Shouldn't fighters be tearing up unescorted bombers?

[Oscu]

no they couldnt.

- early jet engines were more delicate than prop engines
- 4x30 mm cannons fired much slower than lesser ammunition. even the 20 mms fired in intervals. you dont have much time window to aim and queue shots with wwii aircraft speed, leave aside a jet

apart from those me262 doesnt have any advantages over other type of fighter aicraft. for, despite it is faster, if it attempts to get ahead and make another pass it will still gain only 25%-50% more passes, but still will be subject to the same risk of defensive fire. not to mention that jet fuel ran out fast. leave aside the fact that 30 mm shells being low in number.

heavier armaments were already used in other aircraft. germans used 2 x 30 mm gun pods in most aircraft already, me109, fw190. similar armament to 262 was already being used in such formations. what effect they did, is out in the open.






as for your other points, its still moot. if a new threat appears, new solutions are found. it would either be radar operated defensive turrets, or jet bombers, or jet fighters (which were already coming up for 1945 and were better than 262), or 40 mm proximity fuse flak mounted in aircraft.

Well not being an airforce man my self (served in armoured troops).

Still the introduction of rockets that could fire further than defensive weapons coupled with speed that made tracking difficult sounds rather effective. I don't know if there was technology to operate turrets with radar and even if there was, sounds awfully dangerous to use proximity fuses in box formation (friendly fire).

Of course there was ongoing developments in technology, but generally I have been under impression that at the same level, fighter kick bombers tail.

Yep B17 war 30's design. So was Tiger, jet planes and lots of other things that materialised lot later. I would say that war technology belongs to the era, where it could be effectively implemented to carry out foreign policy.

And I commented this thread because I like the system to take into account that every game is somewhat ahistorical. And I so hated to get you general dies in a bombing raid, when he's in Berlin and nearest hostile bomber is in New York.

I also hate those games that start to give you volksturm troops automatically in 1945, even if you would be attacking Washington.

Japanese industry and technology would be totally different if they had managed to get resources and defend their industry and convoys.

So as I said, not an airforce man myself

 

[Mjarr]

- strategic bombing was not 'ineffective'. it was ineffective at the start because norden bombsights werent available

Not completely ineffective, but overall impact to german industry was rather minimal. Yes, it did damage some local facilities, destroyed some factories, forced Luftwaffe to station air units in defence of German airspace and so on, but the real objective - to knock out Germany's industry completely just by bombing it back to stone age - was not achieved.

And bombsight itself does not help inaccuracies between IAS\TAS calculations. If you have still one value incorrect, the bombs will miss more or less, especially on higher altitude bombardments.

- fighters do not 'tear up' unescorted bombers. leave aside diving into a bomber formation is akin to diving into light flak in lower altitudes

Depends. Yes, it doesn't magically cause instant destruction of any flight or swarm, but unescorted bombers are far more vulnerable to damage or disorganisation given proper interception. Given that HoI3 bombers would have alot slower reorg values than regular air units, it could be represented beter as interceptors disorganizing bomber formations faster or highly ,especially if unescorted.

- the destruction of the luftwaffe and climax of the bombing campaign directly coincide - mid 1943 to mid 1944.

Largest amount of Luftwaffe pilot casualties occured between early and mid 1944, but true, they do have some connection as bombing with fighter escort and logically attempting to defend something, some attrition on both sides occur. In this case german pilots were the ones taking it up the arse.

- germans moved all their aircraft production eastward to escape bombing

I thought they decentralized the production around here and there rather than swap everything to the east, considering that allied bombers could easily reach as far as Praque or so, it would have to be pre-war germany-poland border which on the other hand would be dangerously close to the Soviets aswell.

Its VERY hard to attack large groups of good bombers like b17 without having your plane smoked. VERY hard. Try it against player manned b25 using a Bf-109 without 30mm cannons... IL2 ai was HORRIBLE at turret control.

Also it is easier to aim in a computer game than it is in real life, so despite how horrid it is, IL-2 AI does give you somewhat beter impression than human gunners with their 1000 yard super sniper accuracy (seen this happen online more than few times).

