Descriptions of Sturmbock attacks on Heavy Bombers: From the REAR

[fats]

GRUNHERZ,

Hitech said they had the same lethality. He didn't say they are the same in _all_ regards.


// fats

[Wilbus]

Yup, remeber that they allmost allways attacked pretty large, and later very large formations of buffs, where you face multiple rear gunners and most other gunners that cn fire aswell, allso, their main objective was to dammage bombers first pass, make them slow and vulnerable and then take em out one by one, worked very well. The 190 A8/R8 (Aka Sturmbock), was devestating vs buffs, once it got within range it had 2x20mm and 2x30mm to fire with, about 3-5 30mm rounds were needed to down a B17.

Good buff guns in AH is to make up for few buffs, maybe we would see people fly more together in larger buff formations if the guns weren't so good?

Oh well, aslong as "I can outturn any fighter above 25k" thing will be fixed I am happy, will it?

[Westy MOL]

"Something is no right wth AH implementaition of bomber defensive guns."

 I'm not singling you out in particular Grunherz, but that accusation above is pretty much the root complaint by several as regards to some bomber gun "problem"

 All I can say is that it NOT the guns but the guys flying the fighters.  Othere than the FW-190 one ping dead engine problem but that's already beeing (been) addressed by Pyro for 1.08

 I stand firm in my opinion that the majority of those claim bomber guns as being too good and too lethal are in fact trying to make HTC detune them to compensate for THIER lack of patience to gain the skill needed to shoot them down easily enough.
 
 I also find it extremely ridiculous that anyone here could find a real life correlation between what they do in the MA and what a real LW gruppe had to do. Did these  LW groups actually fly solo 190/109's against solo B17/Lancs or B-26's?

 Westy

[Apar1]

Right on Wilbuz,

I suggested something like that too:

 

That doesn't cover the realistic operating ceiling with respect to bombing accuracy and other mentioned restricting issues.

If the bombing accuracy would be adapted to realistic figures and there be a penalty on lateral movements during and just prior to bomb release that would restrict used alt of bombers and maneuvers of bombers in AH.
Now that in turn would not favour the single bomber sorties and therefore not balance gameplay with realism.

How about adapting bombing accuracy to more realistic figures and restricting the use of bombers through missions only with a minimum (say) 5 bombers. This would enable (force)the bombers to fly in formation and have better survival rate at ideal operating altitude. It would also cover the inherent lesser bombing accuracy by the need of bombing in formation. It would be more realistic and at the same time it would prolly be more fun for both bomber pilots and bomber sweeper pilots. Furthermore I think that bomber formations are more inviting to bomber escorts than a single bomber. In my opinion that would change the whole use of bomber tactics for the better and somewhat be more realistic and fun too.

[mauser]

S! Buzzbait, all..
No offense taken, and I don't claim the material to be "mine" anyway    Anyway, Wotan confirms my suspicions as to why my thread didn't get much in terms of replies.  If I ever want to have the distinction of a large thread, I'll whine, or whine about whining    Otherwise, I'll carry on.

About risky buff busting attack profiles:  Sometimes you just gotta know that your chances of living through an attack are slim to nil and prepare for it.  A couple days ago right after I logged into the MA, I heard a couple bish reporting a HQ raid at 26k inbound from the rook territories.  On dar, they were about 2-3 sectors away, so I grabbed a G-10 from A30 and climbed south at full wep.  When I had gotten to 30k, I spotted the dots, which were approx. coalt. and had probably made their first run on the HQ already.  They were about 5 B17's with P51 escorts, seemingly coalt about 30k.  I spotted the last 2 B17's and attempted to engage, always hoping that I can catch them looking somewhere else but at me.  But when I saw tracers coming at me I broke off, and attempted to go after the 2nd.  However, the 2nd one was higher and I had already lost a couple thousand ft in my first attempt.  I switched my attention back to the second, who was being attacked from co-alt and behind by another bish.  Unfortunately, I didn't get close enough to give a supporting attack before my countryman was knocked down. Kill #1 for a Skeleton Crew member. I shadowed the B17 with a couple thousand ft. alt advantage like I always do to figure out what to do.  The buff then turns towards and under me, maybe to make another run on the HQ.  So I attempt to catch him at the flight controls and go after him.  But I was a little too late and got into position on his dead six about 500 yds behind.  I knew I wasn't going to make it, so I just put the gunsight a little higher and held the trigger down (1x30mm, 2x20mm, 2x13mm).  I saw tracers coming towards me and prepared for the worst.  We appeared to come apart at the same time and tumbled earthwards.  I got the kill on him first, but then after I bailed, he got the kill on me (my 2nd death to a chute).  Results: 1 buff down in a very difficult situation, dar was damaged but stayed up a little while longer before it was completely down.  I didn't like the fact that I lost a plane (thank goodness I left the Ta-152 in the hangar), but there wasn't much else I could do in that situation.  Trying to set up my normal "immelman from above" attack would've taken too much time up there and would've let the buff make more runs on the HQ.  Glad that I at least put a dent into the attack, I grabbed a spit and joined my squaddies in defending A28.  

Conversely, last night there was another buff raid heading towards our HQ from the knit territories.  Some of the reports from the bish were that they were way f#$kn' up there.  This time I said screw it.. was having too much fun flying the Sturmbock A8 with my squaddies (after finding those pages on the Sturmjaeger, I really wanted to fly the A8 again, and found squaddies shamus and jstamutt flying A8's defending a field.. just what I wanted! )   Anyways, hm.. did these posts about buffs bring back a sudden interest in high-alt HQ raids?  Haven't seen them as frequent during my time periods until the past couple of days.

Points to any newbies reading these posts:  Think carefully and consider what the situation is when attacking buffs.  If you really want to make sure he/she doesn't drop their load, hound them and try to keep them in the gun turrets (doesn't work if they have a gunner), and attack when you can set up your preferred attack method.  In really bad situations like what I mentioned above, give it all you got but prepare for the consequences.

mauser