Bomber Combat simulation in Aces High

[BnZs]

Traveler how does your unescorted bomber do? Are you killing everyone too easily or is it a different issue?

I stooged around in B-17s below 10,000 feet over an enemy base the other day because I was away from home, on a crapulent computer. This is the first time I've done this in my AH career. On a sattelite connection, no frame rate to speak of, lousy monitor, and no stick. That's right, a mouse. Remember, first time I've ever done this.

I shot down two fighters and gained some assists for 3 deaths. And my death rate is only that high because I accidentally flew into a mountain range while looking  backwards   (I was stooging around low enough to actually take some hits from base ack)

I noticed many fighter planes wisely shying away from me, to attack targets that are easier, such as every fighter plane in the game  

Did I mention I was flying with a flippin' mouse and never fly bombers? I shudder to think what I could do with practice.

It is easier than using the wirblewinds everyone complains about.

So yes, bomber gunnery has been made incredibly gamey and easy, to the point that the hard lessons from WWII about unescorted bomber vulnerability make absolutely no sense in AHII. A three ship flight of 17s is a monster in this game, a proper box would be an insane engine of destruction.

[Lusche]

So yes, bomber gunnery has been made incredibly gamey and easy, to the point that the hard lessons from WWII about unescorted bomber vulnerability make absolutely no sense in AHII. A three ship flight of 17s is a monster in this game, a proper box would be an insane engine of destruction.

Take a multi formation of B-17s and fly 8 sectors deep into enemy territory at the same historical alt and speed of the Black Thursday raid. If you get a comparable amount of defenders, you won't even make it to target. Your "insane engine of destruction" will be shredded like paper.

[BnZs]

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.

This is false. They did it all the time, successfully.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyJAlsJAbZw

What makes this a bad idea in AHII is the combo of three extremely gamey elements 1. The slaving of all guns in a formation to fire together, 2. The fact that gunners, protected by plexiglass, continue to fire after you hose their positions bullets, and most importantly 3. The fact that flex mounted guns on auto-level bombers are, in this game, given the platform stability and accuracy of thousand-yard benchrest rifles.

The reality of heavily armed plane off the tail of a buff is that 1. The tail gunner is the ONLY guy liable to have anything resembling a good shot at the bandit, 2. The tailgunner is going to be silenced the moment the bandit can squeeze off  a burst that hits him with as little as one .30 caliber round, much less cannon fire, 3. The bandit with fixed forward firing guns if anything going to have a far LONGER range for accurate fire than some guy with a flex-mounted machine guns.

[GScholz]

Attacking from six o'clock was the norm until escort fighters arrived on scene, then it became suicidal.

[BnZs]

Take a multi formation of B-17s and fly 8 sectors deep into enemy territory at the same historical alt and speed of the Black Thursday raid. If you get a comparable amount of defenders, you won't even make it to target. Your "insane engine of destruction" will be shredded like paper.

Snail, argument is that if I end up fighting a cloud of bandits in a buff formation I'll get shot down. Which is true, but it is also a dishonest one, albeit laughably easy to dismiss. No fighter will survive being attacked by a large wad of 163s and 262s either.

You like numbers, except when they make a point you don't wish to accept: With no prior practice whatsoever I managed to get a 2-3 k/d ratio in B-17s, meaning that as a bomber noob, flying stupid with a MOUSE my formation is good for at least two fighters before going down, and likely far more if I hadn't been flying so low as to hit mountains.

Let me check the stats of someone who is actually good at the buff game, Shawk: He has 88 kills to 113 deaths in B-17s. I think this is a large enough sample that we can say not a fluke, aye? This doesn't sound too great, until you divide by the not one but three planes everyone gets on a bomber run. That puts his k/d at something like 88 kills in exchange for losing his formation 38 times. A 2.3 K/D. Hmmm....that is better than most people's fighter k/d.

[BnZs]

Attacking from six o'clock was the norm until escort fighters arrived on scene, then it became suicidal.

(Image removed from quote.)

Correct. But it was because of the escorts, not because buffs were death stars. Anyone whose only reference is AHII would rightly wonder why buffs needed escort.

[Coalcat1]

Take a multi formation of B-17s and fly 8 sectors deep into enemy territory at the same historical alt and speed of the Black Thursday raid. If you get a comparable amount of defenders, you won't even make it to target. Your "insane engine of destruction" will be shredded like paper.

Thank god you weren't on for this, but my squad got together, the four of us on at the time, and formed a tight formation to area bomb the rook strats in 17s. We where making our first pass on the rook ammo strat when a 47 showed up. After 5 min of setting up his pass, he was oiled in a few secs. The next pass was sloppy and got him shot down. On our pass on the ammo factory, we saw another jug, a D11 this time. He was shot down on his first pass. RTBing we had a 410 try and shoot us down, made a horrible move and was shot down in about 2 seconds. Is this realistic. P.S if snail was on, we mostlikely would not have made it home...  

[artik]

The bombers are not so hard to kill if you have patience. I noticed if I stay on direct 6 for more than 1-2 seconds I die - it is like HO a tank... stupid. But when I do high speed dives/passes and do short shoots and than extend I manage to get a kill or two - which in WW2 terms amazing result.

If you destroy 20-30% of incoming wave of bombers in WW2 - you win the battle even if they managed to hit the target because in 2-3 waves they would ran out of bombers (unlike in AH)

In any case for this particular reason my preferred bombers are:

1. Perked: Mosquito XVI, Ar 234
2. Non-perked: Tu-2, Ki-67 & Boston

Because they are very fast and hard to intercept and even when they are intercepted it is very hard to make an approach from any other direction than the narrow rear sphere.