 

[AlanC9]

Not completely ineffective, but overall impact to german industry was rather minimal. Yes, it did damage some local facilities, destroyed some factories, forced Luftwaffe to station air units in defence of German airspace and so on, but the real objective - to knock out Germany's industry completely just by bombing it back to stone age - was not achieved.

Well, yeah, and Eisenhower didn't march into Berlin before Christmas 1944, either. Whether a strategy achieves everything its practitioner wanted to isn't really the test. The test is whether the strategy was a good use of resources.

Maybe the Allies would have been better off not engaging in strategic bombing, instead putting the resources into more tactical air, or something else altogether? Maybe not. My understanding is that strategic bombing was about a wash --the cost to the Germans being approximately equal to the costs to the Allies. But that tradeoff is a win for the Allies, since they had superior production.

Note that the UK couldn't have shifted resources into more ground units, since they ran out of manpower in 1944 as it was.

 

[unmerged(137678)]

On the effectiveness of strategic bombing -
If you graph tons of bombs dropped vs. German industrial output, you end up with a plot that suggests each additional ton dropped ADDED to production until Nov '44. It starts falling in Feb. '45. Four main factors involved:
1-No national economy ever totally mobilized for war. Even in Germany & Japan in '45 there was capacity devoted to pots & pans, woman's fashion, or toothpick manufacturing. As long as that is the case, there are creative substitutions to make when you lose a needed manufacturing capability.
2-As the British discovered during the Battle of Britain, getting bombed does wonders to civilian willingness to give up creature comforts to support the war effort.
3-The Germans were exceptionally innovative in re-constituting, dispersing, and re-sourcing production. When rebuilding they also improved process efficiency when they might have tolerated less effective use of capacity when they had a nice existing factory.
4-Even in small numbers, intercepting fighters could disrupt the effectiveness of bombing. It turned out that air supremacy (or at least superiority over the target and route) is a prerequisite to successful strategic bombing. The only recorded campaign success (in europe) was the campaign against German refining & synthetic oil production (Fall '44-Spring '45). By that time, airfields in France allowed allied fighters to reach all German targets along with the bombers.
Of course, bombing forced the target nation to divert resources to air defense, so there was a utility to it. That utility was nowhere near as great as usually presented in courses and articles on WWII. The pre-war belief that "the bomber will always get through" was disproven by Sept. '40. That it was hard to hit something as large as an aircraft plant if it was seriously defended became clear during '41. And it turned out that even early war fighters could do serious harm to any bomber force if they could engage under optimal conditions.

I could be very wrong, but I believe that the problem is somewhere in the basic concept of the air combat model and a major design change is the only way to make it work "right." Fixing bits and pieces to get strategic bombing to work realistically will make something else work less well, fixing fighter intercept capability will make them too strong somewhere else, etc. Hopefully I'm wrong and someone can come up with some basic tweaks that make it a reasonably good simulation of how it actually worked.

 

[unity100]

Well not being an airforce man my self (served in armoured troops).

Still the introduction of rockets that could fire further than defensive weapons coupled with speed that made tracking difficult sounds rather effective. I don't know if there was technology to operate turrets with radar and even if there was, sounds awfully dangerous to use proximity fuses in box formation (friendly fire).

not quite.

rockets couldnt meet the range, speed and effectiveness of 40 mm and higher aa guns. especially with proximity fuses.

behold the horror of the proximity fuse :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze

imagine 2-3 of these being mounted on b17s. easily doable, and in an efficient fashion, since even 75 mm cannons were mounted on b25s and mosquitos during that time period.

Of course there was ongoing developments in technology, but generally I have been under impression that at the same level, fighter kick bombers tail.

i have also been under that impression. until recently, due to the influence of hoi3, i read much about the actual production processes of aircraft, from proposal collection to prototype flight, and learned that a lot of aircraft was designed prewar, and the rather default notion of 'equal level bomber - equal level fighter' doesnt hold any more.

