Masterful Sabrage: the math behind an air bombing slant range task, and useful tips to complete

[Bruce_R1 2,118]

So let's talk about Masterful Sabrage...

This is an interesting and complex battlepass task: "Destroy five player vehicles using an unguided bomb while at a distance of at least 4,000 meters from the target at the moment of impact", the first of the type we've seen. Available in Ground and Naval AB and RB.
 

Another word for distance from the target is slant range. This is the trigonometric combination of the vertical and horizontal distances between plane and impact point. It's the distance you see expressed on screen when you're looking at distance to a capture point in your bomb sights.
 

Unguided bombs all fall ballistically. Assuming level flight, the crosshairs on the bomb sight (or the reticle in AB) show the point of ground they will hit given the plane's current speed and altitude from the ground. At the altitudes we're talking about, a couple rough estimate equations can allow us to figure the speed and altitude we will need to be going to achieve a certain slant range at the point that the bomb is dropped that will apply universally.
 

For this problem, though, we also need to consider the change to that slant range produced by the player's actions while the bomb is still falling, before impact. The plane is going toward the target, it must turn away or the slant range will only keep decreasing. Unless you're back more than 4000m from the ground (13 kilofeet (kft)) i the ~25 seconds it will take the bomb to fall, this could lead to a kill not qualifying. Once the plane is turned away, it can start adding back to the slant range to get it above 4000m again.
 

Because at these altitudes, in RB modes ground targets will be difficult to pick out, and the time the bomb is falling allows them to reposition, big bombs would normally be preferred, but at the mid-BR range (BR 4-7) those big bombs are on slow platforms with slow climb and turn rates (Pe-8, B-29, Lancaster, He.111 H-16). This tends to push the "easy path" to complete this task to BR 8 and above, where you start seeing jets with high bombloads and sufficient power (Canberra Mark 2, Il-28).
 

Here's a graphic showing the above, and the basic math that is involved.

Spoiler

From these equations you can actually derive the minimum speed and altitude above target (note, a lot of ground maps have ground levels higher than sea level) you will need to achieve a targeting solution. Basically your initial point needs to be above this energy curve when you're approaching the target and still a few km away. Otherwise what will happen, even if you're aiming at a cap point and can see the slant range, is you'll never see your slant range to that aimpoint go above 4000m. In a slow bomber, your turnaway maneuver however you do it is unlikely to add much to that slant range, so you need to be 4000m or better at release. Everyone doing this task in mid range bombers should take a look at these curves and have a plan for how they're going to get above them before the target appears in their crosshairs (given here in both metres and kilofeet):
 

Spoiler

 

This is problematic because you're coming into a ground map as CAS at 4.5-5 kft off the ground and around five km away from the closest release point on a cap circle. A straight climb from that kind of start point will be impossible for any large mid-BR plane. For those planes, you will likely need to climb first, up to close to the level you want to bomb from, and then build up your speed again. This can be hard because fully loaded bomber engine performance above 10 kft ASL is often not great, so rapid climbs or acceleration will not be possible. You can do it, but you need to plan.

Another factor is ground height. As mentioned all long range bomber spawn points in ground and naval are 4.5-5 kft (1350-1500m) up (AGL) and about 7.5 km back from the B point on a 3-cap map (smaller bombers share a separate spawn point about 2 kft/600m lower and a kilometre or more closer). However your altitude in the HUD is ASL (air to sea level) so you need to factor that in if you're looking to get to a target altitude on ground maps (for sea maps the base is at sea level). Here's a list of the 44 ground maps and their base altitude (+/- 100 ft/30m):
 

Spoiler

Map	Ground Level (ft)	(m)
2nd Alamein	0	0
38th Parallel	1100	330
Abandoned Factory	0	0
Abandoned Town	500	150
Advance to the Rhine	0	0
Alaska	0	0
American Desert	200	60
Aral Sea	0	0
Arctic	0	0
Ardennes	2300	690
Ash River	300	90
Berlin	200	60
Breslau	0	0
Campania	1300	390
Cargo Port	0	0
Carpathians	1200	360
Eastern Europe	0	0
Finland	200	60
Fire Arc	200	60
Frozen Pass	700	210
Fulda	700	210
Golden Quarry	0	0
Hurtgen	100	30
Japan	7000	2100
Jungle	0	0
Karelia	600	180
Kuban	700	210
Maginot	100	30
Middle East	400	120
Mozdok	500	150
Normandy	200	60
Poland	0	0
Port Novo	0	0
Pradesh	3000	900
Red Desert	600	180
Seversk-13	0	0
Sinai	2100	630
Spaceport	0	0
Stalingrad	100	30
Sun City	0	0
Sweden	0	0
Tunisia	0	0
Vietnam	0	0
Volokolamsk	200	60

For some the ASL-AGL differential is quite significant (specifically Japan). The other trick to remember is to note your spawn altitude. If it's higher than 5000 feet, then the equivalent of 13000 feet to put you above the slant range curve will be 8000 feet than whatever altitude you came in on.

