With the update the updated bomber model were implemented, what are your opinion on how they fare against different types weapons and different types of ammunition?
Seems fine to me. Now just buff fighter damage models to realistic levels and everyone will be happy.
Disclaimer, i have only tried from the fighter point of view, and not having played the bomber.
With the current implementation of the new bomber models, the bombers feels a bit too powerful against ammunition such as HE. They do need a more powerful damage model than is on the live server, however they currently feels too much of a damage sponge. For my little amount of testing i did, the most reliable way to take down a bomber is destroying its engine. I am not sure yet how much worse the flight model becomes when the aircraft gets damaged by hit by HE.
This feels especially the case against rounds such as smaller HE, with the B-17 being able to tank all the ammunition of a fighter, without taking major damage. The problem lies in that when trying to shoot at engines of the B-17, the HE detonates at the rear of the wing and do no damage.
This makes aircraft using mainly AP more powerful against bombers, compared to aircraft that rely on HE filler. Aircraft such as the US fighters relying on the AP of the .50cal M2, will be far better at taking down bombers than something like a Bf 109 using its 20mm with HE. With the AP passing through the wing into the engine.
In real life, a lot of nations went with cannons instead of machine guns, because they were able to have have the HE filler, so the HE round would hit the skin and detonate. With it, it would damage the skin of the aircraft and the airframe, instead of the AP passing right through it doing no damage.
At least they toned down your bombs detonating from a few 50 cal. That was one of the more annoying things
As it stands, the survivability is as close to soundly balanced as we can get without a more refined damage model. You can knock them out quite easily if you bother to aim, and if you don’t, you aren’t rewarded. 20mm HE from the Russians does fine, provided you aren’t striking from the rear of the wings. Control surfaces get stripped pretty rapidly even if you are, though, so it’s not exactly doing nothing to the bomber and can force it out of the sky, as is their intention. 262 cannon disables flight controls pretty rapidly, if it doesn’t just knock out an engine. Polkzerstorer too.
Not tested AP, but it’d make this even more effective.
So to be clear…
This is fine?
Or this?
And it’s footage of a wing requiring more shells to be shot off than would be enough to cut a BMP in half.
Two frame-like spars btw.
This fix to a problem is so boring that personally I’d gladly wait another couple of years for devs to separate tail and wing construction into separate modules instead of having 3 wing pieces and 1 tail piece like the fighters do (to make said modules separate damage sponges instead of big targets) with what seems to be similar amount of hp (talking about live servers rn).
Instead, those same 3 modules seem to get either ridiculous hp or ridiculous armor that makes HE shells useless (irl 5 shots of 30mm Minengeschoss were enough for a B-17 btw).
Even better, there’s already a mechanic in game (in test flight scenarios) that allows you to lead a couple of bots in the same plane, which could be implemented into our pvp to make strategic bombers: 1) make sense as a group bombing a strategic target instead of a single bomber destroying a camp site of 3 tents, and through that 2) increase bomber players’ survivability in a realistic and immersive way.
I’m a bomber main, but I don’t think any bombers should be able to survive these.
I don’t engage in air to air primarily, yet even I am able to knock down these bombers in a similar burst length to what you’re demonstrating here with the same aircraft. Just don’t fire into the densest part of the structure.
That is genuinely hilarious
So this damage level is fine then?
This is a Bf 109 F-4 using the Air Targets belt on the 20mm and Tracer belt on the 7,92mm. The machine guns are better nearly better at taking the bomber down than the 20mm.
I think they need to split the difference.
Reduce the resistance of each part a bit, but break the aircraft down into smaller parts so damage is more localised.
Might help make it feel less bullet spongy, whilst not making bombers feel like they are made of paper mache
the wings and engines where the most vulnerable parts of these bombers…
Which was what was suggested dozens of times at this point. It would be preferable to this, but even so, this is not exactly tedious to knock out of the air with anything vaguely resembling aim. Also find the aim 54 example dubious, it’s fusing well behind the target in my test drive setting, and air to air rockets with only 500g of filler knocked out b17 in a single rocket.
Wait you’re serious?
Personally I think the resistance overall of the structure could be toned down a little bit, anti-bombers gun can even struggle things like 30 mm MK 108 and 45 mm NS-45 are probably struggling to take down the targets they were designed to hunt down. In fact bombers in air battles could have a much more greater task for the amount of survivability they have at least for the moment. I’ve been playing some lower tier battles and most bombers feels like a bullet sponge to take down using .30-caliber (7.62 mm) and .50-caliber (12.7 mm) guns, and I can’t imagine the shore that it will turn out to be after this bomber survivability is implemented.
With that said, bombers should have their position in air battles reconsidered to something else, not removed but just changed. Being able to fly away from danger by climbing up and also being so much tankier, as it should be, but in the dynamics of War Thunder’s air battles it’s not fitting. On top of improving bomber’s survivability, Gaijin should rework air battles as a whole and give bombers a task to do. Maybe in air simulator battles bombers will function like the last nail to the coffin to be able to tank airfield anti-air defense battery but I don’t think that would be the same in air realistic battles and air arcade battles since airfield attacking was completely removed.
“Splitting the difference” means it only takes 500 rounds of 20mm to kill a bomber instead of 1000.
Comparison of the 20mm HEI (minengeschoß) of the dev vs live server in protection analysis:
From the look of it, the 20mm HEI of the MG151/20 does no damage to the B-17.
Honestly, currently if feels like an indirect buff to aircraft using mainly AP instead of HE, aircraft such as the US fighters with their .50 cal.
