What is the best way to kill bombers?

[Laurwin]

Obviously, best attack tactic is to attack the weak spot, identify bomber, remember the weak spot and attack the weak spot...

e.g. with sturmoviks, attack underneath

high aangle snapshots seem to be somewhat ineffective, even with relatively good hit rate. (44% hit rate seems to be what I had in a mission against some AI bombers admittedly)

Reason seems to be, that unless you hit the pilots or burn the fuel tanks, the bomber keeps on going.

Pretty much this is the case, and even in high angle attack passes (66-90deg deflection)the AI gunners will still hit you all the same.

So what's the point of doing that, when with smaller angle attack pass (under 45deg), you can aim better and actually disable the bomber with aimed fire at the engines or controls?

I'm talking about attacking bombers with .50cal armed fighter aircraft. (not the German mk108 30mm)

For instance Allied fighters such as Mustang or Lightning or Thunderbolt intercepting German Ju88 or Japanese G4M.

I was attacking the bomber formation aalone though... right up there into the edge of the formation

I suppose that frontal aspect attacks are also quite good, the angle tends to be smaller and you still have good firing time, to allow for more damage, and both engines are more exposed. Same with the pilot and cockpit.

[IceFire]

With .50cal versus Japanese and German medium bombers you want to cluster your shots. The biggest mistake players can make is spraying their target without focusing their shots. It's somewhat ok with a large 30mm or 37mm cannon as even a spray of shots will cripple your target... with small calibre weapons you need to focus fire.

With a G4M or Ju88 I find the best place to aim is from above on the spot between the engine and the wing root. If you need to make more than one pass then keep focusing on the same area on either left or right side of the aircraft. I find this is a good spot because it is where the fuel tanks are and any hits to adjacent parts are either the cockpit housing or the engine.

I prefer an overhead pass with deflection angle. Never attack from directly behind (dead 6 approach... 'dead' being operative ) and always make sure you have extra speed so you aren't on target for too long.

[Laurwin]

Yes icefire seems to be right.

Another thing to think about is the following: because bombers are so big targets - especially American viermots (B-17), actual pilot instruction was to open fire at double the range compared to normal engagement ranges (compared to small size fighters).

This above guideline was from German fighter manual 1944. Reasoning was, that the Germans of course calculated how many hits with cannons and MGs it took to destroy a bomber (not just damage it, but destroy/ shoot down).

Part of the calculation seemed to be that closure speeds were too high in all types of attack. There's not enough time to pepper the bomber, if you only start to shoot at about 300m distance. Americans didn't build their bombers out of bamboo and paper like Japanese may have done, American warbirds had been purposely built to be tough in their construction and design, it seems.

Of course the mk108 was a different solution for the bomber problem - you only needed few hits to destroy a heavy bomber.

Such reasoning would correspond to 600m for me, to open fire at bomber.
The bullets will be out of convergence , by definition, but they can still damage the bomber tremendously.

Aiming point needs to be slightly higher, you need slightly more deflection as the firing distance doubles to 600m, and you need to walk down the fire slightly as you make a diving attack.

So, effectively you lower the gunsight slightly into the correct 300m deflection position, as you dive closer to the enemy shooting at the same time. To my mind, this works quite well, even with .50cal.

What effectively happens in this case is that bomber gets shredded with hundreds of MG-bullets... In a P-47 this kind of attack could eat up a good portion of your ammo stores!

Sure, you spend lot of ammo, even if you're hitting him, but you're much more likely to kill a twin engine bomber, shall we say, in only one attack pass.

The price that you pay in ammunition stores in aircraft, you remeed in exchange for one-kill-attack, and it takes less time in the engagement zone, (when you're vulnerable with your attention focused on shooting down the bomber)

[MaxGunz]

If you are closing fast from whatever angle then your shots will virtually travel less far to reach the target than however far the target was when you made the shot. So you aim as if it is closer. How much depends on closing speed and range of the shot, a 400m shot may take aiming as if 300m or much less if coming from head-on.

If you are firing steeply (about 30+ degrees it starts to get 'more') up or down, your shots will drop less at range relative to the pipper than shots made at or near horizontal. So you aim lower than you would.

