I just witnessed a Rook strat raid in LWO. Several sets of B24s in good formation, escorted by fighters... but flying "only" @20-25k.
They were slaughtered while still 2 sectors away from their target by 262's, Ta 152's, 190A8 and other models. They never had any chance. In just a few moments they were all dead.
And I'm still amazed by all this "they do it ONLY for score" statements by players that don't know anything much about score, never do any such raids or fly bombers at all, and aren't even able to get the premium high-alt fighter, the P-47M to altitude.
Players do various things for various reasons, but it seems to be trendy within any specific circle in AH do discount anything other players do or play as lame. "Scorepadding buffs! Lame furballers! GV tards!"
Fact is: Attacking the strats is not a very rewarding target in terms of score. There are targets that can give you way better score, that are much less obvious to the defenders, not protected by puffy ack and do not require several sectors flying in enemy airspace. I WISH it had more effect on score / gameplay (albeit the latter one has to be balanced) as an incentive to attack it and to balance the difficulty and invested time. (A single mission can easily take up to 2 hours)
Fact is: Unless you are lucky (single bomber sneaking through at off-peak times), you most probably won't make it to your target if flying at 20k. Contrary to what I read in this thread, there are many fighter capable to fly to any altitude the bombers are able to reach: 47's, Ponies, 109K-4, Spit 9 & 14. And they have lot of time to see you coming...
Fact is: The 262, of which only 2 are needed to shred any but the largest missions, is getting difficult to fly above ~27k, altitude is almost the only way for the buffs to make it more difficult for the jet pilots. Which will almost invariably show up, because of the long warning times and very predictable targets the buffs are going to.
