Pe-3bis sucks?

[CINDERELLA GIRL]

Pe-3bis is a "tank buster" despite its ZERO penetration rockets(RBS-132). actually Pe-3bis rarely kill high tier tanks in a single strike while IL-2 with AP cruster bombs etc. can kill them in a single strike with high probability. Are tank buster planes with rockets useless? what's your opinion?

[seashell]

i think the they should change the penetration mechanic

[thugnightly]

They only work for sideshots on heavies.

[Committing Sudoku]

ALL tankbuster rockets don't have a "penetration" mechanic. They essentially do HE dmg to tanks but that HE dmg is greatly enhanced against armored vehicles and greatly reduced against non armored targets. The PRO of AT rocket planes as opposed to cluster bombers is that they are almost impossible to suppress with AA before they can unload their rockets 1000m away. The CON is that you will need multiple sorties to kill a heavy tank.

EDIT: How I calculate how many sorties on average I need to kill a heavy tank is to do the following. Let's say I'm using the FW190 AT rocket tank buster. It does 2 dmg per rocket and with 12 rockets it can do a maximum of 24 dmg if all 12 rockets hit. However the rockets only have 25% accuracy so on average it will do 24*0.25 = 6 dmg per sortie. So, if I want to kill a full hp Tiger 2 (all heavy tanks have 12 hp) I will on average need 2 sorties from the FW190 AT. However if the enemy has AA then the suppression will reduce the accuracy of my planes which will reduce the average dmg below 6, so I will probably need at least 3 sorties to kill the Tiger 2 if the enemy has AA.

[thugnightly]

Originally posted by Committing Sudoku:

ALL tankbuster rockets don't have a "penetration" mechanic. They essentially do HE dmg to tanks but that HE dmg is greatly enhanced against armored vehicles and greatly reduced against non armored targets. The PRO of AT rocket planes as opposed to cluster bombers is that they are almost impossible to suppress with AA before they can unload their rockets 1000m away. The CON is that you will need multiple sorties to kill a heavy tank.

EDIT: How I calculate how many sorties on average I need to kill a heavy tank is to do the following. Let's say I'm using the FW190 AT rocket tank buster. It does 2 dmg per rocket and with 12 rockets it can do a maximum of 24 dmg if all 12 rockets hit. However the rockets only have 25% accuracy so on average it will do 24*0.25 = 6 dmg per sortie. So, if I want to kill a full hp Tiger 2 (all heavy tanks have 12 hp) I will on average need 2 sorties from the FW190 AT. However if the enemy has AA then the suppression will reduce the accuracy of my planes which will reduce the average dmg below 6, so I will probably need at least 3 sorties to kill the Tiger 2 if the enemy has AA.

You can also send from multiple angles for better chance because aa can only fire at one target at a time

[Elettricità sovieta]

AT rocket planes are not the best to deal with tanks, but some divisions have not better options in their air tab, and they are extremely useful to kill open top and light armoured vehicles, especially the most annoying German SP AA guns.
BTW, without considering the loadout, Pe-3bis is one of the best planes in game: as bomber or as AT rocket plane you can't desire nothing better.

[CINDERELLA GIRL]

Originally posted by Committing Sudoku:

ALL tankbuster rockets don't have a "penetration" mechanic. They essentially do HE dmg to tanks but that HE dmg is greatly enhanced against armored vehicles and greatly reduced against non armored targets. The PRO of AT rocket planes as opposed to cluster bombers is that they are almost impossible to suppress with AA before they can unload their rockets 1000m away. The CON is that you will need multiple sorties to kill a heavy tank.

EDIT: How I calculate how many sorties on average I need to kill a heavy tank is to do the following. Let's say I'm using the FW190 AT rocket tank buster. It does 2 dmg per rocket and with 12 rockets it can do a maximum of 24 dmg if all 12 rockets hit. However the rockets only have 25% accuracy so on average it will do 24*0.25 = 6 dmg per sortie. So, if I want to kill a full hp Tiger 2 (all heavy tanks have 12 hp) I will on average need 2 sorties from the FW190 AT. However if the enemy has AA then the suppression will reduce the accuracy of my planes which will reduce the average dmg below 6, so I will probably need at least 3 sorties to kill the Tiger 2 if the enemy has AA.

oh man, this is quite helpful! thank you so much!

[CINDERELLA GIRL]

Originally posted by thugnightly:

You can also send from multiple angles for better chance because aa can only fire at one target at a time

this tactic should work :) I'll put it into practice

[Hobotango]

Originally posted by CINDERELLA GIRL:

Pe-3bis rarely kill high tier tanks in a single strike what's your opinion?

Do you by any chance shoot the rockets frontally ? If so, youll rarely get a kill, thats true. Try hitting it from the side or rear instead where the armor is weaker. If you shoot from the front, you need to hope that one rocket actually hits the top armor. you have much more chance if you from the side or rear cause whatever it hits, it will kill.

These planes are especially good for Phase A when enemy has either no planes or no AA. Also, send them in wave of two planes for maximum chances. Dont forget to always have fighters around as well as ground AA to cover, to make sure your planes come back alive.

