“Defending" in an A20

[=WBR=_Mackar]

Is there anyway to make an A20 more defendable against a fighter attack? Usually if a fighter spots you that’s it. What I have currently been doing is just commanding the gunners to fire at long range/short range etc but that doesn’t seem to work at all. So, am I better off just levelling the AC then jumping into a gunners seat myself, or is it just a waste of time and dodging and weaving is my only hope?

Edited December 11, 2023 by =WBR=_Mackar
wording

[BlitzPig_EL]

Is this in multiplayer or single player?

 

In multiplayer, get an escort.  In single... bail.

[=WBR=_Mackar]

14 minutes ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

Is this in multiplayer or single player?

 

In multiplayer, get an escort.  In single... bail.

Multiplayer. 

[BlitzPig_EL]

I'll be honest, I have not flown on one of the big online servers in a very long time, but what I do know is that if you are in a bomber and flying alone and survive you are either very, very good, or lucky.  A single bomber is a lamb amongst the wolves.  The AI gunner in an A20 only has a single pop gun and he typically shoots like a drunk.  Try to fly with a group if you can, or be really sneaky about it.

[=WBR=_Mackar]

1 hour ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

I'll be honest, I have not flown on one of the big online servers in a very long time, but what I do know is that if you are in a bomber and flying alone and survive you are either very, very good, or lucky.  A single bomber is a lamb amongst the wolves.  The AI gunner in an A20 only has a single pop gun and he typically shoots like a drunk.  Try to fly with a group if you can, or be really sneaky about it.

 

Yep, I’ve come to the same conclusion and the gunners do drink too much Vodka. 

[Charon]

Something's definitely up with the gunners. Some of them shoot reasonably accurately (Bf 110, Me 410) and some of them, A-20 included, wobble wildly and spray fire nowhere near their target.

[JG4_Moltke1871]

27 minutes ago, Charon said:

Something's definitely up with the gunners. Some of them shoot reasonably accurately (Bf 110, Me 410) and some of them, A-20 included, wobble wildly and spray fire nowhere near their target.

Can confirm that. In most planes the gunners are useless weight and unable to defend.

In a few planes they work better.

[jollyjack]

Ai gunner talk? I tested a large flight of B25 bombers, their gunners also seem not very accurate and keep shooting even when the whole plane is on fire.

You'll need the Dora, Rheinland and Normandy: https://www.mediafire.com/file/7ng1jt64tp1rkdi/%2BSave_Dusseldorf_v3.zip/file

[sevenless]

Well, also in real life it was like that. If you don't have fighter cover you're toast. Remember Schweinfurt 08/43 and 2nd Schweinfurt 10/43? USAAF needed some serious beating before they realized that bomber self defense against enemy fighters without escort cover doesn't work out.

[Barnacles]

12 hours ago, =WBR=_Mackar said:

Is there anyway to make an A20 more defendable against a fighter attack? Usually if a fighter spots you that’s it. What I have currently been doing is just commanding the gunners to fire at long range/short range etc but that doesn’t seem to work at all. So, am I better off just levelling the AC then jumping into a gunners seat myself, or is it just a waste of time and dodging and weaving is my only hope?

The best way to make it more defendable in multiplayer is to lower its weight by a few tonnes, maybe lose one of the engines, reduce the crew to 1, increase its top speed by 100mph and give it decent forward firing armament. Oh and check your six religiously whilst mastering BFM. 

[Lusekofte]

2 hours ago, sevenless said:

Well, also in real life it was like that. If you don't have fighter cover you're toast. Remember Schweinfurt 08/43 and 2nd Schweinfurt 10/43? USAAF needed some serious beating before they realized that bomber self defense against enemy fighters without escort cover doesn't work out.

