Bomber Combat simulation in Aces High

[Xavier]

I used to feel frustrated as a skilled gunner chopped off my wing at 1.5K, until I learned that it's all about patience. Like attacking GVs, you have to give yourself some time, climb above them and wait for the perfect moment to strike. Wait for them to be over the target dropping their bombs, or turning.

If you still want to creep up their six (and risk a quick death), at least take something like a Me-410 with the BK5 or MK103, aim carefully and you can score hits well outside of their defensive fire. But be careful, a skilled bomber will cut the throttle and open the bomb bays to close the gap and put you right in his sights!

Another way to learn a lot about attack approaches is, well...getting shot down  . I have probably learned more while getting blasted by Lusche and Bruv than attacking bombers myself.

Is it realistic to have bombers flying at full throttle all the time? No. Is the laser-aim historically accurate? No. But then again, this is a simulation, and there were some compromises to make it playable and balanced.

[Crash Orange]

Early on in the actual World War II the 8th Air Force reversed it's decision to fly bombers into Germany un-escorted after having more than 100 bombers shot down in one mission alone.  It was proven that un-escorted bombers were easy kills for the (at that time superior Germane fighters)  With that thought in mind how is it that one set of three bombers in AH is able to fight off two or three fighters taking little or no damage un-escorted.  Something must be wrong with the combat simulation model in AH.   

To the extent this is true, it's because of the poor tactics employed by many AH pilots when attacking heavy bombers. No Luftwaffe pilot in his right mind would have crept up on a formation of B-17s from dead behind and duked it out with the tail gunners at 400 yards. Any who were foolish enough to try didn't get the chance to try twice. But noob after noob in the MA gets blown out of the sky doing exactly that.

And Lancs? Fuhgeddaboudit. Any pilot with a smidgen of skill can blast Lancs out of the sky all day. An average pilot can easily rack up a 10:1 k/d ratio against Lancs IF he has the patience and sense to make attacks that keep him out of the arc of the rear guns.

Anyway, a quick look at the stats page shows that your perception is unfounded. In the last tour 2.5 B-17s were shot down for every 1 plane they killed. For B-24s and B-26s the ratio is about 3:1, and for Lancs it's 5:1. For other bombers it's as bad as 10:1 or even 20:1 (for the He-111, although granted that's an EW plane in the LW arena). The difference between WW2 and AH in this regard is that AH players aren't deterred by these terrible losses since they can always just up another set of buffs.

Try doing an unescorted high-altitude deep penetration mission to the HQ or a strat far from friendly bases in the MA. Take a decent number of bombers and you MIGHT be lucky enough to get half of them back alive. Take a single formation and if anyone bothers to intercept you your chances of getting even one plane back alive are almost nil. And as Brooke notes, bombers are absolutely massacred in the scenarios when they get caught by enemy fighters without escorts.

[RotBaron]

What is the intent if you don't attack them or fly them? Not being a pia there, just asking.

When I was new and flew buffs a lot, my feelings were in line with the OP; back then and as I got better at gunning, I thought killing ppl in buffs was ~easy. That was because many attacked from ded 6.

I got the same result when I tried it in a ftr, but then one day a bish C205 took out all my B-24s at altitude. He did something in a way I'd never noticed another individual player doing. Thanks Kamurogi. High slashing attack is quite regularly successful with hits on one in the formation. It's all about patience; if you're not that patient in this game, buffs should kill you.

 

[bozon]

And Lancs? Fuhgeddaboudit. Any pilot with a smidgen of skill can blast Lancs out of the sky all day. An average pilot can easily rack up a 10:1 k/d ratio against Lancs IF he has the patience and sense to make attacks that keep him out of the arc of the rear guns.

Anyway, a quick look at the stats page shows that your perception is unfounded. In the last tour 2.5 B-17s were shot down for every 1 plane they killed. For B-24s and B-26s the ratio is about 3:1, and for Lancs it's 5:1. For other bombers it's as bad as 10:1 or even 20:1 (for the He-111, although granted that's an EW plane in the LW arena). The difference between WW2 and AH in this regard is that AH players aren't deterred by these terrible losses since they can always just up another set of buffs.

This discussion comes back every now and then on these boards. K/D of 0.33 for a bomber is equivalent to a K/D=1.0 for a fighter. The 3 bombers are slaved to a single player, fire at the same target. The players lands the combined kills of its three planes (three lives/strikes). If K/D stat for bombers was 1.0 it would mean that a fighter goes down for every drone that is killed. All gunnery in AH is much easier than in real life and this is more than simply the more practice that we have. I am almost convinced that bomber gunners were completely useless except when shooting backwards at a chasing plane from a short range.

The reason we get extremely high fatality rates in AH is because players fight to the "death". This is common to all combat sims, land, sea and air. In real life people fight until the fight is lost or that they feel that the odds are against them. Then they RUN AWAY. Real ground battles that end in a decisive, one-sided victory see the enemy force being routed and scattering away. They do not end in a total slaughter of all enemy troops - that outcome is extremely rare, but common in computer games. A typical pilot that sees his wingman and leader plunge down in flames will dive to the clouds and head for home. We of course do not have clouds and the friend/foe ID is much easier, so running away is a lot harder. Real people do not take unnecessary risks - if they are low on fuel and ammo they leave the fight and land safely, not try to get a kill with their last 10 bullets, then hope to disengage successfully and glide home on an empty plane.

