Oleg Maddox's Room #1

[Monterey]

Thor, is that how it was done IRL? If so, then why have a trained bombardier in each plane? All bombardiers in each flight should know what their target is, and line up and drop accordingly. I think that's what Oleg meant when he said it wasn't done that way. He said "I don't think that waht was done in mentioned above games that it is real thing..."


Correct me if I'm wrong.

[T}{OR]

Originally Posted by Monterey

Thor, is that how it was done IRL? If so, then why have a trained bombardier in each plane? ...

It was the case in WW2. At one point 8th AF changed their tactics so that only lead plane was aiming at the target - rest of the bombardier's observed lead plane and when they saw bombs leave leader's plane they dropped as well. This was done to get tighter bomb patterns and more accuracy.

Now, with B-25s in the MTO there was another tactic used. Only lead plane and his deputy and maybe another one had bombsights. Rest of the planes had their bombsights removed and used this tactic described above.


So yes, it is based on real life tactics.


But I don't know about Luftwaffe, thats why I asked my question - I know only that Loffte BS was very similar and acctualy based upon Norden bombsight.

[HenFre]

Just one quick question:

What amount of polygons does your models contain? For the groundvehicles, buildings and such?
Just a rough estimate..

[Feuerfalke]

No, Thor is right.

It was quite common, that the other planes dropped their bombs when the leader of the formation did. You can see that in the documentary about the Memphis Belle, too (no, not the Hollywood-Movie). That is also visible on a lot of videos taken during bomb-raids. You will mostly see the leaders bombs impact before the bombs from the other planes do.

What you said, Monterey is true, too, though. All other planes had their bombardiers aiming, too, and this was vital for the mission success, because if it turned out there was a malfunction or a last second kill on the lead bombardier or even the whole plane, they could still release their bombs on target.


What Thor didn't say, though: This tactic is usually taken for carpet bombing, which means a large formation drops bomb over a wide area. Taking that into account, the (lead) bombardier of course aimed in front of the actual target, so the mass of bombs dropped right on and around it, massing the destruction around the center of the impact area.

Thor instead describes a "precision" attack, which of course uses different tactics and is usually flown by a line-formation and resulted in a much more concentrated impact-pattern.

[T}{OR]

Originally Posted by Feuerfalke

Thor instead describes a "precision" attack, which of course uses different tactics and is usually flown by a line-formation and resulted in a much more concentrated impact-pattern.

Flying in a line is equal to suicide if you're a bomber. I didn't describe that.

In real life this tactic of observing when leader's bombs fall and then drop on your own works because there is no delay (measured by ping in milisec. in IL2) between the server and the server and the lead bomber and the planes following the leader. When automated bomb release is used in IL2, with server delay and human reaction delay - and when flying online on a public server, coop you name it - this tactic doesn't work - every bomber that isn't the leader, no matter how close they fly will miss the target, and not by a small margin.

Because of this we're forced to use manual bomb release in IL2 - details about this method you can find in my 70 page manual linked below.

With manual release I can tell others to drop a second before I drop to compensate for TS delay, server delay and human reaction delay. With this method not only formation bombing can be effectively used online but it has other benefits - formation does not depend on the lead bomber and his bombsight computer but instead plane designed as deputy can take over anytime as BS angle is calculated easily and fast (usually given over TS to every bomber in case something happens).


Now, back to WW2. Reason why 8th AF switched to this tactic was because not every bomber had a bombardier of a same skill. And so bombs would land all over the place if some squadron had rookie bombardiers. Therefore, to insure tighter bomb patterns the best bombardier was selected to fly in a lead plane and few others to fly in the deputy planes which then used their bombsights but they didn't drop if the lead plane made it to target and was unobstructed on his bomb run.

For these reasons above Luftwaffe planes were regulary targeting the lead bombers. Flak gunners were instructed to do the same - they often even used lead plane as 'targeting point'.

Tail end charlie or lead - your choice.


Thats why formations looked the way they did. Their purpose was to stack different flights at different altitudes for two reasons - to make aiming harder for flak and to enable better defensive cover.

In most cases it looked like this - 4 squadrons came in over the target (squadron equals a dozen (12) planes and usually BG had four squadrons), each on different altitude and with elements inside it on different altitude. Getting the altitude correctly was the toughest part for AAA gunners. Fighters usually communicated with them to get the correct altitude. I could go on....


Please note this were 8th AF tactics. Let's get back to the subject - SoW.