Some thoughts on AH bombers.

[Replicant]

Nothing wrong with buffs if you take your time to attack them.  Everyone forgets that even though you can track an aircraft with more than one gun, you can't defend from 2 aircraft in opposite directions.  The amount of times I've been killed whilst trying to defend against a belly attack and someone else swoops in from above and takes your wing off (did wings and vstabs really come off that easily on buffs?).  Also I believe buffs were tougher in RL, I saw a pic once of a B17 that managed to fly with a 109 imbedded in its tail!  

So to me the balance is about right. If people continue to whine about buffs then all we'll end up with is AI gunners which we don't want.

BTW, gun positions can be killed on buffs, the rear turret nearly always gets taken out on the Lancaster and even if it doesn't then it has a very limited ammo load.

Regards

Nexx

[Dowding]

Your case in point, RAM, is the buff formation. As a feature of MA play, it is totally bogus.

Out of all the buff sorties flown in the MA, how many are flying in a formation of 2 or more aircraft?

5%? Hardly. I think it's probably less than 1%.

So 99 out of 100 times you happen upon a buff, it is a single target and not a formation.

Consequently, to actually make the flying of bombers worthwhile (considering the aeon it takes to gain any kind of altitude), there has to be some 'concession' for gameplay purposes.

Personally, I find buffs aren't that much of a problem - providing I start from the right position.

[Wilbus]

I agree on the acr of fire, shouldn't fire threw your own structure, I agree on high alt performance where most fighters above 30k will be outturned by a buff. Don't agree on the rest though, who knows, if the guns were to be changed maybe people would start flying them in formations, then again, maybe not.

The Bomber in AH does not take to little dammage, on an average it was reuqired 20-22x20mm rounds to bring down a B17, slightly less for the B24. The average 30mm required was 3-5 rounds. If you see the dammage caused by a 330 gram heavy 30mm you will understand why, it doesn't make a 30mm hole if that's what ya think, it's allmost got the blast power of a handgrenade. 30mm was even known to have removed the rear fuselage of a B17 in 1 round.
B17's in AH, quite often take 5-10x30mm rounds, this is only because you don't hit the same wing though, in real life it doesn't matter if you hit 2 in left and 2 in right, the plane will go down due to loss of crucial lift because parts of the plane has been removed. AH doesn't model this so you gotto hit all in one spot to take something off. The buffs sure shouldn't take more dammage, not less either, they are good as they are.

Change arc of fire, and high alt performance maybe. Wouldn't say buffs ruin gameplay though.

Take a special event, where the attack is done in a good way, against a quite big formation of B17's, it has been done in several scenarios, including Afrika Corps, and not one single time have the buffs, even if they had # advantage over fighters, come out allive.

got 5-0 B17 kills, 3-0 Lanc kills, 3-0 IL-2's and 2-2 in B26. Would say B26 is the most dangerous buff.

[Revvin]

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.

And the last sentence of that paragraph explains why there were losses..they had little or no fighter escort, early on in the war they never had the fighters with the range to make it much further than the other side of the channel but even so the Luftwaffe took heavy casualties and a ratio of 2:1 in favour of the bombers was not an uncommon situation for a mission when taking into account the ratio's of fighters vs bombers being greater. Those raids you talk about were made when the Luftwaffe more or less at full strength which is why you obviously picked those one or two instances because they fitted your argument with such bias, any bombers that were picked off easily were damaged by earlier attack or flak over target and had dropped out of formation but even in that situation I've read many recollections of LW pilots that said they were still 'salamanderly targets' even when damaged.

 

Dont try to use the argument of the "the LW also came in formations" because is not true

Oh but it is unless you read the same comics as Lazs for your historical references. The Luftwaffe sent hundreds of planes to strike at formations smaller than their own (of course they would be they wee on home soil stopping an invading airforce gettign to their cities, factories etc)

If the Luftwaffe were able to pick off bombers so easily why were Sturmgruppen set up with the heavily modified 190A8/R8 Sturmbock? surely if it was such and easy job there was no need for these heavily modified planes which were so heavy and unresponsive because they carried twice the armour that they had to be escorted themselves by regular fighters.

