BTR - Bomber Streams

[Capt Cliff]

Big raids in the ETO stretched for miles, but the game doesn't represent that. Another thing these big bomber streams were for self protection and had multiple targets, around a single target city. One group would bomb this and another group would bomb that then reform at the outskirts of town and head back to ole blighty! Be nice to have that capability. There are a LOT of targets out there to bomb!

[The Dude]

That would be represented by the plot a tgt group.

Also if i manually plot raids I have the main one escorted and the other bombers fly in the same stream until just before the tgt is reached and then they break off. All the fighters buzzing around seem to provede protection most of the time.

[Hard Sarge]

you can always plot something some call a starburst

plot the number of BG's you want to bomb a target, then click follow fot he next raid, then click on target, you can have many raids fly in the same group and then split up just as they get to the target, which you can also, plot the time to start to be a minute or 2 later then the first raid, making your stream

you don't have to plot 1000 bombers to hit Lipsig

with in reason, the you can make the raids regroup (but this does not always work,a lot of times the raids want to fly right back to base instead of following the return path, this is being looked into, as is seeing if we can add more waypoints)

[Hard Sarge]

something like this

[Hard Sarge]

and you can work with the timeing to get them over target when you want them to be

the last two raids are B-24's which fly faster, so take off much later, to be able to reach the target close to the same time frame

didn't add in fighter cover for this plotting

but over all would put a few FG's with the lead group, more with the 2nd group, then just enough to have some protection for the rest

this angle on the raid is going to have some protection problums, as the planes that break off and head home are not going to be flying back against the raid stream

[Capt Cliff]

Sarge,

The Starburst looks cool but what about the escort? In effect you'd have 4 or 5 seperate raids following the same flight path. You' have to have a seperate escort group ramrod each raid! Rather than having the escort herding the bomber stream. I don't think the escorts ventured into flak alley over the tagets. They would most likely hang about the edge of the flak zone then pick up the bombers up on the way out. Some one needs to talk to some of the orginal escort pilots. Not too many left, but it sure would help understanding the mechanics of a bomber raid.

[Hard Sarge]

with this type of plotting
a FG assigned to protect raid 1, will also protect the other raids, depending on how close they are to each other

one reason you want to stagger the fighters, so as they are flying to try and catch the group they are suppost to protect, they are also over flying the other groups

reason I say to add more cover to the 2nd group in the raid, the AI likes, wants to make a pass at the first raid, and then break into the backpath of the raid, and pick on any damaged planes that have dropped behind

they are already past the fighters protecting the first raid, and can have a field day

if you have enough fighters, you can also try and set up sweeps to fly with in the flight path of the raids, and they will help with the GE chasers, hassle with these though, is they can be drawn away from the path, to chase, some times good, sometimes bad