Changes to Bomber Survivability

[AspectOfTheRAGE]

I was bored so I shot 8 Adats missiles into the same engine/wing on the IL-28 in test-drive.

aside from a obviously destroyed engine, it was pretty much completely fine.

Spoiler: Here's what a single ADATS missile does irl btw

QF-86, impact with live-warhead → Deleted the thing out of the sky.

Higher res pictures of the impact:

QF-86, impact with live-warhead → Separated the ENTIRE WING ASSEMBLY from the fuselage

QF-86, Direct impact on wing, Warhead: Training/Dummy (no filler)

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Wings’ and wing-fueltanks survivability are just absurdly overtuned, fragmentation of virtually every shell used on aircraft is insufficient to even pen the wing-fueltanks with fragments or deal damage via blast.

They also gave them what is essentially immunity against Blast-damage; as you need to deal 250 damage to EVEN QUALIFY for setting fires. 250 damage is round about 600g of TNTe btw, roughly a 75mm HE shell.

And wanna take a guess how high the fire-setting chance of a 75mm HE shell’s blast-damage is on a fuel-tank?

9%

What are we even doing man

Spoiler: This is 112g of HEXAL P30 against a 24l fuel-tank btw

And for any shells that have insufficient tnt filler to deal blast-damage (so virtually all of them), your only way of setting fires is through shrapnel.
Now take a wild guess what they also made fuel-tanks virtually immune against.

Right, shrapnel. (B-24)

2.0x armour quality against shrapnel (shatterArmorQuality) and also conveniently reduces the damage dealt by shrapnel by 85%.

Mk 108’s, along with almost ALL other 20mm, 25mm, 30mm, etc. HE-I or HEF-I shells have insufficient fragmentation penetration for this in the first place.

Even if you do, by some miracle (faceplanting yourself into the fuel-tank at 90° impact angle or sth) hit the fuel-tank with shrapnel, your fire-chance, at best, is roughly 7.5%.

Direct-hits with non-incendiary AP shells have a whopping 0.25% fire-starting chance on fuel-tanks (much wow much fun).

Like I guess we are just ignoring kinetic energy, which by itself is more than sufficient to make the aluminium react with oxygen and turn the sorrounding air into a literal fireball. (hey, did I mention that we are hitting kerosene?)

Spoiler: Firing test of 35mm TLD-038 APDS-T shell

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As I kinda feared already, the fire-starting chances are just laughable.
I fully understand and support that they lowered the effect of some small-calibre (.50cals e.g.) shells on these aircraft but granting them what is essentially full immunity against >20/30mm HEI fragments and basically all aircraft-gun HEI blast-damage, aswell as non-incendiary AP shells is just demented asf.

Spoiler: Bonus pictures of firing tests using various Oerlikon shells (20-35mm)

35 mm MSD-042 HEI (112g HEXAL P30), Oerlikon Cannons KD-Series (all)

**20 mm MSA HEI (10.0g HEXAL), Oerlikon Cannons Types KAD (HS 820), KAA (204GK) & KAB (5TG)

20 mm PLA APHEI-T (4.7g HEXAL), Oerlikon Cannons Types KAD (HS 820), KAA (204GK) & KAB (5TG)
Target: 20mm RHA, 60° (30° NATO)

25 mm SSB-064 HEI (base-fuze, 22g HEXAL P30), Oerlikon Cannon Type KBB

25 mm SLB-050 HEI-T (27g filler), Oerlikon Cannon Type KBA

30 mm MSC HEI (36g TORPEX), Oerlikon Cannon Type KCB (HS 831-L)

And some stuff from Oerlikon 20-30mm Cannon Type 302 RK firing tests:

[OliverXRed]

@Morvran_

So that the suggestions are preserved after the dev forum closes, im going to repost my suggested changes to the damage model here:

I got the topic moved over from the dev server section of the forum to the regular one, to be able to preserve some of the smaller details that might have been lost in other peoples suggestions on how to improve the damage model:

Changes to Bomber Survivability Feedback and Discussion

The poll below were done while the bombers were still being tested on the dev server of the “Sky Odyssey” update, and have been closed, to represent what peoples opinion were at the time of the dev server. poll 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? A new poll were created after the update went onto the live server, which can be found here:

[侍KAMIKAZE侍]

Also realized that nuke bombers are now basically unkillable. Even if I take all engines its still gonna get to the battlefield.

