The saddening situation bombers are in

[Uncle_J_Wick]

@PercussionCap

I’ve pretty much only used this in Ground RB where they are far too focused on chasing their next free multikill and not looking out for a fighter. In Air RB I dunno, Pe8s are quite rare there.

Aaaaah - this explains a lot. I mean the in this case decisive difference are the Air RB markers; so if the Pe-8 pilot is not totally oblivious of afk he will notice the marker and usually he turns away from you.

You might revisit Air RB - totally insane matches thanks to the grinding event - and lots of Pe-8 as usual as it is a very capable bomber if flown correctly - and a way better pick than the Yer-2; especially regarding defensive turrets and high alt performance.

@PercussionCap

Climbing so far above them like you suggest is unfeasible unless I have the opportunity to just sit there well above their airspawn and not have to go after any enemy aircraft before that, or that I’m not doing the usual thing of sitting right in front of said airspawn so the enemy is more inclined to fight me when they do show up.

As above: I talked about Air RB. So either you kill him from 12 o’ clock high or you anticipate his return route. Regarding altitude: On some of the newer maps it is not unusual to get above 7 km on your way to a base in good climbing bombers, some have airspawns at 5 km alt; you see even B-25s at 6 km…

Either way: If i have decide between attacking a B-17 or a Pe-8 - i always take the B-17. The Pe-8s and B-18Bs are extremely difficult to kill above 6 km if they have some speed.

@PercussionCap

I’m a natural born artist.

You made my day!!!

[PercussionCap]

@Uncle J Wick@live

You might revisit Air RB - totally insane matches thanks to the grinding event - and lots of Pe-8 as usual as it is a very capable bomber if flown correctly - and a way better pick than the Yer-2; especially regarding defensive turrets and high alt performance.

Hmmm, I might just do that. Would have an excuse to play the Ki-61-II I guess.

[SpeclistMain1]

@PercussionCap

…Wouldn’t that reduce the depth of gameplay since all you’d have to do is fly in a straight line to your target?

In my opinion this:

180 degree turn → climb in straight line → 180 degree turn → climb in a straight line

Has much less depth than:

climb in straight line → fight off fighters/interceptors
OR
180 degree turn → climb in straight line → 180 degree turn → climb in a straight line

@PercussionCap

But by doing so, even if you turn off after shooting them down, you’ll inevitably fly past and behind them. The only angle where you’d be ‘safe’ at every point is a level attack from the side where you turn into his direction and fly very near his burning spinning wreck.

Bomber turrets aren’t that accurate, and yeah a fighter having to think about how they approach a bomber is infinitely better than the fighter not even having to worry about anything.

[Night_Trapper]

Monitoring the battle situation, speed and the ability of team players to last longer than 2-3 minutes in battle are key to a successful bomber game.
It helps a lot if the bomber is fast - so far I have found two, under certain conditions, relatively capable, the He-177 and the Canberra’s…

[Creastroy]

Can we just have a pause about attacking bombers and come back to bomber gameplay plz

I know we fighter bois love about tactics but Here is for some chilled flying fortresses

[一弹定天下]

I really can’t stand it. I’ve been playing bombers these two days. As long as the enemy plane fired continuously, it would either break its wings or tail, and it would have no power to fight back. My God! Save the bomber. My God! Save the bomber.

[Griffon26]

Yea cause of the grind for the BP (of which the reward is a bomber daugh) i really got frustrated with the current challenge aka “killing three with bomber without dying”…

I don´t have the PE-8 and I don´t have the Lancaster… So maybe it´s just me but flying my bomber in ground RB always goes the same. Spawn, enemy fighter (mostly big gun yak) closes in and oneshots my He-177, B26 or even B-24 wing… If no fighter is there, then targets vanish and there ain´t noone around to bomb…

I would love to enjoy bombers more. I like it in Air RB but theres the same damn problem - bombers are so weak, they break by a crew member sneezing…

Please Gaijin, you added a few bombers in the last Battlepasses, make them more durable and more enjoyable for the players!

