Gunner Problem

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

 AI sees around it 360deg sphere regardless if there is an obstacle like trees, plane structure, hill, terrain, clouds etc. When you get within it´s "engagement range" it snaps on you immediately and nothing makes it lose sight of you. Nothing besides getting outside the engagement bubble. Add superhuman bullet sponge capabilities and you are facing something incredibly frustrating.

[Majakowski]

Those complaining about getting hit from a gunner should take the time and fly a few (level) bombing missions themselves.

 

As a bomber pilot there is very little chance to end an engagement either alive to tell the tale or to make a landing on wheels. The moment an Fw190 - this hybrid of speedboat and battleship - spots you, it is over. When you have to attack below 2000m and Flak spots you: it is most probably half over too. One time I was at 2,4km and one or two seconds before dropping the bombs a single flak hit made two halves of my plane. Even when you manage to bring your bombs to the target it is a fight for life and death as the "enemy planes are spotted over [enter target here]" message is seen by the enemy and from now on they can zoom from one end of the map to the other with nearly the speed of sound and homing in on you as you are now visible from parsecs away to come and get you. And if you have a long way to your own lines, being captured is almost certain. So unless you survive and at least manage a forced landing, flying bombers is a stat killer.

 

And the reality is that you seldom have all the people online to make a formidable bomber formation. And speaking for the Pe-2 it has a 12,7mm gun. And yes, those bullets make holes that is what they are made for. Basically the main reason to complain about the bomber gunners (I shot bombers down myself without getting shot down immediately) is to get the developers to render them useless so the fighter pilots that already have massive advantages in technology and numbers (especially the Axis) can have even more of an advantage.

 

There are many things that are not historically correct in a game especially when it comes to having units instead of single flights. So I think it should be more of a challenge to attack bombers rather than simple seal clubbing. In the end it is a player in that bomber cockpit too that wants to play the game and have fun and at least a small chance of survival. The only things the bomber pilot has are clouds and his gunners. They have no advantage in speed, none in agility, certainly not in being stealthy and so on. There is almost no factor the bomber player has control over except for the route and altitude he chooses to remain unseen. So it already is an uneven fight as the fighter pilots already have the absolute dominance and entering the last disputed objective in a bomber means certain death already. So I think there is no need to thin out the possibilities of the bomber pilots even more.

 

And regarding the visibility of the gunners: When the enemy pilot sees me from 30km away, so does my gunner.

[RedKestrel]

6 hours ago, Majakowski said:

Those complaining about getting hit from a gunner should take the time and fly a few (level) bombing missions themselves.

 

As a bomber pilot there is very little chance to end an engagement either alive to tell the tale or to make a landing on wheels. The moment an Fw190 - this hybrid of speedboat and battleship - spots you, it is over. When you have to attack below 2000m and Flak spots you: it is most probably half over too. One time I was at 2,4km and one or two seconds before dropping the bombs a single flak hit made two halves of my plane. Even when you manage to bring your bombs to the target it is a fight for life and death as the "enemy planes are spotted over [enter target here]" message is seen by the enemy and from now on they can zoom from one end of the map to the other with nearly the speed of sound and homing in on you as you are now visible from parsecs away to come and get you. And if you have a long way to your own lines, being captured is almost certain. So unless you survive and at least manage a forced landing, flying bombers is a stat killer.

 

And the reality is that you seldom have all the people online to make a formidable bomber formation. And speaking for the Pe-2 it has a 12,7mm gun. And yes, those bullets make holes that is what they are made for. Basically the main reason to complain about the bomber gunners (I shot bombers down myself without getting shot down immediately) is to get the developers to render them useless so the fighter pilots that already have massive advantages in technology and numbers (especially the Axis) can have even more of an advantage.

 

There are many things that are not historically correct in a game especially when it comes to having units instead of single flights. So I think it should be more of a challenge to attack bombers rather than simple seal clubbing. In the end it is a player in that bomber cockpit too that wants to play the game and have fun and at least a small chance of survival. The only things the bomber pilot has are clouds and his gunners. They have no advantage in speed, none in agility, certainly not in being stealthy and so on. There is almost no factor the bomber player has control over except for the route and altitude he chooses to remain unseen. So it already is an uneven fight as the fighter pilots already have the absolute dominance and entering the last disputed objective in a bomber means certain death already. So I think there is no need to thin out the possibilities of the bomber pilots even more.

