Historical Questions about those dang 20mm guns..

[Stalin's Organ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Username:

"It then has enough mass to punch through an aircraft skin and detonate inside, where it will cause the most damage."

You crack me up.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Obviously something that's not too difficult.....

Are we talking aobut the same thing?? Point detonation to me just means nose fused.

If you mean instantaneous detonation then please say so. Instantaneous detonation was not useful against aircraft, as the quote I provided shows.

Among other things if you detonate on the outside of an aircraft half or more of the fragments hit nothing but thin air. The rest of them have to punch their way through the aircraft skin before they can do any real damage, and so are much less likely to do such damage.

If the fuse does get propelled through the skin by the projectile explosion then is it any more dangerous than any other inert lump of metal? Ie it becomes a bullet - I'd gues the size might be about that of a .50 slug, but I'm sure the point of going to 20mm was more than to deliver a solid bullet of MG calibre!

[Username]

You still crack me up.

[MikeyD]

As to the story above of Israeli spotter planes showering coke bottles onto tanks to panic the crews, the version I heard of that tale involved a hammer. Three quick raps "bam bam bam" and the buttoned crew would think they'd been spotted by a recoilless rifle's spotting rifle (that fired three round bursts). Not to denigrate the Syrian tankers. In Lebanon Syria got their hands on a nice intact Merkava after the tank crew spotted a Syria helicopter and immediately abandoned the vehicle in expectation of an incoming anti-tank missile! No matter which side you're on nobody wants to die a fiery death.