[Night_Trapper]

I understand that the game allows it and it’s just a game, but taking four-engine planes into ground unit mode?
From your list, maybe only the Marauder would be bearable, and even that is on the edge… The other planes are big clumsy boxes, so an easy target for ground AAA and ideal for a fighter or fighter attack low above the ground…
Bombers are an addition to the game, the maps in ARB are built a lot on targets in a relatively small area and for destroying ground AI mobile equipment…
Try to find out what the He-177 attacked (the only one is such an early multi-purpose bomber aircraft - ground and sea targets), the army version of the B-24, which is in the game, and the Marauder…
If you exclude the carpet bombing of city infrastructure, which is a war crime in today’s real world and the game definitely does not support it,
then you have military stations, military trains, war factories, military ports, critical infrastructure of cities and ports, bridges, against supply ships, ground convoys of military vehicles …

How many of these targets are installed on game maps?

I have long thought that air maps should have the character of targets, medium to strategic bombers…
Ground maps for attack aircraft of the close air support type and
ship maps for aircraft operating over the sea, coast and oceans, ports, convoys, etc…
But that’s how Gaijin imagines it…

[Vipr1n]

the Formation mod might be good, but i think (my opinion) being able to spawn 2 enemy fighters (1.0 br lower then the bombers so it aint too OP) that have the aim of the current ai ball turrets, the formation mod you spoke about is also good, but wouldnt it be counterproductive? i mean 3 bombers on 1 spot, seems like a free rp alley for an interceptor like the XP-50 (i might be wrong, but i play the XP-50 alot and it shreds planes)

[RaptorGenesis58]

I have my own suggestion page for this issue:

Infinite health for respawning bases in air battles

poll An issue with the game that I have recently become quite aware of while grinding through the British bomber tree is that, while the long range bombers have awesome bomb loads, they lack the capacity to deliver them. This is in part due to a lack of defensive capabilities (more on that momentarily), but is primarily down to the faster light bombers, striking aircraft, and even fighters at their BRs wiping out all of the bases first. The result of this is lone long range bombers have to linge…

including poll options from other people’s comments. If enough people vote on this suggestion (particularly if it is on one of the more easily added systems) then we might be able to badger Gaijin into doing something about it.

[RaptorGenesis58]

I strongly agree with this point.

[RaptorGenesis58]

I have developed a strong dislike of XP-50s and similar for this reason when flying the pitifully defended British bombers.

[Colerend]

It works both ways. Three bombers can provide a lot more defensive firepower. They wouldn’t drop bombs at the same time.

[SpeclistMain1]

@Creastroy

I know we fighter bois love about tactics but Here is for some chilled flying fortresses

But I was talking about how bombers being actual flying fortresses are the more fun (and more PvP-friendly) implementation of them. I mean I started playing War Thunder to fly the B-29 as a gunship, as growing up it was one of the main military aircraft I thought were cool and I knew I’d like “3D naval combat” (for a lack of a better word) from my experience playing Warframe’s Empyrean missions.

[KillaKiwi]

The B-29 is practically the reason why Germany created R4M rockets and were invested in creating 55mm high and low velocity auto-cannons, which would destroy a B-29 in a single hit.

They already had 50mm Mineshells but opted for an even larger caliber to deal with potential B-29s flying over Germany.

A single fighter has almost no chance to take down a B-29 without getting shot down first.

Of course a Jet with heavy firepower and high speed would give the crew little time to defend and put the odds in favour of the Jet again.

[Night_Trapper]

When I read about bomber formations here…
When the game started, the standard bomb bases in the game were the same as they are today.
And players tried to stay in formations of two or three bombers…
The problem started when one player dropped bombs and had to escort a team player over another base…
The player who had completed the task immediately turned back to the airport and left the other one there…
That’s why players stopped flying in formations…

The only solution would be one common target, as shown in the screenshot from the game, a huge train station (it could also be a huge factory, airport, port, or something similar)…
It would be ideal for players to keep the formation when flying to the target.
Absolutely complete destruction would not be possible, such a station could realistically be destroyed, perhaps by an entire squadron of B-29 strategic bombers…
So it would be a single target for all aircraft, bomb carriers…
It would certainly mean a problem for fighters, such a defensive firepower of gunners would find its target …

And as is often the case in this game, there would be a huge influx of tearful players who want to shoot down their four-engine bomber quite comfortably, without major difficulties…

The formation of bombers means an approximation to reality… and reality was harsh… Even though many four-engine bombers were shot down, the pilots who had more were very appreciated.

