Tips on fighting the B7A2?

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
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1

No matter what I seem to do, thing just seems to be utterly insane at whatever it does. I don’t bother with turning with it as it has SB2C syndrome but on crack, and jap bombers are usually agile. Running is a SLOG. I am going 490kmh and he just needs to keep dropping and shallow climbing and he magically catches me or somehow sustains his distance against me.

It’s like trying to run away from a Yak-3 at treetop level but worse because at least I can cash in my speed and take advantage as a final resort. No, not with the B7A2 I literally can’t retaliate as he will just turn as good as an A6M to get behind me. I’ll fly straight or even shallow dive at -5 degrees for almost 3 minutes and he’s still not even 2km behind me whilst I’m going over 500kmh and he’s still able to plonk shots at me.

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2

It is VERY bad at flying straight.
If you have a fast plane, go faster, enter a shallow climb once you are. It leads into an energy trap for the B7A. It’s fairly easy to dodge because of the poor roll.
It will NOT outturn better turning planes, like the spit or Br.693AB2.

Post a server replay link so we can see your decision making while in battle vs a B7A.

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It rolls really slow, if you force it into a scissor manoeuvre it’ll struggle to follow you.

Its not that fast honestly, its big and heavy and loses energy quickly, you should be able to outclimb it in most fighters and probably out dive it.

5

It is one of the slowest planes at its BR. Its roll rate is also abysmally slow.

6

I think a lot of people think they’re fighting the tech-tree B7A2 when they’re actually fighting the Homare 23 and vice versa. Quite a raw power difference.

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The Homare 23 is quite a bit more powerful but it still flies mostly the same. It’s still not fast and roll rate isn’t any better.

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8

In AB the Homare 23, like the Brigand (and the Wyvern) has four main dogfight advantages:

–it generally starts above you
–it can outpower most aircraft at the same BR in a straight dive or often even in a straight climb
–it just needs to get guns on you once
–people underestimate bombers and the possibility a bomber has dropped its load and is hunting them

Those are the advantages to negate.

SB2C-4 with gunpods isn’t thinking past their next headon in most cases, so it’s a little different.

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9

It’s always the Homares. unless I go up to 700kmh in my P-47D-22—I literally cannot outrun the Homare. I don’t get why that thing isn’t up way higher when it can hang until 600kmh and outturn and energy fight anything I throw at it. You have to be an actual idiot to not get 1 kill in that thing. I’m damn tired of facing it beacuse I have to go up to almost 7km to actually beat one in a fight.

American planes are truly an exercise in frustration when fires are no longer definitive kills, 20mms have been buffed to the point they hit like 40mm cannons. and Gaijin looks at this and goes “Lol, this is fine.”

The Homare produces 2000 horsepower whilst being almost as light as a P-51C. The plane can literally hit 600kmh in a shallow dive. Yes it’s “Draggy” but it has the same effect of “So much power, it can counteract the weight.”

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Imho you need to exploit the weaknesses of B7A2s:

  • Large target
  • Very stiff at very high speeds
  • Bad acceleration in level flight
  • Rather bad energy retention
  • Bad roll
  • Rather slow
  • Limited dive speed (max 680 TAS)

And u need the “right” plane :

  • Pyoerremskis
  • Ki-61s
  • Spitfires / A6Ms

Whilst attacking in favorable conditions only.

As soon as you try to fight them in other planes in a 1 vs 1 you will lose as soon as their pilots deny you a head on. Aircraft like Yak-3s or XP-50s turn much worse; even as the Yak-3 is way better in the energy retention department and with rolling - they can’t escape as soon as they accept a dogfight.

Technically seen u need them to fight like Spits or A6Ms:

  • In numerical advantage
  • With some kind of energy advantage
  • Or with brutal force like a FCH in a 190 or I-185

I scored more than 10k kills in both B7A2s together - my deaths are actually just results of plain stupid decision making (=100%) on my part. So 85% of my deaths are caused by bomber return fire (Pe-8s…) and the rest getting overwhelmed by numbers or 3rd partied as i lost situational awareness.

From my perspective stuff like trying to energy trap a B7A2 is (almost) a mission impossible as every half-most experienced player will stop chasing you at high speed and regain altitude. It might work with a well flown P-38J.

This is correct.

I flew just for fun a few battles in the last weeks with the B-18 B just to exploit their slow speed. So i flew into them, played scared pilot and turned away from them in order to lure one or two of them out of the center.

It worked quite nice as not a single B7A2 was able to get closer than 2 km which kept them outside their, but inside my gun range. At this range they were forced to dodge - otherwise they got hit by the 13.2 defensive turret.

