They should make bombers invulnerable to fire damage
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Theres a reason why most fighters used a mix of ammo including AP, and not just HE.
HE is not effective on its own, it cannot cause structural damage unless the airframe is especially lightweight, like a spitfire, or will just cause fragmentation damage which will only damage internal systems.
Similarly, the most effective way to “kill” an aircraft was to cause a fire, and that required HE.
Very few engagements resulted in complete separation of wing or tail sections except in extremely violent situations, such as a direct hit from a flak-88 or a fuel tank explosion.
It takes a considerably large amount of explosive to cause a large airframe to disintegrate mid air. Small and medium size air to air misisles are NOT going to nuke a large airframe, let alone 20mm or 30mm cannons, unless you are extremely lucky.
There is also the warthunder accuracy “effect”.
People in the game can be extremely accurate with their guns due to mouse aim, and have pretty much perfect accuracy, IRL it would be impossible to land more than several sustained hits in the same area, lining up your sights with the target was hard enough.
Damage would therefore be spread out over a wider area, and most “kills” would be due to crew loss, fires, loss of control, engine damage or fuel leaks.
Total destruction of the aircraft in mid air would be very rare.
That said, the models are overturned, especially in terms of player accuracy in game vs pilot accuracy IRL, dumping several hundred shots into a single spot would obliterate the part, but that isn’t comparable as that never happened IRL.
One thing that isn’t modeled, is oxygen bottles. A high pressure canister containing gaseous or liquid oxygen, if hit would obliterate any aircraft instantly.
The B-17 had several of these in the tail section, as did pretty much any aircraft capable of flying at altitude.
Hitting them was rare, but the accounts of them are well documented.
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The most disingenuous narrative against the dm buff, there are dozens of German killcam showing B-17 shake of multiple 20 mm hit and keep flying straight, and many more war thunder video showing war thunder players went completely blind and missed every shot in ARB.
War Thunder player suddenly went from being blind to cyber Erich Hartmann, when bomber didn’t get disintegrated in one strafing?
30mm HE was more than capable of causing a lethal kill via aerodynamics in just one hit, even to a 4-engine bomber.
Incendiary was much better
this was a single R4M rocket hit which has ~0.5kg TNTe
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They already are mostly invulnerable to fires right now lmao fires literally do nothing unless they burn for 5 minutes
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I dont think i have even had a fire kill me yet, infact the only times i have been killed is either by being pilot sniped or just crashing because everything thing on my plane was black and destroyed and even then that was only after people dumped several hundred rounds into my plane and it took me awhile to fall out of the sky.
I have had a grand total of one fire actually lead to my death and it was because right when I was trying to land it killed my tail controls
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Wonder how long this shitshow will last.
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Noooo the control surface cables get burned up in prolonged fires, that’s not historically accurate
Bombers should be completely invulnerable, they’re flying fortresses, only way to defeat a bomber is to board it midair and beat the crew in close quarter combat.
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Top 5 features that should be implemented next on the “long road of bomber dm change”, as devs said.
- No infinite reloads in air rb, it should work as it does in sb.
- More cool modules like turret rings and spare ammo that should detonate, fuel lines and hydraulics, mechanisms for gears, bomb bays and wing mechanisation, etc.
- HE shells rework that will make them more realistic with fragments of various size and also a nose cone fragment as they did with aphe shells change.
- Flight model should take into account hull damage, especially at leading edge.
- Fire should be modelled as a cone effect behind that will kill gunners and damage hull behind it if bomber won’t extinguish it.
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- Add realistic limit on the diameter of holes that can be sealed in fuel tanks. A breach caused by explosive rounds, or AP rounds above 20 mm, should never be sealable under any circumstances, and in the worst case should result in the instant leakage of the tank’s entire fuel volume. The current gradient/health system doesn’t make any sense, because the only variable that should matter for whether there’s a leak - and at what rate - is the diameter of the holes (and the amount of them). It shouldn’t need to be “blacked out” (destroyed) for that to happen
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considering how much firepower the mig-15 has, those B29s got off really damn well
Oh absolutely they did. The crews were certainly not happy about that experience though lol, wheres the damn escorts
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We need a study on fires. We need sources on how fires spread on a metal aircraft and how quickly it obliterates aluminum.
I dont think the current implementation is realistic, but at the same time, neither was the old one, I actually dont know what to think on that matter
My sources regarding the b25s durability for example does list fires and their chances to cause the bomber to crash within 5, or 15 minutes, but that doesnt actually tell us how the fires spread and how long they burnt for
In 2003 a DHL Airbus got hit by a igla manpad, lost hydraulics, landed with just differential thrust, but for the entire 21-25 minute flight, the modern wet wing was actually on fire, and yet heres the damage that resulted
And yet the wing didnt burn off and the fire didnt really spread, and that wing on that generation of airbus was aluminum… Further research is needed. Im not gonna say our ww2 bombers are fireproof cause an airliner built in the 90s survived that.
If anyones got sources, toss em in here, i’m actually curious
You really couldnt ask for a better outcome from being rushed by a squadron of mig 15s in your osolete ww2 bomber
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Very true
ever seen a beer can in an open fire? wood fires are much colder and an unopened full beer can still doesnt last more than a few seconds before melting into slag. Fire damage on bombers is far FAR too weak. I think a can of beer is probable a decent enough medium for aircraft skin.
the skeleton of course would fare better, but aluminium is not resistant to heat at all. Aluminium block engines are screwed far worse than iron blocks from far less of an overheat, warping and total loss of strength are quite quick
However i do think there needs to be an extreme reduction to the probability of fires from .50 cal rounds, they light up all aircraft like a dropped cigar in a jerry can while 15mm+ incendiaries simply dont
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Actually I was drunk one night and filled a soda can with gasoline and set it on fire, it just burnt for minutes and didnt really melt at all, hell, I was holding it.
Though I guess the liquid gasoline inside was benefitting the can thermally, I did put it in the firepit and it also lasted awhile before actually starting to leak the rest of it out in fantastic fashion
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while theres still fluid around it its not gonna melt as it will insulate it… I just used a full can just to give it a bit more time before it pops and then wilts away.
Though can an aluminum can really be compared to aircraft grade alloys? especially in thicknesses found on the wings of our bombers?
B17 had a skin thickness of .064 inches over the fuel tanks and spars, a can is 0.0034 in (about 0.086 mm) to 0.0047 in (0.12 mm) according to google on its walls, and thicker at the top and bottom obviously but not 0.064 thick, maybe not even half that
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