Hitting drop tanks?

[Flanker15]

As far as I know Rof is the only sim where you can hit ordinance while its on the plane ( anyone know any more Id be interested to know) which will carry over to Bos. I'm assuming the fighters at Stalingrad had drop tanks on occasion so you can guess where this is going and I'm curious to know.

[Finkeren]

The ability to hit ordinance is something I'd like to see as long as it is done realistically. Believe it or not bombs do not automatically explode when hit by gunfire and neither do fuel tanks.

 

As for drop tanks: If they were used at all during the battle, they would have been rare and mostly limited to fighters on long high-altitude patrols. Stalingrad was a fairly concentrated battle space and long range missions would only become essencial during the last part of the battle, where the German forces were pushed back with some speed.

[Flanker15]

Yeah they shouldn't always explode when you ding them but the bullets shouldn't sail through them like they aren't there either like every other sim.  RoF they don't always explode but you can hit them which gives me hope for BoS.  There's a bunch of guncam footage where the plane with the drop tank has obviously been snuck up on and shot at and the tank usually takes a bunch of hits and bursts into flames. 

Were ww2 incendanry bullets hot enough to set off ww2 bombs if they got through the casing?  I know they set off rockets and shells pretty well but bombs you don't hear many stories of bombers payloads exploding when hit.

[Sternjaeger]

A fuel tank will explode if hit by an incendiary or HE round, a ball round is likely to go through it without igniting a fire. Don't forget that you need fuel AND air to ignite it ;-)

[Finkeren]

Incendiary bullets of rifle caliber would hardly do anything to a bomb, I'm pretty sure of that. heavy cannon shells loaded with high brisance explosives might produce a powerful enough shockwave to detonate a bomb, if it hit squarely, but it's still not a given. 

 

Gravity bombs of WW2 aren't easy to set off at all, just look at the many, many unexploded bombs than hit the ground at, or close to, terminal velocity, often right into already burning structures and still failed to detonate. They weren't made that way by accident either. Just consider the risk of having bombers fly in close formation, if there was a high risk, that the entire payload of one of the bombers might suddenly detonate if hit by gunfire. It is far better to make a bomb difficult to detonate and posibly have a single dud in a payload consisting of multiple bombs rather than have it detonate too easily and risk an entire aircraft with crew plus a number of other aircraft in danger-close proximity in the formation. 

Edited October 22, 2013 by Finkeren

[Finkeren]

A fuel tank will explode if hit by an incendiary or HE round, a ball round is likely to go through it without igniting a fire. Don't forget that you need fuel AND air to ignite it ;-)

Warning: This may start another round of the seemingly endless "exploding fuel tank" controversy.

 

Fuel doesn't combust in anything like an "explosion" unless contained in an enclosed space with the right mixture of oxygen and fuel vapor. As I see it, there are two scenarios where a drop tank might produce anything close to what we would call an explosion:

 

1. If the tank is close to empty and filled with a combustible mixture of air and vapor. With the right ratio this might produce a combustion powerful enough to rupture the relatively thin walls of the drop tank, though propably not enough for an internal tank. The result would be a fairly powerful blast that might do structural damage to the aircraft.

 

2. If the tank is hit by a HE shell, which blasts open the tank spraying fuel vapor into the air which then ignites creating a huge fireball similar to the firery "explosions" seen in Hollywood movies. This "explosion" would have very little concussive force but might ignite flamable parts of the aircraft.

Edited October 22, 2013 by Finkeren

[Grifter]

From reading the Devs Blog posts, iirc they said that the modelling is done piece by piece, each component (strut, rudder, etc.) is a separate component in the plane's overall "makeup". Supposedly, they can attach different parameters to each of these components that allow for the advanced damage model 777 has implemented recently.

 

Not sure where 777 found their engineer and AI guys at but I can' t think of a company that has made as many revolutionary improvements to the flight sim genre as them. Astounding. More so that they have done this all in the last year and a half. That's why I put my money down.

[LLv44_Mprhead]

I remember reading that drop tanks were not available for luftwaffe fighters during the battle of Stalingrad.

[Finkeren]

I remember reading that drop tanks were not available for luftwaffe fighters during the battle of Stalingrad.

Do you have a source? Not that I doubt you. Given the tactical nature of air operations during the battle and the short distance between airfields in the area, it makes perfect sense, that Luftflotte 4 wouldn't have been supplied with drop tanks. It would be nice to have a definate confirmation however.

[LG1.Farber]

Plywood drop tanks were developed by the Luftwaffe before the BoF but proved unreliable iirc. - The glue would fail and they would leak.

 

Every 109 after and including the E7 could be fitted with a drop tank.

Edited October 22, 2013 by 5./JG27Farber

[LLv44_Mprhead]

I think there was something about this in Stalingrad: The Air Battle: 1942 - January 1943 by Bergstrom. Unfortunately I can't confirm it because I don't have access to my books atm.

[Finkeren]

Plywood drop tanks were developed by the Luftwaffe before the BoF but proved unreliable iirc.

