Level Bombing. Too acurate?

[-TBC-AeroAce]

So in game I can hit a very small (house sized) target almost every time in any condition.

 

My question is I have heard reports of bomber frequently missing the target by up to miles.

 

Are our sights too good?

[ruby_monkey]

So in game I can hit a very small (house sized) target almost every time in any condition.

 

My question is I have heard reports of bomber frequently missing the target by up to miles.

 

Are our sights too good?

Perhaps. But mostly bombers missed by miles because navigation at the time, especially at night, was based on luck and best guesses.

[Gambit21]

I wish I had your problem AeroAce.

[-TBC-AeroAce]

I wish I had your problem AeroAce.

 

Lol it is not to hard as long as you know how to set it up

[Jade_Monkey]

Haha stop bragging

[LLv24_Zami]

I don't have that problem. Rarely hit the target by level bombing..

Edited July 27, 2017 by Zami

[Gambit21]

Lol it is not to hard as long as you know how to set it up

 

I'm totally bogus at it...but I haven't had the time/patience to really practice much.

[=TBAS=Sshadow14]

Yes Way Way Too Accurate and why i refuse to use it (just like pe2 laser star wars gunners)

With Correct settings you can land 1T or 1.8T bomb with 10 METERS of the crosshair from over 8,000M
Even with Varying Wind Layers and speeds it does not matter (just set correct speed, head, and wind deflection for ground level only and instant laser guided bomb)

Not even Norden bombsight was that accurate and there is many test results available online
 

 

In peacetime testing the Norden demonstrated a circular error probable (CEP)^[a] of 23 metres (75 ft), an astonishing performance for the era.
This accuracy allowed direct attacks on ships, factories, and other point targets.

In practice it was not possible to achieve the expected accuracy in combat conditions, with the average CEP in 1943 of 370 metres (1,200 ft) being similar to Allied and German results.
 

Thats the main reason why for last 500 hours in 111 and 30,000 Ground Kills
(NO not bragging, just pointing out that i obviously know how accurate the sight is and how bombing works in IL2)
I have NOT touched the bombsight Except ONCE 2 days ago first time in 6 months.

Also would like to point out that current ingame ww2 sights and bombs have less spread and are more accurate than current "Dumb bombs" (unguided) on planes like A10,B57 and modern strat bombers.
 

Edited July 27, 2017 by =TBAS=Sshadow14

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

Aero, from what altitudes? Medium bombers generally flew lower than the heavies at 25,000 feet. B-17's routinely missed from these altitudes. Not sure how the medium bomber guys did from the lower altitudes.

 

Of course in the Pacific they got down on the deck with parachute bombs and even the B-29's got low at night to increase their accuracy as well.

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

We don't fly nearly as high as they did, and our targets are a lot easier to spot than theirs were.

 

It is fine.

Edited July 27, 2017 by hrafnkolbrandr

[-=PHX=-SuperEtendard]

I think maybe it's about the TAS calculation. You don't have to do it yourself as the sim does it for you (you input the IAS in the cockpit gauge and voila). I think there were some bombsights which could make the calculation, but I think they would be calibrated within different parameters (altitude, temperature, etc?) and thus have a relative calculation error IRL which isn't present in game. Now you gotta add that in these steppe maps there isn't much elevation difference between the nearest airfield and the target, so maybe that is responsible as well.

Edited July 27, 2017 by -=PHX=-SuperEtendard

[Pharoah]

why do we keep wanting things to be harder and harder? if you land your bombs on target...happy days!! enjoy it. Now try and fight your way back home. If you've done everything you're supposed to and get it right, rejoice. But don't come here and ask for it to be made more difficult in some way please I beg of you. Think of the rest of us who area drop bombs in the hope 1 of them might hit the target!

[Finkeren]

Also there is the simple fact of winds being fairly uniform at all altitudes.

 

When we have near-perfect knowledge of TAS, wind speed and target elevation, it should be possible to hit targets with way higher accuracy than was possible IRL.

 

Adding random inaccuracy is not the way to go. More complex weather modeling is.

Edited July 27, 2017 by Finkeren

[Y29.Layin_Scunion]

The reports you're referring to are high altitude bombing missions.

 

The higher the altitude, the less accurate the drops were. Medium altitude bombing was actually quite accurate.

