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The Ultimate Bomber Crew Guide

By artimits

Everything you need to know to stop kissing the grass.

Award

Created by

artimits
Online

Category: Achievements, Characters, Classes, Co-op, Crafting, Game Modes, Gameplay Basics, Loot, Maps or Levels, Modding or Configuration, Multiplayer, Secrets, Story or Lore, Trading, Walkthroughs, Weapons, Workshop

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

25 Oct, 2017 @ 11:52am

8 Aug, 2021 @ 4:43pm

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Guide Index

Overview

USAAF Update!

Introduction

The Basics

Your Bomber

B-17 "Flying Fortress"

Your Systems

Your Crew

Equipment And Stations

Map & Perks

Enemy Types

Aces

Hazards & Weather

Priority Table

Example Video

Challange Mode

Thanks For Reading My Guide!

Comments

USAAF Update!

This section of the guide is for the people who already read it and want a quick overview of what has changed.

New USAAF campaigns based out of africa.
B-17 Flying Fortress and 9 crew members available in the USAAF DLC.
New helmets with sweet shades.
New hazards, enemy planes and aces!

The new campaign is very good, its a decent length and its not easy, should provide some challange.

Landing with a single wheel is now extremely deadly, try landing on your belly or restarting the mission if you lose one, if you do try to land with 1 wheel out your plane will go flying and rip itself apart.

Introduction

So, you have been recruited into the bomber division of the RAF, im going to be real with you, there isn't much of a chance to win this war alone, so you, me and the entire army has to hold off the toothbrush until Old Ronald stops pouring tea into the ocean and helps us out.

If you have just started the game, I suggest you read this, it will give you the right mindset when you enter the game.

If you are quite deep in the campaign and struggling, you may find a few helpful insights into the future so you dont end up dead.

Why should you trust me?

I have finished the game and have 25 hours in, you may check my achievements and profile.

I have been making guides for different games aswell, again you may check my profile.

The Basics

Now if you haven't done the tutorial, let me give you a very quick run-down: This is a micro-management game, a lot like FTL, where you have to keep an eye on a lot of things.

To move your crew, click on them and then click where you want them.

To go to stations (guns, pilot seat, etc.) click on the crew man you want, then click on the station, there should be an outline around the station if you are hovering over it.

Top one is a Fire extinguisher it extinguishes fires inside the cabin (plane) Click on it to grab it, and fires will have a little blip on them, click this and your crew member will extinguish.

Middle one is a parachute, this will save your crewmen if they fall, I don't really bring these with me, I think Medbags are better. To use just equip it like the fire extinguisher, and then order your crew to bail via pilot skills. (not recommended)

Last one is a Medbag. you will be using this the most, you're crew members get injured and downed when they are shot and their health bar depletes. To use get a healthy crew member to equip, click on downed crew member.

(Click for zoomed-in image)

This is everything on your plane except the landing gear and stations.

All of these things can be damaged and will need to be repaired once they are shot up enough.

The Fuselage (metal skin and skeleton of the plane) will also take damage, and if they take enough damage they will break, the wings and landing gear can break off. If the body takes too much damage, the entire plane will break apart! there is no way to repair fuselage in mission!

Engines will catch fire sometimes if shot enough, this may be extinguished with an emergency dive more on that later, if they are broken, you must send your engineer outside to fix it
you may do this by clicking on the engineer, and then the engine, this will make them go out and fix it. To let them back in, click them back to their station.

If engines gets damaged enough, they will fall off, this increases drag and fuel consumption (citation needed).

Fuel tanks will leak when they are shot enough, this will slowly drain your fuel, to stop this you may transfer the fuel to the OK tank from the screen next to the pilot, (where the engi starts off from). You can repair it after by sending your engi out to the wing.

It is possible to land with a single landing gear, engine or wing, you can also land with no landing gear, but it will destroy a already pretty damaged bomber, and hurt your guys a lot, so heal up before attempting to land!

PSA: Single Gear Landings
In one of the updates landing with a single tyre was made extremely deadly sending your plane cartwheeling across the landing strip, you should try and land on your belly instead now until this problem is addressed.

The bomb bay doors under the plane can also get damaged, this will expose your bombs, if shot enough they will blow you up instead of the target!

