HE111 are the gunners imperial stormtroopers? :)

[Mukai]

Hey, I was doing bombing runs on WoL last night in the HE111 and I really began to notice how awful the gunners are!! I'm only just starting out so granted my flying and awareness isn't the best. In one run I was bounced by a La5 and upon review of the recording he slowly formed up from below on my tail, my belly gunner didn't shoot for a while but when he did he was shooting way below him as he moved above the top gunner was shooting like an imperial stormtrooper, probably made a perfect outline around him. And they had no ability to lead the target.
On my second run i heard my gunners fire off a quick 2-3s burst, it was a yak 1b was trying the same thing as the la5, this time however i set it to autolevel and jumped into the gun myself, to my dismay he was so close to the belly gunner I could have seen the colour of his eyes, a quick burst with no real aiming and he was smoking, unfortunately it was a little late and he managed to ignite my fuel. 

 

This doesn't seem to be an issue when I fly the Peshka whos gunners seem to be very accurate and alert. To a lesser degree in the Ju88 but they seem to be a little less accurate and alert. Maybe its just me who has this issue, and maybe I need to whip my crew into shape and install a coffee machine to keep them alert If it is an issue with others is there any word if it will be looked at? Doesn't really help that my HE111 is like paper too so when I do get bounced I'm in flames in a matter of seconds. 

[Yogiflight]

I only fly SP, so far, but my experiences are pretty much the same. Two adds, I would like to make. I always order my gunners to shoot at short distances, because otherwise they shoot on every enemy aircraft, that is less than 1km or so away, no matter how little the chance to hit is. And the Heinkel gunners never reload their gun after shooting. So when I change to gunners seat I most times get an empty gun, which costs important seconds for reloading, while the enemy fighter is allready shooting at me.

[76IAP-Black]

Thats funny, if you fly fighters, guys complain about sniper AI, than other guys fly Bombers and the complaining starts about stormtrooper Crew Level

 

[SCG_happy_meal]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDQZE5lnRKU

(this is 100% AI gunner, dint leav the cockpit)

 

I love the he111 gunners, one of the few tings that make me sing "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life" and some times the enemy takes pity on you and let you fly home

[6./ZG26_McKvack]

After some testing I can confirm this. Will report to devs 

 

They seem to be aiming above enemy planes https://gfycat.com/FlickeringSmugDorado At least the top gunner

Edited December 19, 2016 by 6./ZG26_McKvack

[II./JG77_Manu*]

Thats funny, if you fly fighters, guys complain about sniper AI, than other guys fly Bombers and the complaining starts about stormtrooper Crew Level

 

 

Nobody has ever complained about He111 gunners. Don't compare apples and oranges

[Mukai]

After some testing I can confirm this. Will report to devs 

 

Oh so it isn't just me then, ok. Didn't mean to rehash any arguments that have already been made but I couldn't find anything regarding the HE111 gunners. I mean I'll put my hand up and say I'm a god awful fighter pilot atm but I managed to shoot down HE's with no problem in SP.

I love flying the HE111, love big bombers and the HE is the biggest in the game atm, so I was just hoping the gunners wud be fixed so the survivability is even just a tiny bit better, because currently (even with an escort) I'm noticing that if i get bounced I'm not going to be coming home from that bombing run

Edited December 19, 2016 by Mukai

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

Thats funny, if you fly fighters, guys complain about sniper AI, than other guys fly Bombers and the complaining starts about stormtrooper Crew Level

 

I can say this about fighters who attack Pe2 from behind.

[[DBS]Prody]

i flew hundreds of hours with He111 both in multiplayer and campaign , the gunners are piss poor at aiming ,  the Pe2 gunners are much better - i don't know the reason and it is something that can be easily seen by anyone by simply watching replays .

[76IAP-Black]

Is there such a difference between the gunners? Would say no at that Point cause it doenst make any sense with the same Settings.

[Mukai]

Is there such a difference between the gunners? Would say no at that Point cause it doenst make any sense with the same Settings.

