The new bomb fuzing needs to be an option.

[JtD]

Originally Posted by swiss

So? The bomb would penetrate the hull, doesn't even matter if it was 140sec.

IT IS NOT about SKIPBOMBING

Leaves me to wonder which bomb and which hull, and also to wonder "so?" what. Never heard a fact before? Make of it what you want, that's what the brain is for.

[Romanator21]

this guy sure looks like he ignored the new bomb fusing completely!

No. The plane is not over the ship, but well past it. I would say that it is at least 300 feet up. Ships are bigger than you think - a common cargo ship like that is probably about 30 meters tall. To ignore the bomb fusing (dropping from less than 30 meters) he would have gone through the rigging.

IT IS NOT about SKIPBOMBING, skipbombig is easy - try tanks.

Post a track in which you're having trouble bombing tanks. I and maybe others can watch it and explain what you're doing wrong. Again, it was never an easy thing to do.

[Fenrir]

Originally Posted by Romanator21

No. The plane is not over the ship, but well past it. I would say that it is at least 300 feet up. Ships are bigger than you think - a common cargo ship like that is probably about 30 meters tall. To ignore the bomb fusing (dropping from less than 30 meters) he would have gone through the rigging.

He did go through the rigging, he also hit the mast on his way through. To quote the same picture captioned in 'Flying Buccaneers; The Illustrated History of Kenney's Fifth Air Force' by Steve Birdsall: "During the fierce convoy attack on March 19, 1944, this A-20 struck the mast of it's victim and crashed into the sea. Coming off the target, Jock Henebry spotted a dye marker and yellow life jacket and the pilot was picked up by a Catalina the next morning after 17 hours in the water."

[Romanator21]

Well, what happened to his bombs then?

[swiss]

Originally Posted by JtD

Leaves me to wonder which bomb and which hull, and also to wonder "so?" what. Never heard a fact before? Make of it what you want, that's what the brain is for.

So -> so what. The delay has no influence on your success.
The bomb(I guess SC50's will not work) will penetrate all hulls of civilian ships.

Originally Posted by wiki

Early Liberty ships suffered hull and deck cracks, and a few were lost to such structural defects. During WWII, there were nearly 1,500 instances of significant brittle fractures. Twelve ships, including three of the 2,710 Liberties built, broke in half without warning, including the SS John P. Gaines

For a libertyship the impact alone would be enough to sink it, lol.
Or:

This made them bounce and penetrate their target's hull near the waterline.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/skip_bombing.aspx

If timed right the bomb would skip and penetrate the hull before exploding

http://books.google.ch/books?id=Z6YsNyLd_Q4C p.102, search for "hull"


Whether they could penetrate the side of a cruiser or not, I don't know.

[swiss]

Found some real life data:

Discussing the situation with Major Bill Benn, Kenney suggested the idea of 'skip bombing': dropping a bomb such that it literally skipped off the water like a stone, hitting its target from the side. To do this, the bombs, set with delayed fuzes so the plane would have time to clear the detonation, must be dropped at an extremely (dangerously!) low altitude and at the right speed and from the right distance. The bomber for the job must have enough fire power in the nose to defend itself from enemy flak at such low heights. The man for the job of making it work was Major Bill Benn, so Kenney fired him as his assistant and assigned him to command the 63rd Squadron and undertake the perfection of 'skip bombing'.

Major Benn then gathered together some of the best pilots in the 43rd --1st Lt. James T. Murphy, Capt. Ken McCullar, Lt. Folmer "The Swede" Sogaard, Capt. Ed Scott, Lt. Glenn Lewis-- who set about the task. Many hours of practice taught them that approaching the ship from 2,000 ft., then dropping down to an altitude of 200 to 250 ft. (maintaining the air speed of 200 to 250 m.p.h.) and releasing the bomb --equipped with a 4 to 5 second delay fuze-- 60 to 100 ft. away from the target was the way to do it.2 Thanks to the efforts of these men, the percentage of targets hit increased from less than 1% to 72%

http://www.kensmen.com/skipbombing.html

I just posted this because of the 72%, quite interesting.
Again: I am not complaining about the status quo when it comes to skipbombing in 4.10

[JtD]

So you are talking about skip bombing. This would mean a minimum arming time of about 1.6 seconds for the German bomb fuse Robtek and I are speaking about, as 0.8 was only allowed for dive bombing.

