Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: Snubby on October 29, 2007, 08:29:27 PM
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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.
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i know in real life a bulet into a bomb would detonate it you can also jam bomb bay doors with some bulets :aok
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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.
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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.
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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
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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 :aok
Ahh, the words spoken from a complete noob.
:aok
:p
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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.
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OH ok! I see what you mean now.
Regards,
Matt
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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.
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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+
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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.
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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.
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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 (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-03/cu-cld032305.php)
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.
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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.
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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.:lol We're lucky we didn't kill ourselves with some of the stupid stuff we tried but it was FUN!!!!!!!
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Originally posted by Hornet33
Never send a bunch of 18-19-20 year old National Guardsmen out unsupervised to get rid of ammo.:lol We're lucky we didn't kill ourselves with some of the stupid stuff we tried but it was FUN!!!!!!!
LOL Age doesn't matter. Friend of my dad's is obsessed with blowing crap up, and he's in his late 50's. The man has a small artilary (sp?) piece that he loads anything he can in it and fires it. Ah to be able to play with C4 and ammunition legally without much worry of HOW you're playing with.. any man's dream hehehe
As for the other.. So I'm guessing if a round were lucky and hit the ammo reserve if a bomber.. it might do mass damage, but that would have to be in line with with winning the 360 million dollar lottery alone... fun stuff, thanks :)
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The majority of WW2 ordinance contained TNT or a mixture of TNT and another stable explosive (to conserve TNT due to its high war time demand). TNT is only reliably detonated with another explosive.
Army tests showed that TNT (no casing) struck by a rifle bullet would only detonate 4% of the time, and that when dropped in a bomb casing without a primer from 4,000 ft on to concrete, it would only detonate 8% of the time.
As hornet pointed out, conditions would have to be just right to penetrate the shell casing, to get to the ordinance canister. Then, enough engergy would have to be imparted to the main charge to cause a detonation. It's not impossible, but it would be an unlikely freak occurance.
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What Murdr said....
A bomb being shot is not going to go off. Do a search as this was brought up before with a photo of a Lanc blowing up because a flak burst hit it. Of course I think it was posted by one of the 'younger' guys and he argued about it for a month with some of us. Oh, and I build bombs in the AF...
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by the way i was talking about a round hiting the detonater not the bomb
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Problem is that the fuzing and detonators are buried inside the bomb caseing to prevent exactly that!
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I don't really know what a bomb detonator looked like back in WW2 in detail but I think standard US iron bomb had two detonators, one in front , and the other in the rear part with small propellors which started turning in the airstream and eventually armed the detonator after a short flight, and it can either have a barometric action or contact action. So its actually not like a single contact detonator in the tip with a primer that is hit upon impact which explodes the detonator which again explodes the bomb filling etc... I don't really know but that is how I have understood it.
If you hit, say, the aft detonator, would it be possible that the bullet would enter the detonator and cause it to go off? I'd think it is more easier to explode a detonator with a simple bullet than a lump of TNT?
-C+
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20mm or 30mm cannon will detonate bombs. Perhaps not every time, but often. Heavy machineguns too. In the army we used 12.7mm (.50 cal) sniper rifles (with MP ammo) to set of mines, IED's and dud ordnance (mostly artillery shells). It usually only took one shot.
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I wish I had paid better attention during my ammo course. Most interesting training course I've had to take so far, but it was pretty long.
I'm pretty sure Murdrs already said it best - it is pretty unlikely that a round hitting an unarmed bomb would cause it to go off, unless it managed to hit it right on the fuze. Even if the bomb were armed, I wouldn't see it detonating unless the bomb was armed with a PD fuze and the round hit it.
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Originally posted by Larry
Umm the 20 and 30mm cannons in this game are HE as in High Explosive not AP.
i thought all cannons in AH were a mix of HE/AP and optionally tracer?
I know its a special round but if a .50 from an M82 can detonate bombs surely a 20/30mm cannon round could.
RT
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I dont know the specs of WWII iron bombs, but I would think that the casing is relatively thick maybe an inch or two. As far as I know the only cannon round that has any chance of penetrating a bomb is the 23mm VYa on the Il2.
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Originally posted by Larry
Umm the 20 and 30mm cannons in this game are HE as in High Explosive not AP.
well then.... i guess i learned something:)
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http://www.303rdbg.com/bombs2.jpg
http://www.fototime.com/AFB975AB77C457E/orig.jpg
http://www.fototime.com/C1A7DE959879450/orig.jpg
-C+
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Originally posted by Viking
20mm or 30mm cannon will detonate bombs. Perhaps not every time, but often. Heavy machineguns too. In the army we used 12.7mm (.50 cal) sniper rifles (with MP ammo) to set of mines, IED's and dud ordnance (mostly artillery shells). It usually only took one shot.
i dont know if even that would do it. im all for saying you could damage bomb-bay doors with it. or perhaps dent up the bombs and screw their areodynamics or trajectory, maybee even render them completely usless, but i dont see them exploding without being armed.
