Otto

[Sorrow[S=A]]

That was me raxx so shutup  
And it was with cheek and ball, I couldn't get the nose far enough over for the waist guns.

One thing I have to argue though, raking a buf nose back is a waste of time. If you want to kill them fastest go for a wing, concentrate fire at tips moving inwards using rudder. Other wise I have amazing success at just leading my fire into their tail. As little as one stabilizer gone and the whole buff is going for a dirt nap.

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If your in range, so is the enemy.

[214CaveJ]

that's not always true sorrow.  There've been several times I've landed with several parts of my 17 missing.  I think my most memorable landing was with engines 1 and 3 out, both elevators shot out (adjusting pitch with engines), left aileron and right flap gone.  Still haven't figured out how I nursed that thing back to the ground =)

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Air power is a thunderbolt launched from an egg shell invisibly tethered to a base.         -  Hoffman Nickerson

[Sorrow[S=A]]

not always, but pretty close. I mentioned tail for a reason. In AH when a stabilizor or the rudder goes the buff seems to be in a HEAP o trouble. Mind you, catching one stabilizor is the best. both go it kind of evens out eh?

BTW wasn't that plane you described in WB not AH?

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If your in range, so is the enemy.

[smash]

I am just tired of it I guess.  If it is truly a simulation, then simulating combat against a B17 involves attacking an aircraft defended by multiple gun positions capable firing on aircraft.  There was not one gunner who ran around from position to position leaving entire quarters of the sky unprotected.

I decided to break down and take one up again a few days ago. I even took it to about 33k or so, got 4 eggs off and butchered.  It's about the same as taking up a C47, but with ordinance.

When we had the strat change in WB, and field capture was possible without closing the field, there was a huge change in offensive tactics.  Prior to that we had large formations of bombers with escort doing deep penetration for target strikes.  Lots of fun, lots of high alt combat with large groups of aircraft.  In my mind a more realistic recreation of the environment I would like to fly in.  When field closing was no longer required, much of that died.  The squad I am in went to doing almost exclusively HA flying, but when you dump 10 or 15 people into an arena that has only 30 or 40 in it to begin with, it gets pretty unbalanced, and frankly a bit boring.

Hence my boredom with WB.

I will fly fighters, but I would have a lot more fun flying buffs.  In fact I would really enjoy being in a squad that utilizes specifically medium bombers, such as the 25, 26 etc

So I guess I am squeaking because I don't see this as a possibility in AH.  Yes, you might get 6 or 8 guys up but who wants to have to have gunners?  If there are really extra people interested in participating in a mission, then lets have extra buffs and/or escorts.

Plus let's have some realism.  If you're going to attack a defended target you should have to worry about it, the way opposing pilots "had" to worry about it.

Another thing, I have yet to lose an engine in flight.  For me the wing just gets sawed off everytime. There's no intermediate damage, just death. (I know I know it's beta)

I guess it sounds like I am squeaking (I am hehe)... but I've squeaked at Pyro and the guys before so they probably take it with a grain of salt  ;-) It's just my .10 and I appreciate everyone's taking the time to reply to my thread.

By the way I went through a B17 at Luke a couple of weeks back.  The waist gunner positions are modeled much, much more realistically here than in WB.

I guess if we were being totally realistic... I couldn't fire half the positions anyway at 6'2" and 215  ;-)  It was all I could do to crawl through the thing....

[214CaveJ]

smash the gun system in AH brings all guns able to fire on a target to bear on that target, and you have the option of firing only the gun position you are manning _or_ firing all guns that can fire on that target.

sorrow- WB?  nope, I've not flown warbirds online in any mode other than h2h (and that only a couple of times).

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Air power is a thunderbolt launched from an egg shell invisibly tethered to a base.         -  Hoffman Nickerson

[-kier-]

Cave-

Smash's point is that if multiple fighters attack your fighter from opposite sides, it is impossible to defend your buff. Only one gunner onboard means only one target tracked at a time.

[Pyro]

No gunner system is without its downsides, but I really like the balance in the AH system.  We don't like leaving buffs undefended if they don't have gunners.  Getting a crew of gunners together is not something that happens a lot.  Robot gunners on buffs are just impossible to balance and nobody likes to be shot down by AI from another plane.  

