That actually lines up pretty well with my testing. HE gives more consistent cumulative damage, while APHE seems much more dependent on hitting the right internal structure.
The problem is that with something like the Ki-109, you have a slow-firing gun, limited ammunition, and you still need very precise hit placement while being shot at by defensive guns.
So yes, 75 mm can kill a bomber. My point is more that the amount of precision and luck currently required seems excessive for a weapon of that size.
I just had a sim match in my b17, with a squad of competent fighters on the enemy team, it was fun and challenging, I died 5 times, once to the 21cm rockets, once i got split in half by a 109Z, and a few other times it was me410s just absolutely obliterating my poor fortress, and even 3 way coordinated attacks
props to these guys for using their brains and being good sports lmao, it was fun fighting them
The main thing theyve mentioned in that match wasnt really to nerf bombers, but buff fighters, which honestly, valid, .50 cals clipping whole wings off is kinda… nah
Yes, I know you can still control the aircraft in gunner view. I meant that aiming the guns and maneuvering effectively at the same time is much harder.
Not sure if i get the contect correct here but i have the feeling that especially with bomber gunners theres a learning issue from the players… because they never needed to use them in the past years, they forgotten how to aim.
I dont have any trouple hitting and often quickly damaging/killing enemy fighters at over 1km while flying a turn so they dont shot my cockpit. Its just lack of expirience for many, and also bombers are usually played by low skill people… so thats also not helping…
As much as I’m enjoying the cope from the smug dishonest people, I do think this might be a bit overtuned. I’ve got bombers shrugging off bursts of R4Ms.
I made another custom mission to test how practical it is to score a pilot kill against a B-17 in a head-on attack.
To reduce the closing speed somewhat, the B-17 was set to fly at around 150 km/h, while I used an F8F-1 as the attacking aircraft.
The video only shows the successful attempts, so it should not be taken as an indication of the actual success rate.
The result is clear: if the shots hit the cockpit and kill the pilot, the B-17 can be brought down immediately.
However, even under these controlled conditions, the attack was quite difficult. The closing speed is still high, the firing window is very short, and in several attempts I either overshot the aiming point or ended up colliding with the aircraft, including the tail, after the pass.
This test confirms that pilot kills are highly effective, while also showing how demanding the required shot placement can be in an actual head-on engagement.
not sure how custom maps are created but i know that there used to be a option for wind, with that u where able to fly backwards… or stay still basically… maybe thats smt?
hi,
That might actually work. I was trying to reduce the closing speed without changing too many variables, so I just limited the B-17 to around 150 km/h.
Using strong wind could probably reduce the ground-relative closing speed even more, though it would also introduce another variable into the test.
hi,
That makes sense. I think we were looking at different parts of the testing. The rear-attack clips were mainly about how difficult it is to damage the aircraft structure, while the head-on test was specifically about pilot kills.
btw just an idea, maybe that helps even more with testing, but cant u just make a b-17 “sit at a watchtower” and modify a Heli to use the ammo u wanna test and do it that way? Not sure how much work that is but i guess for only testing stuff that would make it easier to reproduce findings
That does make sense, and I agree it would probably make the results easier to reproduce.
However, I think it is also important to test under conditions that are reasonably close to actual combat, using realistic aircraft, attack geometry, and ammunition. Otherwise it becomes easier to isolate the damage model itself, but harder to judge how practical the result is in an actual engagement.
Also, to be honest, I do not have the skill to build that kind of test environment yet, so please forgive me for keeping it a little simpler for now.
Jea totally get you, but i have the feeling that “testing” in a version like yours dosnt give the best results either, as a lot of variables are in stuff like crew, guns, ammo, random factor like spall or accuracy of a gun, and also having a bot as enemy that dosnt move and dosnt shoot back is kinda meh…
its like… ofc u can kill a KV-1E with a PzIII… but the second the KV-1E is moving + the latency of a real match…
That the bomber models are not optimizes is smt people have already found out :D Interesting would be whats the best way to counter it other then shoting SAPHE into their pilots
This was a good test, and even when you gave the actual engagement very optimal circumstances, your choice of plane was not that optimal. F8F has wing mounted guns so aiming precisely for cockpits becomes even harder in an actual game environment.
But even nose/centrally mounted weaponry loses reliability in pilot sniping in an actual match, with a human controlling the bomber. For now it seems people flying in bombers are under the impression they are indestructible and most dont do evasive maneuvers, or flight path corrections to make pilot snipes harder. And even then, straight headons aren’t always an easily achievable option, adding difficulty to pilot sniping.
And all of this is not accounting bombers having gunners that poae a serious threat to approaching figters. Making pilot sniping passes even more difficult, as you might need to evade the defensive firing from turrets WHILE ALSO trying to get a good pass at the bomber.
All these factors favor the bombers when looking at effort/result ratio.
That is actually part of the point of this test.
The conditions were intentionally favorable to the attacker: the B-17 was slow, did not evade, and did not fire back. I also only included successful attempts in the video.
So this is not meant to represent the success rate in a real match. It is closer to a best-case demonstration of how effective pilot sniping can be, and how precise the attack still needs to be even under those conditions.
