Originally posted by Larry
As Krusty said they were attacked from below, BUT that was mosty 110G4 night fighters vs. brit buffs (since they had no belly guns). 109s and 190s alway made the first attack from above and infront aiming for the cockpit to kill the pilots. In AH you can bleed when you get shot why cant bombs go boom when fire hits the explosive material. I mean thats all that made them blow when they hit.
Hey Larry:
I know they were attacked from the bottom. But they were not attacked from the bottom anymore than from the top, side, front or rear except, as you point out, in the case of the British bombers. However, could it be that the reason they did attack from the bottom was as you said that there were no down pointing guns (thereby making such an attack much safer) and not so much to get a shot in the bomb-bay? Don't know, but I still think if the bombs were so easily set off as to be vunerable to gunfire, that would have been the primary method to bring down a bomber and not just one method. They actually were pretty smart people way back then in WW2 and not quite so primitive as a lot of people believe.
As far as fire hitting explosive material and make it go boom, it has already been pointed out that it takes heat an pressure to make military grade explosives go boom. If you get enough heat, then as the explosive material tries to expand inside the casing it will eventually reach critical level (because the casing resists expansion) and go bang!. You could also set off the detonator which would be much more sensitive to direct heat and sudden impact. However, if you didn't get a direct impact induced explosion, the crew would like just jettison anything they thought a risk of explosion.
It is all about heat an pressure. Without it, you are just hauling around some reasonably stable chemical combinations. If the bullet or cannon strike produces the appropriate levels of both, then you get your boom boom...otherwise, you just get a hole in the ordinance.
By the way, this topic really interested me so I have been doing some research to see if I could find anything on enemy fire causing the bombs in the bomb bay to explode. Aside from the earlier reference in this threat about flack hitting the bomb bay of a Lanc, I have only foundone other that one reference that said, basically, the only way to bring down a bomber quickly was to destroy the flight deck or make the bombs explode. I would agree, those two options would be the quickest. However, it did not indicate in anyway that this was a standard tactic or that there was great success in doing this. My research is by no means comprehensive. I am open to finding any valid accounts of such things happening.