So even if you can’t outturn them you can put pressure away from your team by putting at least one of them out of the fight for a while…u need MEC for that (both rads to 50% when water/oil hits 99°C) and no external payloads.

Imho the P-47 D-22 has just 2 advantages vs a B7A2:

Way higher rip speed (B7A2 = ~ 680 kmph TAS)
Way higher top speed

I flew the warbonds UK P-47 D-22 recently and from my pov the only strategy that worked against B7A2s was to climb outside the line of sight, stay below the contrail alt and wait until they got lower in order to perform a BnZ/BnR attack.

If you play with mouse and keyboard you might force high speed head-ons as long as you have convergence settings of 600 meters or more. If you catch one low it depends on your energy management (and your WEP reserves) to keep your advantage as (as written above) the acceleration of B7A2s is quite bad.

Flying in US teams is (almost) always a painful experience - so your frustration is comprehensible.

11

Well that’s the thing, I already know what you told me, because I tested the plane myself and used WTRTI to make some metrics. Yes, it doesn’t have great energy retention. but it can go into a shallow dive—-6 degrees—and go above 600kmh. I do jink them if they do get on me, but they bleed enough speed to keep behind. They’re like bearcats without the linear energy retention, but with an insanely beefed DM.
The advantages you list are ones I do know, but you literally can’t do anything about them otherwise. Even still, trying to outspeed them without good altitude or already going insanely fast, you’re screwed. The spitfires, Pyoerremskis, Ki-61s and A6Ms are literally what I would rather fight than fight this thing.

I have had more success going toe-to-toe with Yak-3s and Pyoerremskis and Spitfire Mk. Vs over the homare because I at least have advantages I can use.

If you have players using a bomber as a fighter and it stomps. it should go up. I don’t really care what it’s bombload is because people aren’t using it for that. So move it up.

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I would have zero problem with a BR increase - but what is with all other aircraft which are not used as intended or are just severely under-BRd?

  1. Your argument is also valid for T-18 Bs (which flies circles around you), Brigands or SB2Cs (starting at 3.0 btw). And any semi competent Wyvern pilot kills you long before you get above 5 km too. And the most obvious case of a plane which was good enough to be a fighter until the end of WW 2 (the P-39) sits at a BR of 2.7…

  2. I mean either you accept that the P-47 D-22 is trash in Air RB (like it was irl in ETO) and is not suited for the wt meta and you accept your fate - or you fly an air spawn plane - the US has lots of them.

  3. Just requesting “move it up” if you face a tough opponent won’t solve anything and does not reflect the fact that mainly US and USSR players get catered by gaijin with masses of undertiered planes.

  4. Just imagine flying vs an US team on a small map like Poland - and they come with up to 5 XP-50s plus 1 or two P-61s and push your team with maybe 2 Bf 110 low?

    Or you face in a classic 4.3-3.3 match 4 x 4.3 Yak-3s plus 3 x 4.0 Yak-3s whilst your team has 6 Sakeens, 3 B-25s and a random mix of other Nations?

    Any halfmost competent P-51 C pilot is able to outclimb a B7A2, same as a 3.3 P-38 G. It just needs 2 things: Time & patience.

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13

Gaijin made many decisions bringing AirRB in a state like it is today.
The biggest change happened by setting battle time to 25min.
Before this change you never heard the word “grinding”.
This caused a flood of player types into the game which don’t care about tactics at all and don’t know the word patience.

I never understood what their plan is…buying a hightier plane with talisman and premium account to rush to the techtree without a learning curve at all, and then flying their desired vehicle with no clue what to do?

Example:
Afghanistan, a map at all BRs. How it can be players trying to capture point A in Jet BR? Or killing ground targets at point A.
What did they learned?
Years ago it was the easiest map for me in Ho229 with a teammate. Flying around the pack killing tankrows and won the battle in one run.

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I see this as a main factor - but imho the respawning bases nonsense killed Air RB even more.

The current map design (mainly tickets) does not allow epic 1 hour matches with mission scores above 9.000 points like we had in the past.

But this looks like a topic for a separate thread.

Have a good one!

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15

Don’t fight them. If you are going to make sure your shooting first and if you do engage them do it from below. Aka don’t miss your shots.

16

Moving any aircraft with a bomb just means moving every aircraft up.

I have the Yak-9B and unsure if you ever flew the thing but it’s not very good. Nor was it meant to. Soviets extended the rear part of the fuselage to carry a bomb bay of 4. 50’s.

Not hard to kill a B7A2 once you know its flaws, different engine or not moment you master the plane you know its flaws, and you nailed them perfectly.