The two four-engine bombers with big enough bombs to have high multikill probabilities are borderline-viable, only because of their time to altitude. Here's a list of some of the most obvious research tree WW2-era candidates to do this job:

Spoiler

Name	Nation	BR	Weapons	Weapon Size	Radius (ft)	Destruction Area (m^2)	Base RofC (ft/min)	Ordnance	Mods	Net RofC (ft/min)	Time to Alt (min)
Lancaster I	UK	5.3	1	12000 lb	375	41065	1340	-728	0	612	13.1
Pe-8	SU	4.3	1	5000 kg	346	34959	983	-547	134	570	14.0
He 177 A-5	GE	6	2	1800 kg	99	5724	1164	-417	0	747	10.7
Stirling I	UK	4	9	1000 lb	37	3598	1050	-451	167	766	10.4
Yer-2 (M-105)	SU	3.7	6	500 kg	40	2803	1544	-743	0	801	10.0
B-17E	US	4.7	6	1000 lb	40	2803	1111	-421	0	690	11.6
G8N1	JP	6	3	800 kg	47	1935	968	-353	102	717	11.2

 

BR: Battle rating (RB)
Destruction area: square metres of guaranteed ground vehicle destruction (assumes no overlap in the case of multiple ordnance)
Time to Alt: time to climb 8000 feet/2400m at RB statcard rate of climb (net, after modification by ordnance weight and mods)

So as one can see, nothing tech tree really compares in destruction area to the Lancaster or Pe-8, and all the long range bombers will take at least 10 minutes to do the necessary climbing, going by their in-game stats.
 

Suggestions to make this easier when doing this at midrange focus on two areas where your skill and planning can come to play: the approach, and the turnaway maneuver.
 

Approach: On the approach, you should assume you're not going to see moving targets at this altitude and teammates may not have a spot to give you. To avoid having no target at all, you should turn as you climb up to your chosen altitude and speed to line up two or more likely target points. Cap points are good for this: one approach is to line up all three cap points on a three cap map map and approach on that vector. Another option is a cap and a spawn point. Known geographic chokepoints you can pick out are another kind of target.
 

You need to take your time on approach. In mid-tier bombers you will likely need to do a full 360 degree over your airfield as you climb to altitude. Yes, there are risks fighters could catch you or the game could end, but if you end up going over the target at an altitude and speed below that curve, the whole approach will have to be done again. Patience will be required.

On the circle maneuver, you can use your variometer on your instrument panel to help keep a consistent climb rate. Variometers are mostly rated in hundreds or thousands of feet per minute. In a loaded four-engine bomber in RB, a good climb rate is about 800 ft/min (AB you can push it quite a bit higher than that). See diagram.
 

Spoiler

As shown by the diagram, with the midrank bombers in RB the issue isn't going to be the climb, so much as the need to spool the 40 km of horizontal distance you need to travel between spawn and objective. (That and the patience of climbing for 10 minutes.) For a bomber that can only do under 1000 ft/min climb loaded in RB, you very well may have to go around twice. Note that performance diminishes with altitude, so your initial climb performance at spawn may be misleading. You also need to plan the entire game around this attack, getting spawn points through caps and kills early in the game, so you have enough game time to get a chance in after you spawn a bomber.

 

Turnaway: A climbing turnaway maneuver is unlikely to work. Your radius will be tight, but your speed will be so slow coming around you're likely to only reduce your slant range. Better will be either a level turn or a diving (sliceback) turn, going full idle, inverting 135 degrees on the turnaway, and then powering back up as you come around. If you keep it tight, you can come out about 1000 feet lower down and headed away at speed. You want to maximize your turn rate in order to reverse your course as quickly as possible. Your slant number, if you're aiming at a cap and can see one, as you complete the maneuver will be reducing, and may go below 4000, but once you are reversed fully it will start to climb again. Again, you have about 25 seconds here to achieve reversal and start adding to slant, so you need to start turning away immediately on bomb release. A snappy turnaway like this will shave 1000 ft off your needed release altitude, so for ground targets it takes you from needing to be 14 kft AGL to guarantee you're out of the bubble down to 13 or a bit less.
 

