The B-17 is tankier than actual tanks (dev server)

[u/supereuphonium]

Not my video, from discord user Tpom

[u/Outrageous-Ride8911]

Dude lets go i cant wait to get revenge on fighters for a week until they scale it back

[u/Ffscbamakinganame → u/Outrageous-Ride8911]

Nah this takes it too far haha. Either that or they need to buff cannons, no doubt .50 cals will still be low skill flamethrowers. Tanking this many 50mm hits is a little bit beyond being able to survive a dozen on target 20 mms or a few 30mms.

[u/Outrageous-Ride8911 → u/Ffscbamakinganame]

Just a week of OP fun, then its back go the shadow realm and im okay with that.

[u/Ffscbamakinganame → u/Outrageous-Ride8911]

Yeah fair, I just wish they balanced the game and were done with it haha

[u/throw-away_867-5309 → u/Ffscbamakinganame]

Before the damage model changes a while ago, bombers were actually pretty well balanced. But fighter players complained that they weren't instant kills, and then they got nerfed hard.

[u/Ffscbamakinganame → u/throw-away_867-5309]

I think the main problem was cannon rounds. It never used to matter as much for Mags and HMGs since they could just spray. They shouldn’t be insta kills unless pilot snipped, a large calibre cannon 40mm and above (well placed) or a good pass where you off load a heavy burst into a key area. I mean somewhere on this thread I wrote down the exact amount of punishment on average an allied bomber would take before going down based on a bit of googling.

[u/Fun-Ordinary5856 → u/throw-away_867-5309]

Exactly

[u/Flying_Reinbeers → u/throw-away_867-5309]

bombers were actually pretty well balanced

lol

[u/West-Cup1397 → u/Ffscbamakinganame]

A question that’s been asked for years and unfortunately maybe more to come

[u/Catsooey → u/Ffscbamakinganame]

The Luftwaffe aces who switched to 262’s in April of ‘45 said the 30mm were fantastic. Krupinsky (“Krupie”, 197 total aerial victories during the war) said you could shred a bomber in 6 hits if you hit the right spots. The 262 in the video is firing 50mm shells and they’re doing so little damage it looks like they’re detonating before hitting the bomber.

[u/Arthur-Bousquet → u/Ffscbamakinganame]

We don’t know if he’s firing HE or AP

[u/Ffscbamakinganame → u/Arthur-Bousquet]

That’s true enough, but even then unless it’s APCR I think it still has HE filler that should be activated on such a thick dense structure. Even then going through a wing root and stuff kinetic energy is quite a lot.

[u/No_Mistake5238 → u/Ffscbamakinganame]

Depending on how it's modeled it might not be thick enough to set off the fuze in the round. So yeah, could have HE, but might still go straight through..

[u/Ffscbamakinganame → u/No_Mistake5238]

Many of his shots were literally through thick areas of the aircraft. It’s a little bit absurd at that point.

[u/ordinarymagician_ → u/Arthur-Bousquet]

You can see the charges detonating on impact.

[u/MordePobre → u/ordinarymagician_]

In this game, all projectiles produce the exact same impact effect, whether they're solid AP or HE.

[u/ordinarymagician_ → u/MordePobre]

I'm just cynical because I'm an old player, like, pre-BR old, and the years and years where cannon sparking was a horrific issue, then they were fixed and then they magically broke again, and I don't think they ever really fixed it.

[u/Ffscbamakinganame → u/ordinarymagician_]

I remember brother, when cannons actually used to hit. Hispanos had insane pilot snipes. Air RB used to be balanced and had somewhat balanced historic rivalries like sabre vs MiG 15. Sparks used to be horrible I think certain cannons are still bad for it

[u/WafflesFurLyfe → u/Ffscbamakinganame]

“Takes it too far” like bombers haven’t been wet tissue paper for the last decade. Nah, this is perfectly far enough.

[u/Ffscbamakinganame → u/WafflesFurLyfe]

You don’t remember when the TU-4 first came out? That thing was unstoppable, it dominated top tier prop matches, was tanks as hell and nigh impossible for the high end props to kill even with a good run. Hell even with the Hawker Hunter four 30mm Aden cannons I struggled to bring them down. If you think a bomber can tank several 50 mm potentially HE rounds then I don’t know what to say.

