Being a bomber pilot, one of the most irritating things is losing ones bombs accidentally. In Ju88s this is particularly a problem, due to the fixed forward-firing MG.
I havent yet found a reliable way to be able to disassociate the trigger from firing the forward MG AND dropping bombs. Sure, you can switch to the internal bomb load, IF you have one, IF the doors aren't already open, and if you switch to a gunner position and back, the bombload is back to the external load when you get back anyway.
So how about (a) stopping the load swapping back to the external load when one moves to gunner and back, and (b) having a SAFETY option in the bomb weapons load display.
So, you'd go OTR, and the MG would show its MG load, the bomb part would show SAFE. You want to check you actually have the right load on board, you toggle through to the external bombload (comes up EXT0 if none), then the internal bombload (shows INT0 if none) then back to SAFE.
You're flying along on the way to target when some Spits bounce the formation, and one flies past your nose. Because the bombs are on SAFE, you know you can take a pot shot at the Spit with your nose gun as he whizzes by. Even if you've got the doors open ready to drop internal load, you dont lose any bombs, because the bomb safety is on....
Also, I favour ditching the current slave gunners system for defensive fire and having Otto for positions that are not manned. Make Otto less accurate than humans tend to be, and limited by the amount of bank and G's being pulled. That way, solo pilots know that even when they are in the bombardier position, they have SOME defence.
It'd also address to some extent the problem of planes like the Ju88 where both dorsal guns were manned by one person in real life - they shouldnt both be able to fire at once. If one is manned and the other is being fired by Otto, at least Otto will be less effective than the human gunner, so the chances of an attacking fighter getting walloped by all four rear guns on a Ju88 would be lessened. This would induce pilots to fly defensively and let Otto do what he can rather than the current rather unrealistic situation.
With planes like the B17, thise things carry enough guns that attacking them isnt going to be a piece of cake even with Otto manning the guns, and a formation of them will still be a very nasty thing to attack. In effect, the human gunners represent the (hopefully) best gunners in the crew, whilst Otto represents the rest.
Esme