 

Because the guns are overpowered on the buffs?. Hitech said that they weren't. So we have to believe him. then why?

Because he coded the sim? because he's already shown you pictures of the dispersion and accuracy of the buff guns with the aid of a new gunenry tool? Wake up and drop the persecution complex there is no bomber conspiracy!

 

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)

The icons are just as bad for bombers, not only can you ID the bomber at ridiculous distances but the icons are also visible through cloud! but again your persecution complex does not allow you to see this

 

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.

Yes there are problems with the guns on the bombers, particularly on the B17 and I've noticed the B26 guns pointing through the airframe at some points

 

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)

Again I'll agree on that BUT whats the alternative? otto? perhaps its time we had otto in Aces High because the gunnery system is bogus on buffs and not only for the fighters. As it stands now I can either have one human gunner or leave the controls and gun myself..is that realistic in a B17 with 7 gunner positions? I DON'T THINK SO! Its also bogus that all guns are linked, not only for the fighters attacking me but also for us bombers as I can only fire at one target..is that realistic in a multi gunned bomber? I DON'T THINK SO! Because of these linked guns and unless on the rare occassion I get someone willing to gun for me I have no defensive capabilities when I am in the norden sight which on many many occassions has led to the unrealistic occurances of fighters actually allowing me to get to the target and wait for me to drop my bombs before they start to attack..is that realistic in a multi gunned bomber? I DON'T THINK SO!

 

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.

I seem to loose turrets with no problems at all if the fighter attackign me actually bothers to target them and not just spray and pray.

 

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.

Read Hitech's post on this, you're getting it all out of proportion, he's posted here and said online the buff guns are no stronger than the fighter guns. Man I love you 'born again' Luftwaffe types that take on the LW persecution complex when it comes to buffs, I've been a part of a JG and enjoyed it, killed buffs and was killed by buffs. If you want to learn to kill buffs I know of one person who I really do fear if I know he's near my buff and thats Wilbus. Ask him to take you into the TA or make a few films and watch how he does it and if you say it takes too long then sadly you're wanting an arcade game and might I suggest you go take a look at Fighter Ace when you quit again  

FWIW when I fly bombers I fly them to their historical operational altitudes, when I'm in a B17 I fly to 28k, when in a Lanc I fly to 22k etc etc, thats not tosay they can't go higher as B17's had a ceiling of 34k or so and a Lanc around 28k and even though I continue to get shot down by fighters who seem to be unrestricted in their ammounts of oxygen they can carry <shrug>

As a bomber pilot I'd like to see the norden made less accurate, to have to have skill to drop on target taking into account wind etc but the wind is bogus in AH as well as the way targets need pinpoint drops on them to destroy them, until bomb blast radius is tweaked and buildings take realistic ammounts of damage (not to mention runways!) then the laser norden is a neccessity. Over in Warbirds III you now have the capability of carpet bombing which makes the .salvo .delay comamnds actually mean something, would be nice to have that in AH one day.

So now I'll just wait for the historically challenged Lazs to turn up spouting more innaccuracies from his latest 'Bullwinkle does WW2' comic..oh and yes Lazs this time I did get the first insult in.

[ 09-30-2001: Message edited by: Revvin ]

[airspro]

Like many said , bombers are easy kills if you take your time to set up the shot .

That said I see many don't   , while I climb they attack from behind and die , then I get in postion and the wing comes off   .

My most feared bomber is B26 .

Ask the Maw guys last night 9/29/01 , they were very high with escort but we were higher , flew stright though the escort and back around , down on one bomber (B17), no wing , my mate got one hit in radiator so we bugged out , I killed the one F4U that came after him but he didn't have any engine left and stalled out while evadeing the F4U  

You want to kill high bombers ? Get higher IMO .

Oh yes my mate taught me the correct way to kill them , ty very much .

 

The art of killing a buff is patience young skywalker...  

How true Vulcan .

[ET]

Try this web site if you haven't already.
 http://www.siscom.net/~467thbg/index.html

Go to the 467thBG(H)missions list and check it out.
Go to the links on bottom left and check out the 91stBG(H)Check the stories and read "Missions with Charlie" A great read.
The 91st first mission was 7 Nov 1942 and last was 25 Apr 1945.There were 340 missions with 9591 sorties.They had 197 planes missing in action.

