Quote:
Originally Posted by JtD
So, even in the worst bomber vs. fighter encounters (from bomber perspective), it is about 2 bombers lost for every fighter lost. Why do you expect to take on 8 vs. 1 odds and end up killing everything without being harmed?
For what it's worth, I took up a P-47 vs. 4 veteran G4M and shot them all down, 5 times in a row, without ever having my engine killed. And since I was attacking from the rear quarter, I took several 20mm hits every time.
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Actually, it came out a bit higher than that; on two occasions, my sights were shot out on the first pass, rendering me ‘combat ineffective’, and given the damage I normally took in the first couple of passes, a RL Hellcat driver with a long flight back to his carrier would retire quickly after any noticeable damage, so it should have been scored Betties ten+, me about two and a half if we play RL rules.
Why do I expect to come away unharmed? Because it would be much more
realistic. I’ve detailed the inherent difficulties a real gunner would experience myriad times, and pointed out how any reasonable amount of gunshake/vibration would limit accuracy at ranges over 150 m or so. I kept my speed up and my angles steep and complicated—meaning high or low and off axis—and I never maintained a straight course as long as I was within 500m of them. In an actual Hellcat, I would have been
untouchable; the worst I could have expected was some scattered light caliber rounds in the rear fuselage.
That 20mm stinger was hard to move about and would have been really tough to aim at any off-angle, and leading a high speed target with any accuracy would have been next to impossible (think about it; that
whole rear glasshouse had to be rotated to bring the gun to bear on any target not directly behind the aircraft; given Japanese production quality and maintenance standards of the time, I’d be surprised if more than half of them didn’t jam in combat).
In this game we have Ichiro Schwarzenegger at the rear gun, and he can spin that monster around at blinding speeds and maintain the precision of a neurosurgeon.
RL fighter vs small bomber formation encounters rarely went the bombers’ way—rarer, in fact than documented occasions of a P-47 flying through a grove of trees and returning to base. The individual bomber or a majority of the formation might survive, but they would be pretty badly chopped up and their survival would be more due to the fighter pilot’s poor marksmanship or lack of ammo/firepower than to any skills the bomber’s gunners would have possessed. In general, the fighters would get away scot-free unless one of them was stupid enough to fly alongside to wave or salute; even when the attacking fighter lacked the speed advantages of the later types and ‘crawled’ up to the bomber’s rear, the fighter pilot’s guns would be more accurate and effective well before the tail gunner could hit him 19 out of 20 attacks.
In Il-2 Sturmovik ’46 and its predecessors, that historical reality has been stood on its head; seriously, damaging hits from over 750 meters? From Rookie gunners?
And as for your results with a P-47, I will point out that the Jug has 1/3rd more firepower, is a good bit faster to gain speed and requires about a third less trim input to keep it stable and on target than a Hellcat in this game. You should get better results; the most I got in any single QMB was 6.
cheers
horseback