Is This Video Real or Doctored?

[bustr]

Looks like the thicker base on the 30mm creates a shaped charge type of controlled explosion. The picture of the B17 I referenced shows a upward pushed half round buckling of the trailing edge assembly and skin just behind the inboard starboard engine. Sort of looks like a directional blast wave several feet in diameter. In the film the explosion of the 30mm has that same shaped charge directional explosion pattern. Wonder how our spits in the game would fly with that much skin ripped up and off the upper wing surface along with the internal damage?

[Karnak]

Looks like the thicker base on the 30mm creates a shaped charge type of controlled explosion. The picture of the B17 I referenced shows a upward pushed half round buckling of the trailing edge assembly and skin just behind the inboard starboard engine. Sort of looks like a directional blast wave several feet in diameter. In the film the explosion of the 30mm has that same shaped charge directional explosion pattern. Wonder how our spits in the game would fly with that much skin ripped up and off the upper wing surface along with the internal damage?

Can't be tested.  You hit a Spit in the wing with a 30mm and the wing comes off.  Spits have the most fragile wings of any aircraft, so far as I can tell, in AH.

[bustr]

Because gyrene was kind enough to post the pics we can see a bit of the purpose driven designs between the two German ordinance. The stick grenade explodes with a blast wave to impact a general sphere and distance of influence. The 20mm-30mm round and probably the 37mm-40mm rounds are in effect quasi shaped charges that may or may not have a hardened tip or core for penetration. Let me reference back to the damage picture of the B17 and ask a question about the games damage model.

Historic photographs show us P47's and bombers returning home with direct hits from flack and 20-30mm cannon damage. Flack damage looks like an omnidirectional blast with shrapnel smashing into the airframe. Cannon damage all looks like a shaped charge punching through the airframe in an expected cone of destruction. With the increased granularity of our damage model we should be seeing more aircraft fly away with cannon hits than with the older damage models? Admittedly not flying very well but, not turning into an exploded pile of pieces or half the airframe dropping off like they used to every time a cannon round hit them.

I'm considering that the B17 airframe having buckled and the rear gun position shattered, the explosion still was absorbed by the aircraft and nothing suddenly fell apart killing the plane. Then the demonstration of the 30mm against the spit wing. I'm assuming the orientation of the spit to the cannon was to duplicated a 6 shot which would be common. Even knowing the spitfires wing is the weakest, the explosion still didn't saw it off. Yes in flight the wing probably would have snapped off from stress. If the wing had been oriented so the round hit it 90deg to its upper surface, would we then have been looking at an explosion and a 1-2ft dia hole? Or in the fuselage rear of the pilot? Just a hole, or would the rear half of the fuselage tumble away? Even the trailing edge of the rudder? The whole vertical stab or just the moveable plane snaped off?

I'm reminded of M80's and paper bags. If you set one off in a closed paper bag, the bag will quickly rupture, yes absorbe some of the energy but the explosive gases will take the path of least resistance out the rupture. Riveted and welded aluminum structurs would perform similarly especialy considering how thin the aluminum skins on WW2 aircraft really are. If you place a stick of dynamite in the same bag yes, the bag will go poof with the explosion. Possibly like a direct hit from a Flack-88. Or then again you link up four M80's in that bag.

This direction of reasoning would venture quantity and shot placement rather than single cannon golden BB's with the new damage model. I can see a few more rounds being needed lately to bring down the red guys.

[Lusche]

Historic photographs show us P47's and bombers returning home with direct hits from flack and 20-30mm cannon damage. Flack damage looks like an omnidirectional blast with shrapnel smashing into the airframe. Cannon damage all looks like a shaped charge punching through the airframe in an expected cone of destruction.

Just a tidbit:
Until 1945, German heavy flack rounds did exclusively use timed fuses, they didn't explode on impact. That means almost all hits where the result of shells exploding externally, at some distance from the plane, which leads to a very different effect than being hit by a cannon shell that is impact fused.

[bustr]

I'm taking a tad bit of license with imagery. The cannon rounds are effectivly cylindrical shaped charges. You can tell by looking at the directional damage pattern. Flack had concussion and shrapnel. I suspect 2-3 times the grams of explosive as the stick grenade with a thick enough casing to protect the fuse and survive the cannon barrel. The shrapnel from the AA fused round would be the primary killer kind of like modern AtoA missles packed with ball bearings or frangable wire. Very close by detonation or direct hits seemed less common than sharpnel damage.

