Does the Hurricane catch fire?

[*Buzzsaw*]

Salute

Let's remember a number of things when people quote anecdotes from the Russian front from Finnish pilots:

1) The Hurricanes used by the Soviets were unable to use maximum boost because of the poor Soviet fuel, the +12 boost we might see in the West was only possible because of 100 octane fuel, something not available to the Soviets in 1942-43 when the Hurris were in service with the VVS. In addition, many of the Hurris sent to the Soviets were in well used condition, after service in N Africa or Britain.

2) Because of the poor Hurricane performance on Soviet fuel, in an effort to get more speed, the Soviet pilots typically removed much of the armour plating on these aircraft, both behind the pilot and the armour between the fuselage tank and cockpit and above the tank. For that reason, the Soviet Hurricanes were far more prone to catching fire.

It is a fact that the early production models of dual pitch Hurri used in the pre-BoB phases and to a limited degree in the actual battle itself were not equipped with the armouring on the fuel tank, some used in France did not have the back of seat pilot armour either. These were quite a bit more likely to catch fire. Whether or not the game models these versions without the armour is open to question.

As has been mentioned, the issue of the fuselage tank catching fire as well as the problem of lack of pilot armour came to the attention of Dowding and he took steps to make sure these problems were rectified.

HOWEVER:

In reality, ALL plane engines are prone to catching fire given incendiary AP bullets in contact with oil and fuel, doesn't matter what the make or nationality. The typical smoke you see in a game when a plane's engine has been hit IS fire. In reality the only question was how long it was going to take before it became a raging inferno. The game seems to be a little more relaxed in the tendency for small fires to accelerate. It seems damage either causes a major fire or it doesn't. There doesn't seem to be any modelling which would allow small fires to grow.

[SQB]

I'm seeing some great screenshots here.. why are you guys not posting to the screenshots thread!?