It has been in air rb since around 2017/2018 when they changed things.
If I have a great match lets say in the Avro Shackleton, I get all bombs dropped and destroy many bases (flying around for 10minutes waiting for them to respawn), and I do not land. I only make around 20k sl. If I bomb and manage to land, rearm and takeoff I earn around about 40-45k ish. And this is with premium.
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see the problem and reason this doesnt work is you cant focus on defending and dropping bombs and keeping the damaged plane level at the same time. more often then not when you reach a target your getting swarmed so you either have to shoot them down and completely miss the drop or drop and die. its not intuitive.
3 Likes
I just had a perfect 18min match, played perfectly evading enemy fighter formations, having to wait 5mins for bases to respawn again and again as there are not enough with those 5min timers for us bomber players.
Managed to get 3.14tns of damage with my 14x1000lb bombs all hitting their bases (The most of any person in the match)
I even managed to land back at base unscaved with no crash landing, repair and takeoff without issue.
Mission failed due to ground targets destroyed by the enemy and I earned 9.8k Silver Lions and that is WITH Premium.
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These types of occurances are why bomber players are leaving, spending so much time flying in circles waiting for bases to respawn so you can never land, rearm and bomb again to earn silver lions or research points as a bomber main is causing so many to not play the gamemode. Even though bombers are very enjoyable to play and the aircraft are fantastically detailed and realistic.
Please gaijin, AIR RB was not purely fighters and strike aircraft v fighters and strike aircraft. Us bomber mains exist and have existed since 2013 (in my case).
The lack of gameplay opportunities or ability to play bombers so that you earn the same as fighter or strike aircraft has meant all those pure bomber squadrons we saw pop up in the 16’-2019’s range have all disappeared from sight or are hiding in Pilotage Maps and Customs.
1 Like
A own gamemode for bombers i wouldnt want but in my opinion there are a lot of problems for bombers like they are made of paper and wings snap to easy, furher the missions arent good for bombers → 4 Base mode is annoing fast bombers, strike aircrafts and fighters with good bombloads take the first wave of bases and you with your havy bomber have to wait for the new bases and after hiting one base you have to circle in range of the enemy to wait for the new bases, also the impact of bombers is very low - unlike with the 3 bases and AF were bombers could win a match and my last point is the duration of the matches, you nearly only have time for one bombingrun and after that if you have time to take off again you have to fly low and direct to the target because you dont have any time to waist if you want a second run before timeout
I agree with the general idea, and I would like bombers to be more useful, but for now current Air RB doesn’t allow that, but maybe a long, strategical gamemode similar to what Gaijin is currently testing with Nuclear Escalation. There needs to be an enconomical insentive to protect bombers in War Thunder: something like an escort bonus mechanic. I have an idea on this:
[Suggestion] Escort and Defensive Interception Bonuses for Air Battles
Introduction: Air RB currently offers little incentive for fighters to actively protect allied bombers and attackers. A “bomber saver” bonus already exists in the game, but it is too marginal to influence player behavior. Meanwhile, passive play at the edge of the map carries no economic consequence. This suggestion proposes a structured reward system that incentivizes active escort behavior and defensive interception, built around two simultaneous conditions that must both be met to generate any reward.
All numerical values below are indicative and intended as a starting point for discussion. They should be validated through live testing before any final implementation.
PART 1: THE TWO-CONDITION SYSTEM
Click to show details
1.1 Eligible Aircraft Combinations
The bonus system applies to the following pairings:
- Fighter escorting a Bomber
- Fighter escorting an Attacker
- Bomber flying in formation with another Bomber
- Attacker flying in formation with another Attacker
A fighter flying alone, away from any allied bomber or attacker, generates no escort reward regardless of its position on the map.
1.2 The Two Simultaneous Conditions
Rewards are only generated when both of the following conditions are met at the same time:
- Condition A — Proximity to a vulnerable ally: The escorting aircraft is within the passive escort radius of an eligible allied aircraft (bomber or attacker) currently in flight toward or returning from an objective.
- Condition B — Proximity to a threat: An enemy aircraft has been detected within the active threat radius, either through direct visual contact or via a scouting ping on the tactical map.
