Not as in "Went over like a...", more like "Has anyone else seen the...?". Or maybe they're kevlar, I don't know.

I was ducking balloon busting missions in PE and had been in BH&H II. The reason is simple...I got of wasting my ammo on the invulnerable ones. I first remember it being a problem in PE. I had several in a row in which I and the rest of my flight pumped an ungodly number of rounds into our target to no effect whatsoever. Not even a whisp of smoke, even though the debriefing showed hundreds of hits. But I decided to go ahead and fly one today and it reported 304 hits (not just rounds fired) by me and another 307 by my three flight mates, for a total of 611. And incendiary bullets were selected. I don't expect them to burst into flame when we get within one or two kilometers, but 611 hits? And nothing?!?

Has this happened to anyone else? And not just once or twice, but on a seemingly repeated basis.

Yep, it has happened to me a few times. I got to the point where I would only fire 200 rounds at them, and if that didn't work I would leave and still have enough ammunition to defend myself from roving patrols.

Was this balloon near ProNville? There's something funny with that one sometimes. My DID character attacked that balloon twice in mid-late 1917 and he swears up and down that he saw the Observer actually smoking a cigar during the attack. The brazen Hun never even had the common decency to jump. Despite hundereds of hits, the bullets just passed thru that shiny odd fabric with no effect whatsoever. I do believe the Huns were up to something there. Weirdly when he went back the next day on the rerun the fabric looked entirely different. The Observer parachuted early and the balloon burned beautifully.

Most times the magic works, but sometimes it doesn't.

Happy hunting!

Given AH's and the Nazi interest in the occult could this have been where it all started. A Germanic spell to protect the balloon ?

This one was just south of Arras, but I've had it happen at several locations. I should also point out that I rarely fly Entente, so these were all British balloons. I don't remember it ever happening to me when I was flying tea-baggers, frog-eaters, or those upstart Yanks.