bullet proof glass is useless?

[Flying Fish]

i was stupid enough to fly behind a b17 in my ta 152 h1 but the strange thing is i got pilot sniped yet when i check in the hangar i have like 50+ armor infront of my pilot how did a 50 cal get through? did it fly through the plane and hit my pilot in his legs or something like that?

[Botboy3]

Lets just say that bullet proof glass wont stop anything.

[AgentSMITH]

Originally posted by Winterblitz:

i was stupid enough to fly behind a b17 in my ta 152 h1 but the strange thing is i got pilot sniped yet when i check in the hangar i have like 50+ armor infront of my pilot how did a 50 cal get through? did it fly through the plane and hit my pilot in his legs or something like that?

Bullets can pass through the plane itself also killing the pilot,and you really shouldnt rely on bulletproof glass to protect you from a bomber that has 50 cals loaded onboard.

[Katokevin]

It's to help prevent a direct hit to the head (and prevent it and pieces of glass flying directly into your face), but that is all it protects, the head and face. Most of the airframe is just really thin, with a few spots armored (such as under and behind the pilot to help against small rounds and fragments, more so fragments), but a .50 cal will fly through it all regardless.

If you look in x-ray, theres quite a lot of space between the pilot and engine that the .50 cal could have easily gone through and hit his torso, legs, or arms which is probably what happened.

[Flying Fish]

Originally posted by Katokevin:

It's to help prevent a direct hit to the head (and prevent it and pieces of glass flying directly into your face), but that is all it protects, the head and face. Most of the airframe is just really thin, with a few spots armored (such as under and behind the pilot to help against small rounds and fragments, more so fragments), but a .50 cal will fly through it all regardless.

If you look in x-ray, theres quite a lot of space between the pilot and engine that the .50 cal could have easily gone through and hit his torso, legs, or arms which is probably what happened.

the how is it possible when i hit a b17 with 20mm the gunners still fire even tho i shot straight at them a 20mm should do even more damage than a 50 cal right?

[Eddkurt]

Or u can just call it bias.

[soontir fel]

well sure but how can you be sure you actually hit the gunner? vitality also has an affect though. of the gunners/pilot

[Flying Fish]

Originally posted by soontir fel:

well sure but how can you be sure you actually hit the gunner? vitality also has an affect though. of the gunners/pilot

well i shot straight at the main body of the plane like 50+ times and i hit most shots yet all gunners seemed fine they kept shooting until they killed me ofcourse i was shooting at them the whole time also with my 30mm

[A Toaster]

lets say cannons are shiitier than 50 cals atm

[Katokevin]

Originally posted by Winterblitz:

Originally posted by soontir fel:

well sure but how can you be sure you actually hit the gunner? vitality also has an affect though. of the gunners/pilot

well i shot straight at the main body of the plane like 50+ times and i hit most shots yet all gunners seemed fine they kept shooting until they killed me ofcourse i was shooting at them the whole time also with my 30mm

Once you account for the position of your guns, your convergence, the kind of ammo you are using, what protection the gunners may have, distance, etc, it's not just a simple job of "point and kill the gunners". Then you have to count for the fact that from almost all angles, you have at least 2 gunners firing at you, resulting in at least 3 .50 cals on you (from most areas, a duel mount and single mount will be pointed at you).

So, when you take all that, it's quite easy for them to keep multiple guns and gunners on you, even if you kill some. Note that the side and rear gunners have 6.35mm of steel to help protect from HE rounds while the rear and ball turret gunners have 38mm of bulletproof glass (mainly for the rear gunner, ball gunner has it for fragment protection).

[PyroPaul]

A gun's penetration is measured against RHA...
Bullet Proof Glass is not RHA...

The game uses an 'effectiveness' conversion for different armor types, which can be found here:
https://wiki.warthunder.com/index.php?title=Armour#Types_of_Armour

Armored Glass = x0.28 effectiveness.

your 50mm bullet proof glass is equal to ~14mm of RHA, which the .50 Cal can punch through handily.

