Adjusting low drop german bomb effectiveness?

[Crious]

According to this video and the related book german bombs was at least equal in effectiveness in terms of low drop detonation as the allied ones. Blue team is already in a position of inferiority in on line servers (particulary taw) because of better red attacker planes as it was in reality (il2 has no par in such tasks) BUT bomb effectiveness is another issue.  Can il2 team see ones more this german bomb issue?

 

Edited July 6, 2024 by 335th_GRAlbatros74

[Avimimus]

I'll look into this with my own tests and an examination of the files.

 

I generally avoid these techniques because of fear of premature detonation (not modelled in the sim), and because one gets a larger blast area if one uses a contact fuse (i.e. the bomb detonates above ground instead of burying into the soil first - something modelled in the sim), so it has been a while. But I'll do some tests.

[Avimimus]

Update: I've looked into this. The fuse setting is, in fact, different: The German bombs require 1 second of flight time before they arm (as a safety feature) - this means that you need to conduct a shallow angle attack from slightly higher up or slightly lower airspeeds to ensure the bombs have time to arm. You might also try setting the time delay to five seconds or longer, as that seems to change the fuses and allow bombs to arm with less flight time. I'd be curious if this works for you.

[Crious]

1 hour ago, Avimimus said:

Update: I've looked into this. The fuse setting is, in fact, different: The German bombs require 1 second of flight time before they arm (as a safety feature) - this means that you need to conduct a shallow angle attack from slightly higher up or slightly lower airspeeds to ensure the bombs have time to arm. You might also try setting the time delay to five seconds or longer, as that seems to change the fuses and allow bombs to arm with less flight time. I'd be curious if this works for you.

You see at 14 sec delay some bombs arming in less than a second

The following paper was posted some days before in taw discort

https://stephentaylorhistorian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/summary-of-german-electric-fuzes.pdf

[Avimimus]

Interesting! I wonder if the bombs arm more rapidly with extremely long delays? Likely less useful against tanks though.

 

Btw. If you see anything about WWI or interwar German (or French) bomb fuses - let me know.

[czech693]

The bombs have two settings (much like a real bomb).  The arm delay allows the bomb to get away from the aircraft so an inadvertent bumping of bombs together won't set them off under the plane (or bumping into the aircraft).  The detonation delay allows the bomb to bury itself to affect bunkers or buildings from within instead of exploding upon contact.  Contact is best for normal drops since the explosive effects are above ground and do the most damage to troops or equipment on the surface.  Even in Viet Nam they used retarded bombs to allow the aircraft to get away from the blast from a low drop.  They didn't set a detonation delay to achieve that (which is what is happening in this sim).  They used a contact detonation.  However, in this sim the delay setting seems to allow low drops meaning it shortens the arm delay when the detonation delay is higher.

 

Typically for the German LW 250kg bomb:

 

FuseArmDelay=1           
HitDefaultDelay=2   

 

You can only change the arm delay in the luascrlpt/worldobjects/ballistics/bombs.  The HitDefaultDelay is going to be used when you use Default in the in-game settings.  I've gone through and set my settings to 0.5 or less, especially the default delay (in case I forget to set it in the mission settings.

 

So, to be clear, arming delay and detonation delay are not the same thing.

[R33GZ]

I think this was modeled in CLOD. From memory, if you had a contact fuse, then you needed to drop from a higher altitude so the bomb had time to arm before impact. But, if you wanted a delayed contact then the only option was quite long (I can't remember precisely, but possibly 10sec) however, this also allowed a much shorter arming time. Good for skip bombing, or against low level static targets. Not much use against vehicles etc.

[Avimimus]

 

If the FuseArmDelay is set to -1 it uses the default shorter settings (FAB-50). If it is set to 1 it requires more than a second of flight time.

 

It is also worth noting that bombs seem to arm more reliably if the delayed fuse time (selected in the in-game menu) is five seconds or more. So something more complex is going on than just a 'contact' vs. 'delay' change in arming time.