When only one condition is met, no reward is generated. This eliminates passive farming at a safe distance and ensures that rewards reflect genuine tactical risk.
1.3 Reward Structure
Two types of rewards are available depending on the level of engagement:
- Passive Escort Reward: A continuous, modest SL and RP gain while both conditions are simultaneously active. This rewards the fighter for staying close to a vulnerable ally in a dangerous environment, even without firing a shot.
- Defensive Interception Reward: A multiplied SL and RP bonus triggered when the escorting fighter destroys an enemy aircraft within the active interception radius. This rewards direct action in defense of an ally.
The exact SL and RP values for both reward tiers are deliberately left open here, as they require careful balancing to avoid exploitation while remaining meaningful enough to influence player behavior.
PART 2: RADII BY RANK
Click to show details
The escort and interception radii scale with Rank to reflect the increasing speed and engagement distances of each era. All values below are a basis for discussion and should be tested in live conditions.
| Rank | Passive Escort Radius | Defensive Interception Radius |
|---|---|---|
| I – IV | 2 km | 3 km |
| V – VI | 3 km | 5 km |
| VII+ | 3 km | 8 km |
The passive escort radius intentionally remains compact. A fighter that genuinely intends to protect a bomber will naturally stay close. Extending this radius too far would allow passive players to collect rewards without meaningful engagement.
The defensive interception radius is wider to account for the reaction time required to intercept a threat before it reaches the protected aircraft.
PART 3: ALLY VULNERABILITY WEIGHTING
Click to show details
Not all bombers are equally dependent on fighter escort. A B-17 with multiple 12.7 mm defensive turrets covering most approach angles is meaningfully more capable of self-defense than a Wellington equipped with .303 turrets. Applying the same escort reward regardless of the protected aircraft’s defensive capability would be an oversimplification.
A more refined system could weight the passive escort reward based on the vulnerability of the protected aircraft, factoring in elements such as turret caliber, coverage sectors, and crew count. The higher the vulnerability of the protected aircraft, the higher the reward for the escorting fighter.
The technical implementation of this weighting is deliberately left to Gaijin’s discretion. This section is intended to signal the concept as a worthwhile refinement, not to define the formula.
Conclusion: This system does not require new assets or major engine changes. It reuses existing proximity detection and economy logic to create a reward structure that finally makes escort a tactically and economically rational choice.
A note on compatibility: As with the active scouting suggestion, this mechanic would have limited impact in standard Air RB given the short match duration. It is primarily designed for longer, objective-based formats such as a reworked Air RB EC or a Nuclear Thunder-style mode adapted for propeller aircraft. In those contexts, the time and space required for meaningful escort play actually exist.
What do you think?
Do you think Air RB needs a dedicated escort reward system?
- Yes — the full two-condition system with vulnerability weighting.
- Partially — the two-condition system without vulnerability weighting.
- A simpler version would be enough.
- No — the current bomber saver bonus is sufficient.
0
voters
Which aspect of this suggestion interests you the most?
- The two simultaneous conditions to prevent passive farming.
- The passive escort reward for staying close under threat.
- The defensive interception multiplier.
- The scaled radii by Rank.
- The ally vulnerability weighting concept.
0
voters
Wouldn’t you need a spawn for escorts, to begin with? Many fighters simply can’t reach the bombers no matter how much they want to, since the bombers don’t bother waiting for anyone.
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In Air RB, the issue is that bomber spawns are placed too much forward, closer to the frontline than any other spawn or airfield. If bombers instead spawned behind the airfield, the fighters wouldn’t have to catch the bombers for as long.
In a gamemode like Nuclear Escalation, the nature of the gamemode makes it highly likely somebody at altitude would be available for escort.
1 Like
Even so, I feel there wouldn’t be enough formations if organization relies entirely on proper communication between players.
I wonder if it wouldn’t be more efficient to make “escort role” contracts that provide a limited, exclusive spawn right on the bomber’s current position. That way, the commitment to escort would be much stronger too (“In this mission, your objective is to protect [PlayerA]”)
Regarding heavy bomber game play: I’d like to share a replay:
Gaijin Entertainment - Single Sign On
The replay shows a fellow tank RB player with an (almost) perfect match:
- He saw that half of my team had bombs - so he decided to fly a large detour in order to bomb the enemy airfield. Used plane CHN 4.7 PB4Y.
