Attacking B-17's?

Anyone tried attacking the B-17's in Normandy 2.1.1?

I placed four box formations (16 aircraft) at 20,000' and tried an intercept with 4 109's.....:pilotfly:

The newly activated turret gunners cut me to pieces! I managed a couple of downed B-17's before my 109 exploded! A real challenge now to shoot these guys. The A.I. gunners are as good as the A.I. pilots...:smilewink:

Possibly the only tactic would be a head on shooting pass.....just like they did in WW2:D

Thanks ED!

Try using the Doras with the R4M rockets :)

Head on passes or wingtip to wingtip. Never come in from the rear quarter lest you want to see an aerial rendition of 'will it blend'.

Philstyle and his gang say that a steep dive from above, say about 60 degrees IIRC, will do the trick.

If you stay on a level course for more than a second close to 300 meters they will acquire you and hammer you. The closer you are to level flight, the sooner you will die. Keep altering your approach. This makes it harder to hit them, but harder for them to hit you, too. The only advantage they have is more guns. You have the bigger target.

And until the DM gets its tweak, they are plenty easy to break up right now.

Keep in mind that the Mk108 effective range is pretty poor compared to say 151, and you dont have much ammo

Philstyle and his gang say that a steep dive from above, say about 60 degrees IIRC, will do the trick.

If you stay on a level course for more than a second close to 300 meters they will acquire you and hammer you. The closer you are to level flight, the sooner you will die. Keep altering your approach. This makes it harder to hit them, but harder for them to hit you, too. The only advantage they have is more guns. You have the bigger target.

And until the DM gets its tweak, they are plenty easy to break up right now.

This is pretty much what we found.

A few "must dos" when attacking bombers. We tried this by attacking with a Spitfire, and Fw190 and a Bf109.

1. High approach speed to minimize time spent in the danger area (>500m from the formation)

2. Waggle your wings/ give the rudder a couple of kicks on your way out of the formation after your pass. Changing the aircraft heading is key to avoiding the gunners

3. Don't expect to destroy a bomber in one pass (especially once the DM is fixed!). Just try to get some rounds onto one of them, or if they are in a tight formation you might score hits on a couple.

I've managed to make 6 passes on a formation of 12 in "close" formation, using high angle diving attacks, AND waggling after the pass. This is, to my mind, a generous number of attacks that is problably more that one would have got in "real life" against the Forts.

Don'ts list:

1. Dont' climb up behind a bomber formation

2. Don't attack from their 6 O'clock. 6 o'clock attacks work OK against single bombers, but you can't take on a formation like that

3. Don't relax as soon as you finish shooting. KEEP WAGGLING ABOUT. I've been hit as often when departing after the attack as on the way in.

I'll put a video together of some attack types over the next few days I think.

Additional notes:

I get the feeling that sometimes people expect to knock down 3 or 4 bombers when engaging these formations. To be honest, you should be thrilled to get one victory. From this page you can see that about 10% of B17s were lost on raids. This includes losses to flak.

http://www.taphilo.com/history/8thaf/8aflosses.shtml

So, a formation of 12 SHOULD, "historically", be able to return home with 1 to 2 losses. Nailing more than about 20% of a formation should be an outlier result.

In Cliffs of Dover, for example, we regulalry saw entire bomber formations of 9 or 12 aircraft get shot down, and still people complained about the gunners being "too accurate". I hope those kinds of expectations can be tempered here....

Philstyle and his gang say that a steep dive from above, say about 60 degrees IIRC, will do the trick.

 

If you stay on a level course for more than a second close to 300 meters they will acquire you and hammer you. The closer you are to level flight, the sooner you will die. Keep altering your approach. This makes it harder to hit them, but harder for them to hit you, too. The only advantage they have is more guns. You have the bigger target.

 

And until the DM gets its tweak, they are plenty easy to break up right now.

This!

Keep in mind that the Mk108 effective range is pretty poor compared to say 151, and you dont have much ammo

Check!

The 30mm has the clout for sure, but slow rate of fire and like you say, poor range and not much ammo!

