Should Bombers get a damage model update?

Machinery of War Discussion Aircraft
29

WT hates bomber game play (at least for props in Air RB) and damage models are for certain aircraft (like G8N1 or B-18B) still ok - but way more annoying are these constant manual gunner nerfs - i saw artificial spread added in late 2022, same as lowered damage output of return fire.

  • Whilst the G8N1 benefits massively from the RS 2.0 & 3.0 “upgrade” of their 20 mm turrets (and can tank a lot of 20mm and even 30mm hits) i noticed that in every post battle summary of my B-18B i need usually 10-12 hits to kill a tail chasing enemy - whilst previously 1 or 2 were enough.

  • This is extremely weird as ALL hits are usually logged as AP rounds - whilst i use the stock belt with 50% AP and 50% HE. So at least statistically i should score 30-50% of my hits with the way more lethal HE round. Using the same gun (fixed forward firing) with air targets belt gives you a kill for 2-3 hits center mass.

  • I lost my (almost) unkillable B-18B a few days ago after i scored 8 (!!!) hits outside the effective firing range (2.3 -1.6 km) of the (usual) moron in a P-38 tailchasing me - it took 4 more hits to kill him but i lost an engine in this process which made me ez prey for his pathetic squad mate.

Imho the main issue is still this unkillable myth that bombers would have a realistic fighting chance vs a determined fighter attack. Especially the survivor bias like “Old 666” or B-17s in general are usually preferred examples of how good these bombers were irl - whilst everybody able to read statistics will find out that the 25 mission tour of duty (USAAF) was almost impossible to survive until late '43.

The rather low overall loss rate is basically the result of mass attacks in the last 14 months until V-E day without proper (fighter) air defense by the Germans. And this was based on fuel shortage for training (since '41) - so they ran out of pilots, not aircraft.

2 vids about B-17s:

Rather old, but maybe interesting for new bomber players:

Disclaimer: Even as the provider of the vid is a clear RAF BC fanboy - he nailed imho the weaknesses of the B-17. You will find a very nice vid on Greg’s channel (a US fanboy) comparing the B-17 and the Lancaster.

Rather new - short & sweet:

I found this in the comments:

3752 heavy bombers were destroyed by flak verse 3299 heavy bombers destroyed by fighters. With 1263 heavy bombers lost by other means. Based on numbers from the document Army Air Forces Statistical Digest World War II, Dec 1945, using data from the 8th and 15th Air Forces.

Even as wt and irl are complete separate worlds - i still see it as extremely disappointing that wt offers outside Air SB totally unrealistic combat ranges and combines the stabilized mouse aim of fighters with artificial bullet spread of defensive guns.

Have a good one!

1 Like
30

BOMBERS HEAVILY NEED FIXING!!! IT NEEDS A NEW DAMAGE MODEL UPDATE!!! IT NEEDS TO STOP DISINTEGRATING WHEN LOOKED AT BY A MIG-3!!! Stona closed my thread so I’ll talk here, some of the solutions I got inspiration from others, huge thx to them!

Bombers are just painful after 2.0, climbing doesn’t help because of USSR/Wyverns and diving doesn’t help because of enemy fighters/attack aircrafts. Side climbing doesn’t help also because of USSR and flying towards teammates doesn’t help because they’re all too low/far behind. For the majority of the time, bases also get stolen by strike aircrafts who are better armed and are faster.

Solutions:
Escort areas - Fighters may choose to get airspawn and get auto assigned next to a bomber and if they exit a certain escort area they get J out similar to how Ground Vehicles behave. They also get passive income from staying close to incentivise escorting bombers.

Maps and bases adjustments - Widen the map and bases spawn so bombers don’t have to fly directly into enemy aircrafts. Create more bases so they won’t get stolen or create specially designated bases for attack aircrafts and bombers for example, narrow bases are strike aircraft bases and wide bases are bomber bases.

