US 1000lb GP bomb test

[brisd]

I hit the Yamato 24 times...she should be at the bottom.
There wasnt a single point of float damage on any of the ships I hit. Their should be some light structral damage from each of the 1000lb hits that causes cracks that let in some seawater. As it stands now you can hit a BB 1000 times and she will never sink.

That is BS, frankly. These ships, as other battleships, were designed to withstand ARMOR PIERCING shells from other battleships and 1000 pound general purpose bombs will do alot of damage to unarmored areas, like AA guns but the vitals of the ship will be intact unless it is a lucky hit. And certainly little to no floatation damage. Look at the Bismarck, she was smashed up pretty good, all her guns and communications knocked out and she was hit by dozens of 14 and 16" AP shells. And she stayed afloat till scuttled and torp'd. So the game has it right. Use torpedoes to sink battleships.

[SunDevil_MatrixForum]

I concur with brisd. No need to rehash his points. You want to sink BB's, use torpedos.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

Steve (Nikademus) can you please comment on this thread (since this is your field after all and your hard work finally produced the resluts we are seeing?

BTW, I like the results since the UV had bombs that were actually air dropped torpedoes (which is, of course, wrong)!

Also it is great to see that prolonged fires will cause SYS damage just as it shuld be (i.e. the hull would be intact but superstructure and exposed armamanet would be heavily damaged)!


Leo "Apollo11"

[frank1970]

ORIGINAL: esteban

....
However, what the American GP bombs lack in penetration, they make up for in damage. They do more damage because they have thinner skins and more explosive in them. The Japanese 500 KG bomb has superior penetration versus the Allied 500 pound bomb, but does less damage because it has a thicker, armor piercing nose and casing.

I´d expect the Japanese bomb to cause A LOT more of damage. 500 kg are about 1010 pounds.

[Hatamoto]

If you want to tweak around on the 1000 pounders, then the 250 kg jap Bombs should be tweaked too, they seem to do only a neglectible amount of damage on US warships. During my games I sank a couple of IJN BBs, and Nagato only with those 1000 pounders, although she took 23 of them before she sank, but I never succeeded in sinking a US BB using only bombs (should be possible too). But maybe you´re right about the 1000 pounders AP capability (but please change only that), the rest seems ok to me, ships without armor are torn apart with only one hit mostly. (never saw a IJN DD take more than two hits and stay afloat)

[Mr.Frag]

[:D]

If you tweek the 1k, you have to tweek the 250kg and the monster 800 kg which is going to rather dramatic for PH results for the other side.

Really, torpedoes are going to sink BB's (both sides) or BB's are going to sink BB's.

If you feel the 1000 pounders are not historically accurate, please provide some sources of them going through 150+mm of armor. I'm not saying right or wrong, I'm just saying it is up to you to provide the proof for your case.

[Luskan]

I think it is ok. Simply because bombs weren't that effective against bbs. Any bomb hit on any ships basically has a chance of the magazine explosion - and when it happens the combat animation's commentary lets you know in big capitol letters. Repulse put a 14 inch shell through Kongo or Haruna vs Mogami - just one and it set off the magazine and away she went at very long range. Should have bounced off.

However Yamato took 6 500 lbs bombs from a level bombing en masse in one of my pbems and was at 35 % sys and 10 flt or so (and at least 20 fire, can't remember).

Also I think any ship on fire above a certain amount has a chance of the magazine going up too, or the fuel tanks etc.

[Lemurs!]

Hi all,

One of the problems we are seeing is that the armour ratings used in Grigsby games are all the 'most' rating. The Nevada at Pearl had a 'most' deck armour of 5cm over engines, magazines etc. However, her deck armour in less important areas was as little as 1.5cm which even a 250Kg bomb can penetrate.

This is a weakness of 'all or nothing' armour schemes. I am attempting to mathematically work out a rating for every ship in the game to give a more average armour rating.

Also, just as a note, remember that the US GP bombs are not HE bombs, they are a General Purpose munition. Sort of like the gun on the Sherman tank. This was kind of America's moto during the war.

Many of the betas on this board are a little overly concerned with 'can you find a historical precedent' , I am slightly less concerned with this. When you have very few real encounters you are not necessarily getting good statistical data. Some things you have to learn about the weapon systems used and what they were used against.

Honestly, the overall bomb results are only a little skewed. I think the SYS damage is too low but the fire damage is making up for that.

Mike

[UncleBuck]

It looks about right to me. When you take in account the fire damage it is correct. Unless you get a lucky hit or just happen to cause a problem somewhere BB's were designed to slug it out with other BB's. They were designed to be hit, and be hit by big guns. Look at the Yamato versus torpedoes. How many reports were there throughout the war that US subs had put torpedoes into her and she sailed on? I believe that before she was sunk, the Yamato had been attacked and struck by Mk 14 torpedoes 6 or 8 times. Each time the sub captains reported that there seemed to be no effect. As for what is burning the decks of those ships were made of teak, it burns nicely. Also the Paint electrical wires and other "Stuff" that is always around on ships decks. You would have a very nasty fire on a Battleship if you had a minor hit on the forward Paint Locker.

