Incendiary rounds, even though they have very little explosive (if any at all) should still have a blast effect. And in the case of MK 108 incendiary, produce large heavy fragmentation that gets sent forward (this is despite the fact that it uses the exact same body as the thin walled mineshell). In fact during the tests against Halifaxes and Lancasters, the incendiary was found to deal strong structural damage to the wings, sometimes lethal in one hit.
But in game it can’t even pierce the skin of those same bombers.
Yeah well incendiary has been useless forever, probably partly if not mostly because it is included in the stock belts of many planes. That way inefficient incendiary including stock belts incentivises people to spend GE to buy better belts.
Don’t know how valid it is to use that as a reason to keep it performing ahistorically at this point in the games lifecycle, as the RP requirements for unlocking modifications at prop tiers are quite low and new belts are easier to unlock than in the past.
The biggest problem I’ve been seeing is me watching a bomber falling to the ground after I make a pass, and my team just comes and steals the kill ngl.
Edit: the best preforming / most spammed bomber I keep seeing is the G8N1 which seems a bit tankier than the rest from what I’ve been seeing.
Yes the lack of severe damage, even after most/all engines have failed or control surfaces of one wing (+tail sometimes) are destroyed, is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed.
Edit:
Yeah it seems pretty popular, could also be the defensive armament contributing to the popularity.
I mean what definitely annoys me is the 1 shot 1 taps from the precision aim off the G8N. (Just so happens to be pc users)
What annoys me more is how different the control schemes are between m&K and controller, they are so far apart in air it’s not even funny.
(It honestly makes me want to vomit it’s so bad)
This setting is off, and no you cannot move the plane while in the gunner aim.
Meaning… and I don’t want to expose this… but apparently controller users are just free kills that are forced to fly straight despite their settings while using gunnery.
I read elsewhere that Gaijin somehow managed to apply a blanket change that gave bombers about 10mm of steel armour, rendering pure HE useless because it simply explodes on their surface, resulting in 0 fragment or blast penetration - this is why they absorb missiles. That would definitely explain what I’ve seen.
The wings and fuselage of bombers are big, empty spaces with nothing to damage except the fuel tanks (which barely even spread fires to the rest of the aircraft), individual control lines or crew, so you have to hunt those down individually with AP.
Now, the only reliable way to kill bombers (in under several minutes) is by sniping their pilots. And Browning .50-cal. MGs, because they have high kinetic energy and AP, are outperforming everything else including (and especially) the rounds that were designed to kill bombers in the first place - like German mine shells.
These changes to armour were also wrongly applied to attack aircraft like the Soviet Su-8 and TIS-MA, which have quickly become the bane of ground battles. Bombers are probably less accurate now than they have ever been in the history of this game. They can simply camp and gunship airfields like AC-130s, ignore AA, and swat or chase down fighters. Not just BR ranges, but entire game modes have been kneecapped by this absurdity.
These catastrophic changes should never, ever have hit the live server. The sheer incompetence of this “rebalance” staggers the mind. It’s frankly beyond words that aren’t ban-worthy, so I’m going to leave before I utter them.
I built a custom test mission to see how bombs interact with aircraft in mid-air.
A B-17 was used as the target, with bombs dropped from very short range under controlled conditions. Both aircraft guns were disabled.
The bombs physically collide with aircraft, but they do not detonate on contact.
60 kg bombs usually bounce off, sometimes causing minor local damage.
800 kg bombs can break wings or even the fuselage by impact alone.
Multiple hits from a B-29 bomb drop can physically damage several parts of the aircraft.
Some behavior looked possibly unintended. In some cases, an 800 kg bomb could pass partly through the wing, remain on the aircraft after impact, slide backward along the wing, and end up hanging from it without exploding.