No it was not like that in real life

It was a point for any fighter pilot not to park in front of a gunner within range 

But in this game you can. Bombers are fat slow confidence builders for wannabe fighter jockeys. Do not fly them online if there is not a plan coming with it. 
HS 129 on the other hand is a treat for occasional boost. Overconfident fighters has more than once gotten their tail shot off climbing away

[LukeFF]

@Lusekofte, I am going to have to respectfully disagree. Before the P-51s started showing up, the Luftwaffe knew all they had to do was to wait for the P-47 escorts to turn back, because all the 0.50 cal guns in the world were insufficient to stop a determined and coordinated fighter attack - and in the fall of 1943 the Luftwaffe still had plenty of pilots who knew what they were doing. 

[Lusekofte]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

@Lusekofte, I am going to have to respectfully disagree. Before the P-51s started showing up, the Luftwaffe knew all they had to do was to wait for the P-47 escorts to turn back, because all the 0.50 cal guns in the world were insufficient to stop a determined and coordinated fighter attack - and in the fall of 1943 the Luftwaffe still had plenty of pilots who knew what they were doing. 

Yes I know all that. But box formation damaged almost 80 % of fighters in several of 43 air turmoil. By damage I mean they were hit. Several books I read about that the fighter pilots described it as flying through a shower. Albeit in this time zerstoerers heydays and big gun won. It did not mean lack of respect for the gunners.  You simply did not park in front of the gunners. You went in and got out. Gunners in this game cannot be explained as realistic PERIOD. 
B 26 in this game is flying zippos with no effect from gunners. B 25 is a bit more robust but absolutely not dangerous to stay close. 
A 20 is harmless. Rubbish gunner with rubbish gun with too small ammo boxes. Except from 410. All aircrew is basically dead weight. They do not even bother to warn you. I always found the balance within the game gave a historical outcome. But in this game. Bombers just might as well be ai all of them. We are a bunch of friends flying coop, before bombers and attackers   Now it is only fighters and we do it once every other month. Before twice a week. 

Edited December 11, 2023 by Lusekofte

[JG7_RudeRaptor]

17 hours ago, Charon said:

Something's definitely up with the gunners. Some of them shoot reasonably accurately (Bf 110, Me 410) and some of them, A-20 included, wobble wildly and spray fire nowhere near their target.

That is the same for JU88

 

 

23 hours ago, =WBR=_Mackar said:

Is there anyway to make an A20 more defendable against a fighter attack? Usually if a fighter spots you that’s it. What I have currently been doing is just commanding the gunners to fire at long range/short range etc but that doesn’t seem to work at all. So, am I better off just levelling the AC then jumping into a gunners seat myself, or is it just a waste of time and dodging and weaving is my only hope?

 

For multi I mapped gunner settings on separate note pad keys. When under attack I hop into gunners seat.

You have a better chance yourself than relying on AI. 

[=WBR=_Mackar]

1 hour ago, JG7_RudeRaptor said:

That is the same for JU88

 

 

 

For multi I mapped gunner settings on separate note pad keys. When under attack I hop into gunners seat.

You have a better chance yourself than relying on AI. 

Yes, I think I’lll do that too…can’t do any worse than an AI gunner. Do you ever get a kill?

Edited December 11, 2023 by =WBR=_Mackar
wording

[Bilbo_Baggins]

Flying a Bf110 I used to have some good results manning the rear gun and flying at the same time; that was however against Hurricane and Spitfire MK1 machines on CLOD.

 

You could give it a try on the A20 but the problem is everything you'll be up against is armed with 20mm cannons so the odds will be well against you. If you are flying the machine solo by yourself then best you can hope for I'd say is a very lucky shot into the attacker's front canopy. Give it a try, could be fun!

Edited December 12, 2023 by Bilbo_Baggins

[Lusekofte]

2 hours ago, =WBR=_Mackar said:

Yes, I think I’lll do that too…can’t do any worse than an AI gunner. Do you ever get a kill?

I been gunner for a mate in coop a lot of time. There is simply not enough bullets in each magazine to harm a fighter front. And your tail fin is almost always in the way. 
I never been successful in a A 20. And this is probably realistic with that gun. AI fighters zoom in and away they go. What I talk about is overconfident pilots in mt. They you can give a surprise by manning it yourself. But the outcome will be the same 30 mm beat that gun. 
Il 2 is another story. Operate it yourself at low altitude and it is dangerous. 