Your Bomber

You see that beauty up there? that is an Avro Lancaster, loosely based off of the halifax bomber, this baby is the best bomber in our arsenal, if the 4 1,280 horsepower Merlin XX supercharged engines don't make you soil your pants, the 3 gun emplacements and day long missions will.

ARMAMENT:

Ok so lets start with the guns! at the start you will get guns that fire 303. enfield rounds, it should tear up those messerschmitts at an ok rate, Your first gun will have a belt size of 900 rounds, that means your gunner can shoot 900 bullets before he needs to get another belt, your gunners can have a maximum of 2 belts at a time even if your current belt has 1 bullet left.

So the 303. is good and all, but after a while the Messerchmitts you see will go out of fashion and newer more modern and more armored planes will come, recon even suggests "jets" will be the new norm for fighters!

Ok anyway, so the 303. it is a good little bullet, but when it comes to piercing armor it really doesn't do much, Its time to switch to the 50. guns. Now these babies should really set some engines on fire! I suggest you switch the mid upper and ventral turrets first, as the 50. bullet is a lot bigger than the 303. so our guns can't carry as much bullets (600 rounds per belt).

NOTE:Rear guns have the option to be fed ammo directly, This is a very good thing! it means 1 less thing to worry about! which is what this game is all about. Even if they are worse than guns that aren't ammo fed, it is always better to keep Ammo fed guns on the rear.

UPDATE:
The Secret Weapons Update gave us the option of having all of our guns ammo fed, keep the rear turret ammo fed, and you can get all of the turrets ammo fed once you get the last ammo fed 4x 50. cal, which does the same damage and is ammo fed. If weight is a problem you can stick with the non-fed guns.

mini note: Guns with ammo feed get infinite belts not bullets, so they will still have to switch belts which takes 3-2 seconds.

While you progress through the campaign you will eventually get turrets with 4 guns instead of 2, a 303. x4 is better than a 50. x2 (keep the most advanced ammo fed turret on the rear) these guns use ammo twice as fast, your mid and ventral gunner are so close to the ammo dump that it does not matter. Same thing applies to the front turret, anything 4x that has a belt size of 900 or over is good.

PSA: 20mm cannons

These guns only really work once your gunners are at their max levels, otherwise the accuracy just isn't good enough, I think the best quad 50. cals beat them in DPS, but 20mms look cooler.

ARMOUR:

Now as much as you are well armed, don't think you are set, people say a good defense is a good offense, but I say, why not have a good offense and a good defense?

You want to have the fuselage armor at the best available at all times if you cannot carry it all, heres a quick upgrade priority list:

1. Tail
2. Wings
3. Rear-Mid
4. Mid
5. Front
6. Nose

airplanes will nearly all the time attack your rear end so keeping those parts well armoured is a good move, And you really want your front armor high since your Navigator, Pilot and Radio operator are there, and if one of them get injured life will get a lot harder. The nose is one of the least attacked Portions of the plane even if they try your front gunner will make the germs yell "mein gott das ist gut gun, ich bin died, sheize."

NOTE: Armoured Fuselage mk4 is less armored than Lightweight Fuselage mk5, other tiers do not work like this, only this one!

ENGINES:

These lovely things allow you to take flight and stay in the sky, these are one of the most vital parts of our plane. Once all engines are out, there is no way in hell you will be able to recover! The outer engines are guaranteed to be destroyed, no matter the type. Because the armoured engines are crucial for the end of the mission, we choose to sacrifice the light ones by putting them outside and thus protect the valuable armoured ones from damage.

NOTE: Engines can be extinguished by either emergency diving, using a handheld extinguisher, or a built-in engine extinguisher.

What your engines should be at part of the campaign:

Early Game:

Port Outer: Standard
Port Inner: Armoured
Starboard Inner: Armoured
Starboard Outer: Standard

Mid Game:

Port Outer: Standard
Port Inner: Standard
Starboard Inner: Standard
Starboard Outer: Standard

Late Game:

Port Outer: Lightweight
Port Inner: Armoured
Starboard Inner: Armoured
Starboard Outer: Lightweight

(Get the highest possible tier all the time.)

If your engines catch fire, an Emergency Dive will extinguish them usually, extinguishers will help but I will explain that later in the systems.

UPGRADE PRIORITY:

(Sacrifice armour for guns and good engines for armour...)