Can you do it? Yes. One good Pe-8 drop can get you all 5 kills in a single game if you're lucky. Brute forcing will work here. But physics are physics. Because the task comes late in the season, you could be constrained for time. The only real problem though, is if you think your mid-range bombers can achieve these parameters easily, don't invest in grinding out a jet bomber as a result, and then try to do this in game without putting a little thought to how you're going to do it and get frustrated. Hopefully the tips above will help, and other people can add their own ideas downthread.

Naval options. Naval AB gives you access to the AB flight model, which is much more forgiving here. Taking any of the bombers above into that mode may be a better alternative. While you will likely not get multikills, because the destruction radius is so much smaller, the climb to altitude should be achievable easily in a single circuit in under 7 min, with bombers easily getting to 1200 ft/min climb rates. Also you get more than one shot due to bomber reloads. You will still want to be at around 12 kft ASL/AGL (in naval they're the same) when you start your run in AB, and still plan to turn away after release sharply. Remember fall time is 25+ seconds, so against a speeding destroyer you need to aim approximately 4-5 ship lengths in front to intersect. Naval RB will have the same climb time problems as ground RB.

Jet bombers: The jet bombers at BR 8+ are much more viable for this. Il-28, Tu-14 and Canberra all have large single bomb loads and no climb problem.

Fuze time: While the description says slant range at impact, this could mean "slant range at destruction." We won't know til someone finds a way to confirm that in game or someone clarifies. In the case of the blockbuster Pe-8/Lanc approach, you might as well set a long fuze, to maximize your getaway chances, or alternatively bomb from 14 kft instead of 13 so that you have no chance of getting into your own slant range. Can't hurt, really. For naval, you want a short fuze as you're just adding to the travel time of a moving target. The bomb itself will take up to 28 seconds to hit the ground from a 4000m slant range launch, but you can shave a few seconds off that with a lower launch altitude.

UPDATED 5/15 with some additional charts and stats.

Edited May 15, 2023 by Bruce_R1

[_Poul_ 727]

In Naval Arcade, players already do that with Pe-8 and He 111 H-16, attacking ships in battles without even caring about the challenge. With huge bombs, it's simply a very good tactics.

You don't have to do any calculations, just stay above 4000 meters (where most automatic guns won't even fire) and destroy ships one by one. You need a battle without Saetta P-494 or USS Douglas, but that's not too hard in Naval Arcade at the moment - it might get harder in the future, when more and more vessels with missiles will be added to the game.

 

I don't play Naval Realistic, but I assume, since Naval RB is full of "players", it should be even easier there? You can attack vessels that are stuck on islands etc.

[Bruce_R1 2,118]

5 minutes ago, _Poul_ said:

In Naval Arcade, players already do that with Pe-8 and He 111 H-16, attacking ships in battles without even caring about the challenge. With huge bombs, it's simply a very good tactics.

You don't have to do any calculations, just stay above 4000 meters (where most automatic guns won't even fire) and destroy ships one by one. You need a battle without Saetta P-494 or USS Douglas, but that's not too hard in Naval Arcade at the moment - it might get harder in the future, when more and more vessels with missiles will be added to the game.

 

I don't play Naval Realistic, but I assume, since Naval RB is full of "players", it should be even easier there? You can attack vessels that are stuck on islands etc.

It's harder in naval RB. AB has a much more forgiving flight model, so the math above presents less of a problem, and it's not one shot per game. I can't remember the last time a bomber got me in RB from high alt without a FritzX and I still play nearly every day. I agree naval AB may get you results faster with Pe-8 than ground RB for this task. But some people gonna try anyway.

[Real K Soze@live 407]

2 hours ago, Bruce_R1 said:

Hopefully the tips above will help, and other people can add their own ideas downthread.

 

First of all, i am impressed by your level of passion and dedication to this game and that you actively try to support your fellow players. Very rare to see this in combination here in the forum. 

 

Second - there was last year a challenge to kill players with bombs of various weights (one was 120 kg or less) and after some training i was able to kill a hell of players in Air RB with 50 kg bombs. And the altitude level of 4 km is no problem, i scored some kills even from 9 km alt without any sight on my victims.

 

How? Quite simple - bomb them in Air RB when your opponents don't expect it and feel safe - landing/repairing at the forward (small) airfield. As the af aaa kills you anyway if you are lower than 4 km above the airfield (consider that some af are at 1.5 to 2 km above sea level) all you have to do is to find the right point of time for your attack and (ofc) you should be experienced enough to stay alive until then.

