The saddening situation bombers are in

Night_Trapper · November 26, 2024, 3:58pm

Bombers in RB are still playable, but the problem is the players… Bomber, it’s a lot about patience and most players don’t have that, i.e. around 75% of the 16 players in the team, fly horizontally to the middle (fighters and bombers) and within 3 minutes it’s usually game over for them.
The rest try to climb to take advantage of the height advantage, for greater speed and overview of the situation…
Powerful bombers (I mean four-engine - B-17, B-24, Lancasters, He-177…), are the ones that have the potential to pull fighters to the heights…
Near the ground or at low altitude, they are heavy bricks that are designed to be easily shot down…
There are tactics where none of them guarantees 100% success, but they are usable…
Gradually, from the riskiest…

takeoff from the airport, horizontal low flight, use the bomber as a gunship
takeoff from the airport, horizontal low flight to the nearest bomb base
airstart, horizontal low flight, use the bomber as a gunship
airstart, horizontal flight to the nearest bomb base
takeoff from the airport, immediate turn left or right, flight above the treetops, guarding the position +10 km from the nearest enemy mark, raid over the target, the same procedure when returning home
airstart, immediate turn left or right, gradual climb to 6-7 km, raid on the target and then it’s up to the player, if he wants to quickly get to the base, or if he trusts himself enough to lure the fighters to the height and fight them there with machine guns…

This is not a dogma that this is how it should be played!

Maybe someone has a different tactic or style of play and can share it…

But the only ones capable of taking the battle to the heights are bombers, and either the fighters want to or don’t…

Someone mentioned modern bombers here… Considering that they have minimal machine gun ranges against WWII bombers, the highest possible height would be their only protection…
Then there’s ECM and other things…
Maps, they’re still short maps of the tactical battlefield, if the operational battlefield were 200 x 200 km, it would be bearable for these machines…
And of course, it’s for pilots, not tankers… I guess you could still use such a strategic bomber as an anti-ship missile carrier, but not as a CAS for tanks…

House_of_Schmidt · November 26, 2024, 4:31pm

They really need a longer form game mode for this to work properly. Maybe RB EC or something like it.

Night_Trapper · November 26, 2024, 6:35pm

It would definitely want something for heavy bombers and long range maritime reconnaissance bombers…
I am attaching a battle map I played yesterday in sim … it begs the question how many players would like to play this for a few hours…
Related to that, battle rewards etc…

SIM_He-177

DarKBird · November 26, 2024, 7:21pm

Doubt many can handle WT for a few hours, even more so playing in one game mode ans vehicle, but thankfully IIRC Enduring Confrontation allows a flow of people in and out

SpeclistMain1 · November 26, 2024, 7:29pm

The issue is that bombers shouldn’t basically have to be useless in PvP (or even just self-defense against a single fighter). Yeah, bombers IRL were designed with huge formations in mind, but we don’t have formations in game. What really should happen is a mass lowering of bomber BRs so that their defensive armament matches the offensive armament of the fighters they face. The fighters would still have the advantage due to the massive size and maneuverability disadvantage of the bombers, but it would at least be fair.

Fil520 · November 26, 2024, 7:37pm

Hello
I play sometimes with 8.0 early jets bombers (Il-28), and especially in the lasts times (I guess after the sales), the situation as become way worse with enemy teams full of low lvl prems Saab 105, Sea vixens and others who only cares about kills, and because of their bad skills, go hunt bombers at 4000m… talking about Il-28, here another (still not fixed) pretty bad problem (landing gears way too slow)

Only time I have fun playing bombers is Yak-28 in sim battles

Ion_492 · November 26, 2024, 7:41pm

Why would they not go for bombers?

I’ve found that the Il-28 is one of the few effective bombers in WT, it has offensive guns, as well as a great defensive rear gun. The only issue is the compression at that BR in my opinion.

Real_K_Soze · November 26, 2024, 9:25pm

Fully agree - as with these (just a few) points:

…you present an almost unbeatable recipe for getting killed almost guaranteed for the majority of bomber players - without giving them the chance getting even remotely near to a base… at least in a 4-engine bomber - and (imho the most important part) to survive these approaches.

