Originally posted by HoHun on Beta Forum, 6th December 2003, 19:35: -------------- Hi everyone, Heavy bombers have almost become extinct from the Freehost skies. Let's start a project to bring them back. We recently discussed this in our squadron, it's currently being discussed on International Forum (http://forum.wbfree.net/forums/showthread.php?t=18843), and I've thought a bit about it for myself. What are the problems bombers are facing now? Problem #1: There is no mission for bombers alone. They always need a lot of help. While airfields look like great bomber targets, the truth is that bombers can't successfully attack airfields without a lot of help. Even if they bomb every single target on the ground, someone on the attacked side will notice it before they're done, and the airfield will swarm with fighters and jeep acks that require fighters and fighter bombers to kill. Since the defending fighters can take-off in virtually unlimited numbers, a considerable number of attacking fighters is required. Problem #2: Bombers are unable to react quickly on re-upping targets. As a bombing run requires the bomber to start within a certain distance of the field, calibrate his sight and then make a run-in before dropping his bomb from a considerable height, and the bomb needs quite some time to reach the ground, too, they can't react quickly to destroy targets that might re-up during their attack. As a single target immediately means that fighters and jeep ack can launch in virtually unlimited numbers, that's a critical weakness. Problem #3: Bomber missions require a lot of time. This is not a problem affecting the overall success of the bombers' mission, but rather one affecting their efficiency. Bombers will always be compared to fighter bombers, and as fighter bombers can reach their target much more quickly, deal with jeep acks, and act as fighters once they've dropped their loads, they're much more attractive than bombers. Problem #4: Bomber missions are always all or nothing. There is no gradual success for bombers. A bombed field retains it full capacity until the last target is closed. The only exceptions are radar and fuel. If you take-up a bomber, you'll either achieve complete success or suffer complete failure. There's no middle way, and in fact failure is more typical. Problem #5: There are no misisons for single bombers. A single Jabo pilot can always find a target that's under attack and throw himself into the fight. A single fighter pilot can always go on lone-wolf patrols - and in fact that's the fighter pilots' normal way of fighting on Freehost. A Ju or Li pilot can always take his transport to the nearest field when one is closed. A single bomber pilot, can only go after fuel or radar installations, but he'd better look for a quiet sector or he will be shot down - and in a quiet sector, noone might be there to exploit his success (while he'll show up on radar just fine and might be shot down nonetheless). Problem #6: Gold has no bomber for single-bomber missions. Red bomber pilots who know they're facing a difficult environment can take up the Pe-2 or the Mosquito and have a good chance of getting through to the target and back home in one piece. One squadron mate of mine racked up a 60+ bomber streak in a Mosquito recently. He doesn't fly bombers much when we're Gold. Problem #7: Interceptors can come very quickly. Once a bomber is spotted on radar, it's likely to attract interceptors. Once a bombing raid is spotted on radar or visually, it's certain to attract a large numbers of interceptors. It takes a bomber about 20 min to get to 20000 ft. A fast climbing interceptor needs about 5 - 6 min to get there, and if it's shot down, it'll just come again. Interceptors will just keep launching until the last bomber is killed. Attacking an airfield with bombers is a lot like attacking a SAM site! Problem #8: All bomber targets are precision targets. It's historically correct that Jabos were better at hitting precision targets than level bombers. It's not historically correct that level bombers had to attack precision targets all the time. Problem #9: Bombers have problems killing precision targets. I think the introduction of bomb dispersion was a great step towards historical accuracy However, I have to admit that it made flying bombers less rewarding than it once was. Problem #10: Bombers can be shot down very quickly. While the durability of bombers facing 20 mm cannon fire seems more or less OK to me, I have to say that 12.7 mm fire appears a bit too effective to me. My last He 177 went down after just 50 x 12.7 mm hits, and I consider that a typical result. WW2 Luftwaffe figured it would take an average of 75 x 15 (!) mm hits to bring down a bomber, and 15 mm projectiles have about twice the destructiveness of 12.7 mm bullets. Problem #11: Bomber pilots get low scores. I copied this problem (and the following problems) from the forum thread. A successful bomber mission often gives a ridiculously low number of points, which doesn't help to convince new players that bombing is worth it. Problem #12: Bomber pilots get no medals. This means that there is no incentive to stay with bombing in spite of the difficulties just to get the next medal in the