Buff gunners

[Wiley]

It's silly to attack B17 or B24 or B29 alone. Pure and utter suicide unless you're a god at aiming and manage to hit them at 400 mph+ in a dive and kill at least one in one pass.

I disagree that it takes 'godly' aim.  A quad engine plane is a BIG target.  Even the wingroot is relatively huge.  When Z and I are buff hunting, we are pretty much expecting to kill a plane on each pass.  If we're in something like a 110 or other heavy cannon bird, we'll often try for a twofer or even a kill on all 3 at once, but a fair bit has to go right for that to happen.

The time it takes to set up an attack and reset is better spent looking for easier targets.

That's the key.  The reason many people are easy meat for buffs is they don't take the time to set up properly.  If you set up right, the target is huge and your risk is low.  You're right in that it takes time to do it properly though.

Wiley.

[tunnelrat]

The one thing that I think buffs have going for them (assuming they aren't facing a 30mm+ or quad 20mm armed bird) is that the risk of a wildcard golden BB hit is much higher for the fighter than it is for the bomber. 

Oiling a 190 is almost a given.

On the other hand, I have sawed away at them with good convergence hits and not even noticeably damaged them.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Sounds like a challenge to me.  I accept.  You in a set of buffs, me in a P47.  I'll kill all 3 of yours and then fly away.  Ultimately I'd like to kill all 3 without even 1 ping on me, but no guarantees.  When you wanna do this ?

Not giving you a hard time dude but it's easy mode against easy pilots.

If I still had an account or flew actively for the past 5-6 years I'd take you on that challenge any day now that I know where to fire all of the guns And that's with single digit hours of experience behind a buff gun.

Anyone with some experience like 99900 is a flying deathstar.

[Wiley]

If I still had an account or flew actively for the past 5-6 years I'd take you on that challenge any day now that I know where to fire all of the guns And that's with single digit hours of experience behind a buff gun.

Anyone with some experience like 99900 is a flying deathstar.

Numbers is definitely a handful, I'd guesstimate he and I are about 50/50 against one another, and Z's head and shoulders above me when it comes to the 'not getting shot' part.

But yeah, buff gunnery definitely gets easier when you discover the 'fire all' button.  The day I discovered that was how it worked was the day I changed my second stage trigger on my X-52 to 'fire all' instead of 'fire cannon'.

Tunnelrat- When you're 'sawing away at them', are you shooting from an angle, or within say, 20 degrees of dead 12/6?  I find it's much easier to do damage on them from a 90 degree angle for some reason.  Whether it's top, bottom, or sides I think it has something to do with more of the bullets in the burst getting onto the bigger target it presents, even at convergence.

Wiley.

[Shuffler]

If you have trouble killing buffs you need some pointers and a bit of stick time.

[Lusche]

Anyone with some experience like 99900 is a flying deathstar.

Now there I went LOL 

Seriously, "anyone with some experience like" and then naming one of the players with most stick time in heavy bombers?

I have to agree... anybody can be deadly in buff guns with literally years of practice

[Butcher]

999000 seen orbiting some rebel moon:

[999000]

Butcher you crack me up Sir!!!!!!!!!!!
999000 <S>

[Flossy]

buff gunning is easy mode

I agree it is if the opponent makes a straight six approach - it's the high slashing attacks that I dread as I find them difficult to hit and know that I have a good chance of losing all three bombers, especially if two or more fighters are working together. I think I am getting better though.... 

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Now there I went LOL 

Seriously, "anyone with some experience like" and then naming one of the players with most stick time in heavy bombers?

I have to agree... anybody can be deadly in buff guns with literally years of practice

A noob can score kills easily in a buff but not in a fighter.

This is pretty much exactly the opposite of how it went in real life. In real life buffs were sitting ducks with little to no chance of surviving attacks without the help of escort fighters. So yes, buff guns are easymode in AH.

[Noir]

A noob can score kills easily in a buff but not in a fighter.

This is pretty much exactly the opposite of how it went in real life. In real life buffs were sitting ducks with little to no chance of surviving attacks without the help of escort fighters. So yes, buff guns are easymode in AH.

when I first started Aces high the only way I could land two kills was to up bombers, and we didn't have formations then...

[Lusche]

In real life buffs were sitting ducks

So they are in AH, unless flying at 25k+ (which is rare) or in tightly packed formations

In all of 2011, the total fighter K/D vs heavy bombers (yes, the big fat fellows only) was 3.47. Guess what fighter vs fighter K/D is
And this even though the majority of fighter pilots insist on attacking the buffs from 6 oclock.
Interestingly, there is no fighter type in AH that had a K/D vs heavy bombers of 1.0 or less.

And when I was in my "two weeks" I quickly found out that the quickest way to get any kills... was to hunt bombers. Fighters twist and turn, bombers fly steady, giving you the intitiative the ability to dictate the engagement. It's just that most pilots simply refuse to take an additional 3-5 minutes to get into a better attack position than the good ol plain 6 attack.

A noob can score kills easily in a buff but not in a fighter..

Why don't they do it then?

[Max]

Of course then I found out the button which makes ALL the buff gunners shoot at the same time.

And this magic button is what? Sorry...only been here 10 years 

[MrRiplEy[H]]

So they are in AH, unless flying at 25k+ (which is rare) or in tightly packed formations

In all of 2011, the total fighter K/D vs heavy bombers (yes, the big fat fellows only) was 3.47. Guess what fighter vs fighter K/D is
And this even though the majority of fighter pilots insist on attacking the buffs from 6 oclock.
Interestingly, there is no fighter type in AH that had a K/D vs heavy bombers of 1.0 or less.

And when I was in my "two weeks" I quickly found out that the quickest way to get any kills... was to hunt bombers. Fighters twist and turn, bombers fly steady, giving you the intitiative the ability to dictate the engagement. It's just that most pilots simply refuse to take an additional 3-5 minutes to get into a better attack position than the good ol plain 6 attack.

I'd fight 2 vs 1 fighters instead of B17 formation any day. Even if the buff won't kill you usually the magic bb finds its way to the radiator or oil. Buffs can run 100% throttle all day which is totally bogus - leading to historically false performance level speedwise, they can manouver aerobatics basically running around circles around fighters at high altitude etc. And then there are the guns... The probable reason buffs have horrible k/d ratios is that many people like me haven't discovered the 'fire all' key yet or up buffs on vulched fields when FHs are down in attempt of deathstarring for a second before being vulched down. Every upping of a formation creates 3 deaths for every noob that ups on a vulched field. Also suicide attacks against cvs are very common - or losing both drones to turning too fast near enemy ... When you think of it the k/d should be much worse.

Why don't they do it then?

Oh but they do. They rarely get to land them though. But still they get kills vs being clubbered down in fighters.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

And this magic button is what? Sorry...only been here 10 years 

Go to your AH settings and keybindings, you'll find it there. The actual key varies with different key locales afaik.