For this at least, what with the massive influx of bombers in air sim this past few weeks - I feel defensive armament of most allied bombers I encountered has been very effective if the fighter it’s facing is limited to: must fly in close enough for visual IFF or the marker to pop in (less than 1 km); must fly in close enough for effective guns range (~500 meters) and stay there long enough to hit sufficient shots to do damage.
Usually my bomber-hunts in the ki-43 III turned into dealing critical damage to a flight control surface like rudder or elevators, my engine turning yellow and oil leaks and both of us limping back to base. Sometimes the bomber crashes like 5-10 minutes after the engagement unable to land with the damage, sometimes engine dies before RTB and sometimes nothing happens.
In perspective of prop tier air sim at least, defensive armaments feel quite adequate. Even the PBM felt quite deadly when I flew it and people took out HVAR to deal with it after getting tired of how much more survivable it was with those limitations. My last Ki-43 game, the allied team relied entirely on tail-gunner armed planes (B25, B26, A26, P61, PBJ) to gunboat about the air superiority points.
I’m not sure how to make the defensive armament actually effective in an environment where you can prop hang snipe bombers from 1.5-2km out with incredible precision and ease though. Especially without it, in gaijin’s greatness, also transferring to air sim (as proven by their “missile evaded” and other red text affecting both modes indiscriminately…)
No offense, but you are trying to defend some ideas whilst following a myth of defensive capabilities the B-29s which was a result of experiences solely gained in the PTO.
Don’t get me wrong, i love the B-29 from a design perspective (and it was my first 1/48 scale model decades ago) and read almost everything about them - but you missed the crucial parts of my response.
Speed
Arguing with speed of B-29s makes no sense as you have to consider theoretical top speeds vs reality; the key to long ranges was fuel efficiency based on way lower cruise speeds. In addition the maximum speed and range is determined by bomb load and altitude.
So if you want to carry a massive payload you can’t fly very long distances, fly extremely high or extremely fast as the more your plane weights, the more you need engine power to keep it at level flight as you AoA produces more drag.
So a fighter able to out-climb the average formation of around 100 B-29s at 9-10 km (and their escorts at 11-12 km) whilst being faster than every allied fighter above 10 km AND having a two stage supercharger with 3 gears and GM-1 injection for 30 minutes on WEP is fully capable of attacking a B-29 with the best tactical approach possible.
Armament vs bombers
Your points are not convincing: Nobody is willing to carry a 5-600 kg heavy 50 or 55 mm cannon to 9-10 km altitude whilst being there nothing more than a snack for escort fighters.
So in theory the idea to stay outside the gunner range and sniping them with high caliber and high velocity cannons is not bad (and it worked sometimes) but the escort fighters killed this option.
The sole idea of fighting bombers is to limit the time whilst being a target during an attack on them whilst providing the most lethal punch in the smallest time frame possible.
That’s why the high RoF of the MK 108 made sense - even considering the poor ballistics as a few hits kill every known bomber - including the B-29.
Defensive turrets of B-29s & effectiveness
Iirc the analog targeting computer was an extremely expensive part of the B-29 project and was proven ineffective above Korea due to way too high closing speeds of MiG 15s. Based on the fact that ~ 45 % of JP attacks in WW 2 on B-29s came from 12 o’ clock you might acknowledge you have high closing speeds also much earlier. So either the system worked only vs tailchasing prop fighters with way too low access speed or it did not work vs very fast attacks.
The B-29 gunner claims (as reference why the system was effective) are as reliable as B-17 gunner claims - overclaiming was the logical result of the lack of actual observations (e/a crashed or not) due to rather high altitudes, stress within combat and multiple ships firing at the same targets at the same time.
In other words: The official K/D ratio of B-29s of 11.7:1 is actually a joke. Same as the Mustang with 11:1 as they counted ground kills too. A short reminder: The initial claims of F-86s vs MiG 15s was 10:1. With some digging you find more convincing values between 1.3 and 2:1…
Have a good one!
