Airbursts?

[Little Pete]

Now i know that when shelling a wood/forest, some shells can be detonated above ground.I hear these are more effective than a ground impact explosion (against infantry at least)

Is it just because the full explosive force is projecting the shrapnel (rather than some being absorbed byt the ground) or are there other factors?

[Beta1]

basically if a round detonates on the ground half the "sphere" of shrapnel goes straight into the ground. If its up in the air then the area below the shell gets saturated with shrapnel. Also the higher burst means fragments will travel further.

And thats without taking into account that things like foxholes cover you from the front and sides but not above - so if your under an airburst your pretty much screwed whether or not your in a foxhole.

In CMBO you could see the added effect of airbursts with the allied VT arty which was much much more lethal than its non VT equivelent. (VT shells airburst even over open ground)

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Beta1:

basically if a round detonates on the ground half the "sphere" of shrapnel goes straight into the ground. If its up in the air then the area below the shell gets saturated with shrapnel. Also the higher burst means fragments will travel further.

And thats without taking into account that things like foxholes cover you from the front and sides but not above - so if your under an airburst your pretty much screwed whether or not your in a foxhole.

In CMBO you could see the added effect of airbursts with the allied VT arty which was much much more lethal than its non VT equivelent. (VT shells airburst even over open ground)

Plus if you have no foxhole, you usually lie flat to minimize the target towards the enemy and have cover in front of you. Shrapnel from above is bad news...

Airbursts are about the only effective 81mm FO use - except for suppression.

[stikkypixie]

How do you do this in CM?

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Anytime you target woods, scattered trees, tall pines, etc, a certain percentage of the rounds (which don't land on open ground) will burst well above ground level, ie "airburst" in the trees, which attacks nearby leg units more effectively than typical rounds.

[flamingknives]

CMBO and CMAK also feature VT arty (mentioned earlier)

This uses a radar proximity fuse to detonate the round a set distance above the ground.

It's available from sometime '44

[Mr. Tittles]

You might want to check out the HE effectiveness thread going on.

Mortars may not get as much improvement from high

airbursts than arty shells do. So a Mortar round that bursts in a high tree (lets say at least 12 yards off the ground), will throw its fragments out sideways (trimming the tree tops) and some of its close density lethality (being within 10 meters) is lost.

An ideal mortar round, or bounding betty for that matter, will go off between a yard or two off the ground. This is devastating. Its sidespray is optimized. But in WWII, the mortar rounds were only superfast or delay. They did not have todays prox fuses.

An arty shell that goes off in the trees is much more lethal. Arty shells producing not only bigger fragments that travel well and will cut through branches/foilage/etc very well, they will have more of its sidespray pointed at targets. Most arty fragments from ground bursts go either into the ground or up in the air. Being under an airburst like this probably magnifys its concussive effect because the blast bounces off the ground but blast and distance are important. Fragments produce about 60 times the casualties than blast according to some studies.