Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Wishlist => Topic started by: Denholm on December 11, 2006, 02:55:03 PM

Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Denholm on December 11, 2006, 02:55:03 PM
For a while since I learned that shooting a bullet into a tank of fuel WITHOUT a tracer would not cause a tank of fuel (Either full or half-full) to blow-up, I was wishing that tracers would have a particular advantage. As everyone knows (and if you don't, consider yourself mentally insane), tracers are flaming bullets. When fire meets a fuel tank it will ignite and blow-up.

This is why I was hoping that the tracers in the game would have more of an advantage. I was hoping that tracers would have a higher percentage rate of catching planes on fire, in-term making this game more interesting.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: B@tfinkV on December 11, 2006, 03:13:24 PM
you know, i wouldnt go testing that theory out mate.....


sure there is more chance of a tracer round igniting a flamable source, but a normal round will cause sparks on the container/aircraft surface and will most likely ignite a tank of ether.

what i would like to see is droptank damage. blow a hole in thier drop tanks and it spews fire out. if they drop it in time they dont get burnt.  we could then use DTs to bomb civillians.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Denholm on December 13, 2006, 08:49:07 AM
I would actually test the as you call it "theory". Simply because I have a friend who's been shooting all types of firearms for 34 years now. He will tell you that you can NOT blow up a fuel tank using a non-tracer round. I didn't believe it myself, yet I'd rather believe someone who's been doing it than myself.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Rino on December 13, 2006, 09:22:12 AM
Well if someone was hitting with tracers, it means they were probably
missing with alot of the rest of their rounds :D
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Kweassa on December 13, 2006, 10:22:06 AM
In order to make that possible in the game AH will have to stop using "generic" rounds and will have to model different types of ammunition per round fired according to historical belt composition.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Golfer on December 13, 2006, 03:10:50 PM
Tracers aren't flaming bullets, either.

Flaming projectiles kind of went out of style after Robin Hood's day when guns took over from bows and arrows.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: MWL on December 13, 2006, 03:58:01 PM
Greetings,

  Ah yes.  However, for .50 cal there was Ball, Tracer, Armor Percing, and Armor Percing Incendiary.  What is modeled here?  Ball/Tracer, AP/Tracer or APIT/Tracer?

Regards,
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: zorstorer on December 13, 2006, 04:20:20 PM
Ammo content for aces high has been averaged for the entire belt.

Meaning even if you had a plane with mine rounds, the over all average explosive power for a single round of ammo from that averaged belt would be much lower than that of the single mine round but slightly higher than that of an armor piercing round.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: B@tfinkV on December 13, 2006, 04:53:29 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Denholm
I would actually test the as you call it "theory". Simply because I have a friend who's been shooting all types of firearms for 34 years now. He will tell you that you can NOT blow up a fuel tank using a non-tracer round. I didn't believe it myself, yet I'd rather believe someone who's been doing it than myself.



wow, im surprised if thats true!

you mean to say there is 0% chance of igniting a tank of ether buy piercing it with a super-sonic chunk of lead?


i'll take your word for it as that guy has been shooting longer than ive been alive, but wow im still surprised and wouldnt be the one to test it.


Quote
Originally posted by Golfer
Tracers aren't flaming bullets, either.

Flaming projectiles kind of went out of style after Robin Hood's day when guns took over from bows and arrows.


lol not quite true. sure we dont use an oil soaked rag tied to a piece of wood anymore, but burning phosphorus bullets are still 'on fire', in essance. Flaming projectiles were often used right up in the 1900s, in some form or another. They even used a type of incendary round back in WW1 for shooting down observation balloons.

i seem to recall that there was a law of war that prosecuted any pilot who used these rounds for normal air to air combat, and you needed a special written order form to even be allowed to take them out of the armoury.

lol shooting these rounds at another pilot in air combat was considered 'poor form' back in these days, but throwing a grenade into a trench with 10 soldiers packed in was considered heroic... :lol


that style of thinking all changed in 1939, surely. lol...

'herr Hans, take zis new gun on your plane, vun bullet vill blow an aircraft into tiny pieces and chop ze pilot in half.'

 or

 'hey Eddy, i don't think having six .50cal machine guns on a plane is enough man, lets make a bigger one with....like.... 8 guns and a watermelon load more bombs n stuff, that'd be killer, dude.'

'werd dude, none of those backward yuuropeans will think of putting 8 big f-off machineguns on one fighter plane, sweet, America is going to totaly own the next 500 years at least.'
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Saxman on December 13, 2006, 05:27:32 PM
The Mythbusters went after the gas tank on a car with a variety of weapons (including some pretty high-powered rifles) and none of them were able to touch off the gas.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Traveler on December 13, 2006, 07:40:57 PM
Quote
Originally posted by MWL
Greetings,

  Ah yes.  However, for .50 cal there was Ball, Tracer, Armor Percing, and Armor Percing Incendiary.  What is modeled here?  Ball/Tracer, AP/Tracer or APIT/Tracer?