[Inquisitioner]

Originally posted by Hobotango:

Originally posted by CINDERELLA GIRL:

Pe-3bis rarely kill high tier tanks in a single strike what's your opinion?

Do you by any chance shoot the rockets frontally ? If so, youll rarely get a kill, thats true. Try hitting it from the side or rear instead where the armor is weaker. If you shoot from the front, you need to hope that one rocket actually hits the top armor. you have much more chance if you from the side or rear cause whatever it hits, it will kill.

These planes are especially good for Phase A when enemy has either no planes or no AA. Also, send them in wave of two planes for maximum chances. Dont forget to always have fighters around as well as ground AA to cover, to make sure your planes come back alive.

I think this is central to the general understanding. Because the reason the AP bombs are effective is due to hitting the tank from above, where armor is weaker. While the rockets are angled and typically used to attack the strong frontal armor of the targets.

[Elettricità sovieta]

Originally posted by Hobotango:

Originally posted by CINDERELLA GIRL:

Pe-3bis rarely kill high tier tanks in a single strike what's your opinion?

Do you by any chance shoot the rockets frontally ? If so, youll rarely get a kill, thats true. Try hitting it from the side or rear instead where the armor is weaker. If you shoot from the front, you need to hope that one rocket actually hits the top armor. you have much more chance if you from the side or rear cause whatever it hits, it will kill.

These planes are especially good for Phase A when enemy has either no planes or no AA. Also, send them in wave of two planes for maximum chances. Dont forget to always have fighters around as well as ground AA to cover, to make sure your planes come back alive.

But why? There is some hidden stats? Because AT rocket are basically HE rockets that make more damage but on a very small area (and this is why they are no good against infantry units).

[BlackFoxSamaki]

Some of the AT rocket planes only have like 4 or 6 rockets which is a really poor load-out so look out for that too. The planes with like 8 or 10 rockets will usually do much better at killing things, along with what others have said about trying to get hits on the sides/rear.

EDIT: Yeah, one of the Pe-3bis only has 4 132mm rockets which IMO is a really poor load-out so bombers would be better in that case.

[CINDERELLA GIRL]

Originally posted by BlackFoxSamaki:

Some of the AT rocket planes only have like 4 or 6 rockets which is a really poor load-out so look out for that too. The planes with like 8 or 10 rockets will usually do much better at killing things, along with what others have said about trying to get hits on the sides/rear.

EDIT: Yeah, one of the Pe-3bis only has 4 132mm rockets which IMO is a really poor load-out so bombers would be better in that case.

I made "Podv. Gruppa Tyurina" deck for 1v1. I thought that only M-30 122mm(whose HEAT shell has 160mm pen) and Pe-3bis can barely deal with german tanks since this division doesn't have any decent tank or AT at all. that's why I created this thread. Pe-3bis in this deck has only 4 rockets(3 dmg per rocket). now I reckon this deck will struggle against heavy german tanks in open maps. I don't know how good U2-LNB TAMAN(40$ AP cluster bomber) is though.

[Hobotango]

Originally posted by Elettricità sovieta:

But why? There is some hidden stats? Because AT rocket are basically HE rockets that make more damage but on a very small area (and this is why they are no good against infantry units).

There's no hidden stats, frontal armor tank is strong, side is weak, rear and top are weaker. Wheter its HE or AP, it will do more damage where its weaker.

[Hobotango]

Originally posted by CINDERELLA GIRL:

Originally posted by BlackFoxSamaki:

Some of the AT rocket planes only have like 4 or 6 rockets which is a really poor load-out so look out for that too. The planes with like 8 or 10 rockets will usually do much better at killing things, along with what others have said about trying to get hits on the sides/rear.

EDIT: Yeah, one of the Pe-3bis only has 4 132mm rockets which IMO is a really poor load-out so bombers would be better in that case.

I made "Podv. Gruppa Tyurina" deck for 1v1. I thought that only M-30 122mm(whose HEAT shell has 160mm pen) and Pe-3bis can barely deal with german tanks since this division doesn't have any decent tank or AT at all. that's why I created this thread. Pe-3bis in this deck has only 4 rockets(3 dmg per rocket). now I reckon this deck will struggle against heavy german tanks in open maps. I don't know how good U2-LNB TAMAN(40$ AP cluster bomber) is though.

huh..... What ?! Tyurina has SO MUCH that can deal with German tanks. Go into the AT tabs. You'v got 3 cards of M-42 AT guns, take two of them, you got two tabs of Zis-2, take 2 of them. You should be good all game with that. Additionally, you could get Zis-3 as well if you intend to use it as a double purpose AT/HE gun. Use the PE-3bis ( PE-3 being one OP plane in 1v1) and use them in pair when you do sorties.

Tyurina does not struggle at all against German tank division.

[Elettricità sovieta]

Originally posted by Hobotango:

Originally posted by Elettricità sovieta:

But why? There is some hidden stats? Because AT rocket are basically HE rockets that make more damage but on a very small area (and this is why they are no good against infantry units).

There's no hidden stats, frontal armor tank is strong, side is weak, rear and top are weaker. Wheter its HE or AP, it will do more damage where its weaker.

But HE damage ignores armor, or not?