- The match was on the Britain map (= 3 bases & airfield as bomb target) and instead of trying to rearm he climbed and extended to the map border.
- As a side effect 3 guys started to chase him - thx to his route the enemy team forgot that our tickets were the same (same amount, both teams lose).
I blocked around 12 minutes the usual “blind hunt” order and flew top cover. For a player with less than 1 day bomber experience a very smart game play.
It is rather sad that he ended the match with just 678 point mission score and that we would have actually won the game if he had dropped 8 sea mines (=8 x 0,5 t of TNT) instead of 8 x 1,000lb iron bombs (= 2,55 t of TNT, airfield was down to 25% health) - but he survived the match just by using basic things like a different route…
In other words: Lousy rewards for taking a very high risk…
2 Likes
I think giving airspawns for the sole purpose of being closer to bombers would be abused severely: experienced pilots would just say “thank you very much for the extra altitude, now i’m doing the usual”.
Whilst i have a similar view on some aspects it looks like that you try to find a cure for a fully intended “uselessness” - gaijin relegated heavy bomber game play to a niche for enthusiasts (and grinders).
As long as (heavy) bombers have (except on a few legacy maps like Britain, Poland, Stalingrad or Malta…) zero influence regarding the outcome of the match (=killing enemy airfield as win condition) there is zero incentive for any (fighter) pilot to protect the bombers.
As a side note: The 150 SL bonus (“Bomber rescuer”) requires that the attacker had previously damaged (critically) the bomber. My previous example on the Britain map (and shooting down a J 26 Fighter trying to kill my CHN PB4Y bomber mate) had zero bonus as i could prevent damage.
So without the introduction of a relevant role for bombers nothing will change. I flew escort for the a. m. bomber bc i saw nothing in this cloud madness and was sure that i can score whilst protecting the fellow player.
There may be a simple solution. If the player decides to climb at the expense of the bomber (leaves it for no reason), then he will receive the typical “return to the battlefield” warning. Only once the estimated time has passed that his plane would have reached, under normal circumstances, the current altitude, will he be finally freed from that “early desertion restriction”.
On the other hand, it’s not really unbalanced if the other side can do the same thing, right?
My idea is not to save Air RB, but to propose an idea for what gaijin seems to be testing with Nuclear Escalation. I forgot to actually talk about the fact that this escort bonus would be more suited to a Nuclear Escalation type gamemode.
It’s a shame gaijin is neglecting what they have spent time and ressources on, and It’s very surprising, but it is what it is.
That sounds complex for no reason. What if you spawn and get assigned a bomber you don’t want to protect, or cannot, because your plane is not suited for the task ?
Let’s look at our ARB map template…
You’ve got your runways, strike spawns, bomber / long range bomber spawns and interceptor / Air Defense fighter spawns.
The circles represent bases.
Now we need to set a standard here…
I see a lot of “bomber players” complain about being killed instantly and how AI gunners or bomber durability are lackluster
Reasonable, if it wasn’t for these people wanting to simply fly towards a base, tank all damage or have AI gunners score kills for them.
We need a limit, you will take the role of a navigator mostly, avoiding the main furballs and try to call as little attentions as possible, since …
If you want kills, work for them
Don’t get me wrong, bombers are weak, both as a in-game role and as a aircraft on itself and also a lot of stupid mechanics. But i’ll give a way to fairly buff bombers without them becoming a nightmare.
Bomber Durability
Your bomber section health will be calculated by volume, the bigger the section, the tankier it will be.
Bombers shall also recieve an artificial 20mil explosive round resistance, AP rounds and will be their main counter, destroying powerplants, fuel tanks and killing gunners.
Killing a bomber will require basic strategy, from basic prediction of flank routes to careful aiming to take one down.
It will also give bomber a larger windown to defend themselves or scare off interceptors.