 

And regarding the visibility of the gunners: When the enemy pilot sees me from 30km away, so does my gunner.

My experience is similar to yours - fighters hold most, if not all, of the cards in any engagement.

I crunched the numbers after the last campaign on TAW. I only had access to about half my sorties by the time I started keeping track as the stats page seems to drop old statistics. I think my gunners killed 1 other enemy fighter in the previous 40 sorties, so these stats are roughly representative of the entire campaign.

Some interesting stats:

While flying bombers or attackers, I was attacked by 19 different fighters (i.e. they actually landed hits on me). My overall sortie survival rate (i.e. landed safely) was 50%. When encountering fighters, the survival rate was 33%.

I encountered 11 of those fighters in gunner-equipped aircraft. My survival rate for these encounters was 22%. I was more likely to survive in a non-gunner equipped aircraft than one with a gunner when encountering fighters. Now granted, this was a small sample size. But if the gunners were as deadly as people say, and the Pe-2's invincible, then surely I should have a survival rate in the order of 80% or more. Instead, when I encountered fighters in a Pe-2, my survival rate was 17%.

Now as far as the fighters go, of the 11 fighters that attacked me while I had a gunner, 1 was killed by my gunner. Five more were damaged. I clicked through on the stats to check if the damage was fatal - all five of those fighters made it back to the airfield many minutes later.

So the survival rate for fighters that attacked me in any attack aircraft was 94%, and the survival rate of fighters that attacked me in an aircraft with gunners was 91%.

So what conclusions can we draw from these limited numbers?

Gunners don't seem to increase your survivability. This is a small sample size but from the way people talk it should be impossible to kill a Pe-2 this is clearly not the case. The rule of thumb is: if he's close enough to get hit by your gunner, he's close enough to hit you. And if he manages to hit you, chances are you're going down. hits from your gunner rarely stop an attack, most fighter pilots either press home the attack or zoom up and come down again. Very few will break off after one pass and even if they do, there is a good chance they have done mortal damage.

The chances of a fighter being killed by a gunner is not nearly so high as is made out to be. In these sorties it is less than 1 in 10. The one fighter that was killed in these sorties was following close on my six for an extended period of time, and successfully shot me down despite being shot down. So for fighters that had less risky attack profiles, the mortality rate was actually zero - and actually many of the fighters that survived also attacked from directly on my six. 

Obviously the gunners make insane/impossible shots occasionally and this should be corrected. But its not an epidemic, and it is possible, even very likely, to survive an attack on enemy bombers.

I would love to see a fighter pilot do a similar analysis. Document your encounters with gunner-equipped aircraft and tell us how often you get shot down vs. how many aircraft you manage to destroy. Maybe I'm super unlucky but I think once people start crunching the numbers it will appear to be much less of an issue.


 

[LLv34_Flanker]

S! 

 

Majakowski, git gud You fly red aka Pe-2. Use it's speed, dive in on target towards your escape route and head away on the deck. Even with the messages of plane being spotted you are moving away at high speed. The message does not update in real time either. 

 

The AI gunner(or any other entity) has no visbility limitations, none at all. It has no darkenss, fog, rain, smoke, terrain, trees, plane structure etc. 360deg clear sphere. Add to that the instant position change, guns snapping in an instant etc. and you get some weird effects.

 

 

[LukeFF]

3 minutes ago, LLv34_Flanker said:

The AI gunner(or any other entity) has no visbility limitations, none at all. It has no darkenss, fog, rain, smoke, terrain, trees, plane structure etc. 360deg clear sphere.

 

Nope, sorry, but you are wrong. The time of day absolutely has an effect on gunner visibility. It's been that way since ROF.

