The new bomb fuzing needs to be an option.

[Jack_Aubrey]

I think it should be added as the bomb delay, but with a one sec armed delay min. this way if TD manage to simulate the problem of two bombs hitting each other in the middle of the air and exploding we, the people's that like to fly big bombers, wolud have the posibility to set it to more than two seconds ...

[Skoshi Tiger]

Bombs falling from the same plane would have the same relative velocity. Any impact would not be very forceful. Especially just after release.

How sensitive are the fuses of Aerial bombs? What sort of impact would be required to set them off?

[Letum]

Originally Posted by Skoshi Tiger

How sensitive are the fuses of Aerial bombs? What sort of impact would be required to set them off?

That's a question for which I suspect there is no definitive answer.


Fuze designers could make a fuze that exploded with anything from 2G of
acceleration to 500G and they bomb would still work the same in most
cases, so I would be surprised if there was a drive for accuracy.
However, even if they did aim for an accurate figure, it doesn't look like
they achieved it on a regular basis.
Some bombs detonated mid air because they bumped into another bomb
on the way down or hit a patch of turbulence. Other bombs crashed
through three floors of a house, buried them selves 6ft underground and
are still there today, unexploded.

When skip-bombing, a time delay was used to prevent the bombs
exploding when they bounced off the water. That's one way in which
skip bombing is easier than it should be in IL2.

[JHartikka]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

I've been trying for some time to come up with a speed/altitude/distance/aircraft combination that works for skip bombing ships and for me it's a bust. this was a tactic that was used and worked, but now you are sentencing those that say they can do it to certain death.

If the stated reason for doing it is true, to stop folks from dropping bombs from parked aircraft, then code the bomb releases not to drop at all with aircraft that are on the ground. End of problem.

Right now I just am getting the feeling that someone else is trying to force their style of game play on me.

It's not making me happy.

You said it well! Yes, I too got the impression that someone else is trying to force their style of bombing on others - and what is the worst, in an unrealistic way. In recent 4.10m mission I was advised to drop from minimum alt of 500 meters..! For precision bomber, denying 'jabo' bombing this is like denying fighter pilot from shooting closer than 500 meters to target..!

In reality, bombs were fused for each mission bombing style. Original makers of IL-2 flight sim have made very fine bomb bounce modeling to enable low accuracy bombing styles like ground 'slide bombing' and ship 'bounce bombing' or 'skip bombing'. Now all these low bombing styles are denied from us because of the 410m safety fuse! No more work for a precison bombing pilot in 4.10m, I have to go back to 4.09m again...

If there are bomb salvo settings, please let pilots set them like it was done back then! Safety fuse style forced 'idiot bombing' modes are good for AI pilots, but many human pilots like to learn precision bombing the real way - low! So please either remove that 4.10m safety fuse from the next patch or let people set it with other bombing salvo settings -quite like in reality..!


Bomb SALVO Fix to Consider for the Next Patch?

The otherways very realistic IL-2 has got from its beginning one great bomber reality flaw: The bombs are always dropped as forced pairs only. There is no chance to set bomb SALVO for bombing drops individually, one by one, as in reality.

It may seem a laborious job to set all bombers for one by one bomb SALVO. However, there are good news: It already has been done!

There already is a 'Weapon Control Mod' to fix IL-2 bomb SALVO built by ZloyPetrushkO that has proved to work well. I have test flown with it for months and have only good to say about it. The Weapon Controller lets pilot set into IL-2 conf.ini file the SALVO to drop any number of bombs individually at desired intervals! Now this is like it was done by the bomber crews!


Bomber Pilot's Wish Nr.1

Maybe it could be considered to add this 'Weapon Controller' bomb SALVO fix to next IL-2 patch..? If not yet to 4.10m, maybe the one after it? This is a shy bomber pilot's wish who would like this flight sim keep and improve its fine feeling of reality! More about the 'Weapon Controller' to fix the IL-2 flight sim bomb SALVO on another thread.


All the Best,

- J. Hartikka -

IL-2 Virtual Bomber Pilot

Finland

[robtek]

@JHartikka

i wish that you've read all posts regarding this.
Then you would have seen that it is still possible to do those skip / bouncing attacks successfully.
It is slightly more difficult to drop from 30 m instead of 10 m or less, but hey, we were spoiled!
It was much too easy till now.
Successful earth moving was always more demanding and less glamorous then shooting at planes, imho.

[vparez]

S!

I read this whole thread now, and all I can say: THANKS LETUM! Your posts are really nice and useful texts to read.

I can add only this: due to limitation of the game engine, in several aspects, skip bombing of ships is much easier in IL-2 than in RL. This fact leads to very unrealistic outcomes of anyone trying to play a convoy protection or naval battle scenario.

