Bouncing Bullets

[BaDkaRmA158Th]

Didnt some fighters adopt the tactic of shooting .50's under the tank so they would bounce back up and destroy the soft underbelly?

[moot]

That was debunked IIRC.

[Obie303]

If we are talking about real life situations......any projectile will "bounce" if the round hits at the correct angle.  Of course there are some exceptions.  For example frangible rounds that are designed to break apart on impact to reduce ricochet.  http://frangibleammo.com/  (that website has videos demonstrating pistol, shotgun, rifle, and 50 cal ammo) 

In-game, I've seen round only bounce off tanks and other ground vehicles.  It would be interesting if somebody had proof otherwise.

[Wingnutt]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6635752499311348219&ei=VkCfScW6HZLW-gHH-KjNCQ&q=tiger+tank&hl=en

video shows that the bullets very much do bounce, not just off paved roads but the ground in general.

Former jug pilot also speaks of ricocheting them under the tanks.

"we would shoot the bulllets right underneath the tank and they bounce up from the ground or whatever road they were on up into the inside of the tank because they were not armor plated on the bottom"

[Kweassa]

"we would shoot the bulllets right underneath the tank and they bounce up from the ground or whatever road they were on up into the inside of the tank because they were not armor plated on the bottom"

Gee.. then I wonder why them soldiers haven't thought of the revolutionary AT-tactic, which involves digging a lot of rabbit holes and shooting tanks from the underbelly as they pass over. Or. another awesome tactic would be to do the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" Indy move, by making someone crawl under the tank and shoot their guns at the belly.

... wait, an even better idea. Why go through the trouble of developing AT mines, when one can simply bury .50 guns underground with the barrel sticking up, and rig them up to fire when a tank passes by?


Man.. them WW2-era guys mustabeen real stupid, eh? 

[E25280]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6635752499311348219&ei=VkCfScW6HZLW-gHH-KjNCQ&q=tiger+tank&hl=en
"we would shoot the bulllets right underneath the tank and they bounce up from the ground or whatever road they were on up into the inside of the tank because they were not armor plated on the bottom"

Odd statement . . . so a bullet bouncing off the ground retains enough energy to penetrate an inch or so of armor on the underside of a Tiger, but the same bullet fired directly at the inch or so of armor on top of the tank didn't have enough energy to penetrate?

[Wingnutt]

Odd statement . . . so a bullet bouncing off the ground retains enough energy to penetrate an inch or so of armor on the underside of a Tiger, but the same bullet fired directly at the inch or so of armor on top of the tank didn't have enough energy to penetrate?

I would guess a tiger tank has more than an "inch or so" of armor on the top...

I also think it probably to do with as much as the type of metal as it did its thickness  not all pieces of steel are created equal.

[theNewB]

25 millimeters = 0.98inches

believe that was the tigers top and bottom armour.

[Krusty]

For the luvva Pyro, do a search!!

Been discussed AD NAUSEUM! Bullets did NOT, repeat NOT NOT NOT bounce off roads and pierce tank undersides.

No more than Spitfire pilots claiming to break the speed of sound, or 262 pilots or jug pilots, claiming to break the speed of sound.

The physics of the statements have been proven wrong SO many times.

[Chalenge]

Im pretty sure if anything whats burning is the oil reservoir but honestly think about it. If a tank was so soft on the belly that a .50 could penetrate it then it could never be torsionally sound and would have cracked open regularly. The Germans have always had better engineering then that.

[Wingnutt]

For the luvva Pyro, do a search!!

Been discussed AD NAUSEUM! Bullets did NOT, repeat NOT NOT NOT bounce off roads and pierce tank undersides.

No more than Spitfire pilots claiming to break the speed of sound, or 262 pilots or jug pilots, claiming to break the speed of sound.

The physics of the statements have been proven wrong SO many times.

Well, the guy did it in real life is wrong. the armchair generals say so  

It was a complte waste of time, even though it apparently was a teached tactic when dealing with armor..  but thats ok, the AH model has it right, 50,000 rounds of 50 cal wont even scratch a tiger..  after all, what do the people who did it in real life know anyway... pfft, very little compared to our panel of video game experts.  


oh yea, from what ive read the tiger had 25mm of top armor, and 20mm of bottom armor... but dont let that get in the way of your assumptions.

[Wingnutt]

Im pretty sure if anything whats burning is the oil reservoir but honestly think about it. If a tank was so soft on the belly that a .50 could penetrate it then it could never be torsionally sound

its intersting you mention that, one of the main flaws of the tiger was that it had a notoriously brittle drive train, mainly the gears and the suspension system were prone to failure due to the fact they they were never designed to handle a chassis as with the mass as they tiger's   in fact the The Maybach HL 230 that powered the tiger was quickly de-tuned from 700hp to 600 because of frequent drive train failure from overstress.

[Krusty]

Well, the guy did it in real life is wrong. the armchair generals say so  

Seriously? You have GOT to be the worst troll ever, or the most naive person ever. How do you survive in the real world?

Trust me, don't drink the kool-aid. You're the type that accepts everything told to you as gospel, so I'll spoil the ending: there is no gate in heaven, no alien mothership, it's just arsenic in the drink!

[Karnak]

Well, the guy did it in real life is wrong. the armchair generals say so  

It was a complte waste of time, even though it apparently was a teached tactic when dealing with armor..  but thats ok, the AH model has it right, 50,000 rounds of 50 cal wont even scratch a tiger..  after all, what do the people who did it in real life know anyway... pfft, very little compared to our panel of video game experts.  


oh yea, from what ive read the tiger had 25mm of top armor, and 20mm of bottom armor... but dont let that get in the way of your assumptions.

Read some actual history.

In post action studies of German tanks knocked out by aircraft the RAF found two that had been destroyed by 20mm cannons.  All the rest were done by bombs and rockets.

Next, try using some brains.  In order to bounce bullets off the roadway and have them ricochet under the tank the angle is going to be very, very shallow.  So, you have a tumbling .50 cal round that has lost energy in the impact with the ground hitting the bottom armor of the tank at an angle of no greater than 15 degrees and you think that has a chance in hell of penetrating?


Pilots reported and were told all sorts of false things.  My grandma got angry and offended when I told her there were no arrows pointing at Pearl cut into the cane fields.  I watched one WWII training film that instructed US soldiers not to worry about the menacing sound of the MG42, a gun with a rate of fire so fast you couldn't hear the individual rounds fire, telling them its bark was worse than its bite.

[Krusty]

If you watch historic footage of MG fire, you'll find that ricochettes tend to fly parallel to the surface they hit. They'll fly along walls, along roads. Somebody brought up the fact that's why cops or military don't hug the ground, because they'll increase the odds of being hit.

So a P-51 firing at the ground by a tank is just bouncing their bullets along the ground until they hit the first target: the treads. By now the bullets are so mangled and shattered they'd hardly scratch the paint.