Please note that the US did not use German bomb fuses in their skip bombing attacks.

[swiss]

Originally Posted by JtD

So you are talking about skip bombing. This would mean a minimum arming time of about 1.6 seconds for the German bomb fuse Robtek and I are speaking about, as 0.8 was only allowed for dive bombing.

Please note that the US did not use German bomb fuses in their skip bombing attacks.

You asked about hull penetration, I offered the answer. The did penetrate.

Did I complain about fusing time when skipbombing? No.
You confuse me with someone else.
The 25m cap idiotic though.

Anyway:
Here are some fusing and delay times, you get everything from .7sec upwards.
Ignore the red oval.
http://img218.imageshack.us/i/40079461.jpg
Some offer a good chance to blow up the dropping plane too.

[Wolf_Rider]

perhaps a timely reminder...

Skip bombing was a low-level bombing technique refined for use against Imperial Japanese Navy warships and transports by Major William Benn of the 63rd Squadron, 43rd Bomb Group (Heavy), 5th Air Force, United States Army Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific Area Theater during World War II. General George Kenney has been credited with developing skip bombing.[1][2]

The first time skip bombing was used was at the base of Rabaul on New Britain. The United States 5th Army Air Force used B-25 bombers to attack and destroy Japanese ships. It proved to be very effective and received growing popularity. The only drawback was that it took a lot of skill to perfect. Sometimes the bombs would detonate too soon, or in some cases, sink.[3]

The bombing aircraft flew at very low altitudes (200–250 ft (61–76 m)) at speeds from 200–250 mph (320–400 km/h; 170–220 kn). They would release a "stick" of two to four bombs, usually 500 lb (230 kg) or 1,000 lb (450 kg) bombs equipped with four- to five-second time delay fuses at a distance of 60–300 ft (18–91 m) from the side of the target ship. The bombs would "skip" over the surface of the water in a manner similar to stone skipping and either bounce into the side of the ship and detonate, submerge and explode under the ship, or bounce over the target and explode as an air burst. All outcomes were found to be effective. Unlike "Upkeep" or "Highball", this technique used standard types.

[F19_Klunk]

interesting read about skip bombing in the pacific
http://www.kensmen.com/combatlessons.html

there is even a book (biographical)on skip bombing with a B17 in the Pacific available on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0275...33#reader-link

However, according to different sources, skipbombing was not only performed by the Americans in the Pacific, but also by British Coastal Command (learnt from the Americans) but also by Italians in Stukas?

Ju 87 in Italy
One of the weaknesses of the Italian Regia Aeronautica was its lack of dive bombers. The Italian attempts to develop such an aircraft had ended in a complete and ridiculous failure: The SM85 was abandoned after the type flew a single mission.
Yet it was clear that dive bombers were a very effective weapon against British ships in the Mediterranean. As was proven by the Germans when sent Stukageschwader I and II to the help the Italians. The Stukas badly damaged the carrier Illustrious, sank the cruiser Southampton, damaged several other ships, and nearly cut off the supply line to the besieged Tobruk.

So by 1941 the Italians received 46 B-1s, 50 B-2s, 59 R-2s. In 1943 they received an additional 46 aircraft, D-2s and D-3s. The Italians gave the aircraft the nickname Picchiatelli, which means "Striker". Although the Italians were trained initially to use the same tactics as the Germans, who did dive vertically on their targets in small groups, they soon developed their own methods. Rather oddly, the Italians also used the Ju 87 for the method which later became known as skip bombing -- horizontal attacks at very low level, dropping their bombs in such way that they would bounce of the water and hit the attacked ship on the waterline. The advantage of this method of attacking was that the target was hit on the waterline, and a dive directly into the defensive fire was avoided.

The last sentence seems a bit weird to me, as in the Pacific anyway it seems the survival rate was higher(?) with dive bombers dinving from above than in torpattack (coming in at sea level)?