High altitude bombing in Witp

[niceguy2005]

I rarely bomb from high altitudes in my games. It just seems like I get very poor results. Has anyone had luck with this? I'm talking about airfields and ports btw, not ground units or ships. Does anyone have advise on how to make high altitude bombing effective?

[Cathartes]

I've been using 30K feet recently to train my B-17 crews.  Unless you have a mass of bombers, you get next to nothing at this elevation.  Zeros can't reach you though. [:'(]

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

I rarely bomb from high altitudes in my games. It just seems like I get very poor results. Has anyone had luck with this? I'm talking about airfields and ports btw, not ground units or ships. Does anyone have advise on how to make high altitude bombing effective?

you can´t make high altitude bombing effective... better to really suffer during one attack and actually achieving something than to try a dozen times, lose a couple of planes to flak and ops but in the end you have achieved nothing...

[Dixie]

I've had very limited success with my B-17s in Malaya.  Flying at 30,000' plus against Rangoon they have taken no casualties, but they've managed maybe a dozen oil hits in two months.  The main use I found was to keep them at high level until my oppo learnt he couldn't reach them and then send them in at a lower height to level the airfield at Rangoon [:D] 

[AW1Steve]

ORIGINAL: Cathartes

I've been using 30K feet recently to train my B-17 crews.  Unless you have a mass of bombers, you get next to nothing at this elevation.  Zeros can't reach you though. [:'(]

[&:] Does this actually build up their experince? Does it as fast as low level? How does it affect morale? [&:]

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

I rarely bomb from high altitudes in my games. It just seems like I get very poor results. Has anyone had luck with this? I'm talking about airfields and ports btw, not ground units or ships. Does anyone have advise on how to make high altitude bombing effective?

you can´t make high altitude bombing effective... better to really suffer during one attack and actually achieving something than to try a dozen times, lose a couple of planes to flak and ops but in the end you have achieved nothing...

My intent in conducting high altitude attacks would be to use 4Es historically. It's too easy to smash an AF with massed 4Es at 8,000 ft. In my games we try not to mass 4Es, but I can forsee times as the noose tightens on Japan when massed raids are the tactically correct decision. If and when I employ them I would like it to be with some level of realism.

On note on high altitude bombing. It seems much less effective against stationary targets than it should be. Even at 30,000 feet bombers could hit stationary target pretty well.

[Cathartes]

I don't have enough PBEM history to compare consistent high alt bombing with low alt, but yes, it does increase experience. 

As far as morale goes, there's no doubt that pilots incurr less of a morale hit and recover faster when they don't have to deal with fighters.  If you're fairly short of B-17s early in the game (as in CHS), you're dealing with inexperienced crews, and your only targets are well defended with fighters--high altitude seems the way to go for me. You won't do much damage, but you do annoy and force your enemy to deploy fighters, and keep him guessing about the day you do decide to bomb lower. 

[Nomad]

I don't have anything to cite, but I believe that a high bombing altitude in the Pacific for B-17s and B-24s was about 15,000 to 18,000 feet. I'm not sure they had oxygen available everywhere.

[marky]

check out my AARs

forget high altitude, just get in there and bomb the &&^^ outta them [:D]

sure i lost alot of bombers but i did alot of damage

[wdolson]

When going after a well defended target, I will bomb from 20,000 feet or so for a while until the runway is chewed up enough to keep the fighters mostly grounded, then I send them in at lower altitude.  If the base has a lot of flak, I will keep bombing from high altitude for another week or two to knock out some more of the flak.

Initial successes are poor, but as the bombers fly back to the same base, the detection level goes up and they get more hits.  Or at least that is my experience.  The more hits may be due to fighters and flak suppression too.  The experience is going up, but not fast enough to warrent the increased effectiveness after only a week or two.

I try to make the range as short as possible.  Bombers flying only 1 hex against a target that has ineffective defenses will incur almost no fatigue and can keep it up day after day without a break.  When Japan's aircraft industry collapsed, I had a lot of fighters without much to do so I put them on airfield attack and had them go after some bypassed bases.  One or two of those units ended up with 99 experience after bombing day after day for six months.

Bill

[tocaff]

I wonder how many of you know that the B-29s attacked targets covered by clouds and bombed them using radar.  I don´t know how effective it was though.

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: tocaff

I wonder how many of you know that the B-29s attacked targets covered by clouds and bombed them using radar. I don´t know how effective it was though.

Not terribly effective, iirc... it wasn't until they started bombing from relatively low altitude (and didn't need radar scopes usually) that the B-29 raids became effective.

The attack at Nagasaki was using radar to line up the drop, and supposedly a visual sighting was made at the last moment (i have my doubts about this though - the bomb detonation point was almost 1 mile from the planned aiming point)

Bombers in the ETO also used radar for bombing.

[rtrapasso]

On note on high altitude bombing. It seems much less effective against stationary targets than it should be. Even at 30,000 feet bombers could hit stationary target pretty well.

i suspect in the game the effect of clouds messes up accuracy. However, also remember that the average bomb accuracy was pretty miserable in mass bombings - usually missing the planned target by around 2 miles or so... this was probably as a function of night bombing of cities (even if your aim was off by that much, your bombs would still probably hit the city).