Also consider that your plane is not bullet proof either - while the Ta 152 h1 does have a protective plate in front of the pilot. That plate is only 12mm thick and is made of Steel... again, not RHA...

Steel = x0.45 effectiveness.

5.4mm RHA effectively - which any .50 BMG round can punch through out to 1.5 km.

[Flying Fish]

Originally posted by PyroPaul:

A gun's penetration is measured against RHA...
Bullet Proof Glass is not RHA...

The game uses an 'effectiveness' conversion for different armor types, which can be found here:
https://wiki.warthunder.com/index.php?title=Armour#Types_of_Armour

Armored Glass = x0.28 effectiveness.

your 50mm bullet proof glass is equal to ~14mm of RHA, which the .50 Cal can punch through handily.

Also consider that your plane is not bullet proof either - while the Ta 152 h1 does have a protective plate in front of the pilot. That plate is only 12mm thick and is made of Steel... again, not RHA...

Steel = x0.45 effectiveness.

5.4mm RHA effectively - which any .50 BMG round can punch through out to 1.5 km.

then why put armor on a plane at all its like adding weight thats useless i get in real life it probaly had some purpose but in game if a 50 cal gets through at 5.7 everything will get through cuase most of the time there is a 20mm firing at you i dont understand why its modeled if it doesnt even make a differency

[ShadowTrooper001]

Originally posted by Winterblitz:

then why put armor on a plane at all its like adding weight thats useless i get in real life it probaly had some purpose but in game if a 50 cal gets through at 5.7 everything will get through cuase most of the time there is a 20mm firing at you i dont understand why its modeled if it doesnt even make a differency

Why the 50 cal penned: Its AP, why the 20mm doesnt... most people use full (or mostly full) HE, and as you know, HE trades pen for punch.

The HE is blocked by the Glass, only damaging the outside of the plane, protecting the pilot and internal controls.

AP however, will pen it easily, this is because AP is meant for penetrating things... just look at the german MK 103's, their ap itself can pen some machines, but the hvap is better because of velocity. IRL, you didnt have 3rd person pinpoint headons, just look at the IL-2 for example, armor everywhere, sure its heavy, but it was intact like a brick on its fuselage.

Fighters dont have liberty like that, so they put as much protection (or as little) needed to protect the pilot from lighter armed fire.

(This is just my take on it)

[Donovar]

bullet resistant, no such thing as bulletproof

[Smetrix]

Most planes had little to no armor, some just had bullet resistant glass and nothing else. On bombers, armored plates were placed around the gunners and the pilot, nowhere else. On a plane like the P47 an 8mm (not sure if that was the actual thickness, but it wasn't a whole lot non the less) was placed behind the pilot seat. The plane itself doesn't have armor because that would make it very heavy, most of the time engineers would create ways to make planes more resilient without the addition of armor. Obviously such things in War Thunder either mean nothing, or mean something, since how it's a game and not a direct copy of real life, some things may not carry over and work properly. Or maybe they are, and we don't realize it because most of us aren't WW2 veterans who flew planes, so there is no way for me or you to know for sure.

[PyroPaul]

Originally posted by Winterblitz:

then why put armor on a plane at all its like adding weight thats useless i get in real life it probaly had some purpose but in game if a 50 cal gets through at 5.7 everything will get through cuase most of the time there is a 20mm firing at you i dont understand why its modeled if it doesnt even make a differency

Because 20mm and 30mm aircraft cannons don't have better penetration then the .50 BMG.

Aircraft cannons during world war 2 where never designed to penetrate armor... instead the main purpose of the aircraft cannon was to chuck explosive filled rounds at opposition in the hopes that you would shred them with fragmentation.

Almost every round in your cannon's belts that starts with 'HE' or 'F' don't actually penetrate, but instead explode on impact and spit out shrapnel in all directions that can penetrate 2-6mm.

And while you do have some cannons that have AP rounds... the powder to projectile ratio for most of these is so bad that it's effective power is actually similar to a .50 caliber AP round....

This is a size comparison between the different rounds all the planes fire:
http://i.imgur.com/tOJnGEi.png

As you can see, many of the 'Cannon' rounds are more projectile then they are propellent.