Yep B17 war 30's design. So was Tiger, jet planes and lots of other things that materialised lot later. I would say that war technology belongs to the era, where it could be effectively implemented to carry out foreign policy.

there is a catch in this - spitfire, me109, me110 were constantly upgraded in their careers. spitfire xiv and spitfire ib are not the same aircraft, whereas bf110 and me109g are not the same aircraft either.

however, bombers didnt get similar level of modifications. all of the bombers have remained in same structural design, and they received few engine upgrades.

had they been aggressively upgraded like those aircraft, everything would have been quite different.

Japanese industry and technology would be totally different if they had managed to get resources and defend their industry and convoys.

however, japanese industry, and technology were not significant in any sense of the way.

majority of their carriers were conversions from passenger liner, cargo liner or old battleship hulls. and even in that case they were able to construct what, 8 'big' carriers during 1930s to 1945 ? and 1 maybe 2 of them were equal in size and capacity to any contemporary american cv, leave aside later ones. from what i know, japan mobilized all of its resources and effort in the 1930s buildup.

i dont think much would have changed.

 

[unity100]

Not completely ineffective, but overall impact to german industry was rather minimal. Yes, it did damage some local facilities, destroyed some factories, forced Luftwaffe to station air units in defence of German airspace and so on, but the real objective - to knock out Germany's industry completely just by bombing it back to stone age - was not achieved.

oh god.

again someone is uttering the same long advocated nonsense.

please read the thread entirely before jumping in and shooting out old dried out arguments.

germans not only started to call in DORMANT LYING, UNUSED industrial capacity when the bombings started, but also increasingly resorted to slave labor.

under those circumstances, the statistics show the illusion of industrial capacity not being affected. whereas, the truth is otherwise. a factory destroyed, is a factory destroyed.

IF, things have been like this nonsense logic proposed, germans would NOT hassle to move their entire aircraft production eastward.

'minimal' damage doesnt require hauling an entire industry away.

Depends. Yes, it doesn't magically cause instant destruction of any flight or swarm, but unescorted bombers are far more vulnerable to damage or disorganisation given proper interception.

pray, give us a few examples of 'proper interception'.

we already discussed the biggest bombing disasters of world war ii here. there are no more 'proper' interceptions carried out against a more disarrayed bombing mission.

if, 'proper interceptions' did happen only as many as the number of these failed missions, which are around 4-5, then it means that it is as hard to carry out a 'proper interception' as carrying out a 'proper bombing mission'.

I thought they decentralized the production around here and there rather than swap everything to the east, considering that allied bombers could easily reach as far as Praque or so, it would have to be pre-war germany-poland border which on the other hand would be dangerously close to the Soviets aswell.

actually allied bombers would practically reach anywhere. so 'decentralization' wouldnt be of value. and decentralization to a huge area is itself a huge blow to an industry as bombing.

but no, aircraft industry was not only decentralized in that sense, but also moved eastward. thanks to that, advanced german jet designs fell into soviet hands ....

Also it is easier to aim in a computer game than it is in real life, so despite how horrid it is, IL-2 AI does give you somewhat beter impression than human gunners with their 1000 yard super sniper accuracy (seen this happen online more than few times).

it isnt. depends on what game you are playing.

aiming with a ww2 fighter, most of which were unstable gun platforms and controls had kickbacks in high speeds, is as hard as aiming a real life fighter, minus the G forces, and minus the risk of death. totally leaving aside the fact that in a fighter you are the commander, pilot, navigator, gunner, mechanic, everything. depends on which game you are playing.

 

[unity100]

3-The Germans were exceptionally innovative in re-constituting, dispersing, and re-sourcing production. When rebuilding they also improved process efficiency when they might have tolerated less effective use of capacity when they had a nice existing factory.
4-Even in small numbers, intercepting fighters could disrupt the effectiveness of bombing. It turned out that air supremacy (or at least superiority over the target and route) is a prerequisite to successful strategic bombing. The only recorded campaign success (in europe) was the campaign against German refining & synthetic oil production (Fall '44-Spring '45). By that time, airfields in France allowed allied fighters to reach all German targets along with the bombers.
Of course, bombing forced the target nation to divert resources to air defense, so there was a utility to it. That utility was nowhere near as great as usually presented in courses and articles on WWII. The pre-war belief that "the bomber will always get through" was disproven by Sept. '40. That it was hard to hit something as large as an aircraft plant if it was seriously defended became clear during '41. And it turned out that even early war fighters could do serious harm to any bomber force if they could engage under optimal conditions.

