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Author Topic: Musings on skip bombing  (Read 958 times)

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cbradbury

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Musings on skip bombing
« on: April 17, 2023, 06:50:08 AM »

I have recently been taking a look at skip bombing, and thought I might share some of my observations.

Firstly, IMHO, it represents the best method for attacking merchants, and light warships in BAT. After some practice, you can almost guarantee a bomb hit, which tends not to be the case with level or dive bombing. Fun, too. I really recommend flying a B-17 full bore at 70 feet altitude! You do have to be careful not to get hit with your own bomb, though, especially with slower aircraft such as the Catalina. I usually set up a bomb train of four bombs, ideally 500lb, but you can pull it off with 250lb as well.

One major drawback is that the AI will not do it. Set a skip bomb altitude and the AI simply climbs to around 500 feet and level bombs instead. This leaves you with two choices:

1. Put up with it.

2. Just use a single aircraft.

I choose the latter, and there are certainly historical precedents (if that matters) for many single aircraft attacks in WW2, especially with the Catalinas. This does mostly limit you to attacking solo ships or a very small convoy, but this tended to be when the technique was used anyway.

As a lone hunter, I like radar-equipped aircraft, and we do have several appropriate types (mostly thanks to Tobi):

B-17
Hudson
Albacore
Mariner
Catalina
Avenger

Non-radar types are also fun, including:

B-26
Beaufort
A-20
Baltimore
Blenheim (105 sqn operated an anti-shipping detachment on Malta).

My forthcoming experiments are intended to establish what is the largest ship I can successfully destroy with a single skip-bombing attack. I’m guessing probably a light cruiser. I’ll keep you posted.

Yours,

Clive

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Dimlee

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Re: Musings on skip bombing
« Reply #1 on: April 17, 2023, 05:06:57 PM »

I loved the skip bombing in the days of old, when I played online often. Recently, tried again and realised that the skills need to be restored, especially the combination of the altitude/speed and the distance evaluation.

As for the largest ship in a single attack... it depends on the bomb load and hitting the right "box", isn't it? I remembered that it was possible to sink a Lexington class carrier with one attack of Ar 234.
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Chess100

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Re: Musings on skip bombing
« Reply #2 on: April 20, 2023, 11:23:05 AM »

But what about flak? I tried many times to bomb small convoy of three merchants and one escort with the same result - my plane hit so badly that I couldn't make it back home...
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cbradbury

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Re: Musings on skip bombing
« Reply #3 on: April 20, 2023, 12:55:33 PM »

But what about flak? I tried many times to bomb small convoy of three merchants and one escort with the same result - my plane hit so badly that I couldn't make it back home...

Well, I confess that I dial the flak well down in my missions  :)

Also, there was a good reason for the B-17 and Catalinas in the Pacific for mainly undertaking their missions at night...
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Wing Walker

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Re: Musings on skip bombing
« Reply #4 on: April 22, 2023, 12:12:45 PM »

Just to add...

The low level bombing with bombers is realistic...

PB4Y-2 Privateer and Navy B-24 squadrons used a low alt tactic for bombing ships and other targets.

They would fly at only about 50ft to the target and pop up to 200ft for the attack run.  Then drop 1 to a few bombs on a single target and save the rest for another.

Their gunners would strafe the targets as they passed also...

They disputed the Army doctrine of high alt. bombing saying they drop a lot of bombs and still miss a their target, like a ship.
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Dimlee

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Re: Musings on skip bombing
« Reply #5 on: April 23, 2023, 11:18:53 AM »

Regarding the flak. As cbradbury rightly said, fine-tuning a ship's skills is essential. The default setting of Ace and ROF 1.0 is absolute overkill. I'd suggest starting with Average and ROF 10.0 to 15.0 and changing if necessary.
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Knochenlutscher

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Re: Musings on skip bombing
« Reply #6 on: April 27, 2023, 08:37:52 AM »

I love this game, skip bombed yesterday and found my salvo of
3x 500lbs bouncing through ship mesh. Muharrharr

This is like Hollywood
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Wing Walker

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Re: Musings on skip bombing
« Reply #7 on: April 29, 2023, 08:38:35 AM »

Regarding the flak. As cbradbury rightly said, fine-tuning a ship's skills is essential. The default setting of Ace and ROF 1.0 is absolute overkill. I'd suggest starting with Average and ROF 10.0 to 15.0 and changing if necessary.

I've always set the ROF to .5 (when you enter 0), but I assumed it was the minimal fire rate for ships?

What does 10 to 15 do over 1?  I assumed the higher number is the higher fire rate?
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genXgamer

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Re: Musings on skip bombing
« Reply #8 on: April 29, 2023, 10:16:09 AM »

The higher the number the slower the fire rate or re-load time.
Not that I create missions with ships often, but I use a rate of 4 or 5 which was suggested at M4T.
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Frankiek

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Re: Musings on skip bombing
« Reply #9 on: April 29, 2023, 10:27:56 AM »

In fact that is not the rate of fire but rather the time needed to reload the gun so with higher number more time will pass between gun volleys.
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Dimlee

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Re: Musings on skip bombing
« Reply #10 on: April 29, 2023, 02:41:26 PM »

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Divebrake

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Re: Musings on skip bombing
« Reply #11 on: April 30, 2023, 06:40:59 PM »

What about fuse time settings? I tried once or twice but the bombs went off when they hit the water.
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