So while I would love to see this in the game, and considering what Gaijin has already been able to create in the game, this would be a small thing for him…
I don’t believe we’ll ever see it…!
As someone already wrote here on the forum, bombers are designed for cheap shooting down and easy SL gain…
You have to have completely top-notch crew training and learned how to properly pre-empt your own shooting with onboard gunners…
Otherwise, you have to come up with all possible methods to fly over the base, remain undetected, etc…

It would be a completely different character of the game…
A different reward budget, all players in a relatively small area, simply something completely different, it would have to be a completely different style of fighter attack… There would definitely be a lot of ramming when the player was overcome by anger, etc…

So it seems to me that it would not be for everyday play, but I would like to see it in irregularly recurring events…
Not only a very good event like Ruhr-Guardian Angel, which is more about air supremacy at 7,000 meters (USA vs. GER), but also this type of event…

[xLORD_ZAPx]

I couldn’t agree more, and this has been brought up time and again. I do not understand the choke hold the fighter mafia has on this forum or why it never is approved as a dev suggestion even though it has been submitted many times. See below …

Are Bombers now too fragile to play?

Originally many years ago, before missile packing jets, before naval existed, Bombers, like the B17 and Pe8 were kings of the air. The BV238 in particular was an invincible beast to be feared. Admittedly they were OP in some regard, and as time marched on, they (and their gunners) were progressively nerfed to achieve balance. Fast forward to now, where flying one is almost an act of masochistic suicide that really bears no resemblance at all to historical record (e.g. WW2 Flying Forts returning …

[Uncle_J_Wick]

@KillaKiwi

The B-29 is the reason why Germany created R4M rockets and were invested in creating 55mm high and low velocity auto-cannons, which would destroy a B-29 in a single hit.

This is from my perspective not correct.

The R4M was the logical consequence of the eternal fight between heavy caliber guns (which added a hell of weight and severely affected flight performance) and easy to use low weight & drag but high speed unguided rockets. Minimizing the time being in danger to return fire (by styying outside of it) whilst granting a kill with a single hit was the driving aspect; and not the B-29.

The idea to put high caliber cannons like 50 mm or more to kill bombers was not born by the LW ifself - you find various claims in biographies / memoirs that this was solely the idea of a famous Austrian artist…

@KillaKiwi

A single fighter has almost no chance to take down a B-29 without getting shot down first.

This is a wild claim too. If you look up the insane speed of the Ta 152 H at very high alt with a top speed of 750 kmph at 12.5 km (and a service ceiling of 13-15 km…) you see irl examples able to outclimb it and engage at will.

Imho the B-29 in-game performs way outside irl combat attack profiles (meaning the come in too slow but way too fast) but we saw them years ago dying like flies being outclimbed by almost everybody…at 6.3 in Air RB…

[KillaKiwi]

The Ta 152 H isn’t nearly as fast compared to the B-29 to make any difference with the cannon armament it has.

The targeting computer of the B-29 allows it to engange fighter aircraft effectively at 800m from any direction.

But sure, the Ta 152 H has a lot better chances than other fighter but it’s also a purpose built high-atlitude bomber interceptor.

But you need to realize that the B-29 is not only larger than a B-17, has better defensisve capabilities but is also equipped with fire extuingisher systems for the fuel tanks, making it a lot harder to destroy with regular cannons.

So a Ta 152 H attacking a B-29 wouldn’t be much difference than a Bf 109 attacking a B-17.

But it’s also a moot point. Of course you can built a prop fighter that can have decent chances to take out a B-29 but what are you sacrifacing for that?

Firepower, armor protection and high altitude performance are all going to make the plane expensive, heavy and not ideal for a general purpose.

If you want to make sure that you’re plane takes out a B-29, then you might wanna stick a 55mm cannon on it. Even when you get shot down, it’s still a good trade.

If the B-29 wasn’t as weak to structural failure and fires as in WT and the defensive armament was actually as effective as in RL, you wouldn’t even want to engage a B-29 in any prop that isn’t equppied with 21cm or R4M rockets.
Otherwise you wouldn’t survive the engagement heavily damaged or not at all.

[Lucia]

Playing with big bombers is what kept me hooked on the game when I first started. In low BR, being a bomber and feeling like a fortress—with multiple engines, a crew defending you, and being a massive target—was amazing. However, as you progress to higher BRs, with higher caliber rounds it feels like any fighter can one-shot you in a blink, no matter how “big” or strong your bomber is supposed to be.