well, you forgot to factor in slave labor.

but nonetheless, regardless of HOW much you 'innovate', 're-constitute', 'disperse', you get a huuuuge penalty to your production compared to earlier state.

any person who studied mechanical engineering or industrial engineering would know, that even changing the minuate hand movements on how a simple procedure like picking up cans and placing them on a carrier belt conducted changes A LOT in regard to output. this area itself is called 'work study' and still one of the mainstay facets of industrial engineering profession today.

and we are not even talking about this or that - we are talking about destroying machinery, having to move each and every section of a factory production line to separate places, having to even divide subcomponent production to separate places.

im going to leave aside entire penalty of transportation here. just the fact that a factory does production in many dispersed locations than doing it in all one complex, despite being capable of that (not as big as GM plant in earlier days, but more manageable) KILLS productivity.

but, when you factor in slave/forced labor, and the increasing militarization of the german society, sure, you can increase industrial output.

however still - a factory destroyed, is a factory destroyed. one lucky raid in battle of britain set back spitfire production 2 months, because experienced workers were killed and some machinery destroyed. luckily, bulk of the machines were moved before the raid.

 

[donagel]

If I could bring this back the game for a sec

If you have a single bomber unit attacking a province with an airbase with an interceptor unit based there, and you have 5+AA emplacements with radar, how much damage would the bombers take (assuming default settings)..

 

[AlanC9]

If I could bring this back the game for a sec

If you have a single bomber unit attacking a province with an airbase with an interceptor unit based there, and you have 5+AA emplacements with radar, how much damage would the bombers take (assuming default settings)..

Two different questions. The AA fire has nothing to do with interceptor combat.

AA damage is minimal -- one or two percent at best. However, it's cheap for the defender.

With equal numbers of interceptors and strategic bombers, I typically see loss rates for the bombers of 10%-20%. Much less for the fighters; they often won't take any strength damage at all. Note that this is per raid, not per combat -- interceptors will often chase bombers for a fair distance, and engage them twice or even three times.

 

[AlanC9]

The pre-war belief that "the bomber will always get through" was disproven by Sept. '40.

Actually, it was pretty much true. You almost never see a bombing mission aborted because of losses; the vast majority of bombers did, indeed, get through.

I could be very wrong, but I believe that the problem is somewhere in the basic concept of the air combat model and a major design change is the only way to make it work "right."

That depends on what your conception of the problem is, of course. I'm still not convinced there is one.

 

[AlanC9]

majority of their carriers were conversions from passenger liner, cargo liner or old battleship hulls. and even in that case they were able to construct what, 8 'big' carriers during 1930s to 1945 ? and 1 maybe 2 of them were equal in size and capacity to any contemporary american cv, leave aside later ones. from what i know, japan mobilized all of its resources and effort in the 1930s buildup.

'

I'd say three-- Shokaku, Zuikaku, and Taiho weren't much inferior to American CVs. The CORE team's naval expert says that Sho and Zui were equal to the later US Essex class, actually.

General point's still valid, though.

 

[Mjarr]

under those circumstances, the statistics show the illusion of industrial capacity not being affected. whereas, the truth is otherwise. a factory destroyed, is a factory destroyed.

Similiarly regardless of the side and time, in war there are always casulties. 3rd US Armoured Division had casualty rate (in terms of having to replace vehicles) of 580% to the paper strenght in span of 10 months, but that did not cripple US ability to produce or resupply their vehicles, maybe bit problems training enough crewmen to keep up with the lossess.

I don't deny the fact factories were destroyed, it caused more or less damage here and there but again, what they were going for it - that is to knock germany out of the war just by bombing airbourne (atleast the RAF) - was not achieved. Production went up despite the damages more or less, while using term 'minimal' might have been incorrect.