[Coalcat1]

Earlier that day, we where doing the same thing. A 109G14 tried to attack our 6, 2 of us shot above him to kill his FR, and the rest hit him with a 1/4 sec burst, tearing his plane to shreds. That was over 50 .50cal MGs firing on that poor 109...    

[GScholz]

Correct. But it was because of the escorts, not because buffs were death stars. Anyone whose only reference is AHII would rightly wonder why buffs needed escort.

Yup.

[caldera]

Snail, argument is that if I end up fighting a cloud of bandits in a buff formation I'll get shot down. Which is true, but it is also a dishonest one, albeit laughably easy to dismiss. No fighter will survive being attacked by a large wad of 163s and 262s either.

You like numbers, except when they make a point you don't wish to accept: With no prior practice whatsoever I managed to get a 2-3 k/d ratio in B-17s, meaning that as a bomber noob, flying stupid with a MOUSE my formation is good for at least two fighters before going down, and likely far more if I hadn't been flying so low as to hit mountains.

Let me check the stats of someone who is actually good at the buff game, Shawk: He has 88 kills to 113 deaths in B-17s. I think this is a large enough sample that we can say not a fluke, aye? This doesn't sound too great, until you divide by the not one but three planes everyone gets on a bomber run. That puts his k/d at something like 88 kills in exchange for losing his formation 38 times. A 2.3 K/D. Hmmm....that is better than most people's fighter k/d.

Try flying bombers for more than one sortie before claiming a 2/3 ratio as your average.  How long has shawk been playing by the way?  Quite a long time compared to your average bomber pilot.  You could probably name dozens of leet fighter pilots who have played the game.  How many leet bomber gunners can you name?

Using your example of shawk's bomber K/D, how does that compare with his K/D in fighters?  Looks like he has a 5.1 fighter K/D, versus a .77 K/D in bombers. 
So you would rather face his Corsair than his B-17?   


The much feared 999000 has 31 kills for 48 deaths in his B-17.  That equates to a .63 K/D. 

Some lackluster pilot I know has 59 kills of B-17s this year, to only 2 deaths (1 of those being in a C.202 ).  That same pilot got waxed a Hell of a lot more by fighter planes, I can assure you. 

[Rich46yo]

This is false. They did it all the time, successfully.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyJAlsJAbZw

What makes this a bad idea in AHII is the combo of three extremely gamey elements 1. The slaving of all guns in a formation to fire together, 2. The fact that gunners, protected by plexiglass, continue to fire after you hose their positions bullets, and most importantly 3. The fact that flex mounted guns on auto-level bombers are, in this game, given the platform stability and accuracy of thousand-yard benchrest rifles.

The reality of heavily armed plane off the tail of a buff is that 1. The tail gunner is the ONLY guy liable to have anything resembling a good shot at the bandit, 2. The tailgunner is going to be silenced the moment the bandit can squeeze off  a burst that hits him with as little as one .30 caliber round, much less cannon fire, 3. The bandit with fixed forward firing guns if anything going to have a far LONGER range for accurate fire than some guy with a flex-mounted machine guns.

Showing a video of a damaged B17, or maybe lost, cut out from the formation and getting cut to pieces doesnt mean that was the preferred method of attack by the LW. It was actually the last way they wanted to do it. Unless of course the Bomber was on its own or, as the video showed, the tail gunner was blown out of it. The fact that HO attacks were preferred is a well known fact.

[The Fugitive]

By the way, what's everybody's ride of choice when buffs are in the menu? Any personal preferences?

Im not going to get into the argument about whether or not the buff are easy prey or not. There are too many variables to take into consideration. For the most part, buff are easy. Last night I took down a set of B24's while flying a Pony B.

If you have a good buff gunner going against a lousy fighter more often than not the fighter is going to lose. If its the other way around the fighter wins most. If its a good gunner vs a good fighter the fighter is going to win more, but not many more.

As for plane of choice, it really doesn't matter. As long as you have the patience to set up your runs you can win most of the fights in any plane. Cannon birds like the 190's are good due to speed and hitting power but it is not necessary. 

[FLS]

I stooged around in B-17s below 10,000 feet over an enemy base the other day because I was away from home, on a crapulent computer. This is the first time I've done this in my AH career. On a sattelite connection, no frame rate to speak of, lousy monitor, and no stick. That's right, a mouse. Remember, first time I've ever done this.

I shot down two fighters and gained some assists for 3 deaths. And my death rate is only that high because I accidentally flew into a mountain range while looking  backwards   (I was stooging around low enough to actually take some hits from base ack)

I noticed many fighter planes wisely shying away from me, to attack targets that are easier, such as every fighter plane in the game  

Did I mention I was flying with a flippin' mouse and never fly bombers? I shudder to think what I could do with practice.

It is easier than using the wirblewinds everyone complains about.

So yes, bomber gunnery has been made incredibly gamey and easy, to the point that the hard lessons from WWII about unescorted bomber vulnerability make absolutely no sense in AHII. A three ship flight of 17s is a monster in this game, a proper box would be an insane engine of destruction.

I think you'll find that gunning with a mouse is easier than with a stick.

[GhostCDB]

By the way, what's everybody's ride of choice when buffs are in the menu? Any personal preferences?

Preference, Tempest or P47M.

But I will shoot at them in anything, but a spitfire. Spitfire ammo sucks on American Bombers.