Why?

Airfield take-off creates (depending on daytime and server) a 60 - 100% probability of getting team killed by a random moron.
I see barely a bomber surviving such approaches. Even stuff like Bv238s (which will spawn slightly above & behind the airfield) gets murdered by team mates.
Even considering that US 0.50 cals out-range almost everything - just a minority is able to use gunners and dodge incoming fire at the same time. Flying tree-top kills most of your vertical options to dodge whilst a diving fighter has usually so much excess speed that your return fire can’t be effective due to the small time window you have to shoot - but he has a very large target - a few 20 mm hits kills you.
Turning left or right & gradual climb does not work in most cases - the contrails will reveal your position at least above 5,5 km (on Pacific maps usually 6,5) - and you will get spotted (dot & contrail) & out-climbed

The sole exception from the above might happen in case:

if the enemy team is completely unskilled
own interceptors push the enemy team (in front of you) low
there are heavy clouds up to 10 km
friendly strike aircraft lure enemies with IC spawn low
friendly strike aircraft disrupt the climb phase of non-airspawn fighters
you are in 6-8 vs 6-8 lobby
you get escorted by a Brigand, B7A2 or T-18B

… and the bomber pilot is battle hardened and uses a B-17, Pe-8 or a Halifax and manages to get above 7 km. And most of this has to happen in the same match…

To be fair:

Some of your suggestions worked ages ago, but in these days they are long gone as the game changed completely.

Low level runs worked in the past as:

Fighter players actually climbed in order to get a better positioning for a fight with the enemy aircraft
There were no masses of strike aircraft like today
There were no (a few exceptions) ai planes compromising your position
There were no low alt contrails
The map design supported these runs like Operation Iskra

I played all 4 engine bombers (except Tu-4) quite successfully with a mix of side climbing or reverse climbing (180° degree turn after spawn) on an old and inactive account, but those were the days without contrails at low alt and there were no respawning bases or this “red square” marking on the map like today.

This is actually correct - due to a deterioration of the average player skill combined with various decisions by gaijin killed bomber game play for heavy bombers.

I won’t repeat them in detail but only guys:

on selfish grinding tours (just looking for zero skill SL & RP like most Ju 288 players)
with an exception passion for bombers
with exceptional gunner and flying skills
with exceptional high tolerance levels regarding getting killed

…fly bombers today.

Based on what i see daily in prop Air RB the “grinders” have a share of 90-95%. And this is fully intended by gaijin - they don’t care about bomber game play.

And no half-most decent pilot is motivated to use them - without having the skill to make a difference and to support your team bombers are actually weakening their team as their game impact is (almost) zero.

There are some exceptions, but the best example of how much gaijin cares about bombers wast the last battlepass vehicle, the PBM-5. Zero chances to get to a base, way to slow for its BR, a free kill.

Real_K_Soze · November 26, 2024, 9:36pm

Good point - as long as you have to kill a very small number of bombers compared to fighters in order to fulfil daily or special tasks, there is no reason not to go for them.

But to e fair: The fellow player is somehow correct, the average bomber pilot is even less skilled than the average fighter pilot…

Real_K_Soze · November 26, 2024, 10:00pm

This was actually a serious thread.

You might re-read your above mentioned statement multiple times in order to realize how ridiculous this request is.

The last time that happened was 1940 - and just because the RAF was unable to put cannons in their fighters. GER, FR and the USSR had already 20 mm cannons in their fighters…and the USAAF planned to implement 37mm cannons…

Btw - try to name some bombers with 30/37/45 or 50 mm defensive guns…

This won’t change anything.

This strategy (“the bomber will fight his way through”) failed miserably. Bomber formations were unable to defend themselves vs fighters.

