Regarding bomber toughness, here is an interesting study by German Luftwaffe officers and armament experts. The Germans concluded that a fighter would on average need to carry over 1000x 20-mm rounds to bring a large bomber down, taking into account the hit accuracy of a normal pilot. A Fw 190 usually carries 500x 20-mm rounds and a Spitfire IXe, as comparison, carries only 240x 20-mm rounds. As such, in real life you would need at minimum 2x Fw 190's, or 4x Spitfires to bring down a single B-17 or B-24. Also it is mentioned in the text that approaching bombers from behind resulted in great losses for the German fighters due to the defensive gunners of the bombers.


"On January 27, 1943, Eighth Air Force attacked Germany for the first time. Fifty-eight B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators hit the port of Wilhelmshaven.

During the next seven months, the bombers ventured progressively deeper over the enemy homeland and in progressively greater force. These raids took the bombers far beyond the reach of US and British fighters. The bombers had only the concentrated crossfire of their .50-caliber machine guns to ward off attacks from German fighters. The Luftwaffe slowly came to realize that these daylight attacks, if left unchecked, would undermine Germany’s capacity to prosecute the war. German fighter units were pulled back from the battle fronts. During the first half of 1943, the day fighter force in Germany and the western occupied territories rose from 635 aircraft to more than 800.

German fighters initially found themselves short on firepower when engaging the sturdy, well-armored heavy bombers. When Luftwaffe officers examined wrecked B-17s and B-24s, they discovered that it took at least twenty hits with 20-mm shells fired from the rear to bring them down. Armament experts, after analyzing combat camera footage, learned that pilots of average ability hit the bombers with only about two percent of the rounds they fired. To obtain twenty hits, the average pilot had to aim 1,000x 20-mm rounds at the bomber. The best German fighter, the FW-190, carried only 500x 20-mm rounds.

Of course, the straight-shooting Luftwaffe “experts” (fighter pilots with more than twenty-five kills; the Luftwaffe did not use the term “ace”) got a much higher percentage of their rounds on the target. But even they had problems when attacking formations of heavy bombers. Maj. Anton Hackl, who ended the war with 192 credited victories, explained: “If one came in from the rear, there was a long period, closing from 1,000 meters to our firing range of 400 meters, when the bombers were firing at us but we could not fire at them. This was a very dangerous time, and we lost a lot of aircraft trying to attack that way.”


In Warbirds a good pilot can sometimes kill several bombers with a single Fw 190A-8. A contributing factor to this is probably that the bullets are near basketball sized, and the average Warbirds player has many years of experience. As such we see a much higher hit accuracy in WB's than what the pilots had in real life.

<S>
/Robert

My dad was a bombardier in a B17. We had several talks over the years about what it was like to climb into that thing every day and fly from England to the various targets over germany and france. Among some of the factiods he divulged were that the greatest threat was from frontal attacks by german fighters as this was the weakest defensive spot on the B17..indeed it was a 20mm shell from a 190 frontal attack that shattered his nosecone and exploded next to his head. he took some shrapnel in his neck and back as well as a large piece of the Norden bobmsite which was removed from his back. he left it to us in his scrapbook. Discharged with a purple heart and a DFC..
Other notables were they lost alot of planes while climbing out thru the clouds and fog while forming up and climbing to alt before setting out across the channel as there wasnt time to do so directly.. Also, they rarely went above 24k or so . He said the gunners never ran out of ammo as they had plenty of extra boxes of 50cals on board..
He left his personal accounts of every mission he flew (25). Its an amazing read. But he loved that b17 and said its toughness was the reason he and so many of his fellow fliers survived.
The difference for us is mainly we dont have strength in numbers as they did, so being forced to fly solo for a bombing run means getting there in once piece is much more difficult. Its always frustrating when you deplete your ammo, lose a gunner or two but are able to down an attacker just to see him replane and come right back up and continue plinking away at you until you have reached your hit absorption quota..
While pilots are complaining about bomber settings as being 'unhistoric' compared to war footage or stats, they somehow forget to see how 'unhistoric' it is to have the same pilot replane over and over while the bomber does not enjoy that luxury. For this reason alone its required that in game the bombers hardness and gunners accuracy settings be at a level that allow a decent chance of success, otherwise the game board stagnates. As pointed out by Robert, one 190 should not be able to make a diving pass on a B17 and totally re-kit it. indeed as the late war planesets come the firepower of the fighters increases while the bomber hardness does not.
Hopefully in the next incarnation of the game we can address these shortcomings.. make a fighter have to start from a more distant field after being downed to simulate recovery and transport time, and a more accurate damage model that allows for incremental damage (ie partial tail/elevator damage rather than the entire thing coming adrift and turning your buff into a flying porpoise..) and same for wings, fuselage etc.. Wont it be great to get to fly a b17 home with bits and pieces dangling while 2 engines are out limping back to base? I suspect this will add to the immersion and sweaty palms if we can implement it..
Fingers crossed they get it right..

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2020 Retina 5k iMac 27"
3.8GHz Intel 8 Core i7
16 GB 2667 MHz DDR4
AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT 16 GB
OSX 11.5.2

That would be great. I have gotten back with 1 engine dead w/ B24 and Ju88, the latter I once managed to land in one piece even both ailerons and flaps were shot away, but never when elevator is gone.

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I swear it wasn't my mistake...

