Even today, accurate range information is absolutely critical to precise weapon employment, whether it's a cannon or a bomb. The 2 places in AH where we are given absolutely perfect range information is in icon range and in the bomb sights. This was, and still is, information that makes the difference between an ace and a kill, a skilled bombadier who hits or a wannabe who misses.
Unfortunately, until we get better visual setups for our home computers, we're limited to peering at relatively small monitors and trying to artificially discern information that our brains can automatically gather from the real world. Icon ranges are the "next best thing" to the human eyes and a full 360 degree field of view to look at. As for the bombing system...
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It's there because many players wouldn't bomb in the game if it was even marginally realistic. Heck, we don't even have to dial in the target elevation
Talk about lazy man's bombing LOL. There's no skill or pre-planning required unless you try to line up the perfect approach angle to get 5 objects instead of 4 in each pass, and that only requires downloading the maps and glancing at them before making the final bomb run. Real life bombing is HARD, just as hard as dogfighting plus it requires planning before the flight and some degree of intuition as to how to make uncertanties balance each other out. Things like if you don't know the exact winds, just line up with a head or tail wind instead of a crosswind, and you'll get better accuracy out of a string of bombs. Or instead of bombing a runway straight down the runway heading, cut it at an angle to increase the chance of knocking it out of service. Real bombing is an art form that is almost entirely absent in AH, but that's by design as (I assume) a great number of players wouldn't bother to learn how to do it properly with obviously discouraging results.
End editorial, return to your regularly scheduled program.
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eagl <squealing Pigs> BYA
Oink Oink To War!!!
