Ted, you've made some comments I can't let slide.with little thought and less merit much of the time in relation to "a game"
Yes, it
is a game. A game where bombers have advantage after advantage heaped upon them, with no detriment. Bombers disrupt the game. Look at all the griping about the furballers yelling at the toolshedders for bombing FH, or for sinking the CV during "a nice fight!", or for killing HQ, or for bombing the TT VHs, or for killing the FT hangars. Bombers are the most disruptive tool/weapon in the game, and most of the time it's by a single person, uncatchable, unstoppable, because they're coming in at 20k at 270+mph when everybody else is just taking off to stop them.
A pilot that picks a proper interceptor and shows some patience and discipline will catch most buffs in most situations in this game. Then it comes down to gunnery on each side and tactics.
Wrong. They will not. You can't tell which cons on a map are buffs. Sometimes you can guess if they're heading to HQ or if they're heading to a CV. Most of the time you cannot. You either rely on visual ID from some pilot, or a radar con (in case of HQ or CV), and both are limited to about 1 sector (or less) from the target. Again, see my response to stoney74. A bomber formation can cover that distance in 10 minutes, by which time you're only passing 10k, and that's
if you're doing 5,000 fpm the entire time. If bombers had distinctive icons on the map dar, and showed up no matter where they were in relation to radar, then you might have something. Historically when bombers were in the air everybody knew about it. Everybody. The folks flying them, the folks hunting them, the folks plugging their ears and hoping no bombs fall on them as the bombers fly overhead. The spies, the observer corps. Bombers were not stealth weapons, as they are used in this game.
You can use that patience and up a fighter to be in front of the bombers if and only if you know where they are 30 minutes in advance, that's 3 sectors out. Radar doesn't even reach across 1 sector most of the time. You can use patience to intercept a bomber formation if you know these things, and this is evident with HQ raids. They are usually spotted well in advance, and most of the time the fighters are only just getting to the bombers' level when they come into view. Just barely, most of the time (not counting 163s). Even so, they still have to get speed up, and even if they are in front of the bombers and attack head-on, they are now behind them at a very high speed going the wrong way. If they turn around they've just blown all their speed and are now in a slow-closure-rate tail chase. Why? Because the bombers are still traveling 270+mph, when historic cruising speeds were 160mph for b17s and b24s. I don't know cruising speeds of lancasters.
So, planning ahead does jack watermelon when the bombers come into range at T=0, bomb all your FH down at T=6, and are rtb passing out of radar T=12, and.. oh yes, you're still 5k below them at T=12, and now your field is shut down.
The problem you're not seeing is that you're getting off scott free. All you do is put in time to climb out and level off. I know, I flew bombers a HELL of a lot, since AH came out. AH1 I liked to fly lancs exclusively on HQ runs for a while. All you need to do is climb and level. Full-frakking-throttle 100% of the time and all you have to do is man the tail guns.
I can't pull up the plane stats any more.... guess the database inquiries not working any more, or a problem at my end, but I can't look up the model K/D ratios.... but I'm betting that the bombers get shot down at a pretty high percentage still. Plenty of people out there catch and kill them.
That doesn't work, same way using kills/deaths on LA7 doesn't work. Why? Because a lot of idiots fly them too. There's a lot more suicide-dive-bombers than there are level bombers in this game. Hell I had a lancaster pull an immelman on me today and turn back to the target to dive bomb it after I took a drone off of him. Hell even I dive-bombed a field after 3 163s and a 190 were inside 1k of my Ju88 Ack got me more than anybody else, but I had a P51B chase me at 12k for 2 sectors and he could barely do anything but sit on my six and weave back and forth a few times. That's a P51B. One of the FASTEST unperked planes in the game.
They are playability issues.
Finally, I fly buffs ..... most of the kills I make from the belly turret and rear gun position. Not my fault they attack from dead to low six position. They take the shortest route to get into range, and climbing while they do so, so their overtake speed sux. Easy prey.