Once again no matter how dated this game gets the hardcore decade old vets learned the hard way about online sportsmanship. So many griefers and posers and whiners came and went. The true solid players always outlast the next bang for the buck, troll meisters and "i have way too much time on my handers". Not making a judgment call on this post. Just saying when the reasonable guys are pointing out some issues its time to say sorry I may have been wrong. When I was wrong those 2 or 3 times all these great players have been super supportive, understanding and your best friend until they shoot you down again

The German study I read said that it took on average twenty hits from 20mm and five from a 30mm to down a heavy bomber.
Given an experten behind the gun sight, someone who could average 10 percent hits, even expending ALL the 20mm should result in 50 20mm hits. The real issue is firing time- in a high speed pass the fighter has just a second or two long window of opportunity. No German fighter (or any nation's) would have much luck surviving just sitting behind a bomber and blazing away. Still, one or two effective passes should bring down a bomber given that in WB the skilled players all shoot at near or above 10 percent hits- even given misses on ground targets counting against them. Are you suggesting we artificially reduce gun effectiveness for fighters to artificially create a lower and more realistic hit average? Hoo boy. There's a slippery slope. I think I"d suggest increasing dispersion for all guns to force shorter range (and historically accurate shooting) before messing with projectile effectiveness. To be fair, there is no perfect solution.
I think what exists now isn't a bad compromise.
Get rid of the rinse and repeat launching of bombers and fighters by making all players start from a base further back after a death rather than simply re-launching. The bomb and bail crowd would get half as many missions into an hour's play, but the defenders would not be able to reincarnate time after time either.
finn
PS Of course, all this is moot when there are 10 guys online and 9 of them are on the same side. That's the real problem- but that's also for another thread!

quote="Robert"]Regarding bomber toughness, here is an interesting study by German Luftwaffe officers and armament experts. The Germans concluded that a fighter would on average need to carry over 1000x 20-mm rounds to bring a large bomber down, taking into account the hit accuracy of a normal pilot. A Fw 190 usually carries 500x 20-mm rounds and a Spitfire IXe, as comparison, carries only 240x 20-mm rounds. As such, in real life you would need at minimum 2x Fw 190's, or 4x Spitfires to bring down a single B-17 or B-24. Also it is mentioned in the text that approaching bombers from behind resulted in great losses for the German fighters due to the defensive gunners of the bombers.


"On January 27, 1943, Eighth Air Force attacked Germany for the first time. Fifty-eight B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators hit the port of Wilhelmshaven.

During the next seven months, the bombers ventured progressively deeper over the enemy homeland and in progressively greater force. These raids took the bombers far beyond the reach of US and British fighters. The bombers had only the concentrated crossfire of their .50-caliber machine guns to ward off attacks from German fighters. The Luftwaffe slowly came to realize that these daylight attacks, if left unchecked, would undermine Germany’s capacity to prosecute the war. German fighter units were pulled back from the battle fronts. During the first half of 1943, the day fighter force in Germany and the western occupied territories rose from 635 aircraft to more than 800.

German fighters initially found themselves short on firepower when engaging the sturdy, well-armored heavy bombers. When Luftwaffe officers examined wrecked B-17s and B-24s, they discovered that it took at least twenty hits with 20-mm shells fired from the rear to bring them down. Armament experts, after analyzing combat camera footage, learned that pilots of average ability hit the bombers with only about two percent of the rounds they fired. To obtain twenty hits, the average pilot had to aim 1,000x 20-mm rounds at the bomber. The best German fighter, the FW-190, carried only 500x 20-mm rounds.

Of course, the straight-shooting Luftwaffe “experts” (fighter pilots with more than twenty-five kills; the Luftwaffe did not use the term “ace”) got a much higher percentage of their rounds on the target. But even they had problems when attacking formations of heavy bombers. Maj. Anton Hackl, who ended the war with 192 credited victories, explained: “If one came in from the rear, there was a long period, closing from 1,000 meters to our firing range of 400 meters, when the bombers were firing at us but we could not fire at them. This was a very dangerous time, and we lost a lot of aircraft trying to attack that way.”


In Warbirds a good pilot can sometimes kill several bombers with a single Fw 190A-8. A contributing factor to this is probably that the bullets are near basketball sized, and the average Warbirds player has many years of experience. As such we see a much higher hit accuracy in WB's than what the pilots had in real life.

<S>
/Robert[/quote]

Ottos in this game(at least mine) are ridiculously ineffective. Just had a red F6F stayed on my Lanc's dead 6 for about 1 minute and he flew away without any apparent damage after shooting me down. On the other hand some Reds' are lethal as **** - I hardly can survive within D3 from their bombers, instant PK often, been even killed from like D8.

Seven seconds?

Where did that number come from?

Do I appear with latency in our flights to anyone?

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~S~
~Sakai - 坂井
daimyosakai@gmail.com
Tainan Kokutai - 台南

Akatombo | White 576 | Curtiss AVG

Well, when I fly a boomer, my Ottos rarely get any con down, but on a contrary, when I attack a bomber, they are real sharp shooters.

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I swear it wasn't my mistake...

Latency is tighter than you think. Much tighter than 7 secs. What I believe is the issue is called Jitter and it could be your connect or your opponents connect. I have no idea how using a VPN connect will effect a game; it may or may not. I'm sure wifi can also be a contributing factor. For whatever reason upstream always seems to be causing issues and not downstream and add lost packets into the equation. The more jumps you have the more problems you're going to see.

But then I'm no internet guru.