Read some books man…

Loofah · November 26, 2024, 10:32pm

I know it’s a bit off topic, but considering 37mm HE can punch through 15mm of steel - 50mm to Hornet’s armored windshield is one of the most hilarious shots you’ll ever get, because 50mm 1,8kg shell.going 900m/s can not defeat the windshield, and canopy is eternal and made of 5cm thick steel beams apparently, and with a tiny bit of luck plane takes no damage other than windshield going black. Just like in real life.
Damage is all over the place.
Damn Japanese destroyer’s 127mm 23kg HE shell going 910m/s has penetration of like what, 28mm. So in other words, it fails vs Pz.IV side because it has no momentum whatsoever.
IRL I can bet it would cave T-34’s upper side plate in and I wouldn’t be surprised if same applied to front just due to momentum alone.

I wonder if we’ll ever see damage that is remotely realistic.

Night_Trapper · November 26, 2024, 10:48pm

As we wrote, everyone can try their bombing tactics, they can consider some of what I wrote to be nonsense and something might work…
The game has been running for over 10 years and there have been a lot of players who have played other flight games…
After some time, they said the direction the game is going is not what they imagined, new players will come and either want to learn or it will be a dull grind for 2 minutes and another battle…

But now to the maps…

those maps have the character of a tactical battlefield, and therefore the big bombers are kind of outnumbered here, because you can’t completely miss them in an air game…
in order to fly somewhere, you need speed, that’s why I use the first, max the second level of bombs … the others are heavy, you’re slow and you can’t climb much on these maps, when you reload you have a lot of fuel again
the biggest advantage of bombers is not being seen - that is quite difficult… against bombers there are (markers, clear sunny maps, spotting system, they are too loaded with fuel, a lot of work with training the crew, who still shoot at a short distance … etc…)
what came attack aircraft with a bomb load that has the ability to destroy the base … also it is against big bombers
a lot of players are allergic to bombers because they are slow and take away space in the team from fighters…
and so we could continue…

I would say bombers should be scaled to map size…
E.g…

the ideal amount of fuel
the load of bombs could be chosen by the player
clouds, fog, snow, overcast, equal number of day/night battles
the space of the combat zone itself distributed over a larger area of the map, both symmetrically and asymmetrically…
limited bombload - for fast planes with bombs…
and there are other ideas here in the topic

It’s completely “amazing” when you read on the wt wiki about long-range naval bombers, i.e. also four-engined ones, that unfortunately, in this game, they cannot be used for what they were intended for…
In aviation it is an ordinary bomber and in naval, with ultra-precise AAA, it is also useless, especially when these machines attacked submarines, military convoys, coastal facilities, where the biggest enemy was a destroyer with a corvette … so what are they in the game for. .?
At the same time, it would be enough to build in several maps with islands and AI ships, a port … e.g. develop an old map of Norway…

A lot of things could be written about it…

SpeclistMain1 · November 26, 2024, 11:42pm

Versus the high number of interceptors in the early war that’s true, but that doesn’t change the fact that the bombers were meant to defend themselves. We don’t have formations in game (or escort fighters), so some sort of compensation needs to be enacted. Moving bombers down to where they can fight on equal footing is certainly a more serious suggestion than “basically nothing can change” (paraphrasing).

PercussionCap · November 26, 2024, 11:55pm

They were always less in number than the bombers they were facing.

Meant to, but never did even when outnumbering their interceptors several times over. Losses were very high until good escorts showed up.

SpeclistMain1 · November 27, 2024, 12:07am

True, but the bomber to fighter ratio was much larger at the beginning of the war, and without any form of escort game function/feature bombers need to be able to defend themselves.

Again, without any form of escort (or formation) functionality in game the bombers need to be able to defend themselves on a one-to-one basis.

Loofah · November 27, 2024, 10:25am

But what’s even the point of playing an interxeptor then, if you have to set up for.half an hour only to get absolutely roflstomped by bomber gunners anyway?

I sometimes do bomber interception using Wyvern. It usually takes some serious clobbering to down a bomber. And then a spinning, tumbling Pe-8 somehow manages to snipe me.down from 1300m away. Extremely entertaining.

In current Air RB heavy bombers are mostly useless. Trying to make them viable without completely redesigning the game mode will simply make them extremely annoying to face.
I don’t do bomber interception in Ta-152H unless it’s really the only option, simply because it’s way too easy to die or get crippled.

