Flying and Skip Bombing the Blenheim on Cockpit Instruments

[ATAG_knuckles]

Moogy Dutch and I worked on that

(and I'll let Dutch answer this of course)

We halted any progress of high altitude bombing as the way the Blenheim is modeled, its impossible to see the target to get lined up. The instrument panel is in the way in the. pilots position. The bomb aimers panel is in the way in front.

We figuered why spend 15-20 minutes climbing and get very poor results, when low level is safer and more accurate

(Sorry for stealing your post Dutch was I was here anyway) ???

Knucks

[ATAG_Dutch]

Originally Posted by Moggy

Dutch, please consider making a Blenheim bombing video where you have to cruise at say 10,000 ft. I think it'd help with those (like my good self) struggling with carb heat, cruise settings etc.

Hi Moggs. What Knucks says is just so. I made a short vid in the Level Bombing thread here;

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthr...t=28667&page=6

Level bombing from 6000ft, entering IAS into the sight, not TAS. Entering TAS fell way short. Bit of a game issue going on there.

But if you mean a vid simply for engine management at altitude, it's a bit of a strange one. I've always thought of carb heat as either on or off, but only recently someone mentioned that it's variable. I've yet to test this theory out for the reasons Knuckles says.

But for ref, I climb at +4 boost, cowl flaps 1/3 open (visually that is, it's about 35-40% in the digital readout), never touch mixture from the 'lined up with the mark on the quadrant' setting (I don't think it works anymore anyway since last official patch), engage carb heat @ 4500ft.
Now comes the strange bit. As you gain altitude your engines start to rattle, even with temps in range, and the only cure I've found so far is to gradually back off the throttle, which is opposite to what I'd expect. keep on climbing and 10,000ft is easy, but by the time you get there, you're at about +1 boost or so. Keep your temps in range and it's not a problem, but backing off the throttle seems weird. Maybe I'm missing something here, and it may be the variable carb heat.

Now I'm going to have to go and try it out. Thanks for the prod!

Edit: My previous carb heat on/off setup gave either zero or 100% carb heat. With it now set to variable, you can gradually increase it from 4500ft upwards, but it actually makes no difference, so on or off is better in terms of workload.

Again, the engines started to rattle at about 7500-8000ft, so I pulled back slightly on the throttle until it stopped. A few hundred feet later it rattles, so back off a bit more. Eventually at 10000ft I was at 50% throttle and +1 boost, but cruising along happily at 150mph IAS.

I can confirm again that mixture setting does not function at all at the moment, and because mixture setting must be fixed, probably explains the need to back off throttle. Perhaps the mixture is fixed at too rich a setting for these altitudes. Here are some screenshots of settings at 10000ft. I included the digital readouts for those that use them, and you'll see that some shots say mixture 32%, some 93%. This is to show that mixture makes no difference.

[ATAG_Dutch]

And some more;

[Moggy]

Dutch, I don't know where to begin but you guys are stars. I only asked because I was having trouble with what I can only describe as engine surging once I pass through 5,000 ft-ish and Iseem to remember a conversation about carb heating at around that height. I'll have to start practicing again with the Blenheim. On a semi related note a few TP'ers have been enjoying themselves on the ATAG server in recent weeks, great fun.

[HTuna]

Originally Posted by ATAG_knuckles

Tuna,

I'm still laughing: if you remember you typed in that you wanted an escort. I was on my way to littlestone and saw you way south of the point at Dungness, you seemed to correct and turned north. At that point I though you were going for the 88s at Oyle Plage. I lost sight of you around Dover, I asumed you turned East. As I came back to Hawkage I observed a ship blow up, and a glimpse of what I though was an JU-88 . I attacked. just as I squeezed a few rounds I noticed the roundels.

BTW very good approach and bomb run: and you got credit for the ship

Next time your on comms lets do course setter 101 !!
Trust me I have done worse. I wont clutter up the page here with stories Haaaa

Knuckles

LOL.. I had actually been doing ok with setting the compass and Gyro and making it to the German ships the nights before (when I wasn't stranded on Littlestone getting repeatedly straffed). But last night, I was attempting to do a course a lil further South, to try and get away from the fighters, and I ended up turning too much.. think I gave up and started trying for 'sight'.. must've seen the Cliffs and thought it was France.. I did think things looked strange and thought the ships seemed in a 'new' different place.. Guess I should've tried to look at the flags!!!.. Next run Snarglepuss and I went out on a run, and he had forgot to change off the 1 second fuse, so he only got to drop one bomb that run.. and me, unlike my 3 kills against our ships.. I only sunk 1 with my 4 bombs...

