Never Gonna Attack a Buff Agian.`

[gatt]

TBM and Ju88 gunners are very dangerous. TBM can turn like a Spitfire and fire at the same time, quite strange indeed   I saw a TBM firing while diving at 80deg and pulling up like a fighter.
I like buff hunting but yes, sometime is very annoying to be fired at from d1,2-d1,4 (depends on net-lag) with deflection.
The best way, imho, is coming down and make 2-3 passages, or coming down from high-6 and blow his tail-wings off.
Sometimes I attack from low, d1,2, zooming just into their belly, but its difficult and very dangerous, you end the maneuver just in front of their tail-gunner.
Best moment is just a little before drop, when he is aiming and doing adjustments (you can see it from those nice little rolls  )

[CavemanJ]

Tell ya what LLBM
catch me one evening when the gangbang is in full swing (or when I'm not on ops for that matter) and we can fire up an H2H game and turn all the guns down to thier minimum lethality and teach ya how to track in on the various buffs.

Buff killing isn't like fighter killing, you can't just pull a fancy move, pull the trigger, and get instant gratification.  It requires patience and finesse.  Done right it's a little time consuming and slow, but you walk away w/o a scratch.  Done in a hurry and.. well... they're notifying your next of kin

[texace]

Y'all always come here complaining about super guns on buffs. You want to know a good answer? Don't let the gunner get a good clean shot at you. No matter where you come in on him, if you're in a shallow turn or straight in, he'll kill you, simple as that. Jink, weave, bob, do whatever it takes, but don't give him a clean shot. If you can sneak up on him and light him up, good. But if he sees you, don't let him kill you. Get high above and in front of him, after you've passed him a good amount, turn to him and stay above him. Get your nose down a tad, and keep him below the nose. Roll on your back, then pull back a bit and light him up. Keep doing it till he dies. Otto would be able to follow you and kill you.

So, just don't give him a clean shot at you.

------------------
Lt. Col. Aaron "txace-" Giles of the 457th BG
    "Fait Accompli"

[janjan]

I have a feeling that buff guns dispersion were treated just the same as the fiters i.e. went to weighted dispersion.

IMO buff guns should have a lot dispersion to make it more realistic and to result something like hitting engine oil, wounding pilot etc...but not to saw wing off.

[xela]

Buff hardnes in this version is not the same anymore.. f4uc adjusted it seems  

[tshred]

Wow LL! I have had just the opposite experience with AH buffs, 'cept the B26. I used to die all the time trying to kill the 'otto' in WB and gave up in frustation there myself. Here in AH tho the only one that gives me fits is the B26 when they are up to speed! Hard to make a high speed pass when they are hauling bellybutton as well, for me anyway.

Keep the speed up and attack from a couple thousand above them, trying to be in front of their flight path before starting run and make a vertical pass. Works for me. Nice hi speed arcing pass hard for them to get tracking shot from top turret. Hi speed lateral passes work quite well also, but usually takes me at least 2 or 3 passes doing that. Just make sure your speed is up. And like mentioned above, the Lanc doesn't have a bottom gun, and the only one with real puch on it is the tail .50 cals, the .303's don't seem to be to much to deal with. My experience anyway.

ts

[straffo]

The key are : speed (around 350) the alt come frome the forward quarter and aim the root of the wing.
Il all the ingredient are here it should go without trouble.

[Karnak]

Bombers are popcorn.

I have never had one survive a single pass from me, unless he killed me before I could kill him.  If I take my time to set up my attack I have NEVER failed to kill the bomber and live to land.

My kill death ratio against bombers is VERY heavily on my side.

You guys just need to learn how to attack bombers.

------------------
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother

Sisu
-Karnak

[Hangtime]

I think the playablity as it is now regarding the relative lethalitys of buffs vs fighters is just fine.

I've done a lotta both.. killin buffs and gunning from 'em. Every tango is a toss up.. the edge goes to the buff on rear attacks; the edge to the fighter on highside frontal attacks.

