- Yes
- No
I would like to suggest the addition of this new kind of ammo, the Brand Schrapnell Granate, in short Br.Schrap.Gr. which is a Incendary Shrapnell Time Fuze grenade, kind of a WW2 AHEAD ammo, just more basic and kind of worse, it works with a time fuze, which detonates 56g of smoke less powder which pushes out the container with the 72x 30x15mm Incendary pellets, the center of the container has 114g of Amatol (perhaps 1,26x TnT factor) which expells the 72 pellets outwars (like AHEAD) and ignites the pellets. Otherwise the ammo is ballistically identical to the Sprgr. L/4,5 m.Z.Z.
It came into production in early 1943 (or February 1944?) after a somewhat medium length development. Overall based on the experience gained even befor WW1, when most AA guns were simple 7,5-7,7 cm guns fireing HE-TF and Shrapnell-TF rounds (that were also both used against ground targets). These had the added bonus of beeing easyer to hit with, as it was a long range shotgun. First there was a original development from Krupp, the long established shrapnell round, where a HE charge in the base would push out the solid steel pellets in a 30° conical pattern. This round was the 8,8 cm Schrapnell Spreng Granate L/4,5, however it did not enter production, instead the development was continued to have the shrapnell also a duo function of incendary action.
These Barium Nitrate, Magnesium alluminium alloy pellets had both the power to pierce through the aircraft skin and damage modules, such as cables and disable crew members, as well as each had the chance to inflict a critical fire when it hit a fuel or oil tank, duo to the high volume multiple fuel tanks could simultaneously, increasing the effect.
However there were some issues found with not all pellets ingniting allways, as such it was planned to instead replace them with small HE bomblets, the end of the war however stopped that.
In game it would work like AHEAD, just more manual and for the 8,8 cm Flak 37 Sfl. Halftrack,
however how the Time fuzes currently work is quite bad (for Air Targets), because only range finding the detonation distance (which is bad because planes change their position and IRL you had rangefinders and Fire controll computers for the Flak Batteries, which accounted for the movement which in game is NOT possible.
Overall this would be a fun additional round, certainly easyer (and maybe more effective) against air targets, as it will (after mid air detonation) be more of a Incendary shotgun Making hitting easyer and effectively beeing a lot of highly incendary rounds hitting engine, modules and fuel tanks easily creating multiple fires. But also usable against thinner ground targets, like trucks, shredding modules and crew alike.
With the air Detonation it would look like the Dragons Breath Shotgun ammo
While currently such ammo (with TF) would be only available to the Flakbus at 4.0, generally the ammo would be also effective (from also different guns, such as the 7,7 cm Schrapnell Granate 96) to be against all kinds of low flying targets such as biplanes and later single engine planes and not just bombers, duo to the “Shotgun” effect, even tho its still only single shot. And duo to the solid designe (and how Shrapnell rounds are seen in game) have some penetration, to also destory light trucks and stuff.
Tho an implementation similar to current AHEAD would also be needed for it to be even usable, as it needs to explode befor the target, unlike how currently HE-TF shells are implemented.
In the Spoiler below you see the construction as well as a 3D render of how it works along with some more info.
Br.Schr.Gr. (Shrapnell Incendary TF (No Tracer)) 9kg Filler see inside Spoiler 820m/s
Expelling Charge: 56g Smokeless powder
Brusting Charge: 114g Amatol
Incendary Pelets: 72x of 30mm x 15mm
Made of Barium Nitrate, Magnesium Alloy, Alluminium Alloy, Acid Insoluble
Source:
TM-9-1985-3
Private Gallery / Website / Ebay auction.
German 88 The most famous gun of the second wold war (Terry Gander)
Dictionary of Explosives, Ammunition and Weapons (German Section) (Basil Timothy Fedoroff)