There is the complaint that buffs are unprotected during their bombing run.  As others have noted, I do see a lot of people asking to gun on the radio.  If you take a gunner, this is not a factor.  If you want to gun for yourself, then that's the tradeoff you make.  The good thing is that this system makes it so a lot of people do want to gun.

The complaint that multiple planes attacking a buff simultaneously is again, not that big of a factor in my opinion.  First, this can be alleviated by flying with other buffs.  Second, look at how often this were to really be a factor if we even allowed multiple gunners.  Here's some very liberal estimates.  

% of sorties that would be flown with multiple gunners

20%  (in reality would be probably less than 5%)

% of sorties where simultaneous attacks take place

50%

% of simultaneous attacks where attackers come from different directions

25%

% of those attacks where the buff would be able to successfully fend off this simultaneous attack

50%

I think those percentages are fairly liberal.  The end result is that it would make a difference in about 1% of the sorties.



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Doug "Pyro" Balmos
HiTech Creations

[Azrael]

 

Another thing, I have yet to lose an engine in flight. For me the wing just gets sawed off everytime. There's no intermediate damage, just death. (I know I know it's beta)

Looks the different damage stages are implemented as of Version 0.39 - I had all kind of damage on my B-17: Engines shot out, engines leaking and later seizing, fuel tank leaks, elevator shot off on one side (nice feature compared to brand W where you loose everything), ailerons, flaps, vertical stab (I could actually see 1999 fire at the tail section), landing gear (there I was with 2 engs out, one gear shot up and 10 feet of the runway... grrr), pilot kills, wings broken off.

Of course I may have been lucky, most of my deaths prior to 0.39 have been wings shot off.

The damge in this picture was from a Me 262 (probably 4x30mm then):
 

Az

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Azrael
XO 487th BG (Heavy)
'The Gentlemen from Hell'

[Vermillion]

Are you sure it was a Me262 Azrael?

I have seen the same picture in another book and it stated that it took a direct hit from a 88mm cannon at the wing root.

Just curious  

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Vermillion
WB's: (verm--), **MOL**, Men of Leisure,
"Real men fly Radials, Nancy Boys fly Spitfires "

[Minotaur]

Does not make too much sense for a 262 to be any where near a bomber taking AAA fire.

The question remains, who or what took the picture?  Then mystery of what killed the bomber will be solved.

The damage looks massive to me.  

Thinking of the men in that falling bomber, my heart also falls from the sky.

Mino

[Pongo]

Pyro.
And the auto fire coordination makes the 17 way more powerful against a single interceptor. The mission survival rating for the buff as you have modeled it is probebly far higher than if it required a man per gun.
You allways get the max guns against a target, instead of at most 2 other wise.

[Azrael]

Verm:

I saw that picture a long time ago in my SWOTL manual, and just found it again (on the top and a smaller part of the same picture) at http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/bombers/b2-20a.htm

The SWOTL manual states:
"Ripped apart by cannon fire of a Me 262, this B-17, "Wee Willie", goes down during a raid on April 10, 1945. Cuortesy of the United States Air Force".

The picture description on the USAF site  states:
"B-17F with the right wing blown off - by an Me-262 over Crantenburg, Germany"

So I can assume that this particular B-17 was downed by a Me 262.

And the damage on the elevator and the (destroyed) wing look like this was gunfire not a single 88mm shell.

Az

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Azrael
XO 487th BG (Heavy)
'The Gentlemen from Hell'

[Gadfly]

The robotic B29 gunnery system in this game sucks.  Period.

[SnakeEyes]

Two recommendations for Pyro:

1) Fix the B-17 Flight Model so that it isn't able to ascend into low earth orbit with a full load of eggs.

2) Compared to WB, increase the amount of time necessary to "calibrate" the bombsite and make sure that buffs can't do the ol' WB "gyro" turn (I've only buffed once or twice here, so if this isn't relevant, my apologies).  Basically, the idea is to require buffs to fly in a straight line long enough for interceptors to run a 'real' attack.  The lack of any ground vectoring system, and the short line-up times (which gives the buffs alot of leeway to maneuver) for buffs is what contributes to all the "up-the-buff's-6" attacks in WB.  A good HO pass is still darned hard to execute right... but let's encourage this more realistic approach in AH's gameplay.


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SnakeEyes
o-o-o-
=4th Fighter Group=