1. Guns
2. Armour
3. Engines
4. Hydraulics
5. Equipment (Medbags, fire extinguisher etc.)
6. Electrics
7. Radar
8. Oxygen tank
9. Fuel tank
10. Engine extinguishers
11. Survival gear

NOTE: I went through the entire game without using any survival equipment! I would rather survive in the sky than on the ground.

B-17 "Flying Fortress"

Thats the american B-17, though a newer one with the chin gun and no window mounted guns, if anyone has a nicer picture please send it over!

Anyway, lets talk statistics, the B-17 couldn't carry as much as the lancaster in bombs but it still packs a punch. The bombs are located in the fuselage of the plane, and if the normal bombs get shot during release they will hurt the crew and blow the closest wing's tip off, so watch out.

The bomber is crewed by 9 crew members! this means more micro management (its not that bad actually) how I usually crew the plane is I put my bomber on the top gun, the engineer and the navigator can man the 2 front window guns, if you bought them of course.

To add to all of its benefits, the B-17's engines have a smaller profile and are shot less, the bomber itself is pretty sturdy (I finished the game with only level 2 armoured fuselage, I did lose 3 bombers though) so focus on getting the guns after that go with armour. I never really lost because of engine failure and even in the most intense fights I only ever lost 1 engine.

NOTE: the cheek and waist single guns are not dependent on hydraulics to move so they can function while the quad/double guns cannot. credit: Nitro Blitzen

All the guns are ammo fed, there is no ammo box on the plane, so no worrying about resupplying.

I use the bomber as a gunner, and the engi drops the bombs when the time comes.

Your Systems

Think of these as your bombers' heart and lungs, they keep everything from falling apart.

ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:

This is what keeps the radar going, without the radar it would be very hard to spot distant fighters. I have no idea what the extra voltage does, im guessing it lets it take more damage before completely shutting down, or maybe it makes the radar go faster. Anyway this isn't attacked often but it is prone to malfunction mid flight, I would suggest getting the first 12 volt one, and then later in the game when your armor and guns are maxed out to upgrade it to mk5. The random shutdowns can be really annoying sometimes, I haven't gone down because of it though.

HYDRAULICS:

The most important system, It provides movement for the turrets, bomb bay doors and landing gear. Hydraulic systems with a power of 2 make bomb bay door and landing gear opening 2 seconds faster! tested it twice myself. before completely shutting down they will allow movement of guns for a few more seconds, and then shut those down aswell, get it fixed before that happens, if it does happen and you haven't fixed it, get your rear gunner to fire defensively.

OXYGEN TANK:

This one only achieves importance when you are flying at high altitude, on medium and low altitude there is enough oxygen to breathe normally, but i'd say fix it anyway (though at a lower priority) this supplies oxygen to your men (and women) when they are in their stations (turrets, medbed etc.) so as long as its working your men should be just fine while sitting in their stations, however when they get out you better hope they have a oxygen mask, or else they will get injured. if somehow you are at high altitude and dont have anyone with an oxygen mask, desend to medium altitude, fix it and return to high altitude.

FUEL TANKS:

Not really much to worry about, but once its shot, be sure to transfer the fuel in the leaking (damaged) tank to the sealed (undamaged) tank, the armor protects the fuel tanks from bullets pretty well, but sometimes those damn german buggers might get a lucky shot. If in combat use your navigator to transfer fuel, if not in combat use your radio op. to transfer fuel. the auto sealing tanks are a good investment, but if it prevents you from getting better guns, armor, hydraulics, or engines, you may use the mk1 fuel tanks (I used them for the entire game). Only repair in combat if both tanks are damaged, if one is damaged, transfer fuel and win the fight, then you can repair.

Your Crew

At the time of war, this was the most risky job a soldier could do, at a time when planes were still quite a new concept, these metal behemoths were far from safe, at high altitude temperature could fall under -30°C! As the air got thinner there was less oxygen to breathe, so masks were a must, the cabin was not pressurized so the air outside was the same as the inside (incredibly cold and oxygen poor)

A moment of silence for all airmen lost ingame and in the real world to the harsh conditions and dangers of flying.
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GUNNERS:

On your average Lanc. you should have 3 gunners, as they get through more and more enemies, they prove themselves to the officers, and they are then trusted with more dangerous ammunition, (incendiary, armor piercing, high explosive) incen. is good against all, AP is good against heavy fighters (2 engines or more) and late game fighter jets, HE is good for grouped up enemies.