I would like to see the same test done, but with Torpedo planes. Then combine your arms and see the difference. I believe that the US plan for attacking large capital ships like BB's was to attack with the Dive Bombers to cause as much damage to the AA and ships function, to allow the Torpedo planes to get in and get hits.

[Rainerle]

Hi,
historical precident would be sinking of the Tirpitz which took 5.4 ton bombs to sink.
Which is roughly 10 times the 1000lb bomb (accounting for higher penetration its probably close to 100 times a 1000 lb bomb).

[hithere]

ORIGINAL: Rainerle

Hi,
historical precident would be sinking of the Tirpitz which took 5.4 ton bombs to sink.
Which is roughly 10 times the 1000lb bomb (accounting for higher penetration its probably close to 100 times a 1000 lb bomb).

It has been a long time since it have thought about the Tirpitz thing....but I don't believe that they acually intended to acually hit the ship....wasn't it just because a bomb that big only had to get close? ie; the original mini nuke idea? this is after mission after mission failed to sink/hit it. As i said though, it has been a long time

[Mr.Frag]

Torp Only ver.

2 torp hits, one on each ship (note the flooding goes up and down and up and down as they fight it)

[hithere]

this is from http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-f ... irpitz.htm

acually this states that the BAB (Big A**ed Bomb) didn't even sink the ship, a magazine explosion did...(which is kinda what i remembered), but my point is that it also states that british light aircraft were able to do alot of damage. Not that i think that this would have happened to the Yamato, but to some of the other BB I would think that there would be some penetration with 1000 lb bombs. 1000lbs dropped at 2000 ft would have tremendous inertia, esp when concentrated in a small area. (used to know that equation but that has been a long time) even if it did not penetrate.....the effect from the explosion would be felt of the other side of the barrier, deck, whatever. all that energy has to go somewhere and the measley 500 or so lbs of TNT in a 1000 lb bomb would not dissapate it. ever put your head on one side of a door and have someone punch the other side? (i was drunk, what can i say?)





In late September 1943, a British midget submarine raid planted explosives near Tirpitz, causing serious shock damage when they exploded. In February 1944, while she was under repair, the German battleship was the target of a raid by Soviet bombers that produced one near-miss. In early April, as her repairs were completing, Tirpitz was attacked by British carrier-based planes, receiving several hits and serious damage and casualties. Further repairs lasted until June, and she was again attacked by British planes in July and August, though the resulting damage was not serious. In mid-September, she was hit in the bow by very heavy bombs dropped by Royal Air Force heavy bombers. Moved to Tromsø in October, she was the target of further raids. Finally, on 12 November, Tirpitz was hit and near-missed by several very heavy bombs, causing massive damage. She listed heavily, suffered an ammunition explosion and rolled over. Her wreck was largely scrapped in place after the war.

[hithere]

With that said...i have to say that while i do think that the 1000lb bombs are alittle underated..it is prob pretty close and i will defer to people who i'm sure have looked into this alot deeper than myself

[Mike Scholl]

I think the standard US AP bomb for dealing with objects like BB's was a 2,000 lb bomb.
Certainly seems to fit with the ordnance loadouts of all mid-to-late war US aircraft. Why
all the discussion about a 1,000 lb AP bomb?

[hithere]

hhmm don't ask me...i was just giving my two cents.....i don't acually KNOW what i'm talking about [&:]

[hithere]

not to beat a dead horse...this is a pretty good site a friend of my just sent me..
http://www.ww2guide.com/bombs.shtml

[Mr.Frag]

This is exactly why I ask for some historical fact. People post things without details, people read them and draw conclusions that are wrong.

Here are the real facts:

22 Sep 43 - 3x 2 ton mines placed by midget subs. (Damaged but still seaworthy)

3 Apr 44 - hit by 10 225 kg bombs and 4 775 kg bombs from 40 aircraft. 132 dead, 316 wounded (damaged but still seaworthy)

24 Aug 44 - hit by 2 bombs, 8 dead, 13 wounded (trivial damage!)

15 Sep 44 - hit by 1 bomb (5.4 ton Tallboy) (severe damage!)

12 Nov 44 - hit by 2 more Tallboys, 4 other near misses (bye bye Tirpitz!)

Now, show me how anything can be judged based on the above *historical* facts about the small 1000 lb USA GP bomb from the above information.

[UncleBuck]

See this is what I would expect. Two Torpedo hits each, serious Sys Damage and Flooding. IF you combine this with a SBD attack I think that you would see the BB's go down. Imagine trying to fight 21 sys, 26 Float and 40 Fire. The Damage from the fires in the previous tests was pretty significant. I can only imagine that fire combined with float damage would badly tax DC teams. You must control both and cannot concentrate on one. I think the Damage is correct. These two torpedo hits also show that torpedoes versus these ships are not certain death. They both had huge armor belts and would need several more torpedo hits to doom them. Thanks for running the test Frag.
UB

[Moquia]

I recently read 'A Glorious Way To Die' by Russell Spurr, describing the last days of Yamato. Acording to his sources she was hit by 12 torpedoes, 7 AP bombs and 8 other bombs. Also as others have noted, the near-misses did some damage because she was so rigid built. The fighterbombers used 500lb GP bombs to destroy the AAA before the torpedobombers went in or they tried to anyway. I think it is a testimony to the builders that it took more planes to sink her, than was in the PH strike.