Weapons and ammunition and related equipment thread

[Gunsmith86]

Goal of this thread is to collect information about weapons, ammunition and equipment ( radio to guide planes to targets, radar, ...) used or developed in world war two. Everybody can add a post about a weapon here if he believes he has enought knowledge about it. Please no discussions in this thread about weapons and ammunition and what somebody believes about them. If you have a question make a post in the thread or if you know someting that adds to a weapon that is described in the thread make your post here and add your information. We have started such a thread in the german Forum ( http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/16645-der-bos-waffen-und-munitions-thread/ ) and its quiet a success and maybe this one will be another such success. If there was someting posted in this thread about which you want to start a discussion than please make a new thread and do it there. Thanks and i hope we will read about a lot of interesting weapons in this thread.

 

 

Well there are many weapons that could be used buy the planes we now have in BoS and BoM it would be a good idea if they made some sort of weapons pack that could be bought if you have BoM or BoS. In the weapons pack should be bombs, guns, smokebombs, other equipment that didn´t make it into the normal game realeas version of planes.
 
( goal should be that there are weapons for many diffrent planes in the weapon pack so there would be something for every player in it. )
Fore example:
weapon pack for german planes:
 
dropable supply container ( could be used to supply troops that are encircled as a mission objective or to to supply human players with tanks with ammunition if the tanks drives next to a droped container he gets a view rounds of ammunition and the container disappears from the map. The container would also disappear after some time if nobody comes to use it. )

 

 
paper whistle on all standard bombs ( SC 50, SC 250,...) these replased the sirens on the Ju 87 Stuka and could be used with all planes. ( No special effect appart from terrifying some tank players when they are bombed )

 
Smoke bomb that creats a large smokescreen ( was build in 50 Kg version and 250 kg version used from the beginning of the war ) Could be used to hide troops from enamy fire or blinding flak from fireing accurate for some time.

 
These started to complement the somke bombs ( sometime in 1942 )
 
drop container with 16x NB2 ( small smoke containers) If droped the main container opens in flight, the 16 NB2 are set free and armed they get scattered in a area of about 50m x 50m and start to build a smokescreen of 50m width 250m long and up to 20m height. The smokescreen stays for about 5 min.

 
 
 
Hand droped smoke signals with fixed meaning. ( these were carried inside the cockpit and after pulling a sort of safety pin they are droped out of the windo or any other opening while flying low. After a short time the somke is realeased. Violet smoke is a warning for friendly forces that enamy tanks are near! Red smoke is a warning for " be careful there is a enamy defensive position!" ) There are more such signals but they had no fixed meaning and could be used for anything lokal troops agreed on.

 
 
incendiary bombs and containers
 
The B1E and B1,3E is a small incendiary bomb which was droped in large numbers from containers ( it could burn down buildings, trucks, tents and other small things like that)

 
The BSB 700 and BSB 1000 was a reusable container for the small incendiary bombs. It could be carried by the Ju 88 and He 111. Instead of droping the container when pressing the bomb realease button a door on the underside opens which enable the insendiary bombs to fall out. The Container is divided into several such compartments. If the first one is empty the next one opens as long as the pilot does press the button for bomb realease. If the pilot stops to press the button the open compartment is emptyed and no new compartment is opened until the pilot does press the button again. There are three diffrent sizes of these containers the smallest one BSB 360 with 360 bombs inside ( 435kg all together used with the BSB 700 from January 1941 ), BSB 700 with 700 bombs inside ( 905kg all together ), BSB 1000 with 600 bombs and 1000kg (replaced the BSB 700 in july 1942)

 
 
Bomb used against railroads. Its a standart SC 250 or SC 50 Bomb fitted with a time fuse and a second fuse that explodes the bomb when a train is near through the vibration of the train. On the nose of the bomb is a spike fixed which penetrades the ground ( at best right next to the railes) so that the bomb is stuck upside down with the hole body above ground. The impact on the ground activates the two fuses and makes it very hard to remove the bomb without exploding it because light vibrations can exploded the bomb. British enginiers mostly exploded the bombs when found on time and replaced the damged rails afterwards even when that meant that the line couldn´t be used for a full day! If no train comes and a time from max. 72 hours is gone the time fuse explodes and destroyes the bomb and everyting near to it.

