Air Support bugs

[KG_ThorsHammer]

I thought it was imagination before but apparently it is not. There are aircraft bugs I thought scenario desgners should be aware of. The HS129 bomber for example; on many occasions it makes the sound of dropping bombs but doesnt actually drop any. Bugs like this can affect scenario balance if one side is counting on air support helping out, only to have nothing happen! In a scenario of mine, I had scheduled 2 HS129s and I have now had to replace them with BF110s that have some bombs.

[KG_Kharkov]

This seemed to routinely happen in Hell's Heart (not to mention friendly fire). I just thought it was par for the course for air support since I never use it in games (except in scenarios).

[KG_ThorsHammer]

yeah, was thinking that too,,its been fixed for future use

[KG_Panzerschreck]

i didnt know that. that blows for sure. especially the HS-129. man what a butt kicking tank buster to boot. :?

its too bad CMBB doesnt have the version that had the 50mm ATG in the nose! :x

[KG_ThorsHammer]

there is the one with a 75mm though:)

[KG_Panzerschreck]

yes but that one shook the plane apart! :twisted:

[KG_ThorsHammer]

lol yeah. Made a name for itself as a train killer!

[KG_ThorsHammer]

Here is a list of another type of bug. Makes me kind of mad that something as important as air support had problems like this overlooked.

The bug seems to only get triggered by multi-option load planes: if you save and reload the game after a bombing, these planes 'forget' (most of the time) their previous bombing and bomb again with full load.

These are the planes of CMBB bugged:

LaG-G3 FB
YAK-1 FB
Me Bf 109F FB
He Hs 129B-1 DB
MIG 3 FB
YAK-7B FB
Me Bf 109G-6/R1 FB
YAK-9B FB
IL-2 TYPE 3 GA
Me Bf 109G-10/R1
YAK-9T TB
Me Bf 109G-14/R1

[KG_Panzerschreck]

here is some interesting notes about the Henschel 129 -

The Henschel Hs 129, often referred to by it's nickname, the Panzerknacker, (tank cracker), was a World War II ground attack aircraft fielded by the Luftwaffe. Although likely to be a good anti-tank weapon, the plane was produced in only small numbers and deployed during a time when the Luftwaffe was unable to protect them from attack.

Design and Prototypes
The Hs 129 was designed around a single large "bathtub" of steel sheeting that made up the entire nose area of the plane, completely enclosing the pilot up to head level. Even the canopy was steel, with only tiny windows on the side to see out of and two angled blocks of glass for the windscreen. In order to improve the armour's ability to stop bullets the sides were angled in forming a triangular fuselage, resulting in almost no room to move at shoulder level. There was so little room in the cockpit that the instrument panel ended up under the nose below the windscreen where it was almost invisible, some of the engine instruments were moved outside onto the engine nacelles, and the gun sight was mounted outside on the nose.
In the end the plane came in 12% overweight and the engines 8% underpowered, so it flew like a pig. The controls proved to be almost inoperable as speed increased, and in testing one plane flew into the ground from a short dive because the stick forces were too high for the pilot to pull out. The Fw design proved to be no better, both planes were underpowered with their Argus 410 engines, and very difficult to fly. In the end the only real deciding factor was that the Henschel was smaller and cheaper. The Focke-Wulf was put on low priority as a backup, and testing continued with the Hs 129A-0.

Hs 129B-1
A series of improvements resulted in the Hs 129A-1 series, armed with two 20mm MG 151/20's and two 7.92mm MG17's, along with the ability to carry four 50kg bombs under the midline. But even before the A-1's were delivered the plane was redesigned with the Gnôme-Rhône 14M radial engine, which were captured in some number when France fell. This engine supplied 700hp (for takeoff) compared to the Argus at 465hp. The A-1 planes were converted into Hs 129B-0's for testing (although some claim that some A's were sold to Romania) and the pilots were reportedly much happier. Their main complaint was the view from the canopy, so a single larger windscreen and a new canopy with much better vision were added, resulting in the production model Hs 129B-1. B-1's started rolling off the lines in December 1941, but they were delivered at a trickle. In preparation for the new plane, I./Sch.G 1 had been formed up in January with 109's and Hs 123's, and they were delivered B-0's and every B-1 that was completed. Still, it wasn't until April that 12 B-1's were delivered and its 4th staffeln was ready for action. They moved to the eastern front in the middle of May, and in June they received a new weapon, the 30mm MK 101 cannon with armour-piercing ammo in a midline pod.

Hs 129B-2
By May of 1942 only 50 of the planes had been delivered when they started to deliver the new Hs 129B-2 model side-by-side with the B-1. The only difference between the two were changes to the fuel system – a host of other minor changes could be found almost at random on either model. As time went on these changes were accumulated into the B-2 production line until you could finally tell them apart at a glance, the main differences being the removal of the mast for the radio antenna, the addition of a direction-finding radio antenna loop, and shorter exhaust stacks on the engines.
In the field the differences seemed to be more pronounced. The R-kits were renumbered and some were dropped, and in general the B-2 planes received the upgraded cannon pack using a MK 103 instead of the earlier MK 101. These guns both fired the same ammunition, but the 103 did so about almost twice the rate.

Hs 129B-3

Even by late 1942 complaints started about the MK103 against newer versions of the Soviet T-34 tanks. One solution would be to standardize on the larger 37mm gun, itself adapted from an anti-tank gun that had recently been abandoned by the army. For some reason the Luftwaffe decided to skip over this gun (although it served perfectly well on the Ju 87), and install a 75mm gun from the Panzer IV. A huge hydraulic system was used to damp the recoil of the gun, and an auto-loader system with twelve rounds was fitted in the large empty space behind the cockpit. The resulting system was able to knock out any tank in the world, but the weight slowed the already poor performance of the plane to barely flyable in this new Hs 129B-3 version.
B-3's only started arriving in June 1944, and only 25 were delivered by the time the lines were shut down in September. A small number were also converted from older B-2 models. In the field they proved deadly weapons, but with only 25 of them they had no effect on the war effort.

Hs 129C
In order to address the poor performance of the aircraft, plans had been underway for some time to fit the plane with newer versions of the Italian Isotta-Fraschini Delta engine that delivered 850 hp (634 kW). However the engine ran into a number of delays, and was still not ready for production when the plant was overrun by the Allies.

[KG_Panzerschreck]

the 75mm version is in the game, i never noticed it before. cool.