RunaDacino · November 27, 2024, 10:38am

This is honestly something i feel does need serious fixing. If not in ARB, at least in air sim.

Not even deny kills, just massively increase spread if the bomber is spinning or similar. Right now it remains a perfectly stable turret even while falling to death and i have had quite a few cases with my banshee where a successful run on a tu-4 turned into my plane getting disabled as i was extending away while it was spinning helplessly.

Loofah · November 27, 2024, 10:44am

Bomber gunners are essentialy 3-plane stabilised. So as long as you are within a firing arc…
Upside down, pulling 7G? Who cares. They will keep shooting perfectly straight and tracking the target.

And with 20mm canmons being able to rip your tail off with 1 shell it gets ridiculous although I’ve been pelted by B-17 I thought I made dead enough more than once.

Loofah · November 27, 2024, 12:13pm

I’d like to show you something maybe interesting.
The match was generally uneventful, at the beginning I had a chance to land a burst from directly vertical at B-17, only damaging him a bit - I don’t normally go out of my way to hunt bombers, but flying 1500m below me is too big of a bait for me to not take it. Then it got demolished by my team.
At the end of the game I engaged another B-17.
The bomber in the video received a good burst from his fellow A-26C (B-17 was the 1st one to shoot, but A26 stole his base, so good sportsmanship on boths sides). It turned his fuselage black and good portions of the wings orange/red I understand, he might have had 100 12,7mm holes in there (I mean, I counted 60, maybe more, but good portion of damn would have gone through and through) but god damn, the aerodynamic penalty to the wing from a few 12,7mm holes is interesting (the fuselage got hit by like 70% of the bullets)

Then it got hit repeatedly by my twin MG151/20 stealth belt and my MK108 cannon. How many 30mm? It’s honestly hard to tell. There are 3 “guaranteed” MK108 holes (1 in wing, 2 in fuselage one is small, but that’s how it sometimes works), and probably some that did not appear (in the tail we have Mk108 pattern shrapnel). The 1st burst I land generally doesn’t show MG151/20 holes but in slow motion it’s clearly visible that about a dozen shells hit, and most likely 3 MK108 30mm HEIT shells (bigger boom)

During 3rd pass according to slow mo I land 2 MK108 shells, 1 in the fuselage (no hole shows up) and 1 in the wing.

Anyway, while the plane goes black, engines are dead or dying, rudder is missing, I, as a fighter, can’t tell that, as I can’t get anywhere close or else I’m facing a great threat.
Furthermore, fires are nowhere near as dangerous to big planes as they are to fighters, and oftentimes bombers can burn for several minutes.

And yeah, this is the last guy. But imagine if I had any teammates around who would have shown up before my final pass - according to many forum members, that wouldn’t have been a killsteal, just a normal case of “you couldn’t finish it, so someone else took it, fair play”.

Imagine further buffing B-17 damage model without taking into account that damage is all over the place, cannons are inconsistent and bomber gunners oftentimes simply can’t be avoided.
The damage in this game needs an overhaul. And Severe Damage mechanic needs fixing. If you turn half a plane black while taking out a few engines and setting it on fire - maybe it’s good idea to award you the kill even if someone else fires the final shot.
And mind you, I was firing stealth belt, so 1 in 5 APHE, 1 in 5 AP-I, and these are usually barely visible.

Rowiek · November 27, 2024, 1:32pm

I think i have a solution for the bomber problem…

Give every person in the vehicle designated “bomber” its own bases. This to prevent base stealing by strike aircraft (like wyvern) and premium bombers like the Ju-288.

Every bomber has its own bases, when every bomber player has destroyed their bases, e.g. 3-4 bases per players, the airfield can get attacked.

Or, when X amount of bases have been destroyed, the enemy airfield can get attacked. While keeping the bases that havent been destroyed yet, available to the player so that person can still destroy a base.

Also, increase the spawn altitude of bombers to a minimal of 5000 meters.