Bottom line: collateral damage and casualties, etc etc happens. Question of their severity and capability to replace, reissue or rebuild is another story. It becomes a paradox between big picture and small details and as an example, one battalion that was destroyed in area X might have been major loss to the division itself (especially if it were elite), while if the operation itself was a great success and talking account the total amount of men involved in operation, let's say 10 divisions, it was rather minimal amount of casualties or marginal. To that division it was major loss of elite units, to the army\operation itself it was not that big problem.

pray, give us a few examples of 'proper interception'.

I have none, as statistically what is proper interception would be impossible to show or determine considering all the modifiers. So yes, it might have been poor argument or point on my side, but then again considering even those 'poorly' organized raids and how Luftwaffe was incapable of dealing with them, the allies would not had to bother with such poor air opposition, don't you think?

actually allied bombers would practically reach anywhere. so 'decentralization' wouldnt be of value. and decentralization to a huge area is itself a huge blow to an industry as bombing.

Permanent damage is another story from only delay of eguipment. It doesn't truly damage the production itself, merely slows and delays it to the point where it can be critical. Both things are bad, but other thing doesn't cause major issue, only notable.

aiming with a ww2 fighter, most of which were unstable gun platforms and controls had kickbacks in high speeds, is as hard as aiming a real life fighter, minus the G forces, and minus the risk of death.

How come we should ignore G-forces when the game mentioned does have G-forces more or less modelled? Risk of death is impossible to model in a game, but considering that your gunsight can be always perfectly centered and accurate (as opposed to watching it in incorrect angle and that already causes you to miss your shots, possible phenomenom with inexperienced pilots), add the adjustable FoV to the point you have a sniper scope zoom and suddenly it becomes alot more easier than it would be IRL (presuming you would make use of those).

 

[heteaho]

well, you forgot to factor in slave labor.

but nonetheless, regardless of HOW much you 'innovate', 're-constitute', 'disperse', you get a huuuuge penalty to your production compared to earlier state.

any person who studied mechanical engineering or industrial engineering would know, that even changing the minuate hand movements on how a simple procedure like picking up cans and placing them on a carrier belt conducted changes A LOT in regard to output. this area itself is called 'work study' and still one of the mainstay facets of industrial engineering profession today.

and we are not even talking about this or that - we are talking about destroying machinery, having to move each and every section of a factory production line to separate places, having to even divide subcomponent production to separate places.

im going to leave aside entire penalty of transportation here. just the fact that a factory does production in many dispersed locations than doing it in all one complex, despite being capable of that (not as big as GM plant in earlier days, but more manageable) KILLS productivity.

but, when you factor in slave/forced labor, and the increasing militarization of the german society, sure, you can increase industrial output.

however still - a factory destroyed, is a factory destroyed. one lucky raid in battle of britain set back spitfire production 2 months, because experienced workers were killed and some machinery destroyed. luckily, bulk of the machines were moved before the raid.

Going OT here:


I'd really like to see some stats proving your various claims out of you. You've been claiming a lot things recently without bothering to back them up. Its time.

Start with some factual examinations on the destruction of german industry where you prove it got significantly worse due to bombings in 43/44 without resorting to blanket claims.



Ps. Slave labor is good for production, it just makes for a very bad person/government for using it.

 

[unmerged(63310)]

however still - a factory destroyed, is a factory destroyed. one lucky raid in battle of britain set back spitfire production 2 months, because experienced workers were killed and some machinery destroyed. luckily, bulk of the machines were moved before the raid.

I actually agree with most of what you are saying except a major point about why Allied bombing campaign was useful.

Destruction of factories is quite difficult in the way you seem to be implying. What is a factory? A large building with usually some kind of assembly line in the WW2 era though even that is often misconception. 100 bombs hitting a single building will damage it greatly but not necessarily make it collapse especially if it is mostly a roof with a factory floor not multiple stories tall. The assembly line could be hit and damaged or almost completely destroyed but for most industries that is not difficult to rebuild.