Yah pays yer money; yah takes yer chance.

 

Hang
1st/AG "Bishlanders"



[This message has been edited by Hangtime (edited 01-15-2001).]

[MrSiD]

Tac, the Ack IS accurate to 20k now..

Was flying h2h yesterday, couldn't get closer than 20k to field without missing a wing.. Downright deadly, first salvo - first hit and down the blackout evasive manouvering dogfighting yak goes from heavy aa fire..

In an arena with close enemy field I died every time I looped up in a dogfight.
Total of the arena: fighter kills 3
                    flak kills    6

It got to the point where I had to logoff and wait untill an arena with NO nearby enemy fields was available.. I don't even want to think about taking a field in Main..
Then again, the ack might be tuned down there. This new feature was introduced with the latest 1.05 patch and I've hated it.. It made no difference to my framerates, now I only get buggered by ack and my own gun leathality seems to vary from 0% to 100%..

Yesterday I spent my night pinging people with 3x20mm from straight 6 shot at 200 yard distance.. saw many flashes but not even flaps missing from planes. Frustrating, especially when I lost at least a wing every time I was pinged.. tail section, wing, pilot kill.. not even once I lost only a flap or aileron. Something has gone seriously wrong.

- MrSiD

[TheWobble]

It is a simple matter of getting yourself mentally prepared to attack the buff, what I always do is try to imagine the other guy in his under where...so to help you guys out whenever you feel intimidated by a buff just picture this guy as the gunner that is shooting at you.


 

[This message has been edited by TheWobble (edited 01-15-2001).]

[AKSeaWulfe]

Wobble :-) Best post you've ever made, brought a smile to my face.

Although, looks like that guy is doing more than sitting there in his super sized diaper. Look at the expression on his face, appears to be an "Oh sh*t" expression. If that's the gunners I had to face, they'd be too busy trying to get that warm mess out of their extra large diapers to shoot at me and I'd have a free kill. Then again, if you got close enough to see a poor fella like that sitting in his tail turret looking at ya like that, I think I'd spin out laughing so hard and auger in myself. :-)

Works both ways I guess. Imagine him in his under wear, but if it's too damned funny, you're screwed. ;-)
-SW

[-duma-]

I was going to give a detailed account of playbalance, representation of the effectiveness of large bomber formations, and the greater use of JABO since beta, but since HTC has stated in the past they won't change the buff guns I'll say only this.

MY B26 OWNZ J00 ALL! PHEAR THE FORWARD 5 .50s!



Can't wait till the F4U-1C is perked; the B-26 reign of terror begins!

Buff attacks are easy if you have patience (or a P38. Ever seen that episode of Star Trek TNG set with that Enterprise with the HUGE phaser that cuts through hulls? That's the P38 vs buffs   ). Every idiot does dead 6 attacks - I've news for you, this was considered suicidal in real life too. Deal with it!

[Bluedog]

G'day all.

Just as an experiment, try this...

grab any one of the AH bombers offline, set the time to 12 o'clock, and while in level flight, jump in all the turrets and see if you can get the gunsight to centre on the sun.

Ya never know...ya might learn somethin'  
<S> Blue

[Suave1]

Actually most b17s that were shot down were shot down by planes coming up their six. The trick was to kill the tail gunner first, but gunners in AH are harder to kill than ammo bunkers and ammo bunkers don't shoot back. Yes the gerris allways tried to make the initial pass from 12oc high and break up the formation. But after that it was very difficult to regroup and time consuming to get in front of the bomber stream again . Compare how many gun cam films you,ve seen of b17s being shot down from head on to how many you've seen being shot up from the 6oc position .

I've been told that 50cals on buffs are no more powerfull than those on fighter planes . But how many times have we all killed fighter planes with 0.5 seconds of buff gunner fire . Furthermore you can fire a pistol freehand from an aircraft with more accuracy than you can fire a non-shoulderfired machine gun that is mounted onto a vibrating , moving aircraft .

[This message has been edited by Suave1 (edited 01-15-2001).]