The bomber problem

Game Discussion General Discussion
1

I look at the forums every now and then and see the bomber problem, they argue in circles and it goes nowhere, make them too useless players complain, make them too strong players complain, in circles players go around arguing, debating, on how to solve the bomber problem.

in warfare the bomber could turn the tide of war, and yet in war thunder the bombers are the most shafted, the only plane who’s role is strictly support.

in a 1v1 they will lose 99% of the time, they are weak, the fire spread is all over the place, they are fat and slow, and their greatest strengths those being strong in a group and bombing targets is neutered by the fact bases are spread out and taken by faster planes with a smaller bomb load.

but most of all every player knows this save for newbies that the bombers are pinatas, how high they spawn, the climb rate of their plane compared to the bomber, the knowledge of the player is the biggest threat to the bomber.

for all intensive of purposes they are useless, and it’s not like Gaijin can get rid of them they are roughly a quarter of all the planes in the game, and players still play them.

many solutions have been offered.

make one big bomb target
buff the bombers to take more damage and make the gunners accurate
make a mode solely for bombers
give them AI fighters as an upgrade

and yet the bomber problem remains like a cancer, what is the solution to the bomber problem, is there even a solution? how can bombers be made fun and make use of the high risk high reward gameplay they offer yet not be overpowered,

how can the bomber problem be a distant memory and the bombers have a seat at the table fulfilling their intended role like all the rest.

3 Likes
2

The problem with bombers is, and always has been, automated gunners. Bomber pilots want to have effective gunners that regularly shoot down enemies without their input at all. Fighters want to be able to engage bombers without constantly dying at 1km and being able to survive engagements with bombers.

I’m heavily on the side of fighters, despite being a bomber pilot. Piloting a bomber is trivial work. You need to point towards a base and thats it. All of your skill in flying a bomber should be learning how to use the guns. Don’t expect to afk for success. Recently i’ve been playing the G8N1 to unlock the japanese jets and i’ve had multiple 3 kill games manually using the guns. Even a 5 kill game. While it is an extrordinary case due to the 20mm turrets, bombers do stand a chance even in the current meta.

As for bomber durability, i can see the argument there. .50s cutting the tail off a plane should be nearly impossible, but it happens in 1/4 or more of your deaths. While it is true that mouse aim makes your shots far more deadly than they were IRL, there are still plenty of video of bombers taking 30mm bursts and not having their wing ripped off instantly.

That being said, bombers should be dying to fighters far more than killing them. Currently that is the case.

Finally, they NEED to get rid of dead bombers having their turrets shooting. Utterly absurd to see a bomber spiraling out of control still having their gunners locked on target. Both bad for realism and bad for gameplay.

3

just port the base logic from air AB

reduce more tickets, way more durable bases, and finally super durable airfield

4

Honestly, I would be fine if they just buffed the gunners to actually engage and shoot at an enemy within half a mile instead of just aiming at them and doing nothing. TBH, their accuracy is probably fine already, but yeah, they need to have their DM buffed to a degree (not a lot but just enough to make them be able to shrug off a few (3-5) 20mm hits to the control surfaces)

5

I don’t think bombers are on meta as long as almost all of the bombers are armed with outdated and worthless 7mm machine guns, which will do something within nearly 400m or closer.
(While enemy fighters can easily snap a bomber’s wing with 20mm HE in 2km)

G8N is one of the exceptions thanks to a powerful 20mm autocannon, which can fire back at enemy fighters armed with their autocannon.

Fighting in Lancaster or B-24 against Do-335B or Bf 109K is nothing but a suicide mission.

6

except not all bombers have 7mms. the ones with 7mm aren’t meta and won’t be, but even .50s are good enough.

Stop flying flat when you are going to encounter enemy planes. Its truly constant. You can still use WASD when in gunner sights and can maneuver around the majority of bursts at 1-2km. If they are coming from the side, turn your wings to be perpendicular to them to make yourself a small target and let your top and bottom turrets engage with your side gunners. The rest is up to your gunnery skill.

7

I think I might not be mad if Gaijin stop overrating ‘heavy bomber with 7mm’ because of heavy payload. :/

Lancasters when it was 5.3 was nothing but utter nonsense. :(
I was extremely happy that Ta-152 came from nowhere with 30mm MK-103 and an interceptor spawn, and one-tapping me on out of my gun range. :/

B-17s were mediocre before revamping the wing-overload mechanism

  • Suicide caused by wing overload crash while trying to evade enemy fire
  • Suicide cause of letting them hit freely while trying not to crash your own wing

But maybe it is fine now.

8

I dont think bombers are the problem really. The problem is we have the same stale game mode for air for 10+ years and its just air quake tdm.

Imagine if we had like real objectives, matches that werent designed to be over in 10 minutes etc.

Bombers outside a very few outliers judt exist to be used in grb, and for you to suffer in arb to get the modifications since rp/sl gains in ground are atrocious, leading players to either GE mods or zomb for hours in arb being rp pinatas.

2 Likes