Wutz we have used this in SEOW for months, a lot of ship were sunk, no one ac destroyed by his own bomb.
Skip bombing before 4.10 was a joke for children, with 100% success, how can you call that situation more realistic than now?

this thread is pure gold.

people complaing they want more realism, then when they get it, throwing a hissy fit, big lol's:grin:

Bomb delay works, at least for me. Skip bombing a freighter sized ship from 40m altitude is still easy, against small ships however it is a bit difficult. Rockets and heavy guns are of better use here, or, if you lack that, a larger number of smaller bombs.

make it a dififculty setting or incorporate it on one of the already exiting ones ( realsitic gunnery pheraps). done

It does not matter what part of the bomb takes the impact.
The fuse at the rear of the US bombs would never actually touch the ground at all, but it just as capable as the front fuse when it comes to causing detonation.

It's not like the bomb has a button at the front and when the button gets pressed by the ground it goes off. These kind of "protruding striker" bombs where used for special bomb types (i.e. para-frags use a protruding striker), but it is the exception with GP bombs.

The majority of US bombs of this era used an inertial detonator. The detonator fired when a sufficient inertial force was put upon the bomb.
With inertial detonators, it doesn't matter if the ground strikes the fuze head, the bomb case, the tail fins or anywhere else. Just so long as it hits hard enough.

And what would happen when the detonator was triggered while the fuse wasn't armed, yet? Take skip bombing, the detonator would be triggered by each hit on the water. If it wasn't armed at the first impact, would the detonator be broken or could it still be set off with the second impact?

Wutz makes a simple and as far as I can tell valid point:

The game should count the time between bomb release and the bomb hitting the ship. If I understand correctly the game currently measures the time between bomb release and the bomb hitting the water!?

Typically, the vane completes the detonator, either by completing the
electronic circuit (electronic vacuum tube detonators where common, even in
ww2) or by completing the mechanical device that was the detonator.

In other words, impact before arming by the vane will do nothing to the bomb unless the vane is damaged.

edit: A requirement of all US fuses (bomb and shell) was that they had to be able to make them selves permanently safe by safe self destruction of the fuze, but I have no idea under what circumstances they would do this.


Wow...that's his point? If it is, he has confused it a bit.

Assuming the vanes are still working after they hit the water, yes, they should continue to spin and arm the bomb if they continue to have air passing them.

It took me some time to figure it out but I think thats what he means with "the casing doesn't matter, it's all about the detonator". I'm sure he will clarify soon.

Hmm...if his point is that impacts to the casing won't cause detonation after the bomb is armed, he is wrong. that's how I read it anyway.
If his point is that the arming vane will continue to arm the bomb after the bomb takes impacts that don't damage the vane, he is right.

It was making this and being in the DBS that got me interested in US bombs.
http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/5672/bombv.jpg
You can see part of the rear fuze there. The vane is on a long spindle so that it isn't in the dead air directly behind the bomb.
The rear fuze is both a back up, in case of failure of the front and also because time delay fuzes where fitted to the rear fuze only to protect the time delay from impact damage.