Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Widewing on February 15, 2002, 09:01:49 AM
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Last evening, I spent a fair amount of time off of A-27 having fun in the huge furball that went on for hours. Earlier, I had spotted Leviathn, who has, for the time being, switched to the Rooks for some R&R against the Knits. ;)
Well, taking off in my Ki-61 just after Leviathn, I ended up about D1.5 behind as we headed into the brawl. As is my usual practice, I take on the task of keeping the tail clear of the nearest Rook. In this case, this was Leviathn. As it was, he needed little covering, but anything that avoided Leviathn couldn't avoid me being close in trail. Anyway, When his magazines were empty, Leviathn turned towards home for a reload. I was about D2.0 behind, but I had some cannon ammo remaining. Looking over my shoulder, I saw a horde of irate Knits following me, but well out of range. Above was a high Pony, and I paid more attention to him than the others, who simply were not fast enough to gain on me at 2k altitude. Off to my 10 o'clock high was a TBM, on the same general heading. While I was carefully inspecting my 6 and keeping tabs on that high Mustang, something truly unusual happened.
As I turn to look ahead, I see the TBM diving and firing on Leviathn. It was easy for Leviathn to avoid the Grumman, and he continued on his way unscathed. Clearly, had he any ammo remaining, the TBM would have been toast. As it was, I was in the perfect position to reward the TBM driver for his insanity. My cannons exploded the Grumman with one long burst.
I have noticed an increasing aggression among those flying bombers of late. A few days ago, I had a Ju 88 roll in and make an HO attack on me. He died instantly, and I still can't figure out why he elected to drop 10K just to get pinged. No one else was in the immediate area, and his altitude was such that he could have avoided a fight if he so wished.:rolleyes:
Hey TBM drivers, if you want to mix it up with Spitfires, I strongly urge you to go back and get a fighter. Either that or schedule yourself for some therapy, 'cause no points are awarded for effort, just results.:D
My regards,
Widewing
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lol. Good post Widewing. Especially the header.
As to why they do it? There is no penalty for trying. If they get shot down they just instantaneously re-up, rinse and repeat.
Westy
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Heh...a TBM can surprise you. I'm thinking those .50's are modeled simliar to those of a bimb dropper.
xBAT
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LOL...Sometimes we that fly buffs decide to get the pain over with and try to die on OUR terms ;)
Abunabi is notorious for chasing OTHER B-17s in his B-17 and scoring an impressive amount of kills/assists.
And if you are out of bombs, or just trying to make the long ride home more fun, why not?
The one mental illness I haven't figured out is why enemy fighters attack the EMPTY bombers RTB'ing from a target, while letting the ones inbound (with eggs on board) pass thru? hehe
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Why go after a bomber that is RTB'ing?
Can you always tell? Might a guy be extending to reverse for another pass?
Maybe a guy just loves shooting down bombers?
Maybe the fighter is rtb himself, and sees a bomber so he takes a few shots himself?
Can be alot of reasons he will attack, not everyone plays AH with strategic concerns, some just love fighting other planes, and any target is a good one.
For sure, one thing is true, a kill is a kill is kill. Same points for ingress and egress.
dago
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I used to up in a Junkers, B26, or IL2, get some alt, and look for a fight :). It's highly entertaining to see the text buffer when awarded with a kill :cool:.
"that was the scariest thing i've ever seen!!"
followed up by several "lol"s. With a reasonable alt advantage and some luck, you can score a few kills in a junkers. It's also a great evasive aircraft, if you're in trouble, split-S, engage the dive flaps, and have some fun. It can sustain high speeds fairly well after a dive. The B26 however has paper wings passed 350 mph :) Lazer's B26 jumping me in my F4U-4 the other day. I watched him close to about 1k then lazily turned and watched his wings rip :D Sometimes the sillyness is what makes this game something special :D
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I have chased down two fighters in my B26 this tour. They crawl up your 6, you tear them apart, then they limp towards home. Usually they are too busy with trying to get home in one piece and they don't notice you reverse and finish them off with your 4x50 cals.
Until we get a really good perked bomber, I don't think that people are concerned with the lost perks by not landing the sortie.
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Back off.. I am hardcore TBM pilot:D
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I dont go looking for trouble when I am flying bombers with one exception which I will address in a minute. However, if trouble comes to me, I find that in certain bombers the best way to survive a fighter attack is to fly like a fighter.
