Attacking Bombers

[Krusty]

I think perhaps too good. I've seen pictures showing how far down the guns can depress, but also where the aiming point is. I think the guns are right but our "view down" is far too generous. Hopefully it gets remodeled along with the Lancaster itself.

[Butcher]

few months ago, during a scenario topgun had 4x Me262s. We basically did scouting and tasked with intercepting the buffs then engaging fighters.

I have a few great films of this, all 4 were doing 10-11clock and 1-2 clock passes on buff formations, some were coming in from 10-9clock or 2-3 clock simply to get a better shot on two lined up.

64x B-26s went down while only one 262 had an engine oil hit.

Certain buffs you can take head on, but you limit how many you can hit, quarter pass you can get a good line target on at least 2.

[Debrody]

Butcher,
when you have 4 pilots, its much easyer to double team the given bomber, minimizing the chance to get hit.
Maybe its me doing it wrong, but attacking a B-17 set killed more of my jets than anything else. Even tho i try to set up my kills carefully, high from the 10-2 direction, stirring the stick a bit til the last mooment...
They are such a deathstar for me.

[RicOShay]

  It's dangerous to attack a formation of B-17's from the 6 o clock position because your relative speed with respect to the bombers is quite slow. So you appear to crawl up on them and they will proceed to gun your brains out.
  The germans had good success with head on attacks because the relative speed is the fighter's speed and the bombers speed combined. The B-17G with its chin turret was developed to counter this tactic.

[bbosen]

My experience is primarily from the point of view of a P38 driver.

I find the biggest factor is getting altitude above the bomber formation. If I have a big altitude advantage, I generally have good success, and my transit through an acceptable firing solution generally has deadly effect, while my transit through the areas where I'm vulnerable is very quick. If I'm clawing for altitude and energy, I am generally forced to spend MUCH more time in those areas where I'm vulnerable, and I generally get killed.

I prefer a diving attack into the bomber's path, head-on from their front, but from much higher up. However, because those bombers are generally moving fast and the dive itself takes several seconds, the angle often changes dramatically, and a straight-on 12:00 high result isn't commonplace for me (and isn't required).

So I would summarize my most successful attack angle as commencing from high up, somewhere in the bomber's forward quarter, but often ending up diving through the middle or rear of the advancing formation.

Some video clips showing successful attacks:

"Ten Brave Men":  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dubnqBCppCM

Also the first clip and the last of the four clips here:

http://techvideoreview.com/FlightSimMovies/AcesHigh/MissionMovies/FourClipsFeb2012Full.htm
 

[save]

Buffs are just ridiculously good at killing stuff at range in AH,  One set of buffs with right gunner regularly kill same amount of fighters a large-scale raid did IRL.
From what i read in axis fighter pilot memoirs, they aimed at rear gunner, I find it very hard to kill individual gunners in here.

[Karnak]

From what i read in axis fighter pilot memoirs, they aimed at rear gunner, I find it very hard to kill individual gunners in here.

From the Luftwaffe gun camera footage I have seen this is a rather absurd claim.  They seem more to have kinda aimed at the bomber and sometimes they even hit it.  If they thought they were aiming at particular points on the bomber, well, fine, but that seems much like P-47 drivers claiming to bounce rounds off the road to kill Panzers, Panthers and Tigers.

[titanic3]

From the Luftwaffe gun camera footage I have seen this is a rather absurd claim.  They seem more to have kinda aimed at the bomber and sometimes they even hit it.  If they thought they were aiming at particular points on the bomber, well, fine, but that seems much like P-47 drivers claiming to bounce rounds off the road to kill Panzers, Panthers and Tigers.

How tough is the tail gunner armor? I've put multiple tater's in the tail of bombers and the guns never stop firing. I understand if the tracers are indiscernible from top turret to tail turret in a B17. But I've seen it in Lancs, B25s and B26s. They keep on firing until the whole plane blows up.

[Lusche]

How tough is the tail gunner armor? I've put multiple tater's in the tail of bombers and the guns never stop firing.

They never seem to stop firing. But if you fly buffs frequently, you know how tough the tail gunners armor really is...