High altitude bombing?

[Meety]

It seems almost impossible, even with the biggest payload. Most of the time I usually miss or can't get a bead on my target of tank colums. Bases is ok and easy but I want to know if its possible to carpet bomb some vehicle column at high altitudes

[ScreamingBeaver]

It's more than just possible, It's entirely doable with a little practice. It takes your bombs 20+ seconds to fall at higher altitudes so you have to drop them well in advance of the column. Look for the roads the ground troops are following and bomb the crap out of them.

[Redtail666]

Practice a few matches to figure out how far to lead, use bomb view circle hashes like a rifle scope. Sometimes you just cant account for the vehicle speeds at altitude.

[Der Lachende Mann]

" In the summer of 1944, forty-seven B-29's raided Japan's Yawata Steel Works from bases in China; only one plane actually hit the target area, and only with one of its bombs. This single 500 lb (230 kg) general purpose bomb represented one quarter of one percent of the 376 bombs dropped over Yawata on that mission. It took 108 B-17 bombers, crewed by 1,080 airmen, dropping 648 bombs to guarantee a 96 percent chance of getting just two hits inside a 400 x 500 ft (150 m) German power-generation plant. [en.wikipedia.org]"

High altitude bombing on mobile targets is rather hard, that's why dive bombers were invented in the first place.

[luckymarine]

Totally dependant on your hight, the weather, the skills you have and the payload you carry.

Up at 7000m you'll have a hard time hitting anything that moves, its just the nature of the beast. Best bet at this hight is to concentrate on hard targets and help your team out by bombing out AAA. Or if you've unlocked heavy bombs then you can go for the airfield.

When there is low cloud or fog its almost impossible to guage where the tank/vehicle line is heading. Sure its possible to get a rough idea and drop ahead of the "line" but what's to say that the road doesnt change direction? Unless you have intimate knowledge of that particular map or know of a choke point the vehicles definatly have to pass through then you wont hit much.

As for skills, there is one that affects how close to the centre of the X your bombs drop, is very usefull for dropping bombs on small hard targets.

And payload... dropping a 1000kg bomb on a line of vehicles might take out 2 if you're lucky. But with this payload you should really be heading for their airfield as you'll get many more points/exp and every bomb counts as the airfield is pretty hard to miss (still happens sometimes but easier to hit than a moving target).
If Im setting up to hit columns of vehicles I like as many bombs to drop as I can, even if its as low as 50kg.
Start high, go beyond the column and then drop down and back on yourself so you're heading in the same direction as the vehicles are, at speed.
Drop your bombs and carry on towards friendly AAA/fighters.
Can make all the difference between dropping 1 load of bombs and 5 loads. If your escape route is towards the enemy spawn you wont last long in a bomber.

What bomber have you been using?

[Rosha]

Tank columms shouldn't be attacked from High altitude as the bombs drop time is to great for accuracy with a moving targets. Your best options are attack planes designed for this which includes dive bombers. Light bombers or fighter bombers are also fairly good. You can use medium bombers dropping a string of bombs down a road from low altitude, but you won't get a 1 bomb 1 kill with this more like 1 kill vs 3 bombs, with soft targets like vehicles and mobile AA or even armoured cars, your ratio of kills per bomb is most likely to be 3 kills for every bomb.
IMHO 50 lb bombs are useless except for soft targets, you need a least 100 lbs for light tanks.with 250 lbs for heavy tanks, but even this must be a direct hit. Also note 50 KG bombs = 110 lbs, 100 KG = 242 lbs and 250 KG bombs = 550 lb bombs. Thus an A20G Havoc carries the quivalent of 4x 250 Kg of bombs.
.

[CyberDown]

Ok first of all im assuming your talking about arcade battle. So right off the bat here we can disregard the guy who quoted that historically accurate article.. historical accuracy has no place in arcade battle. and it that was the case...then they need to buff bomb splash damage to their historically accurate values making high altitude bombing much easier in fact...as it use to be in closed beta.

Second, you have to learn the difference between moving targets and stationary targets (some vehicles wont move some will). Moving targets...forget about it...dont even bother...you might get lucky if you lead your bombs and are very falimiar with bomb travel time...like you always bomb at 15k ft or something.

Stick to stationary targets, ignore the lead indicator and use the solid crosshairs in the bomb viewer, dont forget to right click your mouse and zoom in..

If you have a lot of 500lb bombs or big bombs, consider getting up to 15k-20k ft and do runs over their base, as thats the best target for high altitude bombers and if you get enough runs in and destroy their base it can win the game.

For moving targets like takes/cars/patrol boats/landing crafts use a dive bomber or a fighter equipped with a few bombs.

Its sad but youll get more XP high altitude bombing stationary AA an pill boxes that can be shot with fighters and are not game winning conditions that you will trying to high altitude bomb heavy tanks that are moving.

Mind you the higher you are the more vulnerable you are to a target moving, and in arcade you really need to be 16k+ feet in the air to be not worth the climb to most fighters...

This is why you see so many heavy bombers doing low altitude suicide runs...they will get more kills than spending the entier match at high altitude trying to hit objective targets that are moving.

[Der Lachende Mann]

I do quite a lot of bombing, and the post about historical accuracy was more to get potential bombers in the mood, high altitude bombing on mobile targets is anything but accurate.

1000 kg bombs have no problem taking out a pillbox and the attached AAA position, alternatively you could take out bases if there are any, which give good xp and lions but score no ground target kills, or the airfield, which makes for a quick victory if you destroy it. (Though I found bases are better, because the enemy team will only be informed you took out a base once it's destroyed, but get a message for every run on the airfield, so in my experience you'll be a little safer vs bases).

I tried some high altitude bombing on mobile targets, but bombs will drop for over 20 seconds, you'll have to anticipate the position of the vehicles, and if anyone approaches on a low bombing run in the meantime, vehicles will disperse. So your chances to hit something with a single bomb are rather slim, I'd go for 20something 50 kg bombs and just drop them in a line where enemy tanks should roughly be. Still, in my opinion high altitude bombing yields better results on stationary targets.

Mobile targets will be treated more efficiently with low altitude bomb runs I'd think. Once I managed 3 medium tanks with one 1000kg bomb with a Ju 87 R2, they were dispersing but actually came quite close together.

[Meety]

I've been mostly using the Wellington series lately and a little bit of the B-25s

[Der Lachende Mann]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Meety*`:

I've been mostly using the Wellington series lately and a little bit of the B-25s

Wellingtons are great to take out bases and airfields from high alt with their 4000 lb bombs, takes 3 bombs for a base, B-25 on the other hand I'd rather use really low, shoot down everything with the nose mg, aircraft, light vehicles, AAA, and bomb the heavier stuff.

[Rosha]

You can take out a base with 1x 4,000 lb bomb

[Der Lachende Mann]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Rosha:

You can take out a base with 1x 4,000 lb bomb

From my experience a 1000 kg bomb takes off a quarter health from a base, a 4000lb should take half since Gaijin apparently uses metric pounds, 1kg = 2lb, but it only takes out a bit over a third.

Edit : I stand corrected : for some reason Gaijin uses metric pounds for US and imperial pounds for the British???