Cluster bombs; Frag, IB, SMs...

[Blood_Hawk23]

Hey all,

So that we have a place to keep everything, I've started a new post.

Steve,
I got your email, TY. Everything is there so I'll get to work.


UT,
Once I have it modeled I'll send the Litho texture. From there you should be able to paint it up. I'll send you a copy of the info Steve sent me.


Allen,
How do I change axis points and which axis would work? If any.


Shessi,
Have you had a chance to look at the 4lb IBs?

[Allen]

See if you have any of my old emails about the rotate to user tress. I think I put it in one of them. I will also look and see if I put that info down some place.

EDIT: Found some of my notes. If I'm recalling right you can change the axis in gMax. The tree I set you some time ago has the Y axis up and rotates on it.

As for the full code. Open the Myobj_0.asm and find BGL_CALL_32 change it to SPRITE_VICALL than at the end of that line of code you sould see _1 add , 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0 after the _1. I also think the last 3 numbers in the code are for what axis the object uses to rotae.

[Wayland]

BH,

Good, I didn't know if you were interested in the other size cluster units or not. It looks like all of them will fit the bomb bay on the TBM, so... Take what you need and leave the rest.

Steve

[Blood_Hawk23]

This one will be easy. only 6 on the rack.


The P47 rack with 20 on the rack can be modeled in groups of 6 or 8. that would give 3 mounts per rack. which would be 8 mounts with the rack and the 3 cluster groups. you could then have 2 sets per wing for 16 total mounts. displaying 80 cluster bombs.


Its my SBCs that are giving me the biggest headache.



Trying to model this and have it look like they are being dispersed and not dropping a block of matches is proving a bit harder.

[Wayland]

BH,

I see where you are coming from with the SBCs. I have seen photos of Lanc's dropping incendiaries with a big ol' cookie in the middle of, as you said a bunch of matchsticks. What effect are you looking for?

Steve

[Blood_Hawk23]

something like this...

[Wayland]

BH,

Sorry, it doesn't appear to have come through. I don't know what I can do to help if it involves GMax, I am still a complete novice at it.

Steve

[UncleTgt]

John,

I did a little trial with one of Lindsay's trees.

So we know weapons with extensive alpha transparency textures will work. I can report the tree rotated to follow my point of view during the drop (though obviously in the wrong axis)

So then I knocked up a quick 102 x 256 bitmap with 90 incendiaries in it. If rotation doesn't work too well, could you make a simple "X" shape (when viewed from the front)instead, it might give the illusion of 3D from most angles, & would serve to represent 2 x 250lb SBCs?

It's saved in 888 bitmap format.

[Blood_Hawk23]

here is another SBC.





UT here are some pics of the 4lb IBs

[Wayland]

Ah, right, that is one of the photos I had seen, There's another with some slightly larger bombs and a cookie, too. The other photo's bombs are probably in the vicinity of 100Lb, they are quite visibly larger than the 4lb ones. Still impressive as all He**.

Steve

[Blood_Hawk23]

Ah, right, that is one of the photos I had seen, There's another with some slightly larger bombs and a cookie, too. The other photo's bombs are probably in the vicinity of 100Lb, they are quite visibly larger than the 4lb ones. Still impressive as all He**.

Steve

It might be the 30lb IBs


This site has alot of info...

http://ww2.batcave.net/weapons.html

[Wayland]

Here's the other pic, They look awfully big for 30 LB, but not big enough for 500Lb.



In any case, a load of bad news is on it's way.

Steve

Now how did I do that??!?

[Blood_Hawk23]

the SBCs on the lancaster carried either the 4lb or 30lb IBs. now the SBCs could carry 40lb GP bombs but those were used on the smaller 250lb SBCs carried by Blenheim and other British bombers of simular size.

SBCs came in 250lb, 500lb, 1000lb sizes. I believe only the Lancaster carried the 1000lb.

Normal SBC mixed loads.


Bomber Command Executive Codeword: "ARSON"
Target Type: General
14 Small Bomb Containers (SBC), each loaded with 236 x 4 lb No. 15 Incendiary and No. 15X Explosive Incendiary (1 in 10 mix) bombs. Total bomb load: 14,000 lbs.


Bomber Command Executive Codeword: "COOKIE/PLUMDUFF"
Target Type: Heavily Industrialised Cities
1 x 4,000 lb Amatol, Minol or Tritonal filled, impact-fused High Capacity (HC) bomb. 3 x 1,000 lb short-finned, short-delay, tail-armed HE bombs, and up to 6 SBC's with 4 lb or 30 lb incendiary bombs


Bomber Command Executive Codeword: "USUAL"
Target Type: General (most common Lanc bomb load)
1 x 4,000 impact-fused HC bomb, and 12 SBC's each loaded with either 24 x 30 lb or 236 x 4 lb No. 15 or 15x incendiary bombs.

[Shessi]

BH,
A couple of things, I had already done an incendiary load for the Halifax I'm doing.

Been messing with the dropping of the incendiares, but apart from what I did with the leaflets ie the weapon has to be an already spreading/dropping load, to get them to spread as dropped is a no go.

The trouble is the lateral spread can only be the internal width of the ac, and the simulated dropped load height spread can only be the internal height of the ac. The only way to get the effect is to have mutiple drops in quick succession, but again the way a weapon falls I think is hard coded into the game. If you have a weapon that drops with similarities to real incendiaries ie a cfs2 torpedo, then it won't explode/burn like an incendiary.

