Something I just noticed.

[Nefarious]

I recently picked up The Luftwaffe Album, Fighters and Bombers of the German Air Force 1933-1945

and I looked very carefully at the nose of the Ju88A-4, It appears in every picture In this book it shows an A-4 with a movable MG in the cockpit. In the game the forward firing MG does not move. Allowing the MG to move would greatly increase the survivability of the 88...

[SageFIN]

Urmm, actually I would leave the word "greatly" out  . Having a moving pea gun for defense is of course better than having a pea gun that is fixed into place but I wouldn't really call that a great improvement  .

[Professor Fate]

Hey look further in the book they also removed the ventral gun when they carried torpedos, AH doesn't, I'd be happy with the fixed nose gun  

[ 06-20-2001: Message edited by: Professor Fate ]

[Pyro]

The forward gun could be flexible or it could be fixed and fired by the pilot.  In AH, it could really be either way, it's only done this way to be more useful.  How would making it a gunner position make the Ju 88 more survivable in your opinion?  It seems to me that as a gunner position, it would hardly ever be used.

[Nefarious]

right now, the Ju 88 is most vulnerable from the HO pass...Its glass "greenhouse" which houses the crew is very succeptable to enemy fire.

Right now the gunner posistions are as follows.

2.right rear MG
3.Left rear MG
4.Underneath Zwillig MG

move each one up one and make the forward MG move and gunner posistion 2, If it doesnt move, tell me, what good does it do? why not just remove it?


This way instead of pointing the entire aircraft to engage an enemy a/c that is going to HO you, you could simply hop to posistion 2 and blast away with the MG.

Keeping the MG a forward firing non-movable gun serves what purpose of the 88? ground attack? defensive measures? looks?

Too weak for ground attack...
The non-moving MG makes the pilot either turn completley around and try from the other positions. Or try to line up the HO attacker with the FF MG...(yeah right)

Im not whining about it or anything I would just like to see some more options for the 88...

[Fastbikkel]

You know what is even better?
Go after a bogey in a ju88   he will be realy surprised if you do this and he will be furious if you shoot him down  

You can then start bragging about it on the open channel LOL.

Realy, there are guys out there who do this.
I once had a b-26 going after me in my fighter. I had trouble, realy. He didn't shoot me. But pay attention to him, you never know what he is up to.

[WarChild]

ACTUALLY I HAVE DONE THIS!   A p51 engaged my Ju88 as i was trying to RTb.. i was light on fuel and very manuverable for a ju88... anyway... like 6 passes later i finally nailed his engine oil... he had merely mins left of powered flight... and i began my offensive.. i hunted that p51 down all the way to the deck.. twisting and turning ... boom and zoomin until he had nothing left.. i was useing the forward FIXED gun to shoo t at him the whole time....  when he got low and slow.. i finally put enough into his cockpit area to blow him to bits.  

in answer to pyro... i dunno which i'd prefer.. pintel or fixed... if it was a postion i never could have hunted that p51 down.. however.. its only occured once... i think that 70% of the time a  movable gun postion up front MAY be more useful than the fixed.... as pee shooters.. aint much u can do either way.

academics.... if we were talking b26.... with .50's it would be an issue

[Nefarious]

Well if the movable gun is modeled like all the other buff guns, The chance of killing the HO attacker will make for a more survivable Ju88.

Of course thier is no way in proving that it would be more survivable, but I believe personnally it would increase its odds.