Regards,


Has it almost right,  Aircraft of WWII used Tracer rounds and AP Incendiary rounds, with a setup of 4 Incendiary rounds to one Tracer round  on two guns with just Incendiary rounds on the remaining guns.  Using the tracer rounds to adjust fire.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Debonair on December 14, 2006, 12:10:21 AM
i remember reading an anecdote about an erk in the RAF who was so confident a bullet wouldn't ignite a gas tank that he had a friend put a round into a full DT (or maybe it was a barrel) while he was standing on it.
and thats how he died
OMG pawned!!!:O :O :O :O :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :cry
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Ball on December 14, 2006, 09:55:19 AM
yah... explosive non tracer cannon rounds should just go right through fuel tankz and not exploded them. :mad:
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Denholm on December 15, 2006, 08:52:24 AM
Quote
Originally posted by Saxman
The Mythbusters went after the gas tank on a car with a variety of weapons (including some pretty high-powered rifles) and none of them were able to touch off the gas.

Nice to hear someone else tell about the truth, and as for you ball, if it "explodes" inside a gas tank, you think it wouldn't have caused fire?
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: VVV on December 15, 2006, 06:31:52 PM
Quote
Originally posted by B@tfinkV
we could then use DTs to bomb civillians.


:lol
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Ball on December 15, 2006, 06:35:14 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Denholm
if it "explodes" inside a gas tank, you think it wouldn't have caused fire?


noes.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Denholm on December 15, 2006, 07:25:11 PM
Isn't a charge required to offset an explosion? Or are were we using LOX in WWII?
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: OOZ662 on December 15, 2006, 11:12:27 PM
Excuse me if I missed someone already saying this, but I skipped 5/6ths of this thread.

The MythBusters did a test to see if a tracer round would ignite a fuel tank more often than a non-tracer round. They repeated the test many times and neither round set the tank ablaze.

That either shows their test was incorrect or that tracers don't have much of an effect on the incendiary quality of a round.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: MWL on December 16, 2006, 03:21:28 AM
Greetings,

  I have not personnally tested it, but tracer is designed to let you know where you are shooting.

  Incendiary is designed to cause what you are shooting at to catch on fire.

  That is not to say the Tracer can't cause fires, as it is buring and will set things of fire - like grass on the range.  Lawd know I have put out enough range fires.

Regards,
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Denholm on December 18, 2006, 10:15:26 AM
Let me try to elaborate on my request. I am wishing that tracers have a higher possibility of catching a fuel tank on fire. It doesn't happen all the time. But it doesn't happen at all with a non-tracer round. Lead / copper striking steel / metal does NOT spark. A tracer round has a small trail of fire following the round, it doesn't always ignite a tank, but it has higher chances of igniting a tank than a round that doesn't spark.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Ghosth on December 19, 2006, 07:56:07 AM
Denholm your correct, copper/brass over lead won't spark.

Steel core AP rounds however WILL spark if they hit something hard enough.

But until HT decides to get around to addressing ammo types we are stuck with what we have.

Which is a round which has some of the properties of a AP or API, and some of the properties of a HE. I don't know if we'll ever be able to set the ammo load we want. And if we do chances are we'll more often than not have the wrong ammo load selected for what we want.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: scottydawg on December 19, 2006, 08:38:06 AM
Quote
Originally posted by Ghosth
Denholm your correct, copper/brass over lead won't spark.

Steel core AP rounds however WILL spark if they hit something hard enough.

But until HT decides to get around to addressing ammo types we are stuck with what we have.

Which is a round which has some of the properties of a AP or API, and some of the properties of a HE. I don't know if we'll ever be able to set the ammo load we want. And if we do chances are we'll more often than not have the wrong ammo load selected for what we want.


I'm not real sure I want THAT much realism... I mean, I can be a pedant when the mood strikes me, but how much realism is too much?  I have a hard enough time remembering what kind of ballistics go with which gun already.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Denholm on December 19, 2006, 09:31:53 AM
Quote
Originally posted by Ghosth
Steel core AP rounds however WILL spark if they hit something hard enough.

That I can believe, because steel WILL spark. And for the rest of you still doubting me, take this as an example.

Find a piece of steel (any kind of size you wish), then take a pencil and strike the tip of the lead pencil diagonally upon the steel. The lead simply will not spark, same it would be with lead bullets.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Golfer on December 19, 2006, 10:15:53 AM
Well graphite is used as a lubricant.  I can't really see anything that can be used to lubricate and reduce friction causing a spark.  In fairness graphite is basically carbon.  Coal is basically carbon.  The difference is graphite is a beyooootch to get cookin' compared to coal.

