In our defence (ASB):
In what world is it realistic for an ostwind or their ilk to be driving at ~35-45 km/h on rocky, hilly lumpy terrain…
See a plane flying past at 2.5-3 km altitude at 450-600 km/h.
And shoot it out of the sky (defined as oil leak, severe engine damage) the moment the convoy finally renders?
In ASB, unless you have guided munitions convoy SPAA is impossible to engage - making the objective impossible to complete at WW2 brackets where you’d be using dive bombing and IL-2 and rocket strafing to engage such objectives.
This makes the objective impossible to complete, causing it to become a ticket RNG and limiting gameplay space to only engaging with A.I bomber objectives, air superiority objectives and battlefield tank battles.
Ideally, the ASB convoy SPAA would be coded to require proper real life tactical bombing methods.
This would be:
- Fly at ~400-500 km/h at 1.5 to 2 km altitude depending on aircraft.
- Line up the convoy with inner 1/3 of your wing
- Turn onto the convoy once lined up.
- Initiate 70 to 90 degree dive, accelerate to 550-600 km/h (faster - the more accurate, but harder to pull out in time).
- Release bomb at ~500-900 meter altitude depending on your aircraft
- Pull out into a flat extension to get out of the flak/AAA cone asap
- Begin climbing.
This is the prescribed, proven and true WW2 dive bombing method for dumb bombs. See Spitfire manual by the air ministry that I’m sure I had had linked earlier. For rocket strafes, the angle of dive can be reduced to 60 degrees (as discussed for P-47 and P-51 at least).
Of course this should still carry risk - but the convoy should either stop to be able to hit you or only have a window for doing under 800 meters to the SPAA in question to encourage optimal angles, speeds and extension methods, and definitely not what we have right now where it snipes you mid air at 2-3 km away at 2-3 km altitude without warning the moment it renders in.
It also requires convoys to finally render at a proper distance and not randomly disappear. While trying to practice proper dive bombing procedure in customs, mission editor and test flight, I’d regularly witnessed my target tanks and SPAA to literally phase out of reality as I circled at 2 km altitude and I was using Tunisia to ensure maximum visibility against the desert sand.
In that vein,
@Pangolin_Fan At WW2 brackets, you should heed the above dive-bombing strategy if you think SPAA are overpowered. Gun SPAA is not gonna be able to hit a small fighter-bomber at 1.5-2km altitude and will have a terrible time catching you during that short dive bombing section.
The British and germans and americans did this kind of tactical bombing for a reason. Especially the germans, they hyper-optimized it with their stuka.
Of course, graphical settings must be optimized for spotting from such high up, which is a lament I can concede towards because I really hate how rendering in this game often forces you to use really ugly post-fx settings just to be able to spot enemies in SB.