I was skeptical about this whole thing since it was introduce.
I mean, yes there are weapons systems which are capable and designed to shoot down e.g. anti ship missiles (Phalanx and Goalkeeper CIWS, Skyguard with AHEAD, etc.), and I’ve seen videos of a 20mm Phalanx weapons system shooting down 81mm mortar rounds in flight.
But in WT we usually talk manually operated or coaxial machine guns shooting down ATGM’s and bombs repeatedly and reliably by just spraying and praying. I’ve once tried to shoot a tank more than a km away with TOW’s and he got at least 3 of my missiles with MG fire before I managed to get one through his “wall of lead” and got him. I think that was when the mechanic was very new however, probably it’s much better now.
Has anyone heard about cases where bombs carried on a plane were shot and went off? I mean the bomb bay and the bombs therein make up quite a big portion of a strategic bomber’s fuselage, hitting it shouldn’t be so impossible. Why was that not “a thing”?
Guess because it doesn’t work that way. Sure, if you would hit the explosive part of the fuse maybe, but hitting that is very improbable, plus a lot of bombs would have the fuse so that it only arms (and is physically put in a position where it can detonate the bomb’s explosives) after being armed.
I personally find such mechanics should belong into a James Bond movie, not a sim game trying to emulate realistic weapons systems.
there is just too much that needs to go into it. Like its fine for GRB, but it just makes playing things like the tu-2 or the b-17 even less fun, now that fuel explosions are a thing.
bombs depending on their explosive can be set off by something as simple as a being hit by a hammer, now this is very problematic so that’s why over the years instead of focusing on making a bigger bomb our focus has been to make the boom less problematic and more reliable, it’s possible the same way it was possible for the Bismarck to sink the Hood, in real life it’s an oddity but not exactly impossible
personally I would just like to see things like torpedoes and dept charges explore more reliably on the decks of ships
oh don’t get me started on the anti ship missiles, I want justice for the RB04 and the RB15! I know they are pointless to add but Sweden went nuts for anti ship missile capability for their fighters, both the Drakens and the Viggens carried the RB04 and the AJS viggen carried the RB15 so come on lets have them added
The issue here is how to actually impliment it so it can’t be abused… Easiest way would probably be a mechanic that makes you drop the bomb on the left wing when it gets hit repeatedly instead of just detonating.
If the bomb gets a model and really only just gets dented in by rifle caliber it would make things with loads of bombs on them near invulnerable.
Otherwise shooting bombs with rifle caliber mid flight could instead of detonating them also just move them away. If slight wind already changed the path of a bomb imagine what an actual bullet impact would do to it.
These are a few ideas that came to my mind just now
Despite books about air war in WW2 mention quite often direct hits by flak on B-17s/B-24s leading to an explosion of the bomb load, i am not aware of any pilot claims of explicitly shooting at the pay load.
Having the much closer combat ranges of irl in mind, going for the payload would have been suicide as the attacking fighter might have been caught by the explosion blast. German night fighters aimed for wing fuel tanks due to this whilst attacking with Schraege Musik. You will also might heard of the issues of RAF pilots avoiding to get killed/damaged whilst intercepting V-1s.
All i remember are very rare claims of 262 pilots scoring kills by hitting the bomb load - with 30mm and/or R4Ms but i looks like that those were just lucky hits and a result of their tactics of using high speed zoom climbs from below and behind.
To be complete, even it was not shooting at the payload:
We have the Knoke memoirs claiming that he scored 3 B-17 kills with a single SC 250 dropped with his 109 from 1.0000 meters above with a fuze delay.
He claims he scored a direct hit on the middle plane of these 3 B-17s, the explosion of the bomb load of the middle plane caused the 2 subsequent kills.
You are fully right. IRL if fighters dropped 100 bomber, 1 of them destroyed by hits to bombs. In WT i dropped 6 bombers and 3 of them by hitting bombs. THIS IS STUPID.
Not really a pro of physics but that sounds quite impossible.
wind is a light force but a constant one and applied to the entire body of the bomb so yes it will end up moving the bomb.
A bullet is a strong force yes, but unique and very localised.
It’s pretty much the same thing as trying to move a bomb on wheels by pushing it (less force but constant) or by punching it (more force but applied a single time).
While it may be possible for this to happen, in WT it has been waaaaaaaaaaaay overdone and is quite literally gone way past the realm of ridiculous.
If they turned it down by 80% it would still be so far from a “realistic” number of occurrences . .
It’s just too much and nerfs the heck outta bombers which are already on the super weaksauce side of the spectrum as far as planes go anyway.
It’s just unfortunate it was even implemented and even more so at the rate they have it happening in game currently. (Props getting bent back like a banana peel every time you get within 30 - 40 meters of something is a close second tho . . . just give us actual collision mechanics . . you know, two planes collide in air and both fall to the ground 99% of the time . . . “realism”)
It will be nice someday when they address these types of issues, making the game more playable for all players, and not just catering to those that make the most noise . . . which seems fairly common these past few years.