Hits to the bomb bay.. ?

[Snubby]

2 part question,

1: in WW2 would a 2mm round entering the bomb bay of a fully loaded buff.. be a cause for concern?

2: is this modeled in AH?

I know the first Q seems smart bellybutton or condescending, but im serious..  if a round hit an unarmed bomb, what are the odds of it exploding and this causing a catastrophic explosion.. destroying at the very least the bomber itself, if not anyone unlucky enough to be near by.


This question came to me after watching a film of  some lancs I was attacking in my 9U..

on one pass i came  from low 12 and pretty much drew a line down the center of the bomber with cannon and mg fire from just in front of the wings to the tail..

all that resulted was a fuel leak.  I did end up finishing the buff, and indeed the entire flight off, and 2 of another one before I was bingo ammo and.. slightly perforated.. i did land the kills so all was well..   but I got to thinking.. shooting a stack of bombs with large caliber cannon rounds... one would guess that there would be a, situation involving explosions, shrapnel and downright bad feelings.. among many..

just curious.

[splitatom]

i know in real life a bulet into a bomb would detonate it you can also jam bomb bay doors with some bulets

[nirvana]

Bombs aren't armed until they dropped out of the bay and the pin is pulled, so unless the bullet penetrated the steel skin I don't think the it would have much if any effect.  No, it's not modeled in AH.

[SEseph]

Originally posted by Snubby
2 part question,

1: in WW2 would a 2mm round entering the bomb bay of a fully loaded buff.. be a cause for concern?

2: is this modeled in AH?

I've often wondered the same, but then you'd hear whining. Think of it this way... How much damage would a fully loaded fuel tank do when dropped with a 1klbs bomb on a town? Actually, more than you'd think. By the time it reaches the ground, it's become saturated with Air, and a fine mist has followed it down. This is incredibley explosive, and would burn the town down. Heck, I'd like to just be able to dive bomb people in GV's, and the spark of the full drop tank hitting will kill the GV, maybe not by explosive force.. but by baking! We could call it 'Pilot in a Can, Heat and Serve'the AH delicacy (sp?). The cannons could penitrate a bombs' shell, or even if they shot below the bomber and luckily hit a bomb falling.. bad day. But if this was modeled, then what about ammo explosions? What about Dive Bombing Buffs? (yes it happened in WWII.. Germans dive bombed out bombers). Jamming the Bomb bay would make people whine alot, so that's not allowed either. It all comes down to what the techs want to deal with. Force people to learn and use skill, they cry when they come in late to a game. Coddle the new-comers, and you replace the veterans you're about to alienate. I hear alot about HTC making money, and as much as I hate saying.. doing anything like this that would make it easier to kill, thus make more whining for thier new money... Sorry, but HTC isn't in it for charity, as much as we enjoy the game, and they might like certain players.. it's all about the benjamins.

[Keiler]

Originally posted by SEseph
What about Dive Bombing Buffs? (yes it happened in WWII.. Germans dive bombed out bombers)

...because some were designed to do so, unlike Lancasters, B17, B26 or any other dedicated level bomber abused for this role in the game

Regards,
Matt

[Kermit de frog]

Originally posted by splitatom
i know in real life a bulet into a bomb would detonate it you can also jam bomb bay doors with some bulets

Ahh, the words spoken from a complete noob.

[SEseph]

Originally posted by Keiler
...because some were designed to do so, unlike Lancasters, B17, B26 or any other dedicated level bomber abused for this role in the game

Regards,
Matt

no no no, DIVE BOMING BUFFS. IE: 109 has eggs, it sees flight of B-17's below.. it goes in and drops a bomb on the formation of 17's.. BOOM

THAT was what I meant.

But, I agree if a plane was never designed for a role like that.. it shouldn't be a viable option here. maybe make it so if your dive is greater than 500 in a bomber.. the bombs just don't drop or something.. like torps or troops/supplies with speed and alt.

[Keiler]

OH ok! I see what you mean now.

Regards,
Matt

[Viking]

German night-fighters would target the bomb-bays of RAF terrorfliegers, using their obliquely mounted cannons (usually at 60 degrees off horizontal). Standard practice was to fire a one second burst and then immediately bank away since the bombers would often explode above them.

