@Cipson,
What you describe is toss bombing with the bomb skipping the surface. This is not the only way you can skip bomb.
What was done in this mission is far from an attack angle of 30 to 60 degrees which you consider a dive. What was done was a near level run at ship mast height or just above. To my knowledge there is no other defined bombing technique that corresponds to this in reality. The closest one is the skip bombing as it is defined.
Historically, what the Italian guy who is credited with inventing this did was dive his Stuka to a point near the ship, level out at the last moment and release the bomb so that it skips and hits the side.
What russians and americans did from 1943 onwards was yet something completely different and involved many aircraft attacking in unison; some strafing the ship to suppress the flak, and one or two making a long steady low level run similar to a torpedo run but with planes approaching the ship much closer in order for the bombs to reach it when released. This was also done coming in from the low morning sun and aiming to surprise and blind the crew so that they can't fire effectively.
So, again what you are doing in IL2 has nothing whatsoever to do with historical methods. I am not aware of an attack method that JG54 is using being using historically against a warship task force.
Moreover Cipson, you need to decide which side you will support in this argument. Maraz and you agreed that these kind of methods will not be used. If you are talking about honor all the time don't be going off looking for loop holes but enforce the honor of agreement.
@Emil
1. What you are saying is not true. You can clearly see your attitude in the picture. You are almost level and at mast height. Call it what you want, but you have employed a typical skip bombing approach; you only did it very close to the target so your bombs didn't need to skip the surface.
If Maraz's original realistic bomb mode was still used, your bombs wouldn't activate since I believe he enforced a 4s flight time. Due to the public moaning on the banana forums the TD have cut this down to 2s and therefore you are able to do it, but in my mind this is no different than if the bombs skipped.
After the 1. cruiser sunk you introduced the Skip bombing rule
Ok Emil, I have explained to you and everyone else on the axis forums that
this is not true. This rule has been agreed to the week before the mission 1. Either you don't want to understand this or you don't believe that what I am saying is true.
Which one is it? In both cases it is obvious that we have a problem.
@Both,
I suggested a rule of not dropping bombs from less than 500m alt unless in a typical (read: 60+ degrees) dive attack by dive brakes equipped aircraft.
That was designed to force a historical attack pattern with level bombers, which you are using to skip bomb. It is impossible to enforce a strict attack profile since I have no means of checking whether it has been specifically respected. This is why I proposed this 500m which is much more robust way to prevent extremely low level and dive attempts with planes which weren't designed or used for that.
You guys frowned upon that because it is not historical, yet use use attacks which as just as far from historical.
Basing your arguments on historical facts while disregarding other historical facts which aren't simulated in this engine is, in my opinion, pissing into the wind.
For anyone who claims to know history or aviation of this period it is quite easy to know and understand what are the attacks patterns used. Here it is just for the sake of being clear:
If you are a dive bomber, point your nose in a high angle dive (60-90) from medium altitude (1500-3000m), pull out brakes, steady your sight and release your bombs while in this attitude from any altitude between the minimum needed for pull out and maximum altitude needed for precision.
If you are a level bomber go to any medium-high altitude you believe is good for you, level out your plane, go into the bombsight and use the appropriate parameters to drop your bombs. Unfortunately in IL2 this is also possible from a very low altitude, since you don't risk your real lives and AI gunnery is what it is, therefore I ask that you respect the way it was really done and not exploit IL2 weakness and do it at least from 500m.
If you are a torpedo bomber it is pretty much straight forward, and I believe there is not much room there for any exploits.
There, in my opinion this is rather simple. As I said before, but unfortunately none of you seem to have noticed it, your results with a historical approach are not at all worse than with your extreme low level attacks. So what is the point of forcing this issue? Is it just that you want to prove the admin wrong and you right? I am sorry but you are not right in this issue. Nobody who advocates IL2 skip/low level bombing is right from a historical point of view since too many other factors are missing in this game.
Another issue that we are facing if you are employing these kind of attacks is that you force ships to fire on each other by flying so low. Is that historical? I don't believe so.
So, I am sorry guys but you have to understand that the campaign depends on these kind of compromises. These are not one sides mind you. The reds are also affected by this, and you can imagine that for them it would be much easier to skip bomb your unarmed transport full of panzers. The reds also don't have any dive bombers, so they are forced to do this only by level bombing or torpedo attacks.
Lastly, during the campaign design I was advised by people from the axis side to reduce the naval rate of fire. I did this, but this is not tenable if you employ IL2 engine weaknesses. However, due to other issues (such as ships firing directly onto other ships) I chose to listen to them and at the same time agree that no low level skip bombing stuff will be used.
If I put the ROF as 100% this will not prevent skip bombing, but will make life much more difficult for historical bombing techniques like a Stuka dive or an SM79 torpedo run. This is another reason why I would like to ban skip/low altitude bombing and convince you to use regular historical attack methods.
Really, you must learn to stop at one point and try to consider the full spectrum of issues when you are arguing a problem.
I think I have now exhausted the time I can invest in writing about this.
So let me ask you again nicely: please use only the bombing methods I pointed out to in this post. If you agree on that, I am at your disposal for a TS meeting at any time to discuss and clarify any issues with regard to that.
That's the best I can do for you.
). 