Air modes: Cal50 detonate bombload too easily

Its almost pointless to fly anthing with bombs loaded. One short spray from any plane with cal50 and you detonate.

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Yeah, the new update seems to have done something to the .50 CAL… its almost as if its 10x as strong now, like it can insta kill pilots with max vitality but a 20mm cant…

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Let’s start with how on earth a bomb can explode from a shot at it, unless it was faulty or the fuse broke, this new mechanic is stupid, leading to the fact that bombers are totally pointless anymore

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Depends on the explosive used, and I don’t think any bombs use tannerite XD

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It is nice to see a big explosion, but it is a bit op, licky shot on the detour of an unarmed bomb, maybe while bomb bay doors are closed it should not happen

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Agree in general, you might want to check this thread:

In deviation to your view there were a few irl events when the payload was hit, i summarized my view on things here:

Have a good one!

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I read this thread, and let’s start with the fact that there are so many factors that can cause a bomb to explode that it is not worth introducing such mechanics, because it may end up in this plane not exploding the bomb because it has an explosive charge, and the other one not exploding either because it has a different one. fuse, etc., and so on indefinitely, gaiijn would have to put too much work into which bombs can explode and which cannot, and the question is why, for the effect that some players will have exploding bombs and the rest will not, which will make gaiijn feel bad , it must be added that bombers have become even more strategic because of this mechanic. In my opinion, it will disappear from WT like many other mechanics that existed, because it simply makes no sense and excludes 1/4 of the vehicles from the game, if not more.

…your response too, but imho you should consider that wt and irl are not connected - besides the shape and skin of vehicles, everything else is “adjusted”.

And adding paragraphs in your response would make them much more convenient to read :-)

So i was also astonished to see some bombers exploding and i am not really a fan of it, but imho this bomb killing thing has at least for the fellow players in Ground RB some benefits - you will find a hell of posts describing their efforts and their successes to hit FAB-5.000s dropped by Pe-8s in order to save their teams which gathered in a cap point huddle.

With regards to the OP i can confirm that most of the bomber explosions i witnessed were results of 0.50 cal attacks, 20 mm HE are either too inconsistent regarding damage output or they create these effects just with very fast zoom climb attacks from behind and below or with 90 degree dive attacks if their shells penetrate the fuselage.

I feel as though sometimes planes are even exploding without ordinance…

About 99% of US players use API-T belt, at a rate of fire of 750 rounds per min or about 12 a sec, so hitting a bomb isn’t if, but more of when.

Most 20mm belts are just HEI, FE-T, or IT, and 30mm are HEI-T/HEI or HEF-I, so detonating a bomb inside a bomber will be very hard unless it’s outside.

What the U.S. 50. cal uses:
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what most 20mm and 30mm belts look like:
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Who uses Night targets or air targets belts though?? I always go for the belt that has the most API/APIT in it…

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The Imperial Japanese Navy had been filling its air bombs with picric acid, but accidents occurred in which the bombs exploded either by Chinese fighters or anti-aircraft guns. This led to the replacement of the explosives for bombs with Type 98 explosives, a mixture of hexanitrodiphenylamine and trinitroanisole, which were insensitive and safer.

However, it is sometimes possible for a bomb to be induced to detonate by a US .50 cal. This example could have been a critical hit on a shock-sensitive fuse or booster, or it could have been an old picric acid bomb.

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I have to say.

It is infact just the US 50 cal that has weirdly high bomb damage, I hit bombs with API(c) with the soviet 12.7mm on the MIG-3-15 (I was uptiering) and it didn’t detonate, but when I did hit a bomb with my 12.7mm Gun truck SPAA as USA, it instantly detonated.
It also seems that 14.5mm Gun trucks for the soviets are horribly underpowered because of this, they do not detonate bombs like the 12.7mm but its a bigger bullet with more mass and velocity like???
This needs to be fixed soon.

50cals always have been extremly good for a variety of reason, but since ordnance can be detonated its totally iffy. Fly an attacker with mounted bombs, or bombers with bombs inside the bombbay…one short cal 50 brrrp and it detonates … this change wasn’t very well thought.

50CAL of the US seems to be able to instantly kill pilots, set planes on fire, and has spalling on airplanes, while the Soviet 14.5mm and 12.7mm doesn’t. This is clearly some kind of air consensus bias.

The Spalling occurs because the Omni-Purpose round (iirc M20?) has an HE-modifier, not to mention that the chance per bullet to set a fire is still three times higher than a 30mm Mineshell.

Makes so much sense :) But still the most annyoing thing are these huge bomb explosions in the sky when a cal50 spammer opens fire on anything carrying a bomb.

The Russian 12.7 mm rounds are being fired from different guns which affects fire rate and muzzle velocity, but more mass and velocity do not result in a bomb detonation, if I’m correct what is detonating the bombs is the incendiary Factor that all American rounds have past 3.7

Russian 14.5mm machineguns are IAI and AP-I
The 12.7mm’s have a 2 API belt with 1 IAI, now real question is why if an american 50 cal hits a plane it creates spalling, but a russian one does not?