Originally posted by Duedel
But why?
It's simple really.
Precision bombing can still be done, there is no reason for the bombs to not hit your mark close enough to hit the target. Practice will do it. The calibration system is not a problem.
However, the calibration system has one MAJOR effect. You cannot maneuver beyond small adjustments without having to wait on your speed and then recalibrating. This means you get one pass on a target, which needs to be essentially a straight line.
Another pass takes roughly as long as it would take to crash and bring a jabo out. You need to turn around 25miles out or so, wait for your speed to level out, and then recalibrate.
This is all well and good, except, our targets are apparently designed to withstand the old precision, "turning while bombing" bombsight. So they are spread out enough that it is forced to take multiple passes to do any severe damage. In the new bombing system, this makes doing more than token damage nearly impossible for a bomber.
This especially applies to strat targets which are what bombers are 'supposed' to be targeting. They're so spread out that in a carpet bombing pass, the best anyone can hope to do is get a couple of buildings. On top of being hard to damage, strat targets have no noticable effect on the game. How many times have you sat at a damaged base, and wished the strat wouldn't have been bombed so you could get some of your field back?
The bomber formation damage problems arent helping. I don't know if they are bugs, design flaws, or actual design. When one bomber gets hit, other bombers often take the same damage. I would guess that some damage is being tied to the pilot, not the plane. A number of times I've lost a piece of one plane in the formation, bailed out, to see it now missing from the other plane, bailing out of that one, the last plane is missing the same parts! I've also seen the same thing happen to bombers I've shot up. By killing a piece of the lead, you can bring down the whole formation!
Blah.