[Majakowski]

Pe-2 and high speed? Must suppress my laughing. In level bombing I am at around 350km/h on my way to target. Then, when diving from 2 - 3km (typical cloud altitude) the plane accellerates to a maximum of 550km/h of not break apart speed (and this only for a short period of time because there comes a point where the ground hits me) whereas any LW fighter in a dive will get me with at least 650-700km/h. And the later fighters don't even need to dive, they can go that speed in level flight. And considering the target way behind enemy lines and enemy planes halfway between the frontline and my position (because they were humming over other targets of my side), an escape becomes very unlikely.

 

Yes, I do dive away immediately after releasing bombs out of necessity and so far it worked quite well. But then again when it did indeed work it was because nobody saw me (which is over too with the new visibility system). But the time I am sighted my chances diminish without anything I can actively do about it. If I maneuver, my gunner doesn't hit, if I don't, then I am getting hit pretty easily. And as stated above I have no advantage in speed aside from a somewhat slower rate of approach to delay the arrival of planes from the rear areas. I don't dive away from any fighter.

 

"The AI gunner(or any other entity) has no visbility limitations, none at all. It has no darkenss, fog, rain, smoke, terrain, trees, plane structure etc. 360deg clear sphere. Add to that the instant position change, guns snapping in an instant etc. and you get some weird effects."

 

I know what you are talking about. But if we would implement a 10 second delay for changing of each position, the gunner would be utterly useless. Tactics in (multiplayer) game aren't historical unless on a dedicated squadron tactics server so at one point one has to compensate for that.

[LLv34_Flanker]

S! 

 

LukeFF. The gunners can track you perfectly fine in darkenss. Last night in MP engaging a ground target before dawn in darkness, winter map. Heavy AA opened up some 10km from target and medium AA totally fine within 2-3km range. They even tracked you thru smoke emitted from the burning targets. So please enlighten me where are the limitations of AI? I am yet to see an AI that has at least some limitations except being overdone in stupidity or inhuman skill levels. 

[Aap]

2 hours ago, Majakowski said:

Pe-2 and high speed? Must suppress my laughing. In level bombing I am at around 350km/h on my way to target.

 

I wonder why it makes you laugh, though, as Pe-2 is well known for it's relatively high speed for a bomber, even if you choose to fly 350 km/h for some reason. 

From game technical specs, Pe-2 with nominal engine settings flies 476 km/h at 2000 m. For comparison, Ju-87 in climb mode flies 389 km/h. He-111 in climb mode flies 398 km/h. Ju-88 in climb mode flies 462 km/h. None of these have as good defensive fire arcs as Pe-2. During diving, even if enemy fighter is something like 100 km/h faster than you, he very easily ends up behind you for several seconds and the Pe-2 bottom gunner needs just a fraction of a second to do his work. Of course many experienced players, like these that fly at TAW, have developed tactics to cope with that, but that does not change the fact that Pe-2 is a fast bomber with very good gunners.

 

When talking of stats, just looking at frequent WoL Pe-2 pilot stats you fly loads of "gunner aces" - I wonder how common it was in real life that a lone bomber managed that well against enemy fighters.

[Majakowski]

The Pe2 certainly does not climb at 476km/h with 1000kg of bombs. Rather between 250 and 300 depending on climbing rate. As for level flight with 90/90 setting of RPM and Throttle it flies between 350 to 390km/h with full bomb load. Only after I release the payload does it reach the promised speed of about 430 to 450km/h.

 

And German bombers are not what I am up to when considering the "high" speed as compared to the fighters I am up against it is still painfully slow. And if you have ever driven a car at 200km/h onto a stationary target you can imagine how severe the speed difference is even in a dive.

 

A high speed bomber in my understanding is one that has a speed to outrun at least some of the fighters like the B-26 did with early Japanese fighters. But the only fighter I can possibly outrun would be the I-16 which doesn't happen to be an enemy very often.

[Aap]

Had a quick look at September WoL stats.

For example Drinkins has 90 air kills in 56 hours of flight time. 81 of these game while piloting Pe-2, 9 with Lagg-3. 

Or another good Pe-2 pilot, vaskatafire. 57 hours of flight time, 55 air kills. 256 Pe-2 sorties, 1 fighter sortie.