Well I'm predominately a bomber pilot because I like having a defined goal/target *Cough* and i currently suck at dogfighting lol *cough* 

But I tend to fly Allied/Axis fairly evenly, so on the axis I fly Ju,HE and BF110's and on the Allied its just the Peshka for me. I love both sides bomber but the Peshka gunners are awesome! They feel like they hit their target more, are more alert and accurate. To the point where when I'm flying a fighter I don't really want to attack them because I know I'm gonna get shot up bad. On the flip-side the HE gunners feel less alert and definitely less accurate and they don't reload so when you want to do the job yourself you have to wait for the gun to reload (by then my fuel tanks are often on fire). And again when I'm a fighter I don't have too much of an issue attacking them, the JU's gunners hurt but they are not too bad to attack. 

 

But like i said, this is speculative, I don't have a lot of research put into it, its just my experiences and my opinions, and my opinion is that the HE111's gunners could go for a few days at marksmanship training

[Mukai]

After some testing I can confirm this. Will report to devs 

 

They seem to be aiming above enemy planes https://gfycat.com/FlickeringSmugDorado At least the top gunner

 

Thats exactly what I'm experiencing! All my shots got well over the enemy. Its the same when an enemy sweeps in from the side all the lead shots appear to go above and behind the canopy. The only times I've gotten 'kills' with the AI gunners is when the target was practically on top of me, but they all caused forced landings and the end result for me was having to bail out due to a flaming fuel tank.

Edited December 19, 2016 by Mukai

[Nil]

Frankly I did not reported that, but I noticed it since the first time I played.

The He111 AI gunners are not capable of putting a single round on an attacking fighter,

And they leave empty magazines for you.

 

Nobody reported this issue whereas a lot of player are using the He111, so I thought it is kind of normal.

 

I am glad that you reported that Mukai. It would be good that someone report that in the bug section.

[6./ZG26_Gielow]

First of all, airplane galleys coffee machines are no go items.

 

The other day I was testing the 111s waist gunner and when approached from the left side and parked the yak on Heinkels wing tip, the waist gunner sent me to Hell. But I don't remember the top gunner firing a single shot.

Edited December 19, 2016 by 6./ZG26_Gielow

[deWaardt]

The gunner in the Stuka isn't any better at times either.

Couldn't shoot the massive Peshka flying 10 feet behind us, and I don't think it has ever touched anything while I was flying it.

 

IL-2 gunner isn't that great either, although he does manage to land some hits sometimes. The IL-2 gunner seems to just completely forget it's meant to fire at enemy aircraft sometimes.

I pop in the gunner seat, and notice he's just idle in there. There's still ammo, he's got orders to fire, but he just forgot. Must have been drunk again.

 

The PE-2 gunner in the meanwhile is a god-graced elite sharpshooter at times. I swear I didn't put any radar guidance in the back.

 

 

The HE-111 is a complete disaster in every flight I had 

The gunner wouldn't even be able to hit a 747 flying 10 feet above my aircraft.

[Luftschiff]

While I can't make any claim to empirical evidence on the matter, I do have at least this to add - I fly bombers a lot, in fact I mainly fly bombers and the Heinkel is one of my favourite planes in the game. In all my countless hours in the 111 I've never had my gunners shoot down or even cripple a single enemy. No kills, no assists. Flying the Stuka, little Hans in the back scores a kill practically every sortie. In the 110 or the IL2, it's rare, but it has happened several times. The PE2 typically just slips by unnoticed but if there IS a target, more often than not my gunner will put that fighter into the ground.

Now, there's a LOT of variables here so obviously this doesn't prove anything but I can tell you I consider the Heinkel gunners a sort of warning-system only, rather than actual defensive armament.

