I don't get these altitudes...

[lantern53]

in career mode, going on a typical strike mission and ingressing at below 2000 ft...I don't believe this is historical, in fact my understanding is that bombs would be released no lower than 3000 from a dive, so I don't understand why these missions are set up that way

[Yogiflight]

5 hours ago, lantern53 said:

in career mode, going on a typical strike mission and ingressing at below 2000 ft...I don't believe this is historical, in fact my understanding is that bombs would be released no lower than 3000 from a dive, so I don't understand why these missions are set up that way

The altitudes in pretty much all career mode missions don't make a lot of sense. For example intercept missions, no matter whether bomber or ground attack planes, you fly in the altitude of the aircrafts you have to intercept, and then, oh surprise, there are escort fighters flying higher and attacking now from above.

You escort bombers? They are flying at 2k km and start climbing to 3k km after bomb drop. You fly bomber yourself? you fly at 3k km and dive down to 2k km after bomb drop.

Has nothing to do with combat simulation.

 

[PatrickAWlson]

10 hours ago, lantern53 said:

in career mode, going on a typical strike mission and ingressing at below 2000 ft...I don't believe this is historical, in fact my understanding is that bombs would be released no lower than 3000 from a dive, so I don't understand why these missions are set up that way

 

Depends,  The IL2 would work at pretty low altitude as would most fighters on a strike.  Level bombers and dive bombers are a different story.  You mention dive so Stuka?  They should be coming in between 4K and 5K meters (13,000 - 16,000 feet).  German level bombers should be from 4K meters at the lowest all the way up to 7K or 8K.  Not sure at what altitude PE2s operated.

[blitze]

My understanding is the German Level bombers operated at lower altitudes in the East.

 

Most of the smaller aircraft bombing missions are tactical bombing which occurred at low alt.  Dive bombers come in at higher altitudes.

 

Intercept of ground attackers is just that - you are not there to deal with their escort - you are there to stop the ground assets being bombed.  Pending on the difficulty level you select - there probably is another friendly flight nearby at higher alt to deal with the escorts.  Then again - Stalingrad 110 intercept of Ground Attackers out 4 ship flight met 30 or so VVS and it was not pretty for us.  They were everywhere. Il2's, La5's and Yak 1's - the best one could hope for is to bag an Il2 or 2 and then ditch behind friendly lines.

[Avimimus]

21 minutes ago, PatrickAWlson said:

Depends,  The IL2 would work at pretty low altitude as would most fighters on a strike.

 

Accounts of release at 20 metres aren't unheard of for Fw-190F and Il-2...

 

It would be interesting to try to come up with a fairly comprehensive list of typical ingress altitudes for different aircraft/fronts/target-types/years (note: All of those things will impact ingress altitude choices).

 

Btw. Is it true that the Stuka sometimes retained its under-wing bombs for a second 'glide bombing' pass after the first dive attack? That seems hardly ideal from a structural point of view (wing strain during the pull-out).

[PatrickAWlson]

6 minutes ago, Avimimus said:

Btw. Is it true that the Stuka sometimes retained its under-wing bombs for a second 'glide bombing' pass after the first dive attack? That seems hardly ideal from a structural point of view (wing strain during the pull-out).

 

My understanding is that sometimes Stukas performed glide bombing instead of dive bombing attacks.  I have never heard of doing a dive bombing attack then coming back for a glide bombing run with leftover bombs.  Flying low and slow in a Stuka with every AA gunner around wide awake doesn't seem like a great idea.

[busdriver]

11 hours ago, lantern53 said:

in fact my understanding is that bombs would be released no lower than 3000 from a dive

 

Well if you used the P-47 training manual as a reference, I can see where you might think that. 

 

 

But that's just a generic 30 degree pass, and it appears to imply you're delivering a bomb of 1000 pounds or less with tail fusing (rather than instantaneous nose fusing). It doesn't address low angle deliveries, frag patterns, and fuse arming options. And just so there is no confusion, for the sake of discussion, anytime you point your nose below the horizon to drop a bomb is considered dive bombing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[HR_Zunzun]

21 minutes ago, busdriver said:

 

Well if you used the P-47 training manual as a reference, I can see where you might think that.

 

 

 

Actual fighter groups could deliver much higher than that. Actual technique varies from group to group.

In the book "USAAF Jabos in the MTO and ETO" from William Wolf there is part of a chapter dedicated to dive bombing. It said that starting could be from 8000 to 15000ft. I think that 8-10k ft being probably most common. Releasing from 6000 to 1500ft. All depending of the diving angle.

 

[busdriver]

1 hour ago, HR_Zunzun said:

Actual fighter groups could deliver much higher than that. Actual technique varies from group to group.

In the book "USAAF Jabos in the MTO and ETO" from William Wolf there is part of a chapter dedicated to dive bombing. It said that starting could be from 8000 to 15000ft. I think that 8-10k ft being probably most common. Releasing from 6000 to 1500ft. All depending of the diving angle.

 

Absolutely, that's the great thing about tactical aviation...flexibility. My post was in response to the notion of a minimum drop altitude. You can drop from higher or lower altitudes depending on the conditions (weather, defenses, target size). I've dropped from 8000' but with the advantage of CCIP (on a runway target). Dropping from higher altitude subjects your bombs to the vagaries of the winds, your pipper placement discipline, airspeed and dive angle. Accuracy improves significantly with steeper, faster, lower deliveries (shortened to steep-fast-press in the Jurassic Era).

[Jaegermeister]

My understanding of flight altitudes on fighter-bomber runs in western Europe by the Allied side is that it mostly had to do with AAA ranges. They ingressed between 3,000 and 8,000 feet altitude to stay above small arms AA range of about 2000 feet, and below the optimum range of radar guided 88 mm AA, which was between 8,000 and 10,000 feet. Within those altitudes, cloud cover and visibility had a lot to do with.

