Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Buzzbait on September 20, 2001, 09:12:00 PM
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S!
The Luftwaffe developed tactics in '44 to optimize the destruction of US Heavy bombers. One of these was the formation of "Sturmjaeger" units which flew heavy armoured and armed 190A8's.
These units were trained to attack from the REAR of the bomber formation.
Wonder how many would survive such an attack against AH B17's?
Here is a link to a description of an attack:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/neilpage/sturmgruppenactions.html (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/neilpage/sturmgruppenactions.html)
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None. At all. They wouldn't get within 500 yards, much less 100.
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Do you guys want the guns on the bombers to be absolutely, 100% accurate to real life?
Urchin,
I've manuvered to within 200 yards of a bomber that was shooting at me. He just wasn't any good at shooting. ;)
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Hm... check my thread out, I point to the same site and include a couple of links to the site to some interesting excerpts from combat. Makes me wonder if my posts are invisible to everyone else because I usually don't get many replies if at all. Or is it because I'm not controversial enough? ;) :)
mauser
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throw in a few observations and opinions.....
facts just dont bring in the traffic
with a nik like mauser I'm surprised though :)
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Here is the problem with AH buff guns.
The LW pilots here clearly express a high degree of justified confidence in their 190s armor, there certainly can be no doubt about that, unless of course they are lying.
However trying such an attack against even an AH lancaster with 2x 50cals and 2 useless? 303s from 60c and 1000yds out will most of the time kill you, with your plane being cut up loosing wings and tails.
Dont deny this guys, we all know you buff guys even the lanc flyres always say its dumb and stupid to attack from 6)C, and thats against 2 50cal guns.
Something is no right wth AH implementaition of bomber defensive guns.
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GRUNHERZ,
You are correct. It is absolutely idiotic to attack a Buff, even a Ju88, from the 6 o'clock level position. I've never seen anybody say otherwise. HTC even states that the effective range of Buff guns is extended over that of fighters.
My question is, do you want the guns on bombers modeled perfectly in line with their historical reality?
[ 09-21-2001: Message edited by: Karnak ]
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Buzz, there are very nice Luftwaffe guncameras showing Fw190A-7, Fw190A-8, Bf109G and Bf110G attacking B-17 and B-24 from dead 6 o'clock. Not only Sturmbock formations. There are 8th Air Force diagrams showing those attacks: high 6, low six, high-low-high ...
But, ... sometimes the tail gunner was dead/wounded, sometimes wasnt at his place, sometimes he was terrified, sometimes the bomber was on the way back home already crippled by other fighter attacks or flak. Some guncameras show the LW fighters *very* close to the buff, maybe less than 100yds.
I am sure that in the real thing many 6 o'clock attacks were successfull for those reasons but I'm sure that all the guncameras we have are from victorious attacks as well ... ;) And I agree that a dead six attack in AH should be *very* dangerous.
[ 09-21-2001: Message edited by: gatt ]
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S! Mauser
Sorry to steal your material. :)
I read it and noticed the description of the Sturmbock attack and thought it was appropriate to the general discussion vis a vis bombers which has been happening on this board.
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I think the success was mainly due to the fact that they attacked in line abrest formation with large number of attackers. It is very hard (almost impossible) to get effective fire on multiple rear targets before the rear gunner and belly gunner died or before the bombers were shot to pieces.
I have gun camera footage of 109's fitted with Mk108 30mm guns. Although they attacked from close because of the effective range of the Mk108, the damage was devestating, the Mk108 ate up the bombers if the attacking pilot didn't get shot down in time by that bomber. Another thing I noticed is that allot of these gun camera footage is of attacks on isolated bombers (mostly already crippled) and there were no tracers visible from bomber to fighter.
Until the B17's were fitted with chin turrets the 109's attacked the bomber formations from the front where they made a shallow dive through the bomber formations.
[ 09-21-2001: Message edited by: Apar1 ]
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S! Apar
If you read it closely you will see the attack was by approx. 30 Sturmbock on a formation of 18 bombers, ie. the low Squadron of a group. The other two Squadrons would be 'stacked' 1000 and 2000 feet higher than the low Squadron. This is the typical defensive 'box' that USAAF bombers used.
So the attackers were facing 18 rear gunners, plus whatever could be directed their way by the next highest Squadron.
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S!
Oops correction. The 492nd, (the USAAF bomber Group) was understrength. There were only two 492nd Squadrons in the Group, the other came from another Group. Also the two Squadrons totaled 23 aircraft instead of 36. Plus two aborted. So there would be 21 Liberators in total in the low and center Squadrons of the box. And there would be 11 Liberators rear gunners firing at the Sturmgruppe, as well as the 10 in the next highest Squadron in the box.
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CC read the eyewithness acount of the bomber group as well.
[ 09-21-2001: Message edited by: Apar1 ]
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S! Buzzbait
Yes, I agree, I think you can rule out the effectiveness on the higher groups guns though, it is very hard to get a gun solution on a 1000-2000ft low passing target. Still, imagine the horror of facing 11 guns blazing away at you from the front and not being able to open fire until much closer range, it's almost like facing a firing squad with your back against the wall.
The stress these fighter pilots and bomber crews faced is unimagineable
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So Karnak HTC is not telling the truth when they say the buff guns are the same as fighter guns?
Because HiTech said that, should I assume he is deleberatly misinforming us to quiet buff crticizm?
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GRUNHERZ,
Hitech said they had the same lethality. He didn't say they are the same in _all_ regards.