[Monostripezebra]

I would tend to agree.. the AI gunners are terrible, and they tend to miss sure shots while occasionally hitting very difficult ones. Except for one thing, and i presume, that is the reason why the He-111 gunners are the poorest in performance:

 

I think all the gunner ai is roughly the same, you can even see that in MP-statistics when ai gunners are killed, their name string has often a wrong plane in it. But the thing that makes the Peshka gunners perform better are two things: speed and the gun. The ai likes the large MGs better, somehow, and it hits after some time period dead six hanging fighters best. If you have a fast plane like the 110 or peshka, with unobstructed rear field of fire, then the ai works best. You can maximise the six time of enemy fighters, where the ai gunners work.

 

but with just a little bit of side angle, the gunners get poorer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTc4LpgsRNA

 

so planes that have the tail fin in the way and are slow, resulting in shorter engagement times of faster fighters suffer most from the dumb ai, particularly stuka and heinkel. The poor heinkel has also very vulnerable gunners and engines, as well as poor speed... I wouldn´t mind it getting a bit more damage resiliance, but that wouldnßt change much of the fact, that it is outclassed by the time of stalingrad and the lag&drag gets worse the more the war progresses. I don´t think the BoK Heinkel will be a particular popular ride, because it is going to be terribly vulnerable because of it´s speed and the large caliber russian guns will make short work of it, beefed up guns or not...

Edited December 20, 2016 by Monostripezebra

[Mukai]

Thats a real shame, I really like flying the big bombers like the HE and I'm ok with being shot down by an enemy who's skillfully taken their time and maneuvered for the kill but when my gunners don't even put up a fight or make it difficult for them? That just annoys me to the point of not really wanting to fight. I really wish there was something that could be done :/

[Mukai]

Ok so i posted a topic in the bug reports forum as suggested here. Its only a rudimentary intro with a link back to this topic. So if anyone has any more evidence to add to this or want to throw in their 2c, you can head on over to it at: https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/26702-ai-turret-gunners-non-effective-particular-he111/

 

We can also continue discussion here

[Yogiflight]

Hi Zebra, I agree with the most, exept the 110 gunner. I fly the 110 quite often in campaign missions and he is not even able to shoot down a I16 hanging on my dead six, that is following me with a few kms more speed closing the gap in hours.

[Nil]

Thats a real shame, I really like flying the big bombers like the HE and I'm ok with being shot down by an enemy who's skillfully taken their time and maneuvered for the kill but when my gunners don't even put up a fight or make it difficult for them? That just annoys me to the point of not really wanting to fight. I really wish there was something that could be done :/

I understand you Mukai, I feel quite the same.

I am ok to be shot down, but I think that the fact that my he111 AI gunners can not put a single bullet on a novice fighter is not realistic.

I found the he111 top gunner very slow to use, and not realistic in terms of speed. It does not represent someone fighting for its life, but more someone taking its time.

Luckily, I found strong evidences that the rotation speed and handling is not realistic enough and I submitted a serious report for the dev team.

 

The problem is that the dev team is afraid that fighters pilot get complain about sniper gunner.  because fighter hate to be shoot down by gunners, even if some of them stay on the six like a sitting duck.

They think "improve the gunner accuracy and fighter pilot will complain, and decrease accuracy and the bomber pilot will complain" or something like that.

So that is why, even if  He111 AI gunner are putting a single round nobody say nothing.

 

That is the way I see things. I might be wrong of course.

Edited December 20, 2016 by Nil

[Dakpilot]

Thats a real shame, I really like flying the big bombers like the HE and I'm ok with being shot down by an enemy who's skillfully taken their time and maneuvered for the kill but when my gunners don't even put up a fight or make it difficult for them? That just annoys me to the point of not really wanting to fight. I really wish there was something that could be done :/

 

Take a real live gunner in MP   just a thought, and certainly not a solution for offline, actually it would be great to have a whole live crew all on comms, inc bomb aimer..maybe in the future

 

Way back when my net connection was better I flew a lot at the time the Velkie map was released, someone would always jump in as a gunner and 99% be helpful/useful

 

