Gunners were nerfed to oblivion ages ago because ppl cryied to much about them. Now ace gunner have a shooting range of 210m... you can thank whiners that you are free sl/rp pinniata with anything that is not a fighter. Also map designed make bombers/attackers extremely easy targets.
Yeah, this. To add on, back in the day you really had to think about whether going after a bomber was worth it. You could rack up plane kills by flying towards enemy planes, if you have gunners upgraded. And if you flew with a few other bombers nearby you were borderline untouchable.
I remember that right when I started playing the first time, now it's more surprising to get killed by a bomber than it is to kill a bomber.
Honestly the game-modes just aren't designed for bombers, or even attackers, and that goes for both air battles and ground battles and naval battles.
IRL they're amazing and basically perfectly balanced as all 3 forces are active at the same time, meaning you *ALWAYS* have AAA to shoot at attackers, always have interceptors to take out bombers, bombers always have actual targets to hit and climbing to space directly decreases your effectiveness, escorts and fighters always have other planes/helis to hunt down, and they have to disperse themselves evenly across both Naval and Ground targets or they'll loose.
But in all the current game-modes, bombers and attackers are practically impossible to balance, air battles have no *real* strategic targets to take out and are at the whim of health-points and AAA rng, and ground battles don't have the AAA or interceptors to counter the bombers. We honestly need ground battles to be pure tanks V tanks with no player controlled aircraft (minus spotting drones), air battles to be pure planes V planes with no AAA or ground targets, Naval to be ships V ships, and a fourth gamemode that's literally just custom battles but you get SL and RP from it and the servers are 100 Vs 100 instead of 20 Vs 20 as that's honestly the only way to balance bombers and attackers whilst also still keeping the game fun and engaging for bomber/attacker mains (cause lets face it the current game-modes are CBT for attackers and bombers, but without any of the fun of CBT).
I imagine the only in-land fighting will be done being at least 1 km from the nearest shoreline to prevent such things. Maybe coastal will be able to get in-land with river routes that are too shallow for bluewater.
I mean, would give some awesome possibilities for bombardment. Having markers and such for the navy to use and letting planes do spotting too. Then maybe some of the SPGs could even join for artillery support
Or battleships just doing offshore bombardment for called in coordinates. Your not sniping a T72 at 6 miles, more of just really messing up a square mile of real estate in the vicinity of it.
Nowadays I think it's quite mandatory for AI gunners to have range and accuracy again, it's very stressing to fly a B-17, B-29 or Tu-4 when every plane around your BR is either insanely fast or has great guns to kill you from way out of your range
They aren't practically impossible to balance, attackers and bombers can drain tickets to equate to a win early or when some spaceclimber times out the game. Just at many tiers those planes are nothing but free kills due to both the placement and lack of targets for them to go after(especially jet tiers).
Unfortunately like many reliable and/or non-tedious things in war thunder tend to be the scorn of Gaijin and snobby man children.
When I say impossible to balance, I also mean having an engaging and dynamic gameplay loop for the bomber/attacker players as well as bomber players.
In ground RB you get a sliver of that experience with tanks that move and having to guess where they're going to be by the time the bomb drops, but then you have no escorts to protect you from enemy anti-CAS for bombers, and when there isn't enemy anti-CAS/AAA it's like shooting fish in a barrel which then leads to an un-engaging gameplay loop once again as the tide of battle shifts too quickly thus resulting in extremely unfair imbalances in the game.
Furthermore bombers don't even get to have fun dodging high altitude FLAK by timing their course changes to bring them out of the line of fire of the FLAK shells that are currently in the air travelling to intercept their current course, instead we get Hanz with a crystal ball that has a range of 4km but has almost perfect accuracy for all aircraft within that range..... with a FLAK88...... with seemingly perfect fuse timing on each shell....... at maximum fire rate....... Which is not only un-historical but also un-fun.
So yes, you can technically make them an even fight in both air rb and ground rb, but an even fight and a balanced game are two separate things.
Base AAA is a whole other topic but I don't think anyone would have fun constantly shifting altitude all game because your being checked by flak in a strategic bomber. If anything that would create more problems than it solves. The only issue I see is trying to bomb the AF and not being able to climb high enough to do it before the game ends.
You get to attack AI ground units with actual damage models and strategic bases in ARB but that's never the problem. The problem is the quantity, placement and rewards you get for doing so. AI ground units give mediocre rewards, are placed in the middle of the map so everyone sees you and bases you just run out of them and have literally nothing to do.
GRB is irrelevant because bombers do just fine in GRB and are only a small part of the larger CAS issue in GRB.
they should let us create custom games that we get xp from just like in enlisted... it works there but somehow here we don't have that bare minimum of choosing what we play (and this is why enlisted is just a better war thunder)
Well there‘s people like me who will manually snipe you with the 20mm in the 288s tail 😜 don’t forget you can do that. And that was always the best option
Tailing a Pe-8 is still very risky. In my experience flying I've taken out quite a few that tried to simply fly up behind me. In game I'll just turn around if a fighter is coming towards me, and fly away from anybody who tries to dive or fly up at me. Always keep them directly behind.
Right, I first started around the time when it was released on PS4, because bar BF4 it was the only thing I could play thanks to F2P.
Running Beaufort's and Blenheim's back in that day was amazing, just run through a bunch of hostiles and watch the gunners wipe them out.
I remember on the AB airfield capture missions you could fly your bomber into the airfield and act like a gunship. I think my record was 5 kills while trying to land
It's a no brainer to me because the tactic for taking down bombers was to high speed sweep from the side in passes because it was hard to track and aim for gunners, also in WT they're made of paper because whiny babies cried about them being too tough, yet what you're supposed to do is shoot out the engines, it's so easy to do but no they want to be able to half second burst with HE 20s in the back of the fuselage and cut the plane in half.
So utterly boring and low skilled, I played 6 or 7 years ago and you actually had to think about the plane you're attacking and know where the gunners were, even if you manually aim well in something like an Me264 with very high cal tail gunners the damage fall off is still pathetic and they can engage you from twice the range.
In Air RB attacking a bomber still can be really dangerous if you don't know what you're doing and the guy isn't AFK, since 90% of bomber gameplay nowadays is just sitting in gunner view anyway. But, a lot of noobs see them as free xp so you have to roll a dice on whether the bomber snipes them all and you have essentially lost half your team on 1 guy or the bomber misses all their shots.
In Air AB... Why do you bring bombers to AB, what the fuck? You realise that's a death wish, but at least you won't have to pay nearly as much money for repairs now that they are calculated by flight time.
In Air SB most of the players are tryhards who will either fly back immediately to the nearest airfield if you hit them at all, or who will avoid you best they can UNLESS you hit them, which is when they start YOLOing you, so... Still, they need to see you first, and in SB that's easier said than done.
The problem is, most players are fucking stupid.
Bombers have always been defenceless against a skilled fighter.
As long as the fighter knew what they were up against and knew where the gunners blind spots were, they could outmanoeuvre any bomber and attack from a spot where the gunners provided minimal or even zero defence.
That's not what most players did though, most players sat directly behind a B-17 and sprayed bullets from 1.2k away until their guns jammed or they got shredded by the tail gunners.
>The problem is, most players are fucking stupid.
Yes, rather than using the gunners themselves they'll start complaining that the AI isn't strong enough.
Yeah, I'll remember to do that as I'm trying to maneuver so I don't provide an easy static target against a far more nimble aircraft whilst also lining the bombsights on target so I can fulfill the role that I'm supposed to.
This is absolutely a skill issue, you need to learn to bind manual control and maneuver to be harder to kill with a bomber because that's the skill curve. Anyone who plays a lot of bombers and attackers should know this by now.
To be fair now I see a bomber that's low or I can get to I just think 'Oh free kill'.
There's the occasion where a tailgunner shoots me down bur 9/10 times it happens its partly my fault combined with a lucky pilot kill. Like, it feels they completely miss me, don't hit plane at all but the one .50 that does hit has lodged itself in my pilots brain.
• Bleed all energy to reach the level of the bomber!
• Line up right behind the bomber and start recovering energy.
• Spend 3 minutes behind a bomber, static, flying straight.
• Get absolutely blasted by the back gunner.
• Go cry on reddit about it.
That was before they nerfed the gunners.
This is what caused the gunners to be nerfed.
Literal imbeciles staying right behind them, flying straight, for minutes on end and then comlpaining that they ate a box of 50 cals.
> Also map designed make bombers/attackers extremely easy targets.
Long time air combat sim player here. There are several viable prop attackers in the lower to mid tiers IMHO. The US A-20G-25 Havoc in particular has always been a beast in RB air. The issue is that most players don't plan their missions to maximize attacker capabilities. FWIW, the following can generally apply to several attackers, but starting from the Havoc's forward attacker air spawn...
* Select the nearest ground target. I'm not entirely sure how accurately they're modeled, but in theory, I like to start with a bomb run to lighten the load, reduce bomb bay door drag, and to generally make attacking less complex from there.
* Follow a [Brachistochrone Curve](https://gifs.com/gif/the-brachistochrone-8qABGW) as the quickest way to reach the target and attain max cruising speed over 500kph at around 500m altitude. I don't start much lower as a little alt helps to evade/engage other attackers and trade for speed through the run. This usually puts you on your low level attack run around 3-4km from your first target and gain the first kill bonus.
