Improve realism of the Norden bomsite

[muzik]

Um. No.

Not sure if the rest was sarcasm and this is your punch line.

Surely you can agree with this wish if modeling oxygen makes sense to you.

The "difficulty" of this game is relative to each individual. The game needs to grow and further set itself apart from the competition. More realism doesn't take away from the fun, it enhances it.

Making this game so difficult we fail 9 out 10 times is what kept us here. It shouldn't be any different for bomber pilots.

Which btw is a great reason for larger formations of planes that have less "sniper accuracy". End shameless plug.

[Stellaris]

The Norden is famous for being kept so secret, but the most accurate bombing of the war was carried out by the Dambusters, using Lancasters, the Tallboy and Grandslam bombs (themselves optimized for accuracy) and the SABS or Stabilized Automatic Bomb Sight.  SABS was a less complex design than the Norden but lacked an autopilot (the Brits already had autopilots in the plane).  Using those bombsights properly took a great deal of crew skill and co-operation, including getting calibrations for temperature, temperature profile, humidity and humidity profile, and winds aloft from the navigator - winds aloft required timed flare releases with the tailgunner tracking the flare with his gunsight, radio navigation support, the course in had to be flown very accurately by the pilot - it wasn't simple.  The process of setting up the bomb run was a matter of continuous adjustment of all the variables almost from wheels up.  The difference between the theoretical pickle-barrel performance of a computing bombsight and the actual not-within-five-miles performance of the average bomber crew is in these technicalities.  The dambusters had a CEP of about a hundred meters, IIRC.

The Germans had an even better bombsight, which not only integrated the autopilot but allowed target engagement from 90 degrees ahead of the plane (thus not requiring precalibration on a "dummy" target like the Norden) and also a much simpler design.

[asterix]

The current "Norden" bombsite calibration procedure gives us almost pinpoint accuracy.

Ki-67 or Boston formation to 20K can easily take out any "light" target on the map
and run away before anybody catches you. In Boston or Ki-67 you can kill several
radars in one flight and RTB safely.

You can also sink non-maneuvering ships relatively without big problems from the same safe altitude.

It is quite fun for the MA where flying bombers becomes fun and quite easy, and what is important
that it seems that level bombing from safe altitude is much more accurate than dive bombing.

However in Historical perspective it is not quite so. It seems that AH model is closed theoretical
(or advertisement)  accuracy:

Which wasn't actually even nearly true

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norden_bombsight#Entering_combat

And of course sinking ships with Norden was very rare.

It it possible to improve its model so it would be close to real? And make it is as "arena option"
such that it would be possible to select the needed realism level?

The point of using the Boston or Ki is the speedy getaway, interception usually means getting shot down. If it was less accurate to bomb would anyone even use them? Doesn`t seem worth the trouble to take a formation up for carpet bombing a single radar. Considering the downtime of those light objects, they sometimes pop up before the longer 20000ft flight is over, especially if players resupply. Some special events have used manual calibration requirement. Wind above 15000ft already affects the flight. You have to recalibrate after change in direction. A fighter climbs to 25000ft in like 10 min.

As far as non-maneuvering ships are concerned, you can always maneuver them. It becomes increasingly more difficult to hit a moving ship if altitude is increased beyond 10000ft because of the ordnance falling time. Constantly turning ship is an easy target, because it is slow during a turn, you have to time the turning well. 5in guns and providing cap are useful deterrent against buffs. I very rarely see cap fighters over the cv group. Often the guys manning the guns use them for ground pounding and nobody watches the sky until too late.

Divebombing is as accurate as the player. Single P47 can easily take out a hangar if the player can hit the mark and some guys do it consistently. 2 jugs can take out a cv with divebombing faster than a level bomber. Last time it took me two trips in a P47 to sink a cv. Again no enemy fighters were present at 10000-15000ft.

A bomber pilot in this game at present is already the navigator, bomber and a gunner. I like flying buffs and for me it is challenging enough. It is usually all solo operation anyway. If there is an external sight for gv-s I do not see why we have to make level bombing so realistic. You can also take out several radars with a rocket equipped fighter. Dive at max speed, fire the rockets and run away. Climb again at a safe place and repeat at another airfield. Interception would be difficult again. With manual bombsight I would just use more high speed diving jugs to take out light objects.

As far as buff damage model is concerned then skillful players can take out buffs in the game very easily. Even P51 is deadly in the hands of the skilled. If I look back how my buffs have been intercepted then usually it means someone scoots in from six o`clock high then slows down to hang and spray at about 200 to 400 yards. It is especially common among some P51 pilots. Don`t do that, you get wasted. I have made the same mistake myself.

[FLOOB]

The manual calibration was similar to what we have now, but instead of just holding your targeting key down for so many seconds you had to hold the crosshairs steady on a point on the map (I used a point of coastline or hill top mostly) and also had to click on your target on the map to set target altitude.

Wait. We don't have to hold the crosshairs steady while holding down Y key?

[Karnak]

Wait. We don't have to hold the crosshairs steady while holding down Y key?

Nope.

I know how it is, I kept doing it for a long time after that had be removed too, but no.

[Arlo]

Making this game so difficult we fail 9 out 10 times is what kept us here.

