ok... who switched my B-17's armour for papier maché?

[Kirill Yudintsev]

BTW
B-17 wasn't very armoured plane, in fact.
It can take lots of damage and even land without 1\3 of wing surface, 2 from 4 engines sometimes and other outstanding things.
But the best armour of it were gunners and that B-17 most times flew in super formations with lots of planes - that means tons of lead from all their gunners.
B-17 usually flew in amounts like 50 to one enemy fighter.

So it was very good plane and very safe as a bomber.

But not more.
Common bomber had 6 flights on enemy territory during WWII (while common fighter had 50 flights, and common attacker -11).
You can find in luftwaffe pilots diaries that it was real challenge - to come close enough to attack B-17 vitals - engines, fuel tanks, pilots. And they selm did it. But when they did it - B-17 became very vulnerable. May be less then other heavy bombers, but enough.
Also Korean war showed even more - B-29 (not B-17 but even greater bombers) were very easy targets for Soviet MiG-15 (their 37mm and 2x23mm cannons are not much better then cannons of world war II) - just because MiG-15 were much faster them fighters of WWII and can get much closer and then get away.

So, even if B-17 in game are not as good as they were in damage they can take (it can be - we didn't test it enough for reasons above) the problem is deeper - game situations are not like '100 B-17 against 16 109'. Not even close to.

PS I've checked it. Yes, you right we have something incorrect in B-17 Damage model. The main thing is that b-17 have to be able to take more damage on wing and tail surfaces.
Vitals (like engines and fuels) seem to be correct.
But inaccuracies are seem to be in 30% range (have to check more). And it is much harder to shoot down B-17 by damaging it surfaces then by destroying it's engines\pilots and so on, even occasionally.
Cannot promise that will be updated in this title update (guess why.