AH Buffing: What does the future hold?

[Sparks]

I have a foot in both camps here - yes the current bombsight is unrealistically accurate but If I'm going to enjoy a 3/4 hour bombing mission I want some chance of effectively damaging the target. For me the challenge is actually getting to the target and getting established on a stable run in without getting shot down - if I can do that then 99% of the time I'll score hits and damage and I will have enjoyed the mission. If I have you add in the probability that I will miss with most of the eggs because the bombsight is difficult then I would probably do much less bombing.
As said above the problem of accuracy was overcome by using huge numbers - we have problems raising 3 buffs at one time for a strike.

IMO if you want to make the bombing more realistic then I think you have to do two things;
1. Separate the functions of high alt and low alt bombing
2. Decrease lo alt ack accuracy some more
 
Ok point 1.
At the end of the day I don't think airfields and small targets should be attacked by high altitude bombing anyway - the realistic option should be low altitude in-and-out-fast raids. The reason this doesn't happen now is because of the lethality of the current ack. I think if the chance of getting downed by airfield ack was more realistic and the planeset included the likes of the Invader, Mosquito etc then I think you would see a whole new group of fast attack squadrons appearing. Also why not have airfields surrounded by barage balloons and nets? - would make an interesting approach challenge and stop ack huggers.

Point 2
Imagine also if the factory and hq complexs were bigger and needed the application of big formation but less accurate plaster bombing to down them then you could have the tarditionally hi alt buffs with less accurate sights. Add into that an increase to the delivery capability  - perhaps have an option to take a formation locked together flown by one pilot and allow one gunner in each buff or the ability to hop from plane to plane to defend and then the strategic targets become much more interesting and so does the fighter intercepts. Suppose you had the usual 3 buff pilots who could each take a locked formation of say 10 buffs and sprinkle a couple of hop around gunners in it and you have a 30 buff formation for the fighters to deal with but of very limited manouvre capability and no better defended than now. NOW you can have your mega realistic bombsight and go attack the strategic targets with realistic damage effects. So you lose 50% of the formation enroute and then only have 10-25% hits on target - sounds about close to how it happened to me.

OK so it might be a daft idea but I like it  

[Gadfly]

I'm at work, so this is off the top of my head, but it will give you an idea of the accuracy of mid level bombing(10-15,000 feet)

Pre-war accuracy under training conditions:

50% within 500' of the target from 10,000'

Mid-late war accuracy under battle conditions from 15,000':

20% within 4500'

Not much use in using "realistic" bombing in the arena, eh?

Lizking

[juzz]

It would be nice if the bombsight didn't instantly adjust for movements of the aircraft - eg: currently you can fly across an airfield and hit several targets by weaving around - as long as the sight is on the target when you drop, the bomb will hit it.

IMO: If modifications were made so that hitting acks from 30k with one bomb was virtually impossible, but you could still easily hit hangers and other buildings with a salvo of bombs from that altitude, then that would be OK. As you got lower it would obviously get more accurate.

[This message has been edited by juzz (edited 06-16-2000).]

[popeye]

Some great ideas here.

This is what I would try:

Decrease the bombsight zoom range just a bit more.  Make it harder to pinpoint small targets from high altitude.

Delay the bombsight response.  Put in a "green light" like brand W.  Make it harder to hit multiple targets on a single pass.

Provide dense targets in city/factory/refinery areas, protected by heavy medium ack.  This would encourage high altitude carpet bombing, and discourage low alt feeding frenzies from nearby fields.

Delay ack response to targets that are not on radar.  This would encourage the low level sneak attack.  (And I just think this is real fun.)    

Make acks respond to near misses with a "head down" delay in firing.  This would make jabo more viable.

Step radar detection of heavy bombers, medium bombers, and fighters.  Heavy bombers show up on radar at 20 miles, medium bombers at 15 miles, and fighters at 10 miles.  This would identify targets to someone studying the radar, forcing the heavies to higher altitude and making jabo more useful.

popeye




[This message has been edited by popeye (edited 06-16-2000).]