AI gunners
AI gunners will swap into a spotter role, simply giving callouts about an enemy’s class (strike, fighter or bomber), heading ( 6 o’clock, 11 o’clock, etc) and relative altitude (low, level, high)
The artificial spread added to defensive armaments will be removed since i’ll say that aiming a gun with a constantly changing parallax and different leading routines is enough.
New crewmember
To players that complain about needing to multitask will come some assistance via a “bombardier” crew member, acting as a human CCRP and fully automatic release of bombs, which would allow for a bomber player to drop it’s bombs while on the gunner seat, simply designate a target and line up your bomber, the bombardier will pull the level when the crosshair passes by like 50 meters from it.
If the bombardier dies, the player will need to return to the current day multitask routine.
This is to avoid 48 Ju-288Cs on your team which already happens.
Rearming
Due to the nature of bombers, specially heavier ones, dropping +5km of altitude in order to rearm is simply not possible, mostly reduced to a way to leave the match without a repair bill and without an impact to one’s team.
Bombers will have access to a “mid air rearm point”, similar to the “safe exit zones” seen on ground arcade, this will allow multiple rearms, rewarding players that avoid any interception at all by being given a second set of bombs. (Players who took damage will still need to land in a runway)
It will also avoid space climbers or people who hide far away, since the rearm point will be located at a fixed altitude (4.5km) also allowing more predictable paths for enemies that I remind you, will have a harder time since they need to actually aim for once in order to bring you down.
Objetives
There are 2 routes, simply reducing base respawn time to 1 minute OR bring back airfield bombing as a win condition, I believe in the later, because it was removed for no reason apart from idiotic winrate farmers refusing to accept that letting 4 he-111s into your side armed with incendiaries was a good idea.
Airfield destruction was incredibly rare and when it happened it was a complete miracle and simply show of incompetence on both sides of fighter aircraft.
YOUR role as a bomber pilot is more of a navigator/gunner
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I marked three statements (bold) which might be based on blurred memories.
- The bomber limit (4 each team) was introduced as 4 Tu-4s, B-29s, Bv 238s or (later) Me 264s (was BR 3.7 those days) ended matches rather effortless - and this happened quite often.
- If you were not able to kill one or two of them (before they reached your airfield) your game was lost. Especially 264s (at loqwer BRs) were unstoppable if your team had not 3-4 P-61 C - and they had to reverse climb right after spawning to have a chance.
- Thx to the Starfighter update (March 2020) and the introduction of the F-4E Phantom II (with no number limit) airfield kills happened even more frequent and way faster.
- In May 2020 Gaijin introduced this respawning bases nonsense which killed the game impact of base bombing (almost) completely. Sole exception: Old legacy 3 bases maps - still active like Malta or Norway.
100% agree 👍
The challenge for gaijin is to create a kind of dynamic airfield health in order to deal with the TNT-load of each team. If you play with stuff like 3-7 Wyverns plus 4 heavy bombers (which might made it through) you might get the point that fixed airfield hps are not really helpful.
unrealistic and not enough.
we don’t need heavily tankier models,… (as you proposed by mutliplying the amount of HP each section have)[and btw, it’s already the current solution]
BUT
we need more sections on those 30m-60m large aircrafts.
why? because a fighter of 10m large is having 4 wing sections (2.5m large / section)
a bomber have the same amount of section, allowing people to aim at one section in particular and give all the damage onto that section.
Because:
30/4 = 7.5m large/section (3 times larger)
60/4 = 15m large/section (6 time larger than on fighter)
so it is easy to destroy any bomber, by only aiming a good burst of 20/30mm guns into 1 section of the aircraft.
Then, if we dooble/triple the amount of sections, and gives the same amount of HP from the previous section, to each new section, the damage would become realistic in the way of bullets are damaging aircraft more heavenly on several section and not only 1.
too many informations and the voice line might not be enough for most players, that are already unaware to sound of ennemy engines.
they thinks that AI gunners should work on their own with similar performances than what a player can achieve on average.
The escort role is not an obligation, you choose to be it in the menu (limited slots). The restriction is temporary and only limited to altitude: you can leave your bomber aside if you want, but you won’t be able to climb for a while. It’s not a that complex.
in Arcade mode yes,… but for Air realistic mode, the amount of aircraft and type of aircraft you choose, is not going to have any impact.