 

At least from what I've read about B-26's and B-25's and B-24's...they mostly did med altitude missions and their success was measured more so by not getting shot down than hitting target.

 

Read about any U.S. bomber crew in the Mediterranean.

[Retrofly]

Add more clouds

Seriously, dropping the bombs on a target is only a tiny part of a bombing mission.

 

Takeoff, climb, navigation, finding the target, fighting all the way there, fighting all the way back, landing.

 

Would absolutly suck balls if I did a 1 hour bombing mission only for RNG to decide my bomb doesn't get to land where it should this time.

[unreasonable]

I expect the problem - or feature - is simply that the ballistics model is extremely simplified.  In practice there were a large number of variables that could cause variation in where a bomb would land, it was not just about the wind.  

 

Perhaps the best solution would be to give a small random error in the information given to the player about the wind strength and direction?  

[Comes]

Haha, im not very good at hitting stuff. Did not seem very acurate to me so far :D

[NETSCAPE]

One issue is multiplayer. The mission designers do things like all wind is 3 meter a second at all altitudes and all direction something like 090, or 180 ect...

 

The wind speed and direction needs to vary at different altitudes and be from a direction that isn't an increment of 5. Then the player is forced to do some "guesstimation" and your bombs will be slightly off from your pin-point cross hair, but still blast some targets. 

 

On WOL I used to bomb @ 5k and never missed. But on random expert I have had my bombs sway quite a bit due to wind. I still hit targets but maybe not all my bombs got kills. 

Edited July 27, 2017 by NETSCAPE

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

Missions designers could make level bombing more difficult for sure.

[=TBAS=Sshadow14]

Wind speeds dont effect it much..
Have tested on missions with varying wind levels.
As long as you see the wind that for 0-500m you can ignore other lvls and bomb will still hit on target

Much too Accuratly

[=362nd_FS=RoflSeal]

I would think the biggest reason is that ingame you just input the IAS and the game automatically calculates the TAS for you

[Wulf]

Level bombing results for most of the war years were poor at best.  Dive bombing was the LW solution to the underlying accuracy problem but that only worked in the opening stages of the War when the Allied powers lagged far behind the Germans in terms of ground based anti-aircraft systems.  By the mid-war years dive bombing had become so hazardous as to be almost suicidal - as was most low altitude level bombing.

 

Precision level bombing didn't really eventuate until the final year of the war. 

[[DBS]Tx_Tip]

Missions designers could make level bombing more difficult for sure.

Changing the Axis bombers AI gunners to Ace within FNBF just for that Tomcat.

 

This conversation is a non-starter folks. We don't have a navigator/bombardier along so as far as I'm concerned the sights are fine and should be accurate. It's just how players go about using them and what they want to experience within the game.

Try staying in a 5 to 7 ship formation with flak and fighters howling around as you just made the IP and that further 20 klick flight to target. Then tell me how accurate you are after the lead takes hits, dropping off and hands over to the second.

 

The game is what you make of it.

[Major_Issue]

Rumor has it that there are servers around that don't give you any aid on navigating than your compass and the Mk. I eyeball.
Climbing up, having intel on the damage of the target (maybe a recon plane flying in front), navigating and setting it up when there are different winds. 
I'm right here with Retrofly: Bombing is more than just the bombing part itself. But ofc you can try to hit a target on a GPS-Server and while youre setting up your sights and plane someone already made two runs with a Heinkel-Stuka or something. 

There are bigger problems than an arguably too accurate bombsight.

[Retrofly]

As far as I know, finding and identifying your target were bigger problems for bombers rather than the accuracy of their equipment.

 

There are several things which make bombing currently easier -

• Lack of cloud cover.
• Maps that pilots now know like the backs of their hands.
• Targets are easily identifiable from the sky due to the limited amount of objects and clutter you can have in game
• Super accurate maps. The in game map is never wrong and nothing ever changes.
• Bombing altitudes are lower.

[Lusekofte]

I think it is to accurate, but that has probably nothing to do with the sight itself. more how the travel of the bombs , wind and everything else is modelled . And it is in all comparable simulators. I hit a ship in Cod from 5 k altitude in a Heinkel. 

