Level Bombing

[J_A_B]

I think what he's saying is regardless of whether you can hit the factories or not, there's no noticable reason to do so.   Bombers have no effect on the game.

J_A_B

[Karnak]

J_A_B,

That's part of it.  The other part is that bombers do far, far less damage on a time unit/person basis than Jabo aircraft do.  Why ever use Lancs when P-38s will do 3 times the damage per hour?

Revin,

I am an advocate for the new bombing system and you'd have noticed this if you didn't simply stick your fingers in your ears and start shouting "LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA" every time somebody says the bomber system needs work.

Hitting the target isn't the issue.  As I said, I can hit things just fine.  The problem is that there is never a good reason to take bombers and that bombers still have to do the incredibly gamey and redicules multiple pass roadkill.

I like the system, now I want targets that allow me to be useful while bombing in a historical manner.  I want to drop all of my bombs in one pass, as was done in reality.  Right now I waste the vast majority of my bombs if I use historical tactics.  I hate the stupid loitering over the target crap.

[Easyscor]

Karnak scores direct hits on all targets mentioned here.

[Revvin]

I want to drop all of my bombs in one pass, as was done in reality. Right now I waste the vast majority of my bombs if I use historical tactics. I hate the stupid loitering over the target crap.

You CAN drop all your bombs in one pass and have an effect even at a small field it's possible to take out two hangars in one pass. Do you realyl think every bomb dropped in WW2 was a direct hit?

[Manxer]

One good reason to use bombers over jabo is the ability for them to drop from safe altitudes and get home. Sure you can destroy the hangers with 3 p38's, but the fact remains that there is a high probability that you've lost all three fighters in doing that. It's possible that there isn't enough incentive put into the game to get home safe. Then maybe bombers will have their role back.

[Taiaha]

Lol Manxer, I've yet to discover what the "safe altitude" is for buffing!

[Innominate]

Originally posted by muckmaw
Hell, there are some great anti-buff pilots out there.

I had a guy in a Tempest Destroy (And I mean Literally explode) 2 of my 3 B-26's and damage the 3rd ALL IN ONE HEAD ON PASS!!!!!!!!!!

I could not believe this was possible, until the concept of Hispanos was explained to me from a squaddie.

It's actually a bug, part of the buff damage model problems.

I don't know for sure, but I believe it works like this:

Ever noticed that sometimes when someone kills you, you hear more hits after you're back in the tower?  Same thing, except you're still there to TAKE the damage.

Attacker fires 10 rounds into your lead buff.  All of them hit a critical point on your plane, causing it to explode on the third round.  Four five and six hit, causing the second buff which you're now in to explode, then seven eight and nine hit buff#3, and you're back in the tower.

To kill a buff formation, you dont need to spray across the whole formation, just put as many rounds as possible into the lead buff, forget the other two.


As for strat bombing,
Strat right now is totally broken.  Bombing strat has absolutly no effect on the small maps(I think akdesert works)  You can bomb a strat target, completly wipe it out, and it'll still show as 100%.   That includes HQs, so no radar hitting.  On akdesert, bombing another team's HQ will knock out your own radar.  The sheer brokeness of the strat system really shows up on akdesert, where a field in an enemy zone, which should be getting no supplies, has no noticable rebuild difference from the fields owned by the zone owner.  (There may be an ACTUAL difference in time, but nobody ever actually notices it)

Originally posted by Manxer

One good reason to use bombers over jabo is the ability for them to drop from safe altitudes and get home. Sure you can destroy the hangers with 3 p38's...

There is no safe alt for bombers.  Over 14k, the wind will screw with your drop, leaving you at an easy alt for fighters.  It takes three buff formations to kill hangars, not just a single one.  The buff formations have no option to cap the field, or to do anything but drop thier bombs and leave.  It also takes them so long to get even to 14k, level out, and stabilize thier speed, that the p38s could be welll on thier way for a second sortie by the time the buffs are just getting there.

Plus, every bomber formation lost is three deaths, not one, and a bomber formation can take only slightly more damage than a lone bomber. (Try it sometime, a lone buff is better against fighters than a formation.)

With the exception of the cities(strat cities) a heavy jabo is faster, and can inflict more damage than a buff formation.  Sure a fleet of buff drivers can kill a field.  But the same fleet could get into p38s or 110s, kill the field, the town, and then cap the place waiting for a goon.

[GunnerCAF]

There is no safe alt for bombers. Over 14k, the wind will screw with your drop, leaving you at an easy alt for fighters.

You can calibrate for the cross wind.  Bombing above 14K is not that hard, just don't tell anyone this well kept secret

There may be no safe alt for bomber,  but you don't find many fighters doing high speed passes from above at 28K.  

Gunner

[Easyscor]

GunnerCAF has it right, you can bomb from 28-30K and hit your targets.

Now lets see,... if we know all the tricks...

    1 hour to climb to 28K and arrive on station.
    15 min. to stabilize speed, calibrate and drop.
    30 min. to return to base.
    _____________
    1 hour 45 min. round trip for two FHs plus some collateral damage.

But wait.  The front moved two sectors before we could do the drop.

    30 min. to reach new target.
    ______________
    2 hours 15 min. total, assuming you don't drop down to look for a fight.

If you brought a buddy or two, the timing was just right, you don't CTD, some alt monkey didn't pop you while you calibrated, then just maybe you stopped the fighters for 15 minutes.

Last night in two 110G sorties, can't remember the base, I took the fuel down to 50%, killed the dar and got two kills while they tried to gang bang me.  This in 20 minutes.

They had to drag me out of my Lancasters for squad night in 1.09.  I still fly bombers once in a while, (two sorties x3 this tour) mainly because I'm good at it and they're still the best way to kill a CV.  While I like bombers, I'll have to echo other post and say there's just no point to it.  I'm glad you're having fun up there GunnerCAF, means you're not down on the deck waiting for my 110 and I like that.

[runny]

Originally posted by Easyscor
GunnerCAF has it right, you can
Last night in two 110G sorties, can't remember the base, I took the fuel down to 50%, killed the dar and got two kills while they tried to gang bang me.  This in 20 minutes.

See, you should have been flying a faster plane all along!

[Easyscor]

muhaha

[GunnerCAF]

2 hours 15 min. total, assuming you don't drop down to look for a fight.

Every Lancaster should come with a free cot

Gunner

[Shiva]

As a dedicated buff driver, someone please aim me in the right direction toward instructions for the norden that make sence.

Majors, you might want to look at the web page I made on bombsight calibration; the procedure seems to  work pretty well for me when I don't have difficulties thrown at me by the terrain -- the ndisles terrain, for example, is hideously difficult to calibrate your sight when you're over water.

I have found that the order doesn't really matter; what I have taken to doing is, as soon as I get up to drop altitiude, I'll jump into the bombardier position, turn on calibration, pick the target to set target alt, and then exit calibration. That will ensure that I don't forget about doing it later and have to fumble the calibration at the last minute.

[Manxer]

Boston's don't take long to get to 20k. That's maybe why my bomb runs didn't seem so tedious. I highly recommend this plane for people who want to learn. Less time between frustration if you miss. I've also found, if an enemy is lower than me, there is almost no chance of him climbing up to get me before I finish my drop and head home.

Bombing is something in my opinion that should take a great deal of skill and planning to be good at. Shaping the ebb and flow of an arena should never be easy for a single bomber in my opinion. If he gets good enough at doing this since the update, then it came from working hard at learning how to become good at what he does. I think this is still a good opportunity to validate the skill side of bombing. The good one's will get a reputation for being good (very much like the existing fighters).