It's time to fix heavy bomber gameplay in air RB

I have been reading this post. but seriously if bomber only defense is height, why can fighters just wave up to 7Km (23,000 ft) and then one shot my bomber? i spent 7 minutes just to get to this level yet a fighet can close it in 3 mins up to the point? WEP has to be fixed. you cant just overclock an engine.

I watched your replay :

https://warthunder.com/en/tournament/replay/187345597278497290

Imho u made some serious mistakes:

  • You climbed way too steep - meaning that every plane has something like “optimal climb speed” - if you climb to steep your high AoA produces a hell of drag making ur climb highly inefficient.

  • You tried to play the role of a strategic bomber in a Ki-49 - climbing makes no real sense for you if you fly then with 175-200 kmph IAS - you are then basically a stationary target - in a plane which burns like paper.

  • You did not level out to pick up speed and tried to show him your six - you allowed your enemy a lead curve shooting at you from your 4 o’ clock position.

  • Climbing in a medium bomber to 7km on an arcade-style map like Laizihou Bay makes no sense at this BR and with this climb pattern - even a 3.0 P-38 kills you easy there.

  • You got killed by an experienced pilot in a Pyoerremski. Same engine as 109 G-6 - no chance to escape.

On such small maps you have in such a bomber just 2 choices:

  • A: A high speed run hoping that you don’t cross the path of an enemy strike fighter and immediate rtb
  • B: Climbing in the back near your own airfield hoping that enemies get dragged low and there is an opening in the fighter / interceptor screen for a swift attack

Imho you misunderstood something regarding altitude as defense.

Climbing high makes sense if you have a plane with good high alt performance and good defensive guns - meaning that you are quite fast in order to keep enemies as long as possible inside your, but outside their gun range - and/or to have altitude which you can trade into speed which helps you to escape - either below own fighters or in the range of your airfield aaa.

Imho you have to avoid JP bombers in general if you are rather new in wt - the G8N, the H8K and the B7A2 are the exception.

Try the TT B7A2 - climb with 250 - 260 IAS airspeed and drop 9x60 kg on a base - this kills every base including full uptiers. Avoid enemy fighters if you are not feel confident to kill them and gain experience.

Regarding WEP and overheating - go to yt and look for DEFYNs MEC guide (2 part vid).

  • You did not level out to pick up speed and tried to show him your six - you allowed your enemy a lead curve shooting at you from your 4 o’ clock position.
  • i make bomb runs at level so i did level to drop my bombs i normay start the first bomb run around 6Km. aborting at any fighter in my view and moving toward base till atleast 7.5km
  • You tried to play the role of a strategic bomber in a Ki-49 - climbing makes no real sense for you if you fly then with 175-200 kmph IAS - you are then basically a stationary target - in a plane which burns like paper.
    i was running around 300 KmPH whe i fought. Question does Japan have no STBs?

  • You got killed by an experienced pilot in a Pyoerremski. Same engine as 109 G-6 - no chance to escape.
    that is a understandable advice. it dose feel i have to learn all the fighters and bombers Stats to just play a bomber in RB at the moment.

Regarding WEP and overheating - go to yt and look for DEFYNs MEC guide (2 part vid)
my thing about WEP is a pilot can not exced the 100% throttle controls on their slide. most prop planes of the era already has a turbocharger, but the floating carberator could not audjest to differnet A-F mixtures required to pust preformance. WEP sould not be avalible in RB unless fuel injection, level 3 matance and lvl 3 pilot are enabled.

but i do thank you for the advice. ATM i want to play bombers but it’s a stright dead end. IMO we should have intel and radar planes for info to teammates next. having battlefield data gathering planes was key in 4th gen

Maybe i was not clear enough mate:

  1. JP bombers are actually among the worst bombers in the game as they are fragile, have a rather small bomb load and most players can’t use their benefits like very good handling. If you have played several hundred matches you can use some of them very effectively - in addition to the 3 already mentioned types: I see frequently a few exceptional pilots in Ki-67s - able to turnfight single engine fighters and to kill them with gunner skills.
  2. It makes zero sense to climb if you are unable to use your altitude to your advantage - either to flee or to defend yourself properly.
  3. Bomber pilots kill themselves long before they got shot down - just by wrong decision making. You have to be smarter than the average fighter pilot.
  4. So if you allow an enemy attacking you from the side, you are giving him a much larger target, and you made your best defensive weapon, ur 20mm tail gunner, useless.

