Does the cannon's ammo explodes when they are hit ?

[EAF51/155_TonyR]

I read somewhere that during the BoB the Luftwaffe pilots, when under attack, were used to fire all the cannon's ammo fearing their explosion.
Is this true ?

[deadmeat313]

There was one old LW pilot they got to have a go of IL-2 Sturmovik. They interviewed him on the old IL2 forum while he was flying a FW-190. When a Spitfire got behind him he started firing his cannons off into nowhere.

The guys asked him what he was doing and he said something along the lines of "No good getting hit with all these bombs inside the wings."

That is the only place where I've read of this taking place.

DM

[Sternjaeger II]

it makes absolute sense though.

You have hundreds of kg of ammo and explosive in your wings, if one goes off, it's the last place you wanna be..

[Continu0]

This is actually already part of the game. Not in Fighters, but watch the AI bombers:
When under Attack, they release their bombs into the sea.

[Verhängnis]

Continu0, I am pretty sure that unless the Bomb's are armed then they are completely harmless, considering most of those small Hurricane shells wouldn't be able to penetrate the aircraft and then through the steel casings and still have enough energy to set the explosives off, although I may be wrong.

[drewpee]

I would think if one round went off the rest would become shrapnel, not exploding unless the detonator hit something sharp and hard. If you had any sort of fire near a ammo magazine you'd be hitting the silk. Actuarial any fire in an aircraft and you'd bail.

[Osprey]

They release bombs because they are hit and can no longer hit their intended target. It makes sense to lighten the load to try and save the aeroplane.

[Hellbender]

Several times these emergency released bombs dropped through my plane and dealt no damage. :grin::grin:

[klem]

it makes absolute sense though.

You have hundreds of kg of ammo and explosive in your wings, if one goes off, it's the last place you wanna be..

OK, so where precisely do I aim? :evil:

[MD_Titus]

There was one old LW pilot they got to have a go of IL-2 Sturmovik. They interviewed him on the old IL2 forum while he was flying a FW-190. When a Spitfire got behind him he started firing his cannons off into nowhere.

The guys asked him what he was doing and he said something along the lines of "No good getting hit with all these bombs inside the wings."

That is the only place where I've read of this taking place.

DM

considering the gun cam footage of lots of 190's wings snapping off just at the point where a large tin of 20mm would be, i can see the logic. also recall seeing the schematic for the armour around ammo bays for the wingmounted mk108s.

[brando]

On the bomb topic, I was once passing under a squad-mate's Sturmovik when he released a heap of those bomblets used against soft targets, and watched as a few impacted my wing - and blew it right off! I went down like a corkscrew.

[pupo162]

On the bomb topic, I was once passing under a squad-mate's Sturmovik when he released a heap of those bomblets used against soft targets, and watched as a few impacted my wing - and blew it right off! I went down like a corkscrew.

yeap. we did this once with b25 bomblets, took us a few tries, since we were going for an intruder in the server XD

[SIDWULF]

Makes perfect sense i recall seeing a video of an allied plane shooting down a FW-190 in a hard banked turn and right where the cannon ammo would be stored is where the wing exploded and was torn off.

[KG26_Alpha]

There was one old LW pilot they got to have a go of IL-2 Sturmovik. They interviewed him on the old IL2 forum while he was flying a FW-190. When a Spitfire got behind him he started firing his cannons off into nowhere.

The guys asked him what he was doing and he said something along the lines of "No good getting hit with all these bombs inside the wings."

That is the only place where I've read of this taking place.

DM

Sounds like a mixed up recollection of the real story and some ones forum post.

This was the FW190 A8 pilot, I saw the film interview where he explained he used up the Mk 108 ammo to prevent any damage from the rounds exploding in the wings if hit from enemy fire.
He was returning from a mission and spotted enemy fighters so it was a precautionary measure on his part probably not standard procedure.


Makes perfect sense i recall seeing a video of an allied plane shooting down a FW-190 in a hard banked turn and right where the cannon ammo would be stored is where the wing exploded and was torn off.


I've seen a few of these vids some claiming to be .50 exploding wings off Fw190, in fact some were Tempests/Spit 20mm,
also the problem remains with guncam footage you never get the full story, just a snippet of the fight, usually the end.



This guy didn't dump his wing ammo after being hit with .50's > from a set of very interesting interviews.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6AIpU3mbS4&feature=related



.

[Sternjaeger II]

yeah, I don't think it was a standard procedure thing, it was more of an experten "learn on the job" kinda thing. Again, they had loads of explosive rounds on the wing root, not a happy place really!