Gunners should be Armoured to the Teeth, Heavy Flak Vest's and Flak helmets, or whatever has the most armor.

Incendiary should be used at times where saving AP and HE at future times would be wiser, like on Operation Nemesis and Operation Zeus to take out the early messerschmitt squadron.

AP is good when there is a lot of heavy enemy fighters, both heavies will always try to get close to you (Propeller one will go under you, Jet one will go behind you) so when they think they have the advantage, We whip out the AP rounds and the hunter becomes the hunted!

HE is most effective against squadrons (3 or more planes flying together close) because it does damage to enemies close-by late game fighter jets will always spawn together, they usually never break up either, so HE is good against them.

First Aid for Secondary skill is my choice.

Highest armour rating possible for med-low altitude.

Flak helmet mk2, Thermal Flight Suit 3 toughened Large O2 can and gloves, heavy flak vest mk3, thermal boots for end game and high altitude.

ENGINEER:

The person with the most jobs on the plane, He/She has to repair, shoot, heal, extinguish on plane fires and be a cool chap/chapette at the same time.

So the skills boost and lean are for fuel operation, bollocks to that! we have fighters on our back, fuel is the least of our problems, since mission control wouldn't send us on a mission we don't have the range for. (Use on Operation Nemesis)

Secondary Skill must be gunner for my tactic to work. Because most of his/her time will be on the Ventral turret (Mid-Upper if in high altitude) at the end game my engi had level 12 repair and level 11 gunnery, which allowed her to use incen. and AP ammo.

Once in-combat, unless critical, engineer shouldn't leave his/her station.

Blue beret, Light flak vest, and thermal boots for high altitude.
Flak helmet, light flak vest, fingerless gloves and plimsolls for med-low altitude.
Blue beret, Heavy flak vest mk3, thermal flight suit mk3 thermal mittens and plimsolls for endgame.

BOMB AIMER (BOMBARDIER):

Bombs and shoots, not much else. They may be required to revive a downed teammate or extinguish a flame sometimes.

They are far from the ammo dump, Give them the same kit as the engineer so they can resupply fast. (or give them an ammo-fed gun)

Bomb types:
Normal Bombs
bog standard bombs, 3 per drop.
Large Bombs/Pill bombs
bigger bombs, 1 per drop.
Supply Drop
Requires to be dropped from low altitude. 1 per bomb bay.
Dam Buster
when the 2 little circles on the bomb sight meet, drop the bomb.
The Grand Slam
Used for destroying fortifications, Must be dropped at high altitude. (pilot says when you reach it)
Adds Drag once dropped. (check fuel sometimes with your radio op when out of combat)

Gunnery for secondary skill.

PILOT:

Flies the Lancaster, if he's doing anything else, you are in big trouble because a plane with no pilot is a doomed plane!

If the pilot is downed in combat, get your navigator to get on the helm, revive the pilot after the battle. (if their death timer goes below 40 seconds, revive him/her with your bomber).
He/she has 3 skills, emergency dive, corkscrew, and evade flak.

Emg. dive is good when you need to drop altitude very fast or extinguish engine fires. Requires you to be just a little higher than low altitude.
Corkscrew is great for evading rockets from the jets and avoiding attacking fighters.
You can do this at any altitude.
Evade flak is pretty self-explanitory.

NOTE:
Changing altitude constantly throws off the aim of heavy planes that like to "latch on" (fly under or behind you) ascending will always throw off schrage-musik cannons of night fighters and frontal cannons/mgs of Ju 88s, descending will make the night fighters shoot the nose/front, not a good idea.

Emergency dive will stop everyone from shooting/moving, and if your gunners are firing while in a dive, they can't stop shooting until the bomber levels out. If the pilot dies while doing this move, you will crash.

RADIO OP.

operates the radar and calls for reinforcements and recon, can do other stuff while out of combat, don't leave them off of the radar for too long, never know when they will attack!

Has 3 skills: Call for recon, auto tag, and call for spitfires.

Calling for recon gives you information about the flak emplacements and hazards on the map.

