Bombing is terrible. Fighter is the only viable playstyle in ARB and it’s stale. Now bombers shouldn’t be gunships but at the same time, .50’s should not rip a B29, G8N1 or Halifax’s tail off.
First order of business: fix the bomber damage models.
Second: rework the base system - 3 bases then bombing the airfield used to be great, destroying the airfield used to be super rare, but fun - it gave single, large-yield bombs like the FAB-5000 or the 12,000lb’er an actual purpose in ARB. I’ve hated the four-base system since it was implemented years and years ago, and now 90% of matches have them.
Third: consider an overall BR-review for bomber aircraft. Some of them are at heinous battle ratings - Tu-4 at 8.0 faces radar missiles lol. Insanity. (BR decompression would also help…)
fourth: jet bombers/strike aircraft in higher-tiers get a dedicated airspawn. Even the B-57/Canberra with their airspawn struggles to do anything more than drop half a bombload before being dogpiled on, yet many ground strike aircraft/bombers spawn on the airfield - Jaguar/Buccaneer as British examples. Seriously, Buccaneer getting a ground spawn is criminal; this thing barely gets off the runway and every base has been taken by fighters or Harrier’s before you get halfway into the battle, at which point you’re a sitting duck.
So many bombers become a case of ‘suicide into the battle until you unlock the best bombs, then never play them in ARB again’, it feels insanely corny for a game that prides itself on being a somewhat-realistic sim.
EC ARB would also be amazing, but we can keep praying.