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ORIGINAL: vicberg

I've heard there's some mod that deals with the bounce bonus. Where is this mod? Can it be integrated into other mods such as DBB or RA?

Have people used it and is it ready for prime time?

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ORIGINAL: cdnice

Bounce bonus?

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ORIGINAL: Big B

What you probably heard about was a mod that eliminates unrealistic high altitude bouncing, and whom ever you got that from was probably referring to my mod.

For the record - the higher altitude advantage 'bounce' bonus exists as part of the game engine - as it should.

What I did was limit all aircraft to a max ceiling of 28,000 feet.
This was done because even though many WWII aircraft could fly above that altitude, 'air combat' seldom - if ever - occurred above that altitude.
Air combat over the Pacific, Mediterranean, Soviet Union, and Europe always occurred at the approximate level that bombers could operate.

The B-17 had the highest effective operational ceiling (with a bomb load) of all WWII bombers, and that was about 24,000 - 25,000 feet.
The reason it didn't operate higher was because above that altitude it was found that oil would not circulate properly, and also icing on the wing and tail surfaces became a major problem, so fighters in the ETO only had to operate at or a bit above that altitude.
In all the other theaters air combat was generally below 20,000 feet (often far less), mainly because that was the operational ceiling of most of the bombers operating in those theaters, therefore fighters in those theaters didn't have to operate much higher.

So the net effect of what I did was to put a reasonable 'cap' on air combat altitude - and a cap that most fighters in the game can achieve. Therefore, no one will be able to unrealistically fly and fight above an altitude that the opposition cannot even reach - ensuring they will always scream down upon them with a 10,000 feet advantage.
In that regard, there is no stratosphere sweep advantage since most everyone can reach the same maximum combat altitude.

However, if one flies missions at 25,000 while the opponent chooses to fly at 15,000 - the game engine will give the same height advantage bonus as usual, but a big factor will always be each aircraft's maneuver rating at the altitude of combat.

Perhaps that answers your question.

B

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ORIGINAL: Erkki

Some of the unarmed photoreconnaissance aircraft(the ones that actually routinely flew over 28 kft) could be given higher ceiling, to make them more survivable. Some of them were almost immune to interception and AA fire IRL, even if they werent strictly speaking faster than fighters(climbing to intercept and pursuits would take too long time).

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ORIGINAL: Barb

Some of the first B-29 bombing missions were flown very high (around 31k), yet the bombers had VERY limited bomb-load (just 2000-4000lbs) - The overheating engines, improper maintenance, humid and hot weather, full fuel load to get to the target far away, etc... this all led to very limited load carried by the planes. This problem was eventually solved by LeMay going low (5-7000ft) at night with heavier loads. And strain on engines could be lowered too as no long climb on full power was needed.

Some planes were required to fly higher and faster (like photo-recon) - they were at least "stripped" variations of the usual planes - removing guns, armor, even a paint helped to create lighter plane that could fly higher then the usual versions.

Yet combat at that altitude was really rare - planes flying at their max altitude would actually start to loose it immediately as they start to maneuver... It was more like "Can I get the few more extra feet? Can I get into the gun range? How can I force him to slow down?"

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ORIGINAL: Blind Sniper

Thanks Barb and Big B, pretty detailed answers!