Auto tag marks all of the enemies on the radar, good when there is too many enemies to tag individually.

Calling for spitfires brings you reinforcements in the form of supermarine spitfires, amazing fighters that outclass the messerchmitt in action and in beauty! can't say the same for jets, but good to take out a few of the buggers.

NAVIGATOR:

Tells you where to go, spawns those orange blips, uses the ground to navigate, when they can't see the ground due to clouds you will not be able to see where you are going.

They get 2 skills: Custom heading and navigate by stars.

The 2 skills are very useful, custom heading is good for avoiding flak, also say you have to go back home, but there is flak so you need to go high altitude in the day, set a custom heading to your base (zoom out to see where it is) and then ascend.

Navigate by the stars is also pretty self-explanitory, you can also use the stars at high altitude at night to see where you are going, great for missions where you have to pass through flak, (and flying at high altitude is really cool.)

High armor like the rear gunner, along with the pilot and radio operator, these guys/gals will not be moving much, maybe to extinguish an engine or check the fuel, but thats it.

Equipment And Stations

EQUIPMENT:
So at the start of the game you shouldn't worry about the dangers of high altitude, you will not be required to be up there for some time (until mid-late game) if you are going to go up there, make sure all of your members have advanced oxygen tanks and 35 points of insulation (heated mittens and thermal boots is usually enough.) (tested and confirmed)

(you may use other tanks with less capacity, but advanced oxy tanks should be the standard)

rear gunner can use a toughened oxy tank for the sake of more armour and they shouldnt be anywhere else on the plane unless they are hurt (then they go to the medbed)

The Heavy Flak Vest mk3 is now rightfully the best Flak Jacket, use it while you can, the Toughened survival vest is a good substitute until you reach heavy Flak vest mk2.

When you get to mid-late game when your navigator can use the stars to navigate, so you can now travel at high altitude, this requires the equipment mentioned above.

mini note: Flak helmets weigh the same as regular helmets, but are more protective, so they are always better.

I do not recommend using berets while you aren't at the point where you need to go to high altitude, since the flak helmets are a lot more protective and the plimsolls give your engi enough speed.

STATIONS:

You must have noticed the crew saying that they will be going back to their stations, a station in this case is whereever you have told them to go or where they spawned at, a gunner's station for example is a turret.

These should be your standard stations, you should not worry about fuel unless you are doing Operation Nemesis, or when you are attacking the aircraft factory way behind enemy lines.

At high altitude, most enemy aircraft will attack from below, you may change positions of your gunner and engineer, so the gunner can take them out with the various special ammo.

After a wave of fighters do these:

Restock on ammo
Revive downed crew
Regain lost HP (optional)

Restock after every battle, you cannot get caught off guard, in future missions the enemy will punish you severely if you do!

If one of your gunners got downed in-combat, make rear gunner fire defensively, keep them off of you at all costs and then revive the downed gunner quickly with your engineer, if him/her is also downed get your bomber to revive them, keep atleast 5 medbags onboard, just in-case. (I've had a mission where I used 4)

My rear gunner gets hurt the worst in combat, after you took those blabbering fools who think they can take out a marvel of british engineering out, send anyone with hp below 50% to the medbed. gunners and bomber get first priority, then engi, then captain, and then the rest.

Map & Perks

So when you win a mission sometimes it will grant you a perk this could be one of three things:

1. Enemy Armour Down
2. Enemy Damage Down
3. Flak Operation Down

Enemy armour down lowers the health of enemy fighters.
Enemy damage down lowers the damage caused by enemy fighters.
Flak operation down means there will be no focus firing flak.

The map in this game includes Britain and Europe, all the way to Norway! Since germany captured france they got hand of all their baguettes I ment artillery, so the entire coast of france will be armed with flak.

The USAAF DLC gives you a base in Algeria and the map stretches across to Italy. The perk system works the same.

Enemy Types

Messerschmitt Bf 109E (Messerschmitt, prop. fighter)

The standard fighter of Nazi Germany, capable in a lot of things, though a little underpowered. You should rip these apart after a while of upgrading.

mini note: Cannot fly at high altitude.

Focke-Wulf Fw 190 (Green prop. fighter)

Credit to Oddball for Telling me what the name of this plane was!