[Kefal_Bravo_690]

The answer is that 25 min penetration is needed. The problem is that the damage model doesn’t have a slope armour effect, so in the current damage model, shells entering the model from any angle would act as if they entered from the back of the plane, where the angle of impact is the sharpest. All of those pictures are overestimations for most cases in a WWII scenario where most kill cams are showing attacks from the back at a 20 to 30 degree angle.

All are correct btw

[poopooo]

Yesterday, a B-17 literally soaked up 70% of my Fw 190 A-8’s ammunition without going down, though it was damaged enough for me to eventually get the kill credit. The fundamental issue I see with bomber damage is that fires seem merely cosmetic, and wings don’t lose lift even after being hit by a full load of ammo. Logically, a fire should cause progressive wing damage until the wing eventually snaps from the heat. It would also make sense for a wing to lose lift and create drag after taking heavy fire, causing the plane to veer to one side and eventually spin out of control.

[andrgysev0293747]

@poopooo

though it was damaged enough for me to eventually get the kill credit

So, it did crash then? Maybe you wasted these 70% of ammunition for nothing and it was enough to waste 30% or 50%?

[AspectOfTheRAGE]

No the issue is simply that they decided to delete blast-damage effects from anything below 600g TNT equivalent outright, while also making fragments of virtually every singular aircraft-used HEI shell insufficient to perforate fuel-tanks.

It has nothing to do with the slope-effect (which doesnt even matter for HE shells to begin with in the game as solely the kinetic penetration would be affected)

aside, here’s your high impact-angle shot (base fuze HEI)

And again, taking 8 adats missiles into the same wing is not justifiable, the survivability is overtuned to demented degrees to appease the ‘special’ crowd that geniunely thinks B-17 being called “flying fortress” is a valid argument to make its wing survive 40kg of TNT equivalent (the name had nothing to do with survivability in the first place btw)

I have several other oerlikon documents from firing trials of even older cannons than 302RK (1952), which demonstrate the exact same thing; The survivability on direct-hits to critical components (fuel-tanks, spars, etc.) is absurdly overtuned and the odds of setting a fire way too low.

[poopooo]

Of course it crashed—after two fires, losing all crew members except one pilot and the nose gunner, losing all four engines, and gliding almost all the way back to its airfield.If I had expended 30% or 50% of my ammo, it might well have given him the chance to make it back to base, since he lost speed—and valuable time—trying to evade my attacks.

[Kefal_Bravo_690]

@AspectOfTheRAGE

adats missiles

ADATS missiles should be another issue; HEAT is not programmed into the plane damage model yet. 900mm pen should kill every fuel tank.

[Bruce_R1]

Honestly for the WW2 stuff if they just made the DoT from fires more impactful I think they’d basically have it (maybe extended to other larger planes, like Mosquitos, like you’ve suggested).

Headons against glass nosed bombers still work reliably every time. The trick is getting into an intercept position to get that headon, which is a lot harder than just gradually overhauling a bomber from behind which is what everyone was doing. Slashing attacks from front-quarter also work well… same problem though.

What is silly now is bombers flying around with at least some part of their wing at least constantly on fire while dropping bombs, flying in formation, and so on… sometimes even a second or third time after fires die out and get restarted.

A wing fire should be serious enough that it’s basically a mission abort, get back the the airfield if you can at that point, and I have to assume that’s because the fire itself is basically doing no damage now (fires still do effective DoT damage on fighters, gradually losing you control and systems though).

[Bruce_R1]

Yes this is the issue, at least at the gun-era BRs. Missile-era BRs seem to have another issue. The DoT effect of fire is absent now in large planes, but still there in small ones.

[poopooo]

That’s another issue: bombers are incredibly tough now, yet fighters still have pitiful durability (even the sturdy ones). That’s why, if you run into bombers armed with 20mm cannons, you’re as good as dead. It’s also funny because it looks like they took the easy way out and made all bombers equally tough; a Tu-2, for instance, withstood a massive amount of punishment, even though it’s much smaller and lighter than a B-17.
On another note, it would be interesting to know exactly what kind of damage fires cause in real life—specifically, whether the heat eventually weakens the metal until it fails.

[Kefal_Bravo_690]

How is Tu-1? It is an attacker with the same fuselage; did it get the buff?