Exactly my point. Oh, and it *IS* your fault, because you're flying so fast they can't do anything *but* fall behind you. Even if they were level, you're going so fast that if they made a slashing attack from the side and you were going straight, the geometry means that they still fall behind you. You're forcing ... no, not just you, this game Aces High, is forcing all bomber-killers into a dead-six attack. It is highly unrealistic not only in regards to performance, but in regards to impact, in regards to effect, in regards to the potency of a tool (the level bomber). Like I said, Just FFT and sit in the tail gun. No need to do anything else. It's a flaw in the system.
If they got above me, and came from flanks with E...... much harder to bring enough guns to bear and get a good angle on them during their runs. They don't do this.
For a reason. Because they're slower than you and falling behind you. Now, IF (big if) somebody does come at you from the flank, from above, or from the front, you're still going over twice as fast as a bomber did historically. If they come in off the 2-3 oclock and make a slashing attack, they have little chance of scoring any major damage, and as they come out the other size you are now pulling away laterally, because you're going 270+mph in the other direction, and they're going 300mph the other way, that's roughly 600 mph of separation. You're pulling away like a frakking drag racer against a pinto. If they blow all their E and speed and turn around to make another ineffective slashing attack from the 9-10 oclock they lose all the energy they had after one pass. You're too fast. Nose attacks are worse, as the only way to "turn around" is dead 6, and the closure rate is even worse (often it's an opening rate). High attacks might be effective if executed properly, but after one pass you either are sitting off the nose of the formation a sitting duck, you dive through and lose your position for a second attack, or you pull up again. If you do the first two you're screwed. You can't reposition for an attack and if you do you put yourself into the meat grinder. If you pull up again you lose position, as you convert speed into alt the bombers pull ahead. You have alt but must lose more of it every run as you have to catch the fleeing bombers. Usually I find you can only do 3 vertical attacks, even if you're in the perfect spot, by #3 you're in a semi-high-six attack, vulnerable to the meat grinder.
Normally the bomber is still within range after fighters turn around for another pass. Now they have to turn to you, not only spend 5 more minutes catching you, but overtake well ahead of you, so that as they turn into you you come in at 270mph and time it just right so that, as they turn 90 degrees, you pass in front of them in the blink of an eye. Again you're still going 270+mph and they now start chasing you all over again.
* Buffs fly in groups of 3, and not 30, or 100, or 1000 like they did in the war, most of the time.
* Buffs fly without escorts most of the time.
* Buffs limited to 1 gunner, and turret conversion should be adjustable on the fly to reflect the abilities of separate gunners at all positions to acquire a target.
* Buffs can't engage multiple enemy planes simultaneously.... need more gunners.
First, if they fly without escorts it's their fault. Get a friend, advertise, hell use a mission. There's hundreds that want easy kills.
Second, it doesn't matter if they have 1 gunner if that gunner has the effectiveness of 30 crewmen (10 men x 3 planes) all in one gunner position. Historically bomber guns were ineffective. They relied on 1000+ formations for safety, and still were shot down so much the 8th halted bomber missions until escorts were improved. Yet, in this game a single 3-plane formation can take on and kill 5+ enemy planes in a single mission and land safely after having bombed its targets to rubble. I've done this myself many times. This is beyond "it's a game" -- this is "we're pandering to bombers".
Third, buffs rarely need to engage multiple planes. The only time I have EVER seen fighters attack in a pincer on a bomber formation has been when *I* suggested it to a squaddie. It worked well for me, my squaddie got shot down. If there are multiple planes, they're all dead 6 because the bomber is going so fast they naturally fall behind. In this case it doesn't matter how many "gunners" you have onboard, the tail gun would only be able to fire at 1 plane, and with only 2 guns instead of 12-18 (tail, ball, and/or dorsal for 3 aircraft) all slaved to instantly saw the enemy wing off. If it were the way you wanted, 2 rounds from the tail gun might make an enemy cringe, but the way we have it now most first-hits are kill-shots on the fighters attacking the bombers. That means you can move to the next target and kill it in a short burst. Your effectiveness is far far FAR above that of a "1-man-per-gun" setup. The only folks that think it isn't are nostalgic for Warbirds. That's a different game.