Big difference. The game wasn't designed to make virtual fighter pilots have to deal
with the hundreds of mundane tasks that actually made the difference between life
and death before there was even an encounter with the enemy. My recommendation
of modeling oxygen doesn't even suggest such. What makes air to air challenging
in AH is primarily pilot skill vs pilot skill and the situation one faces during that
encounter (SA). Virtual bomber pilots in AH also have those two factors (pilot vs pilot
being replaced with gunner vs pilot). Ratcheting up the difficulty in hitting the target
under the most ideal of conditions is not going to engender appreciation, imo.

[gyrene81]

Big difference. The game wasn't designed to make virtual fighter pilots have to deal
with the hundreds of mundane tasks that actually made the difference between life
and death before there was even an encounter with the enemy. My recommendation
of modeling oxygen doesn't even suggest such. What makes air to air challenging
in AH is primarily pilot skill vs pilot skill and the situation one faces during that
encounter (SA). Virtual bomber pilots in AH also have those two factors. Ratcheting up
the difficulty in hitting the target under the most ideal of conditions is not going
to engender appreciation, imo.

gotta agree.

[doright]

...The bombers that used the Norden bomb sight should get a more accurate bomb drop as compared to those that did not...

+1

Really like this idea. Just change Norden to "manual calibration of"

Biggest difference is the number of bombs you salvo to drop a target is proportional to the accuracy of the drop. Less accurate means more bombs required to drop a target and therefore fewer targets that can be hit. A carefully calibration means less bombs to drop a target and the more targets that can be hit. May make for interesting tactical decisions on load out and approaches. A careful calibration on the first target would be thrown off slightly by turning to drop on a second target in the same pass.

A careful calibration would also require more eye in the sight time. Time when fighters could be approaching, so that also becomes a tactical tradeoff.

[muzik]

Big difference. The game wasn't designed to make virtual fighter pilots have to deal
with the hundreds of mundane tasks that actually made the difference between life
and death before there was even an encounter with the enemy. My recommendation
of modeling oxygen doesn't even suggest such.

There's no difference at all. Just because you didn't ask for hundreds of new tasks doesn't change the fact that you want to add a new facet to the combat in the game. That facet increases the number of factors a pilot has to consider while he engages in a fight. It makes the fight more complicated. Not by a huge amount, but definitely by a measurable increment and I'm all for improving the complexity of the game. I don't recall all of your post, but I would even prefer oxygen be a manual system, not the automated that some suggested.

[kvuo75]

+A careful calibration would also require more eye in the sight time.

no it wouldn't, because it's actually faster than the "hold down y" method.

[sparky1]

+1

[Arlo]

There's no difference at all. Just because you didn't ask for hundreds of new tasks doesn't change the fact that you want to add a new facet to the combat in the game. That facet increases the number of factors a pilot has to consider while he engages in a fight. It makes the fight more complicated. Not by a huge amount, but definitely by a measurable increment and I'm all for improving the complexity of the game. I don't recall all of your post, but I would even prefer oxygen be a manual system, not the automated that some suggested.

You don't seem to recall it at all. I suggested the O-system be no more than a single keystroke
on and off (much like gear up/down) or no keystroke. It doesn't make a dogfight more complicated.
It could require a pilot (fighter or buff) to dive for breathable air should their oxy system be
damaged. Regarding buff players, I wouldn't make bombing any harder than the 'U-Y' manual method
of which many are currently familiar.

[asterix]

I like flying buffs and for me the main challenges are getting to the target and gunnery. I like the anticipation when waiting for the enemy to appear. I do not want to be a bombardier in the first place, but there is no other way in the game currently, so I accept it the way it is. I would like to be able to select a fully automatic calibration mode, because currently the whole crew is staring down the scope at the same time. I am not completely against a less accurate bombsight, but the question is how inaccurate is enough. At present you need one 250lb bomb to destroy a radar. Above the wind layer it is not very easy to hit several radars precisely with dropping one 250lb bomb at a time. It is already more secure to use more or bigger bombs for single targets.

As far as fuel, oxygen, air conditioning, engine cooling, propeller pitch and other aircraft subsystems are concerned then I could not care less about them in a combat simulator. Oxygen system damage would be similar to a pilot wound, engine damage etc, just another possible reason for returning to base and spending more time out of combat. 

I am somewhere between the arcade simulation and hardcore full realism. So my vote goes against most of the stuff proposed before. If these would be implemented in some special events, then why not.

[doright]

...select a fully automatic calibration mode...

Would be interesting to have an auto pickle mode.
The way I would like to see it work. After calibration put crosshair on target, then when the crosshairs reach the drop point - away they go. This is kind of how the Norden bombsight worked anyhow, if you throw in a bunch of gyro's, gearing, etc. To prevent this from being an auto kill method, some gyro drift should be built in so the longer your away the less accurate it becomes. So you could have the benefit of an auto drop at the expense of precision, but still maintain fair precision by making tiny corrections to the crosshairs as target is approached. Coming back in scope and slamming the crosshairs back on target will cause a bad drift the opposite way.

[Arlo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WtkpwiD2ZOE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3izaV7rE10I