 

So in order to increase your chances you need a fast climbing bomber like the B-18B and you should stay outside the rendering distances of around 20 km of your dot. The contrails make your life not easier, but bomber game play is and was in certain aspects more demanding than fighter game play. 

 

You will have 3 main ways to find suitable targets:

 

1. Watching the game as a whole, reading the battlelog if your friendly was killed, but he critted his killer

2. Certain times in each battle if some enemies ran out of fuel or ammo

3. Direct (markers) and indirect indicators (somebody 8km from his base flies straight to it) that somebody will (or need) to land

 

 At a certain distance i can't see even dots on my antique xbox one, so i need a) to estimate their point of arrival at the af and b) to estimate their repair time and finally c) to know exactly the respawn location on the af. Rest is practice and learning by doing. I got a hell of double kills and 2 triples with the Swedish 600s...

 

Have a good one!

 

 

Edited May 11, 2023 by Uncle J Wick@live

[Bruce_R1 2,118]

11 minutes ago, Uncle J Wick@live said:

 

First of all, i am impressed by your level of passion and dedication to this game and that you actively try to support your fellow players. Very rare to see this in combination here in the forum. 

 

Second - there was last year a challenge to kill players with bombs of various weights (one was 120 kg or less) and after some training i was able to kill a hell of players in Air RB with 50 kg bombs. And the altitude level of 4 km is no problem, i scored some kills even from 9 km alt without any sight on my victims.

 

How? Quite simple - bomb them in Air RB when your opponents don't expect it and feel safe - landing/repairing at the forward (small) airfield. As the af aaa kills you anyway if you are lower than 4 km above the airfield (consider that some af are at 1.5 to 2 km above sea level) all you have to do is to find the right point of time for your attack and (ofc) you should be experienced enough to stay alive until them.

 

So in order to increase your chances you need a fast climbing bomber like the B-18B and you should stay outside the rendering distances of around 20 km of your dot. The contrails make your life not easier, but bomber game play is and was in certain aspects more demanding than fighter game play. 

 

Have a good one!

Thx for your ideas. Unfortunately you can't use the Air modes for this one, but yeah, bombing a fixed point from altitude where you can reasonably assume things are without seeing them is going to be part of this for most players.

The other factor here that's still TBD, btw, is translation-based, since we're talking about what the challenge says. "момент удара" is the word used in the original Russian, which English translates as "time of impact." If that's actually "time of detonation", then choosing a longer fuze buys you additional time on top of what you can achieve by pure reversal.

B18B also has a significantly higher climb rate than the bombers most people will be looking at here, too which allows them to defeat the curve above, at the cost of not being able to drop blockbusters, and the spawn point in air modes for bombers is both higher and farther back than in the modes that qualify here.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Bruce_R1

[Real K Soze@live 407]

2 minutes ago, Bruce_R1 said:

Thx for your ideas. Unfortunately you can't use the Air modes for this one,

 

Np, you are welcome. Imho the challenge description says "Air (AB), Air (RB)" so it should work.

And ofc you are right regarding fuze timer, i forgot this to mention as i play for years now with 1.5 seconds...

 

[Bruce_R1 2,118]

2 hours ago, Uncle J Wick@live said:

 

Np, you are welcome. Imho the challenge description says "Air (AB), Air (RB)" so it should work.

And ofc you are right regarding fuze timer, i forgot this to mention as i play for years now with 1.5 seconds...

 

Ok, I may have misread it, too. EDIT: Yup absolutely misread it, player kills on airfields in Air AB and RB count. So that's another option for sure.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Bruce_R1

[DerLachendeMann 506]

I was thinking Ju-288 in naval AB, climbs well enough, 30 seconds in-air bomb reload, you'll hit something, eventually, with 2x1800kg bombs. Maybe focus on these slow sluggish WWI battleships that barely manage to change course

[Cpt_Bel_V 4,790]

Go get the 120000Lbs bombs on lancaster, use a reserve tank capture a base, jump into the lancaster, climb until you reach bombing sight, drop then Loop around to flee the area  --> 4km easy, number of kills depending on where it was dropped.

[Bruce_R1 2,118]

I've updated the original post with some additional graphics and stats, including bomb destruction radii, time-to-climb calculations, and ground heights of the ground maps.