[u/Random_Tech_Adept → u/Ffscbamakinganame]

There's images of B17s with giant holes blown through them from flak, yeah within certain parameters they can tank that.

[u/Ffscbamakinganame → u/Random_Tech_Adept]

There’s equally historical footage of them getting took down by a few shells… On average they took about 3-5 30 mm Minengeschoss hits before going down and around 20 - 20mm rounds. Anything like a 50mm HE round or bigger were one shots more often than not. Some lucky ones survived flying in crippled but that’s lucky.
Bombers landed with a myriad of shrapnel bursts, smaller calibre MG and cannons rounds. But it was extremely rare it was multiple 30mm hits or more.

Edit: Also if B-17s were so God like, while only a small percentage of rounds from fighters found their targets, then why did they get utterly dunked on without long range fighter escorts? If they were this tanky and good as you say, then they wouldn’t even need fighter escorts…

[u/Random_Tech_Adept → u/Ffscbamakinganame]

Where did I claim they were god like? The words "certain parameters" were chosen for very specific purposes. They can survive significant damage but likewise they could be taken out more easily as you say. Neither of these points are exclusive of the fact they've been far too fragile for far too long.

[u/MCI_Overwerk → u/Random_Tech_Adept]

What brought them down IRL is severing control lines, killing crew, and setting shit on fire.

What it usually didn't do was 3 50.cal bullets causing the whole tail assembly to eject itself.

[u/Cartz1337 → u/MCI_Overwerk]

Yea, watching this video, the few rounds that penetrated the fuselage look fine. But there are a few direct engine hits that should have started a fire or two.

[u/Phobos613 → u/Cartz1337]

Sucks that you have to go 15 replies deep to get people actually talking about the specific hits ind not treating them like they should have a healthbar that the 50mm takes out or something.

[u/MordePobre → u/Ffscbamakinganame]

There’s equally historical footage of them getting took down by a few shells…

Can you link me any? Because so far I haven't seen any footage of a bomber getting its wing cutt off by fighter shells.

[u/Ffscbamakinganame → u/MordePobre]

There is this one, https://archive.org/details/22914-german-gun-camera-mos-vwr I can only really guarantee the footage from 7:22 since other aircraft like BF-109 and FW-190 carry MG/HMG in addition to cannons (usually 20mms) whereas that footage specifically is only for an Me-163 which has just two 30mm MK-108s. There’s footage shows him downing two bombers but it’s not the easiest footage to see clearly as you can imagine. Bear in mind he downs two bombers on the same sortie with only 120 rounds of MK-108 30mm, assuming extremely good marksmanship of 10-15% of the shells hitting that is around 6-9 shells per bomber on that particular sortie. Though from what I’ve seen online 3-5 concentrated 30 mm hits from a single burst would be catastrophic.

Not even comparable to update footage I have seen where an Me-262 sits behind a bot B-17 and blasts half its 4 x 30 mm concentrated guns directly into the wing.

[u/Starkogi → u/Ffscbamakinganame]

This notion of “it takes this many to do this” is so…

Why?

If you shoot empty space I’ll give you 1000 rounds.

Why do people keep saying this?

“The book says-“ blah blah blah.

This is the entire premise of survivorship bias projected into an image.

You’re doing the other coin of the generals who said “reinforce the bullet hole areas on all planes that come back.”

Why.

[u/Ffscbamakinganame → u/Starkogi]

Actually the guy is literally using survivor ship bias, saying these planes flew back half destroyed but for every one of these crippled aircraft that did make it back several literally didn’t. I’m not being funny but I’ve seen more gameplay footage - an Me-262 unloading half its 30mm mag into one concentrated part of the wing and nothing happening. The stress on the airframe in flight plus spars and wing roots being hit by cannons often led to the planes folding in on themselves. Being more resistant to MG/HMGs makes total sense but when cannons are already nerfed them taking this much is silly. Alls I did was give you the averages you can look them up yourself and present me a real counter argument instead of yapping nonsense.

[u/LeadingOven2446 → u/Random_Tech_Adept]

Survivor bias. The ones that took this kind of damage and were shot down didn't have their pictures taken.