 

P.S. A more realistic arming time for the WWI Cooper bombers is 0.25 seconds. I've been planning on submitting a beta testing report on this, along with historical evidence - but I was hoping to find information for the PuW series of bombs and the French bombs as well. The French used a pinwheel arming system that is similar to what the British used. However, the Germans used a centrifugal system - and it is much harder to assess minimum arming flight times as a result. If anyone has access to CFD software...?

[R33GZ]

6 minutes ago, Avimimus said:

If the FuseArmDelay is set to -1 it uses the default shorter settings (FAB-50). If it is set to 1 it requires more than a second of flight time.

 

It is also worth noting that bombs seem to arm more reliably if the delayed fuse time (selected in the in-game menu) is five seconds or more. So something more complex is going on than just a 'contact' vs. 'delay' change in arming time.

Interesting, definitely seems like a lot more going on in the background. So you think from what you said above, that fuse reliability is also modeled somehow?

[Charon]

On 7/6/2024 at 1:45 AM, Avimimus said:

and because one gets a larger blast area if one uses a contact fuse (i.e. the bomb detonates above ground instead of burying into the soil first - something modelled in the sim)

Are you sure this is modeled? I tested this a year or two ago, bombing trucks with SC 50s, and wasn't able to measure any difference between contact/delay fuses. Did it change at some point?

[FeuerFliegen]

In my personal experience, I can set Axis bombs to 1 second timer and drop somewhat low and still have them explode.

 

If I do this with Allied planes, they will often not explode.  I feel that Allied planes need a 5 second timer otherwise they seem to not have enough time in the air to arm.  

 

Many people say that they don't share my experience, but I've been playing for years and have tested this many times and it continues to work this way.

[Avimimus]

On 7/8/2024 at 2:16 AM, Charon said:

Are you sure this is modeled? I tested this a year or two ago, bombing trucks with SC 50s, and wasn't able to measure any difference between contact/delay fuses. Did it change at some point?

 

I've been told that it is a couple of times. It might be more noticeable with larger bombs (as they have a larger blast radius, any change to the blast radius is more likely to be noticeable).

[czech693]

On 7/8/2024 at 1:15 PM, FeuerFliegen said:

In my personal experience, I can set Axis bombs to 1 second timer and drop somewhat low and still have them explode.

 

If I do this with Allied planes, they will often not explode.  I feel that Allied planes need a 5 second timer otherwise they seem to not have enough time in the air to arm.  

 

Many people say that they don't share my experience, but I've been playing for years and have tested this many times and it continues to work this way.

 

If you look into the luascript/worldobjects/ballistics/bombs folders you'll see the allied bombs have a FuseArmDelay=-1.  It is my understanding that -1 is programming jargon for use default (whatever that is for each bomb).  The German bombs use a value of 1.  I use FuseArmDelay=0.5 for all the allied and German bombs, and Contact (within the sim) for detonation delay.  I have also set the HitDefaultDelay=0.5 just in case I forget to change the in sim setting off of a Default seting.  I have these saved in a copy file since every update reverts the settings back to default code.

 

So, the allied bombs need to be changed in the luascript files otherwise they will never explode from a low level drop.  Why the 5 second detonation delay allows a lower drop is some programming voodoo that is not explained or realistic.

 

Here is a copy of my altered bombs folder:  https://www.mediafire.com/folder/viyg7r2knh0tp/bombs+-+Copy

 

This needs to go into luascript/worldobjects/ballistics/bombs.

Edited July 13, 2024 by czech693

[Avimimus]

18 hours ago, czech693 said:

Why the 5 second detonation delay allows a lower drop is some programming voodoo that is not explained or realistic.

 

I'll admit that it isn't obvious from the lua files what is going on there. However, some bombs had long-delay fuses that worked through very different mechanisms than short delay uses... some of the larger German bombs in WWI could be set to have a 90 second delay fuse (a minute and a half!).