An other thing to consider is : will people fly bombers if it was harder? I think not. Most servers , well who do I fool, in Random expert server most missions got cloud cover totally or partly, it make it difficult to spot target and make a level bombing difficult, in a PE 2 you can always switch to dive bombing, but not so in a He 111. 

Also if you are attacked your levelbombing get aborted. So in total I do not think it is too easy

[Yogiflight]

A big advantage here in game is, we get the wind direction and speed. According to the user manual of the german Lotfe 7C, the bombardier had to determine the aircrafts drift through wind himself. I think, if we had to do this in game, the spread of our bombs would be remarkably bigger.

[III/JG2Gustav05]

So in game I can hit a very small (house sized) target almost every time in any condition.

 

My question is I have heard reports of bomber frequently missing the target by up to miles.

 

Are our sights too good?

good point, I also noticed this in the 1st place, but never bring it up here. considering current pint-point level bombing accuracy in BOX, Stuka's activity is completely not necessary.

Edited July 27, 2017 by III/JG2Gustav05

[Gambit21]

good point, I also noticed this in the 1st place, but never bring it up here. considering current pint-point level bombing accuracy in BOX, Stuka's activity is completely not necessary.

 

Stukas are not necessary for what?

Are we fighting a real war here?

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

Changing the Axis bombers AI gunners to Ace within FNBF just for that Tomcat.

 

This conversation is a non-starter folks. We don't have a navigator/bombardier along so as far as I'm concerned the sights are fine and should be accurate. It's just how players go about using them and what they want to experience within the game.

Try staying in a 5 to 7 ship formation with flak and fighters howling around as you just made the IP and that further 20 klick flight to target. Then tell me how accurate you are after the lead takes hits, dropping off and hands over to the second.

 

The game is what you make of it.

Hehe I and rest of 307th noticed it already

BTW good points about one men orchestra.

Edited July 27, 2017 by 307_Tomcat

[=TBAS=Sshadow14]

The point is its not a game with "balancing factors" Like an MMO
Its a Historical Simulation of ww2 planes and tech.

The bomb sights should be the best possible Historical recreation of accuracy based on declassified tests and bomb accuracy charts from ww2.

While i love the bombsights,
The current Arcade implementation of accuracy and use does not cut it.
and makes level bombing sooooo easy its near impossible to miss.

But then again im dumb and have no idea what im talking about i just bombed 30,000 Gkills in 5 months for the giggles,
I don't even know which way bombs fall out of hole

Edited July 27, 2017 by =TBAS=Sshadow14

[SCG_Space_Ghost]

Yes, level bombing is too accurate because our data and sights are too accurate among other factors.

 

It's just less credible based on the fact you've mentioned you've divebombed most of those kills in an He 111.

Edited July 27, 2017 by Space_Ghost

[Retnek]

The bombing procedure itself isn't too accurate - well trained crews under perfect conditions were repeatedly able to hit 10-m-circles from 4000 m in WW2, too.

 

The wind was the main enemy, changing wind directions and speeds in several layers. Afaik in IL2-BoX at the moment of the bomb release the calculations are done with one homogeneous box of air from the plane down to the target using the conditions at your present flight level only. That's easy to solve. Some minor variations come into it because of the true air speed readings, unknown true height over ground and errors one makes when adjusting the vizier settings.

  In contrast to the WW-2 bombardiers we know precisely measured data for all the values AND our environmental conditions are stable and predictable. That's the reason for the precision - include a few degrees of freedom by simulating real-world effects and the level bombing will be as coarse as it has been in WW2 very often.

[=TBAS=Sshadow14]

Yes, level bombing is too accurate because our data and sights are too accurate among other factors.

 

It's just less credible based on the fact you've mentioned you've divebombed most of those kills in an He 111.

Thats because the bombsight is an easy mode exploit and i refuse to abuse such mechanics.

Any bomb run i can use it if i want but i dont as its too easy (hand holding)

 

Just like when i do rarely fly pe2 i disable ALL gunners as they are easy mode exploit and will snipe FW190's doing 800kph from 1,000m away while the pe2 is pulling a 5G turn on deck.

