Tighten up the blasted drone leash

[Saxman]

But I very much doubt that HTC will at this point change it.
Why should they?

Because the purpose of the drones was to give a bomber pilot extra defensive firepower, NOT three fighters with as many as 30 blasted machine guns a gunner can point at you while looping and weaving all over the frelling place.

[4deck]

I would be happy if drones wouldn't warp around anymore in tight or highspeed maneuvers.
Aim on target... *warp*...getting into position again... *warp*... getting into *warp* *you have collided* 

What he said

[Tilt]

I'm actually not a fan of the model that kills drones when "manouvering" causes them to extend too far from the lead aircraft.

Ideally there should be a point where the distance gets so great that the drone effectively "gets lost" and AI takes over (driven from the players FE) and the Drone ditches its bombs and RTB's. If it gets shot down or forced to ditch then so be it and kills/losses awarded appropiately. If the lead plane is destroyed then the player may find himself in charge of an aircraft free of payload on its way to origin base. He can do with that as he pleases.

I assume (and thats caught me out before) that positional control/reference reporting re drones is not like other ac else they would not warp quite so much in comparison to other ac.........

There is of course loads of other stuff re "level bombers" F6, pilot release, fuses etc but that I assume is for elsewhere

[AirFlyer]

I would be happy if drones wouldn't warp around anymore in tight or highspeed maneuvers.
Aim on target... *warp*...getting into position again... *warp*... getting into *warp* *you have collided* 

+1

This and when destroying the center bomber causes one of the drones to insta-warp into center position...

[whiteman]

engaged 2 sets of buffs that thought the were fighters. That didn't bug me but dodging the warping drones did.

[W7LPNRICK]

+2 best suggestion is some time. YES! simply put.

[Shifty]

We are talking about the ability, given certain death if we do nothing, of doing a dive then an immelman.
There is no WWII bomber that in the right circumstances could not, or would not do exactly that.

That explains all the Luftwaffe gun camera footage of Allied bombers doing immelmans to shake off the 109s and 190s. Not to mention the Bettys doing the same thing to shake off the Hellcats.  

I've seen frame after frame of gun camera footage and have yet to see an Allied or Axis level bomber do an immelman. In fact in all the books I've read on air combat since age 12 and I am now 51, the only reference I've ever seen of a level bomber attempting such a radical maneuver was described in Saburo Sakai's book Samurai about a G4M pilot who tried to loop his Betty. It didn't end well for him. The designed defense of level bombers was massed firepower from a mutual supporting formation of other level bombers. If a plane was damaged and fell out of formation it was doomed and already too damaged to accomplish anything but flying straight and level long enough for the crew to bail.

Loop roll and immelman to your heart's desire, but don't try and pass it off as a historically valid tactic.

[trigger2]

I agree with Sax.

Ghosth, although the plane WOULD be able to do it (erm, maybe, depends on the pilot and the specifics of the day along with the aircraft and it's condition, a lot of variables), the CREW could not. Here is a picture of a B-24 waist turret...



Tell me, if the plane goes vertical, what happens? Gravity says, they fall. They fall, and more than likely, get hurt or crush the tail gunner. Now, after your done falling, what happens when that plane goes up-side-down? You fall again. Now, you also had ammo boxes and other misc. loose items, which, yup, you guessed it, as gravity says, they fall too. Now, what happens when you fall, then have 150 rounds of ammunition, stored in a box, fall on your arm? Your arm hurts like hell. So, you just fell, crushed your tail gunner, had ammo fall onto your arm, you're in not-so-great shape. Now, while the plane is up-side-down, shoot your waist gun...

Oh wait...

You're hurt, and odds are, you won't be shooting the waist gun if you needed to, even after leveling out...

You wanna do it? Fine I say, but say good-bye to your gunners...

My $.02.

~Trig

[Ghosth]

Trigger, know what centrifigal force is? Why can roller coasters go loop de loop without the passengers falling out?

Same for a plane doing a loop.

You know I don't think you guys really have a clue what its like trying to fly a bomber these days.

So I dare ya, I double dog dare ya. Fly this tour in nothing but bombers in formation.
Then come back at the end of the tour and tell me that they need to be changed.
Go ahead, prove me wrong. I dare ya.

[Shifty]

Trigger, know what centrifigal force is? Why can roller coasters go loop de loop without the passengers falling out?

Same for a plane doing a loop.

You know I don't think you guys really have a clue what its like trying to fly a bomber these days.

So I dare ya, I double dog dare ya. Fly this tour in nothing but bombers in formation.
Then come back at the end of the tour and tell me that they need to be changed.
Go ahead, prove me wrong. I dare ya.

I never said the bombers needed to be changed. I said your claim that doing immelmans in a bomber is a valid tactic is bulls**t.
You haven't proved me wrong and you haven't proved it was a tactic used in the war. It's gaming the game pure and simple. I'm not even saying don't do it. I'm just saying if you do it or support it you're officially on the gamer side of the sim. Not what I like to see in a guy sporting an AH Trainer Avatar. By the way ever done a loop in an airplane? I have quite a few times. Also have you ever been on a C-130 that was manuvering hard? I've been there too and thank God the pilot didn't try an immelman 

So I dare ya, I double dog dare ya.

 

[Saxman]

That's a total physics fail.

Centrifugal force isn't some magical anti-gravity field, especially when you consider the extremely low G-load that most of these bombers could tolerate. IIRC our B-24 loses its wings around what, 3-4G? The bombers don't have NEAR the acceleration forces acting on its crew and internal components to keep them rooted in place while the plain is spinning around like a top.

[fbEagle]

How about you kill the bombers before they dive away!!  yes it is possible   
 

[Shifty]

How about you kill the bombers before they dive away!!  yes it is possible   
 

Actually I prefer the buffs to maneuver. That means the guy is in the pilots seat not in a gun position, and if he has a gunner it makes it harder for him to track me. Plus it usually offers a better target. They're much more dangerous when they are stable and the guns manned. YMMV.

[Lusche]

Plus it usually offers a better target. They're much more dangerous when they are stable and the guns manned. YMMV.

Not if the bomber pilot is maneuvering in such a way, that the drones are warping all over. And you don't need to do an immelman to do so. There are ways to do a relatively flat turn so that the drones start hopping again & again to catch up with the lead. In such a situation it's terrible difficult to attack the bombers. Try to go for the lead, and the drones may warp into you, or go for a drone and they will quickly warp out of your sight.

[Wedge1126]

That's a total physics fail.

Centrifugal force isn't some magical anti-gravity field, especially when you consider the extremely low G-load that most of these bombers could tolerate. IIRC our B-24 loses its wings around what, 3-4G? The bombers don't have NEAR the acceleration forces acting on its crew and internal components to keep them rooted in place while the plain is spinning around like a top.

You should only need 1G.
On the other hand, rolling over at the top of an Immelmann might be unpleasant for the crew.