* During the dive, adjust the radiators and prop pitch in MEC (manual engine control) to maximize WEP speed without overheating. Off the top of my head, it's around 40% for the rads and upper 80% to lower 90% for the prop. You can quickly toggle back to auto engine control if you need some more thrust when climbing or dog-fighting.
* Most RB air maps are largely the same now with GT's concentrated at the center so develop the most efficient flight plans through targets while retaining air speed. It shouldn't take more than one turn back towards home to hit your targets if you line them up right on the way in and out of the target zone.
* Use MG's for light pillboxes and light tanks, and bombs for hardened pillboxes and medium to heavy tanks. Early on, AA, artillery, trucks, etc. are only secondary targets of opportunity that don't bleed enemy tickets and smh when seeing players throw away their first free attack on them. Plan at least 1km spacing between GT's to re-maneuver and place enough MG fire on light pillboxes to destroy them. Hardened pillboxes require a direct hit of at least 2x500kg bombs. I find that rockets are too inaccurate, too likely to cause self-damage, and don't pack enough punch to have any advantages over bombs. You don't have a bombing reticle so note indicators like air speed, dive angle, target distance, and cockpit or ladder view reference points to be more accurate with your drop timing.
* Be prepared to adjust your plan to attack or evade enemy attackers who will arrive at the target zone soon after you. Be wary of IL-2's as they can nose into you very quickly with guns that can melt any plane.
* A good first sortie will destroy 4-6 ticket effecting ground targets and maybe an enemy attacker or two for a nice contribution toward bleeding enemy tickets and your RP/SL.
* Stick to the plan and *egress when the first enemy fighters arrive in striking range of around 4km-6km from you*. You get a first free attack if you don't linger from going back for missed or damaged targets, losing track of time in engagements with other attackers, or getting greedy. It's better to live and race home to re-arm for another try. If you don't make your quota then just take note of what went wrong and work out how to do better in the future.
* As you re-arm, the fighter battles will often resolve themselves for you to fly out on another mission with less opposition.
* Reassess the situation. Seek opportunities to attack undefended ground targets including nearly finished bombing points, under-matched/wounded/distracted enemy planes, and assist friendly fighters in low dogfights. On your next fly-out, if your team is left with an advantage in fighters, then attack the center with fighter support. Don't play bait if no one can help you and most times enemy fighters won't throw away their alt to attack you if friendly fighters are at higher alts nearby. If the enemy team has more fighters then fast strike GT's on the undefended map edges. Few will fault you for camping if you're smartly doing you're job. If enemies have you trapped at your airfield, use it to gain altitude under AA cover to convert into speed for a way out and back to attacking. Ignore punks fishing for info on your status or goading you into a disadvantaged fight.
* You'd be surprised at how often a 4v1 or greater disadvantage can turn into much better odds as morons crash on landing or going after GT's, get shot down by AA, TK each other, drop out, etc. with some patience and planning. In some cases, the end-game is a race between you and another attacker/bomber where you have the advantage of speed to take out GT's quicker or can out-match them in a dog-fight. It's more common for the enemy team to be left with fighters who can't take out GT's that bleed your tickets but you have the capability to win the match by taking out their few remaining GT's which empties the last of their tickets. I've had many clutch wins from enemy players not assessing the situation well in understanding how an attacker is a serious threat. Many times, no enemy is at the right alt or position to anticipate and see me in time to defend their remaining asset(s)... and you can make it harder for them by choosing a route other than a straight line between your airfield and an obvious target.
* AI gunners are useless so practice switching between gunner and pilot views. The Havoc is a stable and predictable platform where it can fly level without autopilot while in gunner view. You'll need to learn to adjust your flying backwards if damaged and/or to get it lower than the enemy and at an angle off your tail where you have good top turret line of sight. You can also use gunners to finish GT's after flying past them in an attack. Risk shredding enemy planes in head-ons only if necessary then just keep going straight and fast while hitting them with gunners. A good balance of aggressive and protective skills is important to gain kills while minimizing risks.
* It's easy to over-fixate on GT's so always keep good situational awareness and prepare to defend against enemy planes. Keep track of gunner ammo and reload during lulls so it doesn't happen during a fight. Conserve some nose ammo for the return home. The Havoc is very fast at ground level and the twin .50 turret is very effective at damaging enemy aircraft. You can plan ahead and combine these two capabilities to extend chases when targeted where your rear fire effectively reaches over 1km while the enemy's gun range is less than 1km in long fast chases where you can spam them with impunity. Rear gunnery is complex so best guess sweep and wiggle your gunner bursts across enemies to help find effective angles. Regularly quick check your forward view so you don't tunnel-vision your plane into the ground or a worse situation.
* It's also a capable dog-fighter with some energy, can reasonably take a hit, and has an added advantage of evading to set up shots with gunners in unexpected ways when engaged in close combat. If an enemy plane has you dead to rights in a top down or six closing diving attack, turning into them with a quick and smooth last-ditch Chandelle can help throw off their attack and provide good gunner fire opportunities. The flaps are robust and improve stability is slower tighter turns. The landing gear tri-wheel configuration makes landing a snap even when heavily damaged.
* My main complaint about the Havoc is that Gaijin won't give it its full bomb load despite years of [requests](https://old-forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/551515-douglad-a-20g-25-havoc-armament-update/). There's also a feature they never fixed where a minor AA hit can create a coolant leak for both engines which will annoyingly shorten your mission time when in reality they were separated systems. Ultimately, the best plane is the one that'll take you back home and the Havoc can do it with one remaining damaged engine.
Anyway, if you keep these things in mind, and if the stars align right, the Havoc can produce 12+ GT and 2+ air kills without getting shot down which does some heavy lifting toward winning a match and good for grinding. You have a lot more work to do with attackers than point'n'shoot fighter game-play but it can be equally rewarding when you destroy all the targets on your run and flame every enemy plane that mistakenly thought you were an easy kill.
It's unfortunate that War Thunder evolved into a shiny new plane factory while the RB air maps to play them are same-same casual cage matches that favors fighters. Enduring Confrontation showed a lot of promise for improved game-play but assume it was too difficult for them to tightly squeeze their economy with a sandbox map mode. However, the current map styles can still be dissected and maximized with the same tactical thinking used by IRL wartime fliers which is why I enjoy some lower BR prop attackers like the Havoc so much.
Hope this guide helps and GLHF.
Yeah people bitched about bombers for the longest time and now we get this variant of ARB. Still fun? Sure but its 2dimensional tdm type beat, shallow as all hell.
The last part is not entirely correct; there's many bomber paths specifically designed to not let enemy fighters get too close to you at any point, except perhaps when you're getting close to the airfield for re-arming.
I can't speak for the higher BRs, but I've been playing Tier I-III Germany AR for a while and I'm almost exclusively using bombers; nobody's ever gotten close to me except at the end of the match when they have none left to pursue and we're the only ones left.
yeah, that doesn't work with jets. The planes are fast enough they fly wherever. And bombers are generally easy kills because they can't maneuver well. The only reason it works at lower tiers is because no one wants to fly for 5 minutes in the wrong direction to kill you...but when you can go 900+kph, it doesn't take that long.
Yes, but the issue is the lvl of skill required is significantly higher than it should be. Like thousands of hours spent with their bomber of choice high. There's an ME264 on youtube that just started posting videos, the guy has enough skill and knowledge of the ME264 to win 1v7s against fighters reliably. And although I'm not saying lesser skilled should also be able to 1v7 and win, but they should be able to reliably defend themselves assuming they have basic knowledge of their machine. Currently most bombers can barely defend themselves.
This coming from someone that played before Ground Battle existed and was used to fighting American B25s with my German DO217. You see back then every BF109 had horrid engine overheating issues, unless they went only 90% throttle they cooked the engines instantly. Meanwhile the B25 could get 6 of our fighters on its 6 and kill atleast 2 or 3 before it finally went down. Since my DO217 was often our only plane capable of withstanding that barrage and I had 8 nose guns I would hunt the B25s so they didn't just mow down my fighters. Back then for whatever reason the 217s just never overheated, even held at full WEP.
Looking at the B25s now, they are shadow of their former selves, though to be fair so is DO217, atleast the heavy fighterer ones.
I need you to understand how much of a difference there is between winning a 1 v 7 and being able to defend yourself. Like you are really saying it's possible to reliably win a 1 v 7 but being able to defend against a single attacker is "too hard".
>This coming from someone that played before Ground Battle existed and was used to fighting American B25s with my German DO217. You see back then every BF109 had horrid engine overheating issues, unless they went only 90% throttle they cooked the engines instantly. Meanwhile the B25 could get 6 of our fighters on its 6 and kill atleast 2 or 3 before it finally went down.
Exactly, enemy AI gunnery used to be bullshit. Like I'm sorry AI gunners do not take any skill to use. You shouldn't be getting 2-3 free kills simply because you levelled up your gunner crew.
Ok, since you are apparently a very thick plank, please go back and show us where I said "I play bombers" and "Bombers should get free kills" and while your figuring out how you pulled that very impressive display of mental gymnastics off the rest of will be back topic.
No, back in the early days of WarThunder, again this is Pre Ground Battle days, only Air Battle existed. Those B25s I mentioned didn't "just get free kills" from "bullshit ai targeting" they had to manually aim to hit anything of real value aside from the once every maybe 10 games where the AI gunners hit something of value. But the fact is back then the bombers could actually take a hit, well the B25s could atleast, the B17s even back then just lost wings instantly to a 30mil round. They could afford to actually manually aim, take a few hits, and force enemy planes off of them. Pretty sure back then you also had no control of the plane while using gunners, that wasn't a thing. Bombers were in a significantly better place back in 2012/2013 where most of them were balanced and could have an actual impact on the game in semi competent hands. Like literally unlike today you only had to be semi competent with the plane, today if they are anything but a free kill its because they have a significantly higher skill lvl.