 

6 minutes ago, Majakowski said:

The Pe2 certainly does not climb at 476km/h with 1000kg of bombs.

 

I did not say that it climbs 476 km/h with 1000kg of bombs. Pe-2 speed at 2k is with nominal setting is 476 km/h. That is a lot more than Ju-87 for example or He-111 with climb settings (limited time) and even more than the German "Schnellbomber" Ju-88 with climb settings. That is why it was weird to see that you could not stop laughing about Pe-2 being fast, when it actually is a fast bomber.

[Majakowski]

Because being fast in comparison to another bomber does not matter ehen it is not bombers that are hunting you but fighters at double their speed.

 

It is of no use to be faster than a Stuka when being bounced by a Fw190.

[Aap]

1 hour ago, Majakowski said:

Because being fast in comparison to another bomber does not matter ehen it is not bombers that are hunting you but fighters at double their speed.

 

Double speed? You are often hunted by Me-262's? They could possible achieve close to double speed of Pe-2. 

I think any person with any kind of flight sim experience could understand very well the situation that Flanker mentioned - unless he deliberately chooses not to understand. If you dive at 550 km/h towards target and enemy is coming after you at 650 km/h (your own given numbers, even if not double speed by conventional mathematics), then this 100 km/h closure rate would generally keep him within your gunner's arc of fire for several seconds, which is more than enough for the Lucky Luke that occupies Pe-2 bottom gunner position. If Pe-2 was a slower plane, the time that enemy fighter would have to spend in the danger zone would be less. That should be pretty obvious.

Now, experienced simmers that fly on TAW etc have probably learned to manage this situation, like I said before, but that does not mean that this phenomenon does not exist.

 

P.S. It is also kind of interesting to see how "pathetic Luftwhiners" get brought up by someone that sees "hybrids of speedboats and battleships" flying around in "double speed", especially when most of the previous posts in this thread were actually kind of civilized statements about what people have observed in this game. This Luftwhiner-thing is like an argument where one party can throw out whatever crap they feel like and any counter-opinions can be just rejected by the mighty "Luftwhiner" statement.

Edited October 2, 2019 by II./JG77_Kemp

[LLv34_Flanker]

S! 

 

Why even bother flying Pe-2 at anything lower settings than 100% power? It does not overheat, thanks to Klimov's thermodynamics defying engine  Pe-2 is one of the best medium bombers in game except bomb load which is medicore at best.

 

It's speed makes it harder to intercept, closure rate at certain situations is just too low provioding the gunners more than enough opportunities to snap a bullet between your eyes. 

 

With some mission planning and use of clouds makes Pe-2 a tough plane to catch. 

[Majakowski]

I said double their (the German bombers you compared me to) speed, not double my speed. Cruise speed of the Ju87d is around 330km/h which means 660km/h of which an Fw190 is easily capable of especially when diving from a much higher altitude. So no need for the sky to be filled with Me262. 

 

"then this 100 km/h closure rate would generally keep him within your gunner's arc of fire for several seconds"

 

This may be the case but could it be you forget that I am in his line of fire as well? And guess what happens when being shot at with a steady stream of 4x 20mm rounds "for several seconds". This logic works in two ways. And the Pe-gunner always oneshotting any attacker is also a legend. He is strong, yes but in no way is it a "send more planes"-activity to lurk around enemy planes as you are painting it here. That is simply not the case and counting peas also doesn't need to be here, I get shot down quite regularly when jumped upon by enemy fighters. Maybe I damage one of them and their engine quits or they have to crashland but so do my engines quit when they have been or does my fuel run out when I have the luck not to disintegrate or explode at the first pass. And most of the time I am far from my airfield so the chances of me eventually going down are much higher than those of the LW guy in whose vicinity the combat was because the strategic targets are almost always built near player airfields.

 

You use German bombers as reference when stating the imaginary speed advantage of a Pe-2 which is totally erased by the fact that the danger to the Pe-2 aren't Ju87 or He111s but the fighters. And those fighters are faster than the Pe-2. All of them. There is no advantage in speed when you are outclassed by everything (as in: everything that is made for and bound to get you). 