As a comparison to more recent events, one F-16 (during Gulf War I) armed with laser guided bombs was said to be equivalent to a full squadron of B-17s as far as ability to destroy a target. i'm betting the F-16 was actually a lot more likely to get the job done.

[Jim D Burns]

Early in the war, the problem the allies have with bombing the Japanese at lower altitudes is Japan can decimate your bombers morale and put them out of action for weeks or months. Very low experience combined with initial low morale makes the allied heavies very fragile for the first few months of the war.

You can stand them down for about one month to gain morale into the 70’s-80’s if you wish, but they’ll still be very low experience when they do fly, and will still lose morale rapidly when attacked by fighters.

I find it better to fly at the higher altitudes to help train the crews and slowly grow the morale of the squadrons. Occasionally I’ll fly a lower altitude mission (15k+, anything lower feels gamey), but generally I keep them at 30k+ until trained, or until escorts become available.

Once you can get a situation together where you can arrange for escorts (i.e. fighters in Burma escort bombers from India), then lower altitude missions are not so devastating to their morale if they are intercepted.

B-17’s with morale in the 20’s-30’s are worthless and will die in droves, so keep them high until you can arrange for those escorts. There’s nothing gamey about using them within their historical operating limits, and eventually even the high altitude missions can do a little damage once the crews are trained up.

Jim

[Feltan]

I can add something here.

My father was a B-17 pilot in the ETO.

Accuracy was never that great, but a large scale raid (on the order of a thousand bombers) against a large target, say, "Dresden" insured that enough bombs hit "Dresden" to make it worthwhile.

Aiming for a specific building or facility was iffy, at best. Even in the latter stages of the war.

In 1942, in the PTO, the numbers, training and ordanance were not up to the task. I don't find the results mentioned above unrealistic nor unexpected.

Regards,
Feltan

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

ORIGINAL: tocaff

I wonder how many of you know that the B-29s attacked targets covered by clouds and bombed them using radar. I don´t know how effective it was though.

The attack at Nagasaki was using radar to line up the drop, and supposedly a visual sighting was made at the last moment (i have my doubts about this though - the bomb detonation point was almost 1 mile from the planned aiming point)

does that matter when you drop an A-bomb???

[marioa]

What is the best strategy and altitude for air attacks against small objective like troop stacks?
Any help will be appreciated. Thanks

[kisslove]

And how will recon flights affect the bombers sucess or will they not? Let's say i bomb Rangoon with B-17 group and recon it with Bleheims. Will it help? Or recon is just for players to know what's present at the enemy base?

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

ORIGINAL: tocaff

I wonder how many of you know that the B-29s attacked targets covered by clouds and bombed them using radar. I don´t know how effective it was though.

The attack at Nagasaki was using radar to line up the drop, and supposedly a visual sighting was made at the last moment (i have my doubts about this though - the bomb detonation point was almost 1 mile from the planned aiming point)

does that matter when you drop an A-bomb???

Maybe not in game terms - it did (apparently) in real terms (to the advantage of the Japanese population). The blast was contained in a natural "bowl" of hills which limited the effects... it might have created a lot more damage if it had been closer to the original "aiming" point.

The effects of A-bombs, while hideous, are an order of magnitude or two less than later H-bombs. Tests by the US showed that steel reinforced concrete buildings could stand up to nearby hits* - and tanks within 100 yards of a Hiroshima-sized/style nuke could survive (not sure about the crews as they didn't put folks in for the tests!! [X(]) An H-bomb, even the "small" ones, are at least 10x as more powerful, and would flatten everything (including probably hills).


*this spurred a building boom in Washington DC of heavily reinforced concrete buildings which came to an abrupt end with the advent of the H-bomb.

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

I rarely bomb from high altitudes in my games. It just seems like I get very poor results. Has anyone had luck with this? I'm talking about airfields and ports btw, not ground units or ships. Does anyone have advise on how to make high altitude bombing effective?

you can´t make high altitude bombing effective... better to really suffer during one attack and actually achieving something than to try a dozen times, lose a couple of planes to flak and ops but in the end you have achieved nothing...

My intent in conducting high altitude attacks would be to use 4Es historically. It's too easy to smash an AF with massed 4Es at 8,000 ft. In my games we try not to mass 4Es, but I can forsee times as the noose tightens on Japan when massed raids are the tactically correct decision. If and when I employ them I would like it to be with some level of realism.

On note on high altitude bombing. It seems much less effective against stationary targets than it should be. Even at 30,000 feet bombers could hit stationary target pretty well.

Depends. I don't know how they came up with this data, but from what I understand the average bomb in WWII was 5 miles off it's target. How much of that would be affected by the night bombers I wouldn't know, but it seems that only the RAF did an extensive amount of this, whereas the Luftwaffe had a significant amount especially early on against Britain. I can't really imagine any other nation that did it. So maybe the average daylight bomb was 2 miles off target?