[mavyalex]

Hello,

I was wondering if it was possible to high level bomb moving ships using bombing sight? (Allied and Axis sides) May be not from a very high altitude but high enough to avoid enemy flak.
Bombing stationary gorund objects is one thing, but moving ships...I notived that moving ships in IL-2 1946 don't really change direction. TRhey jyst go a straight line, which makes it quite easy to predicts.
I imagine in real war situation ships used to swerve or change directions every so often near coasts...

I also have a hard time snking moving ships using torpedoes at high speed low level when too far..And when I get too close usually I get smashed into my own torpedo explosion.Any suggestions?How did Torpedo pliots predicted torpedo impact (any instrument aid or only visual?)

[ColaBen]

Hi'
in my book you have to get down low (if you want to hit anything).
ColaBen

[ColHut]

Bomb along the track from behind remembering to reduce your TAS by their speed and you will be fine. Bombing in IL2 suffers from none of the vagaries of reality and the ships won't even take evasive action! Mind you they are all equipped with quadraxially stabilised AA guns and an uninteruptable endless amunition supply

[FiBriZZo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ17FbDYZNk

[JAMF]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ17FbDYZNk

That's a stationary ship.

This instruction video linked below is better and tells you how to adjust, when the crosshair drifts over or behind the target. So this clip, with taking Colhut's suggestion into account, it should be quite possible to hit a ship.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhIUGccIQd4

As far as torpedo runs, I have no experience. But I do know that you'll have to aim in front of a moving ship far enough to give the ship time to cross the torpedo's path.

As the torpedo will slow down when it hits the water, you'll have to adjust for it's speed.
-Would the torpedo go the same speed as the ship, you would have to release when the ship is at 45 degrees off your nose, when flying at a 90 degree angle to the path of the ship.
-Ship slower than torpedo that angle needs to be less, say 30-40 degrees, depending on speed of ship.

[seaniebeag1983]

as far as i know there were no instruments to aid in attacking moving ships, just pilot skill.

For high level bombing of a moving ship the key is practice and experience. An experienced bombadier will be able to guesstemate the time the bombs will take to reach the ground, add the bomb delay(though you probably wont want any bombing a moving ship), and know you can make a rough guess as to how far the ship will move between bomb release and impact.
I dont know if this was ever done IRL as I imagine it would have a very low success rate.
Attack from behind in a dead straight line and carry more than one bomb. No ships will not make evasive manouveres in game unless the mission builder tells them too.

My personal fave method for taking out ships is to skip bomb, which you seem to be doing using torps . you gotta pass right over the deck but its tough to miss your target (if you survive the sniper ship gunners).
To practice torpedo attacks make a mission where you are second in a flight of two with your leader set to ace level. Follow your leaders six and watch where he releases his torp, try for a variety of ships at various attack speeds coming in from different angles. Puttin the ship skill to rookie and changing their rate of fire will help you make it close enough.

Practice and Experience are the key words here

[JAMF]

My personal fave method for taking out ships is to skip bomb, which you seem to be doing using torps . you gotta pass right over the deck but its tough to miss your target (if you survive the sniper ship gunners).

Never forgetting to set delay at around 2 seconds.

[FiBriZZo]

if u come from the 6 of the ship, then its the same like bombing a stationary ship.

auto-bombsight use in practice (in il2 game):
1) u preset the altitude
2) bring crosshair on target
3) turn auto-bombsight on
4) change speed dinamically until crosshair is fixed on a fix point of the target and not moving from that point (lol)
5) wait for bombs gone

in practice when u come from the ships 6 o'clock, then to keep the crosshair fixed on the target u will have to set less speed to be able to keep it fixed and that speed is the speed of the ship. an example: ship speed is 20kph, so u will need to set 20kph less to keep the crosshair fixed on the target, since the the bomber speed is more than the set speed in the bombsight, the bombs will fall farther from the point where the crosshair was pointed in the moment of "bombs gone". and this distance will be that comes from 20 kph speed difference.
in this way u dont need to calculate how much the ship will move and trying to find a point to aim front of the ship. much easier to aim on the ship and then the rest is done by the auto-bombsight

so in practice bombing stationary and moving ships is the same. by the way u can see in my video how to make the crosshair fixed on the ship by changing the speed only.

another tip: since u can set speed only by 10 kph, and sometimes u would only need to change by 4 or 5kph to make crosshair fixed u can change on the altitude to get it
auto-bombsight is like a 2 variables equation and its like that:

(altitude*X)*(speed*Y)=(crosshair is fixed on target) ====> DIRECT HIT!!!

so u can change either variables vica versa to get the same effect

[seaniebeag1983]

Never forgetting to set delay at around 2 seconds. [/quote]

I like 3 seconds, i find thats quite good for taking out any enemy fighters who are careless enough to stay on my six as i hit the target

[mavyalex]

Hello,

For skip bombing what are the minimal safe speed and altitude? Should I get as low as 20 meters or is it tto low? Should I go as fast as I can ? (500 mph is ok? seems a lot)?

When you say 2 seconds delay, what do you mean exactly?

[Guest]

I watched the video and that's way too accurate. For high altitude bombing of stationary targets on land, it would take 1,000 bombs to make sure the target gets destroyed. In the game, you can sight in a ship or something and get a direct hit off of the first bomb. Hopefully, some brillant modder can modify the high altitude bomb accuracy in the future. Anyways, for high altitude stuff on moving ships, you'll have to pull lead. How much lead depends on how fast you're moving and how fast the ship's moving. The best way to bomb a ship would be to either dive bomb it or fly directly at it, release the bombs, and pull up so that the bombs fly into the side of the ship.