 
 
SD2 bombs drop containers and devises: (late1940-1945)
 
The SD 2 is a small 2kg fragmentation bomb also known as butterfly bomb it was one of the most used small  bombs and highly effective in destroying ( troop concentrations, all sorts of unarmored vehicles, guns, planes ( On the first day of Operation Barbarosser more than 800 planes fell victim to SD2 bombs on ground. With these it is most likely the most sucessfull weapon of the first day of Operation Barbarossa ), tents and many more such things. 
After the war it was copied in the USA and used for a long time. While the SD2 was a german development after bad expirences with normal SD 10 bombs which flew all over the place and there by often missed the targets they should destroy. The SD 2 get stuck to the targets with its small wings which let them explode were they were most effective.  Russia developed also a small bomb (1,5kg if i am not wrong ) for the same purpose which was copied by the germans later in the war ( german one called SD1 1kg  late 1943-1945).

 
At the beginning the SD 2 was droped from the devices in the picture below: For JU 88 ( the Ju 88 had 360 SD2 bombs in the bomb bays. 90 bombs in each device.) and Do 17 (later some Do 217 could also carry these device)

 
For the Ju 87 Stuka and the ME 110 E there were also devices to use the SD 2.

 
All the devices above had one problem, To get the SD 2 to explode near the ground or on ground they had to fly at a maximum hight of 25m above ground and not lower than 15m otherewise the SD 2 would be armed and explode to high above ground to do any damage or if realeased to low they would not be armed and not explode at all. These extrem low level attacks made the planes vulnerable to all sorts of rifle fire which was the main reason for loses and some units useing them had after three days more than half of there planes in the workshop for repairs made by rifle fire but by then they had done more than enough deamge to the Russian troops to be worth the losses. Early in 1942 new drop containers replaced the older devices. These containers could first be droped from up to 1500m and latter in the war up to 6000m ( mid. 1943).
 
The containers looked nearly like a normal bomb could be carried like a SC 50, 250 or 500 kg bomb and they were latter filled up with a very large amount of diffrent kinds of small bombs, smoke bombs, marker bombs,...
They were first few were called AB 23 ( Abwurfbehälter für 23 SD2 bomben = drop container for 23 SD2 bombs wight 50kg could only be carried outside the bomb bay )
They were quickly improved with the AB 50 and AB 70 ( 50 was for the wight of the filled container 50kg / 70kg ) AB 250 (250kg) and AB 500 (500kg)
AB 250 on Ju 87

 
AB 500:

 
and for use with incendiary bombs the AB 1000 ( 1000kg )

 
One more useful device would be the so called "Rauchgeräte" ( which is the cover name for rockets used with JU 88 and HE 111 to start with large bomb loads or when the runway was short)

 
For most of these things are counterparts on the Russian side which could be used for a Russian weapons pack. Since many of these things are useable on a large number of planes in game or on planes that are added in the future interesed in these weapon packs would be high also in the future. None of them can destroye gameplay because they all have some weaknesses that other players could use to there advantage. Since targets on the map could also be destroyed with the weapons everyone gets with the planes, players without them would not be at a disadvantage. The mission maker should however be able to disable the weapons that does not fit into the timeframe of his mission.
 
hope my english is not to bad.
 
below some more like  mines (used on land and in the water ), light bombs for night missions,...

 

If there is interst in such things than i will continue to write someting about these things.

[NZTyphoon]

How about a piece of equipment that isn't often thought about for FMs - the aerial reconnaissance camera? In this case the German Rb.20/30, Rb.50/30 and Rb.75/30.

 

Tactical aerial reconnaissance over a battlefield or behind enemy lines was the major reason for the advent and rise of military aircraft before and during World War 1; while it didn't, and still doesn't have the glamour of aerial combat, aerial reconnaissance played a vital role in all theatres of war.

