Any Plan of B-17 Ai?

[Jazzhetienne]

Dear friends,

Greetings.

I am new here, even though I have had IL-2 in its different form for a bit of time now.

I apologize already if the subject has been treated.

I was wondering if there was any plan to bring Ai B-17 in the sim so as to have the opportunity to perform heavy bombers escorts and maybe reproduce some missions of 1942/43?

Thanks

[Cybermat47]

GBS cannot currently support aircraft with that many gunner stations.

Edited May 28, 2021 by Cybermat47

[Danziger]

36 minutes ago, Cybermat47 said:

GBS cannot currently support aircraft with that many gunner stations.

Not legally, that is.

[[DBS]Browning]

1 hour ago, Cybermat47 said:

GBS cannot currently support aircraft with that many gunner stations.

 

Source?

The He111 H16 has 6 gunner stations occupied by 4 gunners and runs without issue even with 24 or more bombers in the air. That's a total of 144 gunner stations and 96 gunners.

The B24 has 6 gunner stations and 6 gunners. A modest formation of 12 would have just 72 gunners.

The B17 might have between 6 and 7 Gunners depending on the version for 72-84 in a formation of 12.

 

There is clearly no performance issue that prevents modest numbers of these bombers appearing in-game.

 

There are, however, other issues.

IL-2 may not be well suited to strategic air war in general. Even with no gunners, the game does poorly with large numbers of aircraft. Maps are only just big enough to make sense and players usually prefer shorter flight times.

There may also be other reasons, however it is hard to imagine that the number of gunners in any individual plane is one of those reasons.

Edited May 28, 2021 by [DBS]Browning

[Vortice]

Four engines bad.

[Missionbug]

Nothing wrong with four engines and gunner stations, aircraft like the B-17, B-24 and FW-200 were all used for coastal patrol, only needs one per mission for that providing players are up to long patrols.

 

There do not need to be mass formations, although I appreciate folks will want that, these types can still find a home in the GB series, the main thing is are people prepared to pay for the development to the point it would at least break even for the developers?

 

Personally I think the twin engine types would provide more mission variation though as the sim is more geared to the low level support mission.

 

Take care and be safe.

 

Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

 

 

[Rjel]

The B-26 Marauder will provide a viable stand in for four engined bombers as they were also used in larger formation attacks in the ETO. Even though they were used as a medium altitude bomber, they should fit nicely into the style of flying fighters that most of us do. Few people climb to 25,000 to 35,000 feet where most large B-17 formations fought their war. I suspect mission designers will come up with some exciting missions using the B-26 that way. Large formations being subjective, I guess.   

Edited May 28, 2021 by Rjel

[ShamrockOneFive]

3 hours ago, Cybermat47 said:

GBS cannot currently support aircraft with that many gunner stations.

 

1 hour ago, Vortice said:

Four engines bad.

 

If either of you have quotes from the devs saying that either of these is impossible or unlikely in the current engine, I'd be interested in quoting them myself. Otherwise I think this is an urban legend passed around the community as fact.

 

IMHO, I think an AI B-17 is quite possible. I know the answer is far less sexy than "the engine can't do it" but the bigger issue is project time. The team is busy and building an AI B-17 would be time consuming. Not quite as much as making a flyable version of it but still time consuming. I think they chose the B-25 in the last project and the B-26 in the current project because there was a greater possibility of either or both becoming flyable. Strategic planning with a payoff that may take years to work its way through.

 

We'll see what 1CGS gets up to into next year as Normandy comes to a conclusion.

[busdriver]

15 minutes ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

Otherwise I think this is an urban legend passed around the community as fact.

I submit that the widely reported issue of Time Dilation and the corollary of the inability to accelerate time in missions with lots of active AI units is not urban legend. Rather it seems to be related to single thread CPU processing limitations, which seems to be related to the game engine. At least that’s been my experience with 3 different PCs I’ve owned.

 

 

[ShamrockOneFive]

5 minutes ago, busdriver said:

I submit that the widely reported issue of Time Dilation and the corollary of the inability to accelerate time in missions with lots of active AI units is not urban legend. Rather it seems to be related to single thread CPU processing limitations, which seems to be related to the game engine. At least that’s been my experience with 3 different PCs I’ve owned.

 

Now that part makes sense. I've tested some missions for a few mission designers with too many AI elements at a time and that definitely causes the whole thing to bog down. Worse if you're trying to record a track of it.

 

I also think that if 1CGS were to tackle a B-17 that we may see the individual gunner brains get reduced to a smaller number with gunners positions grouped. To prevent performance issues like that. DCS suffers from this too with large B-17 formations.

[Feathered_IV]

15 minutes ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

I also think that if 1CGS were to tackle a B-17 that we may see the individual gunner brains get reduced to a smaller number with gunners positions grouped.

 

That was how Oleg Maddox said they managed it.  Each aircraft had one gunner that warped between gun positions.  That way they supported large formations of Fw-200s, B-17s and B-29s etc.

[Avimimus]

20 minutes ago, Feathered_IV said:

That was how Oleg Maddox said they managed it.  Each aircraft had one gunner that warped between gun positions.  That way they supported large formations of Fw-200s, B-17s and B-29s etc.

 

Huh! Fascinating! Thanks for sharing that.

 

I wonder what attacking a formation would be like with two gunners per plane? Anyway, for purposes of historical accuracy one needs to have 24-36 B-17 engaged simultaneously... their formations were tight enough that the number of aircraft within range of an attacker would be an entire sub-formation (and they were that large/dense). With the B-24 one can get away with a slightly smaller formation... the same goes if one stops modelling the B-17 sometime in 1943 (as the first dozen or so raids had smaller formations).

 

I agree that a Fw-200 or Coastal Commander operating by itself (or in pairs) isn't as big of an issue. Similarly a Lancaster could have as few as one gunner (i.e. they sometimes deleted the front and mid-upper positions) and flew in looser formations... same goes for the Halifax and Wellington. So those could be modelled. The Wellington was used in daylight raids... the Lancaster had a handful of daylight raids prior to 1945 (including a daring 12 aircraft raid in daylight) before doing a lot of daylight raids once the Luftwaffe had crumbled.

 

There are quite a few interesting tactical aircraft, fighters and support aircraft missing from our current theatres though... (Pe-3, A-20G-1, Fi-156, Fw-189, IAR-81, I-153, additional LaGG variants, Mustang Mk1, Ju-87D-5, Il-4 or SB-2, Do-217E, Ju-188 spring to mind... and there are a bunch missing that would be suitable if there was a 1944/1945 eastern European scenario for them... Yak-3, Yak-9 late, La-7, Tu-2, Fw-190A9, Bf-109G10, additional P-39 variants and possibly the P-63).

[Jason_Williams]

6 hours ago, Cybermat47 said:

GBS cannot currently support aircraft with that many gunner stations.

 

If one more person says this fallacy I will ban them from the forum permanently. We will make 4 engine bombers when I have the personnel and resources to do it. EVERY flight sim has a limit as to how many aircraft, of any size that can be put in the sky at once. 

 

Jason