You might equate the directional blast of the 30mm to fireing a 12g point blank into the airframe. Today there are exotic 12g rounds that act like a WW2 30mm. If you did not place the 12g point blank to the pilot compartment, engine or fuel tank the blast is mostly a blast against a hollow alluminum structure. So my statement related to our damage modle:

This direction of reasoning would venture quantity and shot placement rather than single cannon golden BB's with the new damage model. I can see a few more rounds being needed lately to bring down the red guys.

Recently in a K4 I attacked a box of Lancasters and fired 5 golden BB's diving in from the front quarter. One 30mm each must have hit pilots compartments because two of the Lancs performed the death spiral together with the third's rear gunner killing my engine while I passed behind it. A few sorties later I killed all three B26 in a box with a K4. It took 20-30mm per B26 to take them down. I'm suggesting the latter is more the nature of how the 30mm will function with the current damage model. The former was Luck.

[Die Hard]

No "imagery licence" required; the design of the Minengeschoss rounds (both 20mm and 30mm variants) was not meant to damage the internal structure of the aircraft, but to blow off large areas of skin. In most WWII aircraft the skin was an integral structural component (so-called stressed skin) and if enough of it was removed the underlying structure would catastrophically fail. If it was flying that spit, unless extremely lucky, would lose that wing fractions of a second after being hit.

[BulletVI]

Well it could be fake it look's more of an explosive impact rather than armour piercing and tracer fire.

But hey it could be a film from German propaganda. Hitler and Himmler where big on that stuff. :-)

EH who know's   

[morfiend]

 I've been looking for a pic of a Bristol Blenheim that they exploded a 30mm round inside the rear fuselage.

 IIRC it's been posted on this BBS at 1 time,anyways the Blenheim had the round electrically detonated while suspended in the middle of the rear section of the fuselage several feet infront of the tail section. The explosion looks to have ruptured the airframe in all directions for about 3 or 4 feet.

 I wish I could find that pic but havent been able to.

   

[Lusche]

 I wish I could find that pic but havent been able to.

[morfiend]

 Thx Lusche!

 As usual your contributions are to be commended.



  Now to be honest this wasnt fired persay but it shows the devistation that the 30mm round can do.

 

[bustr]

Would it have mattered to the volume of expanding gasses from the explosion if they had punched a hole in the skin next to the round before it was detonated?

The photos of U.S. aircraft I have seen seem to indicate the U.S. design requirements were the flying tank school of thought while the 30mm in the photos exploded very near its entry hole. That Blenie looks like it was designed with low weight and rifle caliber rounds from the enemy during it's design period in the 30's. If HiTech puts the Blenie in this game I ain't riding in it after that horror picture...wonder if 20mm chewed up the Blenie frame just as bad..

Maybe a review of aircraft design philosophy versus survivability philosophy by country is in order.

[Lusche]

Would it have mattered to the volume of expanding gasses from the explosion if they had punched a hole in the skin next to the round before it was detonated?
Maybe a review of aircraft design philosophy versus survivability philosophy by country is in order.

I could imagine that for example a Wellington would react differently and had much better survivability against such a "hit" in the rear fuselage area, due to it's geodetic design.

[Wmaker]

Spitfire with the MK108 exploded inside the fuselage:

[morfiend]

Would it have mattered to the volume of expanding gasses from the explosion if they had punched a hole in the skin next to the round before it was detonated?

 This is a good question,from what I read they located the shell in the center of the fuselage,held in place by wires.

 If you look at both pix,spit and Blen you'll notice an almost perfectly place explosion to obtain maximum damage.

 However if the shell was traveling at any speed it's unlikely that the shell would explode dead center of the fuselage and it's unlikely that the damage would be so symmetrical.Still it gives us a good idea about the amount of damage the round is capable of inflicting.

   

[bustr]

Is there like a Horror pictures of the WW2 Airwar with all these photos somewhere? Or are there WW2 war studies with photographs and documentation for air to air munitions that you are accessing? Does anyone have a link to a german gun camera showing a 30mm hitting an aliied fighter? I've seen the bomber ones. Bombers absorb them for awhile.