Mission 1: Motor Factory at Zeebrugge. This almost ends in disaster as both the electrical and hydraulic systems go out pretty much on takeoff, then I get so absorbed in fixing them that I tag the first wave of fighters late, and then I compound it by not getting Left_Empty into the bombardier’s station fast enough to open the bomb bay doors in time to hit the target on the first pass. Plus, the port outboard engine gets set on fire. Fortunately, I get things together fast enough to swing back and hit the target, and RichVR does stellar work fixing the engine once the fire dies down and makes the engine kaput (shown). But we don’t get the optional recon photo, which I think is essential to building up your bomber quickly. I satisfy myself with woolen gloves and leather boots for everybody. I also protect everyone by buying Armored Fuselage 1 for the whole plane, because I’m a mensch.
Thank you. So the game is actually doing us a nicety by not insta-killing us.
The optimum target for the night fighter was the wing fuel tanks, not the fuselage or bomb bay, because of the risk that exploding bombs would damage the attacker.
Ah, the prospects of firing upon a flying fuel tank carrying bombs right over one’s head!
Schräge Musik is my favourite War Thunder weapon. Trying to aim them from any safe distance is a bugger, but when you get it right you can just sit in a spot and chew up the target.
Also, I approve of my mustache. Also of being called Mr Mr Bismarck.
The translation of “schrage musik” as “slanted” or “oblique” music makes perfect sense given the positioning of the gun. FWIW, I’ve previously seen “schrage musik” translated as the German expression for jazz music.
It reminds me of the old SSI game “50 Mission Crush,” except that game pretty much stuck to historical accuracy. You couldn’t upgrade your bomber after a successful mission. Doubtless the actual Lanc crews would have loved to be able to do that.
If you go here and watch from 17:00 to 18:00, a German nightfighter pilot discusses Schräge Musik, with some visual aids!
In what has to be a gameplay decision, the Lancasters in Bomber Crew are equipped with ventral turrets. Except for a very few aircraft which had these as an experiment, Lancasters did not have a ventral turret, and in any case the experimental ones were phased out in the early war. But I can’t imagine the player being very happy having to corkscrew to avoid Schräge Musik and not having any other defense.
I would imagine that Schräge Musik would have been quite a bit less effective if the RAF bombers had ventral turrets like the American ball turret, but, if you look at the length of the bomb bay in this illustration, you can see that there really was no room for it, unless you accept a much smaller bomb load. And since the size of its bomb load was one of the Lanc’s prime advantages, one can see why the British made the choice they did (to the detriment of the crews of course).
Hi Jason! I don’t think many people realize that iconic as the B-17 was, as a heavy bomber the Lancaster could carry triple the payload.
And it shows just how advanced the B-29 was (and how rapidly Boeing learned its lesson) that the Superfortress could carry a larger load than the Lancaster and had a third longer range.
Incidentally, my favorite bomber ever? B-58 Hustler.
One trick is to select each gunner (tail gunner, mid-upper turret, and nose gunner) and hit “R” right as you are taking off from England, as this will immediately send them to the ammo bay to get an extra ammo box while you’re still over Wessex. Er, Sussex? Whatevs.
If you’re in a Lancaster at this point you’ll almost certainly be over Lincolnshire, it’s not known as “Bomber County” in the UK for nothing you know!
Oh damn, I had not understood this was taken right from below the bomber.
WW2 is too much weird stuff to take in at once. I am going back to Dominions.
Yes, the B-17 (and the B-24) reflected the American philosophy of precision daylight bombing with the Norden bomb sight and a heavily armed plane. The smaller bomb load was deemed adequate for that purpose. Whether it actually worked or not, of course, is a separate question. In any case, the British needed the heavier bomb load for their nighttime area bombing.
I actually got to see a B-58 in flight at the Cleveland Air Show when I was a teenager. They had one make a couple of low passes. A truly spectacular plane, which, unfortunately, the advent of SAMs left without a mission.
A relative of mine flew SAC B52s in the 70s. He LOVED pointing out that the movie Failsafe showed B58s as SAC’s long range bombers and how bunk that was. In the movie they accurately stated how the fighters were barely faster than the bombers, but fudged the range.
I’m confused though. Was Bruce’s final 2/5 rating for this game a mistake?
Nope. I really don’t care for the game, and I have no desire to play it anymore. But I think it’s a decent design. The reason I wrote a game diary was that @RichVR gifted me a copy with the intent of having us do a Tom vs. Bruce with it, but Tom bounced off the game and we figured it would be a pretty lame TvB if Tom had no interest. So I wrote up what I had written so far as a game diary and then just flew until I crashed. What I learned from the game diary is that the game is much, much better as a role-playing game where you actually keep track of the characters from mission to mission. But that’s something I had to do using Google Docs, not the game. And I sure could have done with some bombing accuracy stats for the bombardier, fighter kills for the gunners, etc. Instead, they made a real hardcore clicker. I think it’s a terrible place to bury all that cool historical detail.