Actually worse than the messerschmitt, these planes can be noticed by their distinct cowl mounted guns, one of the aces fly this, you really shouldn't have a problem with these, they are basically the flies of this game.

Messerschmitt Bf 110G (prop. heavy)

These little demons are night fighters, more specifically, night bomber hunters, they use radar to track where you are, so no way of sneaking out of this, they will try to get under you and shoot your mid section, trying to cut it off! you should have a ventral turret, whoever is on it should focus fire AP rounds on to the fighter, they should be dead in no time!

If you are running out of bullets you can get your upper gunner to reload for you, tell your upper gunner to get an ammo box, once he has it you will see a indicator under the ventral turret, click on that and you are good to go!

mini note: Cannot fly at high altitude.

Junkers Ju 88 (green prop. heavy)

Credit to Oddball for Telling me what the name of this plane was!

This will pop up around early-mid game.

This is one of the planes in WW2 that did nearly everything, bombing, escorts, fighters you name it, they did it! In this game they are fighters, they work a lot like the 110G but they can also go behind you and shoot into your fuselage, severly damaging inner systems and more importantly crew members, take them out fast!

Messerschmitt Me262 Schwalbe (jet heavy)

I have no idea how the toothbrush brigade even got this fancy shmancy turbojet technology, but this is the world's first operational jet fighter, with a top speed of 559 miles per hour it will be a tough target to shoot, but they are armed with close range missiles, which means they need to be right behind you to cause the most damage, and this means easy target for 7 seconds while they arm them, make the most of it! (The 4 frontal auto-cannons hurt quite a bit too).

mini note: CAN fly at high altitude!

Messerschmitt Me163 Komet (jet fighter)

I call them jets, but they are actually rocket powered! These things can reach 698 mph (960 km/h) when they are diving, and they are small, the only oppertune time to shoot these is while they are coming at you full speed, or when they have just been spotted on the radar in a squadron of 3 or 5 blast HE ammo for best results: A flaming pile of metal.

The little bugger has quite the punch, and they aim well too, sometimes targetting your engines, your gunners or even pilot! so get these out of the sky before you attempt at doing anything!

mini note: Fighting at high altitude helps

mini note: CAN fly at high altitude!

Bachem Ba 349 (rocket interceptor)

Very fast, armed with missiles and comes with the secret weapons update. Very dangerous indeed. To dodge missiles, corkscrew or dive before their timer hits 2.5 seconds, or you cant dodge. They can only strafe (attack) you once, after that they have to bail. There is a wierd glitch where they will be invincible while firing their missiles. Wouldn't bother wasting Special ammo on this one.

Modified version used by ace Donna Keil can strafe you more than once, fires an immense barrage of rockets several times and it is also red. Definitely the most dangerous fighter as of writing (15th of december 2017).

Dornier Do 335 (heavy fighter)

Fires Powerful 20 mm rounds, though quite sluggish it is well armoured, I am not sure if its a heavy or light fighter, so Incendiary if you choose to special ammo. 20 mm really hurts crew, so have decent armour or some of your crew will get downed if the Do gets a good shot.

There is a 2 person (historically a trainer) version flown by aces Franz and Fritz, having another gun aswell.

Horten Ho 229 "Flying Wing" (heavy stealth fighter)

Flown by new ace Niko Nachtzehrer, it does not show up on radar and is armed with homing missiles. Keep an eye out, and corkscrew just before he fires, so you can get the most damage off. Should be an easy one.

Special Thanks to A Commie B#stard for Do 335, Ho 229 and Ba 349 pictures!

USAAF DLC Special Enemies

thanks to: Magchinski and SquigglyV for plane names!
SM.79 (prop. bomber)

italian bomber that had guns everywhere, looks like a ferrari and is now my favourite plane. treat it like a Ju-88.

Junkers Ju-87 "Stuka" (prop. attack aircraft)

Used as a bomber for most of the war, this plane has something for everyone, 2 guns on the front and 1 rear gunner, the rear gunners are crazy accurate it seems like, so try to take them out. they can take off from airbases and aircraft carriers.

Fiat CR.42 (prop. fighter biplane)

This biplane is from italy and is ready to kill some pesky americans! you must shoot him down first!
they have 2 mgs on the front and are basically paper.

