England. Its just before noon and every pilot except one is sitting in the officers lounge preparing for a lunch. The weather with heavy rain and low clouds is too bad for flying. Only a single spitfirepilot is flying around over the base to test something in the plane. Suddenly they hear a heavy plane dive down over the base and a loud whistle. They all dive in under the tables as they hear a deep crunchy sound and feel the building shake. Now they hear the spitfire come in over with the 8 machineguns firing, and they run outside just in time to see the Ju88 get shot down near the base. Just beside the wall to the house there was a deep hole with an enormous bomb down at the buttom. The bomb didnt go off, - if it had, the Ju88 pilot would have wiped out the entire squadron with one blow. The example shows how effective one divebombing Ju88 was compared to 24 B17s.
And Jihad.. I have critized the bombers for not beeing realistic modelled, and I have given suggestions so it could be made better. Thats not whining.

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GrinBird

[This message has been edited by GrinBird (edited 08-25-2000).]

[BigJim]

Hmmm I seem to remember in WB the norden was much more "critical" in the B17 ie you had to line up and fly straight for a few seconds for the norden to "accquire" before you dropped, this isn't modeled in AH (copywrite??) for some reason.

[Jigster]

 

Originally posted by BigJim:
Hmmm I seem to remember in WB the norden was much more "critical" in the B17 ie you had to line up and fly straight for a few seconds for the norden to "accquire" before you dropped, this isn't modeled in AH (copywrite??) for some reason.

I don't think HTC will  get around to modeling the complexity of the Norden for a while. But, the thing was pretty hard to hit with . Thing was difficult to program if you didn't have all the right numbers to compensate drift and such, which is why sometime the sight was dead on, and other times they missed it by miles.

- Jig

[Jigster]

 

Originally posted by GrinBird:
Jihad your example with the B17s is okay. It shows that even a massive attack with 24 heavy bombers on an airfield, had only little effect.
To compare I can give an example from David Crooks diary "The Spitfirepilot":
The time is the difficult days of BoB just before Luftwaffe decided to switch to bombing Cities instead of trying to destroy RAF. The stage is an AirBase in the southern England. Its just before noon and every pilot except one is sitting in the officers lounge preparing for a lunch. The weather with heavy rain and low clouds is too bad for flying. Only a single spitfirepilot is flying around over the base to test something in the plane. Suddenly they hear a heavy plane dive down over the base and a loud whistle. They all dive in under the tables as they hear a deep crunchy sound and feel the building shake. Now they hear the spitfire come in over with the 8 machineguns firing, and they run outside just in time to see the Ju88 get shot down near the base. Just beside the wall to the house there was a deep hole with an enormous bomb down at the buttom. The bomb didnt go off, - if it had, the Ju88 pilot would have wiped out the entire squadron with one blow. The example shows how effective one divebombing Ju88 was compared to 24 B17s.
And Jihad.. I have critized the bombers for not beeing realistic modelled, and I have given suggestions so it could be made better. Thats not whining.

Or better yet a flight of B-26's nailing a bridge before an train passes over it, taking a battalion or two of German troops over the ravine with the troop cars.

- Jig

[AKDejaVu]

   

AKDejaVu, what you described would've taken 12,500 lbs of ordnance with no margin for error. 3,000 lbs for each a/c hangar, 2,000lbs for the vh at the Afield and 1,500lbs for the vh at the v field . You sure they weren't allready soft ?

Yes.. I am sure they weren't already soft.  We didn't coordinate the attack either.  As I was diving on a vBase ack, I noticed another p47 in the area.. I broke off and asked if he was heavy to wich he replied "yes".  We then took the vBase down without dropping a single bomb.  As I climbed away... I noticed I still had 1100 rounds on both counters.  We proceded to the Airfield.

Once at the airfield, I dropped 2k on the VH imediately after the other p47 took out the VH ack.  We then methodically began to take out the ack.  Once that was complete, the other pilot dropped his 2k on one of the FH then we straffed it until down (1 pass each).  We rocked and bombed (500 lb'r) the other FH and straffed it down too.  We each got a fighter during this time... then a bomber before we straffed the BH down.

I was completely out of ammo when the BH went down.  The other pilot had a couple hundred rounds left.

Both fields had been ignored for some time.  We chose to take them because nobody was expecting it.  It worked beautifully.

AKDejaVu

[This message has been edited by AKDejaVu (edited 08-26-2000).]

[GrinBird]

Hmm this discussion has developed into a discussion about divebombing versus levelbombing, and thats fine.
I have done some research on the JU88, and got confirmed that it was originally was a divebomber. During the raids on London in the last months of BoB it was used as levelbomber. - But that dosent change the fact that it was a divebomber. And now it gets interesting.. We will get the JU88 in next patch, and will it be modelled as a divebomber or a levelbomber?
I did some research on the B26, - a bomber I must admit I dont know much about. According to the information I found, it was used originally as a low altitude level bomber for railroads factories etc. but it had very poor succes in that role. Later it was used as high-altitude bomber and had much more succes.

My hope is that we get medium divebombers like the JU88 and Mosquito in AcesHigh. But it still requires IMHO that the levelbombers are made a little less accurate than they are now, else divebombing wouldent be used enough I fear.
When they did best levelbombers could put 44% of the bombs within a 1000*1000 feet square around the target from 12000 feets altitude. As it is in Acehigh now, you can from the same altitude hit with 100% of the bombs within a 3*3 feet square.
Still I want bombing in AcesHigh to be as it was in WW2: Level bombing for strategic carpetbombing, and divebombing for tactical highprecision bombing.

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GrinBird

[This message has been edited by GrinBird (edited 08-26-2000).]

[Fatty]

Grinbird, I'd tend to agree with you on the hangars, I think it takes too much.  However, you can still take out a hangar solo with any plane out there (that can carry some ord).  Most of the heavier planes can take out all ack + a hangar solo, so really, 2-3 good divebombers and yeah, the base is closed.

[GrinBird]

Yes you and AKdejavue are right Fatty. It is allready possible to take a base with divebombing and strafing. And it is apperently more common than I thought when I wrote the first post in this thread.
Maybe what I wish for (a more realistic/historic role for the level bombers) will emerge by itself with time, because people start to use Heavy fighters for base caps instead of level bombers, and use level bombing for cities factories and HQ. Who knows? I certainly hope so. And that also means that we could find a use for divebombers like Mosquito and JU88.