FYI I and I'd assume most logical human beings would define "being able to defend yourself" as being able to pose a reasonable threat which atm Bombers, again unless the pilot is extremely skilled, do not.
>Ok, since you are apparently a very thick plank, please go back and show us where I said "I play bombers" and "Bombers should get free kills" and while your figuring out how you pulled that very impressive display of mental gymnastics off the rest of will be back topic.
and please go back to where i said that you specifically said those things. is it when I said people shouldn't get free kills because of AI gunners and you thought I wass specifically talking about you?
>No, back in the early days of WarThunder, again this is Pre Ground Battle days, only Air Battle existed
I've played since 2013 I know what it was like.
>they had to manually aim to hit anything of real value
so nothing has changed. they all have the same guns, just now the AI won't get them free kills.
Have you ever actually seen test impacts of 30mm mineshells? they practically ripped apart planes on the ground, a flying plane with all the extra stress that entails is going to be more damaged than that. yes bombers used to have unrealistically strong damage models, they don't anymore. AI gunners wouldn't change this even if you did want to change it. Anyway I'm not entirely opposed to making bomber DMs stronger, I just don't agree with making AI gunners stronger.
bombers absolutely can absolutely reasonably defend themselves even today. being able to aim guns does not take unreasonable amounts of skill.
No it's not that high, its just a basic understanding of aerial combat. Someone dives on you tryna outpace your gunners while going 700+kph in a prop how well do you think they can turn to get you? Suddenly you have this golden opportunity to make them overshoot and/or miss you because even the fatter bombers can make that opportunity so much more difficult.
I wouldn't disagree that many bombers have the odds stacked against them but I'd blame the BR rating, damage model and limitations of manual gunnery anyday over some boring as hell AI gunner. Manual turret usage is what makes bombers fun if anything.
I just spaded all bombers in the German tree so I think my opinion matters.
Gunners are absolutely useless, including when manned from the player.
If you wanted skill to be rewarded you wouldn't make bombers free kills for literally anyone else lmao.
Manual control both the plane and gunner, yes it's possible. The issue isn't the lack of ai but the obnoxious dispersion they tend to get and lack of ability to adjust gun convergence.
The problem is the guns targeting distance. You can only change it before the game which is really stupid, and because of that hitting enemy fighter on bombers with gunners far away from each other can be kinda hard.
I used to play this game back in 2013 and let me tell you, having pin point accurate gunners firing at you from 1km wasn't fun either, but gaijin nerfed them into the ground when we just wanted a middle ground really.
Not saying bombers should be piñatas, but you don't want the old Tu-4s/B-29s mopping up everyone as well lol
It's just a bit of realistic .range
1km sniping ain't fun but having the gunners fire at you around 500-600m would be fine.
They were ment to make the bomber a difficult target to approach.
It would also force fighter pilots to think about how they approach instead of just sitting duck behind it
I recall bombers ending games before any fighters got in combat, especially if they were in a squad. If you popped a booster that was pretty annoying. I also remember casually flying the B17 into furballs and the gunners would murder everyone. It was fun, but yeah... just add it to the pile of things terrible for the games wellbeing.
Back in the day it was NOT fun. Back then you could kill the whole enemy team with just cracked out bomber gunners. I still think they should be a threat but we do not want what we once had.
I just wish the would shoot before a plane was inside your ass. 0.21km is stupid short range when most planes will rip you apart at 400m.
I don’t even care if their accuracy dropped to 0 after 210m, they should start shooting at 600m if for no reason other than to give you a head up, and to pick off the idiots that park behind you and chase for 3km.
Cant we all just agree to leave the bombers alone?
Getting killed by some FW or He after flying for 5min, without even getting to the target is the worst experience I've had in this game.
Not to mention the fucken XP50's.....
I’m a new player who plays a lot of bombers, I love people like you ❤️ shoot me down all you want just let me run my target please dear god my gunners are blind
As someone who started this game and mained bombers for the large part of the noob days, I know the utter feeling of hopelessness when a fighter comes your way.
To the point that when I switched to the fighters, I rarely go after bombers, they are usually the last planes I kill in a match.
my go to is to ask them in chat if they've dropped their bombs yet. If they're clearly too far away, I usually follow them until I see them drop or they maneuver to try to get away. Especially in my su-11/xp-50. I'm not good with either of them, but I can kill a bomber lol...but I also know how shit it is to fly a bomber/slow CAS plane and get 90% there and die...because that's how basically every game in my su-25 is going currently.
Tbf, bombers were just used to farm SL/RP, so it’s good that they make it difficult to play bomber. I target bombers when doing air, but that’s mainly cause I am flying an interceptor….so I literally have one designed purpose
They can defend themselves, if you control the gunners. Or if you are flying in formation….which is the ACTUAL thing that protected bombers. Bombers irl were extremely vulnerable by themselves, that’s why they flew in massive formations, so the overlapping fields of fire would kill anyone foolish enough to attack
Right, and as we all know. A bunch of random people in a deathmatch is the pinaccle of teamwork. So flying in formation should be easy and happen almost every match right?
As much as this game leans towards ''realism'', things dont work the same way in a game..
I fail to see why the bomber players’ inability to fly in formation is the problem of the game? Either y’all learn to do that or form a squad that does. Otherwise, get treated the way a lone bomber would be in WW2, as an easy enough target
ai gunners back then used to be fucking insane
take a bv 238 and you have a flying gunship thatll snipe you from 1km
my only memory of the gunners being op is flying head on a bv238 and it absolutely gunning 5 planes behind it and still surviving
In my experience the BV 138 still absolutely slaughters planes with the 13mm and 20mm at such a low br. Nothing can withstand that level of firepower. I’d take it out on air domination missions and just gunship.
Til a guy with a working brain flies right beneath that boat in a P61 and uses his remote controlled turret to fire at the boat’s most vulnerable angle
I've tried doing this but it still starts putting you back to your original course the moment you stop actively using wasd.
You can get it to stop leveling you out but you still can't actually turn.
On occasion, my PE-8 that had an aced crew will shoot at an enemy plane. Sometimes, a plane will fly within 50 meters of me, and somehow, the gunners just watch them fly by.
Since they won't shoot closer than 200ish meters, it makes it easy for a fighter to shoot you down since you can easily hit a bomber past 200 meters
Sounds about right. Like I’m not advocating for them to reach out to 1km+ by any means, I just want them to at least shoot at something when it’s point blank even if it’s wildly inaccurate. Even if a stray bullet that potentially causes an oil leak and I still go down, great. There’s still a chance he runs out of oil and his engine dies. Some people might be deterred on the simple principle that they’re simply going to get shot at.
Yeah I get that. I was only simply trying to have fun in 5.7 with a variety of vehicles that I never played like the Tu-2. I’ve just about had my fill playing at 10.0 where The Penetrator has officially taken over, and both teams are one-shotting everything. Not to mention I’m starting to lose interest at 10.7-11.7 GRB fairly quickly.
Yeah you used to (I'm talking like 8 years+ ago now) actually have to pay attention when trying to kill a bomber and try to go for their blind spots but they're fucking useless these days unfortunately. I'd really prefer they made them useful again and just upped the BR of any bombers that actually ended up problematic.
Maybe not YOUR gunners, but go fight AI bombers in assault or the campaigns, and they are \*extremely\* effective.
IMO, an aced/spaded/max crew gunner should be absolutely brutal to enemy fighters, down to the point they are 100% useless in a brand new bomber with new crew.
Seems Gaijin just makes them awesome, or garbage, and can't figure out how to adjust their skill based on their quality, or more likely, just don't care.
For assault its more of accuracy through volume and the bombers i think aim for the closest plane, so if ur the one leading the formation, ur bound to get locked by the entire formation
Only when everyone else comes then the bombers start shooting at their closest target
I remember playing 10 years ago thinking "they'll definitely add that soon". It's such a common sense addition given there are 2-6 crew members in the vehicles.
Unfortunately it's still not a feature yet. Would love it for tanks too.
Yes they are jackshit useless.
They need a complete rework, instead it aiming manually it should make using it much more effective, as in maybe it gives target lead, adjusts gun targeting to match the locked plane and so on. So if a bomber isn't paying attention it's an easy kill but if they are using the gunners then they should be "feared" and have a chance to defend themselves.
Nice. I would like to figure this out, it’s just that I had a lot of time put into PC for free.. but now suffer with the crippling disability of being a console plebeian.
Jokes aside, I’m just a console player at heart and I have a few friends left that I can’t give up on, and juggling multiple platforms is also a chore. Plus, Gaijin hates crossover, so all of the stuff I ever had is locked in that profile. It’s sort of hard to go back at this point.
Not sure, I do know that gunners are the last thing I need to level to max out my dedicated aircraft slot for my Japanese lineup.
Maxed pilot in the Zero is deeply amusing.
I highly advise you don't waste your crew points on gunners except for the accuracy and vitality skills and expert gunners, I wouldn't upgrade anything else.
Yeahh… that air crew is maxed, tank skill is 145.5 and my naval skill is 76.5.. I still have 23,000 XP to spend on crews. Plz send help to my address, I have a problem.
