Is there a particular reason the Stirling Bombers are one of the only T3 bombers and the Stirling B III the only one at 4.3 to still be armed with 7.7mm guns?
At this rating these are pop guns that have been completely superseded. Virtually every other plane in T3 has 12mm or 20mm guns. The only other T3 bomber to have only 7.7mm equivalent guns is the 3.7 Yer-2. Even the 3.3 Chinese P1Y1 has two 20mm guns.
It just seems massively under armed for self defence in this tier and rating.
It is this way because of its large bomb load, the reasoning is that if it can get to bases it can do a massive amount of damage. I disagree with this, and would welcome a br decrease for them, spading them was not fun at all, but then again i dont really enjoy bomber gameplay that much. The main problem i had was that they were really slow and the guns were shit, for example the P1Y1 in the japanese and chinese tree may have 2x 20mm guns, but their firing arcs make them absolutely useless, but the plane is fast, so you can often drop your measly bomb load and get back to the airfield without dying.
Both Stirlings are awfully BR’d even for the British tech tree though, it’s literally worse in bomb load than Halifax , considerably worse in speed, with equivalent defence armament.
And Halifax is 4.0 while Stirlings are 4.0 and 4.7 placed after Halifax.
Technically Stirling can carry a greater payload but it doesn’t work at all in game:
Halifax carries a great 12,000lb load of 9x 1000lb MC bombs and 6x 500lb GP bombs.
Stirlings only 1000lb loadout is 9x 1000lb MC.
Stirling can carry 13,500lb of 500lb GP but 500lb GP is absolute garbage with barely any TNTe, I’m not sure why 500lb MC exists only on Beaufighters currently and every other plane has to deal with GP. The 500lb MC was introduced late 1941 has over twice the filling of GP, and it makes little sense why all these strategic bombers, late war fighters, post war jets even don’t have access to it when it’s already in the game. Bomber command also used American 500lb and 1000lb bombs though this is not possible in game (though in fairness it may be hard to find documentation on how many would fit?)
I’m also not sure why more detailed loadout configuration doesn’t exist for these planes, it seems wrong a plane with a greater overall payload carries a much worse gameplay loadouts. And it seems annoying all these planes with massive bomb bays and at least 6 types of bombs carried are limited to like 3 options with 3 bomb types. I know the 2000lb HC bombs were carried by these types as well as by Beaufighter but 2000lb, 1900lb, 40lb etc do not appear in game at all.
Also Sea Mines, 1000lb, 1850lb and 2000lbs were also available to British bombers but not in game, though it is a thing for a few planes in game, I know Catalina can carry sea mines.
2 fold problem
Britain Tax
Britain only operated night bombers with the exception of the Mosquitto in WW2. So all of the bombers we have are being thrown into situations they werent not meant for. Most other bombers with heavier turrets were meant for day operations. Just need to compare the B-17 to the Stirling, Halifax and Lancaster to see those differences.
we need to make this catch all term a thing
The simple answer to that is have the 20mm guns an upgrade and dispense with reality. Its not like theyve let realism get in the way of balance in other areas, as we roll cold war tanks against tigers. Or see more tigers in one game than the Germans ever managed to actually build. Or have tech demo tanks of which only one was ever build rolling out en mass, or indeed concept vehicles that were never actually built. Just have the stock guns be 7.7mm and have a 20mm “1943” upgrade.