Changes to Bomber Survivability Feedback and Discussion

Missions in each map ? Some are ground pount ? What?
Are we playing the same game ? Apart from Tunisia, at the moment, the most reliable way to win is to kill every plane in the ennemy team. There are no map where covering planes are a win condition (actually there’s one map but it’s not even a win condition it’s just a way to bleed like half the tickets in the other team). In it’s current state, AirRB is a pvp gamemode. The important targets are the targets than can win the match if left alone. A bomber today cannot win a match unless you leave it do it’s thing for an hour (a match is only 25mins long so it’s not a win condition). The only moment bombers are a win condition is when the map is badly designed and killing every ground target doesnt give you the ticket advantage (Tunisia if I remember properly).

And no I can’t just not play because there are no other game like War Thunder which is why I care about the PVP aspect of the gamemode and of the game. It’s a one of a kind game and that’s why I dont want them to ruin the game.

“Ruin the game” To you, and all the guys saying “bombers are too durable” right now, heres me killing them in single passes with .50s, 20s and 30s, 37-45, and a bonus clip of how quickly a mk108 saws off a wing, and also demonstrating the most effective ways for each caliber group to kill said bombers. If a few extra shots/neurons in use to aim ruins the game for you, well that just sounds like a skill issue

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image
It’s actually this lmao

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POV what fighter mains see when the bomber takes 6 mk108s instead of 2

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The source of 5 30mm hits to take down a bomber was a british test, and was against the wing of a BLENHEIM MARK 4. Britains first attempt at an all metal bomber, A tiny plane, 2 feet longer and wider than a mosquito, less than half the wingspan of a b17, and 1/4th the empty weight. A bomber with almost 4 times the surface area of wing, whilst physically being made of a stronger design whilst being much larger is going to be able to take way more than 3-5 30mm mine shells.

No it wasn’t. You are simply wrong.

The British test on the Blenheim showed that it only took 1-2 rounds to inflict lethal damage on it.

This is from USAF Study that I have already cited. Germany developed 50mm aircraft cannon specifically for the ability to 1 shot heavy bombers, and specifically by attacking the fuselage.

In game the B-17 can tank multiple 50mm rounds when fired from rear aspect.

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Tech. Note No. Arm.440 / O.R.S. F.T.377 — Operational Research Section firing trial. British, SECRET. They took captured German 30 mm H.E. (MK 108 Minengeschoss) with fuze AZ.1587 and shot a parked aircraft wing. Same family as the Blenheim Mk IV. Funnily enough earlier pages of this very report also show the results of 20mm hispanoes which you yourself actually posted

Italian Breda-Safat 12.7mm HMGs have a HEF round with 0.6g of HE filler and just over 1g of TNTe. Theoretically the Japanese 7.7mm should also have even smaller filler in their IAI rounds but it’s not listed in game as having HE filler so I’m not counting it as having filler.

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“1 shot heavy bombers” These things tank 88mm flak rounds yet cant take a 50, I see round 5 and 6 on that blenheim sheet of straight 30mm mine shell on this tiny early chuddy little plane

Yes that was the explicit in the development of 55mm (and eventually 50mm) aircraft cannons. The whole point was that a single large mine-round would bring down a 4 engine bomber.

Meanwhile the very realistic damage model on the Dev Server.

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That is a hypothetical report theorizing how much HE filler would it take to down a B17.

According to ACTUAL operational reports from II./ZG 26’s Me 410s with BK 5 50mm guns. Operational write-ups of the gun are sour: handbook said 900 m effective, combat was more like 500 m, the telescopic sight was useless in a turning fight, and “the destructive power … left much to be desired.”

1944 We had an ME410 with a Bk5 50mm breaking off from a B17G, It landed a shell on the outer wing, it didnt break off, you can See the hole

1945, Me 163 SG 500 Jägerfaust (upward 50 mm recoilless) vs Lancaster, Hits, PLURAL, blew off the rear turret and starboard rudder, smashed the port rudder and elevators. The plane dropped 4000 feet before regaining control and making it home. Your 50mm gun was a beast in theory, but irl it yielded much worse, and ingame the holes its making looks pretty similar to the hole in that picture, kudos to gaijin for that

And then you have BRL Memorandum Report 462 (May 1947) — Herbert K. Weiss and Arthur Stein, Ballistic Research Laboratories, Aberdeen. Studying the percentage change of a hit killing different airframes. Two types, A kill, immediate death, and B kill, attrition, aka oil loss and whatnot, theyve got P47s and B25s on this report, and they found ~10 MK 108 hits to get >53% of getting an A-kill on a B25. Funnily enough 10 US M4 37mm round scored 63%, and 20mm M96/97 HE was all the way down at 6% for 10 hits, while a .50 cal was 0.5% for 10 hits. all shot from 13 degrees up and 20 degrees off from behind. And this is a B25, smaller, no spar box like a B17, or 4 engine trusses.

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one flew home after a plane slammed into its ftail brw

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one flew home after it rammed a 109 corpse too in the nose lmao

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It is not a hypothetical report though? It is an actual report and from USAF Study. The Germans were just as capable of test-firing their cannons against targets as the British and American’s were.

Operational use of the 50mm guns may have been disapointing for a wide variety of factors; for instance in the picture you showed it is very likely that the shell did not fuse. Or that the hole in the wing is not even from a 50mm to begin with considering it is coming up from below the wing.

The 4-5 rounds of 30mm to bring down a 4 engine bomber are right there in black and white.

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lmfao

Heres my black and white picture of 10 rounds only resulting in a about 9 ish percent chance of a structural kill on a twin engined B25 bomber. More fragile than a B17, By the US in 1947
The biggest threat was fuel! And even with everything combined its just 53 percent from 10 hits. Now “B” kill is much higher, but B kill is a mission kill, a slow death. Not a bomber falling apart war thunder style.

Yes I am familiar with this study. This is statistical probability with hits randomly dispersed; not from slamming 4-5 shells into the same area.

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You were familiar with such a crucial piece of information yet withheld it for your own gain in your biased fighter centric viewpoint, funny

It should also be noted that this study is also a statistical outlier from pretty much every other study.
At the time the USAF was heavily lobbying for a hyper-velocity 60 caliber machine gun. It should be noted that even they eventually went with larger 20mm and most other countries standardized around calibers even larger than that.

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Here’s one of your 50mm rounds hitting in the hangar, dude, that crippled it anyway, and with like another 1-2 rounds that tail is coming off entirely., also I achieved a single pass kill with a yak 9k’s 45mm in my video with a few solid hits to the empenage with rounds that have 1/5th of the HE filler of your 50, I think its just a skill issue seeing you placing your shots to the vertical stab, aft of the cockpit, one or two spread out on each wing, its like you’re deliberately aiming on non critical areas to sell your own view of this argument