line. Problem #13: Otto isn't as good as he used to be. That's only included for completeness. In my opinion, it's more a psychological problem than a real one. Even in the days of monster otto, the fighters would just keep coming at you until you were dead. I don't like otto even now, but it shouldn't be tampered with. OK, now what can we do? #1, #2: When an airfield is closed, let it stay closed for 10 min regardless of the status of the individual targets. That will limit the number of the swarming defenders a bit and make it possible for bombers to suvive with less help than today. Also increase the average distance in which the jeep acks appear from their central spawn point to lower their efficiency in preventing paratroop attacks. #3: Set the fuel factor so that fuel is used at 25% of the real rate, and limit fuel availability to 25% on all fields. As bombers carry the largest amount of fuel, they'll benefit most from this change and will climb quicker to a useful altitude while still retaining worthwhile range. #4, #5: Treat every building on the map like a strategic target. That way, a bomber pilot will make a positive contribution to the war effort even when he doesn't manage to close a field entirely. #6: Introduce the Ju 88S. #7: Delayed radar information would give the bombers a little more time before the interceptors swarm. Maybe we could also define 20000 ft as radar top altitude - with WW2 era radar, tracking high targets was actually difficult, so it wouldn't be entirely unrealistic. #8: I believe that Jabos are too good now at attacking precision targets. If rockets were made less effective, bombers would look better in comparison. If possible, the downtime of targets hit by rockets should be decreased greatly. #9: We should decrease bomb dispersion a little, both to make bombers more effective and for psychological effect. #10: I think there might be a problem with the damage model of the He 177 in particular, and with bombers in general. The amount of damage might be correct, but I'm afraid the 32 x 32 x 8 voxel matrix makes them too big as targets. The voxel cube has edges about 1 m long for heavy bombers, and that means that their horizontal tail is a 1 m high target, too. In reality, it was about 30 cm high when seen from the 6 o'clock, so the tail collects a lot more damage than it would in real life, and accordingly, the bombers goes down a lot quicker. I think a review of the bombers' voxel model would be required. #11: I'm sure we can multiply all bomber scores by ten easily! #12: Can we create new medals for bomber streaks/targets destroyed? #13: Don't tamper with otto! He's worse enough as he is now, and doesn't help a bit. What do you think? In my opinion, we'll see much more bombers in the sky if we implement all of my suggestions. And from what I'm guessing about the programming side, they shouldn't actually be that difficult to implement! Regards, Henning (HoHun) -------------- "What i do not like is listen in arena how some peaple say "i want otto go to hell", peaple who never flown a bomber" (Odisseo) http://scores.wbfree.net/cgi-bin/wbstat.cgi?type=b&showplayer=ho-hun&tod=020831 "Look up your quotes!" (Winston Churchill) "Otto go to hell!" (HoHun)
Delayed action fused bombs Mines Parafrags Chemical weapons Some way to crater a runway and have it stay, regardless relog. Some way to force planes to launch ON the runway (see "crater," above) T.O.T. Tonnage On Target: Some way to affect repair time by crushing the morale of [virtual] repair crews L.O.C and L.O.S (lines of supply and lines of communication) Aw, I dunno.
Hi Hohun, good to see you in here Of your suggestions: #1, #2: But if I can close the field say for 30 mins (1800 secs, not too difficult) then it stays closed for that length of time? i.e minimum 10 mins. #3: Not sure of the maths, but if it helps buffs then I agree. #4, #5: Agree. #6, #7, #8: Strongly agree. #9: A little perhaps. Bomb dispersion doesnt really annoy me much. #10: Dunno, ive never been on a He-177s 6 But yeah, having flown them regularly I agree they do tend to go down easier than they should. #11, #12, #13: Agree. Even is only some were implemented they would be a step in the right direction. -glas-
@HoHun Ad #9 and #12- I agree completely! Dispersion should be lower and introduced gradually (for now it seems, that it begins to work immediatly and with full force on exactly 21.000feet of ceiling). As for medals i would propose to add 2 categories-> one for bomber streak (f.ex. for 10;25;51 and so on) second for the number of ground targets (counted as buildings+acks) destroyed (f.ex. 100;250;501 and so on). Leaving the buff pilots with medals only for capped fields simply isn't fair. Ad #13 -well I do not agree with You in this case. Increasing the otto accuracy would encourage some pilots (like "yesiam" f.ex. whose flying attitude I personally disregard) to roll buffs from attacked fields to protect'em. I rarely use automatic Otto until d2 on high alts, prefering to shoot on my own, starting from d12 (even when it means, that I'll be forced to make another pass over target by doing so) - it's much more effective that way than trying to rely on otto, even if it means that You may run out of ammo quickly.
