Did gun positions really explode when shot?

[Baxii]

So I've been wondering, how realistic is it when an artillery gun explodes under fire? In game a decent burst of quad 12.7 mm machine guns will fairly consistently detonate an artillery gun. Did this actually happen? I assume there's some gun cam footage or something...

[56RAF_Roblex]

I would have thought that pouring 50cal shells into an enclosed space that has spare ammo waiting to be loaded had a fair chance of causing an explosion but maybe not a guaranteed one.      It is likely they decided to go with a highly visual sign of destruction once the damage reaches a certain percentage because otherwise it would be very hard for us to tell the difference between 'Totally destroyed without flames' and 'Crew has decided to run but gun is still useable and crew may return'

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

^ This is probably the most feasible explanation.   

 

Paratroopers that were tasked with finding and destroying artillery positions during D-Day didn't "blow up" the guns per se.  They carried with them a type of det cord that burned slowly at a high temperature that they wrapped around the aiming mechanism and lit.  What would happen is that the cord would basically weld the gearing to the rest of the gun making the gun impossible to aim or repair.   

 

I would imagine that a hail of .50 cal would shatter components of the rotation and elevation mechanism used for aiming and sometimes damage the gun barrel itself - none of which would, of course, explode.  

 

I agree that a direct hit to the ammo stockpile at the gun position could cause an explosion, but the likelihood of that would be lower than simply chewing the gun up or killing all the crew operating the gun. 

[Legioneod]

16 hours ago, [1/KG]SpysAreAMyth said:

So I've been wondering, how realistic is it when an artillery gun explodes under fire? In game a decent burst of quad 12.7 mm machine guns will fairly consistently detonate an artillery gun. Did this actually happen? I assume there's some gun cam footage or something...

 

No it didn't happen in reality (at least not very often) It wouldn't happen unless the gunfire hit a shell/powder and even then an explosion might not even happen. It's just a gameplay effect to show you that you've killed it.

[Velxra]

At best it would only destroy the artillery weapon itself and maybe maybeeee caused a crate of ammunition to explode. Most likely it would only result in killing the crew. This is why such positions were either bombed or captured on the ground. Shooting them really does very little.

[Finkeren]

On 6/29/2019 at 4:08 PM, Geronimo553 said:

Shooting them really does very little.

 

It can work to suppress them, as is also modeled in the game but hardly usable, since destroying artillery takes so little effort. I actually wish, that artillery was way more difficult to kill with gunfire, but easy to suppress and keep out of the fight for a minute or so at a time.

 

In any case, ammo explosions for anything other than hits with bombs or heavy HE shells should not really happen.