Lets see...last days I've read all those things about the buff gunnery, the myths/non-myths, the true or false assessment of the gunnery effects, etc.
Now lets keep a straight, wanna-be-objective view at them.
The bombers, alone, were easy prey for fighters. One doesnt need to be a rocket scientist to know it, we just have to take a look at the Regensburg/Schweinfurt raids, the return to Schweinfurt, and all the major bombings wich took part in the latter part of 1943 over Germany, to know that a big formation of bombers wont stand a chance against a fighter force. The losses of those raids were simply too much for the 8th AF to stand, and was only the introduction of the fighter escorts wich brought the bleeding back to an acceptable rate.
The bombers used in those operations were flying in close formation, using it to combine the firepower of all the planes in the best way to defend themselfs. That wasnt enough to stop the fighters flying in, shooting and bugging out.
Dont try to use the argument of the "the LW also came in formations" because is not true. Many times the attacks on the bomber boxes were done by couples of fighters wich came in, fired and bugged out. And only the first attacks were from the HeadOn approach, many of them were done from the sides, or from lots of other directions. And in any case, and in any given moment,most of the time, in a bomber box under attacks, there were more bombers than fighters attacking them.
And the LW losses were acceptable. the Luftwaffe loss rate of Schweinfurt raids (both) was surprisingly low...in AH if 2 fighters, coming in loose formation from the same side, on a 3 or 9 o clock aproach, to attack a formation of, say 4 buffs, are virtually dead. Both of them. (I talk by experience here)
why this discrepance between real life and the virtual skies of AH?.
Because the guns are overpowered on the buffs?. Hitech said that they weren't. So we have to believe him. then why?.
Are the icons?...oh, no. Not the icons. Not JUST the icons. The icons give accurate rangefinding but they aren't all the problem (in fact IMO they aren't a 10% of the problem for the buff gunnery of AH)
then what?. Lets enumerate.
1-Some of the turret firing arcs are, and I will use the word required, ridiculous. The ball turret in the B17 is laughable, for instance, and is not the one and only turret with this problem.
2-The defensive fire that hits on a part of the structure of the own plane DOESNT MAKE DAMAGE. Thus, you can shoot through your tail, your wings...with no effect at all.
3- The linked defensive fire is TOO accurate. I mean, when the waist gunner started firing at an incoming bandit, that didnt mean that ALL turrets were INSTANTLY traking it!. and if they were, they werent firing in the coordinated way they do in AH! (they dont have convergence but all shoot in paralel, thus making a BIG shotgun effect, wich is NOT realistic)
4-Turrets dont fire INSTANTLY to 2 different sides!!!...in AH, you can go from left waist to right waist in a split second and fire with ALL the volley fire of your,say, B17, INSTANTANEOUSLY. in RL, a gunner had to ACTUALLY turn their turret, to find their mark and THEN open fire. So, again, we have completely unbeliable perfomrance here.
5-Turret gunners were KILLABLE TARGETS, especially the ones in the tail, dorsal and ball positions. In AH is almost imposssible o effectively disable the dorsal and tail gun positions of a bomber before getting your fighter blasted to bits. they are SIMPLY TOO HARD to be put out of action. In RL, a 20mm on a turret would render it almost useless (if it didnt kill the gunner before). From my experience in AH, you can spray MG or 20mm cannon fire over the tail and dorsal zones of a B17, and not killing the turrets. Of course, sometimes a gunner gets killed and/or turret disabled. But it is a relatively rare incident.
There are several more things wich SERIOUSLY affect the buff gunnery, but those 5 are too much prominent to be forgotten. I would mention 3), 4) and ESPECIALLY 5) and 1) as the major problems, being 2) a relatively minor issue compared with them.
Simple result of the review: the Buff gunnery in AH is SERIOUSLY overmodelled, giving an ,in my humble opinion, unproporcionated ammount of advantage to the bombers over the fighters. This, added to the point-and-click laser bombsight able to hit targets from altitudes of 30K+, simply give the bombers a seriously unballancing advantage in this game.
Comments?
[ 09-29-2001: Message edited by: R4M ]