[poopooo]

I’m not sure; I haven’t come across any yet. I think the list of updated aircraft is on the forum.

[poopooo]

@Kefal Bravo 690

How is Tu-1?

It is indeed on the list.

The Dev Server is Opening with Major Update “Sky Odyssey”! — 04.09.2026 (Dev Server is closed)

[ - YouTube] Today, we’re opening the dev server featuring the new “Sky Odyssey” Major Update! You can download the Dev Client here When: From September 4th (16:30 GMT) Until: September 12th (07:00 GMT) For technical reasons, the dev server may close immediately at any time before the indicated time, so please make the most out of the opening window! Click here to see the Changelog Known Bugs New vehicles in this update may have inaccuracies in their characteristics, a…

[ferhy]

If you attack the rear part of the wing with HE, you’ll destroy the control surfaces, but you won’t reach the structural parts of the wing or the engines. AP solves this, and SAP is even better because you can attack the fuselage and destroy the cables.

[K-A-M-P-O]

Ok, nice update, both in terms of graphics and mechanics, but I think you’ve overdone it.

Basically what’s happening is that a horde of noobs has flooded into simulation mode to rack up experience points and silver lions, destroying the gaming experience. Having more players doesn’t mean having more quality gameplay.

What we’re seeing is B-17s, B-25s, diving into the middle of enemy bomber bot formations just to get kills.
And it’s getting frustrating to fire 400 rounds of 20mm at a bomber’s engines (hitting it) and then watch its sniper gunners take you down with 2 shots.

It’s also pretty frustrating having to play against these characters who start shooting you from 900 meters away with their turrets. Two hits and your engine dies. 400 rounds at them and nothing. Never seen anything like that in World War II.

Not to mention the ones who use bombers as fighters, attacking other bombers and pulling maneuvers that should make the entire crew throw up and pass out.

Really disappointed. I think anyone looking for realism in the simulation will go elsewhere.
I hope this mess can be moderated before the servers end up full of nothing but little brats.

Thanks.

[Kievskiy_Minipig]

Idk if anyone mentioned this but if you hit bomb bay area with ap bomber will pop

[Thodin]

• Tone down bomber HE resistance to make them at least killable for HE shells.

Consider ground modes. Ppl are about to figure out how fun it is to use the new DM to club ground vehicles. Circling over the battlezone and tanking several AA vehicles. Ostwind with HE and things like this are simply unable to repel attacks from TIS MA and low flying carpet bombers with really big toys to drop. In Arcade Ground B-29 just zoom over the battlezone dropping 2000lb bomb carpets and exit the battle before anyone can do meaningful damage.

Consider to adjust fighter damage models accordingly. Cause they still break into pieces with minor hits. Its not exactly fair for bombers beeing invulnerable, while they oneclick most things.

[Real_K_Soze]

@GoGoGojira

war thunder is a PVP game. it hasn’t been anything else for 10 years.

I am not sure why you felt the need to contact me - especially as your first sentence is repeating my own words:

@Real_K_Soze

WT is a plain vehicle based shooter (with an ultra strong grinding aspect) and the “classic” bomber role (PvE) in a PvP environment (like in a classi air mode like Air RB) is technically seen an anachronism.

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Next:

This quote makes zero sense as i am not Gaijin’s spokesperson and my comment was aimed at the divergence between gaijin’s advertising and in-game implementation and gaijin’s inability to balance bombers in Air RB:

@GoGoGojira

if gaijin cared so much about PVE gameplay why haven’t they introduced a new mode that makes it enjoyable to do?

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Next:

And this is even more confusing as i have zero idea why you wrote this:

@GoGoGojira

if you think war thunder is fun for its PVE game style then you are delusional

Therefore a question - what is the purpose of your contact?

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Next:

@John_Do2002

This is why i keep saying, if bomber players actually wanted fun in good faith, they’d be asking for better, alternative modes. That they asked for a health buff when ARB is essentially (and still is) team deathmatch, just goes to show that they want something to drop against fighters instead.

You commented the above mentioned message - why?
Did you even read what i wrote?
Why you push this narrative in this context?

For me it looks like that you and the other guy simply misunderstood my message - if you would have read this:

Changes to Bomber Survivability - #617 by Real_K_Soze

…it should be clear that i have neither asked for this nonsense not do i benefit from it…