Well, it certainly looks realistic. It is confusing for me too, having to fly the plane and aim the bombs at the same time, but i think having a human bombardier wouldn't do much to improve things. But, i think it's cool, let me explain.
Take into account the typical human reaction time of 1 second, add some milliseconds more for the voice comms transmission and you get the idea. You're flying in multiplayer, you have your buddy guiding you to the target like they did in real life ("left, left, right, steady" etc) while you take care of flying and you are still missing
But this is the whole reason they used formations and carpet bombing in the first place, or devised more sophisticated machinery to equip bombers with
You either fly with an autopilot through the bombsight (like the LW and US bombers did), or you have a guy in a glass nose passing instructions to you.
I think that might be one of the main reasons the RAF was traditionally bombing from lower altitudes. It's much easier to get accurate corrections if one guy does the whole thing, rather than two people who need to attune their reaction timings to each other.
I tried the mission posted by Dutch yesterday night (i was relieved i hadn't forgotten everything
), got into the air fine, engine management was a breeze and i even made a split-S evasion after dropping the eggs at +9 boost, skimming the waves back across the channel at a constant +4.5 boost, temps steady at 190-210 degrees and no engine trouble whatsoever. But i still missed the target by a couple hundred meters.
I came in at 5000 feet, aligned the best i could (read: paused and use ctrl-F2 to locate the target's exact location) and i still had to do a few last moment corrections, which threw off my aim. However, if i had a wingman on my 8 o'clock position, he would have hit squarely on those tanks
I'm not exactly disappointed here, i think it's awesome that we'll have to use just a dash of historical tactics and operational doctrines to be successful. I mean, these crates were not meant for lone-wolfing it like we do and it's good that the sim reflects the limitations if we do: either go low and risk the flak, or go high and risk a miss.
Plus i think i did really well for a first try after such a lengthy absence, didn't blow any engines and got a near miss, so i was all the more excited about the whole thing
I think the trick is to get a few people from the same timezone, get some practice in so that they can all hit within 500m of the target, then get flying in vics of three and go in at 5000ft or so.
By comparison, when i was testing the 111 i made an autopilot assisted run from an altitude of 3km (approx. 10000 feet). Comparing with last night's Blenheim test, i can say that the 111 hits as close as, if not closer than, the Blenheim but at double the altitude. Both of these tests are a "first run" test, i didn't practice before. So, technology does make a difference and if its lacking, different tactics have to be used
I really like the whole "low to medium altitude bombers" vibe and all the dangerous aura with the flak and all, that's why i like the Blenheim. However, i think that if the gyrocompass on the 88 is fixed to enable use of its autopilot i might switch to blue again, as i have a few nifty ideas for that one too: approach the target for a normal, level drop, if engaged by fighters use dive bombing instead and escape like a boss, otherwise stay high and level bomb
I think the only thing we need for the bombers in general (regardless of whether they have autopilots or not) is an "unstable level stabilizer": something that will keep the plane level like it did back in IL2, but not rock solid level, something that is not a gaming contraption/feature but a more refined solution. Imagine level stab, just not on rails like it used to be.
When you would engage it the plane would fly
roughly level, still get shaken up by nearby flak explosions and (best part of all), you would use three keys for left/right/steady commands, with a bit of a built-in delay or "fuzziness" in the motion to simulate a human being doing the piloting.
This way we kill three birds with one stone
1) all bombers can now level bomb with relative ease without having to look for human crew members
2) we simulate a bombardier guiding the pilot to the target, like it used to be
3) the autopilot capable bombers with gyro-stabilized bombsights are still more accurate like they historically were, it's just that the non-AP bombers can also bomb with some ease in-game