The focus on ball bearings etc by numerous historical sources was because the machinery to engineer good ball bearings was one of the few industrial processes which could not be easily replaced and not only that- these factories were concentrated in a small area AND were crucial in numerous different armaments. This made them optimal targets for bombing. Refineries were the other large industrial process which could neither be moved easily nor rebuilt and thus vulnerable to bombing.

Aside from those industries very few were extremely vulnerable to bombing at the site of production. Bombing damns(hydropower) and electrical plants which powered these type of factories etc was the best strategy but even most of those could be rebuilt fairly easily when the labor is on salary and has some experience rebuilding quickly. If you read some of the accounts of factory workers in this period most of them came to regard bombing just like the weather. Nothing you can do about it and it comes and goes, you fix the damage and things back to normal.

The main reason you seem to buy into the idea that Germany industrial production was hard hit by bombing was that some airplane production was moved east. You have to remember what else was going on in this period however- much of the resources that had been coming from France was being lost or in danger of lost whereas at this point Axis minors and Poland was still providing many resources as well for 2 years most intelligence services in Germany predicting the Red Army was near to collapse from loss of men. As crazy as it sounds now much of the planning by the staff close to Hitler's inner circle and making production decisions even in 1944 was assuming the western front would collapse first and the eastern would hold longest. Aircraft production was dispersed everywhere but the long runways needed for the jet aircraft were mostly available in better condition in the east as well as Soviet air forces weren't swarming those airfields like the western Allies did in their sphere of operations.

Bombing campaigns did destroy or slow down German production but not equal to the production cost for Allies do cause such damage. However aside from direct damage the bombing diverted resources and messed with the Germany planning priorities as well it was a strategy of the rich where if one side has 100 resources vs 50 on the other side and it cost the rich side 20 resources to destroy 10 of the enemies resources that is still almost a win for the rich side if just barely. The bombing campaign wasn't that ineffective, not even close to that waste of resources but for the purposes in game where most players going to question spending more resources for less return in direct IC costs because the game is not very well able to model the other real costs that occurred in history. The national unity affect is as close as it comes. So given that to work with- how effective should strategic bombing campaign be in the game? Probably only effective with dedicated resources and time spent accomplishing it. To stop such a campaign reaching ultimate effectiveness the defender should need to spend almost much as resources but still less. So it can still be a win for the bombing even if the target enemy IC/national unity never breaks because it diverts enemy IC to air forces to protect against the bombing instead of making more tanks etc to stop the ground attack. Only can be effective in this way if the target country has less IC.

 

[heteaho]

One thing does come to mind that was a direct result of the bombings: V2 attacks. Germany wasted a lot of time and effort and resources on these (over 3000 of them were used, over 5000 built) for little to no effect just because mr Adolf wanted to hurt allies back.

 

[tiago.dagostini]

One thing does come to mind that was a direct result of the bombings: V2 attacks. Germany wasted a lot of time and effort and resources on these (over 3000 of them were used, over 5000 built) for little to no effect just because mr Adolf wanted to hurt allies back.

LW was already crippled by then. Since the sicily theather mostly were the constantly rotated and renewed Allied pilots slowly wore down the LW experten that had to stay fighting "for life" with no good chances of them returning to instruction grounds to help train better pilots.

 

[unity100]

I'd really like to see some stats proving your various claims out of you. You've been claiming a lot things recently without bothering to back them up. Its time.

Start with some factual examinations on the destruction of german industry where you prove it got significantly worse due to bombings in 43/44 without resorting to blanket claims.

in case you havent noticed, or not read, i have given a lot of links to various resources in the preceding pages. i cant do it over and over again for every random bloke who rushes in with the usual popular misconceptions and utters the same arguments again.


as for germans using slave labor,


i dont want to give any resources for it and sour my day. there are a lot out there, those who want to see that kind of disturbing thing can just do a google search.

Ps. Slave labor is good for production, it just makes for a very bad person/government for using it.

do you think, they cared at all. if they won it wouldnt matter.

 

[unity100]

I actually agree with most of what you are saying except a major point about why Allied bombing campaign was useful.

