Why do mine shells have the property of self-destructing?
Is this a historical feature or a feature for balance?
“Regular 20 mm Minengeschoß had filling of 18-20 g of PETN, while typical contemporary 20 mm shells of other nations had merely 6-10 g of explosives. Increased explosive effect also required different fuse to be mounted. If regular impact detonator would be used, force of explosion would be largely dissipated in surrounding air, thus reducing damage significantly.
Minengeschoß had slightly delayed detonators, allowing the shell to pass through target’s outer cover without explosion, then triggering the explosive in a moment, when two-thirds of shell were already past the outer skin. Subsequent explosion of large HE filler then caused pieces of target’s construction to be literally torn away, making a large gaping holes and seriously affecting aerodynamics and controls of the target.”
Source: [Historical] Minengeschoß shells - News - War Thunder
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But isn’t it different from an aerial suicide bomb? That’s a mechanism that explodes later It’s not a suicide bomb…
It’s not all Biscat88. Gaijin switched minengeschoss(ß) to explosive shells not too long ago, about a month ago. This description looks so nice, but they just make it self-explode. I still can’t get the optimal shooting range. Does anyone know how to use these shells with all their quality? I mean, I can’t just shoot them, they just explode.
I used to be able to catch enemies at 2.5km, but now they explode in the air
You’re trying to say that too, right?
I never try to shoot from 2.5 km, because it is impossible. I shoot from 0.8 km from the target, but now it has become even more difficult to hit the target from 4-6 hundred meters. You are not the only one who had this case.
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As an owner of the Bf-109 E7 the velocity is so low I cannot use them past 0.3km.
I can share my YouTube video of me using these guns. I apologise for the low video quality but it is one of the successful game I had and the cannons just worked well at these ranges. I used the smaller MGs for marinating the target at longer ranges.
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I was able to shoot and match much further before the self-destruct patch…
But I can’t do that anymore, because Gaijin started patching and self-destructing
I think what you’re going to do is Measure distance and trajectory with machine guns before firing cannons And a feature to consider is that the cannonball is a little heavier, so you have to shoot it a little further Keep shooting until you’re used to it, for sure
Historically accurate.
I asked the same question a few months ago, you might find the replies interesting:
It was older - look at the date of my thread above - and the MG FF/M rounds had this “feature” much longer - that’s the reason why nobody is scared when he is chased by Fw 190 A-1 if the speed is high and the distance is more than 0,8 - 0,9 km…
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That’s really interesting. Thank you for letting me know
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This is just another nerf to German cannons. There were.2.fuses, with and without self destruct.
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Without self destruct would also be historically accurate. The point of this change is to nerf the performance in head-ons, because when fired from 1800m with both of us going 125m/s these shells explode before reaching the target.
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I don’t like how Gaizin changes the features of the equipment without a word…
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Whilst i agree to the nerf aspect, i kindly ask you to provide your source material as based on what i have read so far does not support your claim that MG 151s in aerial combat were used with anything else than self-destructing shells.
Iirc shells with the ZZ 1506 (8 seconds) was not mass produced and shells with the AZ 1502 was only be used in Ground combat roles of ground based MG 151s (AZ = no self-destruct, detonation on impact).
Thx in advance!
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The main issue is that the self-destruct is bugged:
https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/dvxLt7m0iE7k
Seems like my bug report didn’t get any attention so far.
The issue is that they don’t self-destruct based on time but range.
So in a tail chase, they always explode earlier than they should.
There shouldn’t be any issues to hit air targets with MG 151/20 or MK 108 self-destroying shells, because outside of the range of the self-destruct mechanism the shell becomes so slow and drops so much that it’s just not realistic to get any hits.
I actually ran into a problem of killing a B-29 with a Me-262 recently, using the Night Tracer belt, since all my rounds from 1.5-0.8km simply exploded before they reached the target.
With a timer the range would increase with altitute due to thinner air but since it’s based on range in the game, that didn’t help.
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Edit: Ok, you claim only self-destruct was ever hused in air to air combat. Could you please point me towards the source of this information, thank you.
I want to apologise for not reading your post in its entirety.
Dude literally in Luftwaffe Ammo.Handbook you can read MG151/20 M-geschoss had variants with and without self destruct. Your “research” must have been the lowest effort research I’ve ever seen in this forum, and that’s really something.
Took me 20s. Ohne zerleger means that it has no self-destruct.
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Dude, he literally said that they used self-destruct fuze for air combat.
It’s also irrelevant since, if the fuze was working correctly, there wouldn’t be any issues with shells exploding before they reach a target.
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OK, so essentialy I guess MG151/20 apparently was in use as ground fired weapon in 1942 and had its entire separate ammo logisticz, and I guess we have sources clearly stating they were not, never, nada used by fighters, even though on eastern fromt there was 0 reason to use self destruct fuse anyway.
I don’t think there’s any need to prove whether it was used for air to air combat, if it clearly existed in several variants and was perfectly capable to be fired out of aircraft mounted MG151/20.
