Area Bombing

[EAF19 PeeGee]

Really enjoyed our jaunt in the B25s tonight. To take off, form up, get to target, return and land was really well done by all. Now, if yours truly could put the bombs somewhere near the target it would be perfect.

My excuse is that we were practising area bombing, and the area was France.

I think the target area was big enough, once you know where it is. For practice perhaps get rid of the cloud cover as much as possible.

The other thing is to get the protractor out and plot a more accurate heading to target, which I didn't do tonight. Once you miss the initial run, it is much harder to stay together and be accurate. Lesson learned.

Something that others might like to check offline is the drift when using level stabiliser. Perhaps I haven't done much high level bombing since 4.01 came out, but in the past I found the heading stay fixed. Tonight it was drifting badly, and I was having to correct it at regular intervals.

I'd like to hear other peoples thoughts and suggestions (apart from "get your eyes tested PeeGee")

[EAF_T_Arturo]

S!
Yes, it was very nice mission! Near perfect design - big target, good distance to tgt, some Bf109's. It was good feeling to see B-25 landing, taxiing to the apron and lining there after mission:-) Here is my short report.

For me this mission was failure, (like the previous one, with Hurricanes). No TS during this flight. Two squadrons of B-25 with the same task - bomb railroad station in Falaise, course was given 160 and altitude 10 000 ft. I took 50% fuel, 3x1000lbs bombs, delay 0.0.
After take-off tried to take place in formation, most left position (my main concern was to avoid collision). At 10.000 feet - level flight. After some time i identified two forests, then - Falaise. Noticed, that main grooup is heading about 20 degrees left from Falaise (direction to Arentan), i start to worry. Bacause i thought, that main group will reach latitude of Falaise, turn right and bomb it. For me it would be too short distance to line up and set bombsight correctly. That's why i decided to start bombing run immediately and rejoin main group after that. Reported "lining up for bombrun" in chat.
Must say, that it was problem to find target quickly. I knew from briefing, that railway station must be in the center of the town. First i saw from bombsight faktories, then ona white building in the north-western part of the town. Only then target appeared - WOW! several trains, trucks, tanks... AAA was not effecktive. Ideal situation! So i concentrated on bombsight... waiting... keeping cross in the center of tgt.... Bombs away!!! - Looking down - wait-wait-wait... series of explosions - and "Enemy car destroyed" in the right side of screen Anoonsed "target hit!" in the chat window and turned left 180 degrees.
Well. Now the bad part. I saw no sign of formation, alone in the sky... Too much time spend looking in bombsight. So announced- "Lost you, rtb" - and went home... On the way back Bf109 attacked me - i jumped into the gunner position - and was killed. B-25 went down in flames. Failure.
After announsing "PK" i found that externals are usable - so i saw B-25 formation bypassing Falaise, coming fro Arentan. I even asked- "did You bomb Falaise" - answer was affirmative. I waited patiently to the end of the flight, - it was really, really nice picture, bombers coming back in formation, landing, taxiing... -perfect job!!!
After eand of mission i saw 20.0 points (200.0 - if i be alive) so some tgt were hit.
My main mistake was in abandoning flight formation and commensceing the bombing run independently. It resulted in losing flight, lonely way home - and kill from lonely Bf109. Lesson learned.

Thank you all for the good flight!
S!

[Joe90 EAF602]

Hmm could, be a rudder trim thing?

Pre 4.01 I used to use the rudder trim to line up with the target while level stabiliser is on, then return it to centre for the bomb run.

So I guess that post 4.01 you would have to trim the rudder for straight flight once you put level stabilieser on. You would still be able to make slight adjustments to line up.

Alternatively, find the exact speed where you the torque is balanced and you don't need any rudder trim?

But that all said and done, it is really just an exercise, IMO. I have now come to the conclusion that the only way to hit the right targets is to get in low with 6 big 500lb babies, while escorting fighters keep the bandits away and 'distract' the AAA

[Joe90 EAF602]

Hi Arturo, sounds like you got there first. No worries on losing formation, it is real hard to follow a group if your not on comms. If you are on comms, then PeeGee holds us all by the hand

[Majik EAF92]

Yeah, it was good fun, and PeeGee did a great job on coms, making keeping in close formation not too difficult.
FYI Arturo, 19 usually fly with outside views on, for use only when shot down, and not until .... and obviously no warning others of incoming fighters while using it, unless its over home base area, were you can act as the control tower
The reason for this, is if you are killed, you have something to watch until we are all ready to fly again as a group
It is open to abuse by other players, but the regular opponents we have know the "gentlemans agreement" and for the most part, abide by it.

If JR has no objections, I can widen the targets and area to accomodate the innacuracies of high level bombing ?

I enjoyed the Singapore mission too, despite being shot down, great missions as always JR

Edit:
After much complaint of lagging in the first mission, I tinkered with the settings, no-one seemed to have issues in the bombing mission, but then there was only 6 of us in !
Interestingly enough, I run the second mission in ISDN settings, so its something I will keep an eye on.
For now I will leave Skins off, until I have determined what works best for hosting for me.

[EAF92 Meako]

Sorry i missed the action last night guys, but i was unwell, you can tell the kids are back at school me the wife and all 3 kids have been ill this weekend .

Regards High altitude bombing in the B25 i have been getting good results at altitudes up to 18000ft. Once level stabiliser is on i use rudder trim to fine tune my heading, so as you experienced if you are not trimmed you will get some drift. This falaise mission i expect with some practice we should be able to wipe out the whole area if the lead bomber is reasonably accurate and the rest bomb on command we can saturate the area.

I have found adding 30mph for the bombsight seems to work.

[Ming EAF19]

Very nice debriefing Arturo

Really exciting and immersive from takeoff to landing - thanks PeeGee!

Ming

[EAF602 Painter]

Sounds like a fun evening - sorry I missed it

After much complaint of lagging in the first mission, I tinkered with the settings, no-one seemed to have issues in the bombing mission, but then there was only 6 of us in !

There have been suggestions that dropping the connection settings, in game, help with lag. I believe (*believe*, not know) that 56k is supposed to be adequate.
PeeGee, I believe you could pass some light on this?

[Majik EAF92]

Yes Painter, Its all variable, and what works for some doesn't always work for others
I have always used 14.4k and skin DL on previously, and no issues at all, but recently it seems to have changed

[Ming EAF19]

Nightmare Majik

Absolutely no worries mate we really appreciate you hosting and feel your pain when you're getting these laggy bits, it'll sort itself out eventually. So many bloody variables connection-wise it's difficult to know where to start to sort it out... please remind me to do my share of hosting mate - if you lot don't mind the odd crash I'm happy to have a bash hosting too. Give me a nudge next time

Last night ADSL went down for long enough for me to physically connect and load the drivers for a Speedtouch 330 modem - to check that ADSL going down wasn't my router or something my end. It's definitely the bloody Bulldog's end grrr

8Mb - ADSL dies. Capped to 6Mb - ADSL dies. Now capped to 3Mb - ADSL dies... WTF are they playing at lol - not 8Mb/sec for sure

So I'm thinking to myself - maybe there's no difference then, it's not a bandwidth thing and I could be on fecking 8Mb in the first place <starts smashing up the furniture>

Ming