 

Every 109 after and including the E7 could be fitted with a drop tank.

I don't think the question is, whether the Luftwaffe had metal drop tanks available for their fighters in late 1942, they most certainly had. The question is whether they were supplied to Luftflotte 4 in the Battle of Stalingrad and whether they were used operationally.

 

From what I can see, there is not much to support the idea of drop tanks being used in the Stalingrad campaign, neither direct nor circumstancial evidence.

[J4SCrisZeri]

this is new to me, I used to think tanks would turn into a ball of fire immediately, no matter what kind of bullet, due to sparks generated by the impact.

[VeryOldMan]

Fuel  only explode when its in gaseous form (correct mixture and  expansion), that is what a carburator  does. Without that, it can catch fire, but not explode... 

 

For that reason a half full  fuel tank is FAR FAR mroe dangerous than a completely full one. THe  full one will never explode, the   almost empty one... might...

[Gunsmith86]

Only in german; test with incendiary ammo

 

http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/1211-test-mit-brandgeschossen-und-patronen-allgemein-792-mm-x-57/

[Finkeren]

I've personally observed experiments igniting fuel vapor in oil drums, Just to get any kind of ignition is difficult. Actually causing a real explosion powerful enough to rupture the drum and produce a noticable shock wave would be something of a miracle.

[ImPeRaToR]

They are still finding unexploded bombs from ww2 in German cities every once in a while.

[Flanker15]

this is new to me, I used to think tanks would turn into a ball of fire immediately, no matter what kind of bullet, due to sparks generated by the impact.

The only sparks bullets tend to make are if they have their own incendiary or explosive filling or if they hit something much harder in the right way you could shoot a plane/car/barrel all day with solid shot and it'd never produce a noticable spark.

[Sternjaeger]

Incendiary bullets of rifle caliber would hardly do anything to a bomb, I'm pretty sure of that. heavy cannon shells loaded with high brisance explosives might produce a powerful enough shockwave to detonate a bomb, if it hit squarely, but it's still not a given. 

 

Gravity bombs of WW2 aren't easy to set off at all, just look at the many, many unexploded bombs than hit the ground at, or close to, terminal velocity, often right into already burning structures and still failed to detonate. They weren't made that way by accident either. Just consider the risk of having bombers fly in close formation, if there was a high risk, that the entire payload of one of the bombers might suddenly detonate if hit by gunfire. It is far better to make a bomb difficult to detonate and posibly have a single dud in a payload consisting of multiple bombs rather than have it detonate too easily and risk an entire aircraft with crew plus a number of other aircraft in danger-close proximity in the formation. 

 

This is mostly true, but it truly depends on the calibre, converging point and kind of ammunition as well. It's surely not easy, but a converging burst of 50 cals of a second can easily poke through a bomb shell. Again it also depends on what kind of bomb we're talking about. The detonation is normally caused by the fuze, and technically the kinetic impact of a bullet might not be enough to cause detonation.. but then again if you're hit by a API... I guess it really depends on how detailed the game ballistics are..

 

 

 

Warning: This may start another round of the seemingly endless "exploding fuel tank" controversy.

 

Fuel doesn't combust in anything like an "explosion" unless contained in an enclosed space with the right mixture of oxygen and fuel vapor. As I see it, there are two scenarios where a drop tank might produce anything close to what we would call an explosion:

 

1. If the tank is close to empty and filled with a combustible mixture of air and vapor. With the right ratio this might produce a combustion powerful enough to rupture the relatively thin walls of the drop tank, though propably not enough for an internal tank. The result would be a fairly powerful blast that might do structural damage to the aircraft.

 

2. If the tank is hit by a HE shell, which blasts open the tank spraying fuel vapor into the air which then ignites creating a huge fireball similar to the firery "explosions" seen in Hollywood movies. This "explosion" would have very little concussive force but might ignite flamable parts of the aircraft.

 

the physics are clear of course: you need a mixture to ignite a fire, an HE round can cause a forced expansion (hence creating an explosive mixture itself) after its explosion, an incendiary round would probably have devastating effects on a half empty tank.. once again, if they can model a different level of "flammability" according to the fuel level, we might see something like this.

 

LOL we're getting into truly uber-nerd territory here now :D

[Finkeren]

I think we pretty much agree Sternjaeger. We'd like these effects (exploding ordinance and bursting fuel tanks), but only if they are modelled at least in some detail, and only if they happen with realistic frequency - meaning: Not that often.

[Sternjaeger]

I think we pretty much agree Sternjaeger. We'd like these effects (exploding ordinance and bursting fuel tanks), but only if they are modelled at least in some detail, and only if they happen with realistic frequency - meaning: Not that often.

 

+1

 

As I said, it really depends how much they're pushing the ballistics here, but I'm expecting great, great stuff. As a friend of mine said, the trick is into simulating objects and environments as close as possible to the real thing, then "the magic" happens by itself

[dkoor]

Perhaps we should consider that it is Russian winter for the most part during Stalingrad battle, and flying make things even more chilly.

 

At such conditions fuel fumes are not as dangerous as they would be in normal summer conditions... IMO.