SM.92 (prop. heavy fighter)

There seems to be 2 variants of this plane in the game:

The first type has a rear gunner and will go infront of the bomber and shoot the plane from there, the gun is quite weak so it shouldn't be much of a problem.

The second type is much deadlier and has 2x20mm cannons on the front, these hurt the crew and the plane real bad, try to take these guys out fast.

Aces

Aces

To be honest, after a while you will find out that the aces are really not much of a problem, they come at you at a straight line on their first approach, this is the best time to focus all of your ammo on to them!

Thanks to BoKet and $korpion

Felix Feder - Fw 190 (random spins)
Gunnar Günther - Fw 190
Bruno Brennen - Bf 109E (uses incendiary ammo, Have extinguisher)
Merrick Jäger - Bf 110G (flies upside-down and shoots from above)
Kaspar Von Knall - Bf 109E (HE rounds, hurts crew)
Franziska Festung - Ju 88 (does useless barrel rolls)
Sonja Schnellmann - Komet (really fast)
Kaiser Von Düsen - Me 262 (fires rockets faster)
Franz & Fritz Blitzer - Do 335 mod. (has 2 guns, 20mm and 30.)
Donna Keil - Ba 349 mod. (spams rockets, goes fast, have medkits) [My favourite so far.]
Niko Nachtzehrer - Ho 229 (invisible to radar, fires homing missiles.)
Fredrik Falke - CR.42 (lots of flips and loops, sometimes hard to shoot, red plane.)
Melvin Möwe - Ju 87
Sylvester Sperber - SM.79 (flips and guns, just shoot him.)
Klaus Krieger - SM.92

Hazards & Weather

Light (2D) clouds:

These clouds don't affect your plane physically but it stops navigation, on a normal sunny and clear day you may even be able to navigate at medium altitude by using the ground!

When it is raining, there will be always 2D clouds quite low, you can only navigate at low altitude in day.

NOTE: Becomes opaque in bomb sight when viewed at medium and high altitude, effectively stopping accurate bombing.

Medium (small 3D) clouds:

These will stop navigation if you pass through it, they are usually at medium altitude.

Big (Big 3D) clouds:

Very rare, but these giagantic clouds house storms in them, a lot of lighting, and that is bad because of reasons below. They look like hurricanes.

Lightning

Dangerous, has a chance to light something on fire, always have a extinguisher!

Flak

So the old pointy hats are firing pom poms at you like crazy, don't worry, they aim like an officer after a night with a bottle of gin! (very bad) there is a 30% chance of these hitting you, they hurt your crew if they hit the fuselage, BUT flak can focus fire in mid game on low altitude, basically they shoot a single point (usually in your way) with a crap ton of pom poms. Has a chance to cause fire.

mini note: the guns on the Sereen coast only shoot at medium altitude, so you can go over or under them.

AA Guns

these guns are usually close by to mission targets or airfields, they are only effective at low altitude, they work the same way as normal guns on the fighters.

Spotlights

Not really much of a hazard, they just direct fighters on to you and are really annoying, can be avoided if you fly by at a low altitude.

Radar Tower

A rare fortification, but can be avoided if flown away from it via custom marker.

Flak/AA Barge

You can see these in the new USAAF campaign, you can usually see these together creating a wall of Flak, there is another type which you don't see very often which has machine guns instead, you can't really bomb them because you cant lock on, so just treat it like normal AA and Flak, they dont have a difference in accuracy.

Battleship

These ships have 4-6 20mm AA guns on their decks, they arent very accurate and you can dodge them by going up and down, but try not to fly really close. You can sink these for extra XP and they are sometimes photo opportunity.

Graf Zeppelin

The german carrier that was never finished, It launches Stuka dive bombers and has the same AA as the battleships.

Torpedo Boat

Just a little torpedo boat, it usually has 1 small-calibre AA gun on the back, hard to hit with bombs.

U-boat

German submarines, they usually have 1-2 little AA guns that dont really do much against you, they can go underwater, though they are still vulnerable to bombs while they dive, they usually appear as photo ops in the USAAF campaign, with no AA and in the RAF campaign they are bombing targets with AA.

