Why aircraft should drop their weapons from greater heights (dive bombers) and distances (torpedo bombers)

[zaigre777]

Isnt it more befiting of a war game, to properly try to setup your attack to ensure hits (like was done in RL).There was a reason behind their tactics (like dive bombers couldnt endure G forces needed to get out of a dive from a mere 200m,or torpedo bombers being slow and vulnerable didnt want to fly to withing spiting distance of target.

Or is it more fun to just press V and watch laser guided bombs and torpedoes droped from 100m of target.

[hansolosdog]

+1

[Zuul]

So.....yeah.

Just as an FYI, standard Japanese dive bomb training was to pull out of their dives at about 150m.

For torpedoes, you’ll first have to ask the devs to give air dropped torpedoes longer range before asking them to increase the drop distance. Think the US dropped torpedoes run out of gas in less than 2000m, probably less than 1500. Noticed it when trying to manually strike a ship with a disabled engine from safe distance.

[zaigre777]

Originally posted by Zuul:

So.....yeah.

Just as an FYI, standard Japanese dive bomb training was to pull out of their dives at about 150m.

What does that mean...that they dropped bombs form 150m?Idk maybe they did....they still have too high accuracy for their shallower dives,american and german dive bombers which made steeper dives,drooped bombs from about 400m

[Zuul]

Originally posted by zaigre777:

What does that mean...that they dropped bombs form 150m?Idk maybe they did....they still have too high accuracy for their shallower dives,american and german dive bombers which made steeper dives,drooped bombs from about 400m

They dropped at....400m actually. You don't pull out when you release though (oh god, phrasing). For your actual egress window you weren't "pulling out" of your dive until around 150 meters. Same for US dive bombers incidentally.

US Dauntless aimed for around 1500 feet for release altitude against naval targets. Just fired the game up and paid a damn eagle eye to the release altitude. The Dauntless appears to be releasing their ordnance at around 1300 feet (so we're quibbling over a 200 foot difference), and pulling out at just over 800 (!!!) feet. In other words, they're dropping around 200 feet lower than they should, and pulling out over 300 feet sooner. If anything we should be ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ they're exiting the dive too soon.

Even then, that altitude isn't a given, as the US made confirmed drops on target from as little as 300 feet during Midway. It's really important for people to understand when looking up information on dive bombing that the standards for attacking ground targets are WAAAAAY different than what was used against naval targets. Effectively attacking naval targets was dangerous work because of just how low you had to get, the US lost nearly 40% of the Dauntless's sent during the Battle of Midway as an example.

Here's an excerpt from a research paper for you.

"Once the bomb was released, the aviator pulled out of his dive, a maneuver that might leave him struggling to breathe as he experienced as much as six times the force of gravity. These stresses were considerable and dive bombers were built to handle them, but pilots could be rendered briefly unconscious by the forces.

If everything went well, the bomber would level off at around 500 feet and the pilot would start jinking rapidly to avoid anti-aircraft fire from enemy ships and defending fighters.

This, of course, was the primary drawback to dive bombing. Pointing your plane at an enemy ship and diving as close as possible before releasing your weapon sounded good in theory and was accurate in practice. But finishing your bombing run directly over your target at 500 feet altitude was insanely dangerous. Shipboard gunners probably couldn’t hit you as you flashed by, just above their masts. But your escape would leave you in antiaircraft range for a long time, and at an altitude of 500 feet you would have little room to maneuver if attacked from above by enemy fighters."

Edit: As far as Japanese accuracy being too high, while this would be true in the latter parts of the war when the pilot pool was severely depleted....

During earlier parts of the war, Japanese dive bomber pilots were ludicrously accurate. When they went after the Royal Navy in the Indian Ocean during early '42 their Val's had an over 80% hit rate with their munitions.

Second edit, because why not be really damn thorough: In 1944 the US performed a study on data about dive bombing accuracy against land targets. The study looked at munitions dropped at 3,000 feet and munitions dropped at 1,700 feet and determined the loss in accuracy by increasing drop altitude to 3,000 feet was extremely minor against static targets and so increased drop altitude.

The take away for us here, is that the US was dropping bombs from 1,700 feet at one point during the war...against immobile ground targets. Now imagine what they were doing against things that actually moved at a pretty good clip.

[zaigre777]

Originally posted by Zuul:

During earlier parts of the war, Japanese dive bomber pilots were ludicrously accurate. When they went after the Royal Navy in the Indian Ocean during early '42 their Val's had an over 80% hit rate with their munitions.

