Cold War Bombers: Enhancing Historical Depth and Gameplay in War Thunder

[Uebermacht]

More bombers would be cool, but first bomber gameplay has to be fixed, see problems in the bomber gameplay thread.

[Tubby_Vermin]

Can you link that here please, so members of the community can relate and digest.

Edit

Found it here :- Gaijin, either rework bomber gameplay properly or just straight up remove bombers from the game - Game Discussion / General Discussion - War Thunder — official forum

[themadseventeen]

I mean it would be cool but they would just become fighter food just like other high tier bombers we have in the game. Fitting them in current gamemodes is impossible and we all know how stubborn Gaijin is about changing them.

[goblin_cleaver]

Very stupid idea but how about as a killstreak for high tier arcade

[efetenekeci]

Apart from cold war ones, gaijin is not even adding the usual world war ones such as B-50 or Ju-88 variants, this can be said about dive bombers too.

+1 from me for any bomber

[Apollo_1641]

Did I miss something or did you not mention Air RB EC once?

Strategic bombers need a lot of space and time to stretch their legs, not to mention various objectives that isn’t just “kill enemy team” like how it is currently in Air RB.

At the same time a dedicated gamemode only for bombers is not viable, why spend a lot of resources and infrastructure to facilitate just one type of aircraft and a particular playstyle that most would find too slow and boring.

“Enduring Confrontation” mode solves all of the above, and it would take Gaijin minimal effort to implement because it already exists. Air RB EC would facilitate all classes of aircraft currently in-game, and also new classes like strategic bombers and interceptors.

EC is not perfect, but it exists and it would be a good base to refine and expand upon. The large maps, respawns, objective structure, and long match duration has so much potential to be a great mode if it were adapted to more accesible Air RB controls and 3rd person.

Air Realistic, Enduring Confrontation

The current version of Air Realistic is overplayed, dull, and quite frankly boring. The gameplay loop is exactly the same across almost every battle rating, rank, and aircraft, with little to no variation. However, in my opinion, there is a simple solution: Air RB EC. While Enduring Confrontation exists in the standard matchmaker it is quite poorly executed and doesn’t allow for almost anything that makes EC so unique. Matches are limited to 25 minutes and basically just serve as larger maps fo…

[Tubby_Vermin]

I’ve discussed Air RB EC in my previous posts and agree that it needs to be implemented. However, my current focus is on getting them added. We all know that maps need attention and their range needs to be increased to make them viable.

[SidewaysCube946]

Absolutely! Thank you for all the hard work you put into this post, it really is great!

One condition though, if we get the B-1 I have to have this camo

[Morvran]

What i’d give for this.

And maybe one of the most successful strategic bombers of its era. Considering it successfully “nuked” the US (Twice).

and whilst its contribution to the Falklands was… controversial… The blackbuck raids were an awesome achievement and the longest bombing raid ever at that moment in time (and they did it 6 times)

[joshje100]

Once we get some strategic bombers and we start to see stealth aircraft would love to get these.

[Uncle_J_Wick]

@Tubby_Vermin

By adding them to the game, players would get a chance to step into the shoes of Cold War pilots and experience the strategic importance these bombers held.

Upfront:

Your first 2 posts show passion for aerial warfare - i like that and support any player who is trying to improve the overall gameplay.

Unfortunately your posts work with a hell of assumptions which are not backed up by reality.

If i take your quote about strategic importance as example:

1. Cold War bombers were developed to deliver nuclear payloads either to kill critical or military infrastructure or just to kill enemy civilians / population centers.
2. The combination of SAMs able to hit high altitude targets and the introduction of ICBMs made them essentially useless vs enemies with sophisticated air defenses.
3. The change of their attack profiles from Hi-Hi-Hi to Hi-Lo-Hi kept them longer in service, but the introduction of PD radars with LD/SD capabilities in the 1970ties killed even this role.
4. As wt tries to create balanced lobbies and kills asymmetric warfare with their BR setting system (strategic) Cold war I bombers are reduced to stand-off weapon carriers - just based on their non-existent chances vs enemies with sophisticated air defenses.