[caldera]

It isn't really that buff's guns are overpowered. It really depends on the aircraft, full, 1 extra or no drones, and who is behind the gunsight.

I've seen really bad gunners in B-17s who get shot down by 109F-4's and I've seen gunners who can take out a 163/262 in a blink of an aye as it whirs by at 400 mph.

Some of the bomber gunners will poke your eye out if you get near them.

( Contrary to popular belief diving on a plane with a top turret isn't the best idea!  )

You are mistaken.  And the OP has been playing long enough to figure out that 99% of bombers are easy kills.




edit: Did some checking and found an error in my calculations. 
For the 2013 calendar year, I shot down (1279) B-17/B-24/B-29/B-26/Lancasters to (28) deaths.
So it is actually only 98% of bombers that are easy kills. 

[waystin2]

Someone had a sig that had a quote from a German Pilot.  It went something like this...

"I had fun dogfighting a Spitfire, even forgetting that I could die.  But when I look down upon a bomber stream of Flying Fortresses, my life would flash before my eyes."

Attacking B-17's is like kicking a porcupine while you are wearing flip-flops.   

[Triton28]

Ever since I stopped attacking bombers from directly behind, I can count on one hand the number of times I've died from attacking a bomber.  Sometimes the guy lands some hits and takes pieces off my plane or gives me a PW, but even that's kinda rare if I'm making my normal top down passes.

I think you're doing it wrong Traveler.

[Volron]

I don't fly bombers and I don't attack bombers.

This right here renders your argument invalid.  Try again later, when you have actual experience in doing these things.

[Lusche]

For the 2013 calendar year, I shot down (1279) B-17/B-24/B-29/B-26/Lancasters to (28) deaths.

That's a K/D ratio more than 50% better than mine  

[PJ_Godzilla]

We know that the bomber gun mounts don't vibrate with low-amplitude "noise" as they would IRL, yes? To me, this is something worth looking at. As for the results of any one attack, those accounts I also call "noise". They are purely anecdotal. HTC should do exactly what he does; focus on model fidelity.

The chips can fall where they will.

[GScholz]

"Against 20 Russians trying to shoot you down or even 20 Spitfires, it can be exciting, even fun. But curve in towards 40 fortresses and all your past sins flash before your eyes."

- Hans "Fips" Philipp. 206 victories. Shot down on 8 October 1943, possibly by a P-47 piloted by Robert S. Johnson. He fell to his death after his chute failed to open.




A formation of heavy bombers with all their guns may look very scary indeed. However, the self escorting bomber concept was a failure. Only when the Allies could properly escort the bombers did the Luftwaffe start taking serious casualties.

[caldera]

That's a K/D ratio more than 50% better than mine  

98% were proxies.  The rest were claimed in an underhanded manner. 

[Swoop]

Part of the issue is the totally different operational restrictions of Aces High.

One thing that's always bothered me about sims is that most don't model any kind of engine wear, you can run any engine in Aces High at full power (not WEP) forever with no ill effects and so....everyone does.  Why wouldn't you?  Bombers in AH streak along at max speed all the time, with no regard to fuel or engine damage and, therefore, are much harder to intercept and get into a decent firing position rather than chase the damn things down and come in dead six cos that's the only angle available.

[caldera]

Part of the issue is the totally different operational restrictions of Aces High.

One thing that's always bothered me about sims is that most don't model any kind of engine wear, you can run any engine in Aces High at full power (not WEP) forever with no ill effects and so....everyone does.  Why wouldn't you?  Bombers in AH streak along at max speed all the time, with no regard to fuel or engine damage and, therefore, are much harder to intercept and get into a decent firing position rather than chase the damn things down and come in dead six cos that's the only angle available.

That's what gets most fighters killed.  They lose patience climbing up to and chasing the bombers.  You know the bomber pilot at 20k that climbs when he spots you and when you finally get into position, he does a series of break turns to present a seemingly easy target.  If you fall for that and blow your energy trying to follow, you are the easy target.  If you don't fall for that, the bomber pilot starts diving.  Your closure speed becomes less and again you can become an easy target.  If you take your time and don't succumb to a tail chase, he will keep diving and you will keep chasing and trying to set up a good shot.  Meanwhile, he is on the radio calling all his squaddies to bounce you as you get lower and lower - and closer to his field ack.  So, you then push your luck to get him before getting ganged and he kills you. 

It's all about patience.  You determine when and how the attack comes.  Don't push your luck and you will almost always emerge victorius.  Or at least won't get yourself killed.

Even with bombers going balls to the wall, they are still slower than most fighters and usually in your territory.  If you get wounded or damaged, you have a much better chance of making it home than he does.

[Lusche]

Just this morning I had a Me 163B attacking my Lancs at 22K. He was flying the fastest, best climbing fighter of them all, allowing him to chose freely ANY angle, any approach to attack my slow bombers at will.
He chose to ride down the barrels of my tail guns from a perfect 6 Oclock.

That's what's getting you killed when attacking buffs, no matter what plane you are in. It's all about decisions.