Everybody brings the attack on those 2 cruisers but nobody brings in multiple examples of midway and coral sea,and later battles where there would be two dozen dive bombers and only a couple of hits.As for single acounts at midway...yes,but thats single acounts.Look at guy who dropped bombs at Hyriu he dropped from 1500ft.And probably the mayority of other dive bombers.

Whatever the case,the dive bombers ingame are too acurate...you send 10 divebombers at a target there is a pretty good chance 8-9 will hit the mark.Thats too acurate for ww2 dive bomber standards.
Edit:Also crazy acurate formations like lineahead at 50m are easily utilised by divebomers,even more there are no colisions modeled so,better yet dont even use a formation

[zaigre777]

Yorktowns 24 dive bombers hit the Shokaku twice

[zaigre777]

14 Shokakus dive bombers against Yorktown.1 hit 12 near misses (so much for kido butai 80% accuracy)

[zaigre777]

19 Shokaku dive bombers against Lexintgon (huge target).2 hits,several near misses

[zaigre777]

MIdway 18 japanese dive bombers vs Yorktown (3 hits)

[zaigre777]

2 squadrons of dive bombers vs Kaga (small target) 4 hits

[zaigre777]

Yorktown 17 divebombers vs Soryu 3 hits

[zaigre777]

24 divebombers against Hyriu 5 hits

[zaigre777]

18 dive bombers vs Enterprise (E solomons) 3 hits

[Zuul]

Please, for the love of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ god, learn to use the edit button. You do not need 9 single sentence (are you serious?) posts to attempt to refute a single post script point which constituted less than 10% of my post addressing your supposed issues with release altitudes.

That being said, your complaint then is NOT an issue with altitude release or anything you actually called out in your OP, as the game is damn near 100% accurate to actual historical norms on release altitudes and return to level flight in naval combat.

Rather, you would prefer accuracy in general to be nerfed. Next time just make a post asking for the bomb release to have a larger scatter.

Edit: Another optional request you could throw out would be to ask the developers to double the altitude ceiling for planes and triple the dive start altitude. That's where we are a "historical" train wreck.

Also, you should use apples to apples comparisons. Accuracy during Midway was in general a train wreck because there were fighters present. The Indian Ocean raid is what they could do when they are NOT being harassed by opfor fighters. Which, unfortunately, is what we often have in this game because the AI rarely runs CAP.

It also wasn't just an attack on those two cruisers in the Indian Ocean, there was also the attack on Hermes and Vampire. Hermes was attacked by 45 Val's and received 40 direct or extremely close strikes. Vampire was attacked by 16 Val's and received....16...direct or extremely close strikes, and Vampire was a damn destroyer. While I can't give exact numbers for the rest, we also know in that same strike that another 24 Val's continued north and sunk the Athelstone, Hollyhock, SS British Sergeant, and Norviken. Without air cover the Japanese were extremely capable of putting bombs on target.

[zaigre777]

Originally posted by Zuul:

Please, for the love of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ god, learn to use the edit button. You do not need 9 single sentence (are you serious?) posts to attempt to refute a single post script point which constituted less than 10% of my post addressing your supposed issues with release altitudes.

That being said, your complaint then is NOT an issue with altitude release or anything you actually called out in your OP, as the game is damn near 100% accurate to actual historical norms on release altitudes and return to level flight in naval combat.

Rather, you would prefer accuracy in general to be nerfed. Next time just make a post asking for the bomb release to have a larger scatter.

Edit: Another optional request you could throw out would be to ask the developers to double the altitude ceiling for planes and triple the dive start altitude. That's where we are a "historical" train wreck.

Also, you should use apples to apples comparisons. Accuracy during Midway was in general a train wreck because there were fighters present. The Indian Ocean raid is what they could do when they are NOT being harassed by opfor fighters. Which, unfortunately, is what we often have in this game because the AI rarely runs CAP.

It also wasn't just an attack on those two cruisers in the Indian Ocean, there was also the attack on Hermes and Vampire. Hermes was attacked by 45 Val's and received 40 direct or extremely close strikes. Vampire was attacked by 16 Val's and received....16...direct or extremely close strikes, and Vampire was a damn destroyer. While I can't give exact numbers for the rest, we also know in that same strike that another 24 Val's continued north and sunk the Athelstone, Hollyhock, SS British Sergeant, and Norviken. Without air cover the Japanese were extremely capable of putting bombs on target.

How about the more flak there is the sooner the planes break and release ordenance.

Thats what happened with attack on Lexington.
1.st group of dive bombers was under heavy flak and made no hits,but second group found an opening and scored hits.

This is what i would probably like to see most of all