Friday 2010-08-06 Dev. update and Discussions

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by swiss

You got historical records to back that up?

How should the Captain command a gunner 30 yards away?
I would think it was up to the gunner to decide when to open fire on enemy planes.

Maybe s.o. knows how this worked in RL?

I don't have historical records for all kinds of bombers, i was just giving an example as to what constitutes a "drooling" example of game mechanics that doesn't have to do with graphics. It's just an example of things that people would go "ooh....ahhh....niiiice" if they saw the new engine able to do

What few things i do know about commanding a crew has to do with the B-17. Correct me if i'm wrong but most of the multi-crewed planes like bombers had separate channels for voice communication and i can't imagine a 1940s era bomber without at least an intercomm.
For example, on the B-17 the radio operator would set a frequency to talk with the rest of the flight/bomber group, or anything else the captain ordered him to do (eg, talk to the escort fighter leader, home base and so on).

I think that only the pilots and radio operator could talk on that frequency, or maybe the bombardier too (ie, radioman and officers only). There is a switch in the B-17 cockpit that toggles between intercomm and radio, so that if the pilot wanted his microphone output to be directed to the bomber group he would switch to radio, but if he wanted to talk to the crew he would switch to intercomm.

I guess that gunners couldn't talk to other bombers and they only had intercomm output. As for incoming sound, i don't know for sure. What is almost certain is that the gunners could certainly hear the intercomm of their own plane all of the time, as they used it out to call out contacts and coordinate their defence. For example, a fighter moving from left to right aft of the bomber's wing line...the left waist gunner would call it out and shoot at it, but he would also alert the tail gunner that the fighter is about to enter his field of fire so that he could fire at it too. Maybe they could also hear radio calls from the captains/radiomen of other bombers as well, maybe not, or maybe the radioman could control what the non-officer members of the crew would hear, but intercomm sound was on 100% of the time between all crew members to help them defend their aircraft and coordinate in the mission.

So, in that sense, all it took to command a gunner 30 yards away (for example, if the pilot wanted to talk to the tail gunner), is flicking the switch to intercomm and speaking on the microphone.