 

I choose to SHALLOW Dive bomb because in order for LW to win on WoL We need about 150-200 Gkills per hour (I personally Average 93/hour)

This is NOT possible level bombing as time taken to climb to 3-5K then slow airspeed enroute (as 111 fastest @ 1.8K or so)

Best is about 45/hour level bombing.

 

Also the real 111 did many low level bombing runs and torpedo runs also the 20mm front belly gun was only fitted for straffing trains/convoys & Ships @ low lvl.

I do not exceed plane design specs or its abilities.

I purely fly it as it was intended.

 

Edited July 27, 2017 by =TBAS=Sshadow14

[TXSailor_1]

The bombing procedure itself isn't too accurate - well trained crews under perfect conditions were repeatedly able to hit 10-m-circles from 4000 m in WW2, too.

 

The wind was the main enemy, changing wind directions and speeds in several layers. Afaik in IL2-BoX at the moment of the bomb release the calculations are done with one homogeneous box of air from the plane down to the target using the conditions at your present flight level only. That's easy to solve. Some minor variations come into it because of the true air speed readings, unknown true height over ground and errors one makes when adjusting the vizier settings.

  In contrast to the WW-2 bombardiers we know precisely measured data for all the values AND our environmental conditions are stable and predictable. That's the reason for the precision - include a few degrees of freedom by simulating real-world effects and the level bombing will be as coarse as it has been in WW2 very often.

 

I agree completely with everything said here.

[=TBAS=Sshadow14]

yes but these are the real stats.
 

 

In peacetime testing the Norden demonstrated a circular error probable (CEP)^[a] of 23 metres (75 ft), an astonishing performance for the era.
This accuracy allowed direct attacks on ships, factories, and other point targets.

In practice it was not possible to achieve the expected accuracy in combat conditions, with the average CEP in 1943 of 370 metres (1,200 ft) being similar to Allied and German results.

So 10M spread in combat from 7,000m is just not and was not possible
23m in peace time was at the time AMAZING Accuracy

Edited July 27, 2017 by =TBAS=Sshadow14

[III/JG2Gustav05]

Stukas are not necessary for what?

Are we fighting a real war here?

calm down man, I don't understand why you are so upset with my comment here. what's your problem?

[TXSailor_1]

yes but these are the real stats.

 

So 10M spread in combat from 7,000m is just not and was not possible

23m in peace time was at the time AMAZING Accuracy

 

The thing is, you can only really argue for a CEP of 75ft in this case. While that might not have been accomplished in combat, that wasn't because it wasn't possible, it was because of external factors which are already incorporated in the form of maneuvering and enemy fire. 

[Gambit21]

calm down man, I don't understand why you are so upset with my comment here. what's your problem?

 

Whose not calm?

 

Why are Stuka's not necessary?

I think I discovered the mind-set that this comment arises from a few more posts down.

Score/winning the map rather than experiencing a given aircraft.

 

This bears no resemblance to why I fly this sim, but to each his own.

The comment just went over my head when I first read it is all.

Edited July 28, 2017 by Gambit21

[6./ZG26_Klaus_Mann]

The Factors that make the Game easier than RL:

 

• Finding a Target. Ingame the Targets just conveniently pop into view, IRL the World is there constantly, so you have to actually know what you want to hit as well. or you'll just blow up some Greenhouses. The World can be quite ambiguous if unfamiliar. And things under Camouflage are much less visible IRL than ingame as well. They Blend in. Ingame they don't. 
• Intrument Error. Your Instruments are a Major Factor and often out by 10% or more depending on Weather Condition. Especially Altitude and Speed depend on Temperature a lot. Humidity can also ruin your Readouts. Ingame the Bombsight Gauges are all corrected. IRL your Altimeter will show higher than True Altitude in Cold Weather, and lower than True in Warm Weather. This also ruins you IAS to TAS Calculations. This is highly simplified ingame. 
• Unkown Weather Conditions at the Target.
• Communication Lag between Bomber Gunner and Pilot. 
• Map inaccuracy and imprecision/Fog of War. 
• Bomb Ballisitics. Ingame all Bombs behave similarly. IRL a 50kg Bomb would behave completely different to a 1000. Light Bombs have a longer Drop Time and lower Speed and more Surface Area, which results in more Spread, more Vertical Drop etc. 

Edited July 28, 2017 by 6./ZG26_Klaus_Mann