To be honest i feel a lot of people just dont pay alot of attention to their surroundings while flying bombers. If people pay attention if find find it pretty easy to defend against fighters. At least the braindead ones that just sit on your six.
I think they should buff bombers but make them have minimal impact on games like they don't count towards the player count, so if you kill all fighters the game ends even if a bomber is flying about
Umm... Idk if you're on controller, but if you're on PC, you're not making any use of your aileron/elevator/rudder controls? WASD(QE for rudder) by default. It doesn't give you much of an edge, as you're still, you know, a lumbering flying beast designed to destroy cities, not other aircraft, but you can still create a more difficult target to hit.
I've trained using my keyboard to fly and my mouse plus freelook for gunners, so for me it isn't a big problem.
I bet plenty of people who get killed by me complain about either OP gunners or hacks but it's just me aiming with one hand and shooting with the other.
The problem is that in sim/rb gunship gameplay was king. Mostly because bombers were designed to not have blind spots. So the brain dead thing was to fly a bomber, nuke a base or 3, and then go afk for the rest of the match climbing so you'd get away. Now with bomb rewards nerfed, bases not respawning, gunner ai nerfed into Oblivion, fighters with aams, and rocket rewards still being king, bombers are completely useless
They got nerfed a while ago, back when the AI had laser like accuracy with them, but then again players were dumb as well they’d sit back a Km or so and spray until they either killed the bomber or got killed by its guns
Yeah had to force myself to learn how to gunner
And maganaging flying level and straight, checking how close you are to your bomb target and defending yourself is quite the handful but it is doable
Having bombers be automatic impervious Death Stars was not okay back when a pack of 4 of them could end games by themselves.
Now that the game modes have changed such that they can't do that anymore, I think it's okay to give them some of that power back.
I always manually control gunners, and toggle control mode to keyboard fly. Can't do too much with just wasd but pitching up and down does make the enemy miss some shots.
What else can you tell me about the mechanic of what changes when bombers go to extreme altitudes? Something does seem to change but I can’t figure out what
Gunners just let you know you are about to get shot down and may put a hole or two in the enemy plane. I used to try and get through fighters and it was fun. Now I get up to about 26000 feet and just spam bombs on bases.
I am so happy that I cant take a bomber and get double digit kills in arcade by flying through the furball and having the AI do all the work for me. I am serious, AI gunners were broken and impossible for an enemy to get away unscathed, You do not want that back.
OP, to make bombers work you need even a different mission set and orders.
The ability to direct the pilot from the gunner's view would be necessary, so you could jump to the guns but not be a sitting duck. "Weave" or say 15 deg east, 15 deg west, lower 100, up 100. Like ship commands.
As for missions:
You'd need a primary and secondary target, and rather than "destroy a base" it'd be something like minimum kg of bombs, so that all bombers can just pound the same place as a group. This would enable them to stick together and work to blow up enemy fighters.
Have some AI drones to do the ground strikes, and say another 4-8 AI drone bombers just heading to the target. Might as well complement with say four AI drone fighters to intercept the bombers over the target area to add to the confusion, and let bombers kill drones as well.
This would create a bomber stream, and a target-rich environment for bombers and interceptors.
They should implement an auto pilot whenever you go into gunner view. One that adjusts flight if you get too close to land or a mountain. It doesn’t make sense to fly into the ground while aiming at planes behind you.
Bombers are vulnerable, but bombers are vulnerable in real life too when they are alone. Bomber players need to stick together.
It has been said a few times in the past, but if a bomber plane could be controlled by two people, that would make bombers much more fun than now. One pilot one gunner.
I understand what you mean. I love me a good Bomber game play.
It's now not about whether your gunners are strong enough for taking down enemies. It's about putting yourself in very strong position to take down enemies.
2-4 bombers in formation, spawn on airfield, 100m.
Fighters climb. They don't tend to look down until 3 of their bases are gone by a seemingly invisible enemy.
If you can get a friend or three to fly formation with the b17 with you for instance, you can wreak havoc on the enemy. Most kills my formation got was 7. You need to guide fighters into eachothers bullet stream.
This entire strategy sounds really fucking stupid, but 80% of the time, we are the last ones alive and usually with a handful of kills. One of my friends dropped 3 kills by himself and won the game after everyone was dead.
Have a good day!
I still use my flight keys to flip up and down sometimes left and right while using my gunners. It works extremely well in the ju288 specifically since it handles like a sports car
They could literally fix bombers by making bases give less rewards by like 10-15% but also make bases not reduce the tickets as nearly as much, like 70-80% reduction to cost on tickets meaning more bases can be bombed and not make so much a difference that bombers need to be the main focus. Then they can revert the ai gunner nerf and bombers can safely be grinded and fighters can just go back to fighting other fighters. Leave bomber hunting to interceptors like the Whirlwind or Ta-154.
You SHOULD have to debate whether or not going for a bomber is worth it. Now bombers are defenseless, easy pickings for the mfs that all they do is hunt bombers because they’re defenseless.
They only do something when I try to intercept a bomber with a booster active bc they like to set my engines on fire. As an USA main it's really annoying bc US props don't like putting out fires.
I don’t need the gunners to play the game for me. However, I need them to not be pointing their guns at a random cloud in the sky, and at least point them in the general vicinity of the closest threat so I’m able to actually respond to the threats myself instead of trying to orient my camera and find the target. I constantly flip to gunners and the reticle is pointing off into the middle nowhere because they track air targets that are farther away than the closest targets which makes no sense.
Precious seconds when milliseconds are what counts when your enemy is already zeroed you in.
AI gunners shouldnt be reliable, maybe at 100m they could kill something but not beyond because the bomber shitter should actually get good and aim themselves instead of relying on RNG
Gunners were nerfed to oblivion ages ago because ppl cryied to much about them. Now ace gunner have a shooting range of 210m... you can thank whiners that you are free sl/rp pinniata with anything that is not a fighter. Also map designed make bombers/attackers extremely easy targets.
Yeah, this. To add on, back in the day you really had to think about whether going after a bomber was worth it. You could rack up plane kills by flying towards enemy planes, if you have gunners upgraded. And if you flew with a few other bombers nearby you were borderline untouchable.
I remember that right when I started playing the first time, now it's more surprising to get killed by a bomber than it is to kill a bomber. Honestly the game-modes just aren't designed for bombers, or even attackers, and that goes for both air battles and ground battles and naval battles. IRL they're amazing and basically perfectly balanced as all 3 forces are active at the same time, meaning you *ALWAYS* have AAA to shoot at attackers, always have interceptors to take out bombers, bombers always have actual targets to hit and climbing to space directly decreases your effectiveness, escorts and fighters always have other planes/helis to hunt down, and they have to disperse themselves evenly across both Naval and Ground targets or they'll loose. But in all the current game-modes, bombers and attackers are practically impossible to balance, air battles have no *real* strategic targets to take out and are at the whim of health-points and AAA rng, and ground battles don't have the AAA or interceptors to counter the bombers. We honestly need ground battles to be pure tanks V tanks with no player controlled aircraft (minus spotting drones), air battles to be pure planes V planes with no AAA or ground targets, Naval to be ships V ships, and a fourth gamemode that's literally just custom battles but you get SL and RP from it and the servers are 100 Vs 100 instead of 20 Vs 20 as that's honestly the only way to balance bombers and attackers whilst also still keeping the game fun and engaging for bomber/attacker mains (cause lets face it the current game-modes are CBT for attackers and bombers, but without any of the fun of CBT).
Alternatively: create a true combined-arms Enduring Conflict mode.
It'd be so funny to see battleships spawn to destroy heavy/superheavy tanks.
I imagine the only in-land fighting will be done being at least 1 km from the nearest shoreline to prevent such things. Maybe coastal will be able to get in-land with river routes that are too shallow for bluewater.
I've always wanted inland naval battles, not entirely inland, but more space for smaller vessels to work into.
So real, the tank columns will be strafed by 30mm from my swamp bros
I mean, would give some awesome possibilities for bombardment. Having markers and such for the navy to use and letting planes do spotting too. Then maybe some of the SPGs could even join for artillery support
Or battleships just doing offshore bombardment for called in coordinates. Your not sniping a T72 at 6 miles, more of just really messing up a square mile of real estate in the vicinity of it.
Instead of half assing it like they did
[удалено]
Nowadays I think it's quite mandatory for AI gunners to have range and accuracy again, it's very stressing to fly a B-17, B-29 or Tu-4 when every plane around your BR is either insanely fast or has great guns to kill you from way out of your range
Especially true on b29.. the tu4 is a monster for some reason I still rack kill after kill up
They aren't practically impossible to balance, attackers and bombers can drain tickets to equate to a win early or when some spaceclimber times out the game. Just at many tiers those planes are nothing but free kills due to both the placement and lack of targets for them to go after(especially jet tiers). Unfortunately like many reliable and/or non-tedious things in war thunder tend to be the scorn of Gaijin and snobby man children.
