It seems to me that a thin skinned merchant, especially small and coastal merchants, should be quite vulnerable to the 20MM AP anti-aircraft fire. Despite this, it doesn't seem to matter how many rounds I pump into the waterline at close range on these types of vessels, they simply do not list or sink.

Has anyone had luck taking down ships with 20MM? I've done it PT's and fishing boats with 20MM, but I think small merchants should also suffer the same fate after a few hundred rounds.

Anyone?

No but I've blowen up the cargo boxes on a C-2 cargo ship with the AA and got points for it.

Only thing the 20mm are good for is supressing merchants' gun mounts. Often with humourous results.

Nope, dumped 2000 rounds of 20mm AP at a Coastie and managed to start some fires, but nothing else. Tried the hull, the conn, the stack the cargo....

I would expect only superficial damage from the 20mm AA.

It certainly would not be capable of sinking a ship. Just make lots of damage in the superstructure etc and cause fires.

I once sank a trawler using the 20mm AA gun on my Type II A - didn't want to waste a torp on a small boat that was trying to flee me.

Can't remember how many rounds it took, roughly 30 or so I guess. Had to get in close too as there is no range setting for the Flak gun.

The coastals will go down from 20mm, even a single Flak C/30. Not sure about a tug boat.

Generally speaking the 20mm won't be able to damage merchants, just small ships. While this may not be 100% accurate with real life, I feel it's better than having the players abuse it and sink tens of ships with it. There are some practical limitations to the damage engine...

I still think the deck gun is a little to powerfull...

I recall seeing many merchants, some large, succumb to the .50 cals on American fighters during the war (based on gun cameras). They even exploded in spectacular fashion when the boilers were hit. These are less powerful than 20MM and would penetrate less. I would think that a well placed salvo of 20MM would do serious harm to even medium sized merchants.

I think it should be modeled and I can't imagine that it would that hard, although non-scalable programming might make it so.

It would certainly be possible for the 20mm to be made more powerful, that's not the question. You bring an interesting point, I will look more into it.

Are you sure it was .50 cal vs metal ship in those pics?

Yea, it was old Vidtory at Sea footage....mostly of the Pacific theater and the planes were F4-U Corsairs with 8 .50 cal MG's. American planes used almost exclusively .50 cal during WWII and I recall seeing many clips of such planes destroying merchants.

Yeah... flown plenty of US planes to know what they're firing :p

Sure it was not 20mm guns on those Corsairs?

Anyway, the question was WHAT triggered the explosion? But as I said, I'll look into it. However, the problem of making the guns too effective stands.

This is NOT how the flak should be used, regardless of what Luth did now and then.

Dan

20mm damages medium ships on my system but can't finish them off. That seems realistic to me and I wasn't disappointed

But 50cals can tear a ship to pieces and yes guncamera film shows ships exploding under 50cals getting into boilers (no ammo deck-stacks on merchants) - they were a fearsome weapon when firing into the deck from above

Remember that the rounds are already travelling at ~200-300mph before being fired from an aircraft. Kinetic energy. Rounds fired from static weapons would be less destructive and no aspect shots from our position on the surface, we just see the armored side of a ship mostly

Hi elanaiba and thanks for the truly marvellous sim!

Ming

20mm cannons were certainly capable of sinking ships, but it was likely not through causing critical structural damage, but rather by triggering explosions or fires that the ship would eventually succumb to. If the 20mm rounds are not even being recorded as penetrating the hulls of merchants, then that is certainly too limiting.