 

Almost every account I have read lately of escorting medium bombers is around 20,000 feet altitude. 

[busdriver]

11 minutes ago, Jaegermeister said:

Almost every account I have read lately of escorting medium bombers is around 20,000 feet altitude.

 

Take a look at this great site for the 416th BG (L) IIRC they often flew around in the low teens. 

[Jaegermeister]

32 minutes ago, busdriver said:

 

Take a look at this great site for the 416th BG (L) IIRC they often flew around in the low teens. 

 

Makes sense. I guess the fighters came in above the bombers, so they would have to have been in that general  area.

[HR_Zunzun]

1 hour ago, busdriver said:

 

Absolutely, that's the great thing about tactical aviation...flexibility. My post was in response to the notion of a minimum drop altitude. You can drop from higher or lower altitudes depending on the conditions (weather, defenses, target size). I've dropped from 8000' but with the advantage of CCIP (on a runway target). Dropping from higher altitude subjects your bombs to the vagaries of the winds, your pipper placement discipline, airspeed and dive angle. Accuracy improves significantly with steeper, faster, lower deliveries (shortened to steep-fast-press in the Jurassic Era).

 

Yes, I was adding to your post. Tactics depended a lot from circumstances (type of target, threat assesment, sun position, winds, orography etc...) but also fighter group experience/preferences.

 

1 hour ago, Jaegermeister said:

My understanding of flight altitudes on fighter-bomber runs in western Europe by the Allied side is that it mostly had to do with AAA ranges. They ingressed between 3,000 and 8,000 feet altitude to stay above small arms AA range of about 2000 feet, and below the optimum range of radar guided 88 mm AA, which was between 8,000 and 10,000 feet. Within those altitudes, cloud cover and visibility had a lot to do with.

 

Almost every account I have read lately of escorting medium bombers is around 20,000 feet altitude. 

 

AAA was the main threat regarding bombing. Blast avoiding was also a concern. Depending on ordenance type about 1000ft was considered necessary to avoid bieng shot down by your own bomb. Another thing that influence type of bombing was accuracy. Dive bombing at high angles was found consistently more accurate than gliding one. Very low bombing (including skip bombing) was the most accurate method although, unsurprasingly, the most dangerous.

[lantern53]

Well, the missions I've been flying have come in under 2000 ft, so that is fubar.

[LColony_Kong]

Also:

 

What is even silly is that the career mode cannot adapt to you changing the altitudes of a mission. Enemy fighters wont adjust their cruise altitudes even through you are flying your mission at 20,000ft. They are still putt putting around at 7000ft.

 

Ai aircraft cannot stay in formation for some reason

 

Ai just following each other cannot stay in formation. I once watched a bomber flight of B-25s go bonkers all over the place when trying to make their turn after bombing the target to go home. In general they simply cant do formation. I watch ai go into gaggles all the time. I also watch a pair of 190s react to me bouncing them by turning into each other and colliding.

 

Planes dont seem to realize they are out of ammo.

 

They regularly suck so badly at collision avoidance that they will routinely fly into you if you are are chasing a plane in front of them.

 

AI do not use anything even remotely resembling real world tactics. You wont seem them in stacked covers. They basically have never heard of boom and zoom. They make virtually no effort to stay with a wing man in a fight.

 

They react very unreliably to radio commands. Radio menu might as well not be in the game.

 

I could go on but I would be here all day listing all the absurdly underdeveloped aspects of career mode and the AI in general.

 

 

 

 

In short, career mode is basically a waste of time and is terrible as currently implemented.

 

 

 

Edited July 18, 2020 by [TLC]MasterPooner

[Hirachi]

Hmm how about doing the Loop bomb 

 

 

[Jaegermeister]

Here’s one for early tactics...

 

“In training and later in combat, we would normally operate in flights of eight, twelve, and sometimes sixteen A-36s. We climbed to ten thousand to twelve thousand feet and waited for the leader’s signal to dive. When he “fishtailed” his Apache, he wanted all of us to fall in behind him, no more than ten feet behind the tail of the A-36 in front, as if we were on an invisible string. It must have looked like a Broadway show from the ground, as we waited for the leader to roll over on his back and dive almost vertically for the target below. Before pushing over, though, we deployed the dive brakes to ensure that we’d be able to control our vertical speeds. We were told this was an “incline” dive and that no other Air Force fighter could really do what we were doing—basically, dive straight down without tearing our wings off. During those steep dives, the brakes allowed us to hold our airspeed steady down to around 220 miles per hour. We would release our dummy bombs at 2,000 to 2,500 feet, close the dive brakes, and then zoom away as fast as we could. The training was continuous and at times strenuous, but I had a lot of fun. About the only thing missing was the flak and ground fire—something I would experience firsthand over the skies of Italy.”

— The Fight in the Clouds by James P. Busha

[Gambit21]

On 7/18/2020 at 11:40 AM, Jaegermeister said:

My understanding of flight altitudes on fighter-bomber runs in western Europe by the Allied side is that it mostly had to do with AAA ranges. They ingressed between 3,000 and 8,000 feet altitude to stay above small arms AA range of about 2000 feet, and below the optimum range of radar guided 88 mm AA, which was between 8,000 and 10,000 feet. Within those altitudes, cloud cover and visibility had a lot to do with.

 

 

Yep - weather/cloud deck played a huge role. Fighter bomber flights in Europe were fairly low when not escorting.

 

Don Bryan of the 352nd told me during a phone interview that flying in Belgium was “real flying” due to the lower altitudes when flying patrol etc.