If you are in the B-17 or the Lancaster, your best bet is to make gentle turns and rely on your gunner. However, in the TBM, Il-2, and Ju-88, with their weak defensive armament, your best bet is to fly like a fighter and try to engage with the fixed armament. In all cases you should get close to the terrain or water thus maximizing the chance that the attacking fighter will make a mistake and give you a manouver kill. You should also keep your airspeed fairly low, in an attempt to get the enemy to stall or overshoot. I have 7 kills in the C-47 just from this. The TBM, Il-2, and Ju-88 have a very small turn radius due to the slow speed. I have killed many an inattentive fighter pilot with these 3. The Ju-88 in particular gets no respect, but I got attacked once by two fighters, a spitfire and another plane. I shot one up with the nose gun to the point where he left us and my gunner got the other. We were able to continue to our target safely.
The bomber I have not mentioned yet is the B-26. The B-26 can be flown either way. Its defensive armament is, in my opinion, 2d only to the B-17. Yet it also possesses decent manouverability at slow speeds and an awesome forward firing armament as well. The B-26 is one that I will actually fly as a fighter sometimes. If I am on a bomber mission in one, I usually handle the fighters from the gunner positions, occasionally yanking the nose up to get a particularly close fighter to overshoot, and finishing him with the fixed guns. However, sometimes when defending a vulched field that has all fighter hangars down, I will take a B-26 from the hangar, 1/4 fuel, drop all bombs on the ground in hangar, before I even start, and take off as quickly as possible. Once in the air, I use the gunner positions to take on the vulchers until airspeed is up enough to manouver, then I fly the B-26 like a big fighter. Last tour, myself and another individual did this, and between us we shot down 12 enemy aircraft for the loss of 4 or 5 B-26s. This was almost singlehandedly responsible for the failure of the enemy attack on our field, since with the fhs down, our defense was failing rapidly. Obviously against a really good fighter pilot, you are almost certainly going to die, no matter what you do, but for those that arent sometimes this is your best chance. Even against the good ones, you can sometimes buy enough time for help to arrive.
For those of you that dont think that real bombers were ever flown this way, there are several stories that prove they in fact were sometimes:
-Lyndon Johnson, later President, was flying as an observer on a B-26 mission once. The bomber was attacked by a number of Zeroes, including one flown by Saburo Sakai. The bomber pilot, according to Sakai flew the B-26 like a wildman, almost like a fighter. This was responsible for the Zeroes wasting much of their ammunition and eventually being forced to rtb emptyhanded.
-There was also a SBD pilot in WW2 that was famous for flying his Dauntless like a fighter. He got 2 or 3 kills that way on surprised IJN pilots that thought they had found an easy kill.
-In fact, SBDs, SB2Cs, and TBF/TBMs were occasionally used in to intercept low flying torpedo bombers and kamakazes, while the Corsairs and Hellcats went after the higher flying dive bombers, and enemy fighters.
-Captain Eric Brown, British test pilot, says that if he had ever been attacked in a Swordfish, he would have flown it like a fighter and used the forward gun, instead of relying on the gunner with his weak armament of 1 .303.
-In WW1, the Bristol Fighter was ineffective when used with the gunner as primary defense. It established possibly the best kill record of the war when pilots began flying it like the great fighter it was.
-The real 1st Air Commando Group of WW2, often used their P-51 pilots to fly their B-25s. These guys flew their B-25s exactly like fighters, quite effectively by all accounts.
-Russian Il-2 pilots scored a number of kills on Luftwaffe fighters in dogfights.
-The Ju-88 was actually used as a fighter in certain versions, mostly against bombers or as a night fighter, but occasionally they had occasion to mix it up with Allied fighters, usually with poor results.
-Another bomber that was famous for fighting back was the Navy Ventura patrol bomber. These bombers accounted for numerous kills scored by aggressive Navy pilots.
These stories are the exception rather than the rule, but they do prove that an aggressive pilot with some skill, can do the unexpected, and take a fighter pilot on at his own game. Hats off to the brave souls that did this in real life and lived to tell about it, and good luck to those that try it in the game!
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I have shot a Lanc down with the TBM's fixed guns and another with the fixed guns and upper turret of my B-26. I've also shot a Lanc down in an HO using a B-17. Hit hit me too, but 2 .303s aren't much. I've killed an F4U-1C in a dogfight using the B-26's fixed guns.
My best with the Ju88 is 4 kills using the defensive guns. I've never gotten a kill with the fixed gun.
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Yeah, and TBMs were used for defensive CAP of the fleet.