Interesting observation.
According to what I've read, and talking with a few folks who flew B-17s and B-24s in WWII, bombers always flew at maximum weight, trading off bombs vs. fuel depending on the distance to their target. But always at maximum weight. As the old saw goes, "nothing is more useless than the fuel you leave in the truck, or the runway that is behind you." I have never - yet - heard of a RL instance where bombers were loaded with less fuel in order weigh less and fly faster.
Quite so. They loaded max fuel just to bomb things across the channel from England.
GD: You're failing to understand the point I'm making. While the charts are in fact showing the FW190 faster than the B-24 (and it is... in clean condition with prolonged WEP time), in actual practice, from multiple scenarios, from so many FSOs I can't count them, the FW190A8 is too slow to catch B-24s when the B-24s are flying full throttle. That's when there are no escorts to stop your chase. If you have alt, if you have position, or whatever, If you have SOME advantage, you can transfer that into your attack. If you're co-alt/co-E you're SOL and then some. You'll chase them for 15-20 minutes to make 1 good attack run, or fall dead6 for a cheap death attack run and die. By then they're 3 sectors in and you've only made 1 attack. They can cross half a map in 20-30 minutes.
I've also run into bombers in the MA for whatever reason were flying aroudn 150-180mph level. I was actually able to make slashing passes in a 190a as stated in historic reports. I was able to get in position several times AHEAD of the formation all inside 1 sector's distance of flight.
It was much more immersive and gave me a real awesome moment of what-it-musta-felt-like. I don't get that feeling in scenarios or FSOs as much as the allied escorts must. You could actually make a dead6 attack quickly, and break off and reposition, instead of loitering there in the gunsights like full-throttle-bombers would have produced.
Funny thing is in BoG Frame 3 or 4 I saw 2 full squads of ALLIED fighters trying to catch up to the bombers. They bounced attackers and couldn't get back into cover position over their buffs! I just flew alongside these p47s/p51s and popped 3 or 4 of them. Bombers fly too fast in this game, that's a fact. If you're trying to put them into some setup or scenario you have to take that into account.
Unless the B-29s are forced to carry 50% fuel (denoting burning half on the way to target?) or 75% (they'd have reserve fuel for the route back), and fly only at max cruise settings, they have a fair chance of outrunning a number of the fighters chasing them.