You can go for the engines from the back but some bombers have landing gear folded up behind them. Know your target. Some are easy to light up the wing tanks in a high or low cross path strafe. But #1 spot for me is the cockpit from an angle where you can see it and lead it. Even 30 cal counts there.

[bladeracer]

Originally Posted by Laurwin

Yes icefire seems to be right.

Another thing to think about is the following: because bombers are so big targets - especially American viermots (B-17), actual pilot instruction was to open fire at double the range compared to normal engagement ranges (compared to small size fighters).

This above guideline was from German fighter manual 1944. Reasoning was, that the Germans of course calculated how many hits with cannons and MGs it took to destroy a bomber (not just damage it, but destroy/ shoot down).

Part of the calculation seemed to be that closure speeds were too high in all types of attack. There's not enough time to pepper the bomber, if you only start to shoot at about 300m distance. Americans didn't build their bombers out of bamboo and paper like Japanese may have done, American warbirds had been purposely built to be tough in their construction and design, it seems.

Of course the mk108 was a different solution for the bomber problem - you only needed few hits to destroy a heavy bomber.

Such reasoning would correspond to 600m for me, to open fire at bomber.
The bullets will be out of convergence , by definition, but they can still damage the bomber tremendously.

Aiming point needs to be slightly higher, you need slightly more deflection as the firing distance doubles to 600m, and you need to walk down the fire slightly as you make a diving attack.

So, effectively you lower the gunsight slightly into the correct 300m deflection position, as you dive closer to the enemy shooting at the same time. To my mind, this works quite well, even with .50cal.

What effectively happens in this case is that bomber gets shredded with hundreds of MG-bullets... In a P-47 this kind of attack could eat up a good portion of your ammo stores!

Sure, you spend lot of ammo, even if you're hitting him, but you're much more likely to kill a twin engine bomber, shall we say, in only one attack pass.

The price that you pay in ammunition stores in aircraft, you remeed in exchange for one-kill-attack, and it takes less time in the engagement zone, (when you're vulnerable with your attention focused on shooting down the bomber)

If you're flying a bomber interception, you could adjust your convergence to suit the mission.

[Laurwin]

Originally Posted by bladeracer

If you're flying a bomber interception, you could adjust your convergence to suit the mission.

I suppose ur right, convergence at about 400m would help vs bombers a little bit.

I guess as a rule of thumb youd want to fire about +/- 50m within convergence range with wing guns.

You would get like a "box convergence" effect either slightly past convergence or slightly before it.

I have to say though that I have burned some wing tanks, with long .50cal burst, on Ju88 wing, even with heavily past of the convergence range (such as 300m conv, actual shooting done at 500m)

If you pepper the entire wing of the bomber, you're bound to hit the fuel tanks. Is all im gonna say!!!

[gaunt1]

Both German and Japanese bombers are very weak. Aim for the engines, very easy to ignite them. You can kill lots of them even with planes that have low ammo supply and fairly weak armament, like Yaks and MiG-3. Treat He-111 and Ju-88 as unarmed, their defensive machineguns cant harm you. Do-217 is more dangerous, but nothing special.
On the other hand, G4M can be deadly with its 20mm gun.

[JtD]

It is my experience that if you get hit or killed by bombers, you usually are too close to them. Their gunners will hit you pretty bad from close range, but from further out they are pretty much worthless. It is possible to stay out of their effective range and shoot them down from their 6 without bigger problems, as the usual player gunfire from a fighter aircraft is much more accurate than AI gunfire from a bomber. Likewise they won't hit you when you do frontal attacks, if you break early enough.

The downside is you will score less hits, but it is usually better to kill one bomber and get home to fly another day, than to shoot down three and die in the process. The second outcome will win you a battle, the first a war.

Also teamwork is a good thing, 4 fighters vs. 4 bombers is much worse for the bombers than 1 fighter vs. 1 bomber.

[Laurwin]

B-17s tend to be more durable bombers even vs fw190?

Do they have any weak spots as they say?

or just the standard knock out the engines or kill pilot?

[JtD]

The wing outside the outboard engine is very, very weak. You can easily chop it off with a couple of 20mm or you will set it on fire with even less hits.