Hiding bombers - Change it so bombers aren’t highlighted during battle like in Ground Realistic Battles. This way, if you climb or maintain altitude you’ll look like a speck of dust for fighters and this might increase survivability. This might also lower the amount of people climbing to intercept bombers because it’ll be a huge waste of time for them to search for bombers in the air.

31

Guess ill also add. Most bombers have/had their br’s mainly for their bomb load and somewhat moderate defenses. But these were when bombers could actually influence a match and wern’t as weak as wet paper. Sense both of these are now basically worthless. Perhaps a good reduction in br for these bombers could be good? Some going down .3 and a lot going down .7 to 1.7.

32

Current bases respawn after some time : no need for that

i’m for the idea (it’s my original) BUT NOT in this Format:
the Airspawn thingy are in many way possibly abusive.

You need like 5 bombers to kill 3 bases and airstrips in some missions → every fighter would become an escort fighter at such times => no way to counter that.

the J-out thing is stupid, if the bomber dies from everything - AAA guns, 3 people intercepting you (1 fighter can’t do miracle) - the guy would automatically get destroyed, with no possibility to change objective after your death (at least, it’s how i expect gaijin of making things.

it also doesn’t allow for strategical cover, as the area might be small.
and it doesn’t really allow to defend you - relative speed of your bomber going straight instead of fighters doing 1 circle/2 circles → relatively impossible to survive the J-out as the bomber is moving away from the fight

with that J-out thing,… you showed that you don’t know how fighters fight each others (i mean correctly fights).

also, the spawning to the bomber area is possibly abusive the other way:
1 bomber + 3 fighter squad (a squad is 4 players playing together, often with discord or similar, so coordinated players) → they could easily use that spawn advantage, to murder half your team easily and unscathed (i know it would be possible, as is it already today) - killing the gameplay for everyone else because of the advantage given.

Keep to the original idea:
“having an escort area, in which the player in a fighter killing an ennemy would recieve +50% / +100% reward //or// getting a passive reward for staying within bomber side (area) every x seconds+bonus if bomber reach target.(easy to do so, but Area need to be worked up in size terms and depending BR)”
+
“having similar bonus for bomber players willing to stay in formations (easy to do so, but Area need to be worked up in size terms and depending BR)”

Which means that Players spawns on the ground then proceed to enter the Bomber area or not.
Bomber players that wishes an escort could turn around to await one.

Honestly all ennemy aircraft shouldn’t be covered with UI in Air RB, as in Ground RB.
the problem of map size isn’t going to be one, as there is objectives to defend, forcing players to meet.

Also - in LOW BR - the Contrail height is 2000m instead of 4750m in Jet Tiers:
Proposed change is to at least give 3000m of contrail height - most interceptors of low BR can easily climb up that altitude, but it will give bombers more space to fly without being instantly harrassed.

At some point we talked about AI Wings (bombers)/Escorts(fighters) : thoses are asking so much changes to AI system, so it wouldn’t be picked by Gaijin.

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33

Currently per Wings:
a Fighter have 2 to 3 wing sections for a length going from 4m(Bf109) to 7m (P-38) → that’s about 2-3.5m per section
a Bomber have 2 to 3 wing sections for a length going from 7.5m (Pe-2) to 20m (B-29) → that’s about 3.75-10m per section

so yes, some changes in Damage model should be done.

34

I prepared a reply in vour thread - but was closed before i could post it.

Answer behind a spoiler as bomber related but just partially damage model related.

Spoiler

These days are long gone. At least in Air RB.

  • Thx to the ShVak buff you face deadly 20 mm cannons at the same BR (2.0). And it is not unusual (imho rather standard) to face 5 MiG 3s (BR 2.3) with air spawn - even if the have just 12.7 mm - they hit very hard.

  • That’s why i wrote “it needs experience to make them work”.

  • So your goal is to avoid confrontations in the first place - as you can’t expect to survive a fight vs enemies optimized to shot down aircraft in a plane optimized to bomb something.

