In your world.
I never suggested that. I was making a point that it never is just 1 single 20mm or 30mm. And from my experience it takes alot of 50cal rounds and below before my tail gets critically damaged.
There is 1 aspect to the physics model that is entirely overblown and unrealistic and it’s for all aircraft including bombers. Form/parasite drag multipliers dependent on damage produced is far in excess to irl. Irl a bomber like a Lancaster or B-24 could lose 2-3 engines and aslong as you trim right even with bad damage to the fuselages you could still fly the airframe back to base with enough height and management of the engine.
Meanwhile ingame you get a yellow/red wing with 1 engine dead and suddely you have equivilant of parachutes attached to the wing at any speed.
For now the only issues seem to be drag coefficient multipliers being too high for most damage states and not enough segments for realistic damage shared across the body rather than the amount we see currently that seems to follow a similar number limitation to samage segments as a fighter does.
I don’t think any of these ranges should be a realistic engagement range for either bombers or fighters.
Flexible mounted guns are inherently more inaccurate than rigid mounted guns.
So fighters will generally out range bombers but bombers also take a lot more punishment,
which would make it difficult to deal lethal damage over range, considering accuracy and aiming errors.
Of course airplane damage is all over the place and makes no sense in the slightest.
Engaging bombers should either mean spending a lot of ammunition and time or risking being damaged and subsequently being an easy target for other fighters.
Man i hope that leak saying bombers are getting a rework is real
Ju288 uses speed to survive something like 99% of bombers cant at their respective BR.
The biggest travesty for bombers is the fact that the more bombs you bring the less rp/sl you get for bases and ground kills. So bringing more bombs than is needed to kill a single base is not ideal in almost all circumstances. Bringing enough bombs for 2 bases barely nets you more rp/sl than bringing enough for 1 with rhe massive downside of having to kill 2 bases, if you only kill 1 base with a 2 base loadout you get like half the rp you would only bringing enough bombs for 1.
Combine that with napalm buffs and the best bombers on the game arent even bombers but any fighter that can carry 1000kg of napalm.
And then you have the problem of 5 minute base respawns now and people STILL not understanding the above and bringing more than enough to kill a single base and going for multiple and its a shitshow.
I sometimes play bombers and always have 1 in my lineup. When the situation is good and not 12 Ki 44s or B7A2s 4-6 km in the air gives me a chance to bomb their bases. I have a replay which shows a PERFECT demonstartion for this. But your point is spot on, not only are gunners pretty useless unless your aim is perfect. The second you realize that a fighter is coming for you from even 3-5 km away even if you’re at 6km in the air, you cannot do shit. You cannot climb, dive, fightback, dodge AT ALL. Either someone should escort you(which is rarer than finding gold) or no one cares to kill you. Bombers must be buffed either by getting better AI gunners, making them tankier or somewhat reverting their state back to the old times. No many people realize bombers are key to ANY bombing objective and escorting is the best way to contribute
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If bombers had more of an impact on the game, they would probably get more escorts.
Perhaps reverting the respawning large bases back to 3 with more health, letting the airfield be destroyed (Not ending the game, just disabling full repair/rearming). And the addition of mini bases so bombers can still bomb along with fighters and attackers. (At least for tiers 1-6)
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Doubt. Most are interested first and foremost in getting kills and have actual combat engagement and bomber escort provides, essentially, same gameplay as regular bomber - sit and wait until you over target (someone actually comes at you) and then turn around and try to land to rearm/refuel (you’re free to go and get the scraps from furball)
Gaijin should rebuild the aircraft damage model system from the ground up. Rather then sectioning aircraft how about a grain model system where bullets fully interact with the aircraft and tears hole and stuff.
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https://youtube.com/shorts/elJnefmHatw?si=tjUSFZ8mFLZviiyZ
Tail would have snapped off in wt 2 seconds in.
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From my pov the keywords are “should” and “realistic”.
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Nobody is seriously expecting realism in Air AB or Air RB - too many compromises in order to make the game playable for a mass market.
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WT offers even in Air SB just their version of realism.
I mean your request makes somehow sense, but picking a specific aspect (like here engagement ranges) raises the question where to begin with realism and how far you want to go.
Examples?
- What about realistic gun convergence settings for fighters? If you look up actual values you might be surprised that the RAF fighters had a convergence of 250 yards (= 220 m) during the BoB.
- What about 3rd person view in gunner view - or whilst flying a fighter?
- What about realistic speeds of 4 engine bombers? If you look up actual cruising speeds during bomb runs: WT allows way too high speeds as there is no need for fuel for a 2-4 hour way back home.