 

Please explain me the following: Of what use is it for me that I am faster than a Ju-87? What does the fact do for me when I am not (as in: never) attacked by a Ju87 but by a much faster fighter plane?

 

And the numbers of @RedKestrel though limited also confirm the fact that though it might be dangerous to camp behind a Peshka it is in no way a guarantee for anything. Neither killing nor surviving. Even your numbers show merely a 1 in 5 possibility of an air victory for Peshka-pilots (as in: "57 hours of flight time, 55 air kills. 256 Pe-2 sorties"). Not counted here is the possibility of users ragequitting or not having the patience to return or abusing their damaged planes when they otherwise would have been able to return to base (so as not to count as a kill) so that the kills you see in the stats should be used very carefully.

 

I recognize that I do not have a right to stay unmolested when attacking the enemy, no problem with that. But certain LW players also need recognize that they have no right to camp behind a Peshka and not get hurt. As far as I know the gunner does not shoot to the front of the plane. Some people now draw their conclusions. 

[Majakowski]

@LLv34_Flanker

 

I know the Peshka is quite robust when it comes to heat resistance and the 90% settings are not always on, on winter maps I usually keep full throttle and therefore reach around 390km/h which is still no match for a 190 although a little bit faster than other bombers but again not by a decisive margin. 

 

And yes I do plan my approaches and try to stay hidden. And in this I was quite successful as for now (I rarely get intercepted before reaching target) but this is what I have meant: it is the only means of having a chance of survival -> not to be seen.

 

A determined (and smart) fighter pilot will catch you after your dive to low altitude is over (considering usually 2-3km cloudbase this won't take long) and he can jump on you on his terms. An early fighter pilot will catch you before the target and jump you on his terms. Because once detected the plane is very easy to make out against the bright white clouds and lining up your target in the bombsight leaves you blind for minutes until you hear "he's engaging" followed by bullets tearing you apart.

 

Also the speed of the Pe-2 wouldn't matter anyway if the gunner was to be made less capable. Because it is the strength of the gunner that makes the lower closure speed so dangerous. But on the other hand the fighter pilot also has the possibility to dive on you thus engaging you much faster and reducing his risk of being shot. So again the speed issue is very relative. We have:

 

A) Both diving: ~550 vs. >700km/h

B) Both in level flight (Peshka empty): ~430 vs. ~600km/h

C) Peshka level flight, LW plane diving: ~430 vs >700km/h

 

As we can see the Pe-2 is speed-wise outclassed in every configuration and it all hangs on the type of attack the LW plane chooses and this decision can even mitigate the problem of low closure speed.

[Aap]

5 minutes ago, Majakowski said:

And the Pe-gunner always oneshotting any attacker is also a legend. 

 

Pe-2 gunner does not necessarily one-shot every time, but like several people have posted in this thread (and many others), as well as provided video footage, AI gunners are often able to predict and hit a passing plane in a fraction of a second or do other things which are not humanly possible. I am sure you can find these videos, if you do a search. Also, Scharfi and many other posters here brought it up as a general AI gunner problem, not a specific Pe-2 problem. What makes Pe-2 especially difficult (benefit from this AI feature the most) is the combination of it's speed (which you do not believe in) and the tail structure / gun layout, which means that an enemy fighter can easily end up in Pe-2's gunners arcs of fire in their six. The risk is considerably lower in the cases of He-111, Ju-87 and Ju-88 for example, where the bomber's own tail is protecting the fighter that approaches from their six.

 

22 minutes ago, Majakowski said:

You use German bombers as reference when stating the imaginary speed advantage of a Pe-2 which is totally erased by the fact that the danger to the Pe-2 aren't Ju87 or He111s but the fighters.

 

You are missing the point. Deliberately? Nobody is thinking of bombers dogfighting each other, but a faster bomber means that the pursuit trajectory puts enemy fighters more easily to the bomber's six and also keeps the fighter there for longer time, due to smaller closure rate, compared to slower bombers. Somehow it seems so obvious, so it is kind of hard to know what I need to explain about it to you. Probably is best that you try it out in QMB yourself, so you understand what I am talking about.

