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I agree that fires in the fuel tanks is the way that I get most of my heavy bomber kills (other than the odd lucky shot to the cockpit with a head-on initial pass). With cannon fire, that doesn't seem too unreasonable. But, with HMG fire, it almost seems like they burn too easily.
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Actually, machine gun rounds starting fires is entirely reasonable; ball, much less armor piercing rounds striking aluminum actually melt their way through. Aluminum melts at around 1160° F, and I can say from experience that splashes or spalling of molten aluminum can start anything reasonably flammable to light up; hydraulic fluid, oil, aviation grade petrol, or thirty plus years ago, my co-worker’s denim jeans (and thank God he had been wearing heavy, high-topped work boots when that stuff splashed on his ankles or he might have lost a foot). Add any incendiary or tracer rounds to the mix and there can easily be flames.
I would argue that it takes much longer in the game than in real life for a fire in a wing tank or fuselage to become catastrophic; I’ve seen a great deal of gun camera film showing B-17s and B-24s, much less Betties (and Sallies and Zeros and Oscars etc) folding up in seconds once a fire gets started anywhere near a fuel tank. Any sort of fuel plus lots of oxygen (at 200kph, the fire is getting plenty of oxygen) creates a blowtorch effect.
Whoosh!
cheers
horseback