That's what's in the pencil...not actual lead.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Krusty on December 19, 2006, 11:58:25 AM
Remember.... You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead.


Anyways, no full gas tank will ever explode. Gas itself does not explode, the air vapor heavy with gas fumes will. If you have a half full tank or an empty tank, you might get an explosion with an incendiary round. Otherwise, you may just puncture it, have the gas leak out, then be set afire AFTER leaking out (on hot radiators, more bullets causing sparks, electrical wires, etc).

Tracer bullets are not incendiary. There were different chemicals used to make the bullets glow different colors (reds vs greens etc). The bullet wasn't "on fire", but rather the heat from the firing process makes the material coated over the bullet glow. This gives you the smoke dust trail and the glow so you can track the motion of the bullet.

I'm pretty sure the temperature of a tracer is not much more than any other massive chunk of lead and steel traveling many times the speed of sound, after being ejected out of a confined tube with a powerful fiery explosion.

As for US planes, most of them used API throughout the war. Better chance of igniting flamable materials.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Lye-El on December 19, 2006, 05:33:08 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Golfer
Well graphite is used as a lubricant.  I can't really see anything that can be used to lubricate and reduce friction causing a spark.  In fairness graphite is basically carbon.  Coal is basically carbon.  The difference is graphite is a beyooootch to get cookin' compared to coal.

That's what's in the pencil...not actual lead.



What Golfer said. So I guess the jamming the old #2 against steel test is not a valid test as some proclaim. :lol
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Denholm on December 20, 2006, 09:36:24 AM
Quote
Originally posted by Krusty
Anyways, no full gas tank will ever explode. Gas itself does not explode, the air vapor heavy with gas fumes will.

Krusty, the only reason that the fuel would explode is because it is concealed within a tank where there is no means to expand. So when the gasoline ignites in a tank it causes pressure to rise, considering that a tank does not have enough room to contain this pressure, the tank blows its top and the flaming vapors escape which are the actual explosion.

Also, considering what Golfer said, I do believe that the "pencil" test is not valid. Yet one more thing krusty. Believing a friend who has shot guns for 34 years now, I would trust him when he says, "Yes, tracers have a slight amount of fire trailing the bullet."
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: OOZ662 on December 20, 2006, 11:48:33 AM
Quote
Originally posted by Denholm
I would trust him when he says, "Yes, tracers have a slight amount of fire trailing the bullet."


Yes, trailing the bullet. But that doesn't mean it has to have any effect on the impact of the round.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Denholm on December 20, 2006, 11:53:42 AM
Of course it doesn't have any effect on the impact of the round. Yet the fact is that even the slightest trace of fire can ignite fuel.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: OOZ662 on December 20, 2006, 12:20:17 PM
The slighter the fire, the slighter the chance it'll ignite something, as well. If this were modeled, the difference of the rounds wouldn't be notable. You may actully see less fires due to how the damage model works.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Denholm on December 21, 2006, 09:55:03 AM
Yet it would be a step closer to realism.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: fireplug1111 on December 22, 2006, 10:35:56 AM
HMMMMM interesting subject...
  First, from a fire service standpoint- It is TOTALLY impossible to get a fire started inside a fuel tank. There are 4 things needed for a fire to burn, #1 heat source ( Your tracer rounds in this seneriao) #2 Fuel ( your fuel in your fuel tank) # 3 oxygen ( air ) We'll get back to the air part. #4 Chemical chain reaction.( fire burning after it is started).  This whole concept is called a FIRE TETRAHEDRON. All 4 MUST be present for self sustained combustion- FIRE-.  Now inside your fuel tank you have FUEL (gas) HEAT SOURCE
( tracer round). But inside your fuel tank you have gas fumes and no oxygen, hence no air so no fire. Now if you get a leak then the gas leaking should burn. This has been proven, that cars gas tanks will now explode like in the movies, there are several videos in the fire service that show gas soaked rags stuffed into the fill port of cars and iginted and it never blew up, as you see inthe movies. They have even used fuses put all the way into the fuel tank and lit and nothing happened. No air no fire. As far as bullets blowing up a airplane from sparks-hmmmmm- there too. Most fuel tanks in the war were of the self-sealing or made of aluminum.
    But it is an interesting subject, all I think it would do is get rid of the people RAMMIN and HOOOIN out there.  It would just let them find a new way to get easy non-dogfighting kills.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: hubsonfire on December 22, 2006, 11:56:12 AM
How does an actual tracer round work? I was under the impression it was something like phosphorous that actually ignited in the base of the round. Is this correct?
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Bronk on December 22, 2006, 12:04:44 PM
OK where is Tony Williams when you need him ?

Maybe the just the mention of his name will bring him .