Thinking hard!

Cheers

Shessi

[Devildog73]

You all just keep working up those bomb-loads.

All the rest of us will put them to good use!

[UncleTgt]

I think Shessi makes some valid points.

His leaflets don't represent the leaflet load on a one to one basis.
They don't drop like leaflets do (hell even the stock bombs don't drop like real ones do, they stay horizontally aligned all the way down & don't even wobble).
But they do give a plausible impression of a leaflet drop for within the sim.

Due to hard-coded limitations we couldn't develop an accurate submunition explosion effect, much less a mag burn of a box of incendiaries, so we need to scale back our expectations.
Most of us fly missions to achieve objectives. The rest is eye candy & helps with the immersion. Therefore I submit the focus needs to be on developing a payload that looks like a bomb bay incendiary load not long after it leaves the bomb bay (as Mark has already modelled in FSDS, that remains within the bounding box formed by the aircraft fuselage cross section), & that's probably going to be good enough.

Especially looking at the RAF Heavy Bomber SBCs - most of these will be getting dropped in the dark, & some pretty good night time "fire" objects already exist so we can make missions that show a series of fires developing after the release of ordnance over the target.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...tid=47&id=2626

Just trying to scale back everybody's expectations. FWIW, a good impression of an incendiary weapon is probably good enough for most people still playing CFS2.

[UncleTgt]

Mark,

Some questions about your Hallybag SBC pics:

We can quickly run out of mounts with RAF heavies, are the SBC carriers configured as "pylons", with the incendiary drop as the "bomb"? (These boxes remained in the bomb bay after the drop)
If they are configured as "pylons", presumably that would mean offsetting the vertical location when compiling the bgl so you can use the same mount for the incendiary drop & the carrier? That could mean different SBC models for different fuselage dimensions then? (I'm thinking of retrofitting to the Whitley here).

Weapon sizes - It looks like the Groundcrew bombs you're using are much longer than the SBCs. Was this really the case?

[Devildog73]

Would it help the incendiary bombs if you mixed in some of the napalm effects already available?

[Blood_Hawk23]

Shessi,

Those look like 250lb SBCs with 500lb GPs. is that right?

UT,

My plan is to have the bombbay look loaded. once they bombs are dropped the extra effect will look like you and Shessi have modeled. I'm just concerned about the poly count of 14 SBCs with the 4lb IBs. Just one pack has 1000 polys. so 14 packs would be 14k polys. thats why I'm having trouble.

We can model the 250lb and 500lb SBCs. just need to know the loadout of each plane. how many and what was the bomb load mix.

[Shessi]

John and John,
You're both right.

John/UT,
Now, you can have it how you want it, either the incendiary boxes stay (as a bomb mount would) and just the incendiary load drops or you could have the incendiary box AND the incendiaries drops as one. I suppose you could do a couple of different sized incendiary box/drops for different ac.

The weapons used are varied, the big bombs are 500lbs, and were some 4-4.5ft long, I don't know how long the incendiary boxes were, but loooking at pics and the dimensions of the bomb bays, they should be about the right size.

John/BH,
Yes you're right, the poly count is high, not the boxes, but the incendiaries are. No other way round it, to get close to the effect required.

Shessi

[Blood_Hawk23]

Hey Shessi,

Yeah that is the smaller SBC with 90 x 4 lb IBs or 6 to 8 x 30lb IBs. Used with the Hampdens, Blenheims, Stirlings and Halifaxes. It would have been around 1.8m long give or take.

There was also a 500lb contained 106 x 4lb IBs or 12 x 30lb IBs. A 750lb with 158 x 4lb IBs. Along with the 1000lb containing 235(236) x 4lb IBs or 24 x 30lb IBs.

O think your IBs might be in backwards. but don't quote me. In the pics I have its hard to tell.

[Shessi]

Be careful BH you're becoming an incendiary 'spotter'...ha ha!

TBH unless you have your viewpoint under the ac at the point of release, even a short distance away you're not going to see much detail.


Cheers

Shessi

[UncleTgt]

Mark, to be honest I wouldn't mind if the SBC containers weren't even represented at all, especially if it saves devoting another hardpoint mount to depict them.

How often do we open up the bomb bay & look up at the payload? You couldn't even do that for AI flights. It might be easier to paint a single bitmap of the bomber's bomb bay "roof" to show it "filled" with SBCs, even if that was a weapon bgl, & used up a single mount.

By far the most common SBC seems to have been the 250lb SBc, carrying 90 x 4lb incendiaries.

Thinking about the poly count, surely using the techniques for faking 3D trees is the only way forwards.

[Blood_Hawk23]

I'm looking at this again. I keep coming back to this and I think I have an Idea. It will combine a lot of the above techniques. It should only take up 4 hardpoints if I do it correctly.

for now I have the AN M41 20lb cluster bombs modeled. I just have to do the textures and make the mount.

[Blood_Hawk23]

Well the M41 cluster pack is finished. I have it on Allen's P47N and it work well.







There are 20 bombs per side. They drop in small groups. All weight is accounted for. There are 2 pylons one green and the other light gray/silver. I might have to darken it a bit.

I'll do one for the P-51. These will have only 12 per side. I'll also do the 6 pack for the TBF. They were used in Korea and Vietnam. If I can get some pics I'll make up the packs and mounts.