As you might like rockets:
The so called “Grosszerstoerer” He 177 with a Battery of BR 21 derivates - task was to fly below (and slightly offset) bomber formations and break them up with 33 (!!!) 21 cm rockets…
It was useless against Jets but we are talking about props. A Mig 15 is leagues ahead of a Me 262, so whats that even supposed to prove?
I’m putting up the B-29 against prop aircraft of WW2, which have little chance of succeding to take out the B-29 without getting shot down in return and a lot of them will not even be able to take out the B-29.
I didn’t even start going into kill claims. I’m sure a lot four engined bombers were claimed destroyed as well, when they actually made it back to base.
I generally am talking about a War Thunder scenario, comparing it to RL.
Of course a Ta 152 H can put itself into a situation which drastically increases the chance to succeed in taking out a B-29 but that takes time and preperation.
In WT you won’t find a bomber at 10km, unless he wasn’t engaged and climbed away.
If a B-29 in WT wouldn’t lose it’s wing or tail from a single 37mm HE round but were able to tank as many hits as they could in RL, having targeting computers for the crew and fuel tank fire extuingishers, the chance of taking out a B-29 without getting shot down in return would be very slim in most cases.
Unless you going for a head-on approach, which would have the best change to succeed while escaping unharmed.
Well, the chance of hitting was low, so they at least needed to take out a four engined bomber 95% of the time when they did.
They could have gone with a 50mm rocket but they went with 55mm and 420g explosives, since a 33% larger B-29 might even survive a hit from a 50mm Mineshell with ~350g explosive.
Based on British tests, the blast damage increases exponentially, thus 420g explosive would result in around 40% more damage, which is in line with the B-29 larger size compared to a B-17 or B-24.
Comparisons make no sense as WT is pure fantasy - and your actual know-how regarding irl aerial warfare in the WW 2 / Korean era is (to be polite) superficial at best.
You claimed:
That the B-29 was the reason that the LW introduced R4Ms
That the B-29 was the reason that the LW introduced 50 mm cannons
B-29s were incredibly hard to shoot down due to their speed & turrets
These claims are flat wrong.
I gave you clear and polite feedback that your claims are just fact-free opinions, but somehow you ignored them completely. I won’t waste more time in order to enlighten you.
A last word:
I flew vs B-29s some years ago - they are easy kills for every experienced fighter pilot, even in a plain Fw 190 D-9/12/13 whilst they were at BR 5.3 (and the B-29 6.3) those days.
No I didn’t claim that. I basically said that the developed those rockets in order to effectively engage 4-engined bomers.
With Germany knowing about the B-29, they just invested into 55mm caliber Mineshells, including the R4M.
Never talked about the 50mm cannons.
All I said that there were plans to built 55mm cannons, soley for the purpose of bomber hunting.
You brought up the Ta 152 H having amazing high alt performance.
I just said that the speed difference isn’t nearly enough to make the Ta 152 H dance around B-29s.
If the Ta was 200-300 kph faster than the B-29, it wouldn’t be any different than other fighters facing off against B-17s and B-24, except that the B-29 has much better defensive capabilities and is harder to shoot down in general.
I never claimed anything. I said some things.
Never once did I say that anything I say is a fact but just because it’s not a fact doesn’t mean anything I say is wrong.
Well, actually that is wrong.
And how does that have anything to do with how the plane should perform in WT compared to reality?
Unless bombers have 20mm cannons or fire explosive HMG shells, they easy pray to fighters shooting them to pieces.
You can literally saw a bombers wing off with just 7.7mm MGs at low tiers, and the situation doesn’t get better when fighter get 20mm cannons.
Even .50cals with their API that that should cause a flash on impact can set a bomber on fire from any range, with how API rounds are coded.
A P-47 can simply light a bomber on fire from 1km or more.
The Su-2 (M-82) has the entire tail section covered in 10mm armor plates.
That didn’t stop a Bf 109 E-3, who was unable to damage my gunners or pilot, to simply saw off my tail with his 7.92mm bullets.
Not to mention 20mm cannons that can cut off a bombers wing in two hits.