#6 and ju188 #7 v good idea #10 why i dont see much rtbing hevy damaged buffs (b17 with 2-3 eng out - like Mephis Bell from movie)? I play wbfree about 6-8 tods, much time flying in buffs and never rtb in damaged b17 or b24(mb b24 not good historical example but b17 rarely exploded). Only in 2 last ToDs I survive and rtb 2 times in ju88 with 1 engine working!. Mb somthing wrong in damage model generaly? imo 20mm (mb 30mm too) cause too much damage (or random factor is too big). I remeber 1x20hit in Hurr2 and cfuselage out (sic!) or 4hits in dbf3 - 2hits in gunners, 2 hits pilots armour + pilot kill (that was Falcon ;-)) #11 imo streak could increase when enemy plane is killed, 15 tgts are destroyed (after succesful rtb streak should increase by 2 when more than 15 tgts are killed), closing field (and all tgts are dwn more than 800s) its would be nice :] #12 #13 i have feeling that some otto are better than other (e.g pe2)
i think most of these ideas are good or resonable exept reducing efectiveness of jabo. you admite ur self as most buff pilots that finding last few pecision trgets is hard. reacting quick enogh to respawning trgets is hard and that radar is a buffs undoing? yet who is good at finding that peesky invible 1 12mm keeping field up. whos good ant kill hng 3 secs after reup as troos go in twr< and whos most efective at sneeking in lo under dar to kill dar so bomber is mor likely to get to field before its intercepted. it that poor jabo u want to clip wings off of. There are not as many of use as u think who like to jabo do it regulerly and who are good at it. i find most rocets before f4f p51 and mossies to be to slow and to small to be efective as it is. Im a 2 roc per trget pilot 1st roc gives u the the range and drop u need for 2nd since, angle of atak range and speed all change how high over or how close to trget u need aim espically since at lo alt angles of attack or speeds rockest drop tragetry alot. ive seen and on ocasion had to use all 6 my roctets to hit that damn radar im trying to kill befor raid is in range. Why would a buff pilot want to make it harder for jabos to kill dar for them, hunt down the hard percions trgets they miss, hit jeeps to save ju/li and troops, and close the those pesky reups that could tun a buff pilots sucesfull mission into waist of time???? Not as many people jabo as u think.. of those who do not all are agressive or good at it. the 2 leding resons i see for failed field caps are 1 not enogh buffs used to hit lage fields.( large fields should always be hit by buffs first with jabos coming in for clean up behind the air supresion or vulchers), once closed the buffs should go home knowing the jabos will keep the field closed and with the jabos and buffs both knoing the fighters will keep cons lo and off 6 while they wrk) but we all know thats not the order of tings in here. jabos hit filds 1st to often. buffs are not ued enogh and to many of the people who go to field go light looking for easy kills. the resut not enogh jabos show up to close/keep closed field. those who do find them slef in the hard postion of bing only 1 lo over field with rolling cons quikly picking up 6 whlie jeeps and or ack are already pinging them. while 10 light fighters circle lazzly above waiting fro easy meat watching ur 1 man suisiced run. pls dont restrict jabo. it has it rolls, there important and fun, and often just as hard and unrewarding as buffs, buffs have it even worse. a agree. its lack of coperation that hurts the jbo and buff pilots. and yes buffs have it 3 times wrose due to time difulcties and simple ablity to run when things go bad. any further reducing of otto would be wronge and would be bowing don th those to dumn to realizes that ate d 3 buffs 6 keeping there sight steady on buff, that buffs tail guners looking back with BIG smile. look 300 yards back nice big steady trget i dont have to lead, is duing nothing to confuse and or make me wrk for kill but just sits there as a bigg oll bullseye, gee if all cons were so dumn id put a scope on here and shot ever con right beteen ther beady little eys,,,,, ahhh owhell to bad some consa are smart and atalk fast at angles with alt and heading changes amking me wresle gun around tring to keep them in this bigg old inacurat 3inch iran crosshair...