Priority Table

I will now show you what you should do in late game missions

start mission,

(FOR LONG MISSIONS)

tag navigation blip,

raise gear,

get engi to lean fuel mix,

when you reach sea, send ur engi to the ventral turret,

send upper gunner, front gunner and engi to get ammo,

(THANKS Jinkeez FOR LONG MISSION TIP)

tag navigation blip,

send engi to the ventral turret,

raise gear,

if day go to low altitude, if night go to high altitude if ready,

When at high altitude you may switch the engi and upper gunner around,
Enemies? tag them with space,

what ever way they are coming from, get the gunner aligned with said way, when you hear the first
shot, activate focus and incendiary, you should hurt them quite a bit,

if they survived, let the gunners finish the job,

restock on ammo, revive downed friendlies, and regain lost hp (maybe),

if it turned night time, start climbing to high altitude,

next wave will most likely be a 3 jet squadron, when you hear the first shot activate focus and HE rounds this should damage all of them.

At high altitude propeller planes cannot reach you, so if you want to kill the blighters, drop the medium altitude for a while, and then go back up to high.

there might be solo night heavy fighters, like the jet or propeller plane, these are pretty easy, just shoot them down with ap ammo, you must play to your advantage!

Do objective, after doing it they will usually send more fighters, be ready, call in spitfires!

before doing the objective you may hang around to take out a few more waves that might be sent, better take them out 1 by 1 instead of all of them at once,

fly back home.

lower gear.

enjoy the feeling of relief and the amazing smell of british pounds!

You will understand better once you watch my video.

Example Video

This is me doing Operation Nemesis, the final operation!

This is me doing Operation Nemesis, the final operation, with NO ARMOR and 20mm cannons!

Challange Mode

The first new gamemode for Bomber Crew! In this mode you must survive wave after wave of fighters, while also completing objectives like bombing submarines and killing aces.

You are rewarded points for surviving the wave and completing the objective quickly. Bonuses hover around the map which can:

- heal your crew ( has a + on its marker),
- refuel your bomber (fuel canister on marker),
- repair your bomber (has a wrench on the marker),
- give crew XP (has an arrow on its marker).

The heal heals your crew by a decent amount, you can grab one of these in the refuel and repair wave.

The refuel gives you 5 minutes of fuel (citation needed) get these when you can, fuel runs out quickly.

The repair fixes all modules currently damaged (engines, gear etc.)

The crew XP gives all of your crew members 1 level, this is very good as it improves accuracy of gunners and gives all your crew skills. Very important getting these are top priority.

In this game mode you only have a fixed amount of money (106,055) to upgrade your plane and crew. You will have to go to high altitudes to drop the grand slam during missions so keep that in mind.

So far the objectives I've seen:

- Bomb factory,
- Bomb submarines,
- Bomb power stations,
- survive ace attack,
- refuel and repair,
- Timed bombing,
- Defeat fighters.

The bombing missions can have more than 1 target, and submarines dive quite often. you can kill the ace and get the XP, the aces come according to the campaign (felix feder, gunnar günther etc.)
the refuel and repair wave lasts for 2 minutes, grab as many bonuses as you can!

The game also loves to throw Ju 88s at you so be ready!

NOTE:

This mode is very new and If you guys could help me out with your own tips, that would be great! I will add every tip and with credit under it.

Thanks For Reading My Guide!

I really do appreciate you reading through my guide, it is quite long, but I think I've gone over the important things.

Please do rate so people don't have to go through the pain of losing their crew and plane to the nasty people in the messerchmitts and jets.

Better pictures will come later and this guide will be updated when there is a update to the game.

Guide Version 1.6
Added new SM.92 image.

good bye and god speed!

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a secret to easen up the game, but you have to decode it first can't let you have it too easy!

193 Comments

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King Jareth 29 Jan @ 1:05pm

When do you get the final guns? (The quad .50 cals)

artimits [author] 19 Dec, 2024 @ 5:19pm

sadly, no

Flightless 19 Dec, 2024 @ 8:16am

also any way to increase the durability of the landing gear?

artimits [author] 18 Dec, 2024 @ 7:34pm

@Flightless , Yes to both, Armored sections increase that section's Health and also reduce the amount of bullets that pierce the aircraft's skin, so your crew will be hit by less bullets given that they are behind armor pieces.

Flightless 18 Dec, 2024 @ 3:11pm

Does the aircrafts armor also protect the crew or just increases the aircrafts health?