- What about the minimum fuel nonsense wt is allowing - it creates flight and combat performances the aircraft never had irl.
- What about the way too low contrail altitudes? It is basically an invitation for any desperate fighter pilot to intercept a bomber…
- What about dropping bombs without LoS on targets / bases due to a solid cloud cover? Not all bombers were able to perform BTO missions…
- This list is endless…
You might agree that focusing on a certain / single aspect is DoA - just because every player will focus on his personal preferences and at the end of the day you might have a game nobody (in the sense of paying customers) wants to play…
I am not sure that your arguments are valid for reality and wt - which are still separate worlds.
I might agree with hand-held defensive MGs/HMGs, but as soon as we talk about a turret in which the gunner aims stabilized guns (=no recoil for the gunner) the bomber return fire has advantages vs a fighter with fixed guns. Not only because of range (look at actual irl combat ranges) - also because of the missing necessity to aim with the whole plane.
No matter from which angle you look at the issues:
- You play a plain (vehicle based) shooter
- Planes optimized for PvP will always beat PvE planes
- Gunning / aiming and damage output is catering PvP planes
- The damage model of most bombers is a joke
- Gaijin ignores this issue for years
Have a good one!
It’s crazy but just a single 23mm has the potential to break a B-17s wing.
In the past bombers required multiple 30mm Mineshell hits, or setting lethal fires.
Now you just aim at a bombers wings or tail and they fall off.
20mm explosive shells create a roughly head sized hole into a duraluminium skinned aircraft.
In WT a hit like that would have ripped off the vertical stabilizer:
Spoiler
While Christian Koll writes in “Soviet Cannon” about the damage effect of the 23mm HEFI shell:
So the shell creates a larger than head sized entrance hole while the hole is 3.7 times larger on the other side of the wing.
Of course he writes OZ and OZT, even though the OZ has much more explosive content, while the OZT has slightly more than a typical 20mm explosive shell.
The entrance damage isn’t much larger than the what we see from damage against B-24 bombers.
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This depends heavily on the bomber. B25s, B26s, Il-2s, Il-8s, Ju-288 can take some serious punishment. The b-26 kept flying for a decent while after this pass.
The reason its gunner didn’t hit me was because he was busy strafing the people taking off.
B17s explode from 50 cals to the belly (bomb explosion).
Well, you are using a single MG 151/20.
Structurally, Mineshells deal the least damage of explosive shells in WT, which is exactly the opposite of what should be happening.
They just deal damage in a wider area but that doesn’t help much against bombers.
It’s a also difficult to say how many 20mm rounds even connected since the MG 131 are mounted above them and you basically lead your close range shots with the 13mm Tracers.
On the other hand, one time, I shot off the wing of PB4Y-2 with a stock Bf 109 G-14 in a single pass, spending like 30 rounds.
But the structural weakness of bombers comes mainly from the realShatter implementation, and German shells don’t use realShatter at the moment, except maybe the 13mm IAI.
They are not bombers tho
Yes - bombers are fragile, but there are still some pilots out there able to overcome the various drawbacks and win matches in bombers.
I came out of 2 subsequent Air RB matches in which an actually skilled pilot scored 9 kills - and decided both matches in a plain BR 3.3 Rank II B-34.
Match #1 - 5 kills:
Gaijin Entertainment - Single Sign On
Match #2 - 4 kills:
Gaijin Entertainment - Single Sign On
To be fair - he used the B-34 as very heavy fighter and dropped his bombs right after spawning, but at the end of the day he killed 8 fighters and B7A2.
From a tactical perspective he fought with a mix of BnZ, turnfighting and excellent turret usage. Imho he got just once slightly damaged. And his opponents were mainly experienced fighter pilots in Spitfires.
So if you struggle vs more nimble fighters, watching the replays might be worth your time…
Some pilots can still overcome it when the bombers have capable armament for the BR, which is the case for 3.7 and lower. Above that bombers’ defensive ability is terrible.
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Maybe gaijin can give fighters a bonus for any enemy planes killed with a certain range of a bomber? Extra points for playing as an escourt. Possibly a 2km range around the bomber as the battle may stray away from the bomber before the kill is aquired
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It’s not just fragile but maps are a problem as well. WTF am I doing in the middle of the Pacific in a B-17 with no where to land. I mean seriously, you would think you would at least get theater correct maps or give you somewhere to land. If you are only going to provide aircraft carries then only aircraft suited should be in that map.
“B-17 Flying Fortress bombers in the Pacific Theater primarily flew from bases in Hawaii and Australia”