Those 151 cannon's would be nice in the wings? The cockpit switch is there ready for use, so come on ED let's have the wing cannons. The 190 is superior in this department!

Some great advice from all the guys here. Speed, check. Altitude,check. Dive, shoot, scoot:thumbup:

Normandy is turning out to be a real learning curve. One thing that appears more apparent, is the planning and patience required, just to execute a single pass on a B-17. The slow climb to the bombers altitude, takes an age and there are the obvious pitfalls of our DCS visibility limitation? Then you have to fly well, avoiding engine over stresses!:music_whistling:

As a bit of light relief, I took 4 Mig 21's up in place of the 109's.....With the speed of a jet, those tactics become much easier. :smilewink:

Now, can we have the Me 262.....please!:D

Cheers!

need help

This sound very interesting, so I tried to do it. But nothing worked. I am having trouble with this game. Or I am too old to figure it out.

I need help, mostly direction, as how to set up a flight in a 109 or 190 to attack a B-17 formation.

Do need an additional file? or is every thing already in game?

Thanks for any help is appreciated.

Do need an additional file? or is every thing already in game?

Thanks for any help is appreciated.

There aren't any intercept missions in game so the easiest way is going to be download a mission file. These files (Miz Files) get placed in your Windows C. / Users / Your Name / Saved Games / DCS openalpha / Missions folder.

Then in game go to Missions and click on the My Missions icon to list missions you've downloaded. Here is a link where some of us have posted some missions for download. There's a few intercept missions to choose from.

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=187885

Thanks for the reply I was wondering how to do it. I guess I am use to IL2 and it's Quick Mission Builder

This sound very interesting, so I tried to do it. But nothing worked. I am having trouble with this game. Or I am too old to figure it out.

 

 

I need help, mostly direction, as how to set up a flight in a 109 or 190 to attack a B-17 formation.

 

 

Do need an additional file? or is every thing already in game?

 

 

Thanks for any help is appreciated.

Everything you need is in the mission editor.

Have a play with the mission editor. Just open it up click on the aircraft symbol (top left), select a B_17, from right side drop down menu, click on the map and place it at any altitude. Then put your aircraft 109/190 on the map in the same way. You can begin with both airborne and with your aircraft with a hight advantage. Save it and click on fly (green bird symbol on left side menu).

Make sure your aircraft is "you"...set as "player". (Drop down menu right side) Then when you click on fly you will start in your 109!

You can then build up missions where you have many aircraft aloft. But the more you have, the slower the game will run!

I am sure there are tutorials around, but to be honest, it's better to have a play around with a couple of aircraft to start with. Once you get the basics, you can quickly build missions.

Today I took off, planning to intercept my 20+ B-17 formation, escorted by Mustangs. By the time I got to 20,000', they Bombers had dropped their ordinance and headed for home. I managed an entire intercept mission, without firing a single shot! However the flying was nice!:megalol:

If you do manage to get into range of the Fort. Watch out for the gunners, they will scyth you in two! Of course you could cheat and both of you be on the same side...(also set from menu) that way the Fort won't shoot back!

Cheers

"player" refers to the skill level. Only after you place your plane on the map do you get the option to set as "player" in skill level. Only then will it be flyable by yourself.

The mission editor keeps me busy for hours but I have a lot to learn yet.

The manual has a fairly good write up on it although there seems to be more than is in there.

The information is scattered here and there in these forums.

YouTube as well is your friend with some good how to videos.

"player" refers to the skill level. Only after you place your plane on the map do you get the option to set as "player" in skill level. Only then will it be flyable by yourself.

The mission editor keeps me busy for hours but I have a lot to learn yet.

The manual has a fairly good write up on it although there seems to be more than is in there.

The information is scattered here and there in these forums.

YouTube as well is your friend with some good how to videos.

Absolutely!

Start small and build up! Sometimes missions never play the same twice. Which is great really, I suppose?

Also downloading other folks missions and seeing how they did it, is really helpful.

Have a look at my latest one on User Files. Deep Strike for Viggen and one for the Mirage!

Best regards.