  • There are various strategies like reverse climbing, late spawning or simply build up alt above and behind your airfield and start a bomb run when all enemies are low.

Regarding your other posts (valid just Air RB):

  • Your B-25 is not recommended - the BR 3.7 is especially during grinding events flooded with mission score grinders and prone to get full uptiers.

  • The only bombers there able to kill reliably bases (and survive that and can safely rtb) are the Swedish B-18B and the JP B7A2 (9 x 60 kg kills any base) and even with them you have to break off in 10-20% of your attack runs if more than one P-38 comes for you. You can beat them in a 1 vs 1 any day of the week, but this requires to drop your payload.

  • Contrail alt is usually ~5.5 km, but there are a lot of map specific exceptions. on some winter maps as low as 1.7 km, on most Pacific maps 6.5 km…

Regarding your current post:

Yes. In Air RB there are just a few exceptions from this rule.

But - In order to play successful as a bomber pilot there is (at least from my pov) also the need to be a somehow decent fighter pilot; it boils down that a bomber pilot has to be smarter than his average fighter/interceptor opponent to have a realistic chance to drop on a base AND rtb safe and unharmed.

This whole discussion about damage models is comprehensible, but the underlying assumption that an improved damage model would increase the general survival chances of bombers is imho flat wrong if you try to look at the broader picture.

General view (valid just for Air RB):

  1. Classic bomber game play is dead since May 2020 as respawning bases were introduced - the win condition “enemy airfield destroyed” vanished and transformed bombers into a plain grinding tool.

  2. As gaijin stated multiple times (when they introduced the “skill” bonus) that killing enemy players is the ultimate goal of playing wt. You play a plain vehicle based shooter.

  3. So it seems logical that they cater PvP players and see PvE aircraft like bombers as a necessity to offer the maximum amount of aircraft classes and vehicles and a zero skill grinding tool which allows toddlers to participate.

  4. So at higher BRs you see multirole Mach 2 jets playing and progressing in Air RB via base bombing with the lowest amount of necessary skill / experience. A win-win for those players and for gaijin as they sell those premium jets like sliced bread.

Back to prop bombers:

  1. If you try to take a closer look at the average player experience in Air RB at prop BRs you will see that the majority of them is rather new and sees playing props as a kind of necessary evil on their way to shiny top tier jets - or they just play to spade their aircraft to use them in Ground RB.

  2. It seems logical that less experienced players tend to play with the smallest efforts necessary to progress. That’s why you see most of them playing stuff like your mentioned MiG 3s or bombers.

  3. The survival chances for bombers play from my pov just a minor role in the BR determination process; it is imho obvious that gaijin is looking at the potential damage output - and if certain bombers kill too many fighters, they get uptiered.

  4. Gaijin has proven with countless open or hidden nerfs that they are not interested in having a low effort grinding tool with high survival rates. That’s why bombers tend to go up in BRs and prop fighters able to intercept them before they can drop have stable or decreasing BRs.

  5. Discussing damage models is futile - a fighter optimized to kill a bomber will always have the upper hand agains a bomber optimized to bomb civilians & infrastructure.

  6. The best defense for (heavy) bombers was always to avoid enemy fighters - but gaijin offers a PvPvE game play and the goal of their map design is clearly “engagement optimized” - they facilitate (like every other shooter) player interactions and are not interested to change this in the popular AB and RB modes.

Have a good one!

1 Like
35

Thx for your idea! :)

We could also have wider bases so bombers can fly further away and makes it easier to avoid confrontation without making the game boring for bombers by just climbing around base for the whole time.

For me, I find that I always get intercepted while climbing by MiG-3s (because they get airspawn and their climb rate and armament is wild) even if I turn back towards allied fighters, most of them are too low or behind me.

3000m might still be too low, I got intercepted by a MiG-3 while in a Swedish B18A even though I was climbing and circling around spawn. Perhaps increase the bomber air spawn and decrease interceptor air spawn.

