Long bursts more effective than multiple short ones?

[MaxGunz]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Oxygen systems were generally low pressure and oxygen cylinders (or globes) were small. That meant that a hit to a pressurized O2 container would do some secondary damage, but not enough to blow the plane apart in the same way that an explosive hit to a partially full gas tank, bomb or ammo magazine would.

If there's leaked gasoline then I'd expect a big release of oxygen, hours worth to the pilot, to take the next spark to a full scale boom.

[RPS69]

Originally Posted by Woke Up Dead

Occasionally I get similar results in the lightly armed Yak-9: I can expend all my ammo on a 109, get lots of hits and cripple him by pecking away with short bursts, but a single long burst will make him go pop sometimes.

This is actually consistent with the game damage model.
A lot of hits in a short time may destroy something that will stay fine with the same amount of hits in different runs.

At least it works that way with ground objects, so maybe some damage boxes inside the plane behave in the same way.

[MaxGunz]

If you have leaked fuel inside the plane then a big rush of oxygen and a spark is all you need for a fire or an explosion. There's enough oxygen in those tanks to last a pilot for hours, not minutes.

Russians ducted cooled exhaust gases into the fuel tanks to not have oxygen right over the fuel. The US has at least one that put CO2 in the tank. But no one was filling the wings and fuselage with exhaust or CO2.

[MaxGunz]

I'd also like to know how except from dead six a long burst is supposed to hit the same part, especially when many spread-out guns are shooting?

Sure, you might keep it all 2 meters close but it's chance. Concentrate on the nose is not 'a part' that gets hit. It is many with some just 1 hit criticals, like carbuerettors, fuel lines, etc.

Most long bursts I've seen, over half the shots never hit. Get used to hosing, your choice of planes becomes limited.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by MaxGunz

If you have leaked fuel inside the plane then a big rush of oxygen and a spark is all you need for a fire or an explosion.

True, but you'll notice in most cases O2 cylinders/globes were positioned well away from fuel tanks. I'm not saying that damage to an 02 cylinder and to a fuel tank couldn't set up a situation where you could get a big fuel explosion, but it was unlikely.

Typically, fuel explosions occurred when air got into a partially empty fuel tank, or when there was a leak in a fuel tank which was near an arcing electrical connector.

The latter case was a common problem with the B-24 Liberators or PB4Y Privateers where removable "Tokyo Tanks" in the bomb bay could leak, filling the bomb bay with AvGas vapor. Due to the number of electrical connections which also ran through the bomb bay, the fuel vapor sometimes ignited, and a number of B-24s were lost due to in-flight explosions.

Originally Posted by MaxGunz

Russians ducted cooled exhaust gases into the fuel tanks to not have oxygen right over the fuel. The US has at least one that put CO2 in the tank. But no one was filling the wings and fuselage with exhaust or CO2.

The cooled exhaust gas trick was used by most nations. It's fair to say that after about 1940 most Western combat aircraft would have some variant of the system.

A number of bombers had additional fuel-protection systems such as CO2 fire extinguishers which could send compressed CO2 into fuel tanks.