Mitsubishi Stuka and Thunderbolt

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by horseback

Shooting accurately from a maneuvering aircraft, even a bomber in a gentle bank, was next to impossible. Ai gunnery from rear gunners and ground flak in this game has always been ridiculously accurate, probably more than modern automated systems today.

I'm inclined to agree with you, but I don't have the data to prove what you're saying, other than somewhat generic stats on bomber casualties due to flak and fighters. We can trade anecdotes all day, but I'd love to see actual statistics to help back us up.

If anything, it seems like bomber gunners (at least rookie to average gunners) have been "nerfed," in 4.12, if only by unrealistic bomber formations and doctrine. But that's only by comparison with the laser-like precision with which gunners prior to 4.12 could shoot you down. It was if were were a generic Imperial TIE fighter pilot and the gunners were Han Solo and Luke Skywalker!

But, gunners must have had some usefulness, otherwise bombers would have dispensed with them earlier.

I think that damage or kills due to heavy flak is about right - as long as you take into account the fact that each gun in the game can actually represents an entire battery. Low to medium altitude flak is downright lethal, but that might actually be realistic. Veteran ground attack pilots learned to come in fast and low, make one good pass and get the hell out.

I don't have a problem with gunners starting to shoot at 500 meters range, but that should mostly be "suppression fire" with very little chance of actually hitting. Shots at anything other than minimal deflection angles against a plane flying a relatively straight course should also have almost no chance of hitting. But, if you make an attack from 6 o'clock level against a heavy bomber, without approaching at a very high closing speed, you deserve every bullet that hits your plane.

Turning speeds for turrets seem to be about right. At least for the U.S. turrets, there's pretty good performance data, and actually possibly a few turrets that actually still work. In archival film, you can see that they turn pretty quickly - something like 120 degrees per second.

But, against that, something that isn't modeled in the game, at least for human gunners, are the effects of G forces, vibrations from the plane itself and wind buffeting of the turret and guns if the guns are angled into the plane's slipstream. All those things make bomber gunnery a bit too easy, at least for a human gunner. I don't know if the AI models those things, but it should.