[Replicant]

Originally posted by Revvin:
FWIW when I fly bombers I fly them to their historical operational altitudes, when I'm in a B17 I fly to 28k, when in a Lanc I fly to 22k etc etc, thats not tosay they can't go higher as B17's had a ceiling of 34k or so and a Lanc around 28k and even though I continue to get shot down by fighters who seem to be unrestricted in their ammounts of oxygen they can carry <shrug>

Hi Revvin

Very good point there, hadn't really given that one much thought before!  <S>  

Regards

Nexx

[hitech]

Tac: Said.

 

Add to that the unbelievable high alt turn rates/no loss of E of buffs beyond 27k.
 

I belive you are totaly miss informed.

HiTech

[Tac]

How about this then.

Use the random spot at 10 or 15 degree cone from where the human gunner is aiming idea I put above.

Increase buff toughness by 3X

Make bombs drift .2 degrees at random per every 4k of alt.

Increase bomb blast radius & blast radius damage

Add AUTOFORMATION dot command (.form playername), which would make your plane match speed and direction with target player's plane. Would only work if target player has same plane type.

Model the GUNNERS. You can sit in the 6 oc of a b17 and spray half your ammo DIRECTLY into the tail gunner and he wont die. IRL the gunner wouldve been hamburger on the first salvo. Same goes on slash passes where you put a boatload of bullets from nose to tail all along the fuselage, and no turrets die. Its moronic. Only the Lancaster seems to have this modeled somewhat ok.

add 10k raised BOMBER ONLY fields in each country's back area. These fields would have long runways (for lanc's, I think they need them now that trees and sheep hurt). No rearm pads (so fighters dont use them as a pit stop to defend HQ).

Fix the supermanouverability of buffs at high alt.

Add GUN SHAKE to the gunner positions. Last time I checked the human body was NOT a stable gun platform. Turrets should shake a bit more than the fighter shake, since the guns are rattling a few inches from the gunner.

Fix the pilot get hits and playerjoined gunner blacks out as well.

fix the fire-thru fuselage bug in buffs.

Maybe then buffs would be used more AND be fair to BOTH sides.

[Pyro]

Originally posted by R4M:
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.
[ 09-29-2001: Message edited by: R4M ]

The first Regensburg/Schweinfurt raid resulted in 16% of the B-17s shot down, a disaster.  Average sortie loss rates in '43 were around 4%.  Think about those actual numbers instead of generic terms like slaughter and rout and how they fit into what you're saying and what you expect to see.

[Revvin]

Add AUTOFORMATION dot command (.form playername), which would make your plane match speed and direction with target player's plane. Would only work if target player has same plane type

Personally as a buff driver I'd hate to this added. Its a large part of flying buffs to be able to maintain formation, its a skill that has to be learnt and should not be taken away IMHO. We don't need crutches like this.

I'd like to see some form of auto gunner introduced for the reason's I outlined in my post above. It seems like to placate the fighters who moaned about it in Warbirds, HTC have created a monster in its place that is now turning into a bigger problem than otto ever was. Surely in this day and age we can finally have an auto gunner system that is fair to both sides, ie 'G' limited to stop buff gunners firing under unrealistic situations and also a configurable setting for accuracy on the host side and a client side setting to determine how far out otto will start to fire for example if a bomber sets it too far out then in conjunction with the server accuracy setting he would just waste his ammo till the point came perhapswhere he would use up too much ammo too soon, if the pilot set the value too low the plane would be mincemeat by the time 'otto' started firing. Auto gunner is not the evil spectre people make it out to be if its setup right and would almost surely be better than the monster we have now which effects both buffs and fighters as I mentioned in my last post.

There certainly is a problem with the gunenrs at the moment which I would like to see fixed and that the ignorance to the movement of turrets on bombers right now which leads to examples such as this which I took pictures of today:

 

 

[hazed-]

excellent pics ...

what i cant understand is why HTC upped the guns and not the durability.
The best bombers were the toughest types with adequate defensive fire.We seem to have weak types with too much defensive capability.
Lets try the more durable but less firepower route PLEASE.

