Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: H. Godwineson on August 20, 2002, 11:00:47 AM
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The quotes below by Lt. Franz Stigler of JG 27 were originally printed in an article entitled Defending the Reich, in the September, 1975 edition of Airpower magazine.
The intervening years have tended to blur my combat missions together, but one attack against the bombers stands out in my memory. It was early 1944 and an unescorted formation of B-17s came up from the Mediterranean to bomb Germany. Our group (36 aircraft) was ordered off to intercept...We made contact just north of the Alps, a few miles from Munich. No escorting fighters were around and I radioed the group commander, informing him that we could attack at will.
For some reason, unknown to me, the group commander ignored my information. The other two squadrons continued to fly around the bomber formation of approximately 100 planes, just out of range. Finally, after repeated calls to my commander...I initiated the attack.
I led my twelve plane squadron down in a screaming dive...We flashed past the high combat box in an overhead pass, continuing on through in a breakaway, before climbing back up for another attack.
With no escort fighters to challenge us, we swept through the B-17 formation five times. Twenty-four of them sagged from their boxes and although we suffered hits, not one fighter was lost and no pilots were even scratched.
In addition to our success, the attack impressed upon me the absolutely critical need for fighter escort which even heavily armed bombers like the B-17 required. In the ensuing months I learned the hard way never to attack a heavy bomber from the rear, even though the Luftwaffe high command gave out orders stating that this was the best way to do the job. After following orders and being shot down several times, I decided to go in from above whenever possible. With high speed built up in a dive, my aircraft made a very fleeting target and the more vertical my descent, the more difficult it was for the top turret gunner to get an angle on me. Most of the time I was through the formation before he even saw me and would be climbing back up for another pass.
On this type of approach, the firing time allotted to me was extremely limited. I could get in only one short burst. But I was going so fast that I was also harder to hit...
When diving down from above, a few hits from your 20mm cannon was all that was necessary. Your target was usually made up of the pilots' cabin, the engines and the wing's oil and fuel tanks. Diving from above really eliminated a great deal of the enemy's potential for defense. In many instances you were going so fast, his top gunner never sawy you, and if he did, it was difficult for him to fire straight up. The target that the (bomber) presented in this attitude was the widest possible and after making your pass, you could usually break past without any other guns, from the ship being attacked, shooting at you. Guns from from bombers on either side, however, could reach you quite well, but here again your speed aided you, and as you apprached their sistership, fire would have to be withheld for fear of hitting their own bomber.
Before the coming of the chin-turreted bombers, a headon pass was a good choice, if you broke down low, but they could see you coming from a long way out, and you could be hit by other ships in the formation
Hope you guys enjoy reading this. More to come later.
Regards, Shuckins
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Great read.
Attack from above is also the best solution against AH buffs.
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Great read, it is always enlightening to read WWII combat stories.
Thanks bro!
Karaya2
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In that way AH is so much like Stiegler describes. Attack from above is the best way to bring down bombers in AH.
With a little note that bomber guns seem more effective in AH than Stiegler would suggest, but I did not say that ;).
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Originally posted by H. Godwineson
...I decided to go in from above whenever possible. With high speed built up in a dive, my aircraft made a very fleeting target and the more vertical my descent, the more difficult it was for the top turret gunner to get an angle on me. Most of the time I was through the formation before he even saw me and would be climbing back up for another pass.
On this type of approach, the firing time allotted to me was extremely limited. I could get in only one short burst. But I was going so fast that I was also harder to hit...
When diving down from above, a few hits from your 20mm cannon was all that was necessary. Your target was usually made up of the pilots' cabin, the engines and the wing's oil and fuel tanks. Diving from above really eliminated a great deal of the enemy's potential for defense. In many instances you were going so fast, his top gunner never sawy you, and if he did, it was difficult for him to fire straight up. The target that the (bomber) presented in this attitude was the widest possible and after making your pass, you could usually break past without any other guns, from the ship being attacked, shooting at you. Guns from from bombers on either side, however, could reach you quite well, but here again your speed aided you, and as you apprached their sistership, fire would have to be withheld for fear of hitting their own bomber.
That's the tactic allowed me to down over 79 bombers last campaign while only being shot down 5 times.
Ack-Ack
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Stigler himself flew more than 500 missions and was shot down an astonishing 17 times.
Regards, Shuckins
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This is cool :D
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Bah! just another Urban legend ;)
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Very nice reading, and as has been said, it's the best tactic in AH aswell :)
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Yep that works in AH too, but the top turret of any single bomber is much more effective in AH than he says. The top turret can and will often blow you up from 800 plus in a dive attack.
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Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
Yep that works in AH too, but the top turret of any single bomber is much more effective in AH than he says. The top turret can and will often blow you up from 800 plus in a dive attack.
Grun, I don't care who's at the guns, a vertically attacking plane is REALLY tough to hit.
curly
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curly come on mate. if you gun in a B17 you can plaster guys as they dive in from vertical because even if they deviate a few degrees they are easy to track.yes harder but not very if you have a little practice behind you.Ever dived on mitsu? :D
The 50 calibre from bombers does quite a bit of damage from my experience, firing it and attacking it. that is up until fairly recently where youre lucky to have a bomber left after 1 pass :) (seems to me damage model on new 3 formation bombers is way screwed)
from what you read in this post it suggests that even huge combat boxes had trouble damaging the fighters and if you read 'combat crews' by john comer you will read several accounts of bullets bouncing off even 109's! The guns were good but nothing like as good as we have in this game.