Destruction of factories is quite difficult in the way you seem to be implying. What is a factory? A large building with usually some kind of assembly line in the WW2 era though even that is often misconception. 100 bombs hitting a single building will damage it greatly but not necessarily make it collapse especially if it is mostly a roof with a factory floor not multiple stories tall. The assembly line could be hit and damaged or almost completely destroyed but for most industries that is not difficult to rebuild.

actually most of the aircraft production facilities were not assembly lines but job shops.

however still, if you just damage a critical machine tool, you could seriously retard the production.

The focus on ball bearings etc by numerous historical sources was because the machinery to engineer good ball bearings was one of the few industrial processes which could not be easily replaced and not only that- these factories were concentrated in a small area AND were crucial in numerous different armaments. This made them optimal targets for bombing. Refineries were the other large industrial process which could neither be moved easily nor rebuilt and thus vulnerable to bombing.

yes quite. but that doesnt meant that you can eventually demolish job shop production setups. with the numbers allies had, it was eventually going to happen, and germans, rather wisely, moved the production east.

The main reason you seem to buy into the idea that Germany industrial production was hard hit by bombing was that some airplane production was moved east.

no it isnt.

it comes from my education background. i was industrial engineering major, until i decided to quit, in favor of i.t. however i had quite a lot of field related education before i did.

what i can say is, it does not matter whether you treat bombing like the weather or not - when some production setup gets damaged in any ring of its subcomponents, you get a lot of efficiency penalty. if that happens daily, god forbid, you lose a lot.

the difference in between a factory/production setup that operates in optimal circumstances and one that does not, is quite great. and we are talking about bombing here.

in case anyone wondering what im talking about, you can google 'work study' and read. this alone should show the extent of efficiency germans suffered.

 

[unmerged(59184)]

...but considering that your gunsight can be always perfectly centered and accurate (as opposed to watching it in incorrect angle and that already causes you to miss your shots, possible phenomenom with inexperienced pilots), add the adjustable FoV to the point you have a sniper scope zoom and suddenly it becomes alot more easier than it would be IRL (presuming you would make use of those).

Actually, if you use the IR head position sensors and "realistic" views, you get the very same effect in game, regarding incorrect angles. The FoV/Sniper vision is a valid point, but judging movement, direction, distance, etc, I find is actually much easier irl then on a screen, so might compensate for that, at least to a degree.

Granted I've never flown a fighter (I wish ), but rl car/mc racing vs simulated I think gives some perspective on the differences. I would say the lack of input you have sitting in your chair in front of a computer, compared to actually doing something irl, reduces your ability for precision quite a bit, rather then increases it. Otoh fear and physical stress are mostly absent.


Also, I don't know why you guys rag so much on AI turret controls in IL2. Unless you leave them on the noob (medium) AI setting, there is no real possibility of surviving a straight and level frontal attack on an AI controlled B-17 formation, which I believe was the initial comment in this thread regarding IL2.


Also, B-17 may be designed in 1934-35 and thus a fairly old design by the final years, but Me262 is also designed in 1939, even if engine and funding problems delayed the first flight for quite a while.

 

[unity100]

Also, B-17 may be designed in 1934-35 and thus a fairly old design by the final years, but Me262 is also designed in 1939, even if engine and funding problems delayed the first flight for quite a while.

the deal is, 262 had 4x30 mm cannons, whereas the average fighter (and many upcoming ones) had 2 x 50 cal machine guns (or 12.7 mm for numerous types) in engine cowling in 1930s. b17 was also equipped with 50 cal guns.

what im wondering is, why they didnt upgrade the defensive guns in bombers, whereas they went as far to fit 75 mm cannons in medium bombers. granted those were in the nose, but i quite think that a b17 should be capable of carrying 2 or 3 40 mm infantry flak.

instead they just increased the number of guns from 3 to 12. this is kind of an upgrade, but nowhere near like fighters moving from 2 x 12.7 mm machine guns to 4 x 30 mm guns.

so for some reason, bomber armament more or less stayed the same, whereas fighter armament was continuously upgraded.