B-26 is my first choice because after you drop your bombs you can use it as a heavy fighter. Give me your e-mail and I'll send you a movie of me in a B-26 last month where I shot down a P-51, and TBM with the forward firing .50's and 2 silly spitties with the tail guns. On that mission alone I got 9.38 perkies and I had to bail!
Now with the B-17 my only real gripe is that its guns are too easy to get knocked out. I once had an La-7 come up from behind and banked off to the left trying to spray me with cannon fire. I only heard 1 little *plink* and both my tail gun and ball turret were taken out! Also its not as easy to be aggressive in a B-17 if you are flying it alone, after droppin your bombs you have to just lumber along and wait for someone to climb up to you. I like to cut my throttle back so I'm only poking along at about 200 and then when I see someone about 3k away I'll throttle back up to 100%. And I don't do 35k either, I like either 18 or 20k. I give everyone the same chance to take me out, unless they crawl straight up my six.
JU-88, I like its maneuverability down low but its offensive guns just stink! Its great for droppin a hanger or doing a torpedo run, also with 20 50kg bombs in its bay its great for taking out masses of armour. When laoded up it climbs like a Lancaster, so keep it simple and keep it close to base. You can truely come straight up its six to take it out, this is by far the easy kill of bombers.
Now with that last statement some would say it for the Lancaster. Having no belly turret all one has to do is dive underneath you untill you are directly overhead and pull up. I usually aim for an outboard wing, only a few rounds of cannon will take that off and your last hour of flying will seem like a waist of time. The Lancaster has 3 turrets, the nose guns have 2000 rounds... the top turret has 2000 rounds... and your tail turret has ONLY 600 rounds?!? When you are fully loaded it will only climb at 500 fpm, so when you see one at 20k you can do the math on how long it took just to get up to that hieght. To be honest, many times that I do a bomb run in a Lanc I'll do it while I'm at my office. I will take off from some rear base back on the edge of the map, setup my climb then turn off my monitor and come back in an hour. Now I may be a rare case but I've only been shot down once while doing that. The Lanc is great for stirring the pot, you can drop all the fighter hangers at a large base in just 2 passes. Before you go up see if you can find where Laz2 or Mandoble the wonder vulchers are flying out of and go level the hangers. Then just sit back and listen to all the whiners on channel one and take satisfaction in knowing you caused all there joy for the day!
I guess I have to say something about the Il-2... if there ever was a flying coffin this would be it! If you think the P-47 is a turd at low altitude you aint seen nothing till you go for a spin in this thing. Heck even a C-47 can out run you on the deck, and that's no lie.
Well any how that's my two bits...