Regarding your reply:

  • You got killed with 200 TAS as you climbed whilst being shot
  • I have zero clue what you mean with “STB”

Use the B7A2 as recommended and gain experience, otherwise you won’t get better. Use this replay as an example what you can do with a B7A2:

https://warthunder.com/en/tournament/replay/187654602995966594

4 Kills and a base kill…

I work with the JSDF and USFJ so i want to focus on Japan and US. to give some back story.

  • I have zero clue what you mean with “STB”
    StraTegic Bombers. high Atl bombers vs mid and low Bomber.
    so i should play them toward the goround vs high alts
  1. Bomber pilots kill themselves long before they got shot down - just by wrong decision making. You have to be smarter than the average fighter pilot.
    So i need to use the Old 666 air tactics to surive bombers (old 666 B-17) <needs to be in the game[ only with Max b-17 crew though]

so side gunners are useless in the current game (in RB)?

thanks for the Advice.

once again the WW2 Bomber sould transation into LD intel planes ( A12>SR71) and ( AWAK) and incoraprate a more SA and EW battle field.
Bombers are a deadend in the game but heavys are live in well in RL.
Missions to drop troops, Control all battle Field Comms, control BF (F35) SEAD Missions. ETC
this game has alot to go forward with

As said earlier - if you have ur best gun in the back - show him your six.

I played extra for you this match:

https://warthunder.com/en/tournament/replay/187764657238068488

…to show you when altitude is useful if you have the right bomber and how to play vs fighter noobs. I allowed a guy to chase me for 17 minutes - completely out of any danger for me, just for fun.

  • If you watch the replay from perspective 2 (=player view) you see the different approaches - i saw the P-38 right in time and decided (based on his plane and vehicle statistics) that he is suited to play the role of the average fighter pilot.

  • I turned away from him at around 4 minutes and continued climbing whilst maintaining my optimal climb speed. As i started to outrun him i closed the distance to keep him interested - and i scored my first crit at around 6 minutes.

  • I was able to climb further whilst keeping him inside my gun range (~ 3 km) shooting backwards, but outside his effective gun range of 1.8 km - shooting forwards.

  • Basicall he neved had a chance to get in his gun range as my constant gunner fire forced him to fly not in a straight line and the hits and crits reduced his top speed.

  • As i saw the contrail of a second enemy incoming (and i was not sure what kind of plane it is) i decided to keep him at my six - and not start a turnfight. The P-38s have no real chance in a turnfight.

  • If the second guy would have been another P-38, i might have dropped my 1200kg bombload to increase speed and manueverabilty, but it was another rather limited fighter pilot in a very slow P-61 = no threat.

So you might ask - why have you not bombed or tried to kill the P-38, or why you have even played this chasing game? Quite simple - if you drag one or 2 interceptors with alt advantage away from your team, you increase their chances to kill enemies and to win by tickets, whilst you keep enemies busy.

That is, besides contributing with actual kills, the best way to support you team. You won’t influence the outcome of 98% of your matches with bombing a base and kill ~300 enemy tickets - in order be useful you have to support your fighters.

2 Likes

playing with bombers is just a waste of time and SL…----

Well, u can grind an most a tech tree in like a week in sim as a bomber

The bomber game in this game is just such an imitation and the game is situated for fighters and some powerful attack aircraft…
Arcade is an acrobatic festival of bombers, which makes no sense to solve…
In the simulator there is a chance to play well with the bomber, but you have to be careful, a player who knows what to do with a fighter will be uncompromising…

Realism seems to me the most adrenaline-filled…
It is necessary to think about where and how I will fly right from the start (land or air) and try to be invisible for the last moment, and it is not just about reaching the destination, but also returning to the base…
Gunners are good to research, but it makes sense to have a fully researched crew, which should have a firing start at a distance of up to 600 meters.
The speed and angle of climb, map tracking, height for the formation of inversion lines play a role … simply everything that affects visibility …
Personally, I am sorry that the night maps, where the markers were displayed at a maximum of 3 km, tracer tracks, ground searchlights, etc., have disappeared.
In addition, the maps are too symmetrical (positions of target bases) are easy to remember and predictable…
I would like to see the efficiency of the heavy bombers if they had the option to set the fuel to a max of 30 minutes…
It would require more elaboration, but I think the devs have evaluated that it makes no sense…