In addition you are projecting your own passion level on wt players as a whole - some observations from my pov:

1. WT is a plain (vehicle based) shooter (=PvP action) dominated by kids looking for (almost) instant action. These players are throwing money like hell on gaijin - that’s the reason why wt is in it’s current state.
2. Passionate (bomber) pilots are more or less as rare as unicorns - so even if some of your points makes actually sense, the overwhelming majority is either not interested or capable of enjoying anything which would require something like tactics or strategy.
3. Gaijin has transformed bomber game play into a low skill grinding tool for anybody able to use a mouse - expecting that gaijin would stop this policy is simply not realistic. Just imagine the outcry of the player base in case bombing would require actual skill - you would see another review bombing.
4. The former crown jewel Air RB was reduced to Air Arcade plus, Air SB is, was and will be just a niche mode. Implementing your suggestions in Air Arcade makes zero sense, same as for Air SB - and Air RB is already flooded with non-pilots. So you try to improve the game play for max 5-10% of the players whilst 90-95% simply don’t care.
5. The only beneficiaries of your proposals would be hardcore sweatlords looking for cheap bomber kills.

Have a good one!

[xPorkulusx]

I love bombers as vehicles. They’re majestic, terrifying aircraft. If War Thunder is a game about representing the modern military vehicle in all forms, then these aircraft absolutely should be added, if nothing else that it gives Gaijin a new category of vehicles to draw on, extending the diversity of the game into the future.

However, I think their addition is predicated on major changes to the existing air battle game modes. Current WW2 era strategic bombers are cannon fodder for fighters of any type. Gaijin will have to substantially alter game modes to make bomber play viable. I’m personally in favor of adding additional objectives to random battle modes, which prevents fighter players from easily focusing on bomber players.

Plus, introducing cold-war era bombers means you can also introduce matching interceptors…

[WalletWorrier]

@Tubby_Vermin

A Fresh Gameplay Experience

Run, hope nothing catches up to you because you only have a few cannons at best, destroy every base and AF in one pass or die.

With a few exceptions of certain vehicles like the B-36B which actually have effective defenses, bomber gameplay would be complete AFK simulator. The only way I see most bombers being actually worth introducing in game is as bots for larger maps.

Also does this smell of GPT to anyone else

[Fluffy_Bucketles]

The Vulcan was pretty overrated in the Falklands. Harrier supremacy.

But I’d like the victor. It’s funny looking and unique. Plus, the payload is a little excessive.

[S3b5]

this would only work if there were gamemodes (maybe pve) balanced around it i think. in current RB they’d just be free kills for the fighters. maybe in sim they could work but that would also run into the “free kills for fighters” thing

[Gale_Cleven]

Put it in the suggestion bruh!

[House_of_Schmidt]

If RB EC was added, Strategic bombers could work or if a proper PVE mode was added rather than the trash asault modes.

Gaijin just doesn’t seem to have any interest in new game modes.

[Uebermacht]

Hi, sorry for reading so late, i meant that thread:

The saddening situation bombers are in

I think it would be a good idea if everyone spawned in at the same altitude and bombers got access to a squadron of bombers like in the single player campaigns.

[LeonDasPro]

Late cold War strategic bombers would just be missile fodder at this point in time. Pretty much anything past 4.3 (ie Pe-8) lacks the required balance of performance/defence/survivability to thrive.

*Obviously this doesn’t include the complete outliers such as Ju288, or types such as the Buccaneer that play more like attackers than true bombers especially when being AA missile slingers themselves.

The game definitely needs is a rejig on large bombers from top to bottom if they are to have a future. Additionally rather than jumping straight to the household names such as B-52 or Vulcan instead take a more measured approach and bring in the first generation of post war types such as B-45, B-50, Tu-80 ,il-22 etc, with incremental performance improvements but still firmly subsonic and retaining at least a tail turret. The problem is though 99% don’t want these stepping stones and just want what they see on TV in the same way many fighter jocks demand Stealth and Fox 3 but not the late 40s learning curve machines.

Honestly I don’t see a solution arriving any time soon. What will work in one mode will likely be very broken in another. Maybe once full BR vs mode come in to play it will be a real possibility.

[vizender]

I honestly don’t see subsonic Cold War bombers in game, like the b52. We already have things like the Vautour that is completely unbalanceable, fighting supersonic jets in pretty small maps. And, with such a big bomb load, having the b52 any lower would make it to good. Supersonic ones, maybe, but even then