Reihenbildkamera.pdf

[Gunsmith86]

German rocket-propelled armour-piercing bombs

 

PC 200 RS:

The PC 200 RS was a rocket-propelled armour-piercing bomb with a weight of 200kg. With that it was the smallest bomb of all the rocket-propelled bombs ( RS = Raketen Satz = rocket-propelled ) and only used for development before the war started. The luftwaffe quickly figured out that the small bomb wasn´t enought for the job so they decided to build a biger one useing the same construction.

 

PC 500 RS: first used in 1940 build in small numbers ( more than 600 ).

After the small PC 200 RS they build the larger PC 500 RS. Which was build together from a normal armour-piercing bomb in the nose and a cylindrical steel distance piece to witch the rocket container is atached. The reason to develop such a bomb was that if you attack a target on the ground with dive-bombs the armour-piercing bomb lose a lot of speed which reduce the armour-piercing capabilities up to more than 50% of that what the same bomb would have when droped from 4000-6000m.  When droped from an airplane in a dive-bomb attack a time fuse delays the start of the rocket long enough ( about 2.7 sec. ) to avoid that the rocket damges the airplane which droped the bomb. The rocket speeds the bomb up ( up to 345m/sec on impact when droped from 2000m ) and makes it possible to smash to much thicker armour ( about 200mm ) than the normal PC 500 could do in the same dive-bomb attack. When the bomb hits the ground a delayed fuse is activated which explodes the bomb inside the traged. If the bomb hits soft ground than its possible that it failes to explode because the fuse needs a shock on impact otherwise it could be that most of the bombs would explode to early.

 

PC 1000 RS: ( more than 4000 build )

This one replaced the PC 500 RS in early 1941 and was later replaced by the PC 1800 RS

To be allowed to use the PC RS bombs all crews had to make a special training most PC RS bombs were droped from the JU 88 or Ju87.

 

PC 1000 RS A:

After the PC 1800 RS replaced the PC 1000 RS the leftover stock was used up as normal PC 1000 bombs. To be able to do this they had to deactivate the rocked in the bombs. After this was done they were called "PC 1000 RS A".

 

PC 1800 RS:

produced from early 1942 in smaller numbers

 

armour-piercing:

at 60°/ 180mm steel

 

 

PC 1000 RS watch from 1:32min - 2:08min:

https://archive.org/details/34754GermanSecretWeapons

 

[Gunsmith86]

German "Brandbomben-Schüttkasten 36" short "BSK-36" ( BSK-36 = early drop container for incendiary bombs already used in Spain with legion Condor )

The container is carried in vertical position and only the underside is droped when the bombs are released the rest of the container stayed in the airplane and could be reused.

weight 42kg-46kg

load: 36x B1E incendiary bombs or 16 x B2E a larger version of the B1E with 2kg

 

 

 

 

later the BSK-36 was replaced by to other drop container:

 

German "Drei-Seiten-Abwurfbehälter" = three side drop container for incendiary bombs

weight 46kg-48kg

 

 

 

 

 

German "Abwurfbehälter 36" short "AB 36" ( AB 36 = drop container for 36 incendiary bombs )

weight 42,5kg

 

 

The picture in the upper right corner shows a HE 111 useing the BSK-36

Edited February 19, 2016 by Gunsmith86

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

My addition here, a powerful weapon that could be carried by both the Pe-2s and Il-2s we have flying in the Il-2 series...

 

Everybody knows about the Molotov cocktails, but most forget that it was just a drink to go with the food - the lesser-known 'Molotov bread basket', as the Finns called it.

 

I am talking about the RRAB series, an inventive cluster bomb first used by the Soviet Air Force in the winter of 1939 to 1940.

 

 

The design itself was rather inventive: AO-8 bomblets were loaded inside this large container. As the bomb left the aircraft, the doors opened and the fins led the RRAB to spin, scattering its HE or incendiary load across a large area. Some reports state the container itself had a 250kg warhead as well but I have not found anything that corroborates that.

