Matrix Games Forums

Has anyone noticed that the effectiveness of b17 from 35000 ft has been greatly reduced with the version 1.1 patch?

Originally posted by wmiller159
Has anyone noticed that the effectiveness of b17 from 35000 ft has been greatly reduced with the version 1.1 patch?

No, but if it so - it is a very good initiative The targets in UV are too small for high altitude bombings to be really effective.

Spooky

I've noticed it but haven't conducted any "scientific" tests to prove it.

On a somewhat related topic, isn't it wrong to have B17s be super-effective when bombing ships from low altitudes? I positively decimated a bunch of AKs (at sea, not docked) with B17s flying at 2000 feet yesterday, getting as many as seven 500 lb. bomb hits in a single run. (This is with version 1.11.) But I'm under the impression that in reality this wouldn't have happened, or at least I am not aware of any examples from the war that would indicate such effectiveness on the part of B17s conducting attacks on TFs at sea. I'm also assuming that the Norden bombsight would have been of very little use at such low altitudes, so they'd have had to drop their bombloads "by God and by guess".

Am I off base here, or does this need alteration?

I completely agree about low altitude level bombers being *much* more effective than they should be. B17s are death to any TF. I'd rather see a 100 plane carrier strike coming at me over a 12 plane B17 strike.

The problem is that when flying level the relative relationship between the bomber and the target are changing quickly. It would be tough to target something by flying over it and getting your velocity vector, the target velocity vector, bomb drag, relative air velocity, and all that, worked out so that you could hit something by dropping stucff on top of it.

Flying, more or less, at the target, such as a torp bomber or dive bomber would do, would eliminate much of the relative velocity and make hitting something much easier. Skip bombing gives you the same advantage. I thought that was why skip bombing was tried, to give the level bombers the same relative motion advantage that dive and torp bombers enjoyed. As it stands, B17s hit so often at 1000-2000 feet that nobody would have ever thought of trying skip bombing. BTW, the flack isn't all that much worse at 1000 feet compared to 10,000 feet, at least for B17s.

Anyway, just thoughts. Were level bombers ever this effective historicallly?

Originally posted by sitkis
I completely agree about low altitude level bombers being *much* more effective than they should be. B17s are death to any TF. I'd rather see a 100 plane carrier strike coming at me over a 12 plane B17 strike.

The problem is that when flying level the relative relationship between the bomber and the target are changing quickly. It would be tough to target something by flying over it and getting your velocity vector, the target velocity vector, bomb drag, relative air velocity, and all that, worked out so that you could hit something by dropping stucff on top of it.

Flying, more or less, at the target, such as a torp bomber or dive bomber would do, would eliminate much of the relative velocity and make hitting something much easier. Skip bombing gives you the same advantage. I thought that was why skip bombing was tried, to give the level bombers the same relative motion advantage that dive and torp bombers enjoyed. As it stands, B17s hit so often at 1000-2000 feet that nobody would have ever thought of trying skip bombing. BTW, the flack isn't all that much worse at 1000 feet compared to 10,000 feet, at least for B17s.

Anyway, just thoughts. Were level bombers ever this effective historicallly?

No problem with the B17 accuracy complaint if true, but I don't follow your comments with torpedoes. Air dropped weapons (to a first approx) have horizontal speed equal to the a/c that drops them. Thus the flight time is very short, and you don't need much lead for a moving ship. Torpedoes (once in the sea) move at ship speeds, so you need much more lead, and a better sight. Skip bombing is not like torpedoing - you need a good horizontal speed, otherwise the bomb doesn't skip, it sinks. The reason for skip bombing is the usual one of bomb dropping being much less accurate in range. To avoid this, make the bomb travel approx parallel to the sea, so range much less important. It also means the bomb is likely to hiy just above (or below if you are really lucky) the water line, and let water in, instead of air.

Sorry, not really relevant to the discussion.

Originally posted by DSandberg
On a somewhat related topic, isn't it wrong to have B17s be super-effective when bombing ships from low altitudes? I positively decimated a bunch of AKs (at sea, not docked) with B17s flying at 2000 feet yesterday, getting as many as seven 500 lb. bomb hits in a single run. (This is with version 1.11.) But I'm under the impression that in reality this wouldn't have happened, or at least I am not aware of any examples from the war that would indicate such effectiveness on the part of B17s conducting attacks on TFs at sea. I'm also assuming that the Norden bombsight would have been of very little use at such low altitudes, so they'd have had to drop their bombloads "by God and by guess".

Am I off base here, or does this need alteration?

B-17s under Major McCullar pioneered the skip bombing technique in October, 1942, and positively decimated Japanese shipping off New Guinea. However, this bombing technique was given over to medium bombers, which proved even more effective at it.

I don't know why you are getting results like this with B-17s at 2000 feet. I have two groups of B-17s at 2000 feet in a PBM game that got only 1 or 2 hits on a cruiser (a very large target).

At 2K feet my B17s even plastered a wee little destroyer with multiple hits ... really doesn't seem right.

Originally posted by DSandberg
At 2K feet my B17s even plastered a wee little destroyer with multiple hits ... really doesn't seem right.

You really should read up on the use of B-17s at low level. They were effective, but medium bombers were more "cost-effective". It is possible to score multiple hits with a single stick, if the airspeed is relatively slow and the stick interval is small. If you've ever seen B-17 sticks dropping, you know that two bombs are released basically at once, followed by two more, etc. A stick of 12 bombs can be released in about 5 seconds. Stick intervals can also be adjusted depending on the type of mission.

Originally posted by dgaad


You really should read up on the use of B-17s at low level. They were effective, but medium bombers were more "cost-effective". It is possible to score multiple hits with a single stick, if the airspeed is relatively slow and the stick interval is small. If you've ever seen B-17 sticks dropping, you know that two bombs are released basically at once, followed by two more, etc. A stick of 12 bombs can be released in about 5 seconds. Stick intervals can also be adjusted depending on the type of mission.

That is my thought on the subject (although subjective, with no back-up). I would expect the B17 to be lethal at 2000ft, but not that much better than a medium, and very vulnerable to AA. 12 bombs from a B17 gets one ship. 4-6 bombs from a medium gets 1 ship. (although marginally less often at comparable crew skills). Also the medium is probably more survivable at low level?

Yes, medium bombers such as the Havoc, Mitchell and Marauder are better at low level bombing because they are more manuverable, smaller, and have forward firing MGs to supress ship AA. The B-17s pioneered skip bombing bascially to "prove" that B-17s would be useful in the Pacific theater, and to prove it could be done, but they are not the ideal craft to execute the tactic, historically.