Have not been so active online now but it would seem a rare few idiots have stopped that being popular, with most keeping gunner stations locked 

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[Mukai]

Take a real live gunner in MP   just a thought, and certainly not a solution for offline, actually it would be great to have a whole live crew all on comms, inc bomb aimer..maybe in the future

 

Way back when my net connection was better I flew a lot at the time the Velkie map was released, someone would always jump in as a gunner and 99% be helpful/useful

 

Have not been so active online now but it would seem a rare few idiots have stopped that being popular, with most keeping gunner stations locked 

 

Cheers Dakpilot

Hey Dakpilot Yeah I always take human gunners where i can get them! Actually I was on WoL the other day an some guy would constantly spawn in on my plane for each flight, it was great. He was saying that he only had a few hours in BoS but he was a damn sight better than the usual crew i had, I'm sure he got an i-16 that had bounced us and all But as you say, there's very few people playing or willing to play gunners, which is why I was hoping for better AI gunners

[Yogiflight]

From what I read, a lot of players lock their gunner stations, because it seems, there are guys who find it funny to take your gunner station to shoot you down.

[II./JG77_Manu*]

From what I read, a lot of players lock their gunner stations, because it seems, there are guys who find it funny to take your gunner station to shoot you down.

 A very few distinct rotten apples lead to people not buying apples anymore at all. Sad story. Those kind of people should get a permaban

[Lusekofte]

There is a huge difference between PE 2 and HE/ JU 88. Both in aim and calibre. However being a bomber pilot I rather want accuracy go up on the HE 111 than down in the PE 2. Because , well it is a limit how much of a easy prey you want to be. Flying a HE 111 without escort is suicide , pretty much historical , because they where not effective. The defence was rubbish compared to allied colleagues , and allies could not defend them selves either. So a game adjustment is vital to keep people flying bombers

[MAJ_stug41]

I wish my gunners were always this good -

[Scojo]

Hey Dakpilot Yeah I always take human gunners where i can get them! Actually I was on WoL the other day an some guy would constantly spawn in on my plane for each flight, it was great. He was saying that he only had a few hours in BoS but he was a damn sight better than the usual crew i had, I'm sure he got an i-16 that had bounced us and all But as you say, there's very few people playing or willing to play gunners, which is why I was hoping for better AI gunners

I'll keep this in mind. I would like to be a gunner for bombers that need it, just haven't before as I was afraid I'd be worse than the AI.

 

When I'm not flying with people and there are heavy bombers already spawned, I'll give it a go.

 

However, to add to the discussion, I have the same experience with He 111 AI gunners. I've never seen them hit anything. My Stuka gunner has at least hit an enemy plane before.

 

Are there any maneuvers a bomber should perform when attacked? Maybe to maximize the gunners chance of clean shots or provide some gunner advantage?

[Yogiflight]

When I get attacked directly from the six in a Heinkel, sitting in the gunners seat, I press in auto level the button for left or right, so my Heinkel makes a slight turn. This way the fighter is not behind the rudder finn, and I am able to shoot at him.

[Nil]

Good tactic Yogiflight!

[Mukai]

When I get attacked directly from the six in a Heinkel, sitting in the gunners seat, I press in auto level the button for left or right, so my Heinkel makes a slight turn. This way the fighter is not behind the rudder finn, and I am able to shoot at him.

Thats a good tactic, gonna nick this one and try it out Thanks Yogi

 

Hopefully the AI get a bit of a buff in the future

[Riderocket]

Thats funny, if you fly fighters, guys complain about sniper AI, than other guys fly Bombers and the complaining starts about stormtrooper Crew Level

 

Whenever I fly bombers, I try to control my own gunners, this lead to people stating In chat about sniper AI.

Then I have to inform them that it was me who shot them down and not AI

[Willy__]

 

 

this lead to people stating In chat about sniper AI.

 

Not trying to be an ass or anything, but sometimes the gunners does have some unhuman accuracy and awareness, much like the unhuman accuracy the AI fighters have when doing head-ons against you. 

