It Got Bigggg Guns. Me410 on Front Page.

[titanic3]

Thus my choice of words "live to tell".

If the damage model is changed so that ordinance and ammo can cook off, then I'm thinking planes with massive amounts of ammo as well as 7.7mm/30 cals would be amazing. You only need one bullet to set it off, and those planes usually have thousands of them and fire amazingly fast.

Bad idea IMO, leave it the way it is, even if it unrealistic for the sake of gameplay.

[Krusty]

Thus my choice of words "live to tell".

I think you're imagining something worse than what really was.

Technically possible? Sure... Any explosive can detonate. Realistic? Nope. You're not just going to spontaneously combust. More than anything else you can bend the metal feed chutes, chew up the metal frames, blow the linkages apart, thus jamming the gun, or damaging the pressurized bottles that feed the gun mechanism, etc.

It's far more likely to stop the function of the weapon than to blow the ammunition.

  I've seen some guncam footage that shows an fw's wing explode and depart the airframe.Seems like it was the outer 1/3 of the wing so it's very likely this is exactly what happened!

I've seen that footage, too. I don't think it's certain that the ammunition blew, as an explosion that size would leave a massive fireball expanding outward and bent wings and expanding gasses. In that footage it's just an instant snap, with no expanded skin panels, no outwardly bent ribs or panels.

I'm not saying it would be impossible, just highly improbable. Like the F-111 bombs cooking off on the runway. Possible? Sure. Likely? Not very.

[morfiend]

  Krusty,

  If you saw the footage I'm talking about you would have seen the explosion,fireball and all!  The outer 1/3 of the wing blows up,it doesnt just snap off like it was cut from a bunch of 50 cals.

  With so much guncam footage out there the odds that we are talking about the exact same film are pretty remote.

  Also the combat report clearly stated that the ammo started to cook off and the pilot was forced to exit the airframe!

   

 PS: No one is saying HTC is going to model this,it's just a discussion on the posibility of it happening.

[Kingpin]

I think you're imagining something worse than what really was.

Technically possible? Sure... Any explosive can detonate. Realistic? Nope. You're not just going to spontaneously combust. More than anything else you can bend the metal feed chutes, chew up the metal frames, blow the linkages apart, thus jamming the gun, or damaging the pressurized bottles that feed the gun mechanism, etc.

It's far more likely to stop the function of the weapon than to blow the ammunition.


I've seen that footage, too. I don't think it's certain that the ammunition blew, as an explosion that size would leave a massive fireball expanding outward and bent wings and expanding gasses. In that footage it's just an instant snap, with no expanded skin panels, no outwardly bent ribs or panels.

I'm not saying it would be impossible, just highly improbable. Like the F-111 bombs cooking off on the runway. Possible? Sure. Likely? Not very.

Actually, it did happen according to both combat reports and numerous gun-cam films.  The ammo explosions appear just as you describe.  Just a few examples here (note the rather massive wing explosion at :07):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfnSfvM03uA

[Babalonian]

If the damage model is changed so that ordinance and ammo can cook off, then I'm thinking planes with massive amounts of ammo as well as 7.7mm/30 cals would be amazing. You only need one bullet to set it off, and those planes usually have thousands of them and fire amazingly fast.

Bad idea IMO, leave it the way it is, even if it unrealistic for the sake of gameplay.

It would be rarer than setting a plane on fire with incindiary rounds at the moment in AH.  And I would think if implimented tomorrow it would be no more than a instant death to the pilot (if he's sitting ontop of or imediatley next to the ammo) and a big puff in the sky to everyone else watching.  Someday, maybe, if 500-5,000-50,000 bullets could be modeled "daisy-chaining", if the victim/player doesn't feel like he got deprived of a life in an overly-gamey way too often, etc. etc.... I agree, it would be wickedly cool someday (especialy buff formations that take heavy defencive loadouts), but as for today, its a bad idea.

[Krusty]

Morf, you're right. Looking at Kingpin's link I was indeed thinking of a different video clip.


I'd still say highly unlikely, even if possible. There's tons of footage showing planes taking massive hits in the wings (right where the guns/ammo are) without catastrophic explosion. Most of those cannon shells had internal fuzes and needed to be "armed" to explode by flying a set distance. Interestingly enough, it's the arming fuze on the minengeschoss that makes it so lethal (it won't blow up until the fuze stops spinning after it embeds itself into a plane, blowing up on the inside).

[morfiend]

 Krusty,

  I think kngpins link is showing the footage I was talking about!

     If you watch closely it looks like the wing exploded,atleast it does to me!

  Now whether this was a result of the ammo cooking off is up for debate but I dont think the LW faced many weapons that were capable of doing that type of damage.
  Possibly a 37mm could do it but that would be about the only weapon I can think of.

    I wish I could remember the site I read the combat report from,I would link to it because it had some intereting reports!


   

[Babalonian]

Krusty,

  I think kngpins link is showing the footage I was talking about!

     If you watch closely it looks like the wing exploded,atleast it does to me!

  Now whether this was a result of the ammo cooking off is up for debate but I dont think the LW faced many weapons that were capable of doing that type of damage.
  Possibly a 37mm could do it but that would be about the only weapon I can think of.

    I wish I could remember the site I read the combat report from,I would link to it because it had some intereting reports!


   

It looks like the poor fellow @ 0:07 had his wing magazine go off, the force was so strong it near instantly rolled the plane a full 180.

