Bomber Guns

[Anaxogoras]

Edited to avoid skuzzy's wrath.   

[DOUG]

re: thundereggs point...we USED to have "set convergence" in hangar for buffs, just like fighters. Would be nice to have again     elfy

[Karnak]

Anyone know how many rounds per gun bombers actually carried on WWII missions? I swear from history accounts (books, documentary, etc.) the bombers only carried 100 rounds per gun. Obviously weight limitations were a factor and the crews could carry more if they wanted.

All aircraft in AH have historically documented ammunition totals.  AH is as reliable a source for that as any I have seen.

[BnZs]

Do you not see the ridiculousness of this statement? Your telling me and all here that the gunnery is better (i.e. more K/d ratio , steadier ect) from a mounted bomber gun position than from a fighter? You really do need to see a trainer.

Yes, the gunnery is steadier from a bomber flying along in auto-level than from a fighter, just as it is steadier from a field gun. This is pretty obvious, undisputed, and what this thread is about. A fighter's guns must be flown to whatever the desired point-of-aim is, which is much more challenging when it comes to pinpoint long-range shooting.
 

Ok, so which is it ? Bouncy nightmare or point and click easy? You seem to have trouble making up your mind here.

I was *clearly* using the comparison between gunning and flying with a worn-out joystick to illustrate the difference between aiming a fixed gun position and flying a forward mounted gun.

SooOOooo...hows your gunnery in a bombers gun position while in F3 view? ( see the silliness in this^ statement? )

Again, I'd like to see you try to hold formation from the gunners position..aint happening.

Umm...again do you know what the X key does in the game?



 

The best will locate us and wait until our most vulnerable time , which is when we are about to drop.

If game terms, if they wait 'till you are about to drop, then they have already waited too late for shooting down your bombers to be of any strategic value.

[blkmgc]

You clearly have no clue as to how a bomber mission with a squadron works and the correlation between keeping the formation together , getting steel on target ,and surviving the mission. Its not as easy as "typing x" or "using F3 mode". That may well work with the dweeby 5k hanger runs for a single bomber(which are easily defendable if folks werent worried about thier fighter kill score) , I couldn't say because I don't do those. Maybe you need to try it for a while to understand.

As an aside we have no otto in this game like others do , and believe me I'm not wanting it here. But in comparing it to their RL counterparts , the gunners did not have to fly the aircraft and drop bombs as well. All they had to do is keep eyes on contacts covering all of the fields of view from the available gunner positions 100% of the time. My opinion is that the balance here has been achieved.

[smoe]

If dive bombing becomes limited, please make the enemy gv labels show up at distances greater than 1.5k. I believe the game intentionally limits the viewing distance to give gv’s a chance to evade being seen and/or dive bombed.

I question the accuracy of modeling the game so enemy gv’s won’t show up until about 1.5k. When I’m flying a 30,000 feet in a commercial airliner I can see cars on the ground. I obviously can’t make out the model, but I can see they are cars. And yes military gv’s are camouflaged, but give a break, 1.5k?

An individual with 20/10 vision has a good probability of making out a pile dog doodoo at 1.5k. Of course it would have to be a relatively large pile of dog doodoo.

[guncrasher]

I question the accuracy of modeling the game so enemy gv’s won’t show up until about 1.5k. When I’m flying a 30,000 feet in a commercial airliner I can see cars on the ground. I obviously can’t make out the model, but I can see they are cars. And yes military gv’s are camouflaged, but give a break, 1.5k?

try flying at 30k and see a car standing in the middle of nowhere,  you wont see it.  U can see cars because you know where they are on the roads or on city streets but if they park somewhere else then u have no chance.

same for the pile of doodoo, you can find it if you look hard enought and long enough, but if you only have a few seconds, no way.

semp

[dashed]

The recoil ours have, in both fighters and bombs, is pretty much correct.  The rigidity of the mounting is way, way off.  Ours are absolutely rigid and in reality the only mountings that were close to that rigid were nose and engine mounts.  The wings flex and bomber fuselage mountings twist and bounce.  Problem is finding a way to model rigidity, computers are bad at it.

Didn't really mean recoil, meant bounce.  As far as model, you could randomize a cone of fire or something simple, but hit reading might get more complicated.

Dashe

[Jayhawk]

Umm...again do you know what the X key does in the game?

There is a confusion about formation here, we're talking this formation:



Now I'm sure you'd say this is an almost impossible formation to break through, with all those guns.  But it was all we could do to survive.  This formation got us to the objective and we successfully dropped most of our targets.  We ended up only returning 6 or 7 of those bombers (total not formations).

As for the F3 comment, yes it helps with SA but when was the last time you fired your guns from that position?

