Are proper trainbusting effects possible?

[dimlee]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

For ships, the burst boiler effect should be much rarer, and should only appear as a "critical hit" when a bomb, rocket or 20 mm+ cannon shell hits the engine room.

Gun camera and skip bombing films will occasionally show this effect (a huge, sudden cloud of white steam), but not with the same regularity as with destroyed locomotives.

Keep in mind that almost all large ships of the WW2 era were "steamships" in that they didn't use internal combustion engines for motive power. They burned bunker fuel which was used to to fire steam boilers, which in turn provided power to steam turbines. That meant that they still had boilers which could be burst as a result of damage.

Agree on critical hit by a bomb. Not sure about a rocket, even AP. 20mm shells - certainly not, unless ship's hull and deck is pure wood or this is very small vessel as tug boat, for example.
It would be interesting to speculate how often this effect should be triggered, taking into account size of a bolier. Probably just few percent of all hits in some "box" representing the engine room.

Regarding WW2 ships - true, steam turbines for most, diesel engines for some, reciprocal steam engines for very few. Almost all were equipped with boilers, just of different types and applications.