[Karnak]

Dunno.

All I can say is that one of the few areas that Supermarine or the RAF saw fit to armor on the Spitfire was in front of the cannon ammo boxes.

[Babalonian]

Dunno.

All I can say is that one of the few areas that Supermarine or the RAF saw fit to armor on the Spitfire was in front of the cannon ammo boxes.

Only the front?   

[bustr]

You have your choice of 19 grams or 85 grams of HA41 (hexogen aluminium) in a 20mm or 30 mm Minengeschoss round ammo feed group in the outer wing right where those hexogen style explosions were happening in that gun cam footage. American .50 cal API ammo cannot cause an explosion like that without something with an energenic propensity to contact first, causing a detonation.

Remember that war time test footage of a 30mm fired at a static spitfire. Amasing how the hexogen explosion to the wing looks like the hexogen ammunition explosion from inside of the FW190 wing. Wonder how many countries 20mm wing gun's ammunition were susceptible to this kind of external detonation source if the detonator was like penthrite and the HE content was not TNT? Anyone have the time to look at WW2 guncam footage against japan again to see if this signature explosion happens to wings right about where the 20mm ammo group is stored?

The german fuzes AZ1502 in the 20mm and ZZ1589 in the 30mm were both primed with penthrite. An HE rounds detonator cap and body would not withstand the impact of a .50cal API round. The fuze bodies and secondairy inline duplex detonaitors were made of three possible materials. Aluminum, Copper or Magnesium.

Hexogen (RDX) and TNT are the most common explosives used in military explosive compositions. The percentage of these two are set to achieve the desired detonation speed and detonation pressure.

Hexogen or RDX is the more powerfull one, with density around 1.8 g/cm3. TNT is less dense, around 1,65 g/cm3. So if you have two rounds and fill one with RDX and the other with TNT, the RDX round will be 35% more powerfull, but also approx. 5 times more sensitive (dificult to handle).

Aluminium dust is used to increase the detonation speed - side effect: it increases the sensativity.

Hexogen has about 50% more power than TNT (measured as calories per gram x cc per gram) and 100% more brisance or shattering effect, measured by power x velocity of detonation x density. However, it was twice as sensitive.

No cook off in those FW wings. Hexogen explosion.

-------------------------------------------------------
Spitfire 30mm static fireing test.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoLLDi-M3fk

[Babalonian]

You have your choice of 19 grams or 85 grams of HA41 (hexogen aluminium) in a 20mm or 30 mm Minengeschoss round ammo feed group in the outer wing right where those hexogen style explosions were happening in that gun cam footage. American .50 cal API ammo cannot cause an explosion like that without something with an energenic propensity to contact first, causing a detonation.

Remember that war time test footage of a 30mm fired at a static spitfire. Amasing how the hexogen explosion to the wing looks like the hexogen ammunition explosion from inside of the FW190 wing. Wonder how many countries 20mm wing gun's ammunition were susceptible to this kind of external detonation source if the detonator was like penthrite and the HE content was not TNT? Anyone have the time to look at WW2 guncam footage against japan again to see if this signature explosion happens to wings right about where the 20mm ammo group is stored?

The german fuzes AZ1502 in the 20mm and ZZ1589 in the 30mm were both primed with penthrite. An HE rounds detonator cap and body would not withstand the impact of a .50cal API round. The fuze bodies and secondairy inline duplex detonaitors were made of three possible materials. Aluminum, Copper or Magnesium.

Hexogen (RDX) and TNT are the most common explosives used in military explosive compositions. The percentage of these two are set to achieve the desired detonation speed and detonation pressure.

Hexogen or RDX is the more powerfull one, with density around 1.8 g/cm3. TNT is less dense, around 1,65 g/cm3. So if you have two rounds and fill one with RDX and the other with TNT, the RDX round will be 35% more powerfull, but also approx. 5 times more sensitive (dificult to handle).

Aluminium dust is used to increase the detonation speed - side effect: it increases the sensativity.

Hexogen has about 50% more power than TNT (measured as calories per gram x cc per gram) and 100% more brisance or shattering effect, measured by power x velocity of detonation x density. However, it was twice as sensitive.

No cook off in those FW wings. Hexogen explosion.

-------------------------------------------------------
Spitfire 30mm static fireing test.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoLLDi-M3fk

I noticed the lack of cooking too in each one shown in the film, was just one big/violent puffy boomb.  Might of been just the chosen compilation of footage.

[Karnak]

Only the front?  

Yup.

Edit:

My personal guess was that it was to protect the cannon ammo from rifle caliber rounds inbound during strafing attacks, but I have nothing to support that guess.

[Babalonian]

Im wondering too and looking for more info as to maybe why.  Spits didn't load 20mm front-end-backwards in the boxes, did they?  I thought, comparitavely, the 20mm HE and HEI was pretty stable, fuse wise.  But even if not the case, you'd think an incindiary BB round or otherwise would have better "luck" wrecking havok and setting off the 20mm ammo twords the rear and by the round's and thinner brass shell casings and its primer....    curious indeed.

[GScholz]

Yup.
Edit:
My personal guess was that it was to protect the cannon ammo from rifle caliber rounds inbound during strafing attacks, but I have nothing to support that guess.

The armor would also protect against defensive fire from bombers, which is mostly what you armor against on an interceptor.