On 11/05/2023 at 17:56, DerLachendeMann said:

I was thinking Ju-288 in naval AB, climbs well enough, 30 seconds in-air bomb reload, you'll hit something, eventually, with 2x1800kg bombs. Maybe focus on these slow sluggish WWI battleships that barely manage to change course

I think naval AB bombing, at least until the update and the SA-N-1s show up, is pretty viable. Even if it does, assuming the new missile boat is 5.3, a 4.0 Stirling should still work. I restricted my observations to tech tree vehicles, but yes the 288 does open up some options if you own it.

On 12/05/2023 at 02:00, Cpt_Bel_V said:

Go get the 120000Lbs bombs on lancaster, use a reserve tank capture a base, jump into the lancaster, climb until you reach bombing sight, drop then Loop around to flee the area  --> 4km easy, number of kills depending on where it was dropped

Yep, issue will be the climb time in RB, as I outline. But you may only need to get it all right once, if you're lucky.

Edited May 15, 2023 by Bruce_R1

[Thodin 6,784]

Gajin should really stop to make task which are too complicated to achieve and which can be only done by very specific vehicles. This is really bs.

[Unnamed_91 367]

Thanks Bruce

[resto-subaigu@psn 22]

Thank you for all these explanations.

I tried on ground RB. Except Pe-8 it's quite impossible to reach 4 km with low tier bombers. I don't have high tier ones (Ar 234 b2 is my best bomber, hard to reach  4km, too small bombs)

With Pe-8 for example, you need :

1 - A map with 3 points to have a chance to cap

2 - kill at least one unit or scout some (hoping they are killed). It takes almost 3 mins.

3 - If you have enough to get Pe-8, you need 5 more mins to climb at 4 km

4 - Blind drop, you just can't see anything. With lot of luck you can hope to fall on a capture but the time the bomb reaches ground, not sure you still have someone there.

 

On 25 games :

-> 10 games where i wasn't able to get Pe-8

-> 12 games ended before i can reach 4 km.

-> on the last 3 games where i was able to get Pe-8 and had enough time to reach 4km and drop bomb(s), i got 1hit ... not killed, not critical, just a simple hit ... as trees are not taken into consideration, final result is : 4 hours  for nothing !

 

Another task where skill is useless, practice is useless, vehicules, strategy etc ... are useless. Only 1 thing matters : Get lucky !! (unfortunately i'm not ... long suffer on way)

[Josephs_Piano 7,044]

Turned out to be relatively easy in Naval AB.

 

1 game British 5.7 - Lancaster with mixed load of 500/1000/4000lb bombs killed 2 DD's

Next game US 5.0 A-26 with 4 x 1000lb bombs went on a rampage, killed 7 ships total, 3 of them fulfilling the conditions. Some of them took 2 or 3 drops - accuracy from 10k feet isn't teh greatest of course!

 

Looked for campers in both games - 2 of the victims were stationary campers or grounded on an island.

 

Gauging range is much easier in AB of course since the distance is given to every target.

[Thodin 6,784]

On 02/06/2023 at 09:11, Josephs_Piano said:

Turned out to be relatively easy in Naval AB.

 

1 game British 5.7 - Lancaster with mixed load of 500/1000/4000lb bombs killed 2 DD's

Next game US 5.0 A-26 with 4 x 1000lb bombs went on a rampage, killed 7 ships total, 3 of them fulfilling the conditions. Some of them took 2 or 3 drops - accuracy from 10k feet isn't teh greatest of course!

 

Looked for campers in both games - 2 of the victims were stationary campers or grounded on an island.

 

Gauging range is much easier in AB of course since the distance is given to every target.

 

I tried that as well, but unfortnately the Germany He-111 with that big MAX bombs is just rank II. It doesn't work, even with rank III first spawn. So I had to grind it the hard way in Air RB, using the IL-28.

[_ItZzWar_ 3,910]

On 02/06/2023 at 09:11, Josephs_Piano said:

Turned out to be relatively easy in Naval AB.

Had 2 battles 4.3 German naval AB with Me 264 and 4x1000kg. Climbed to 4000m (dropped bombs multiple times to lose weight and climb better) killed 1 camping ship in both battles. The only problem is getting enough points for the bomber in time. Had also some kills with US BR 3.0 SB2C-1C. Mission accomplished.

Edited June 13, 2023 by _ItZzWar_

[Giulione 4]

I was really worried about this task, but I completed it using a 3.3 Japanese lineup, with a P1Y1 equipped with the 800 kg bomb. It climbs quickly and maneuvers like a figther. Focus on campers, slow coastal vessels or stalk destroyers aiming more or less at 2-3 lenghts forward the target. I managed to do it in 3-4 missions, Good luck!