Edited December 12, 2023 by Lusekofte

[R33GZ]

6 hours ago, Lusekofte said:

A 20 is harmless. Rubbish gunner with rubbish gun

Doesn't the A-20B have a 0.50 as the upper defensive gun? And the lower gun was supposed to be more of a scare gun.... 0.30 with 100% tracer 

[Lusekofte]

5 minutes ago, R33GZ said:

Doesn't the A-20B have a 0.50 as the upper defensive gun? And the lower gun was supposed to be more of a scare gun.... 0.30 with 100% tracer 

Yes think it is a 12,7 mm but they are not belt fed. 

[BlitzPig_EL]

All M2 .50 Brownings are belt fed.  It's just that the A20 has short belts, like the infantry version of the gun, not like waist gunner in a B 17 that were fed from larger belts.

[Charon]

@LukeFF, I don't think comparing game to historical results is a useful way to analyze this. There are too many variables, and we can't know to what degree gunners were unable to bring down attacking fighters because the job of the aerial gunner is impossibly difficult, and to what degree it was because the attackers took their time and setup for safe attack runs that made life hard for the gunners.

 

But fortunately, we don't need to compare to historical results. We can compare the AI's performance with how a human performs in the same situation.
 

Spoiler

 

Here's a simple test. Two A-20s flying in formation, on autopilot, with a separation that varies between about 170-220m. In the first test, the AI gunner (skill: Ace) in the lead plane tries to shoot down the player. No wind, no turbulence, just the player sitting there fat dumb and happy acting as the easiest target drone they can.

 

I ran five trials. It took a median of 27s (range: 26-58s) from the moment the AI was allowed to fire, to the time it landed its first hit on the player plane. In not one of these trials was the AI able to to bring down the player plane before the planes completed their 3 minute course. The 'Ace' gunner frequently missed the player plane entirely.

 

I then ran five trials of the reverse test, in which the player tries to shoot down the AI. This is a trivial task for a human gunner. This typically took me 10s or less. Not to score my first hits mind you, but 10s to shoot the plane down, which the AI can't do in 3 minutes! In only one trial did I fail to bring him down, and that was because I decided to shoot out the #2 engine instead of the pilot, as an extra challenge. Well, I shot out the engine alright but I didn't set it on fire, and at that point the A-20 dropped behind my tail and I wasn't able to finish it off.

 

The point is that this is an easy, easy, easy shot for a human, even one as unskilled as me, who can pick their target and hit it at will. And yet the 'Ace' AI can't even score consistent hits on a large plane under these conditions. The AI A-20 dorsal gunner is under-performing a human by a staggering margin.

 

I'm attaching representative tracks, as well as the mission files themselves so that others can test this if they'd like. Just launch the missions, turn on autopilot immediately, and then hop in the gunner's seat and see if you can outperform the AI: I'll wager that every single one of you can do so, even if you've never tried your hand as a gunner before.

 

----

 

Aside from the realism aspect, I also want to emphasize just how bad this is from a gameplay perspective.

 

I mostly fly fighters in co-op, and I hate when my group encounters bombers, because I know it's just going to be boring. What I want is scenarios that challenge my skill. I want to attack bombers from head on or from abeam, zooming in from awkward angles to make the job of the gunners hard. If I'm so careless as to present the gunners with an easy shot, I deserve to be shot down.

 

But instead, it mostly doesn't matter how you attack bombers. Maybe there are a few bomber positions that outperform, I don't know. But we all attack from dead six because that's the fastest and easiest way to shoot them down, and the gunners are so ineffective that we don't get punished for this. It's boring. Sure, sometimes somebody gets shot, but the gunners are so random that we sometimes get shot in the high-aspect passes too. The wild firing of gunners makes their success feel essentially random, and removes player skill (other than "accurately shoot a target from it's dead six") from the equation.

a20-duels.zip a20-gunner-duels.zip

[Charon]

And also, let's not forget that all defensive guns inexplicably overheat (and start keyholing and jamming) several times faster than their corresponding fixed guns.