i dont think there is any real problem with the bombing game at all. It is challenging, certainly, but it would be boring without the challenge. Please note the 3 of the top 10 scoring pilots (#1, #3 & #8) have the vast majority of their points from buffing, #8 did it with only 33 buffing missions & his 20 flight streak is still active. This is quite an impressive performance by the buff drivers considering the only about 18% of all sorties are buff sorties Bombers are the greastest offensive weapon available here, make them too good & the game will change in some unpredicted way. It could maybe evolve to either an alt grabbing contest (buffs vs. interceptors) if buffs become very attractive or a maybe big paras shooting contest if good ottos make buffs untouchable or maybe a big 110 & 410 vs. Pe-2 & Il-2 arena. Leave it like it is IMO, we all seem to like it a lot this way. If developers are going to work for a long time on something, my preference would be for more aircrafts
Hi, i agree!!!! Make buff`s more atraktive...... I think that they are to easy to kill, 6x20mm for B17 for example....(more than one time!!!) In most sorties, buff explodes after first fighter attack....or you got PK from a 6 o`clock attacking enemy.....or you got a fuel leak in the left wing and all fuel ran out! Why??? The B17 for example has more than one fuel tank and in FH, if one is hit, all fuel ran out.... regards Flihnt
33 bomber sorties- destroyed: Acks 0 Buildings 19 CVs 1 Boats 22 and this goes to extreme, when talking about #7 from the bomber stats trwing (aka tigrao) 18 sorties- destroyed: Acks: 0 Buildings: 3 CVs: 4 Boats: 16 Furthermore: Landed: 11 Discoed: 7 (no sorties ended in other way than landing/disco- what a luck ) You see my point Rolland? It's too easy and to rewarding to bomb a CV from high altitude in this game. One sunk CV (about 2.000kgs of bombs or less, when dropped from high alt) or two CA/DDs and You're better off than after succesfully closing a mid field by your own. And that w/o any risk taken... (did You ever saw a Zero or 109T climbing to 7k-9k to intercept heavily armed B-24/B-17 or He-177? I personally doubt it). That's why I stubbornly prompt, that something should be done with bomb dispersion (which is too high for ground targets over 7k and to low for the Naval targets IMO) and the incredible amount of points given for sinking ships... well it's tricky, but only when You do it with Ju87 diving from 2,5k to 0,5k... not when You buff it down to stoneage using high-flying B-24
On the present map CVs are extemely valuable for your side to have & very dangerous in the enemy's hands. They are also moving targets & take a lot more TNT to destroy than other targets, they should be highly valued, Also consider the 2000 dead enemy sailors when you kill a CV. Killing a boat is no more or less valuable to your side if you do it with one plane or another He177 & B-17 are both very soft targets. The Heinkel probably deserves it, but the B-17 was harder, IRL, to bring down than the B-24 (opposite is true in FH). I've notice than when i bring down B-17 in FH it is mostly from knocking off the empanage, or some fraction of it. The B-17's tail is very large & so is easily hit. This was true IRL also, but in WW2 it was not so easily destroyed. I have seen photos of B-17s that took direct hit in the H-stab from 88mm & flew home
yes that happens some times and last tod i took up b26 to fld 16 in med. 109 caught me as i redyed to drop so i ingnore him and drop anyway i take abunch of pings drop first bomb and boom 109 is pked cool. so now i finish my 1rst run and ive lost only 1 moter bigg deal 3 left so i flip and find a niki climing below me. he pulls hard pings me and boom center fuslge destroyed in less then a second. i think what the fuck now way that happed land from chute cheak stats and now im pissed says n1k1 put 3 30mms in me and i want to know how this cheat came about. so to make long storie short i converse with n1k1 pilot then ask who 109 pilot was and talk him. seems the 109 is the 30mm varent. he puts 3 30mms in me and gets pkyed by otto i flie on for 5 mineties nothing wrong with buff but 1 dead engine before niki kills me with 15 20mms to my buffs belly when 109 landed atleast 1 30mm in wing to kill moter. so what im saying is it goes both ways. some bufffs die less then 10 bullets and some empty two fighter. each with over 200 hits off all ther ammo and limps home anyway. Grypho
This wasn't a AWT ToD AFAIK and still it seems that it pays off much better to sink CVs than to bomb anything on ground (the described pilot was 1st in bomber stats, only once beeing downed for the whole ToD). Well- CVs are moving targets, but can be easily bombed from any altitude, here on FH (which wasn't true in WWII as I described in one of the previous posts on wensday this week)... and they are large targets, so even with dispersion introduced some months ago it's very easy to hit a CV from even 9kms of alt (hint-try aiming one lenght of the CV ahead of it for every 2.000 meters of Your alt, when it is at full speed and if it isn't at its full speed- just shorten Your aim accordingly to the percentage of speed the CV is going- simple isn't it? AND IT WORKS). And that's the only point (yet) in which i can agree with You completely, but i think it has rather to do with the 3d models (bigger than they should be "hit zones" of particular parts of buffs, especially controll surfaces) than it does with overall lack of durability of Buffs here.
