Yanks and their MG's

[whatnot]

Originally Posted by BadAim

It's been pointed out before that the value of sending a bomber home shot to pieces with half the crew dead or wounded may well be greater than a strait up loss

I'm curious. What makes disabled bomber getting back home with ½ crew better than it being shot down with entire crew MIA / POW? Or did I misunderstand?

[robtek]

Think about morale.

[whatnot]

Originally Posted by robtek

Think about morale.

I'd count losing pilot(s) that take quite some time to train / get experienced + the entire aircraft & rest of the crew worse that the alternative. Also returning even though damaged would raise confidence on the aircraft's ability to 'take us home' despite heavy punishment it received.. like B17 for example.

But what do I know, I wasn't there.

[WTE_Galway]

Originally Posted by whatnot

I'm curious. What makes disabled bomber getting back home with ½ crew better than it being shot down with entire crew MIA / POW? Or did I misunderstand?

Aside from morale ...

One of the huge issues the US had in Iraq was better body armor and combat medics meant the proportion of casualties KIA was down massively which is clearly a good thing but the number of wounded shipped home and looked after in hospital for sometimes years after went up substantially.

Its the same logic that resulted in anti-personal mines designed to maim rather than kill.

As far as the 0.303 cal in game goes, if you attack an early war bomber (blenheim, ju88, he111) in a historically fashion - from the side above below or headon - you can get acceptable results. Admittedly the he111 is a touch more immune to 0.303 cal than most of the others but its still not hard to knock out an engine or even set a wing on fire.