 

But from time to time they do derp around and act like stormtroopers.

[Dakpilot]

The rear top gunner in He -111H-6 has a very slow on traverse due to the 'turret ring' mechanism and how it is modelled, whether accurate I will not conject, others have submitted evidence that contradict in game experience

 

When combined with the vertical stab and the need to not shoot it off. These two factors mixed with the AI logic seem to be one of the main causes for the "poor" performance of the AI gunner

 

In Pe-2 the rear top UBT .50 cal (standard mount, prob the most commonly found online) is mounted on a simple pivot and with the more unobstructed rear field of fire and quicker movement the AI are much quicker to get on target

 

The Stuka also seems (not tested accurately) to have a marginally more maneuverable gun mount and when combined with Twin belt fed MG81 compared to a single Twin Drum fed MG15 of the He-111H6 will be more effective , due to much higher rate of fire X 2 when on target added to very slightly better ballistics of more modern MG81

 

Bf-110 is also armed with similar MG15 but has quicker traverse and better field of fire

 

All of these factors lead to a very real perceived and experienced effectiveness/performance deficit when AI and to smaller extent when humans are handling top turret in He-111H-6

 

Some are historic and others due to AI logic combined with RL Rate of fire and field of fire and seemingly very slow traverse, how accurately this comes out in the game compared to RL performance I cannot say

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[-TBC-AeroAce]

As a flighter and bomber flying for both sides all I can say is attacking a PE-2 scares me and flying a 111 scares me!!!!!

[Nil]

The rear top gunner in He -111H-6 has a very slow on traverse 

yes, on the sim, the rotation speed is pnly 30° each second. same for Tante Ju Turret, as it is the same mount: Drehkranz D 30

http://www.deutscheluftwaffe.de/archiv/Dokumente/ABC/l/Laffeten/Drehkranz%2030/Drehkranz%2030.html

 

 

Edited December 29, 2016 by Nil

[F/JG300_Gruber]

Nice finding nil !

 

I think this video is enough to ask the devs for an optimisation of the turret rotation speed.

 

On the gunner subject, once in a while magic happens :

http://72ag-ded.ru/fr/sortie/88161/?tour=5

 

But I agree that overall in the heinkel they perform very poorly. 

[Lusekofte]

Well the turn of the turret might go fast, but nothing to use while firing, it is positioning aim and fire, I have been in the turret in the Norwegian HE 111, it is a locking mechanism in the turning device . The Heinkel was by all means not effectively defended by own guns , it was a tactical medium bomber depending of airsupremicy to be able to operate.

The crew however loved it, you can find a lot of youtube interviews stating it was a good aircraft. 

The Topturret was changed to powered in some types

Edited December 31, 2016 by 216th_LuseKofte

[Dakpilot]

The problem is that in game the only way to aim the gun left or right is to traverse the whole mounting

 

this may be an accurate speed in game for this mechanism

 

BUT IRL you could move the actual gun around independently just like in 110, 87 and Pe-2(non blister turret) as shown in the vid

 

This may currently be an engine/control limitation because you need full movement of gun , independant of "turret" traverse

 

Ideally you would need another key/control only for turret traverse

 

or free movement of gun within a certain limited horizontal range with further movement triggering traverse

 

this is beginning to make me remember this (control issue) was discussed a bit at release of He-111 with dev's ?? maybe am wrong, but it certainly does need addressing after all this time

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[Lusekofte]

The sideways traverse is meant to set before aiming, the altitude seems to be something you can aim with, I was not taking the liberty to test this out at the museum. The traverse movement is a lock/release kind of thing, you unlock it and my mind it is not age or lack of grease making it a sticky thing. It was new grease on the one I tried. It simply is to much and heavy to move while aiming. I think what they did was moving it quickly by gut feeling and then aimed. I can be wrong, I sat in it for a period of max 5 minutes and figured it was as I said

Edited December 31, 2016 by 216th_LuseKofte