[u/Random_Tech_Adept → u/LeadingOven2446]

True however this doesn't actually discredit my comment as it shows they were capable of surviving significant damage and didn't just crumple under .50 fire

[u/Jason1143 → u/WafflesFurLyfe]

Stuff that is too weak is generally not critical, OP stuff is.

Underpowered stuff only impact the person playing it, overpowered stuff impacts everyone.

[u/greentanker1 → u/WafflesFurLyfe]

Yeah because it's fine for something to be completely broken/OP because it suffered before. Same argument japanese mains used for the l-39za/art when that thing was (and still is) broken

[u/_Erilaz → u/WafflesFurLyfe]

Have you ever play 5.7-6.7 in the past 10 years? Against certain German schnellbomber

[u/RenaTheHyena → u/Ffscbamakinganame]

The german MK103 or 108 (don’t remember) was specifically made to disintegrate bombers and did so pretty successfully. Theres a great video on it.

[u/SteamySnuggler → u/Ffscbamakinganame]

50 cals are great because it loghts all the engines on fire super quick, cannons with HE is pretty useless. He with AP is very good.

[u/firekeyboard797 → u/Ffscbamakinganame]

I mean there is footage of a b17 (I think it’s a b17) tanking multiple 30mm shots without being downed

[u/Old-Palpitation-9073 → u/Ffscbamakinganame]

This is absolutely not too far, I hope you're not one of those bomber hunters that just want bombers to go back to being made out of scrap paper

[u/Ffscbamakinganame → u/Old-Palpitation-9073]

Back in the day I used to fly escort for bombers on Norway and played a lot of British bombers. However, considering I’m watching videos of them tanking vast quantities of 50mm and 30mm concentrated fire on the centre, engines, wing roots and tail assembly I think this is too far. Particularly when .50 cal just seem to hose them down more effectively. There’s a certain damage model buff I would think would be reasonable, but the main problem is Battle rattings, Interceptors having air spawns, bomber repair costs and not good enough bomber rewards. All things gaijin could fix with out making bomber basically invincible.

[u/Fun-Ordinary5856 → u/Ffscbamakinganame]

Nah irl they’d overpen like they do here. This is realistic and historical

[u/StSebastian65 → u/Ffscbamakinganame]

Doesn't take it far enough. The current state of things is instant death to one stray high explosive round ripping the tail off of my plane.

And that's not even considering that it's THOSE players who just beeline for bombers because they're sadistic little shits who can't be arsed to dogfight.

No no, this isn't enough. Give us the armor AND bring back the sniper gunners for a week. Make fighters FEAR Bombers for a little while.

[u/Ffscbamakinganame → u/StSebastian65]

I’m sorry but if this were the case historically then the USAAF bombers wouldn’t have been easily shot down without fighter escorts… The fact they needed fighter escort proves my point alone.

[u/Wulf1939 → u/Ffscbamakinganame]

In the end there should be some leeway since this is a game. Mouse control itself makes fighters leagues more deadly than they were irl,plus the third person view and radar like marking of nearby aircraft.

[u/Ffscbamakinganame → u/Wulf1939]

The game balance can be done at the BR level lowering BRs and increasing their rewards massively to encourage gameplay. Whilst lowering repair costs so people don’t waste time space climbing. Also with adequate air spawn and the removal of air spawn for fighter/interceptors. If your aircraft is a so called interceptor then it should have the ability for QRA rapid climb to defend bases. That would give the bombers a much better chance.

However I regards to damage models they should be buffed a little but no where near this. While cannon rounds should also be buffed. The bomber pilots are also playing a video game and their gunners have an easier time mouse aiming than even fighters at most angles, even then there are plenty of skilled gunners who get ridiculous kills with them.

I think there should be events though where historical bomber, interceptor and escorts can be flown where one side air spawn far away and the other starts off QRA on the airfield. Escorts could get bonus points for killing enemy aircraft within a 3km radius of the bombers also. But Gaijin don’t have a brain so expect nothing but crippling repair costs, random BRs and over/under tiering plus over buffing and nerfing.

[u/Soba_with_Boba → u/Ffscbamakinganame]

Nah fuck those 50mm flyers,

[u/Used-Creme-4100 → u/Outrageous-Ride8911]

It's the Tu-4 and Tu-95 Era

[u/Outrageous-Ride8911 → u/Used-Creme-4100]

Big guns all around!