[JtD]

In Il-2:1946 some drop tanks have damage models. Results of hits are leaks, smokes, fires.

 

Since drop tanks were unprotected, they lit up with comparative ease.

[Finkeren]

Perhaps we should consider that it is Russian winter for the most part during Stalingrad battle, and flying make things even more chilly.

 

At such conditions fuel fumes are not as dangerous as they would be in normal summer conditions... IMO.

Sure enough, the lower the temperature of air and fuel, the bigger the chance the ignition won't get going in the first place. However, once it starts, I don't think winter temperatures will be enough to prevent total combustion.

 

Off topic:

Speaking of temperatures. In litterature about Stalingrad I've often seen repeated, that temperatures in the later parts of the battle often fell below -30^oC. That has always seemed extreme to me. Sure enough, most of the winters during the war were colder than usual in Europe, but in the Stalingrad area, the average temperatures during winter seldom goes below -10^oC. -30^oC might have happpened a few times at  night, but I sorta doubt, that it got that low during the day.

 

The record low temperature for the city is -32.6^oC, so it seems like a stretch to claim, that it regularly fell below -30^oC for extended periods of time.

 

In Il-2:1946 some drop tanks have damage models. Results of hits are leaks, smokes, fires.

 

Since drop tanks were unprotected, they lit up with comparative ease.

 

"Comparative ease" still being fairly rare, I'll say.

Edited October 22, 2013 by Finkeren

[JtD]

I've once seen some guncam footage on youtube, showing several Fw 190 getting shot down. I don't remember the exact figures and unfortunately haven't been able to dig the video up in the last half an hour. What I remember is that a couple of these Fw 190 carried drop tanks, all of which were set on fire while nothing else was, even though some of the aircraft took a large number of hits.

 

I can't say how many hits on average a certain drop tank takes before catching fire, but that guncam was a good illustration of the difference between the protected internal tanks and the unprotected external one. It's huge. I'd prefer a Tasmanian devil in the cockpit over a drop tank under my plane if I was in a fight.

[Finkeren]

As said before: A nearly empty drop tank might easily ignite from a single incendiary bullet.

 

A full tank will only ignite if the tank i shredded by an explosive shell or several consequtive hits that sprays vaporized fuel into the surrounding air.

 

In general, I wouldn't want a drop tank underneath me in a combat situation either, though mostly because it would create fairly massive drag.

[JtD]

True, but then drop tanks are hardly ever full when you get to the combat zone. They typically are the first ones to be emptied.

 

At any rate, I hope they don't make a step backwards from il-2 or RoF and give them a damage model. We can then test and see if physics and expectations are met.

[Gunsmith86]

test 1: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/65538633/Technische%20Berichte/Test%20mit%20Brandgeschossen%20und%20Patronen%20allgemein%20.pdf

Single shots on 20L fule tank with MG17 from 100m distance.In front (50cm) of the tank is a aluplate 1mm thick

 

B-Patrone 7,92mm

1 shot fired/ result fire on point of entry

2 shot fired/ result fire on point of entry

3 shot fired/ result fire on point of entry

 

PmK Patrone 7,92mm

1 shot fired/ result fire on point of exit

2 shot fired/ result fire on point of exit

3 shot fired/ result fire on point of exit

 

Single shots on 20L fule tank with MG17 from 100m distance.In front (50cm) of the tank is a aluplate 2mm thick

 

B-Patrone 7,92mm

1 shot fired/ result fire on point of entry

2 shot fired/ result fire on point of entry

3 shot fired/ result fire on point of entry

 

PmK Patrone 7,92mm

1 shot fired/ result fire on point of exit

2 shot fired/ result fire on point of exit

3 shot fired/ result fire on point of exit

 

Single shots on 20L fule tank with MG17 from 100m distance.In front (50cm) of the tank is a aluplate 3mm thick

 

B-Patrone 7,92mm

1 shot fired/ result fire on point of entry

2 shot fired/ result fire on point of entry

3 shot fired/ result fire on point of entry

 

PmK Patrone 7,92mm

1 shot fired/ result fire on point of exit

2 shot fired/ result fire on point of exit

3 shot fired/ result fire on point of exit

 

PmK has problems with big tanks of more than 200L when it has to travel (more than 50cm) throug the complete tank mostly no fire in such cases.

B-Patrone has problems with big tanks of more than 200L when it has to travel (more than 85cm) throug the complete tank mostly no fire in such cases.

Edited October 22, 2013 by Gunsmith86

[Heywooood]

nope - cant visualize this at all

 

got CHARTZ ?

[Gunsmith86]

Maybe this help to make it more easy.

 

[SimFreak]

I know old IL-2 had ability to get hit by own drop....DCS also have this...

[Zoring]

Here is footage of a few drop tanks exploding as well as one fighter going up in a fireball.

 

[Flanker15]

Those cannon belts sure can exlode when they want to, flips the whole plane over!

Also looks like 777 has got there work cut out to get the ground impacts from ww1 lawn darts to ww2 giant flaming mess.