"WoW Flight of the Giants" Topic

I've been Googling to see if there is any news on this new WoW version which I understand was scheduled to be released in August this year. I find nothing. Does anyone know anything about it?

check this out. From my 2nd favorite site after TMP.

link

Fun stuff!

So still no definite release date? Alright. Does anyone have house rules/cards for using heavy bombers in WoW?

No, but I imagine they should be fairly easy to develop, e.g.

- only gentle turns are permitted;
- give them twice the number of hit points, and engines;
- loss of an engine reduces speed by 50%, and bombs must be dropped immediately;
- must suffer two kills to be shot down from catastrophic hits;
- very slow rate of climbing and diving.

We do have 1/144th scale Gothas for sale, in white metal, in addition to many other WWI and WWII aircraft.

They are very impressive models. We also have a lozenge decal set to go with them too, in case you don't want to try painting that by hand.

See here for more details:

link

I hope that helps.

Best regards,

Rob
Topgun Marketing LLC

Top Gun,

You are far from right on the climbing and diving stuff. Of course it varies from plane to plane but . . . the DH-9a in particular is a pretty hot plane relative to the German single seaters trying to catch them.

IIRC the Breguet Bombers have pretty good performance (climbing and diving) as well -- both climbing and diving.

The ability to climb is diminished by a bomb load but . . . all the climbing with the bomb load was done prior to crossing the lines.

Sigh! -- I may have to break down and evaluate those Gotha's soon. Was hoping to put this off for a while.

mjc

Hi MJC,

I was thinking about them with their bomb loads, but as you mention, I imagine they will improve considerably if they are dropped.

Then again, I doubt many are meant to maneuver like scouts, especially in a dive. Not sure, but can see how they might suffer structural failure if they dive too quickly, like the early Albatrosses did.

Best regards,

Rob

Well Rob,

I don't think any of the bombers got into a dog fight very often. I've found a few that involved DH-4's (Brit aircraft). The idea was to drop the bombs and get home PDQ.

One of the big problems I'm running into with Watch Your Six! is figuring out how to make a game out of the bombers. Where most bombers are concerned the single seaters might be able to intercept and make a single pass. Then it's see ya! If the bombers are in a shallow glide they are actually faster than the single seaters -- recently did a game involving Rumpler C-1's -- even these were too fast for the Pups and Triplanes to catch once they headed for home in a shallow dive.

The Caproni Ca-3's are rather slow and can be caught by the scout aircraft -- suppose that's why they almost always flew at might. Gotha's and Hadley Page Bombers did the same thing during the latter part of the war.

mjc

@TopGunAce:
Thanks, that's the kind of advice I was looking for. Appreciate it. How are bombers (in pretty broad strokes) for speed in comparison to fighters? Half? Two-thirds?

Ilya Mourumetz… Gewrman fighters could catch them…. but they didn't enjoy it much IIRC…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Here's some speed from Yanks for Allied bombers and a couple German Scouts just for comparison:

Breguet B-2 Speed 121mph; OC 20,340

Liberty DH-4 Speed 125 mph; OC 19,500 empty -- much less depending on bomb load -- 5,000 feet when fully loaded. IIRC the Brit Liberty DH-4 with the Eagle Engine delivered similar performance.

DH-9a Speed 123 mph; OC 18,000

Fokker D.7 (160 hp Mercedes) Speed 118 mph; OC 19,600

Fokker D.7(F) (185hp BMW) Speed 125mph; 21,000.

Sopwith Strutter (bomber version) 96 mph; OC 8000 feet.

Hadley Page Bomber 79mph; OC about 10,000 feet

As you can see most late war bombers are actually faster than every German Scout save the Fokker D.7(F). The Mercedes 160hp engine was pretty much standard in most German Scouts. This engine was not high compression and did not do well at high altitudes.

Unencumbered by bombs, the late war Allied day bombers can generally climb as well or better than German Scouts (D.7(f) excepted). The slower types were relegated to night bombing missions.

The most 'fragile' of the late war bombers is probably the American Liberty D-4. Pilots were afraid to open up the throttle because they feared full power would tear the plane apart. Still it's pretty clear they were quite capable of outpacing the Fokker D.7(F)'s of JG II.

There is a lot of mis-information out there and too many rules portray day bombers as very slow, rather easy targets. Such was not the case. Often the Germans were only just able to intercept a formation and make a single pass before being left behind.

The reasons for this is that when the bombers were 'in bound' they proceeded at very high altitudes and it took the German Scouts all kinds of time to climb and close with the Bomber formations. Seldom were the bombers engaged when approaching their target. The German Scouts were generally able to position themselves to intercept the out bound day bombers but did not always have enough time to close with them before the bombers left them behind. The SSW-3 and SSW-4 aircraft had a rather phenomenal rate of climb and these were to be employed as point defense aircraft. Unfortunately for the Germans they never played much of a part because of engine problems and the inability of the Germans to develop an adequate lubricant for the Halske engines.

mjc

Top Gun Rob,

I have the Skytrex Gotha and 2 AEG bombers. Do you have lozenge decals for them?

Ralph