Strategic Targets

How Factory (aka RDP) Bombing Works

Each country, the United Kingdom, France and Germany have 9 factories each. France and the United Kingdom have 3 factories in 3 cities, the German factories are scattered among 4 cities. Each sides factories only contribute to that country, so France cannot produce United Kingdom units or research for them, but does play a part in the supply structure. RDP is an acronym for "Research, Development, and Production".

Each factory takes the same amount of damage to destroy (10,000 Mega Joules), so take a look at the Aircraft bombs section to see the power of each bomb, but in short it takes this many bombs to take down a factory:

• German SC250 250kg bomb: 18 bomb hits
• French F100 117kg bomb: 45 bomb hits
• British GP250 113kg bomb: 69 bomb hits (note, the GP bomb has less explosive power then the similar weight of a French one)

The effects for the current version (1.33) are:

• A completely destroyed factory takes roughly 28 hours to fully rebuild, repair is constant and all sides are the same.
• Diminished production is a value of the sides total factory production plus the total modified by variables. Simply put, if a sides has 0% factory production (factories are 100% destroyed), for an extended time (extremely difficult to do), supply of new equipment increases from 9 hours to 18 hours (the formula to calculate a sides resupply time is: [ 540 + 540/100 * sides_average_damage ]).

One last thing: In the game you can type out ".rpd" in the chat window to receive current resupply percentage slower stats for all sides. For a individual factory status, locate the factory of interest, click on its icon, and type ".own" for its damage state.

Window View from the Bombardiers Office

Everything in the game is a viable target. You can bomb anything: static structures like factories, bridges, towns, cities and armybases - and any vehicle, tank, truck, boat or infantryman. You can even bomb other aircraft if you are very lucky!

The prime target for bombers, however, is the Factory.

This is Dusseldorf's northernmost factory complex (the other is in the background). The surrounding buildings have been destroyed by previous bombing attacks. Note the AI AA pits all around this factory.

In this image from the game you can see the city of Canterbury, UK. The target factories are the city squares with one big and three long buildings, with two white water tanks, and you can see the bottom has two bombs exploding on it. Note also that another factory is aligned with the flight path. That is not accidental but a planned layup for "Split Bombing", where a few bombs are dropped on one target, and the rest on the other so a heavily damaged factory is completely destroyed, but bombs not wasted in an "overkill" (in fact, the salvo of bombs for the second factory is that black pixel over first factory!) The picture was taken after all the bombs had been dropped, as the bombardier is then free to use the bombsight as a telescope: move the sight backwards, dial out the speed, and watch the bombs hit the target. For some reason the AI AA tracer fire is not visible.

In this image you see bombs dropped from another He-111 falling into view. All factory cities have extensive "AI" Anti-Aircraft guns to protect them, so you need to fly at least 4000m (12,000ft) to minimize your chance of being shot down by the AA. In this picture the traces from the AA are clearly visible. Take a moment to note the He-111 Alt and Airspeed markers to the left and right, as well as the top right corner showing the same information. The DB-7 does not have the markers to the side of the cross-hairs.

Here the Monchen factory (since moved to Frankfurt) is about get the a "stick" of French 117kg bombs on it!

On Target

As noted in the section on [[Level Bombing|level bombing], to get your bombs directly on target you must have your bomber almost exactly pointed at the target at least 7klm from target. In this example the green triangle is almost perfectly aligned with the compass circle forward hash mark, but it is close enough for the bombs to fall across the target factory (if dropped correctly).

If bombs are on target, the typical call is "8 in the box!", since both the He-111 and DB-7 carry 8 bombs, as is seen by all 8 bombs from a DB-7 detonating inside the walls (highlighted as black lines). Even a hit just outside the wall may cause full damage, so one does not have to be perfect! Warning: science talk! Even if you have your keys programmed to drop all the bombs in LESS then 1 second like I do, once they hit the ground they will be spread out almost 400 meters!

Factory Cities

Note the orientation and location of the factories and other land marks so you will know your approach to the target. Links on city names provides additional detailed information from the "Battleground Tools" section.

Here is a detailed closeup of the only factory in Monchen-Gladbach (City Altitude: 230 feet / 70 meters, Fac #9 since moved to Frankfurt with 1.28.0 release). All factories are identical, with only the orientation different (note where the exact center of the factory is). The "GPS" coordinates are important for those who prefer to do "Corridor bomb runs".

German

Essen (City Altitude: 292 feet / 89 meters) Added in version 1.28.5 is now the major factory complex in game with 4 factories (transferred from other locations), # 1, 2, 6, 7

Düsseldorf (City Altitude: 125 feet / 38 meters) Factory Buildings: 2 Facilities # 3 and 4

Köln (City Altitude: 161 feet / 49 meters) Factory Buildings: 2 Facilities # 5 and 8

Frankfurt (City Altitude: 377 feet / 115 meters (AF is 492 feet / 150 meters)) Factory Buildings: 1 Facility # 9

French

Abbeville (City Altitude: 26 feet / 8 meters) Factory Buildings: 3 Facilities # 1, 2, 3

Amiens (City Altitude: 66 feet / 20 meters) Factory Buildings: 3 Facilities # 7, 8, 9

Montreuil (City Altitude: 164 feet / 50 meters) Factory Buildings: 3 Facilities # 4, 5, 6

British (UK)

Canterbury (City Altitude: 154 feet / 47 meters) Factory Buildings: 3 Facilities # 1, 2, 3

Ashford (City Altitude: 531 feet / 162 meters) Factory Buildings: 3 Facilities # 4, 5, 6

Whitstable (City Altitude: 151 feet / 46 meters) Factory Buildings: 3 Facilities # 7, 8, 9 (note: the North factory UK7 is 7m)

External links

http://617dambusters.com/guide.html

http://www.617dambusters.com/Factories.html