It's obvious from your comments you haven't spent much time flying bombers, so this sounds like a lot of whining because you haven't figured out how to attack bombers successfully yet.

[Lusche]

A fighter's guns must be flown to whatever the desired point-of-aim is, which is much more challenging when it comes to pinpoint long-range shooting.

But the buff gunner has to account not only for his targets movement, but also for the movement of his own bomber (and the resulting airstream) which is much less intuitive to adjust for,because the guns are pointing at ever-changing angles relative to the bombers own movement. Only when the fighter is insisting on attacking from 6 o clock, that's not much of an issue for the gunner. Also when the fighter is doing a slashing attack from the high 2-4 sectors, you also have few reference points on your actual turret position (and thus angle relative to the bombers movement) which makes aiming even more difficult.


And another point concerning long-range pinpoint shooting: Convergence.


picture provided by Fuzeman

As you can see, at long ranges there isn't much advantage left in having a box of three bombers. Two of them will always just hit thin air.

[BnZs]

.


And another point concerning long-range pinpoint shooting: Convergence.

(Image removed from quote.)
picture provided by Fuzeman

As you can see, at long ranges there isn't much advantage left in having a box of three bombers. Two of them will always just hit thin air.

And there will also be a broad area of sweetspot where, while the guns are not all hitting the same spot (which is over-kill anyway) it will make a pattern large enough that it is virtually impossible to miss.

I think things would be reasonable if fire only came from the selected gun positions in the formations. (3 tailguns, 3 ball-turrets) etc. OR, if all positions fired from a bomber but there was only one bomber (no formations). Having both is overkill. The defensive capabilities are too much combined with the strategic power it gives one individual player and hurt gameplay. I'd prefer free perk planes to the buff system we have in the MA currently, because at least it is impossible for one guy in a Tempest to completely shut down defense at a base.

[BnZs]

There is a confusion about formation here, we're talking this formation:
(Image removed from quote.)


Now I'm sure you'd say this is an almost impossible formation to break through, with all those guns.  But it was all we could do to survive.  This formation got us to the objective and we successfully dropped most of our targets.  We ended up only returning 6 or 7 of those bombers (total not formations).

I speak more of the effects of bombers in the MA than Special Events (although I have been glad to see them get away from using the 3-vic in FSO*, despite the fact that it forces more people to fly bombers every event.). ...When you say you got to the objective and dropped your targets, that is all that counts in MA play. All some super-patient "buff hunter" who has taken the time to climb to 22K accomplishes by taking the formation out after that is getting the buff flier back up sooner.


*I have seen it occur in FSO where the escorts were absolutely slaughtered or put to flight by the intercepting fighters, at which point the "escorts" fled through the protection of the buff gunners, at which point said gunners managed to wreak a havoc amongst the fighters that the escorts never managed

[Jayhawk]

When you say you got to the objective and dropped your targets, that is all that counts in MA play. All some super-patient "buff hunter" who has taken the time to climb to 22K accomplishes by taking the formation out after that is getting the buff flier back up sooner.

Well except for the fun of attacking bombers, that counts for something.  I don't think it takes a super-patient guy to get up to alt with the buffs either, well as long as you don't plan on engaging them in lancs or something.    If a few of those planes had lifted up a couple minutes before they could have brought havoc on us dropping targets.  All it takes is keeping one hanger up and our mission (besides the simple enjoyment) is pointless.  We were showing a full dar for at least 100 miles before the target, wouldn't be hard to find us.

I guess the difference is how we see gameplay.  But I'm not quite sure what you like, just dogfights?  Is your overall point that bombers are too hard to take down?

[BnZs]

I guess the difference is how we see gameplay.  But I'm not quite sure what you like, just dogfights?  Is your overall point that bombers are too hard to take down?

Yes, I think for MA play they are too hard to take down *in time* vs. the power they put in an individual player's hands. The most lethal fighter plane, the best tank, etc, whatever else you wish to name, does not give an individual player the ability to render a base defenseless. Which IMO, is not only no fun for the defenders, but also no fun for the attackers!

And surely the fact that their defensive lethality at times seems to render escort superfulous, and indeed *fighters* have been known to use the bombers for protection, must give you pause.

[Karnak]

Yes, I think for MA play they are too hard to take down *in time* vs. the power they put in an individual player's hands. The most lethal fighter plane, the best tank, etc, whatever else you wish to name, does not give an individual player the ability to render a base defenseless. Which IMO, is not only no fun for the defenders, but also no fun for the attackers!

And surely the fact that their defensive lethality at times seems to render escort superfulous, and indeed *fighters* have been known to use the bombers for protection, must give you pause.

And yet they somehow only manage to get the K/D ratios that were had in reality.  Amazing how much better AH fighter pilots must be than AH bomber pilots.