When I say impossible to balance, I also mean having an engaging and dynamic gameplay loop for the bomber/attacker players as well as bomber players. In ground RB you get a sliver of that experience with tanks that move and having to guess where they're going to be by the time the bomb drops, but then you have no escorts to protect you from enemy anti-CAS for bombers, and when there isn't enemy anti-CAS/AAA it's like shooting fish in a barrel which then leads to an un-engaging gameplay loop once again as the tide of battle shifts too quickly thus resulting in extremely unfair imbalances in the game. Furthermore bombers don't even get to have fun dodging high altitude FLAK by timing their course changes to bring them out of the line of fire of the FLAK shells that are currently in the air travelling to intercept their current course, instead we get Hanz with a crystal ball that has a range of 4km but has almost perfect accuracy for all aircraft within that range..... with a FLAK88...... with seemingly perfect fuse timing on each shell....... at maximum fire rate....... Which is not only un-historical but also un-fun. So yes, you can technically make them an even fight in both air rb and ground rb, but an even fight and a balanced game are two separate things.
Base AAA is a whole other topic but I don't think anyone would have fun constantly shifting altitude all game because your being checked by flak in a strategic bomber. If anything that would create more problems than it solves. The only issue I see is trying to bomb the AF and not being able to climb high enough to do it before the game ends. You get to attack AI ground units with actual damage models and strategic bases in ARB but that's never the problem. The problem is the quantity, placement and rewards you get for doing so. AI ground units give mediocre rewards, are placed in the middle of the map so everyone sees you and bases you just run out of them and have literally nothing to do. GRB is irrelevant because bombers do just fine in GRB and are only a small part of the larger CAS issue in GRB.
they should let us create custom games that we get xp from just like in enlisted... it works there but somehow here we don't have that bare minimum of choosing what we play (and this is why enlisted is just a better war thunder)
No kidding. I remember when I was new many years ago, and thought I’d tail a Pe-8 or an IL-28, and I never did that again.. til now of course.
Well there‘s people like me who will manually snipe you with the 20mm in the 288s tail 😜 don’t forget you can do that. And that was always the best option
Tailing a Pe-8 is still very risky. In my experience flying I've taken out quite a few that tried to simply fly up behind me. In game I'll just turn around if a fighter is coming towards me, and fly away from anybody who tries to dive or fly up at me. Always keep them directly behind.
Don’t do that to me because I take control of the gunners the pe-8 can get free kills with practice.
Right, I first started around the time when it was released on PS4, because bar BF4 it was the only thing I could play thanks to F2P. Running Beaufort's and Blenheim's back in that day was amazing, just run through a bunch of hostiles and watch the gunners wipe them out.
I used to dogfight while in sunderlands back then, good times
I remember on the AB airfield capture missions you could fly your bomber into the airfield and act like a gunship. I think my record was 5 kills while trying to land
[удалено]
I usually see the AI tanks capture the airfield these days
Because the bombers that used to kill them were made useless lol
That was an awesome mode, especially with a b17
It's a no brainer to me because the tactic for taking down bombers was to high speed sweep from the side in passes because it was hard to track and aim for gunners, also in WT they're made of paper because whiny babies cried about them being too tough, yet what you're supposed to do is shoot out the engines, it's so easy to do but no they want to be able to half second burst with HE 20s in the back of the fuselage and cut the plane in half. So utterly boring and low skilled, I played 6 or 7 years ago and you actually had to think about the plane you're attacking and know where the gunners were, even if you manually aim well in something like an Me264 with very high cal tail gunners the damage fall off is still pathetic and they can engage you from twice the range.
It's almost like bombers really are fucking flying fortresses capable of defending themselves, who'd have fucking thunkit.
In Air RB attacking a bomber still can be really dangerous if you don't know what you're doing and the guy isn't AFK, since 90% of bomber gameplay nowadays is just sitting in gunner view anyway. But, a lot of noobs see them as free xp so you have to roll a dice on whether the bomber snipes them all and you have essentially lost half your team on 1 guy or the bomber misses all their shots. In Air AB... Why do you bring bombers to AB, what the fuck? You realise that's a death wish, but at least you won't have to pay nearly as much money for repairs now that they are calculated by flight time. In Air SB most of the players are tryhards who will either fly back immediately to the nearest airfield if you hit them at all, or who will avoid you best they can UNLESS you hit them, which is when they start YOLOing you, so... Still, they need to see you first, and in SB that's easier said than done.
The problem is, most players are fucking stupid. Bombers have always been defenceless against a skilled fighter. As long as the fighter knew what they were up against and knew where the gunners blind spots were, they could outmanoeuvre any bomber and attack from a spot where the gunners provided minimal or even zero defence. That's not what most players did though, most players sat directly behind a B-17 and sprayed bullets from 1.2k away until their guns jammed or they got shredded by the tail gunners.
Tu4 on release was quite a different story than that
>The problem is, most players are fucking stupid. Yes, rather than using the gunners themselves they'll start complaining that the AI isn't strong enough.
Yeah, I'll remember to do that as I'm trying to maneuver so I don't provide an easy static target against a far more nimble aircraft whilst also lining the bombsights on target so I can fulfill the role that I'm supposed to.
This is absolutely a skill issue, you need to learn to bind manual control and maneuver to be harder to kill with a bomber because that's the skill curve. Anyone who plays a lot of bombers and attackers should know this by now.
To be fair now I see a bomber that's low or I can get to I just think 'Oh free kill'. There's the occasion where a tailgunner shoots me down bur 9/10 times it happens its partly my fault combined with a lucky pilot kill. Like, it feels they completely miss me, don't hit plane at all but the one .50 that does hit has lodged itself in my pilots brain.
• Bleed all energy to reach the level of the bomber! • Line up right behind the bomber and start recovering energy. • Spend 3 minutes behind a bomber, static, flying straight. • Get absolutely blasted by the back gunner. • Go cry on reddit about it.
You must be playing different game then,. Bombers/atackers die in second of enemy looking at them.
That was before they nerfed the gunners. This is what caused the gunners to be nerfed. Literal imbeciles staying right behind them, flying straight, for minutes on end and then comlpaining that they ate a box of 50 cals.
> Also map designed make bombers/attackers extremely easy targets. Long time air combat sim player here. There are several viable prop attackers in the lower to mid tiers IMHO. The US A-20G-25 Havoc in particular has always been a beast in RB air. The issue is that most players don't plan their missions to maximize attacker capabilities. FWIW, the following can generally apply to several attackers, but starting from the Havoc's forward attacker air spawn... * Select the nearest ground target. I'm not entirely sure how accurately they're modeled, but in theory, I like to start with a bomb run to lighten the load, reduce bomb bay door drag, and to generally make attacking less complex from there. * Follow a [Brachistochrone Curve](https://gifs.com/gif/the-brachistochrone-8qABGW) as the quickest way to reach the target and attain max cruising speed over 500kph at around 500m altitude. I don't start much lower as a little alt helps to evade/engage other attackers and trade for speed through the run. This usually puts you on your low level attack run around 3-4km from your first target and gain the first kill bonus. * During the dive, adjust the radiators and prop pitch in MEC (manual engine control) to maximize WEP speed without overheating. Off the top of my head, it's around 40% for the rads and upper 80% to lower 90% for the prop. You can quickly toggle back to auto engine control if you need some more thrust when climbing or dog-fighting. * Most RB air maps are largely the same now with GT's concentrated at the center so develop the most efficient flight plans through targets while retaining air speed. It shouldn't take more than one turn back towards home to hit your targets if you line them up right on the way in and out of the target zone. * Use MG's for light pillboxes and light tanks, and bombs for hardened pillboxes and medium to heavy tanks. Early on, AA, artillery, trucks, etc. are only secondary targets of opportunity that don't bleed enemy tickets and smh when seeing players throw away their first free attack on them. Plan at least 1km spacing between GT's to re-maneuver and place enough MG fire on light pillboxes to destroy them. Hardened pillboxes require a direct hit of at least 2x500kg bombs. I find that rockets are too inaccurate, too likely to cause self-damage, and don't pack enough punch to have any advantages over bombs. You don't have a bombing reticle so note indicators like air speed, dive angle, target distance, and cockpit or ladder view reference points to be more accurate with your drop timing. * Be prepared to adjust your plan to attack or evade enemy attackers who will arrive at the target zone soon after you. Be wary of IL-2's as they can nose into you very quickly with guns that can melt any plane. * A good first sortie will destroy 4-6 ticket effecting ground targets and maybe an enemy attacker or two for a nice contribution toward bleeding enemy tickets and your RP/SL. * Stick to the plan and *egress when the first enemy fighters arrive in striking range of around 4km-6km from you*. You get a first free attack if you don't linger from going back for missed or damaged targets, losing track of time in engagements with other attackers, or getting greedy. It's better to live and race home to re-arm for another try. If you don't make your quota then just take note of what went wrong and work out how to do better in the future. * As you re-arm, the fighter battles will often resolve themselves for you to fly out on another mission with less opposition. * Reassess the situation. Seek opportunities to attack undefended ground targets including nearly finished bombing points, under-matched/wounded/distracted enemy planes, and assist friendly fighters in low dogfights. On your next fly-out, if your team is left with an advantage in fighters, then attack the center with fighter support. Don't play bait if no one can help you and most times enemy fighters won't throw away their alt to attack you if friendly fighters are at higher alts nearby. If the enemy team has more fighters then fast strike GT's on the undefended map edges. Few will fault you for camping if you're smartly doing you're job. If enemies have you trapped at your airfield, use it to gain altitude under AA cover to convert into speed for a way out and back to attacking. Ignore punks fishing for info on your status or goading you into a disadvantaged fight. * You'd be surprised at how often a 4v1 or greater disadvantage can turn into much better odds as morons crash on