[totalspoon]

I

[Somethingfake]

Good post. In my case, if it wasn't for mythbusters I would never know about this kind of stuff.

I've been downed/crippled many times by the death blast of an enemy plane. It may be the makers of IL-2 did not know what you do about fuel.

Could be they applied "The Rule of Cool" I mean, explosions are always sweet and are pretty satisfying when a stubborn B-17 or the like finally gives up in a most pleasing, violent way.

[ArcticViper]

I think the problem they tried to solve with this was the warming up of metal, which would invariably cause a major failure of the airframe, resulting in the loss of a wing or other major component.

limitations... let's pray BoB won't have those... :roll:

[stansdds]

I think it's the damage modeling in Il2 that explodes planes even if the impact would have been survivable in real life. Case in point: try flying through a pilot or crew that has bailed out and your plane will explode when it hits the parachute. The damage modeling just seems to be simplified and scripted and not entirely realistic, but given the era in which Il2 was written it is actually pretty good. Oh, and don't start asking for a damage mod unless you are building a new aircraft for a new slot.

[FA_Bong]

I agree with you, at least on MB they try to cause the results they're looking for even if it's not really plausible. The whole Hollywood car-explodes-while-going-over-the-cliff gag really gets lame after awhile. Many times I or my squad-mates get downed or, injured with no apparent damage showing after having been to close to a mid-air explosion. But as limited as we were led to believe the IL-2 engine is, maybe it was as was said to give it a gamey wow cool factor, and easy way to cover for the break-up of an aircraft made of, in some cases, tubular steel and painted fabric. I have seen guncam footage of planes exploding as rounds poured into fuel tanks, could be they were so thoroughly perforated as to cause the fuel to be turned by airflow into a fuel-air mixture that explodes. So maybe the devs thought "Oh what the hell we'll just make it explode and whatever it's close to will explode too". Most of the animation of crash damage or explosions tend to be a little comical and the pilot kill blood spatter is as graphic as the original Doom, gibs and all. I think if the SOW series screens are any indication we may see some better modeling of the effect of shooting fuel tanks and plane damage from shrapnel, parts etc.

[American]

I think that we should simply change Fueltan:Explode to- Airframe failer Because the tank might not actually catch fire. (Which is true strike a match into jet fuel it won't light unless it;s in it's gas form.) But the engine will which can cause pilot death / airframe failer quite quickly.

[ROSOBORONEXPORTCORP]

But, tanks can be shot up without catching on fire (and only very large fires that will destroy the plane are modelled in Il-2). There are also cases of world war II aircraft with near empty fueltanks exploding when hit be fire (sometimes quite dramatically) - even if this happened infrequently. IMHO, Il-2 models fuel tank explosions as being considerably rarer events compared to other sims.

[Potenz]

high caliber guns spiting dozens of high explosive shells on an aicraft.... that can cause a huge damage, i saw a video on you tube of a test of the mk-108, they hit a spitfire wing and the blast almost destroy the wing, if that shell hit a fuel tank, it will surely explode.

Potenz

[caldrail]

Check out the film Battle of Britain. In it, Michael Caine's spitfire suffers this fate

"He blew up... He just.. Blew up..."

So at least the film industry backs the idea