The most problematic is the composition of targets … machine guns, bunkers, convoys of vehicles and boats, bases … at br 5.0 you will be destroyed by much faster aircraft and it is all about nothing, I miss more sophistication here (more targets, sophisticated effectiveness of targets for type of airplanes … it would like to fine-tune … )

You can have quite a lot of fun with heavy bombers, but overall they are just bushes…

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The fuk? they’re nowhere close to the same xp gains

One thing i suffer from in the B-17G is the fact that it is paper. And why can’t we have our own game mode for bombers so that you just bomb stuff and make SL out of that.

And one more thing they need to fix on the B-17 is that IT IS FUCKING PAPER how can I fight in such a piece of SHIT

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Ah, good ol’ Smigol.

Unfortunately that seems to be the goal of many heavy bomber players. Wanting to not participate in gameplay elements and be given free kills (as it was in 2013) seems to be their goal.

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Bombers should be given a higher health as my b29 gets its tail ripped off one tap by the jets which catch up so easily to my altitude.

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There is no such things as “health”,…

But i do agree Damage Model of Bombers should be revised accordingly to Fighter size:

Currently a bomber shares as much “wing areas” as does a Fighter (3 - inner-medium-tip).

But a fighter wingspan is about 3 to 8 meters long at best.

Meanwhile Medium to Heavy bombers have wings of 10 to 30 meters.

Obviously the damage you take on, let’s say Medium area of the wing, is accumulating damage over 3 to 10 meters of wing span, while the fighter only have 2 to 4 meters of wingspan being damaged.

And it’s far easier to focus one wing area on a bomber because of that.

Sadly thats realistic per the damage you sustain from aircraft cannons.

But they are loaded with the much heavier weight of the bomber plus a payload. Hence why the B-17’s wing just obliterates with a 3g+ turn. So aslong as you hit the wingspar in a specific section with enough damage it will remove the entire wing. People forget bombers are incredibly fragile compared to what movies show them to be. Irl a pilot flying after you will try and shoot you, but once their engine components (including oil/water/cooling) or fuel is hit they immediately disengage because the pilot wants to live. Meanwhile in war thunder you aim from 2km out and there aren’t major negatives to dying.

Now with the realistic situation of pilots, please remember you could have bombing formations of 1-300 take off and in the case of lets say 100 flew to the target, 60-70 of the bombers may not return in the worst flights with flak and fighter interception.

The thing is you are 1 bomber flying against 1 fighter. When originally it was box groupings of 8-10 or so using their gunnners to provide safety against 2-3 fighters. And still many would be shot down (masters of the air shows this fact very well).

(RAF Night Bombing tactics meant other than the darkness there wasn’t much you could do other than extreme maneuvers. But do remember the germans used short range night radar to zero in on Lancasters in the final attack distance).

I’m only talking of spreading the damage evenly between a fighter and a bomber,…

When you do hit the wing of a fighter with 2x.50’s from 1 spread, the fighter spread will hit 30 rounds from 1 spread.

Just because the module that is WING is 2 to 3 bigger than a fighter.

This is regardless the basic differences between a bomber and a fighter.
Speed // payloads
Maneuvrability // Defence systems(turret and armor)

In brief, in War Thunder Bomber are CLEARLY disavdvantaged from that Damage model differences.

I’m not asking to “increase HP bar”,… i’m saying that we need the similar length of wing modules.
(Which already is in favor of fighters, because a Bomber wing is larger and bigger than a fighter wing → higher surface amount being shown/hittable) → so at least, let’s got the same length of module, by increasing the modules in a bomber wing.

Could also add diversity in how a bomber will fall apart, then having better visuals of fights

More bases are needed I agree with that. I believe two approaches to this are necessary. Approach 1 keep the 4 bases in the center add two bases to each side far left and right and 1 base in each corner that will give 10 bases to bomb in total. Approach 2 keep approach 1 but get rid of the 4 bases in the center and add 1 base that is massive like 10 times the size of a normal base. This base will have a massive health bar. You get rewards by the amount and type of ordinance you use and if the big base gets destroyed then everyone involves gets a massive bonus depending on their part in taking out this base and if you win the match you get an even bigger bonus

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