[Outryder]

it'll only work once.. Once your bombs are gone you are stuck at zero altitude with no room to manouvre.. I'd rather stay high, get rid of the bombs so as to further increase speed, and rely on my gunnery skills to fend off a pursuing fighter..

If your flying a bomber, you don't have any manuverabilty anyway, at any altitude. My favorite ride is the SBD, and the best place to be in it is on the deck. Bandits can't get under you to attack you from your underbelly, where the SBD's is most vulnerable. I learned this trick from the After Action reports found at cv6.org.

In one of the reports, the pilot stated that after the squadron released and pulled out of their dive attack on the CV's at Midway, they leveled out about 50 ft above the water and egressed out between the escort ships. They formed back up quickly at this low altitude and continued away from the IJ fleet. The IJ CAP pilots did make passes at them, but didn't seem to be interested in pressing home their attacks. Apparently, having several pairs of .30's firing at them from the SBD's rear seat didn't set well with the Japnese pilots.

When I was with CVG-12 our VB squadron employed this technique with reasonable success.