Skip Bombing

[JB35]

just a request ,

 Would it be possible to impliment skip bombing into the game play with a fuse delay so you wouldnt blow yourself up upon release of your selected bomb and with out the actual climbing up to alt so when you drop your bombs they have time to arm ?

 Of course not implimented into Buffs .

[Kev367th]

I am assuming you mean the equivalent of a time delay fuze?
Skip bombing IMO is different. Used by 617 Sqn for the Dambuster raid, and by Mosquito squadrons equipped to drop highballs.

In fact same subject different angle -
How about adding Lancaster "Grandslam" and "Tallboy" options. No real use for either Highballs or Lowballs as yet.

[Charon]

He's probably talking about the widely used tactic of skipbombing merchant shipping and destroyers in the South pacific. Fly at a certain speed and height--level, and skip the bombs across the water into the side of a ship. Widely used and effective (but against a CV task group (AH or RL) it would be suicide. Probably need lesser defended convoys here.


Here's a cool painting:
http://www.oldgloryprints.com/B-25's%20Skip%20Bombing%20Wewak.htm

Here's the details:
http://www.afa.org/magazine/valor/0594valor.asp

Aircraft involved were mostly "Pappy Gunn" B-25  and A-20 specials.

Charon

[Kev367th]

Charon - In which case Mosquito's with a Highball option could be used. Highballs were basically developments from the Dambuster bomb and were used against shipping.

[Charon]

Kev, Highballs were never used in combat. Skip bombing was used heavily and pretty much decimated troop transports and supply convoys around New Guinea and the Solomons and eliminated bases like Rabul from the war effort, especially in combination with parafrag bombs (and the super heavy modified nose armaments) against the airfields.

The Bismark Sea is a prime example:

With intelligence on convoy routes gathered during the previous four months, lessons from Allied attacks on shipping, knowledge of enemy options, and weather forecasts, Kenney's deputy, Major General Ennis Whitehead, predicted that the convoy would sail along the northern coast of New Britain, beyond range of attack for as long as possible, and then race to its destination.

 Despite the information, finding and destroying the convoy required three days of intense effort. Allied aircraft first spotted the eight destroyers and eight merchant vessels on the afternoon of March 1, but the ships hid under low cloud cover for two days. The Allies, perhaps assisted by intercepted transmissions, tracked the convoy and made small but repeated attacks.

The strikes were only the preliminary bouts before the main event. On March 3 the attack force rendezvoused over Cape Ward Hunt, a reference point on the north shore of New Guinea, and received a radio message with the convoy position from a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) reconnaissance plane that had harassed the ships overnight. At about the same time, other aircraft bombed the airfield at Lae, reducing a possibility of fighter interference. The concentrated attacks began shortly before 1000 hours. B-17s were in the lead, bombing from 8,000 feet and escorted by P-38s. This group was followed by B-25s flying at 5,000 feet, and immediately behind them came low altitude attackers--13 RAAF Beaufighters, 12 B-25s, and 12 A-20s.

As the low altitude crews spotted the convoy, they peeled off to attack individually. During the ensuing melee, pilots dodged antiaircraft fire and twisted furiously to avoid hitting one another. Enemy ships violently maneuvered against the aircraft as their crews frantically battled explosions. One participant remembered, "They would come in on you at low altitude, and they'd skip bombs across the water like you'd throw a stone ... the transports were enveloped in flames. Their masts tumbled down, their bridges flew to pieces, the ammunition they were carrying was hit, and whole ships blew up." (5)

The contest was over in moments. Kenney's airmen left every transport on fire or sinking and three destroyers sinking or badly damaged. An attack that afternoon disposed of the remaining stranded vessels. In all, every transport went to the bottom along with four destroyers.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KNN/is_2000_Autumn/ai_80223307

Charon

[Kev367th]

Oh, thought they had limited use after May 1944.

Found this that I thought was a giggle

One of the most fitting tributes to the Mosquito comes from the commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe during the Second World War, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, whose public address to a rally in Berlin in January 1943 was rudely shattered by a low-level attack by 105 Squadron Mosquitoes. "It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito, I turn green and yellow with envy! The British, who can afford aluminum better that we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building..."

[Westy]

I personally favor the addition of this type of ordinance.


But to play the devil's advocate.....

How many players would spend the requisite practice time needed to get good at skip-bombing when so many players already seem to feel that bombing in AH is hard enough as it is?

[JB35]

Skip Bombing into the side or proxy of a GV would be a new way of game play
It would ( IMO ) be better than climbing to 1000 ft AGL and noseing over ontop of that certian GV ,
 only to drop too low and the bomb not arm at all and the guy who is sitting it the GV looking up at you thinking "Tard" .

[Charon]

Skip Bombing into the side or proxy of a GV would be a new way of game play

Was this ever used? Skip bombing on land? Did it have any practical value (if physically possible) with a target the size of a GV, in variable terrain, compared to a ship where you could make a reasonavble approach at just the right parameters to skip a bomb on water in to the tall and long side of a merchant ship?

Charon

[Tails]

Well, assuming the casing of the bomb was strong enough, and the speed and altitude were correct (Thinking very fast, at an altitude where you have more worry of prop-striking squirrels than being shot), with a time delay fuse, it -could- work. That's also assuming that the bomb didn't shatter like a crystal goblet when it hit the side of said GV.

[JB35]

Well assuming that Skip Bombing was utilized on ground targets was something I have done and Is used in IL2 but IL2 is a Sim .

However if in fact it was Utilized IRL I have no ideal .

But seeing the Film and of course its a Film of Pearl Harbor ,
when a bomb is dropped at low alt and skipps beside a fuel tanker then explodes,   came me the thinking  that such a thing was used .

But I could very well be wrong all together .

[Tails]

Skip bombing on water -was- used, both with special bombs and without (B-25's vs IJN convoys), that has been proven.
Skip bombing against a tank is what I'm not sure of, but the theory is there for it to work.

[Charon]

I think the biggest issue on land would be having enough room to make the proper run in at the proper parameters (without hitting trees or small hills, or soft soil or any number of other hinderances with the bomb), then actually hitting a GV-sized trarget (much smaller than the side of a ship) with a bomb. Just dropping the bomb on the dammed thing seems like it's a lot easier.

[Delirium]

If you've ever seen the movie 'Empire of the Sun' there is a clip of P-51s skip bombing hangers near the end of the film.

I've never heard of land skip bombing myself, I always doubted the ability.

Adding skip bombing would be great, adding aerial bombs would be great too.

[simshell]

what is a aerial bomb and a aerial torpedo?


does the aerial bomb differ from the dumb bombs we use?