So, even if this bomb fuzing solution is not 100% realistic, its impact on the style of combat in such scenarios is definitely increasing the realistic feel, if by nothing else, then at least by bringing the outcome of such battles to much more realistic levels.

Maybe the means are not 100% perfect, but the end justifies the means!

Thank you TD!

[311_Tank]

Originally Posted by I/ZG52_Gaga

IL2 1946 - 4.10

2 second fusing delay, bomb drops.
All bomb drops are done in real time, time delay is applied
during playback for attention on details as Height, Scope,
aiming e.t.c.

www.zg52.com

ThankS! for watching

Your assessment.

Now take the I-153, FAB 50 bombs and show us some skill in destroying PzIV... because with SC250 its noob job.

[Wolf_Rider]

US A-20 Havoc of the 89th Squadron, 3rd Attack Group, at the moment it clears a Japanese merchant ship following a successful skip bombing attack. Wewak, New Guinea, March 1944.




Skip bombing was a low-level bombing technique refined for use against Imperial Japanese Navy warships and transports by Major William Benn of the 63rd Squadron, 43rd Bomb Group (Heavy), 5th Air Force, United States Army Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific Area Theater during World War II. General George Kenney has been credited with developing skip bombing.[1][2]

The first time skip bombing was used was at the base of Rabaul on New Britain. The United States 5th Army Air Force used B-25 bombers to attack and destroy Japanese ships. It proved to be very effective and received growing popularity. The only drawback was that it took a lot of skill to perfect. Sometimes the bombs would detonate too soon, or in some cases, sink.[3]

The bombing aircraft flew at very low altitudes (200–250 ft (61–76 m)) at speeds from 200–250 mph (320–400 km/h; 170–220 kn). They would release a "stick" of two to four bombs, usually 500 lb (230 kg) or 1,000 lb (450 kg) bombs equipped with four- to five-second time delay fuses at a distance of 60–300 ft (18–91 m) from the side of the target ship. The bombs would "skip" over the surface of the water in a manner similar to stone skipping and either bounce into the side of the ship and detonate, submerge and explode under the ship, or bounce over the target and explode as an air burst. All outcomes were found to be effective. Unlike "Upkeep" or "Highball", this technique used standard types.

Various aircraft types were used for skip-bombing attacks, including B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers, B-25 Mitchell medium bombers, and A-20 Havoc attack bombers. These were supported by heavily-armed Royal Australian Air Force Bristol Beaufighters, which would suppress Japanese antiaircraft fire with their machine guns and cannon. Soviets used lend-leased A-20 Havoc and P-40 Tomahawk as well as Il-2 sturmoviks (also used for air defence suppression). Skip bombers were often used by aviation of the Soviet North Sea Fleet in combination with torpedo bombers (usually the same A-20, skip bomber and torpedo bomber operated in pair). Skip bombers were called "topmachtoviks" (топмачтовики) in Russian, because they were flying "at the level of ship mast tops".

A notable use of this technique was during the Battle of the Bismarck Sea (March 2–4, 1943), off the northern coast of New Guinea.

- Wiki




popular mechanics article => http://books.google.com/books?id=hd8...epage&q&f=true



Skip Bombing - James T Murphy

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...wolfboutique#_

[JG53Frankyboy]

".... very low altitudes (200–250 ft (61–76 m)..."

[vparez]

Originally Posted by Wolf_Rider

US A-20 Havoc of the 89th Squadron, 3rd Attack Group, at the moment it clears a Japanese merchant ship following a successful skip bombing attack. Wewak, New Guinea, March 1944

Yes, and how many escort ships were there around it?

A typical skip bombing action is much like a torpedo run, only you have to come in very, very close to the target. We all know how usually torpedo runs ended up against heavily defended warships, and that's even when the torpedo planes released their payload a long way away from the target (thus a very poor hit ratio).

What we have now in IL2 is that you can fly in the middle of a convoy of 10 merchants + 10 warships (from DD to CV), you can jink like crazy and evade the naval gunfire, and during a jink you can just throw your bombs, when you are close enough, and you'll hit the target.

At the moment of release, you may be jinking quite hard and still your bombs don't care... if you hit the target they will explode, no matter what you altitude or pitch was.

Now, the bomb fuse of 2 seconds forces you only to have a stable level flight until release, which doesn't make it almost at all harder to hit a lone merchant (which was a realistic attack method as in the picture); but when that merchant is a part of the convoy, with escorts, it gets much harder, but still not impossible.

Anyway, the objective of this fix is to make it hard for players to use this attack profile in the situation when it wouldn't be used in RL (i.e. against defended targets).

Maybe this is too much realism for some people, indeed.

EDIT: so how will you suppress the AA gunners from the ships in IL-2? That is an engine limitation that TD had to work around to bring more realism, and they found a very good solution. So if the fusing needs to be an option, then I guess ships firing needs to be an option too