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so if you take a stack of 10 or so large bombs and fire 50 rounds of 20mm cannon at them, nothing will happen.
ok
:aok
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In Chuck Yeager's book, Chuck and his wingman dropped their droptanks and tried to ignite them with the 50 cals on their mustangs. They made sure fuel was still in the droptanks. But they couldn't get them to ignite.
Ironically, while Chuck and his buddy were playing around, one of the biggest dogfights of the war was occurring as german fighters were attacking a bomber stream.
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Originally posted by 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.
NO they would NOT.
Because the bomber might explode above them. And you don't want an exploding bomber 20-40 meters above you.
German night fighters with schage music targeted wings of the bomber. Wings had fuel tanks. You shot at the wing, fuel started burning, engines were maybe hit... You hit left wing, you banked right and vice versa. And the bombers destroyed to failing wings, fire spreading into engines and fuselage etc.
But they did NOT aim bomb-bays, never ever in purpose.
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Originally posted by AquaShrimp
In Chuck Yeager's book, Chuck and his wingman dropped their droptanks and tried to ignite them with the 50 cals on their mustangs. They made sure fuel was still in the droptanks. But they couldn't get them to ignite.
Ironically, while Chuck and his buddy were playing around, one of the biggest dogfights of the war was occurring as german fighters were attacking a bomber stream.
I've read reports of P-38 pilots using the droptanks as poor man's napalm by firing at them after dropping.
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Originally posted by Grendel
NO they would NOT.
Because the bomber might explode above them. And you don't want an exploding bomber 20-40 meters above you.
German night fighters with schage music targeted wings of the bomber. Wings had fuel tanks. You shot at the wing, fuel started burning, engines were maybe hit... You hit left wing, you banked right and vice versa. And the bombers destroyed to failing wings, fire spreading into engines and fuselage etc.
But they did NOT aim bomb-bays, never ever in purpose.
I'm sorry, but I saw a video interview of a German 110 NF ace who contradicts your statement. He said he would aim at the fuselage right between the wings and fire a short burst, then immediately break away to avoid the explosion.
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Originally posted by Larry
Umm the 20 and 30mm cannons in this game are HE as in High Explosive not AP.
The British/US 20mm were armour pierecing HE shells, and the Germans used mixed belts of AP, HE and incendiary rounds.
If a .50 cal API round will go through an engine block, surely it will penetrate a bomb casing.
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quote:Originally posted by Viking
20mm or 30mm cannon will detonate bombs. Perhaps not every time, but often. Heavy machineguns too. In the army we used 12.7mm (.50 cal) sniper rifles (with MP ammo) to set of mines, IED's and dud ordnance (mostly artillery shells). It usually only took one shot.
And your using the same ammo flown by planes during the WWII era?
Originally posted by ColSuave
i dont know if even that would do it. im all for saying you could damage bomb-bay doors with it. or perhaps dent up the bombs and screw their areodynamics or trajectory, maybee even render them completely usless, but i dont see them exploding without being armed.
A dent in the bomb casing itself won't throw off the trajectory, but it you bent up a fin enough it would cause the bomb to tumble instead of nose down. Another way it might make the bomb useless is if the round hit the arming wire and a piece was still in the fuze. The fuze has a safety clip, but when the bomb is dropped a 'arming wire' which is thread through the fuze vain might get stuck. Hence the bomb wouldn't arm.
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Originally posted by Viking
The British/US 20mm were armour pierecing HE shells, and the Germans used mixed belts of AP, HE and incendiary rounds.
If a .50 cal API round will go through an engine block, surely it will penetrate a bomb casing.
i too have a problem with the idea that 50cal and cannon rounds would just bounce off a high explosive bomb.
far as i knew typical high explosive or GP bombs had a relatively thin kin, so as to maximize the amount of room for explosive, frag and AP bombs had thicker casings though.
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Remember that at typical firing angles the angle between the bullet and the bomb is not 90 degrees but it can be very very oblique and the bullet has passed through a few layers of aluminum before that so it has probably already tumbled. It is possible for the trajectory to penetrate the casing but I think it is very unlikely from typical angles.
The best possibility would indeed be straight from below as the angle of the surfaces is optimal and there is only a single layer of aluminum between the projectile and the bomb casing. But still the projectile needs to deal with the cylindrical form of the casing, although it is relatively soft so an AP round has better possibility of punching through it than that of pure steel.
If a single AP projectile enters the bomb I don't think it is going to cause it to go off unless it hits the primer or detonator which is easier to ignite.
-C+
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I have no problem seeing a .50 cal round going straight through a bomb casing and out the other side. A US 500lbs GP bomb only had a 1/3 inch steel case. Context matters though. The scenerio is firing from a moving platform onto a moving target, with the target in question being convex from most profiles. So with all that, if you hit the bomb within the center 2/3rd of the silhouette it's likley to penetrate the casing.