 

41 minutes ago, Majakowski said:

Of what use is it for me that I am faster than a Ju-87? What does the fact do for me when I am not (as in: never) attacked by a Ju87 but by a much faster fighter plane?

 

Who said that you would be attacked by a Ju-87? You are just trying to invent a topic and argue against it? I have explained a few times already the "speed" part of Pe-2. 

 

44 minutes ago, Majakowski said:

Even your numbers show merely a 1 in 5 possibility of an air victory for Peshka-pilots (as in: "57 hours of flight time, 55 air kills. 256 Pe-2 sorties").

 

I don't quite get Your "1 in 5 possibility" point here, but do you mean that you consider that kind of success rate of lone bombers shooting down enemy fighters any way close to realistic in real life?

[Majakowski]

"Who said that you would be attacked by a Ju-87? "

 

Wait, that was your idea, let me quote you: "For comparison, Ju-87 in climb mode flies 389 km/h. He-111 in climb mode flies 398 km/h. Ju-88 in climb mode flies 462 km/h. "

 

So, if those bombers have no part in the topic, then why did you bring them up? Anyway I think this is done.

 

"I don't quite get Your "1 in 5 possibility" point here, but do you mean that you consider that kind of success rate of lone bombers shooting down enemy fighters any way close to realistic in real life?"

 

If considered "realistically" none of us would sit in the cockpits of those planes in the first place. That aside I have made myself clear that lone bomber attacks aren't realistic either but that those are a reality in the game as getting 20 people to be online at any given time for a coordinated attack is also not realistic in this game. Way less realistic were lone fighter missions as they also were coordinated efforts against other coordinated efforts and flying was done in units (except Patrol / Liaison planes or other special services) not by individuals.

 

So what is your point? That in a game that measured by all (historical-organizational) standards can be called unrealistic (no offense to the developers but to the particularities of gaming and its culture as it is and the resulting need for balancing and compromises) you do not have the right to attack a bomber without the slightest possibility of hurting yourself? I can understand this is a wet dream for fighter pilots but the harsh reality is that wether it comes to tactics, physics or organizational particularities Il2 is only a game. A very sophisticated game with much focus on details though. I could live with a weaker gunner would it be possible to regularly have formidable bomber formations anytime I want. But here we get back to the reality that we have:

 

- Imbalance in numbers (most times I play blue planes are more numerous) -> This is not realistic especially for late war scenarios as there was barely anything left with a cross on it

- People not getting paid for playing -> They only do when they have time and are eager to but everyone having their own life means they decide when they want to

- The guy in the bomber (wether it be a Heinkel or a Pe or a Junkers whatever) also wants to have fun -> He won't have fun when he is reduced to a defenseless victim

 

So what do you need? You need a compromise. And that might be an AI that makes it challenging to attack a bomber as attacking bomber formations in reality wasn't free of risk either. Yes, gunners in bombers did indeed shoot down real airplanes, attacking even a lone bomber was no risk free endeavour as one can read in books written by those that took part.

 

Do you know what I do when I am in the mood of attacking defensless multi engine airplanes? I open um QMB, pick some Ju-52 as enemy und club them till they cry. But again nobody in multiplayer would pick the role of the defenseless victim because of which a bomber must pose a threat for the reality we as players don't live in the reality as it was 80 years ago as we can not recreate all the surroundings in which the air battles took place. And those surroundings were: coherent formations, night attacks, flying in bad weather and so on. And when speaking of what is realistic and not....try to count the fighter pilots on MP servers that actually use the runway for takeoff.

[Aap]

43 minutes ago, Majakowski said:

Wait, that was your idea, let me quote you: "For comparison, Ju-87 in climb mode flies 389 km/h. He-111 in climb mode flies 398 km/h. Ju-88 in climb mode flies 462 km/h. "

So, if those bombers have no part in the topic, then why did you bring them up? Anyway I think this is done.