Bronk
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: fireplug1111 on December 22, 2006, 01:51:56 PM
A tracer round has phosphorous in the bullet itself. If you look at the projectile part of a tracer round the bullet is hollowed out at the rear of it and it has red phosphorous in it. This gives it the red look as it travels down range. When I was in HONDO we had received enemy fire and it was green tracers coming up out of the jungle at us.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Slash27 on December 22, 2006, 03:42:21 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Denholm
Krusty, the only reason that the fuel would explode is because it is concealed within a tank where there is no means to expand. So when the gasoline ignites in a tank it causes pressure to rise, considering that a tank does not have enough room to contain this pressure, the tank blows its top and the flaming vapors escape which are the actual explosion.



um....... no
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Bronk on December 22, 2006, 03:54:14 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Denholm
Krusty, the only reason that the fuel would explode is because it is concealed within a tank where there is no means to expand. So when the gasoline ignites in a tank it causes pressure to rise, considering that a tank does not have enough room to contain this pressure, the tank blows its top and the flaming vapors escape which are the actual explosion.

"



Umm actually it's the vapor in the tank that causes the explosion.

If the tank was full a round is more likely to pass through and not explode the tank .  It may or may not cause a fire depending on the round .


Bronk
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Stoney74 on December 22, 2006, 05:17:58 PM
Quote
Originally posted by fireplug1111
When I was in HONDO we had received enemy fire and it was green tracers coming up out of the jungle at us.


What you should have said was "although I can neither confirm nor deny that I was ever in HONDO as a member of the U.S. military..." then finish the story.

Its kind of like me saying "This Gunny I knew never shot Stinger missiles at Russian aircraft in Afghanistan..."
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: fireplug1111 on December 22, 2006, 05:30:22 PM
OK

  I shall be more precise..  When I was in HONDO with the 223rd we flew close to the border of N********* and the N********ians would shoot up at us. All the jungle looks the same when your on the ground and you cant tell where the border is, so hence the "receiving fire from below".

  That better.

   Anyways back to the VAPOR in a fuel tank.  Vapor in a fuel tank is WAY WAY to rich to burn. If you can get a fire to start inside a confinded space with nothing but fuel vapor you will make history. You need an oxidizing agent (Oxygen or better known as air).
   This topic is getting way to complicated. We can go all day and fuel in a tank with vapor will not ignite, there is no air in a fuel tank. If you fill it full and then drain it down as you burn it off nothting but vapor is left, no air no fire.
   But interesting topic.
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Bronk on December 22, 2006, 05:56:18 PM
Hmm didn't think of the oxidizer. Good catch.


Bronk
Title: Tracer Advantages
Post by: Tony Williams on December 22, 2006, 07:29:27 PM
Someone called? :)

A few comments:

First, it is correct that fuel does not burn, it is the mixture of fuel vapour and the oxygen in air that burns. However, I believe that fuel tanks are not usually sealed from the atmosphere but have "breathers" to link them to the air; as fuel is used up, the empty space will be filled with a vapour which is a mixture of air and fuel particles, which can explode if ignited. This risk was always considered high, and it was not unusual for arrangements to be made to replace the fuel used up in tanks with a gas other than air to prevent it happening. I know that the Russians even went to the trouble of pumping exhaust gas into the fuel tanks of some of their combat planes for this very reason.

It is also correct that a steel-cored AP bullet can create sparks when it hits some suitable hard material, so these could in theory set off the fuel tanks. However, the impression I have is that this happened very rarely.

Tracers would stand a higher chance of igniting fuel, but again practical experience in WW2 showed that this didn't often happen. Tracers were not all the same: in the BoB the RAF made some use of the .303 B Mk IV "Incendiary Tracer". This was an incendiary which ignited on firing, leaving a smoke trail behind. But by then, most incendiaries ignited on impact with the target, such as the .303 B Mk VI "De Wilde", which was copied in a simplified form for the US .30 and .50 incendiaries.

The British tested RAF .303 and Lufwaffe 7.92 incendiary ammunition, as described in Flying Guns – World War 2: Development of Aircraft Guns, Ammunition and Installations 1933-45 (http://users.skynet.be/Emmanuel.Gustin/volume1/index.html):

"Comparative British tests of British .303" and German 7.92 mm incendiary ammunition held in 1941 against the self-sealing wing tanks in a Blenheim bomber, fired from 200 yards (183m) astern, revealed that the .303" B. Mk IV (based on the First World War Buckingham design) and the 7.92 mm were about equal, each setting the tanks alight with about one in ten shots fired. The B. Mk VI, which contained 0.5 grams of SR 365 (a composition including barium nitrate) was twice as effective as these, scoring one in five. The 7.92 mm API completely failed to ignite the tanks."

I expect that a .50 calibre incendiary would have done better than this due to the larger quantitiy of incendiary material carried.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website (http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk) and discussion forum (http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/)