Normally what I tend to do in some of these battles is turn, but tilt slightly up but not enough that its noticeable, usually do this to confuse them as the real trick is slowly lowering your engine in micros, flaps to landing, and gears fully out. ->maximum turn=risk->Shot down but also reward killing these types of crafts.

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17

I didn’t say if it was a tough opponent it should move up. I would screech about the Yak-3 as well—but that wouldn’t be fair.

It’s when you have a plane that’s BR was centered around it’s bombing, but when said plane has insanely good performance for a bomber, that players are using it outside the role the devs intended for and find themselves stomping. Then that’s an issue. I’m not saying it because it’s a tough component, heck. Even Yak-3s would struggle to run away from it, and the B7A2’s 20mm can hit at 1.5km away, and unlike .50’s. It just needs to hit you once for massive damage.

if you wanna make the argument the XP-50 is OP as well, fair, it can be moved up too.

but if you’re saying the P-47D-22 is bad, are you saying it should be a candidate to move down in BR?

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The only reason the B7A2s have insane performance is that players don’t know how to fight it. You’re just going to create another Zero situation where it’s too high in BR for its performance. I feel really bad when I meet Zeros in jets.
The F3F can defeat any monoplane in a turnfight, should we put it at 6.0? No, the players should learn how to play instead.

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19

Read all the posts. No one is dogfighting Zeroes. No one even mentioned that at all. The issue is that unless you have a distinct advantage over the B7A2, it’s very hard to beat.

Trying to run away? Don’t worry, a shallow dive will let you catch up.

Target is too far? Don’t worry. Your 20mms hit almost as far as .50 cals.

Target turns well? Don’t worry, if you don’t outturn them, you have more horsepower and can out power them.

It’s ‘minuses’ are not that bad with the only exception being it’s bad roll rate, you can’t make them overshoot anyway. They’re like bearcats, without the insane climbrate and LER but given an airspawn. And I don’t mean if you’re caught by surprised. You actively have to go almost 700kmh to get away from them. So they catch you. Unless you expend a bunch of altitude.

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I mean you are not completely wrong, but there is no difference between a fighter outpacing actual strike aircraft killing ground units / bases at higher tiers or CAS aircraft (like Wyverns) or fighters with interceptor spawn (like P-61s) attacking strategic targets (aka bases) foreseen for medium / strategic bombers.

In a similar thread the current roles of certain aircraft (and their actual usage) was discussed like here; SB2C and B7A2 were mentioned and i gave other examples earlier in this thread.

WT in its current form is not abler or willing to press aircraft in certain roles. Their whole policy is centered around generating income.

I mean if a torpedo bomber deserves an air spawn just look up the German premium 190; classified as torpedo bomber but without having an air spawn. Or the USN equivalent of the XP-50, the XF5F an interceptor without an air spawn. This list list will become endless.

It boils down that air spawns, ranks and BRs are just tools for gaijin in order to create income. They don’t care about roles.

It depends on the energy states and altitude; when attacking with a wrong approach a Yak-3 is able to extend thx to their way better acceleration.

Your target ranges of 20 mm and US 0.50 cals depend strongly on speed. You might know that different shells have different “de-rendering” distances. If you keep a TAS above 600 kmph you are safe from 20 mm shells at around 1.4-15 km distance as the shells disappear after a determined range. Getting hit by MG 151/20 is imho impossible > 1 km thx to the wrongly implemented SD fuse.

The US 0.50 cal and the Swedish 13.2 mm cannon are able to hit and damage enemies at very high speeds up to 1.9 km; i received yesterday a hit by a P-61 from 1.89 km (i watched the replay). Whilst being a gunner hits chasing planes at 2.5 km or more are not unusual.

No. The current BR is already way too low for the guys playing ground RB and i see what massacres they create in full or partial downtiers.

The plane itself excelled as fighter (in the ETO) just at high alt whilst having altitude advantage AND numerical superiority; both scenarios are absent from wt.

I recommend the D-28/30 version, imho a very competitive aircraft ; if you stay fast above 6,5 km even the Yak 3Us can’t touch you.

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I understand not moving it down, because even I was surprised. “Wouldn’t the thing stomp?” But I don’t see how the D-22 is considered ‘too low’ when in the same breath you say it sucks. Unless you mean the plane sucks in your hypothetical headcanon BR placement. Because if we discuss performance, in terms in-game. Then everything needs to be considered, and not what it could hypothetically do if the game was shifted for it to work in it’s favor.

agree about the D-28. Good flaps, tons of horsepower. I love fighting K-4s in the thing.