Tips on bombing?

[fdiron]

Can anyone give me some tips on level bombing?  Heres how I have been doing it

(1) Point bomber in general direction of target at full throttle
(2) Select the altitude of the target on the clip board
(3) Try to hold the cross-hairs on a point for a few seconds (hard to keep the cross-hairs exactly on a spot because my joystick is hard to work with)
(4) exit calibration mode, make a few small course corrections, open bomb doors 1 second before I release bombs on target.
(5) Bombs usually miss target

[Ghosth]

Really helps IMO if you zoom in to max.

Pick spot about 45 degree's ahead, also hold longer than 2 seconds. Basicly I'll hold on target till I felt I have a good 4 second hold with no bobbles.

Helps to line up WAY out, Ext view good for this, try not to make corrections in course, they throw you off.


Hit whatever you can hit, be flexible.
If you want to take out a specific target, fly a divebomber. Line up 2 or 3 targets in a row if in a lanc. You can raise heck on several things if you plan it right. Plus teamwork pays, if you can get 2 other guys to fly you can do some damage.

[AcId]

Try this method of Calibrating, you might increase your accuracy a bit (i did)

Do everything you would normaly do, get lined up on target, steady your speed (with bomb doors open). When your go for drop enter calibration mode, calibration mode starts you off by looking directly below your aircraft, move the sight for ward a bit but not too far. What were going for is a spot that we can mark that will pass directly beneath you. I usually slew the sight forward for about 4-5 seconds, pick my spot, steady the sight, and start my mark (y-key) this gives about 3 seconds of mark to the point at which it is beneath, but dont let go yet, let it pass about a second behind you. What I end up with is around 4-6 seconds worth of calibration data using the terrain that is closest to the aircraft, this makes sense to me since were actually calibrating for the speed of the aircraft.

Hopefully this will help at least a little

[muckmaw]

Actually, I have managed to get bombing down to great accuracy from altitudes below 14k. (Still having a problem with wind correction.)

There are several things that you can do to better your accuracy.

If your a knight, catch me when I'm on and I'll tell you everything I've learned so far.

[Slayer]

Just started trying this again today. First time out I couldnt hit squat. Second time out and from there on I was putting the eggs perfectly where I wanted them.

First dont go full throttle reduce your speed by using manifold pressure gauge. Once plane is at a level alt that your going to be at when u bomb and the speed is consistant enter calibration. Click on the target area of map for alt measurements. Use your mark spot for more than 2 seconds.  It dont matter where u mark on terrain alt dont matter. For instance I was at 9k alt marked spot on ground for more than 5 sec that was about 4k in alt itself. My target was 866ft and they went perfect every time. I tested this several times. Make sure when u calabrate that your bomb doors are open as they now produce drag and slow the plane down.

Slayer

[Innominate]

Your speed needs to be perfectly stable by the time you calibrate.  Once you start, the only way you can turn is from the f6 view.

When marking, the longer you hold on target the better.

A 10foot error on a 100foot path means a lot more than a 10foot error on a 1000foot path.

[MoonJuice]

Here's what happens to me with this new system.

1. cut throttle to 70% and open bay doors way before reaching target so alt and speed are stable.
2. align bomber so that it is flying towards the target: Vertical cross hair is on target.
3. calibrate bomb sight
4. When I return from calibration, the cross hairs are way off to the side.  What's the deal with this?
5. I use rudder to turn the bomber to align it back on to target.
6. When the cross hairs are about on target I release the bombs.

But they always miss by a large amount.

Can someone please explain

[Shiva]

(1) Point bomber in general direction of target at full throttle

The faster you're going, the more little calibration errors will affect you. Once you're up to your ingress altitude, switch to auto level and pull back your throttle to a setting just a little over what you need to maintain your altitude (watch your altitude in the bombsight view; if it's dropping, nudge the throttle up until you stop descending).

(2) Select the altitude of the target on the clip board

Good. Do this as early as possible in your calibration procedure. In fact, once you're level, you can jump to the bombsight, switch into calibration mode, only set the target alt, and then exit calibration mode; the target altitude remains set until you change it, so that's one less thing you have to remember to do later.