Lets face it AH 50 cals are a joke rather than realistic.German 20mm although decent for hitting power have no real explosive behaviour, for instance there is no way to explode a plane other than a direct hit to the pilot of all things!. Where is the fuel tank exploding hits? its the same for any other 20mm with HE shells but especially for the LW ones because they had rather good types developed for downing bombers.
what ive come to accept is all guns in this game ARE JUST A GAMES GUNS. they bear a resembelance to the real ones,even deflecting with good physics etc, but they are not perfect copies of the real thing.Many accounts in books differ considerably to what we see in AH (book i mentioned for one) BUT AH is just a game and the way they are is the way they are.
what i find a little annoying now is the constant claims of their perfection in behaviour.Its good! but...well you get the idea and i digress.
these tactics described here work well but most of the others like ones describing head on attacks or targeting the rear gunner to kill him 1st all fail miserably against AH's 50cal wonder guns.much of the time its lag or just plain poor gunnery skills that save your bellybutton in an attack.A reasonable gunner will at the least blow your engine, if not take a wing in a single pass.
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Well, he also returned to base one day with over 80 bullet holes in his aircraft.
And he also RTB with a hole in his forhead and a chip of skull missing after get hit by a .50.
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Doing a topdown attack i find it easier to fire a rocket or 2 in to down the bombers. LW rockets work much beter than the A2G rockets of other craft.
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Originally posted by hazed-
curly come on mate. if you gun in a B17 you can plaster guys as they dive in from vertical because even if they deviate a few degrees they are easy to track.yes harder but not very if you have a little practice behind you.Ever dived on mitsu? :D
This conversation has gone around the bush several times. Mitsu has fired hundreds of thousands of rounds from the b17 guns and he has the hand-to-eye coordination of an adolescent mongoose.
Mitsu isn't alone. Hangime used to be a terror in a b26.
Vertical attacks against all pilots (except for a very few) are safe. They just can't hit you.
I used to fly buffs a lot and my gunnery is decent. But, a determined vertical attacker will always get me.
Usually, you get dumb approaches; occasionally, you get guys who make one vertical approach, land a few rounds, but don't have the discipline to reposition.
But the guy who makes a vertical approach and carefully repositions will get me every time. He may not get mitsu, but he'll get the rest of us. :)
If WW2 buff gunners had the luxury of re-upping after their buff got killed, yeah, I suspect a few might have become as good as mitsu. :) But, they just didn't get the practice.
curly
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theres no vibration or "gun shake" in ah bomber guns.
Thats why they are way more accurate.
Attacking from above and ho attacks arent more effective in simply killing the bomber but in keeping the attacker a live. Goring had ordered a stop to head on attacks because it took an experts shot to get kills like that. The high closure rates only gave the attacker a limited time to score hits.
If the the sturmgruppen page was up I could fill this page up with pilot accounts of them attacking dead 6.
one pilot described it as "running around in the shower trying not to get wet".
He also said that the closer in he got the better off he was because it limited the number of guns trained on him. He described how on 1 occasion he fly up ded 6 killed the b24 tailgunner with mgs then ripped the left ib eng and wing root with 3cm and watched the wing buckle and it drop out of the sky.
He then killed another the same way.
One on my squaddies dad was a gunner on a b24 he said that it was hard as hell to hit anything from the gunner position.
one of the ljks (Raub or Reschke) posted a report about buff gun dispersion from tests done from aircraft on the ground. It said at 600trds the pattern was messured in feet (i believe over 20) from the tail and even wider from the waist gunners.
HT and others have posted data showing the 50 cal model to be accurrate. I believe them then there is some other reason why if modeled correctly they dont match up to the real life effect they had.
the bomber damage model is terrible. A few pings and they come apart. Its easier to kill bombers now then before. Theres to many gun positions to switch through and the whole switching position thing is clumsy.
I never thought I would say this but it maybe time for some sort of otto gunner. Bombers are utterly defenseless while calibrating. No one wants to gun except new guys.
Add gun shake
a bit more dispersion
make the bombers tougher
give the bombers an auto option
Also puts some targets in the arena so bombers will have a use.
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Wotan,
I agree with most of your suggestions except about making the buffs tougher and adding AI gunners.
Here's why:
I've read that the Luftwaffe estimated the average 4-engine buff took 20, 20mm rounds to shoot down. That's an average. A few only took 5 or 10. Others took 30 or 40. Some took a couple dozen hits or so and limped home. This compares to my experience attacking buffs with 20mm in AH.
Those of you who think a buff couldn't take 40 (or more), 20mm hits should remember the B-17s and B-24s which took direct hits from an 88mm round and still came home.
The Luftwaffe also estimated that it took 3 "well-placed" 30mm rounds to bring down a 4-engine bomber.
If I've noticed one place that might be a bit too fragile for buffs, it's their wingtips. Several times a couple of 30mm hits have taken off the wingtip and made the pilot lose control. Since wingtips are hollow, wouldn't there just be some big holes rather than a catastrophic failure of the outer wing? Maybe I got lucky and hit the leading edge spar or something.
Also>>>Hazed...it's not true that the only was to explode buffs is with a pilot kill. A couple of days ago, flying a Me-262 I made an attack on a formation of 3 Lancs from 8 o'clock level. I splattered the number 2 & 3 buffs with many 30mm hits along the fuselage, but didn't hit near the cockpits. As I looked back, both exploded! The unlucky remaining Lanc took a quite a bit longer to bring down, with just a couple of pings to the outer wing causing the entire wing to come off and the Lanc to catch fire. More evidence the wings are too fragile?
AI Buff Gunners:
In WarBirds the accuracy "Otto", as the auto-gunner was called, was a constant source of argument and whining. I think more gun shake and dispersion will make buff gunnery a fairer contest between humans.
MRPLUTO VMF-323 ~Death Rattlers~ MAG-33