For prop bombers, what is the strategy? For example in PE-8, you spawn, you try to gain altitude even though you’re slow as hell, then get shredded by anything that can climb decent.
How am I supposed to grind like this?
Better question is how do you play bombers in general?
In AAB, ARB they’re not fun or good.
But in things like sim they can be decent.
Problem is bombers are way too fragile, and we don’t even get good ones, or premiums to use.
I’d love to see “bomber formations”
Where if you spawn a bomber, you get 2 Ai planes that follow you in your exact plane, minus the decals and the like.
That way you not only have more protection, but more bomb load, and they can increase base health.
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Don’t the grind is better when dogfighting
I tried bombing at mid-tier, and it’s painful and slow.
Just dogfight, it will be better
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Tbh, you can’t really play them. It never had been great since they nerfed bomber DMs. But since the bomb load can be detonated with a short cal50 burst…Its just hopeless. Maybe comm might apply some pressure to remove this feature…cause currently bombers detonate left and right with huge explosions… Im sure it wasn’t even possible to detonate bombs wich weren’t armed…just with gunfire.
Exception are just lighter fronline bombers. Mainly Germany had those. Like low tier Ju-88 is quite survivable…as well its its later iterations. But something like a B-17 etc. hopeless. Spade and forget them.
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Maybe that’d be too OP since you basically have a triple payload. Have maybe 2 AI fighters essentially escort and follow you around. That sounds better, but of course Gaijin loves to see us suffer, so it will never be done.
It makes more sense for bombers to be in a bombing formation. Fighter escorts would be OP.
Like I said, increase base health too, to make those fighters / strike fighters go for targets they are meant to instead of blowing up bases.
Additionally, fix the damage models so I don’t feel like I’m flying a paper plane, AND make gunner skills actually useful again, instead of only working when the enemy plane is physically touching me
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I remember a time when having an ace crew B-17G was something to be feared.
They used to be tanks, and could erase enemy fighters.
But yes, the silly hit 1 round on bomb and it explodes non sense it dumb, especially since you don’t even have to shoot near them and they blow up.
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Gaijin should lowkey just make the gunners use their brains again instead of having genuine monkeys as gunners.
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I take what I said back, monkeys would be better than the AI gunners we have.
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At this point I’m honestly convinced the crew bailed, I’m the only one left, and they put scarecrows in their positions.
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As scorpion said, flying in air simulator battles is your best bet.
Sim isn’t as hard or scary as people make it out to be, especially in a big fat twin-engine or four-engine bomber. Most of the difficult parts of sim manifest in flying a single-engine light fighter.
And no, you don’t even need an expensive HOTAS. WingalingDragon has a full tutorial series for getting set up for bombers in sim.
Give it a try!
Reason for sim:
- No markers (you can sneak, and if not sneak, lack of markers makes aiming harder at very long ranges)
- No third person view (makes aiming at very long ranges and high aspects harder)
- Stick & rudder control (aiming at long ranges is much harder with most fighters unless it’s a very stable platform with good ballistics (e.g. the hornet, mustang Mk Ia, P-38s)
- BIG MAP (64x64 km for popular WW2 ones, 128x128 km for less popular ones.) By big I mean big. Objectives span the whole width of the map, not clustered in a tiny corridor.
- LONG MATCHES (at most 3 hours, usually end in 90 minutes. Plenty of time to climb to altitude, do your run, RTB & rearm and do it again)
- Matches are won by ticket bleed, not who kills everyone first (respawns).
Points 1-3 mean you will be engaged at realistic gunnery ranges which make ai gunners functional if your crew is trained (realistic being 250m to 500ish)
Points 1, 4 and 5 mean the chances that you get shot up is drastically reduced if you fly smart (either nap of the earth blend in with the trees or up at 6 km alt where few people fly without reason and taking wide routes rather than direct ones)
Point 6 means it’s more fun. Meaning, YOU can be the reason your team wins. Minibases cost a ton of tickets. AI tanks cost a lot of tickets. Boats cost a decent amount. I’ve had matches where we’ve lost against the combined might of very, very angry B-25s/Il2-s/A20s/Me410/bf110s/P-47s blowing everything up faster than my team could kill them.
+1 reason: if you join wingaling’s Sim LFG/Team sim discord, finding wingmen to fly formations can be pretty easy during busier times.
Yes, the first years of war Thunder: The so called “Death Stars”. There were some down sides ofc…but on the other hand it made sense to use 30mm armed fighters and heavy fighters to counter this. Since bombers can be shot down with a short cal50 brrrp, alot of these bomber killers de-evolved to rarely flown niche aircraft…
Agreed.
Since you can only enter player vs player mode with bombers, and you start as stock, they are at a huge disadvantage.
Depending on how low the BR is there are a couple strategies I, as a mediocre player have used.
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for very low BR I just do suicide runs and bomb the lines of bot vehicles. Divig low and attacking as fast as you can you can sometimes get lucky and get a bunch of kills before you yourself are killed. Use a back-up and repeat if it seems like many bots are still ou there.
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for moderate low (3+) side climb as soon as you spawn. You want to get to 4000-5000m by the time you get to the bases and bomb what you can. You will eventually get the upgrades you need to perform better.
Play arcade:
On ground strike maps with airfield destruction, you bomb the bases and then the airfield. This wins the game.
If there are no bases, you bomb the ground units that can occupy airfields. If you succeed and the red team fails, your side will cap the field and win the game.
In dominations, you ultimately play a plane with decent front guns.
In maps with bases without airfield destruction, you have less influence. Kill bases and ground with bombers.