It’s not completely unrealistic as the SOP for planes returning to airfield/carrier is to drop all unexploded ordnance due to the danger of exploding upon landing. If shaking from landing might cause an explosion, bullets certainly do.
1 Like
Ah no. They dropped the ordinance to lighten the aircraft so that they were easier/safer to land at lower airspeeds. And also if the plane crashed and caught fire there would not be an additional UXO hazard.
4 Likes
Bombers exploded all the time from bombs being hit during WW2 showering all around them. Same as ammo detonates when being hit. So many types of bombs around back then.
I fly the Italian 110 a lot with the 1000lb bomb underneath and to my knowledge only ever been hit once to cause bomb to explode. PE8 not once in many missions with huge external bomb. Not really an issue.
2 Likes
They ditched the bombs for all of the reasons mentioned. Weight on the undercarriage, Fear of explosion, Fire.
Crews often could not wait to drop their ordnance and in many cases young fearful crew just dropped the bombs in a random field and came home early. I know that from talking to WW2 airmen.
1 Like
No they did not. There were hundreds of thousands of sorties flown during WWII and there are only a handful of cases of aircraft exploding in mid air and more likely most of those were fuel-air explosions.
4 Likes
There is another thread about this:
Yes, doesn’t matter. Your proceeding statement was incorrect.
Of course, they did and you can see film of it happening. It’s no secret.
I have seen ammunition dumps explode personally when hit with MG fire.
Bombs explode while stored on the ground and while being carried by Aircraft.
One thing you learn in a real warfare situation is that there are no hard fast rules for anything. If you can imagine it then it happens plus a number of things you could never have imagined.
There are also reports of the exact opposite happening where it has been extremely difficult to get a bomb to explode and they have been incredibly resilient to enemy fire.
Biggest mistake in studying history is to say this never happened or that never happened. How often things happened are of course open to debate. Like I said to my knowledge I have only had one bomb explode in War Thunder, so it really makes no difference.
1 Like
V1 was not heavily ‘armoured’ and did not have a thick casing like bombs due to weight restrictions. plus it carried rocket fuel… C-stoff and H-stoff which are notorious for exploding and being volatile
1 Like
I didn’t say it never happened. I said it was so rare that it should not be modelled as such in this game.
As someone who has shot .50 cal at 122mm shell IEDs in Iraq (it doesn’t work) , I’ll take my opinion over someone who is a videogame expert.
2 Likes
false association fallacy right here.
shaking was not the issue. crashes resulting from fast landings leading to catastrophic detonations were the issue.
So we agree
So, our experiences in Iraq are different no need to worry about video games at all then.
The one and only hit I took in numerous games is about right. It’s not like it happens often.
A rare occurrence in game matching a rare occurrence in real life.
5 Likes
The chance of bombs exploding due to enemy fire are so slim that it shouldn’t happen most of the time.
Maybe +20mm explosive rounds would be able to blow up a bomb, if the round hits at such an angle that the fuze will penetrate the steel body. That’s already super unlikely to happen with a 20mm shell.
For a bomb to blow up the explosive filler must be struck by a detonation, something that can only happen when the shell penetrates through the bombs steel body while also carrying explosive filler.
So sure, larger cannons firing explosive ammunition should be able to detonate bombs with direct hits but for smaller calibers it doesn’t make a lot of sense, unless they model the bomb fuze as a module that can be hit seperately.
3 Likes
I have yet to have a bomb explode due to MG,Cannon fire in the game. It may be a pointless new mechanic but its hardly game breaking so far.
Good points.It does depend on what is firing at what.Quite a bit of body armour is just ceramic sheet not the thickness of some bomb casings and as we know we have some bombs falling thousands of feet without detonating.Odd what Gaijin consider to be a priority when introducing new elements to the game.
2 Likes
This topic has been posted recently before so i am going to repeat my self, i dont think a bomb should be detonated while bay doors are shut
You know that the thin sheet metal of a bomb bay door, or… any piece of an airframe provides no protection from gun fire. And this probably got pointed out to you before too right?
1 Like
I am aware of that, i have worked in the air industry checking the thinknes of sheet metal with ultra sound. Anyways it was a simple work around, ie bombs not armed while doors are shut etc
The bombs are not “armed” until they are released from the aircraft. The bombs are fused when they are loaded, but that is not what causes bombs to explode when struck by fire, because its not the fuse which is hit. It takes a shell with the explosive equivalent of the fuse to detonate the bomb and has the ability to penetrate the case of the bomb.
Its an interesting try to find a middle ground, but its really not any more realistic than having them go at any other time.
2 Likes
Your making it too real imho, you would not drop the bombs while doors are shut