[Tac]

I see you point Revvin, but most people flying buffs out there cant fly to maintain formation AND gun at the same time.

The autoformation would give them the chance to gun and increase the defensive coverage of the formation dramatically (as the lead bomber would be the one making the flying while the others gun).

The other thing would be to have each buff with a gunner, that way they can keep formation and be protected, but we both know the chances of that happening are really low. So let them autoformate and have the players be the gunners.

Another good thing that would come out of this is that the formation would make all the bombers open the b-doors and bomb at the same time/delay/salvo as the lead bomber. Thus the saturation bombing would be what a buff formation would deliver. If all the above are implemented, the blast radius of the bombs along with their drifts could very easily have a small buff formation pepper a field and de-ack it and quite probable kill the fuel and ammo and troops if the buffs come from a good line-up in one pass! Make 2 or 3 waves off buffs and you can waste a field instantly, without having this laser-guided bombing thing we have now that buffs HAVE to break formation to aim and drop eggs on target.

I dont like to fly buffs that much, but with the above id join in whenever a field needs to be hit, 'cause I know my formation of bombers will stay together and I will have people like me in the wingman position manning the guns and keeping the fighters away...and AS a fighter pilot ill have the joy of engaging buff formations that are much, much more realistic than what we have NOW in AH.

Think of scenarios with this too.. big waves o'buffs in tight formations instead of on loose groups because the lag/player skill did not allow them to form up. LWaffles could even enjoy those nifty a-a rockets  

[R4M]

Originally posted by Pyro:


The first Regensburg/Schweinfurt raid resulted in 16% of the B-17s shot down, a disaster.  Average sortie loss rates in '43 were around 4%.  Think about those actual numbers instead of generic terms like slaughter and rout and how they fit into what you're saying and what you expect to see.

I'm very very short of time (out from home, on a laptop wich is not mine   ) so I'll briefly answer that one, pyro.

yep, you are right about the total % of losses of the 8th in 1943. But you are including LOTS of raids over france (where the LW was significatively weaker in numbers and in radar control and detection), and lots of fighter-escorted missions.

ALL the 8th AF missions deep into Germany in 1943, wich were out of the escort fighter range sufferend MASSIVE losses. Regensburg/Schweinfurt and the 2nd attack on Schweinfurt are the most representative on those and that is why I chose to select them for my post.

I am comparing the chances of an UNESCORTED bomber in AH, with those of an UNESCORTED bomber in real life. Thus, it is not acceptable,IMHO, to include in the comparison the raids over France ,and those wich were into the allied Escorts range in Germany or netherlands because you would be comparing the chances of an UNESCORTED plane in AH with those of an ESCORTED plane in RL.

Each time the 8th AF flied into germany without escorts they suffered crippling losses facing the Luftwaffe. And even when they had escorts, early in 1944, they suffered heavily (the buff losses over Berlin were quite heavy even when they were escorted by P51s...the Luftwaffe tooks its share of losses too, but the fact remains that there were lots of losses that day).  


all what I said avobe is not really appliable to AH, because I UNDERSTAND that the buff gunnery must be a bit tuned up. But what I dont understand is the ball turret in the B17, the fire arcs of the MGs of the B26, the shooting thru wings with no damage, and the turret toughness (wich is IMO way too high)...etc etc etc.

 And I dont understand the ballance-counterballance "game" on the other fields of the game to compensate for something (gunnery and bomb sight) wich should not be so difficult nor problematic if handled properly from the start by putting them a bit more realistic (this is just from my perception, maybe there is some reason not to do it as I say, and I dont know it)

Anyway I just wanted to tell you why did I focus my analysis on the Schweinfurt raids instead than on all the bombings done by the 8th in 1943. I hope now is a bit more clear  

[ 09-30-2001: Message edited by: R4M ]

[JoeDirt]

Add AUTOFORMATION dot command (.form playername), which would make your plane match speed and direction with target player's plane. Would only work if target player has same plane type  

hey that sounds cool. i would like to see that in AH.