 

For fifth time, and I also hope it is done then, Pe-2 is fast for a bomber. Something that made you laugh, when Flanker mentioned it. It is faster than some other bombers in the game, namely Ju-87, He-111 and Ju-88. Which are all slower than Pe-2. So, Pe-2 is faster than these other bombers. Which is why it was mentioned that Pe-2 has the benefit of speed, compared to some other bombers, which are slower than Pe-2, which is faster. I have gone over what is the benefit of this speed in previous posts. I am glad that you think we are done with this.

 

43 minutes ago, Majakowski said:

that lone bomber attacks aren't realistic either but  ...

 

I agree that these online games and stats are not comparable to realism, but if imagining a situation of a single fighter attacking a single bomber (realistic situation or not), do you think it is realistic for a bomber to have so high air-to-air success? These WoL stats were brought up mostly to bring a different view to TAW stats that were presented previously.

 

43 minutes ago, Majakowski said:

So what is your point? That in a game that measured by all (historical-organizational) standards can be called unrealistic

 

I did not really make this topic, but the point of this topic was that the AI gunners behavior is not realistic. If the game is played in a historically or organizationally realistic way is a separate topic from the question if it is realistic that a gunner can predict the fighters' flight path without seeing him and shoot a "predictive" burst into clear air and hit a fighter that comes out of nowhere from that gunner's point of view to be hit by his fire? Or other similar points and observations about gunners behavior that has been brought up in this thread previously. 

Edited October 2, 2019 by II./JG77_Kemp

[Majakowski]

"Something that made you laugh, when Flanker mentioned it. It is faster than some other bombers "

 

It is completely irrelevant for the Pe-2 pilot how he would have fared in a Junkers. 

 

An advantage always has to be measured in the special context. And the special context in this case is that this plane is much slower than those hunting him and this is called a disadvantage. Like a Bf109 runs away from an I-16. In this case nobody would say the I-16 has the advantage of speed because the Po-2 is slower. 

 

And my initial remark was that as a bomber pilot in general and in the Peshka in particular you have no speed advantage whatsoever when assessing the possibilities you have in an engagement against fighters. The comparison which bomber has the best chances of any bombers in the game is a completely different matter. And I did never mean to make a comparison between different planes of the same kind so focussing on that problem is to completely miss my point and maybe an attempt to blandish the hopeless situation you have in a Pe-2 against fighters of virtually any type (apart from the I-16 maybe).

 

" If the game is played in a historically or organizationally realistic way is a separate topic from the question if it is realistic that a gunner can predict the fighters' flight path without seeing him and shoot a "predictive" burst into clear air and hit a fighter that comes out of nowhere from that gunner's point of view to be hit by his fire?"

 

It isn't a separate topic as the game is only the sum of all of its components. So what would a 100% realistic gunner mean if the rest isn't realistic? Right, the bomber would be a useless victim vehicle and I assume this is what those complaining about it really want it to be. Another easy target in the long list of easy targets for LW planes. Of all the inaccuracies we have insisting on realistic gunners while having the freedom to takeoff right from the parking lot perpendicular to the runway heading would be a very nice cherrypicking.

 

You can't separate one factor from another especially not when - as I have mentioned extensively - this factor compensates for other factors. Then when you get shot down by the gunners why don't attack in a formation of fighters? That would be my question to those that give the good advice to the bombers to attack in numbers but they themselves enjoy their equally unrealistic solo hunts. To take this a bit further the fighter planes may only fly the sectors ordered by fighter defence command. Yes, then when we have all that circumstances can we talk about incapacitating the only means of defence of the bombers that still are a part of the game and as such still have to be somewhat balanced so that they are actually played and don't become mere scenery objects.

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

I'm not sure why there's a big difference in speeds for the Pe-2 that I get compared to you.  With 250kg bombs on, I can get around 425kph to 450kph with full power and radiators full open.

Diving to the deck from ~2500m I can get 700+kph which sustains for quite a while if it's kept straight (coordinated) and level with a pretty slow rate of speed bleed-off.  

 

IIRC The Pe-2 should have near-identical level top speed to a 109 F4 at 1500m.

 

The question I have is - do you trim the plane for hands-free flight at your chosen altitude?  It's one of the easier ones to do that with and it does make a decent bit of difference.