I understand that bombers were too fragile before the recent changes, and I agree that their survivability needed to be improved.
However, the current damage model has gone too far in the opposite direction.
We are now seeing bombers absorb an absurd amount of damage. In some situations, they can tank multiple hits from base anti-aircraft defenses and even missiles such as the AIM-54 Phoenix, whose warhead contains approximately 50 kg of explosive material. A missile carrying that much explosive should not have such a limited effect against a bomber.
There are also many reports of bombers surviving direct hits from large-caliber weapons, including tank ammunition above 76 mm. I personally recorded a match where this happened.
This is difficult to reconcile with the historical record.
The B-17 was certainly an extremely durable aircraft, and there are impressive cases of B-17s returning to base with enormous amounts of damage. However, these individual cases should not be treated as if they represented the standard survivability of the entire aircraft.
If we start using extreme isolated cases as the basis for the damage model, we could eventually have F-15s flying with practically one wing because there is a real documented case of an F-15 managing to return with that kind of damage.
An extraordinary case demonstrates what an aircraft could potentially survive, not necessarily what it should be expected to withstand as a standard.
The overall history of World War II makes this very clear.
During the war, the USAAF and RAF alone lost approximately 21,900 bombers in operations , with roughly 9,950 from the USAAF and 11,970 from the RAF. This number does not even include the enormous bomber losses suffered by Germany, the Soviet Union, Japan, and other countries. Therefore, there is no single perfectly comparable worldwide statistic, but we are talking about tens of thousands of bombers lost during the war .
And this raises an important question:
If bombers were really capable of absorbing such an enormous amount of damage, how do we explain the fact that tens of thousands of them were lost during the war?
One of the best examples occurred on August 17, 1943 , during the first major operation against Regensburg and Schweinfurt.
The USAAF sent 376 heavy bombers to attack targets deep inside Germany. The American fighter escorts did not have enough range to accompany the bombers for the entire mission, leaving the formations vulnerable for a significant portion of the operation.
The Luftwaffe took advantage of this and launched large formations of fighters against the bombers. 60 bombers were lost, while another 50 returned heavily damaged, some beyond repair. The losses were so severe that they represented approximately 16% of the force sent on the mission.
The problem repeated itself even more brutally on October 14, 1943 , during what became known as “Black Thursday.”
Of the 291 B-17s sent to Schweinfurt, 60 were lost , with another 17 later being classified as beyond repair. Another 121 bombers returned damaged. The bombers did not have fighter escorts capable of accompanying them throughout the entire mission, and Luftwaffe attacks caused devastating losses.
The situation eventually became so serious that the USAAF had to limit deep-penetration operations into Germany until adequate long-range fighter escort became available. The U.S. Air Force itself recognizes that the initial assumption that heavy bombers could defend themselves against enemy fighters was wrong.
And this is exactly what I find contradictory about the current model.
If bombers were so durable that they could absorb enormous amounts of cannon fire, why did fighter escorts become so essential?
The introduction of long-range fighters, especially the P-51, dramatically changed the situation. The average loss rate of heavy bombers in the Eighth Air Force fell from approximately 5.1% in 1943 to 1.9% in 1944 , after the Allies gained much greater escort capability and air superiority.
This demonstrates that bomber structural durability was only one part of the equation. They were durable, but they were not invulnerable to concentrated fighter attacks.
I am NOT asking Gaijin to return to the old fragile bomber model.
Bombers should remain very durable aircraft and should be able to survive damage that would destroy a fighter.
The problem is when extreme examples of survival are turned into such a high standard of durability that a bomber can repeatedly tank weapons that should represent a serious threat.
Historical bombers were durable.
They were not indestructible.
The current model should take into account not only the exceptional examples of bombers that managed to return home with incredible damage, but also the enormous number of bombers that did not return because enemy fighters were capable of destroying them.