[Charge]

Considering the shape of the bomb it prolly would be tough to get a penetrating hit if shot from behind, but maybe from the sides it would be possible. Also the filling needs quite a punch to ignite so it practically would need a hit to the side with a APHE round so that the HE filling would have enough burn speed to cause a detonation after penetration.

AFAIK the standard bombs of that era were "iron bombs" with the iron outer casting making half of the weight of the bomb so it was not actually a very thin core.

Of course if you hit the tail detonator you could cause it to go off even with a smallish MG round...

BTW this has been discussed at least once earlier if you would like to take a peek at that thread.


-C+

[ColSuave]

Originally posted by nirvana
Bombs aren't armed until they dropped out of the bay and the pin is pulled, so unless the bullet penetrated the steel skin I don't think the it would have much if any effect.  No, it's not modeled in AH.

but, a 20mm or 30mm could probably penetrate it, after all they can penetrate tank armour.

[Larry]

Originally posted by ColSuave
but, a 20mm or 30mm could probably penetrate it, after all they can penetrate tank armour.

Umm the 20 and 30mm cannons in this game are HE as in High Explosive  not AP.

[Hornet33]

It's one thing for a 20mm or 30mm AP, API, HE or Ball ammo round to penetrate flat armor as long as it hits at close to a 90 degree angle. Bombs however are round so the chances of getting a direct 90 degree hit are very slim and that would cause the round to ricochet away from the bomb.

Also as stated above the bombs do not become fully armed until after they are dropped and have fallen away from the plane.

BUT for the sake of argument, if a round did penetrate a bomb case it would not cause it to explode, it would mearly cause a very hot fire as the explosive filler burnt out. Once the bomb case has a hole in it there is not enough pressure built up inside the bomb case to cause an explosion, it would just sit there and burn. However the other bombs could cook off if the fire was hot enough and lasted long enough.

This principle is being used today to disarm IED's and land mines over in Iraq and elsewhere around the world. Here is a link to an artical about the Dragon anti-mine device. Dragon anti-mine device

Future Weapons also did a piece on this thing and it's pretty neat. I have a buddy that works in EOD for the Navy and he's messed with the thing. He's told me that they disarmed a live and armed 155mm artillery shell with it and it didn't explode. It just burns a small hole in the case and that causes the explosive filler to burn out the hole. According to Jim in about a minute you end up with a hollow shell case that can be picked up safetly and moved, once it cools down, to be properly disposed of...i.e. scrap metal at that point.

So back to the original point of this....no a 20 or 30mm shell would be very hard pressed to cause a bomb to explode. Too many variables to be overcome for it to happen.

[SEseph]

What about ammo in the turrets? Honestly not sure exactly how they stored it, but is it plausable that cannon rounds could cause some kind of chain reaction in the defensive ammo when hit that it all goes off? I know a fire would give this result, but shrapnel from damage, a cannon round exploding in the cases.. and what not. Would this be a plausable, and common? (by common I guess I mean more than freak events) If this happened.. could be almost as devistating as a bomb explosion I'd suspect.

[Hornet33]

I've seen a .50 cal ammo can filled with live rounds get hit by a .50 cal round fired at it. Blew the top off the can and half of the back side, cooked off maybe a dozen or so rounds that got hit directly by the incoming round and all the rest were just laying there on the ground. Granted there was some shrapnel flying around but no fire or big explosion to speak of.

And in case anyone is wondering where I saw this....45 miles NW of King Khalid Military City, Saudi Arabia in 1991 when I was in the Army. After Desert Storm we had to shoot, burn, bury, or otherwise get rid of all our opend cases of ammo, C4, flares and what not. Supply wouldn't take the stuff back if the seals had been broken because then they would have to count each indiviual round of ammo. They don't want to do that so it's up to the unit to dispose of the stuff.

Well we had alot that we had to get rid of so we tried blowing up .50 in a bunch of different ways. That was one of them. We also set a case of .50 on top of a pound of C4 and blew it up. Had bullets flying all over the place but that was because the C4 blew the case to hell. The rounds were intact.

Never send a bunch of 18-19-20 year old National Guardsmen out unsupervised to get rid of ammo.  We're lucky we didn't kill ourselves with some of the stupid stuff we tried but it was FUN!!!!!!!