B-29 Gunners

[earl1937]

  I am sure the fighter "jocks" are going to howl over this suggestion: I think AH should allow a enough pilots to "join" a B-29, to man all the guns on the aircraft! What I see happening now, the "smart" fighter jocks are waiting until they know the 29 is on the bomb run and the pilot is in the bomb sight, then it is a easy kill. At the very least, allow 2 other pilots to join the 29's, pilot, bomberdear, and one gunner!

[Drano]

Used to be in AW that you could do this. It was a blast! Nothing like upping a fully manned "death star" on a reverse escort mission. Alas, I think we'll never see the like in this game.

I shudder to think of the absolute carnage a trio of B-29s with 999000 and some disciples in all the guns might wreak. 

Be fun to watch.



From a safe distance. 

[Bino]

I remember the "Battle of Trafalgar" special event in WarBirds, with two fleets of BUFFs pounding away. One of the funniest things I ever saw online.

[Eric19]

+1 GIVE ME THE DEATHSTAR

[The Fugitive]

The pilot and the bombardier are the same person. He is either flying, or guiding and bombing. The other player that IS allowed to join is your gunner. You have all the guys you need to do the job, and do it well.

HTC said it is an either or.... Either we have "formations" or we have many players in a single buff. They went with formations. 6 guys can fly in 9 B17's (2 per formation), or 6 guys can fly in one B17. I like it the way it is.

[Zoney]

I am sure the fighter "jocks" are going to howl over this suggestion: I think AH should allow a enough pilots to "join" a B-29, to man all the guns on the aircraft! What I see happening now, the "smart" fighter jocks are waiting until they know the 29 is on the bomb run and the pilot is in the bomb sight, then it is a easy kill. At the very least, allow 2 other pilots to join the 29's, pilot, bomberdear, and one gunner!

Every once in a while as I am setting up that "timing kill" you speak of I will find rounds shot at me just when I thought I was safe to do a "lazy 6" attack because some of those "smart" bomber dudes will go for the defensive position, kill you, then turn around and drop after you are dead.  So it does or can go both ways with the "smart" thingy.

I am only an occasional bomber guy so my vote should really not count but my opinion is, lose the formations, gain the deathstar option.  I'm betting we might have fewer "bomb and bail"
persons (dweebs) if bailing would abandon the buddies that were gunning for them 

[Karnak]

"Deathstar option" would be garbage.  It would be used on about 1-3% of sorties and would usually just mean that the player in the bomber was limited to two .50s, or whatever kind of gun his bomber has, as defense in addition to being a singleton.  Bombers would be even greater free kills than they are now and the number of bomber sorties making it to the target would drop significantly.

Laden P-51D usage would go up.

[Ack-Ack]

It wasn't garbage in other games that allowed fully manned bombers, don't know why you claim it will be in here. 

ack-ack

[guncrasher]

It wasn't garbage in other games that allowed fully manned bombers, don't know why you claim it will be in here. 

ack-ack

probably because there's few people that are willing to gun.  only time I ever had a gunner was when I asked a squadie to gun for me.  If you ask the general player very few people will do it.

midway

[Karnak]

It wasn't garbage in other games that allowed fully manned bombers, don't know why you claim it will be in here. 

ack-ack

The other game was pure arcade with not even AH's rudimentary damage model and certainly nothing like realistic ballistics.  HiTech has noted repeatedly that people's fond memories of death stars with ten players on them are through highly rose tinted glasses and that the vast majority of bombers in that game flew without any gunners at all.  What we'd lose in AH does not begin to make up for what we'd gain.

[Fish42]

I remember the "Battle of Trafalgar" special event in WarBirds, with two fleets of BUFFs pounding away. One of the funniest things I ever saw online.

There is nothing stoping someone organising this now, you would need less people too.

Hell I have taken my single B29 against a formation of B-29s and killed 2 and badly wounded the other before they got me. I have attacked and killed B24s with Bettys.

get 2 squads willing to do it, and organise a buff verses buff battle on one of the big maps. Also dont just use B17s, B25s or Ju88s would be fun too.

[bustr]

I remember a few times in AW we would fill up a B17 with gunners. Sneek over to an out of the way airfeild. Bomb it to get attention, then vulch the lifters for awhile and run home. We would even bag a few lone attackers before we got back to base. Sometimes we would drop onto the deck a few miles out and make a high speed run straight at an airfeild to catch uppers. I was even gunning in a B17 vulching a feild when another gunned B17 found us and we furballed. We beat the other gunned B17 but it gave an opening to the fighters to get us since we were out of ammo.

Then I remember the few botched missions where the rear gunner would disco and we didn't know about it untill after we went down. And I remember being vulched by B17's dong the same thing to me. And I remember swearing off attacking B17's becasue they might be full of gunners looking for a fight. Thats how I met 999000, on the stinky end of his B17. He shot me and my squad down when we thought we had found a free lunch all by it's lonesome.

It was fun being in a fully populated B17 gunning in AW when no one discoed.

[icepac]

If you ever see me ask for a gunner, your mission will be to man the front gun of lancasters in attacking the C47s resupplying the recently downed HQ.

[Ack-Ack]

The other game was pure arcade with not even AH's rudimentary damage model and certainly nothing like realistic ballistics.  HiTech has noted repeatedly that people's fond memories of death stars with ten players on them are through highly rose tinted glasses and that the vast majority of bombers in that game flew without any gunners at all.  What we'd lose in AH does not begin to make up for what we'd gain.

There weren't 10 players in the Deathstar from AW, it was only 6 players.  Nor was it hard to get a full crew, most of the time if you made it known you were going to up a deathstar, people were easy to find to man the guns.  The only problem and it was a major problem was keeping everyone that joined from being discoed or suffering from lags and warps but that was due to the limitations of the network code in AW.

ack-ack

[chaser]

It seems like there is a very simple solution to this. If you choose a formation, then everything is like it is now. But if you only choose a single bomber, then the code would allow for a gunner in each gun.