Canberra= Fairey Battle

[Lt. James Cater 62]

Anyone else feel this way?

 

One of the things i like to do is check out other planes in action when i'm not occupied with something vital. The one thing that has alway struck me is that just how bad the loss rates of Canberras can get. It can be so bad that it can only be compared to the Fairey Battle as far as getting hacked down by fighters and ground fire.

 

I remember a mission i flew doing escort to a formation of 12 Canberras hitting a target in Hanoi. I knew very well that there was no fighter threat but SAM was very active so after dodging two of them i decided to hell with it and flew a pattern off the coast and waited for them to come back. In the meantime, i F6ed and followed their mission. The run towards the target was bad enough but they really got slaughtered on the egress. The final two losses were actually right on the coast with both aircraft hitting the water just offshore.

 

A single damaged Canberra made it home. 11 shot down.

 

And you see that more often than not. I've been doing WOE for quite a while now in DiD and whenever you hear "Taking Damage" while inbound you can almost guarantee it will be a Canberra. The damn things are Ivan's wet dream. You can see MIGs just tearing the absolute hell out of them on a regular basis. I've never flown as the Red side but i can just imagine what my score would look like after intercepting them a few times. Cliff11 has been flying a MIG19 recently in DiD and i wondered why on one mission he didn't down a whole flight of them.

 

The IL28 "Iron Beagle" is such a tough bird to down that to be honest, i've grown to dread having to intercept them even if i have downed countless numbers of them. One can't say the same of the Canberra. One can imagine the excitement of an opposition pilot at the prospect of intercepting a formation of Canberras.

 

As you fly into battle in 1962, it might as well be 1940 for the Canberra crews.

Edited January 15, 2011 by Lt. James Cater

[Slartibartfast 153]

I think for the Canberra it was designed to go in at high level at near as not full throttle. Unfortunately the SF series doesnt allow it to be used correctly as it was found like the Vulcan to be almost as manouverable as a fighter at 40000ft+ embarrassed a lot of Hunter pilots Javelin and Lightning fighters up there. Problem is they just fly straight and level and thats it nothing more. I did have a modded campaign on my old PC so that I could fly a campaign as a Canberra though I usually flew alone I normally went up past to 40000ft and if I picked up a fighter I would generally out-manouver him until he ran out of fuel and went home as the Canberra has buckets and buckets of fuel and the fighter would generally burn his fuel just getting up to me. Dealing with Mr SAM was a different proposition I lost a few to SAM's as no ECM or countermeasures onboard I was tempted to mod it to include Chaff at least. If flown correctly it can survive but SF cannot fly it correctly IMHO.

[Derk 265]

Also depends on the flying. The Canberra is quite nimble at low level. A MiG 17 could do a lot of harm, maybe the MiG 19 too, but an '21 could be outmanoeuvred I gess

I'm going to try it ou a couple of times..... (WOE)

 

Houdoe,

 

Derk

[+Spillone104 553]

Well, this is more an AI problem than the plane itself just because the bombers don't do defensive manouvers and simply follow waypoints. The IL-28 is thoughter to shoot down (with fighters) just because it have defensive armament on its tail. But in performances the Canberra or the B-57 were better.

[Wrench 9,630]

You do know, of course, that historically the Canberras in Nam were never operating North of the DMZ .... all them -RAAF, USAF, VNAF "just don't go there"

 

and, yes ... US (and in theory, since they were x-US), VNAF B-57s should have a low-power jammer and chaff dispensers. Can's speak to the Aussie EE versions

 

Check out the Crowood Canberra & B-57 At War

the SS In Actio has some info that might also be usefull

there's another one I have, but can't find it!!

 

wrench

kevin stein

[Lt. James Cater 62]

The B-57 was a very good combat aircraft. However, i'm just concerned with it's fate under AI control. It's low, slow and highly vunerable. Do a campain in WOE and after 10 missions or so check out the squadrons and you can bet that some Canberra units will already be effectively out of the fight due to losses.

 

It's a better bomber than the IL28 by far. But unlike the Iron Beagle, once intercepted it is pretty much doomed to destruction.

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

This is SF-1 forum. As for bomber/strike AI flying straight all the time when under attack, that was early SF1, right? I know in SF1 2008, aircraft started to turn to avoid AAMs (but not gun attacks). I thought this was an interesting improvement to the game but went back to 2006 before I explored it further. Has the AI improved in this respect further in SF2?

[+Gepard 10,661]

The AI vulnerability of the Canberra are caused by the setting as ATTACKER. If you set it as BOMBER and inculde the lines

 

[LevelBombAI]

ReleaseAlt=7000.0

ReleaseCount=24

ReleaseInterval=0.1

 

you will find the Canberras attacking at 7.000 meters ~ 22.000 ft instead 3500 meters.

Then you still has to increase the cruise speed a little bit, so that the Canberra is marching with 650 kph instead 530 kph. Now fighters like the MiG-17 or MiG-19 have some problems to catch this bird.

You can also increase the bomb release altitude to 8000 or 9000 meters.

Edited January 15, 2011 by Gepard

[Lt. James Cater 62]

The AI vulnerability of the Canberra are caused by the setting as ATTACKER. If you set it as BOMBER and inculde the lines

 

[LevelBombAI]

ReleaseAlt=7000.0

ReleaseCount=24

ReleaseInterval=0.1

 

you will find the Canberras attacking at 7.000 meters ~ 22.000 ft instead 3500 meters.

Then you still has to increase the cruise speed a little bit, so that the Canberra is marching with 650 kph instead 530 kph. Now fighters like the MiG-17 or MiG-19 have some problems to catch this bird.

You can also increase the bomb release altitude to 8000 or 9000 meters.

 

Thanks for the tip, i'll do that soon!

[Derk 265]

At least one (very experienced) Indian pilot has his opinion about the capablities of the Canberra too..... (outperforming the MiG 29 and Mirage 2000....)

 

My link

 

Houdoe,

 

Derk