But all and all, it was a lot of fun.. I love this game, and love the server! Had a really fun run with Snargle up the river a few nights ago, it's great that there are so many people that want to help others!..

Now if only I could find some Fighter escort on those rough nights!!.. Tried the Spit II after getting shot down on the field so many times two nights ago, but I am really bad with getting the speed up and such, so for now will stick to the Blenheim.

[Redroach]

Regarding the OP's videos:
1) Is one 250lb bomb sufficient to actually sink such a tanker?
2) Without having CoD open to check: Is single-bomb-drop-mode the default? or is it some special key, as opposed to salvo drop?
I've always been under the impression that I suffer the "bombs non-existent" bug/error, because I couldn't make out any bomb impact/damage after dropping (yes, bomb doors were open), but it may be that I only threw a single bomb and I missed that somehow...

[ATAG_Dutch]

Hiya Redroach.

Yes one 250lb bomb is enough. I try to aim for the part of the hull where the funnel is. Seems reasonable to aim for the engine room!

As to bomb drop, it's been a long time since I set up my controls, so I can't say if it's default or not, but I have a button set to drop individually.

One thing I have noticed though is that the loadout can sometimes default to 2 x 500lb if you don't check before take-off, which sometimes leads to confusion.

Meantime, with the new patch, the flying aspects of these vids are out of date, but I'm not going to change them until I know that the FM is finalised.

Cheers!

[Redroach]

hey, thanks for your quick answers!
Found out about that second part: you can switch between bomb patterns in the Blen - single or salvo. There is a switch in the Bombardier's position which I use but I think there's a key assignment possible for that, too.

But now the sad part: After being shot down rather quickly this morning while going to our target on ATAG (L5.3 afair) the direct rout, I set up an elaborate great-circle route for the purpose of coming from another direction.
Arriving at Dieppe ( ), turning east there and turning north after an arbitrary distance inlands (at some waterway ^^ ) , I actually made it to the target! Yay! With some corrections when double-checking with landmarks, but still... Yay! Only to find out that my bombs still won't explode, as others have reported here . Damn, I got CoD since release, got angry about a lot of things but I have yet to get a bomb on the ground that is actually dangerous...
Now, I tried everything that's been suggested in that other thread. I set up my own armament profiles on every level (4x250s), and tried the No.27 and No.28 MkII pistols/fuzes so far (level bombing, that I'll try). I try to arm bombs (though it doesn't seem to be necessary with what I've tested), open bomb bays of course, but... still nothing.
I dropped them directly after spawning, while still on the ground, generating a lot of dust - so the bombs DO actually exist. Furthermore, I've just bombed my own airfield on ATAG and I could make out four little craters afterwards, as if the bombs just buried themselves in the ground. Still, no explosion, no smoke.
What am I doing wrong? This starts to get not awesome... especially after 1,5h flight time, as described above.

P.S.:What I didn't test is 11s fuze delay resp. the longest delay available. Maybe it's that? Anyways, I'd strongly prefer instant fuzes!

[ATAG_Dutch]

That sounds very strange.

I always use the 'ever ready' fuses, with 11sec delay for skip bombing and 1sec delay for land targets. If you've got the graphic effects settings turned down this might not show an explosion in the new patch, but I haven't tried this on low settings.

Basically, if you've got bombs in there and you drop them, you should blow things up quite easily.

I always press a 'arm bombs' command as a matter of course, although this shouldn't be necessary with the Brit bombs, again unless it's changed with the patch.

I haven't done much flying of the Blen since the patch. Well, I haven't done much flying............

[ATAG_knuckles]

Roach: dont get discouaged, we have all had the :do I really have bombs" issue. I have been back flying the Blenheim the last few day as I have myself have found some new "Patch" Issues. Look for me in Coms and give me a holler. The best way to track down that " my bombs dont explode is to fly together.

I'll be looking for you as well

We will get this worked out, and we are ALWAYS looking for more Blenheim pilots. Trust me is really a hoot when you can get say four or more to go on bomb runs