Speed and Engine failure in a bomber formation?

[Randy1]

What effect on the speed of a bomber formation does a loss of an engine of a single bomber in the three set bomber formation have?

I took one engine out of one 234 in a set of 3 at 20k.  I chased them for quite a while across a almost 3 sectors.  I was able to stay and even slowly catch them with a P-47M using WEP.  Was that due to the formation being slowed by the single engine loss on one bomber?

Will a bomber drop out of a formation if it losses too many engines like say two engines on a B17?  Now that I think about it I am not sure I have ever seen a 4 engine bomber lose more than one engine.

[jimbo71]

The loss of a bomber engine doesn't affect the group of 3 as a whole unless it's the lead plane.  If its a drone,  that bomber in particular will lag behind the lead and other drone.  So if you are the bombers and a drone losses an engine, you would need to slow down to a speed inside the max speed of a 3-engine bomber so your drop wont be out of sync.   I think if you let a drone lag too far behind it will explode.
So yeah if you were able to run down a formation of 234's he must have lost engine in lead bomber. 

Hope that helps.

[Traveler]

One thing that I noticed and I hope it was fixed for AH3, but I have my doubts.  If you happen to encounter one lone B17 at 33K and it’s tooling along and you are able to knock out an engine.  It appears to have no effect on aircraft performance.  That is, with only three engines the B17 should not be able to remain at 33K.   It should have to descend, I saw no such impact on performance and no impact on speed.  That was the last time I chased any bombers.