I’ve tried climbing and diving. If I climb to avoid confrontations, I usually get outclimbed by interceptors who also get air spawn and I find if I dive, I have a small chance of delivering my payload successfully. Perhaps you could give some tips and tricks?

36

any bomber in history went through confrontation - this idea seems to be leading to an easy income of RP/SL - impossible.

we’re gonna test that,… maybe you were awaiting inexperienced pilots making it too hard for them.

feels enough to me, because you also have to understand that at Very Low BR - fighter perfomances tends to give an heavy advantage to bombers, the higher they’re going up.

and this through my 12 years experience of the game.

Side Climb + look for ennemies coming your way
→ if there is ennemy coming → go the opposite direction of them (but keep altitude or climb)
→ use manual gunners [you can learn them pretty good by using custom battle, to fight against AI fighters to accomodate your aim]
→ plan your way in/out of bombing

Alongside those rules - if you’re getting escort players:
→ Side climbing, and give them the way you’re side climbing, so they can side-climb too, in your direction (and not loose energy in turning while climbing - really useful up to 6.3 BR)
→ Every player can’t be an escort fighters - always verify who climb to adapt or say “thanks for the intention but you’ll not be able to keep up while climbing”
→ better to do that in squad : coordination is key

37

Got it, thx for the advice. I’ll try it out this weekend with a few friends. For now I’ll just stick to ground and fighters :)

Yes, but the current damage model of War Thunder destroys your wing with a few shots of Berezins lol. This kinda boils back down to War Thunder redesigning their damage model to allow for more realistic bombers.

38

it is, and should be done,… but i’m not Gaijin.

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39

It’s really annoying when you spawn and there’s an enemy aircraft a thousand meters or more above you that hits you and then returns to where it was before.

40

This depends on your preferred mode - i play exclusively Air RB.

Based what i have seen on statshark it makes from my pov no real sense to give you a detailed list how to play the imho best TT bomber in the game (the Swedish B-18 B at 4.0) if you have just 64 hours game experience in total.

Air RB is quite tough even without running grinding events and playing a 4.0 plane with this low level of experience is imho suicide - in order to make a heavy fighter disguised as a bomber work you need experience - in the form of crew XP.

So my recommendation to you would be to build up crew XP first. Use the Finnish B-239 in the TT - imho amongst the best fighters at BR 2.7 and easy to use. Increase your vision, g-force resistance and gunner reload time first and collect some overall experience like maps etc.

With your current inventory you won’t have any fun.

Edit: If you want to have some fun - grind the C-3604 with your Fw 190. This plane is amazing and claps your mentioned Yaks the whole day - and regarding your mentioned MiG 3s - not long ago i clapped the last 4 enemies alive with it: All MiG 3s 😉 Have in mind that you need crew XP to use the insane turning abilities - and avoid B-239s 😎

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41

Bombers can’t boom and zoom bruh… or well dive bombers can but not that well and they could have a lower spawn height.
Actually now that I think about it it would make sense to add more spawn heights for different aircrafts, some bombers need more altitude than others

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42

I’m an Air RB and Ground RB player, the only reason why I’m playing bombers in the first place is for Ground RB lol. Thx for the advice, I’ll try my best! :)

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43

too hard to do considering Balance issue it would bring,… a NC223 (currently 3.0) could be 5.3 if the bomber spawn is set at 8km(max altitude the bomber can fly),… see the problem coming in now?

44

just making the tail section:
first–> more than 1 section(Like wing roots and wing tips)
second–> add tail spars for more durability
third–> just buff the bomber’s module health, maybe get people to shoot the engines rather than putting 6 bullets into the tail and have it fall off.

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45

I’m not asking for bombers to spawn in space I’m just asking for them to be a bit higher, currently fighters can reach up to bombers quite easily which gives them very little chance or survival

2 Likes
46

just need more sections:

adding more sections to bomber aircraft will give them good enough damage resistance.

47

of course, but as said earlier :

48

nah 6000m at 4000m somhow the entire enemy fighter is already above you