Heavy Bombers

[Nova]

ok so the game seems to have an option to view every nations heavy bombers but heavy bombers dont seem to exist at all, is this simply a feature that we should expect in the future or is it possible to actually build any yet, i have yet to see one though at all

[Andrew Cree]

It's a placeholder that was added in RtW2 but not yet implemented.

I doubt it will, but the option is there for it to be added in a future update if things change.

[ThatZenoGuy]

Heavy bombers IRL were basically worthless against ships, so they were canned from RtW2

[Andrew Cree]

Pretty much, I think only KMS Tirpitz was sunk by heavy bombers - and that took a lot of effort to achieve.

Though once the guided ASM was invented, they were significantly more effective.

[m4rek]

Did see some used as maritime patrol aircraft though, guess due to the endurance and capacity, but since we can just request PBs it doesn't really matter much. They'd be a bit more useful against land installations, but we can't even use medium bombers against them so maybe we could be granted more control over naval aviation first, and then we can see of heavy bombers are worth adding.

[jbwjr]

引用自 m4rek：

Did see some used as maritime patrol aircraft though, guess due to the endurance and capacity, but since we can just request PBs it doesn't really matter much. They'd be a bit more useful against land installations, but we can't even use medium bombers against them so maybe we could be granted more control over naval aviation first, and then we can see of heavy bombers are worth adding.

Id imagine that would be the point of heavy bombers, Taking out enemy land installations from LOOOOOONG Distances. Medium bombers have pretty long range, but even they have their limits to how far they can go.

[Mobzonk]

B29s were probably the most effective anti-ship aircraft of WW2. They sunk or damaged 670 ships for the loss of 15 planes. Lancasters and Stirlings also proved effective though they took more losses.

[Andrew Cree]

Indirectly, by dropping mines and not directly by dropping bombs, launching torpedoes or firing rockets.

Dive bombers were ok at inflicting damage against unarmoured targets, Torpedo bombers could sink anything and even rocket attacks had their successes.

High altitude bombing of the sort practised by heavy bombers was completely ineffective. Medium bombers attacking at low altitude using Skip and Mast-Top bombing techniques were the successes here.

[ThatZenoGuy]

引用自 Mobzonk：

B29s were probably the most effective anti-ship aircraft of WW2. They sunk or damaged 670 ships for the loss of 15 planes. Lancasters and Stirlings also proved effective though they took more losses.

Lmao what? There's no chance in hell you could hit a mobile ship in a B29.
They blew up ships in harbor, which aren't even modelled ingame.

[josmith]

For naval purposes there is little to distinguish a heavy bomber from a medium bomber, other than range. In RTW3 the ranges assigned to late game medium bombers would likely put some of them into the heavy bomber category. I would argue that heavy bombers are already represented in RTW3, though they appear in the guise of medium bombers. By the mid 1940s it is likely that the PB planes in RTW3 actually represent a fair number of heavy bombers converted to recon and maritime patrol duties. These would be similar to the PB4Y-2 Privateer (a naval version of the Liberator), which was used as a very effective patrol and ASW platform. Liberators were also used very effectively by the British to help close the mid-Atlantic gap. The Germans used their only heavy bomber, the FW 200, in the maritime role and sank over 300,000 tons of allied shipping with it.

Starting in the early 50s, the Soviets deployed a series of heavy bombers for use against naval targets. The Soviet bombers from the 1950s, the Badger and Bear (to use their NATO names) were subsonic but had great range and their large size allowed them to carry the early, fighter sized ASMs developed by that nation. By the early 60s a second generation of heavy maritime bombers came into use, represented by the Blinder and Backfire, both supersonic and equipped with much more capable 2nd-generation ASMs like the Kipper, Kitchen and Kangaroo (again, NATO names). These types of aircraft are presented in the game as medium bombers, but are actually acting as heavy bombers, as most medium bombers would not have been capable of carrying the early heavy ASMs used in the game.

The nomenclature used in the game is a bit misleading but since there would be little to distinguish between heavy and medium bombers in the game for maritime purposes, it probably seemed like a redundancy to create a separate category that would operate in an almost identical manner to medium bombers.

[Andrew Cree]

The FW 200 may have been a 4-engined bomber - but with only 2,200lb internal payload I would challenge it's classification as a 'Heavy'.

[josmith]

Fair enough. The FW 200 was a medium bomber in the guise of a heavy. That plane was the same size as a B-17.

[jb.codling]

I always like the design aesthetics of the FW-200, but then again it was designed as a passenger aircraft.
It was the Japanese who requested a military variant for long range search duties but never delivered due to the war in Europe.
The B-17s payload was only double-ish. But that had the benefit of being designed for the military and carried much more armour and a metic-ton of guns to protect itself. Sacrificing bomb load for that.