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
Author
Topic: Musings on skip bombing (Read 956 times)