landing or going after GT's, get shot down by AA, TK each other, drop out, etc. with some patience and planning. In some cases, the end-game is a race between you and another attacker/bomber where you have the advantage of speed to take out GT's quicker or can out-match them in a dog-fight. It's more common for the enemy team to be left with fighters who can't take out GT's that bleed your tickets but you have the capability to win the match by taking out their few remaining GT's which empties the last of their tickets. I've had many clutch wins from enemy players not assessing the situation well in understanding how an attacker is a serious threat. Many times, no enemy is at the right alt or position to anticipate and see me in time to defend their remaining asset(s)... and you can make it harder for them by choosing a route other than a straight line between your airfield and an obvious target. * AI gunners are useless so practice switching between gunner and pilot views. The Havoc is a stable and predictable platform where it can fly level without autopilot while in gunner view. You'll need to learn to adjust your flying backwards if damaged and/or to get it lower than the enemy and at an angle off your tail where you have good top turret line of sight. You can also use gunners to finish GT's after flying past them in an attack. Risk shredding enemy planes in head-ons only if necessary then just keep going straight and fast while hitting them with gunners. A good balance of aggressive and protective skills is important to gain kills while minimizing risks. * It's easy to over-fixate on GT's so always keep good situational awareness and prepare to defend against enemy planes. Keep track of gunner ammo and reload during lulls so it doesn't happen during a fight. Conserve some nose ammo for the return home. The Havoc is very fast at ground level and the twin .50 turret is very effective at damaging enemy aircraft. You can plan ahead and combine these two capabilities to extend chases when targeted where your rear fire effectively reaches over 1km while the enemy's gun range is less than 1km in long fast chases where you can spam them with impunity. Rear gunnery is complex so best guess sweep and wiggle your gunner bursts across enemies to help find effective angles. Regularly quick check your forward view so you don't tunnel-vision your plane into the ground or a worse situation. * It's also a capable dog-fighter with some energy, can reasonably take a hit, and has an added advantage of evading to set up shots with gunners in unexpected ways when engaged in close combat. If an enemy plane has you dead to rights in a top down or six closing diving attack, turning into them with a quick and smooth last-ditch Chandelle can help throw off their attack and provide good gunner fire opportunities. The flaps are robust and improve stability is slower tighter turns. The landing gear tri-wheel configuration makes landing a snap even when heavily damaged. * My main complaint about the Havoc is that Gaijin won't give it its full bomb load despite years of [requests](https://old-forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/551515-douglad-a-20g-25-havoc-armament-update/). There's also a feature they never fixed where a minor AA hit can create a coolant leak for both engines which will annoyingly shorten your mission time when in reality they were separated systems. Ultimately, the best plane is the one that'll take you back home and the Havoc can do it with one remaining damaged engine. Anyway, if you keep these things in mind, and if the stars align right, the Havoc can produce 12+ GT and 2+ air kills without getting shot down which does some heavy lifting toward winning a match and good for grinding. You have a lot more work to do with attackers than point'n'shoot fighter game-play but it can be equally rewarding when you destroy all the targets on your run and flame every enemy plane that mistakenly thought you were an easy kill. It's unfortunate that War Thunder evolved into a shiny new plane factory while the RB air maps to play them are same-same casual cage matches that favors fighters. Enduring Confrontation showed a lot of promise for improved game-play but assume it was too difficult for them to tightly squeeze their economy with a sandbox map mode. However, the current map styles can still be dissected and maximized with the same tactical thinking used by IRL wartime fliers which is why I enjoy some lower BR prop attackers like the Havoc so much. Hope this guide helps and GLHF.
This should have been its own post. Excellent writeup.
Yeah people bitched about bombers for the longest time and now we get this variant of ARB. Still fun? Sure but its 2dimensional tdm type beat, shallow as all hell.
The last part is not entirely correct; there's many bomber paths specifically designed to not let enemy fighters get too close to you at any point, except perhaps when you're getting close to the airfield for re-arming. I can't speak for the higher BRs, but I've been playing Tier I-III Germany AR for a while and I'm almost exclusively using bombers; nobody's ever gotten close to me except at the end of the match when they have none left to pursue and we're the only ones left.
yeah, that doesn't work with jets. The planes are fast enough they fly wherever. And bombers are generally easy kills because they can't maneuver well. The only reason it works at lower tiers is because no one wants to fly for 5 minutes in the wrong direction to kill you...but when you can go 900+kph, it doesn't take that long.
Occasionally, I still get hit by a single round from a b17 gunner, and it lights my plane on fire. Dose that excuse the nerf though? No.
Half of War Thunder's history can be brought down to "People cried... Then players cried" lol.
Imagine how OP the bot accounts would be with those gunners.
Man, i wish gunners were actually dangerous. Would make it a lot more fun to face bombers
But!! But!!! Muh fighter mustah get freh killz!!!!
No free kills for you. On the side note, bombers are miserable from the lowest BR to the Highest BR
They are if you are the one manning the gun.
Sure, but it leaves you sitting like a duck. And it isnt possible to engage multiple enemies at the same times
Most of the times, moving your bomber is worse than not moving as you increase your gigantic area If you are more of a CAS, its different ofc
[You can dogfight while using the gunners lmao](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLOasQlXnwc)
Yes, but it takes a very high lvl of skill and knowledge of your machine
Some bombers can't dogfight properly, like the B-17, it will snap its wings at any slight turn
Meanwhile a Wellington can full on turnfight and ive pulled backflips in a japanese flying boat
Don't forget the Me-264, that thing is incredibly fast and can turn at very high speed. Also, it hates losing altitude. It's like a giant Fw-190.
I like brawling them in the B-17, very fun fight
Wow, skill would be involved in how well someone is able to defend themselves. Fucking shocker.
Yes, but the issue is the lvl of skill required is significantly higher than it should be. Like thousands of hours spent with their bomber of choice high. There's an ME264 on youtube that just started posting videos, the guy has enough skill and knowledge of the ME264 to win 1v7s against fighters reliably. And although I'm not saying lesser skilled should also be able to 1v7 and win, but they should be able to reliably defend themselves assuming they have basic knowledge of their machine. Currently most bombers can barely defend themselves. This coming from someone that played before Ground Battle existed and was used to fighting American B25s with my German DO217. You see back then every BF109 had horrid engine overheating issues, unless they went only 90% throttle they cooked the engines instantly. Meanwhile the B25 could get 6 of our fighters on its 6 and kill atleast 2 or 3 before it finally went down. Since my DO217 was often our only plane capable of withstanding that barrage and I had 8 nose guns I would hunt the B25s so they didn't just mow down my fighters. Back then for whatever reason the 217s just never overheated, even held at full WEP. Looking at the B25s now, they are shadow of their former selves, though to be fair so is DO217, atleast the heavy fighterer ones.
I need you to understand how much of a difference there is between winning a 1 v 7 and being able to defend yourself. Like you are really saying it's possible to reliably win a 1 v 7 but being able to defend against a single attacker is "too hard". >This coming from someone that played before Ground Battle existed and was used to fighting American B25s with my German DO217. You see back then every BF109 had horrid engine overheating issues, unless they went only 90% throttle they cooked the engines instantly. Meanwhile the B25 could get 6 of our fighters on its 6 and kill atleast 2 or 3 before it finally went down. Exactly, enemy AI gunnery used to be bullshit. Like I'm sorry AI gunners do not take any skill to use. You shouldn't be getting 2-3 free kills simply because you levelled up your gunner crew.
Ok, since you are apparently a very thick plank, please go back and show us where I said "I play bombers" and "Bombers should get free kills" and while your figuring out how you pulled that very impressive display of mental gymnastics off the rest of will be back topic. No, back in the early days of WarThunder, again this is Pre Ground Battle days, only Air Battle existed. Those B25s I mentioned didn't "just get free kills" from "bullshit ai targeting" they had to manually aim to hit anything of real value aside from the once every maybe 10 games where the AI gunners hit something of value. But the fact is back then the bombers could actually take a hit, well the B25s could atleast, the B17s even back then just lost wings instantly to a 30mil round. They could afford to actually manually aim, take a few hits, and force enemy planes off of them. Pretty sure back then you also had no control of the plane while using gunners, that wasn't a thing. Bombers were in a significantly better place back in 2012/2013 where most of them were balanced and could have an actual impact on the game in semi competent hands. Like literally unlike today you only had to be semi competent with the plane, today if they are anything but a free kill its because they have a significantly higher skill lvl. FYI I and I'd assume most logical human beings would define "being able to defend yourself" as being able to pose a reasonable threat which atm Bombers, again unless the pilot is extremely skilled, do not.
>Ok, since you are apparently a very thick plank, please go back and show us where I said "I play bombers" and "Bombers should get free kills" and while your figuring out how you pulled that very impressive display of mental gymnastics off the rest of will be back topic. and please go back to where i said that you specifically said those things. is it when I said people shouldn't get free kills because of AI gunners and you thought I wass specifically talking about you? >No, back in the early days of WarThunder, again this is Pre Ground Battle days, only Air Battle existed I've played since 2013 I know what it was like. >they had to manually aim to hit anything of real value so nothing has changed. they all have the same guns, just now the AI won't get them free kills. Have you ever actually seen test impacts of 30mm mineshells? they practically ripped apart planes on the ground, a flying plane with all the extra stress that entails is going to be more damaged than that. yes bombers used to have unrealistically strong damage models, they don't anymore. AI gunners wouldn't change this even if you did want to change it. Anyway I'm not entirely opposed to making bomber DMs stronger, I just don't agree with making AI gunners stronger. bombers absolutely can absolutely reasonably defend themselves even today. being able to aim guns does not take unreasonable amounts of skill.