 

The weapon was considered highly effective, and its only (yet major) drawback was that each bomblet had to be manually prepared and loaded into the RRAB strictly before the flight, and if for any reason the mission was aborted crews had to disarm each bomblet individually and store them properly again, only to repeat the arming and loading process as soon as the next mission was announced. Mechanics, of course, were quite hateful of the RRAB but in the end they acknowledged the effort was worth it, given the effectiveness of the weapon.

 

The RRAB-1 (1000kg), used by the heavy bombers (such as the TB, TB-3 and Pe-8), was taken out of production after 1940, while the RRAB-2 (500kg) and RRAB-3 (250kg), both mostly used by medium bombers like the DB-3 and SB also lighter aircraft including the Il-2, Pe-2 and even the R-5 biplane, remained in production. These bombs were always carried externally due to its size - both the container and large fins were bigger than the FAB-250.

 

The effect of the weapon against infantry was devastating. Finnish soldiers had nothing to protect them from the rain of HE that came upon them - trenches wouldn't help due to the large amount of bomblets, and trees would also not protect them from the AO-8. If these were incendiary, forests would obviously make the situation even worse.

 

German intelligence officers were quick to take all the RRAB parts they could find from Finland back to Germany for inspection.

 

During the Great Patriotic War, bomber pilots used the RRAB relatively often. The opinions were conflicting - some loved it, while others disliked it since it completely hampered manoeuvrability and speed since they meant carrying two large barrels with fins on the bomber's belly. Nonetheless, over objectives its purpose was shown: one only had to drop a pair of RRABs by the AA positions and that was it. The bombs would quickly kill most of the AA personnel, and the flight was able to bomb in peace.

 

Google Translate from Spanish to your language of choice helps, this is a very informative article on it (containing also some graphic photos of the results of RRAB bombing, beware): http://www.rkka.es/Armamento/004_bombas/002_RRAB/000_RRAB.htm

 

 

Edited February 19, 2016 by Lucas_From_Hell

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

This, combined with other inventive weapons (such as the AJ-2 napalm dispenser, the VAP-250 for phosphorus, and assorted bomblets like the AO-2.5 or AO-10 - I'll see if I can post about them later) would make Soviet attack aviation even more powerful than it is. A mixed tank and truck column could be easily eliminated by dropping a pair of RRAB to kill the soft targets and AAA then toast the tanks with napalm, end of story

[Gunsmith86]

To add to Lucas post another good picture of the RRAB:

 

 

 

German incendiary bombs 50 kg:

 

Sprengbrandbombe C 50 = combination incendiary-demolition bomb 50kg

 

Brand C 50 A = incendiary bomb typ A

 

 

Brand C 50 B = incendiary bomb typ B

 

 

German fire bombs of all types 250 kg:

 

C 250 fire bombs and incendiary bomb ( dont know if in the english language there is a diffrence in the meaning of "fire bomb" and "incendiary bomb" in german there is a diffrence between these to words. Whit a fire bomb a bomb is meant which does create a huge fire ball that quickly envelope everything that sourunds him the fire ball stays only for a short time and than disapears leafing everything burnig that is easy to set on fire. With a incendiary bomb a bomb is meant that creates  a lot of small fire places that burn very hot (between 1500°C-2500°C ) and for some time so they are very difficult to extinguish. )

 

This is the normal SC 250 with four B1E incendiary bombs attached to the tail fins. To that the tail fins of the B1E are cut away and in the tail fins of the SC 50 two holes are drilled for each B1E. The Incendiary bombs are attached to the SC 250 tail fin with a steel band through the holes in the SC 250 fins.

 

 

German fire bombs of all types 500 kg:

 

[Gunsmith86]

German B. cartridge:

 

Use the link to download a better image:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/65538633/German%20B%20cartridge.bmp

 

 

 

 

The interesting part of the video starts at 8:50 min. ( Its a desirable thing that the explosion is delayed for 10cm - 15cm (same for german M-Geschoss = Minen shell delayed for 20-25cm after impact ) after impact this is done because the explosion inside the target is far more destructive than the same explosion on entry )

https://www.full30.com/video/82efb579fd3c93d177205966ef3d3c9d