[=WBR=_Mackar]

Thanks for going into this issue so extensively Charon. Your findings are very significant. Clearly if an A20 is to have any chance (albeit minimal) of surviving a fighter attack, then the gunners need to be human. Up until now in multiplayer I have simply commanding the Ai gunners to fire and then try and dodge and weave the AC. This has rarely if ever worked, unless I have friendly fighters in play. Obviously, I am better off levelling and jumping into a gunner position and try to take out the fighter, unlikely as this will occur. The only task I can see in the Ai gunners being of value is the pre-attack alert they provide, e.g “He’s engaging”. Other than that the Ai gunners are simply confetti sprayers. 

Edited December 14, 2023 by =WBR=_Mackar
wording

[Charon]

Angle-off seems to be by far the biggest factor affecting gunnery.
 

Spoiler

 

So in this video, for example... the gunner actually lands one small hit on me just before the start of the video, at about 650m. If I were in the gunner's seat I very much doubt I could score a hit at that range, and it's only possible because I'm almost directly behind him.

 

But once I get just a small angle off to the side it's almost impossible for the gunner to hit. Some percentage of the time he's going to get lucky and kill me (he does have a .50 after all), but realistically there's no chance of him stopping me from getting as close as I want.

 

And then of course when I drop below him, the ventral gunner is swift and accurate, because I'm now directly behind him and his gun is cold. He still can't stop me from shooting him down, but he's at least able to do some damage.

 

----

 

Honestly, my advice for bombers in multiplayer is... don't. Gunners used to work okay enough, prior to about 4.6 or so. Not perfect but at least they did something. But they've been broken for well over a year, even despite top-billing in FC vol II. Bombers are really only fit as targets and as eye-candy at the moment.

gunnerduel-a20-stern-chase.2023-12-13_18-32-28_00.zip

[Lusekofte]

13 hours ago, =WBR=_Mackar said:

then the gunners need to be human

I beg to differ. You will teach them to do proper attacks. Making an effort for the kill and not just park behind the bomber. 
All I want the developers to admit is the failure of ai in general and in special the gunner ai. Combine that with a 30 mm parked straight in your six it is damn useless to fly. 
This is my main reason for not bothering anymore. They simply will not improve the gunner ai. 

[JG7_RudeRaptor]

On 12/11/2023 at 5:10 PM, =WBR=_Mackar said:

Yes, I think I’lll do that too…can’t do any worse than an AI gunner. Do you ever get a kill?

Yea a few but was very lucky. If they BnZ you chances are super slim. Its the guys that like to camp on your six that you will have a good chance.

Just aim for cockpit if possible. 

[blitze]

On 12/16/2023 at 10:41 AM, JG7_RudeRaptor said:

Yea a few but was very lucky. If they BnZ you chances are super slim. Its the guys that like to camp on your six that you will have a good chance.

Just aim for cockpit if possible. 

Cockpit or engine.

 

Comparing AI gunners in QMB with a human computer player gunner is not quite where it's at.  Same as the discussions once up on a time about pilot physiology modelling - what stressed young men did in the day compared to us arm chair Sim Vets is horses for courses and not comparable.  In Career mode, if you park behind a bomber, most likely you'll take damage and then there are the escorts.  Now earlier the Pe2 rear gunners were pilot snipers but they have been toned down since then. 

 

Unfortunately we don't get the Bomber numbers in sim like what was in the day and as a result, bomber defensive tactics are not realized very well.  One day but still as noted, heavily armed 190's are going to chew up an un escorted bomber formation.  On the flip side, the Allies in the West post Battle of Britain didn't run up against large bomber formations and even in the East they were winding down on the German side after the mid part of the war - as far as I recall.