Changes to Bomber Survivability

They are not infinite, least on in RB.

How many spare ammo do they have then, they can reload for 30 minutes straight.

Where can I find info about spare ammo?

Depends on the bomber to find out just look at the gunner ammo amount on the stat card of each bomber.
For example…
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It would be too nice to actually see left ammo amount on bombers. ( in game)
some bombers show ammo amount, but most of them not.
Least on 288C, il28 etc what i played in the past, there was numerous times, when gunner ran out of ammo.
But here’s example of BEAR, you can shoot quite a bit amount before running out.
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Can I make a suggestion to show how much ammo left in flight? I completely and sincerely agree that bombers have limited ammo for gunners, I just want more clearly understand how much it left.

Yeah if one doesn’t exits already please feel free to make a suggestion.
Some useful steps to follow.

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Here’s the shots on the leading edge of two Lancaster wings.

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  1. Two HE projectiles were tested . The damage was lethal aerodynamically, but not structurally. The entire leading edge of the wing, as well as the upper and lower skins forward of the front spar, were destroyed over a 2.5-meter area. A 25x15 cm hole was formed in the forward wall of the spar. Numerous fragments penetrated the fuel tanks. The fuel line, engine control wiring, and power cables forward of the front spar were either completely or partially severed.

There has been no vote. He created a hypothetical scenario and said people voted no.

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I’m a bit confused by this infinite / not infinite… I always thought it was infinite (in AirRB)

I’ve done 5+ reloads on the Pe-2 in the one fly-out for the rear gunners in Air RB, and it didn’t look like stopping.
In Sim it does – limited to the one lot of shooting and no reloading.

Maybe it varies with plane?

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For players whose brain cells are actually functioning, they switch from fighters to bombers and use manual gunners to send fighter players back to the hangar.

I will try lower BR bombers like TB-3 and Sunderland later but, I can see what’s going on…

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Try P. 108, see how the current fix radius sphere multi-turret system works for a manual gunner.

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The ammo is not infinite I don’t know where this is coming from but please look at the post I made about large ammo counts on some bombers

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So it work like the API are better in performance, as currently the API with penetration over 25 mm is the only one that can deal damage. Currently 12.7 API-T has better performance than 20 mm HEI-T

Well, for Sb-2M the ammo count is not large, it says 3420 in its card. Especially considering its turrets’s ROF of 1800 per minute. Should be enough for 2 minutes of constant fire or 4 minutes of fire with cooling down.

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The large ammo count bombers may be limited? That’s why I said it may vary by plane.

The Pe-2 definitely reloads, multiple times (in a random battle), while in Sim they do not.

Just did a test flight with the limited ammo option turned on (and realistic mode) and the gunners continually reload (while the main guns and bombs do not). I assume this should be the same as a random battle.

(The pe-2 only has 200 or 230 ammo count for it’s two rear guns, so it doesn’t take long to get the “gunner reloading” message)

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And we can all test it and agree that it is true and SB-2M has ammo for 5 minutes of shooting and no more. And I agree with that as well, obviously.

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Is the Breda 50cals works fine?

For me, that’s the most important thing, since it determines whether I can send the interceptor back to the hangar.

Unless something has changed in the last 12 hours I have always had my gunners reload once they have spent their ammo in ARB and SIM and once they have run out of ammo they can’t reload anymore I don’t play arcade but everything can reload in that game mode IIRC.
My OG post was to clear up this false information that bombers have Unlimited ammo.

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I tried intercepting bombers with Pe-3, Yak-9K and I-225. It was cool, despite me being a notoriously bad player. With Pe-3 and I-225 I shoot down a couple of bombers, did not crash even a single time.

With Yak-9K, well, I hit some bombers but my aim is very bad, so, I was shot by them like two times.

For me it was more fun than before the update, even tho I have less efficiency now.

Penetration over 25 mm, so no as I remember correctly.

In the document the British state that, with self-sealing fuel tanks, the fragment penetrations on the fuel tank itself would likely seal back up. However it is important to note this was not a direct hit on the fuel tanks, it was a hit on the leading edge of the wing, which then blasted a hole through the front box structure of the spar, and created fragments that penetrated into the fuel tanks.

However as pointed out in the highlights, this is of little importance. The plane is effectively dead because the aerodynamics of the wings are too badly compromised (lethal aerodynamically).

When it comes to structural lethality, it seems the incendiary round was far superior. A hit to the fuel tanks almost certainly created a fire, and the incendiary round itself has a strong high explosive effect that could destroy the structure of the plane, however they have less aerodynamic damage.

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For example, shooting at the center sections of the wings where fuel tanks and controls are located from behind. With HE projectiles the damage tends to be aerodynamic while with the incendiary ones it is structural.

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Additional figures

If you look on the previously posted table, the figure number is the value to the very right.
Unfortunately the blog post I found these images on only contains the HE rounds.

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The British tests also note that shooting 30mm mineshells at the fuselage can generally be survivable. This case is with a Stirling fuselage.

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However in general hits to the wings tend to have a high probability of lethal damage even single digits of shots.

HE and HE/T are ineffective at causing lethal damage when fired at the fuselage of four-engine heavy bombers like the Stirling and Halifax , but can cause serious aerodynamic damage to the wings of Halifax and Lancaster bombers. Based on the firepower, a lethal hit from 2-3 HE (HE/T) rounds would be sufficient. Similarly, to cause lethal structural damage to the wings, approximately 3 incendiary rounds would be required (not including fuel tank fires).

TL;DR: fuselage tankiness is fine, but wings struggle to tolerate punishment.

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