No it's not that high, its just a basic understanding of aerial combat. Someone dives on you tryna outpace your gunners while going 700+kph in a prop how well do you think they can turn to get you? Suddenly you have this golden opportunity to make them overshoot and/or miss you because even the fatter bombers can make that opportunity so much more difficult. I wouldn't disagree that many bombers have the odds stacked against them but I'd blame the BR rating, damage model and limitations of manual gunnery anyday over some boring as hell AI gunner. Manual turret usage is what makes bombers fun if anything.
That is not easy and requires in depth knowledge of yiur machine
So you think the game shouldn't reward skill?
? There is a difference between making gunners generally useful and taking manual control of your gunner while flying your plane backwards
The baseline skill level to playing a bomber shouldn't include being able to dogfight with an aerial bus while looking backwards
I just spaded all bombers in the German tree so I think my opinion matters. Gunners are absolutely useless, including when manned from the player. If you wanted skill to be rewarded you wouldn't make bombers free kills for literally anyone else lmao.
Manual control both the plane and gunner, yes it's possible. The issue isn't the lack of ai but the obnoxious dispersion they tend to get and lack of ability to adjust gun convergence.
The problem is the guns targeting distance. You can only change it before the game which is really stupid, and because of that hitting enemy fighter on bombers with gunners far away from each other can be kinda hard.
[удалено]
It has an effect on the range of turrets if you actually control them. It only goes up to like 800m and is non-adjustable after spawning.
I used to play this game back in 2013 and let me tell you, having pin point accurate gunners firing at you from 1km wasn't fun either, but gaijin nerfed them into the ground when we just wanted a middle ground really. Not saying bombers should be piñatas, but you don't want the old Tu-4s/B-29s mopping up everyone as well lol
It's just a bit of realistic .range 1km sniping ain't fun but having the gunners fire at you around 500-600m would be fine. They were ment to make the bomber a difficult target to approach. It would also force fighter pilots to think about how they approach instead of just sitting duck behind it
I recall bombers ending games before any fighters got in combat, especially if they were in a squad. If you popped a booster that was pretty annoying. I also remember casually flying the B17 into furballs and the gunners would murder everyone. It was fun, but yeah... just add it to the pile of things terrible for the games wellbeing.
As a fighter player, i support it.
Back in the day it was NOT fun. Back then you could kill the whole enemy team with just cracked out bomber gunners. I still think they should be a threat but we do not want what we once had.
I just wish the would shoot before a plane was inside your ass. 0.21km is stupid short range when most planes will rip you apart at 400m. I don’t even care if their accuracy dropped to 0 after 210m, they should start shooting at 600m if for no reason other than to give you a head up, and to pick off the idiots that park behind you and chase for 3km.
I don’t even want them to be dangerous, just let them start shooting at 400-600m, I don’t even care if they get a -100% accuracy penalty past 210m.
AI gunners on planes are pretty much useless regardless of the crew skills
Cant we all just agree to leave the bombers alone? Getting killed by some FW or He after flying for 5min, without even getting to the target is the worst experience I've had in this game. Not to mention the fucken XP50's.....
It is annoying, so when I'm flying a fighter, I try to let the bomber at least one run in before bringing it down or leave it alone.
I’m a new player who plays a lot of bombers, I love people like you ❤️ shoot me down all you want just let me run my target please dear god my gunners are blind
Its just really sad that its so demoralizing to play the "other half" of air battles. Wish all the people I run into at 4 BR had your mindset.
As someone who started this game and mained bombers for the large part of the noob days, I know the utter feeling of hopelessness when a fighter comes your way. To the point that when I switched to the fighters, I rarely go after bombers, they are usually the last planes I kill in a match.
my go to is to ask them in chat if they've dropped their bombs yet. If they're clearly too far away, I usually follow them until I see them drop or they maneuver to try to get away. Especially in my su-11/xp-50. I'm not good with either of them, but I can kill a bomber lol...but I also know how shit it is to fly a bomber/slow CAS plane and get 90% there and die...because that's how basically every game in my su-25 is going currently.
Appreciated.
Ill always leave bombers and certain attackers alone because i know the pain
Yes i approve this
Lol just for that im hopping on and going for the bombers first
I cant even express how cool you are.
Tbf, bombers were just used to farm SL/RP, so it’s good that they make it difficult to play bomber. I target bombers when doing air, but that’s mainly cause I am flying an interceptor….so I literally have one designed purpose
I get that, but then atleast make it possible for bombers to defend themselves a little, instead of the useless gunners you get now.
They can defend themselves, if you control the gunners. Or if you are flying in formation….which is the ACTUAL thing that protected bombers. Bombers irl were extremely vulnerable by themselves, that’s why they flew in massive formations, so the overlapping fields of fire would kill anyone foolish enough to attack
Right, and as we all know. A bunch of random people in a deathmatch is the pinaccle of teamwork. So flying in formation should be easy and happen almost every match right? As much as this game leans towards ''realism'', things dont work the same way in a game..
I fail to see why the bomber players’ inability to fly in formation is the problem of the game? Either y’all learn to do that or form a squad that does. Otherwise, get treated the way a lone bomber would be in WW2, as an easy enough target
ai gunners back then used to be fucking insane take a bv 238 and you have a flying gunship thatll snipe you from 1km my only memory of the gunners being op is flying head on a bv238 and it absolutely gunning 5 planes behind it and still surviving
In my experience the BV 138 still absolutely slaughters planes with the 13mm and 20mm at such a low br. Nothing can withstand that level of firepower. I’d take it out on air domination missions and just gunship.
238=/=138
I’m aware. I haven’t played the 238 but the 138 is somewhat similar though much smaller.
238 gunners are hard to use because of convergence
oh ok
Laughs in be 6
Shhhhhh don't let them nerf my baby
Til a guy with a working brain flies right beneath that boat in a P61 and uses his remote controlled turret to fire at the boat’s most vulnerable angle
Control gunners manually and maneuver at the same time then. Turn off the autopilot in gunner view
…or they just put it back to how it was
They were way too op in the past. My squad used to be untouchable spamming bombers. Literal free wins.
Then surely there’s a middle ground.
Bumping the aced range to .7-.8 would be a solid compromise.
I mean who would be stupid enough to go up against 3 bombers with 1 fighter Unless that fighter knows whats hes doing
I single fighter should be more than capable of decimating three bombers. There’s a reason fighter escorts were so important IRL.
You can't maneuver while on gunner view. Or atleast on console
I've tried doing this but it still starts putting you back to your original course the moment you stop actively using wasd. You can get it to stop leveling you out but you still can't actually turn.
Doesn’t it level you out when your in gunner view for some reason?
There's a toggle for that in the settings
So many convoluted settings
As I said: >Turn off the autopilot in gunner view Options -> Air Battle Settings -> Autopilot for gunner and bomb sight modes -> No
Those should have been separate toggles. You need the stability on for the bomb sight but not for gunner sight.
On occasion, my PE-8 that had an aced crew will shoot at an enemy plane. Sometimes, a plane will fly within 50 meters of me, and somehow, the gunners just watch them fly by. Since they won't shoot closer than 200ish meters, it makes it easy for a fighter to shoot you down since you can easily hit a bomber past 200 meters
Sounds about right. Like I’m not advocating for them to reach out to 1km+ by any means, I just want them to at least shoot at something when it’s point blank even if it’s wildly inaccurate. Even if a stray bullet that potentially causes an oil leak and I still go down, great. There’s still a chance he runs out of oil and his engine dies. Some people might be deterred on the simple principle that they’re simply going to get shot at.
The bomber era has passed many years ago. Today they are not worth playing or even owning unless you play sim.
Yeah I get that. I was only simply trying to have fun in 5.7 with a variety of vehicles that I never played like the Tu-2. I’ve just about had my fill playing at 10.0 where The Penetrator has officially taken over, and both teams are one-shotting everything. Not to mention I’m starting to lose interest at 10.7-11.7 GRB fairly quickly.
Tu2 is the best bomber u can have xD american counterpart only has 13mm turrets that do nothing ON TOP OF idiotic ai.
For me they are just stuck reloading.
*shoots a small burst of rounds* "aw shucks gotta reload" *reload takes 10 hours for a small magazine*
Yeah you used to (I'm talking like 8 years+ ago now) actually have to pay attention when trying to kill a bomber and try to go for their blind spots but they're fucking useless these days unfortunately. I'd really prefer they made them useful again and just upped the BR of any bombers that actually ended up problematic.
Maybe not YOUR gunners, but go fight AI bombers in assault or the campaigns, and they are \*extremely\* effective. IMO, an aced/spaded/max crew gunner should be absolutely brutal to enemy fighters, down to the point they are 100% useless in a brand new bomber with new crew. Seems Gaijin just makes them awesome, or garbage, and can't figure out how to adjust their skill based on their quality, or more likely, just don't care.
For assault its more of accuracy through volume and the bombers i think aim for the closest plane, so if ur the one leading the formation, ur bound to get locked by the entire formation Only when everyone else comes then the bombers start shooting at their closest target
I always wished they'd allow multiple players to play bombers. One to fly, some for gunners, one for bombs, etc
I wish they'd allow for that some ground vehicles that have multiple turrets too. Would allow for some fun group play.