Then, after that, globalsecurity.org reports that pure TNT fails to detonate 96% of the time according to US Army tests. That's without a primary charge. In the game, you'd have a small primer core present, that is more likely to be shocked into detonation. So what are the odds then? How do you model that? Is modeling it even useful to the game? That same WWII era US GP 500lb bomb, could be filled with TNT, or Amatol, or compound B. What are the odds of detonation on the other two compounds?
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The problem with that Viking, is that those mines were already fully armed and set to go off due to pressure in the case of IEDs and mines, most likely for dud ordnance as well, a bullet will most likely put enough pressure on it to blow it up.
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Originally posted by Sketch
Oh, and I build bombs in the AF...
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Now I see why you had this improper weapon handy..... :D
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if tnt was detonated by a explosive charge a 20 or 30 would probably just do the same thing as the detonater
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Originally posted by nirvana
The problem with that Viking, is that those mines were already fully armed and set to go off due to pressure in the case of IEDs and mines, most likely for dud ordnance as well, a bullet will most likely put enough pressure on it to blow it up.
Nirvana is somewhat correct on this. The next step in the explosive chain is for the bomb to actually go off. There is a sequence of events that need to happen for a bomb to work, just shooting it with a .50cal round is not going to set it off.
There are 3 basic classifications for fuzes: Position (nose or tail fuze), Action and the Method of Arming.
Position: If a bomb has a fuze in the nose, it will usually have a arming vain which spins when the bomb is dropped. It has to spin a certain number of times before it is fully armed. Thus, the delay of the fuze to detonate the bomb will occur with the impact of the bomb.
Action: Here there are three different ways to have them go off.
1) Impact: When the bomb hits a resistant material it will either go off immediately of will be delayed for a low level bomber to egress out before the bomb explodes.
2) Time: Basically a timed delayed fuze set to go off after a certain amount of time a spring-loaded firing pin triggers, drives into the detonator and the bomb explodes.
3) Proximity: Always in the nose and it senses the height of the bomb from the ground, such as a certain altitude and with the hieght of function the bomb will go off.
Methods of Arming: Fuzes cannot function when they are unarmed! A fuze is only considered armed when the next normal event initiates a functioning of the fuze. Such as the impact or the delay for it. Two ways for this is Mechanically or Electronically.
Mechanically would be the arming vain type fuze
Electronically: (modern bombs) In which a timed circut sets of the detonator.
If you don't have a fuze armed and the next step of it is to set the bomb off, i.e. the timing delay is up or the arming vain has been spun around enough to initiate it, and then you shot it.... it is still not going to go off. It has to trigger the detonator and shooting it won't work, just like shooting tnt or c4 in the movies.
I deal with explosives every day and have built plenty of JDAM's GBU-12's, GBU-38's and worked with enough Small Diameter Bombs (SDB's) to know this stuff. I still build them to this day in the Air Force and have gone through countless classes learning this stuff...
:aok
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Originally posted by Gianlupo
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Now I see why you had this improper weapon handy..... :D
Hey I needed someone around to keep me happy!! :D
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Just FYI, ammo in this game varies widely. If the gun carried mixed belts like the German cannons, the plane in Aces High carries a hybrid round that has a bit of each property to be found in the belt. If only one style of round was used, such as in the .303s, then that is the only characteristic you'll find in the round.
Someone said that our 20 and 30mms are HE. See the above. Also, the 23mm on the Il-2 is AP. (API?)
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Originally posted by Viking
I'm sorry, but I saw a video interview of a German 110 NF ace who contradicts your statement. He said he would aim at the fuselage right between the wings and fire a short burst, then immediately break away to avoid the explosion.
And I've seen interviews, read books, have books and have talked with German night fighter pilots.
And no - they would not fire into fuselage - but to wings, usually aiming between the inner engine and fuselage.
If they would aim into fuselage at bomb bay, they would be no need to break away to avoid explosion. They would be dead in the moment the bombload explodes.
Shoot at the wing, cause fire, bank away, leave bomber dying away, find new target, repeat.
It was different matter when using nose guns.
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Originally posted by SEseph
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.
Happens in game...
http://www.bops.us/Ranger/Goaly.wmv
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Did we ever get an answer? Will bombs left in the bomb bay, in AH, increase the chances of your bomber going "Boom"!?
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Originally posted by Rich46yo
Did we ever get an answer? Will bombs left in the bomb bay, in AH, increase the chances of your bomber going "Boom"!?
Sorry, I didn't know that was an outstanding question. Answer is no. Booms cannot go "boom" until after they've been released and traveled 1000 feet through the air.
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Originally posted by Murdr
Sorry, I didn't know that was an outstanding question. Answer is no. Booms cannot go "boom" until after they've been released and traveled 1000 feet through the air.
Thanks. As to real life stuff Ive seen with my own eyes TNT explode when hit by rifle shots.