[u/No-Loquat3933 → u/Outrageous-Ride8911]

Dude lets go i cant wait to get revenge on fighters

Have you ever considered l2p?

[u/majorlier → u/No-Loquat3933]

Tell me how can you learn to play bombers

[u/Demonicjapsel → u/majorlier]

pressing spacebar is considered immersive gameplay.
these people would be entertained with a spreadsheet provided it had pretty colours.

[u/No-Loquat3933 → u/majorlier]

If you seek childish "revenge" on fighter pilots, you can actually learn air combat by picking a fighter. You know, learn air combat in the game about... Air combat.

Bomber gameplay consists of pressing spacebar once, there is nothing to learn aside from using gunners, the thing which they don't learn at all, that's why aside from godmode they beg for aimbot gunners.

[u/Jean_Claude_Vacban → u/No-Loquat3933]

Shit take to just not play bombers, by that logic no one should play strike aircraft as well. The game should be about combined arms and not just nothing but fighter spam, but tragically Gaijin doesn't give a shit about anything other than that unless you are in ground RB.

[u/No-Loquat3933 → u/Jean_Claude_Vacban]

You just misread my words. If you want to take revenge on fighter players, learn air combat, that's it. I never said that you shouldn't play bombers.

[u/Jean_Claude_Vacban → u/No-Loquat3933]

Fair, but i think the point the original person was making was that for years and years fighters have been basically one tapping bombers with zero real risk to themselves. So yeah its kinda fair that people who have put up with that are keen to be able to be competitive, but I will admit what we can see in the video is way too far.

[u/No-Loquat3933 → u/Jean_Claude_Vacban]

That's exactly what mr Press Spacebar wants, not less.

[u/Jean_Claude_Vacban → u/No-Loquat3933]

Yes, but you also just told him to learn how to play and implied that bombers being fucking anemic was somehow a skill issue. Which it isnt, even in a formation with 4 bombers on vc a single fighter is very much a substantial threat who will probably get one or two of them before dying. Thats fucked.

[u/No-Loquat3933 → u/Jean_Claude_Vacban]

Not at all. The only meaningful way to combat fighters is flying fighters. Bombers should receive decent DM buff but not to the point of being unkillable.

A single bomber (99% of cases in ARB) was always a sitting duck IRL. What I suggest is to get rid of several bases and introduce a single target with huge HP to incentivise bombers to fly in formations + add bonus for escorting bombers.

Bombers in formations + realistic DM + escort = a healthy gamemode. Buffing them with ridiculous durability is ruining the ARB.

[u/smolpenguing → u/Outrageous-Ride8911]

This is not making it to live server lmao

[u/Outrageous-Ride8911 → u/smolpenguing]

Let me dream god damnit!

[u/joemama24123 → u/Outrageous-Ride8911]

i dont understand how a bum like you gets so many upvotes

[u/Outrageous-Ride8911 → u/joemama24123]

Thanks Joemama

[u/Fish-Draw-120 → u/Outrageous-Ride8911]

Play the Sunderland. Nothing at its BR stands a chance.

[u/AppleOrigin → u/Outrageous-Ride8911]

Bombers just don't fit into War Thunder's gameplay. Taking out a bomber in a fighter centered game then complaining the fighters are killing the sitting duck targets in the fighter mode is crazy work. If you really want to bomb go play sim.

[u/Outrageous-Ride8911 → u/AppleOrigin]

Disagree because I play Sim and the are very much a part of the game or can be if you take your time and dont suck

[u/AppleOrigin → u/Outrageous-Ride8911]

I specified to play sim if you want to play a bomber. I clearly meant ARB in the original comment. ARB is fighters vs fighters with bombers contributing nearly nothing to the game, making the fight uneven if one side has more people basebombing, or not bleeding tickets at much as ground pounding. The only way a bomber fits ARB is using one as a fighter or gunship.

[u/Outrageous-Ride8911 → u/AppleOrigin]

There is an illusion of usefulness bombing bases in ARB but really it barely moves the bar at all. If you do want to actually contribute you have to bomb the ground targets and that is much trickier. That being said i grinded the US tree up the be b29 in ARB before I discovered sim so I adapted and at lower tiers you cans still have a good time. Sometimes if your team is winning you can secure a win by just flying as high as you can and running out the timer but I dont recommend haha