Tigrao it's used to turn on his second PC and spy enemy side to find CV, you don't find strange he has no points has "normal" bomber for acks and buildings and he has a great number of boats and ships killed? Tigrao do not fly bombers for help his side, he just fly bombers to kill CV and make points. p.s. if you do not believe me you have just to ask him, how can he know when enemy heavy bombers take off from tehyr main fields wich are totally in the enemy territory and where we don't hav radar cover? how he can start a bomber after another and allway lead his squad from an enemy CV to another? I think you didn't got the good example
As much we discuss as much we get far from the real topic, hohun (strange to heard such thing from a "otto lover" as he is ) well sayd on his points touching some of the real problems of bombers. It's not a problem of points, medals are nice but they do not help. the real problems are: 1 - Golds do not have a fast bomber / do not have a heavy bomber wich can climb to 25k or more. 2 - Bombers are too fragile, a short burst of 20mm from D8/9 can give serius damages even if not the dead, and gunners does not have effectiveness till D6! (p.s. would be nice add finally selfsealing fuel tanks, so we shouldn't loose all the fuel from a hole in one of the 3 fuel tanks). 3 - Bombdispersion! 4 - There is not a real task for bombers! a small group of jabo can do the work of a bomber in half time with the same result. I already asked many time, make hangars unkillable till xxx kg bomb, hangars can be killed with a 250lb bomb now, increase them x 10 and let's use heavy bombs or small but added. Maybe create a real rapport from economy and game, AA factories, field supplies, whend destroyed they affect the AA rebuild, the fuel refueling ect ect...
i extreamly disagree with #3 imo only 1 think would solve bomber problem - making damage they need to be destroyed higher
@Odisseo- well, all the high ranking and rarely flying (less than 100 sorties, more than 200k points) buff pilots are rather CV-busters and not real buffers. Tigrao is an extreme example of that. But this discourages "normal" buff pilots (like for example my squadmate "avsdna", who flew countless succesfull buff missions till he discovered, that he will never gain as much points as those "navys" and started to fly fighters instead) from flying. What also made the thing worse is the dispersion, which doesn't allow us to climb to a safe altitude. As for the high-flying gold buffs- there are some tricks: 1. Never take more than 30-35% of fuel (25% is more than enough for most buff runs, 15% for He177) 2. Try dropping some of ordnance into sea, leaving only that's what is necessary for planned targets. 3. In He-177 what is also helping is shooting out all of ottos ammo- it may help You gain additional 2000m! (tested!) 4. Never take the heaviest payload in He-177. My personal records - Ju88 - 9.900m (loaded-partially); He177- 9.100m (partially loaded after dropping some ordnance into field, no ammo in ottos). So i dare to say, that the golds relly do have a 30kft buff
Isn't there a way to load buff with desired ordnance, without having to dump any of it? Say I want to load 2x250 and 10x50 in Ju 88. Without dropping anything in sea. IRL, it could be done. If it's a case of game limitations, then I will not argue further. Thanks.
i think the WB base of FH allows only 7 or 8 different possible load options for aircrafts, but concern about bomb hit percentage is maybe not so important. After all a near miss on a hangar counts for 3 hits (hang & 2 x wall), but a direct hit counts for only 1. A bomb in a CV can count for many hits or just one. Bomb hit % is not a measure of how many targets you've killed with bombs divided by the number dropped
