Can't hit ♥♥♥♥ with my tail gunner

[coco the magical]

I'm pretty new to the game, playing mostly air arcade battles at the 2.0 BR range. Im flying the SBD-3 and the other 1.7 BR dive bomber whose name I forget at the moment, but is directly behind it in the research tree in tier 1. The AI gunner seems to miss everything, the best I can hope for is maybe a couple of hits but nothing that would even scare a 1.0 BR biplane. When I take manual control its not much better, I've tried ever form of leading under the sun, tracers etc. but even when they are flying straight at me level I just cant hit them, and even if I do hit them not much happens aside from scraping their paint a little.

What is the point of my tailgunner, exactly? Am I doing something wrong?

[Bu3(SW)]

They nerfed gun accuracy on bombers that is why. It is nerfed to the dirt and made playing some bombers impossible.

[Wolfsmaul-GER]

yea they barely even take shots at enemies, even when directly in line of sight, best thing you can do is try to keep them in gunner line of sight and flee, bombers can be very tanky

[coco the magical]

Originally posted by Wolfsmaul-GER:

yea they barely even take shots at enemies, even when directly in line of sight, best thing you can do is try to keep them in gunner line of sight and flee, bombers can be very tanky

Well, tbh, all the low tier bombers are fairly slow and I usually just explode into a ball of flames when I'm getting shot at. I also don't really have the maneuverability to escape the majority of fighters that come after me in my dauntless, so I usually go for ground targets where that are away from the fighting. Since there normally arent really any bases and I cant just climb high enough to be safe in a dive bomber, and nobody is gonna defend me in a public match, I usually only last around 2 bombing runs.

Originally posted by Abinadi:

They nerfed gun accuracy on bombers that is why. It is nerfed to the dirt and made playing some bombers impossible.

Why did they do this? It seems to me you can just approach from below to escape most tail gunners, why wouldnt they allow bombers to defend themselves when most planes can knock them out of the sky with a good concentrated burst? I like playing bombers, but its frustrating when I just get turned into a fireball anytime someone manages to intercept me. Its also making grinding out the components a little challenging.

[Akagi]

In arcade battles the ai gunners can be potent if you skill the crew high enough. But you can forget counting on your gunners in anything beyond arcade. You'd be better of learning how to control the gunners yourself, because knowing the average War Thunder experience, you're gonna skip to realistic at some ppint eventually

[Suthirak_D42]

Agree
1 tail planes always block gunner sight and it can't shoot anyone on its tail. While multiple gunners planes always aim to nothing instead of the cursor.

[Bu3(SW)]

Originally posted by Akagi:

In arcade battles the ai gunners can be potent if you skill the crew high enough. But you can forget counting on your gunners in anything beyond arcade. You'd be better of learning how to control the gunners yourself, because knowing the average War Thunder experience, you're gonna skip to realistic at some ppint eventually

AI gunners have not been effective in some time. Now you can not even effectively manually use the gunner seat to shoot fighters or interceptors down.

[Bu3(SW)]

Originally posted by Abinadi:

They nerfed gun accuracy on bombers that is why. It is nerfed to the dirt and made playing some bombers impossible.

Why did they do this? It seems to me you can just approach from below to escape most tail gunners, why wouldnt they allow bombers to defend themselves when most planes can knock them out of the sky with a good concentrated burst? I like playing bombers, but its frustrating when I just get turned into a fireball anytime someone manages to intercept me. Its also making grinding out the components a little challenging. [/quote]

Why? I have no clue but I can guess that it was likely that people cried about it so much or that bombers were a great way to earn sl.

[coco the magical]

Originally posted by Abinadi:

Originally posted by Abinadi:

They nerfed gun accuracy on bombers that is why. It is nerfed to the dirt and made playing some bombers impossible.

Why did they do this? It seems to me you can just approach from below to escape most tail gunners, why wouldnt they allow bombers to defend themselves when most planes can knock them out of the sky with a good concentrated burst? I like playing bombers, but its frustrating when I just get turned into a fireball anytime someone manages to intercept me. Its also making grinding out the components a little challenging.

Why? I have no clue but I can guess that it was likely that people cried about it so much or that bombers were a great way to earn sl. [/quote]
Feels bad man. Maybe gaijin wouldnt be forced to try to coax money out of people to skip the grind if they just sold cosmetics or charged a subscription. Their current model seems like it drives away customers out of frustration, when they clearly want more people to play.

[Chaoslink]

It’s a little better on bigger bombers with multiple guns. The first person perspective of a tail gunner is disorienting more than anything. Multiple guns leaves you in a third person view which is much easier.

However, in arcade mode the planes are too fast and maneuverable. Makes it easier to dodge you. Bombers in RB, air or ground have a much better time of it with the different flight model.

[Harry Nurpplez]

Originally posted by Tráta:

Why did they do this?

Fighter players crying of course. So Gaijin granted them their easy mode.

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

However, in arcade mode the planes are too fast and maneuverable. Makes it easier to dodge you. Bombers in RB, air or ground have a much better time of it with the different flight model.

Except AI gunners in realistic is where the nerf really exists though. Can actually get kills with them in arcade. Tradeoff.

[Futuristic Hexagon]

Honestly, with a nice "Aim me here" sign that shows up for even large cannons in this game at 800m for Air AB, trying at RB or SB might be better for bombers.

At that point getting good at manually controlling gunners is a must as AI will miss anything even on the muzzle of the gun, but it's more balanced than AB for bombers and attackers (though attakers will still struggle more.)

[Chaoslink]

I mean, there’s a major issue no matter what they do. If they don’t shoot accurately, people are going to complain. If they shoot down everything for you, people are going to complain.

Now, you might respond saying that it needs to be somewhere in the middle. Yeah. Great answer. However, there’s one problem there. It can take as little as one single bullet to kill the pilot or start a fire or break the engine. So, if they’re accurate enough to hit, they’re accurate enough to kill. It’s not that easy to tune this in.

I’m a firm believer that you shouldn’t be given free kills for doing nothing. Those gunners aren’t there to shoot things down for you. You should have to input something for the kill. Manual control should be borderline mandatory if you ask me, which it already is.

If you have to choose between accurate bombing or defending yourself, then you should have to do so. As a game mechanic, that works.

[LaughingMan]

honestly ive not had this problem ive just learned to lead my shots of the tail gunner/gunners on bomber planes, i think the AI just does a bad job of it but when im out on my bomber and have planes on my back i can happily say i can shoot them down before they shoot me down

[JuX]

Not to worry. The russian bias let's their bomber gunners one-shot everybody with their 23mm turrets. So spray enough for one to hit and your golden.

[Atom]

Originally posted by JuX:

Not to worry. The russian bias let's their bomber gunners one-shot everybody with their 23mm turrets. So spray enough for one to hit and your golden.

yeah german cannons are much better