(3) Try to hold the cross-hairs on a point for a few seconds (hard to keep the cross-hairs exactly on a spot because my joystick is hard to work with)

The longer you hold the crosshairs on the mark point, the better your calibration will be. You don't have to hold the crosshairs exactly on your mark point; a little wobbling is okay, but you want to try to keep the crosshairs close to the mark point so you're pointing at the same spot when you release the calibration key.

(4) exit calibration mode, make a few small course corrections, open bomb doors 1 second before I release bombs on target.

Once you're pointed at the target and level, open your bomb bay doors. Your speed will drop a little from the extra drag. If you calibrate before you open your doors, that will make you drop short. Go ahead; open your doors a sector or more out from your target -- give your speed a chance to stabilize again. Look in your bomb sight -- if you're descending from the extra drag, nudge your throttle up a bit and wait until it's stabilized. After your speed and altitude are stable, then you calibrate your sight.

If you are above the wind layer, a turn of more than about 5° will throw your aim off. If you have to make more than a minor course correction, recalibrate your sight.

[/i](5) Bombs usually miss target[/i]

If you do it properly, your bombs will land where you aim them. It's useful, if you're not being bothered by enemy aircraft, to calibrate more than once. Make your first calibration about two minutes after you open your bomb bay doors. Look at the ground through the bombsight. Are the ground markings moving straight down the vertical crosshair? If they haven't, then you didn't get the wind drift corrected for, and you'll need to calibrate again.

When you're calibrating, look for a ground feature that's easy to recognize and easy to point at; ground with only minor color changes are real sucky to calibrate against -- the ndisles terrain is particularly bad for this with its water texture, especially in the dark. If you think you screwed up, don't panic; just calibrate again. Only the last ground mark calibration is saved, so you can fix a bad calibration if you have enough time.

Once you get the calibration procedure down, you'll be able to put your bombs where you want them, subject to normal scattering:

[AKIron]

If you just want to practice calbrating the bomb sight do this.

1. Grab single buff offline head for water
2. after takeoff type ".wind 127 127 127 127" hang on
3. at 10k type ".wind 0 0 0 0" go level
4. autolvl and reduce power to 75% open doors
5. after speed and alt are stable go to bombardier position
6. go to setup->arena->flightmodelflags  turn on divebomb sight
7. to calibrate:
8. set alt, anywhere on water is good
9. mark by first moving the crosshairs well in front of plane
10. max zoom, pick spot, hold for 1 minute

I've consistently found that this puts the crosshairs very close to the green divebomb sight and have destroyed hangers online. However, the calibration is only good for one pass. You must extend and repeat the process for another pass.

[bozon]

2 more tips:

use maps to plan your bomb-run:
download the field maps and add them to your clipboard. you can find these maps on almost every squads web-site.
before approaching the target, watch the maps and think how can you draw a "straight line of destruction" that would do most damage. (getting 2 FH and some fuel in a line is easy). bring your plane in the right direction to the target - you can't fix it by much after the calibration.

bombing with wind
I dont have much experience with that, but I would try to approach down/up wind. the reason is that you spread your bombs in a forward line, so it wont matter much if that line moves a little forward or backwards. it will matter much more if it moves sideways.
theoreticly, the calibration should account for wind, but it does make it harder to calibrate, especially if you have sidewind.

Bozon

[Tracer-15]

ive been pretty succesfull in lanc lately with the new system......three lancs with 14 1000lb bombs can turn any base into a hell hole VERY fast.....

[Shiva]

Anybody can maul a field with a steamroller, but until we get a change that makes the craters have an actual effect on the field, laying a swath of bombs across a field just gets you the cosmetic effect of all the crater pictures, plus whatever structures actually get taken down by the severely-curtailed blast radii of the bombs. It's more realistic, but until HTC gives us strategic targets that actually have a target density that makes a worthwhile target for carpet bombing, I'll work on the skill necessary to shotgun buildings with small salvo sizes, and use the whole bay at once only when I get a target that's worth it.