What would an Ohka Bomb do to the 3" deck of aWW2 British CV

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petsan
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What would an Ohka Bomb do to the 3" deck of aWW2 British CV

Post by petsan »

There has been much discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of the British Armored flight Decks vs the American non-armored flight decks....the two navies followed differing philosophies in the use of armor on carrier flight decks starting with the design of the RN's Illustrious class, the US and earlier Japanese carriers had their armor placed at the hangar deck, essentially treating the hangar spaces and flight deck as superstructure.

This has been discussed ad-nauseum :stubborn: .......I was just curious as to what type of damage a 2,600 lb SAP headed Ohka Kamikaze rocket bomb flying at 500 MPH+ and hitting the 3" Ducol armored deck of an...lets say....RN's Illustrious class?
....hitting an American CV would have been catastrophic...lucky none did

Also just for giggles, What would an Ohka do to the 1.5" STS weather deck of an Iowa?
Byron Angel
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Re: What would an Ohka Bomb do to the 3" deck of aWW2 Britis

Post by Byron Angel »

Based upon data I have seen (deemed accurate to "+/-15 pct" at the time of its writing), a US 1000 lb gravity bomb dropped from a horizontally flying a/c at 5,000 ft would penetrate 3in homogeneous armor intact, so the 2600 lb Ohka warhead should theoretically have had no problem (assuming an equally efficient head design) if it followed a similarly steep trajectory. OTOH, I'm not sure what would occur if the pilot were to have flown a shallow dive attack path. If the warhead was indeed SAP, then the actual explosive payload would likely have been about 650 lbs or so (assuming the Japanese projectile design was broadly in line with US SAP projectile characteristics). 650 lbs is very near to the explosive payload of the German guided weapon that struck USS Savannah.

Byron
petsan
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Re: What would an Ohka Bomb do to the 3" deck of aWW2 Britis

Post by petsan »

I found somewhere that the BAKA had a 1,165 lb bursting charge inside the 2,646 lb Semi-armor piercing warhead
Thorsten Wahl
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Re: What would an Ohka Bomb do to the 3" deck of aWW2 Britis

Post by Thorsten Wahl »

650 lbs is very near to the explosive payload of the German guided weapon that struck USS Savannah
the germans differenciate their AP/SAP bombs depending on thickness of the bomb body and the explosive content

PC Panzerdurchschlagsbombe - very thick wall explosive content <15%-> PC 1400 FX = Fritz X
PD Panzerdurchschlagsbombe - very thick wall explosive content <10%


as the explosive content of the Okha is comparatively high its armor piercing quality appears as best case questionable, especially at high oblique impacts
Meine Herren, es kann ein siebenjähriger, es kann ein dreißigjähriger Krieg werden – und wehe dem, der zuerst die Lunte in das Pulverfaß schleudert!
Byron Angel
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Re: What would an Ohka Bomb do to the 3" deck of aWW2 Britis

Post by Byron Angel »

Petsam wrote - I found somewhere that the BAKA had a 1,165 lb bursting charge inside the 2,646 lb Semi-armor piercing warhead.

.....An approximately 50 pct bursting charge (1165/2646 = 44 pct) more resembles a US GP bomb configuration. The same bomb perforation data mentioned in my previous email indicates that a US 2,000 lb GP bomb would break up against approx. 1.5 inches of homogeneous armor. My best guesstimate therefore would be that an Ohka warhead would produce an effect on target approximately similar to that of a 2,000 lb GP bomb.

B
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