// fats
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Yup, remeber that they allmost allways attacked pretty large, and later very large formations of buffs, where you face multiple rear gunners and most other gunners that cn fire aswell, allso, their main objective was to dammage bombers first pass, make them slow and vulnerable and then take em out one by one, worked very well. The 190 A8/R8 (Aka Sturmbock), was devestating vs buffs, once it got within range it had 2x20mm and 2x30mm to fire with, about 3-5 30mm rounds were needed to down a B17.
Good buff guns in AH is to make up for few buffs, maybe we would see people fly more together in larger buff formations if the guns weren't so good?
Oh well, aslong as "I can outturn any fighter above 25k" thing will be fixed I am happy, will it?
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"Something is no right wth AH implementaition of bomber defensive guns."
I'm not singling you out in particular Grunherz, but that accusation above is pretty much the root complaint by several as regards to some bomber gun "problem"
All I can say is that it NOT the guns but the guys flying the fighters. Othere than the FW-190 one ping dead engine problem but that's already beeing (been) addressed by Pyro for 1.08
I stand firm in my opinion that the majority of those claim bomber guns as being too good and too lethal are in fact trying to make HTC detune them to compensate for THIER lack of patience to gain the skill needed to shoot them down easily enough.
I also find it extremely ridiculous that anyone here could find a real life correlation between what they do in the MA and what a real LW gruppe had to do. Did these LW groups actually fly solo 190/109's against solo B17/Lancs or B-26's?
Westy
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Right on Wilbuz,
I suggested something like that too:
That doesn't cover the realistic operating ceiling with respect to bombing accuracy and other mentioned restricting issues.
If the bombing accuracy would be adapted to realistic figures and there be a penalty on lateral movements during and just prior to bomb release that would restrict used alt of bombers and maneuvers of bombers in AH.
Now that in turn would not favour the single bomber sorties and therefore not balance gameplay with realism.
How about adapting bombing accuracy to more realistic figures and restricting the use of bombers through missions only with a minimum (say) 5 bombers. This would enable (force)the bombers to fly in formation and have better survival rate at ideal operating altitude. It would also cover the inherent lesser bombing accuracy by the need of bombing in formation. It would be more realistic and at the same time it would prolly be more fun for both bomber pilots and bomber sweeper pilots. Furthermore I think that bomber formations are more inviting to bomber escorts than a single bomber. In my opinion that would change the whole use of bomber tactics for the better and somewhat be more realistic and fun too.
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S! Buzzbait, all..
No offense taken, and I don't claim the material to be "mine" anyway :) Anyway, Wotan confirms my suspicions as to why my thread didn't get much in terms of replies. If I ever want to have the distinction of a large thread, I'll whine, or whine about whining ;) Otherwise, I'll carry on.
About risky buff busting attack profiles: Sometimes you just gotta know that your chances of living through an attack are slim to nil and prepare for it. A couple days ago right after I logged into the MA, I heard a couple bish reporting a HQ raid at 26k inbound from the rook territories. On dar, they were about 2-3 sectors away, so I grabbed a G-10 from A30 and climbed south at full wep. When I had gotten to 30k, I spotted the dots, which were approx. coalt. and had probably made their first run on the HQ already. They were about 5 B17's with P51 escorts, seemingly coalt about 30k. I spotted the last 2 B17's and attempted to engage, always hoping that I can catch them looking somewhere else but at me. But when I saw tracers coming at me I broke off, and attempted to go after the 2nd. However, the 2nd one was higher and I had already lost a couple thousand ft in my first attempt. I switched my attention back to the second, who was being attacked from co-alt and behind by another bish. Unfortunately, I didn't get close enough to give a supporting attack before my countryman was knocked down. Kill #1 for a Skeleton Crew member. I shadowed the B17 with a couple thousand ft. alt advantage like I always do to figure out what to do. The buff then turns towards and under me, maybe to make another run on the HQ. So I attempt to catch him at the flight controls and go after him. But I was a little too late and got into position on his dead six about 500 yds behind. I knew I wasn't going to make it, so I just put the gunsight a little higher and held the trigger down (1x30mm, 2x20mm, 2x13mm). I saw tracers coming towards me and prepared for the worst. We appeared to come apart at the same time and tumbled earthwards. I got the kill on him first, but then after I bailed, he got the kill on me (my 2nd death to a chute). Results: 1 buff down in a very difficult situation, dar was damaged but stayed up a little while longer before it was completely down. I didn't like the fact that I lost a plane (thank goodness I left the Ta-152 in the hangar), but there wasn't much else I could do in that situation. Trying to set up my normal "immelman from above" attack would've taken too much time up there and would've let the buff make more runs on the HQ. Glad that I at least put a dent into the attack, I grabbed a spit and joined my squaddies in defending A28.
Conversely, last night there was another buff raid heading towards our HQ from the knit territories. Some of the reports from the bish were that they were way f#$kn' up there. This time I said screw it.. was having too much fun flying the Sturmbock A8 with my squaddies (after finding those pages on the Sturmjaeger, I really wanted to fly the A8 again, and found squaddies shamus and jstamutt flying A8's defending a field.. just what I wanted! ) :) Anyways, hm.. did these posts about buffs bring back a sudden interest in high-alt HQ raids? Haven't seen them as frequent during my time periods until the past couple of days.
Points to any newbies reading these posts: Think carefully and consider what the situation is when attacking buffs. If you really want to make sure he/she doesn't drop their load, hound them and try to keep them in the gun turrets (doesn't work if they have a gunner), and attack when you can set up your preferred attack method. In really bad situations like what I mentioned above, give it all you got but prepare for the consequences.
mauser