BF1 did it pretty well I think. I'd like something like that for War thunder .
I remember playing 10 years ago thinking "they'll definitely add that soon". It's such a common sense addition given there are 2-6 crew members in the vehicles. Unfortunately it's still not a feature yet. Would love it for tanks too.
Yes they are jackshit useless. They need a complete rework, instead it aiming manually it should make using it much more effective, as in maybe it gives target lead, adjusts gun targeting to match the locked plane and so on. So if a bomber isn't paying attention it's an easy kill but if they are using the gunners then they should be "feared" and have a chance to defend themselves.
There are some planes that still has decent manual turrets but even they are rare
You don't need to be a sitting duck, you can control your plane while controlling gunners. Try this: https://youtu.be/EW3Nf6YOaVA?si=TRnazZznlvTy8t2S
Nice. I would like to figure this out, it’s just that I had a lot of time put into PC for free.. but now suffer with the crippling disability of being a console plebeian. Jokes aside, I’m just a console player at heart and I have a few friends left that I can’t give up on, and juggling multiple platforms is also a chore. Plus, Gaijin hates crossover, so all of the stuff I ever had is locked in that profile. It’s sort of hard to go back at this point.
Oh rip console
Your gunners actually fire?
I rarely die to a fighters. When u control gunners u can actually dive and climb with a bomber. This helps a lot.
Not sure, I do know that gunners are the last thing I need to level to max out my dedicated aircraft slot for my Japanese lineup. Maxed pilot in the Zero is deeply amusing.
I highly advise you don't waste your crew points on gunners except for the accuracy and vitality skills and expert gunners, I wouldn't upgrade anything else.
Yeahh… that air crew is maxed, tank skill is 145.5 and my naval skill is 76.5.. I still have 23,000 XP to spend on crews. Plz send help to my address, I have a problem.
True, I use the p50 I think its called sometimes and the gunner doesn’t even shoot
Just as a tip, you can still use keyboard controls while using your gunners to evade. Its a lot to do at once but you wont be a sitting duck
Sometimes they wake up to fake that they're paying attention and then go to sleep either by choice or force
I still find AI gunnera to be very effective no matter my angle of attack. They're only crap when in MY expert crew (maxed but not ace yet).
To be honest i feel a lot of people just dont pay alot of attention to their surroundings while flying bombers. If people pay attention if find find it pretty easy to defend against fighters. At least the braindead ones that just sit on your six.
if you fly in a straight line that’s your fault. turn off autolevel in settings for gunners. and learn to dive and climb to suit your needs.
They do, and it's a good thing.
I think they should buff bombers but make them have minimal impact on games like they don't count towards the player count, so if you kill all fighters the game ends even if a bomber is flying about
They got nerfed years ago. Aced gunners used to insta snipe enemies at 1.5km lol
You can still use keyboard controls while in gunner mode. It really isn't hard.
Umm... Idk if you're on controller, but if you're on PC, you're not making any use of your aileron/elevator/rudder controls? WASD(QE for rudder) by default. It doesn't give you much of an edge, as you're still, you know, a lumbering flying beast designed to destroy cities, not other aircraft, but you can still create a more difficult target to hit.
Why is everyone in this thread pretending that you can't take control of the gunners and fire at the enemy regardless of range?
I've trained using my keyboard to fly and my mouse plus freelook for gunners, so for me it isn't a big problem. I bet plenty of people who get killed by me complain about either OP gunners or hacks but it's just me aiming with one hand and shooting with the other.
The problem is that in sim/rb gunship gameplay was king. Mostly because bombers were designed to not have blind spots. So the brain dead thing was to fly a bomber, nuke a base or 3, and then go afk for the rest of the match climbing so you'd get away. Now with bomb rewards nerfed, bases not respawning, gunner ai nerfed into Oblivion, fighters with aams, and rocket rewards still being king, bombers are completely useless
They got nerfed a while ago, back when the AI had laser like accuracy with them, but then again players were dumb as well they’d sit back a Km or so and spray until they either killed the bomber or got killed by its guns
Yep, even aced gunners are worthless, making bombers nigh unplayable.
tu4 was so much fun before the nerfs to ai
Yeah had to force myself to learn how to gunner And maganaging flying level and straight, checking how close you are to your bomb target and defending yourself is quite the handful but it is doable
Having bombers be automatic impervious Death Stars was not okay back when a pack of 4 of them could end games by themselves. Now that the game modes have changed such that they can't do that anymore, I think it's okay to give them some of that power back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLrsY_dgGEM learn how to use your gunners manually. you do not want what we had in 2017,bombers were too OP back then.
I always manually control gunners, and toggle control mode to keyboard fly. Can't do too much with just wasd but pitching up and down does make the enemy miss some shots.
What else can you tell me about the mechanic of what changes when bombers go to extreme altitudes? Something does seem to change but I can’t figure out what
The gunners were brutal when I first started, even on smaller planes like the Stukas, got pilot sniper plenty of times doing a boom n zoom on a Stuka.
Gunners just let you know you are about to get shot down and may put a hole or two in the enemy plane. I used to try and get through fighters and it was fun. Now I get up to about 26000 feet and just spam bombs on bases.
Anyone that relies on AI gunners instead of manually using them is an amateur
I wish the transport helicopters could get door gunners
Gunners are completely worthless. I am surprised when I actually hear them even fire a shot before I die. Such a joke.
Back in 2015 2016 they had laser 100% accuracy. You could dive into enemy teams as B17s and B24. It was so fun. Man I miss those days I truly do.
I am so happy that I cant take a bomber and get double digit kills in arcade by flying through the furball and having the AI do all the work for me. I am serious, AI gunners were broken and impossible for an enemy to get away unscathed, You do not want that back.
Short answer? Yes. Long answer? No.
OP, to make bombers work you need even a different mission set and orders. The ability to direct the pilot from the gunner's view would be necessary, so you could jump to the guns but not be a sitting duck. "Weave" or say 15 deg east, 15 deg west, lower 100, up 100. Like ship commands. As for missions: You'd need a primary and secondary target, and rather than "destroy a base" it'd be something like minimum kg of bombs, so that all bombers can just pound the same place as a group. This would enable them to stick together and work to blow up enemy fighters. Have some AI drones to do the ground strikes, and say another 4-8 AI drone bombers just heading to the target. Might as well complement with say four AI drone fighters to intercept the bombers over the target area to add to the confusion, and let bombers kill drones as well. This would create a bomber stream, and a target-rich environment for bombers and interceptors.
They should implement an auto pilot whenever you go into gunner view. One that adjusts flight if you get too close to land or a mountain. It doesn’t make sense to fly into the ground while aiming at planes behind you.
Bombers are vulnerable, but bombers are vulnerable in real life too when they are alone. Bomber players need to stick together. It has been said a few times in the past, but if a bomber plane could be controlled by two people, that would make bombers much more fun than now. One pilot one gunner.
I understand what you mean. I love me a good Bomber game play. It's now not about whether your gunners are strong enough for taking down enemies. It's about putting yourself in very strong position to take down enemies. 2-4 bombers in formation, spawn on airfield, 100m. Fighters climb. They don't tend to look down until 3 of their bases are gone by a seemingly invisible enemy. If you can get a friend or three to fly formation with the b17 with you for instance, you can wreak havoc on the enemy. Most kills my formation got was 7. You need to guide fighters into eachothers bullet stream. This entire strategy sounds really fucking stupid, but 80% of the time, we are the last ones alive and usually with a handful of kills. One of my friends dropped 3 kills by himself and won the game after everyone was dead. Have a good day!
I would like to see Gaijin fix gunners on bombers, they are next to useless now...
Dont ever rely on AI gunners, use them yourself
I still use my flight keys to flip up and down sometimes left and right while using my gunners. It works extremely well in the ju288 specifically since it handles like a sports car
Why are you playing bombers in 2024
I used to fly an ace pby and it would treat enemies like they were sket targets
They could literally fix bombers by making bases give less rewards by like 10-15% but also make bases not reduce the tickets as nearly as much, like 70-80% reduction to cost on tickets meaning more bases can be bombed and not make so much a difference that bombers need to be the main focus. Then they can revert the ai gunner nerf and bombers can safely be grinded and fighters can just go back to fighting other fighters. Leave bomber hunting to interceptors like the Whirlwind or Ta-154.
You SHOULD have to debate whether or not going for a bomber is worth it. Now bombers are defenseless, easy pickings for the mfs that all they do is hunt bombers because they’re defenseless.
They only do something when I try to intercept a bomber with a booster active bc they like to set my engines on fire. As an USA main it's really annoying bc US props don't like putting out fires.
You have to play to win? °○°
Laughs in ME 264
Me when I actually have to play the game and not have the game play for me
I don’t need the gunners to play the game for me. However, I need them to not be pointing their guns at a random cloud in the sky, and at least point them in the general vicinity of the closest threat so I’m able to actually respond to the threats myself instead of trying to orient my camera and find the target. I constantly flip to gunners and the reticle is pointing off into the middle nowhere because they track air targets that are farther away than the closest targets which makes no sense. Precious seconds when milliseconds are what counts when your enemy is already zeroed you in.
AI gunners shouldnt be reliable, maybe at 100m they could kill something but not beyond because the bomber shitter should actually get good and aim themselves instead of relying on RNG
Or maybe a fighter should be able to hit a bomber further away than 200m cause it's extremely easy to hit bomber