From: Jeff@invalid.invalid   
      
   On 21/12/2025 17:33, Bill Sloman wrote:   
   > On 22/12/2025 2:40 am, Jeff Layman wrote:   
   >> On 21/12/2025 05:08, Bill Sloman wrote:   
   >>   
   >>> This is roughly equivalent to insisting that petrol-engined car won't   
   >>> catch fire if you shoot a bullet into the petrol tank.   
   >>   
   >> It won't catch fire. You can search for this yourself:   
   >>   
   >> bullet gasoline tank fire   
   >>   
   >> It's a myth, mainly as a result of many Hollywood movies showing cars   
   >> exploding from a single bullet to the tank. Even multiple bullets fired   
   >> into a tank won't cause the fuel to ignite. You need an incendiary   
   >> bullet, and even then you might require more than one.   
   >   
   > It's a bit more complicated than that. A half-full gas tank contains a   
   > potentially flamable mixture of hydrocarbon vapour and air. There is   
   > gear that extracts 99% pure nitrogen from air which you can use to   
   > lightly pressurize the tank. Modern aircraft use it.   
   >   
   > Operations research on WW2 bomber losses took a while to work that this   
   > was a useful trick.   
   >   
   > A single bullet may not always ignite a gas tank, but it happened often   
   > enough over Germany in WW2 to take down quite a few bombers.   
      
   They would have been brought down by cannon shells (20mm shells   
   containing a small high-explosive charge), not bullets, which were   
   highly inefficient:   
      
   (from   
   ):   
      
   "Even if the eight Brownings worked perfectly, pilots soon discovered   
   that they were not sufficient to destroy larger aircraft. Combat reports   
   showed that an average of 4,500 rounds were needed to shoot down an   
   enemy aircraft.[107] The main cause of this was the way the guns were   
   mounted in the wing, allowing a dispersion of 1.1 metres at only 100   
   metres range. Perfectly aimed fire just missed the target because of   
   this.  In November 1938, tests against armoured and unarmoured targets   
   had already indicated that the introduction of a weapon with a calibre   
   of at least 20 mm was urgently needed"   
      
   ME 109s were fitted with 20mm cannon, and in late 1943 the variant Bf   
   109G was fitted with 30mm cannon.   
   ()   
      
   --   
   Jeff   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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