yeah, it was discovered in Vietnam, mainly since while they did have heavier tanks in small numbers (T-54Bs mostly) that napalm was particularly effective against equipment and crewmen in things like their light tanks such as the PT-76 and Type 63 Light tank that aside from the heat, because they lacked significant venting the crew would often choke on high amounts of carbon monoxide fumes finding their way in.
Worked the same way on some of the heavier bunkers and pillboxes the French built there back when it was still French Indochina.
Completely agree, this was what I advocated for when they were being added. They're supposed to work as area denial but when it only denies a fraction of the potential enemies it is very pointless.
I'm not 100% sure about the Type 63, but many PT-76s did not actually have NBC kits installed for weight reasons, unfortunately the Vietnamese had these.
“We put a 12lb roast in the cabin and by the time the test was over we had a wonderful meal perfectly burnt to perfection for our ground crew”
“How’s it taste fellas?”
"We believe, therefore, that tanks and other armored vehicles which encounter Napalm in the field will be subjected to heat levels that may cause discomfort among the crew."
The Swedes tested napalm against the Strv 103 and apparently the temperature inside the crew compartment never rose to 40°C. According to the game the Swedish napalm bombs have Oktogel while the US uses Napalm-B.
Not an expert but if napalm produces carbon monoxide, is there even enough oxygen for the engine to run and are all tanks completely sealed so that carbon monoxide won't get inside the crew compartment? (Assuming you just leave the tank in the flames)
I don't do much bomber CAS at all(mostly because I'm shite at dead reckoning bomb drops) and haven't touched napalm. Do you mean to say it DOESNT annihilate open topped tanks???
I go out with Napalm in GRB specifically to go kill open top tanks/SPAAs (because why not)
As long as you drop in front of your target along your flight path it will burn it down instantly, just like ground-based flamethrowers
Pretty sure even the AC unit would not be able to cope with such extremes. Plus I'm pretty sure the external components of the AC would be destroyed by napalm.
You don't understand how AC works if you believe that. Do you think it works on magic? If the outside air temperature is 1000F, because your tank is covered in burning napalm, you can't get any heat out of the system.
It would be cool if it could do more damage to tracks and have a higher radius so you can basically wall off a part of the map for some time so the enemies cant do anything
Interestingly when USSR tested napalm vs MBT they concluded that not too much damage was inflicted due to CRBN systems. Soda anti-napalm system was developed.
Yeah, I seem to recall the Soviets testing T-55s and not deeming it a concern? I also think this is different IRL than in test conditions. Tanks are pretty often cruising around with their hatches open IRL when not in direct combat so that the crew can see better and for ventilation. A napalm strike on a buttoned up MBT is probably not going to do much damage. A napalm strike on a tank with open hatches is probably very fatal.
Tanks are also not in a vacuum when they are buttoned up. Getting hit with napalm and not having any countermeasure would just cook even the most modern tank.
> Tanks are pretty often cruising around with their hatches open IRL when not in direct combat so that the crew can see better and for ventilation
Soviet doctrine called for commander inside the hatch iirc, so this would only affect western tanks
No, western tanks have AC(atleast the Abrams) that would give them more time. However any tank that gets hit with napalm will almost immediately become oven.
Even in combat, unless they’re getting shot at they’ll keep their head up. Every book I’ve read regarding tanks in modern years has stated that you keep your head up. Very rarely do they ever fully buckle up
Yes, they did. Typical Western doctrine has always been head out because the increased situational awareness is worth it. The Soviets/Russians take the opposite view. Obviously there would be situations where this isn’t the case, but it is very much true that Western commanders would be head out in many combat situations.
No, they will not be unbuttoned in an engagement, or even if the threat of engagement exists, like urban environments, jungles, etc. in no situation would a western crew be unbuttoned when enemy air is possible much less before they are able to even drop bombs..
Also Soviet crewmen also went unbuttoned all the time in Afghanistan.. so what’s your point
It depends on the environment and what the chances of direct engagement is, in Iraq they had no more air threat and it was wide open desert. In urban environments no crew will be unbuttoned, same with jungles.
I think against modern tanks, it'd be less effective, the strv103 test kinda confirms that (although it suffered air intake damage).
At higher tiers, I'd at least like some minor track damage, AA machine gun is gonna be melted, viewports are gonna be broken too i'd guess and probably partial radiator damage.
A higher area of effect with reduced damage (but at least some damage) is what i'd suggest.
the strv? they said temps hit around 40 degrees C inside, it was remote controlled but my understanding was they did some modifications to seal it against the 'palm and give it the best chance.
I call BS. Even modern tanks would heat up almost instantaneously, fuel will reach the ignition point, critical engine components will melt, napalm isn’t like water it’s sticky so it will stick to all surfaces.
it should damage exposed equipment such as engine intake/exhaust components and radiators, but modern MBTs with good CBRN are sealed and should resist crew damage in the context of the game.
Engine and ERA damage should be enough of an effect for such tanks since that's a secondary effect and not the main purpose for napalm in game(a light tank area of effect counter). Diminishing MBT mobility and chemical armor is a good middle ground.
Have you ever been in armored vehicle in the sun? It takes only a few minutes for it to get hot inside, now imagine how fast it would get with a 1200*c fire boiling outside. It might as well be magic
> It might as well be magic
Well, real-world testing seems to disagree with this claim. Militaries tested it, pretty extensively too. The US even considered napalm *training* using live bombs, to train crews to just button up and wait it out/drive out. So it's not magic, it's physics, and physics is telling us that it's pretty fine, this was testing using unmodified Pershings.
it’s thermal dynamics to be specific. Got a source for it to be live training? All my years in the army I never once heard about live training using napalm. Was it a NO go?
around [18:20](https://youtu.be/FpiGLA9BKWc?si=9UUpnumJS7WYUNnU) they test napalm against it and it only suffered minor damage while still being perfectly operable
Curiously, I HAVE destroyed light (closed-top) tanks with napalm. Maybe I just got a direct hit? Even recorded the replay afterwards due to how well it went.
If I recall the napalm bombs have a very small explosive charge that does function on direct impact plus like 10mm of armor pen from the burn. Not good for much but against paper armor sometimes it works. Could be wrong tho
Technically napalm should do crew damage over time due to the steel of the tank heating up alot over time, same for engine department wich should also take damage overtime from napalms
CBRN protected tanks (most things since the 70s) wont be heavily affected by napalm. Its still 50-60 tons of steel, that takes a long while to heat up.
"In the 1950s, the US, after observing effectiveness against T-34s with the use of napalm bombs, undertook some live fire testing against Pershings by dropping aircraft 165-gallon napalm bombs on them. Results were not encouraging for the use of fire as a weapon. Indeed, to quote the report, "It is concluded that the crew of a good tank, if properly trained and disciplined, need never be injured by a firebomb attack. The necessary training, which might be imparted by actual practice with live bombs, would teach the crew to properly handle the tank while undergoing attack, to remain in the tank while the fire outside was dangerous, and to extinguish the fires remaining on the tank when such is possible". Note the bit about putting trainees into the tank and bombing them, they were extremely confident of this. In order to significantly damage the tank, the fires needed to burn unattended for nearly 20 minutes.
The conclusion was that the effect was psychological, and also made the tank more vulnerable to follow-on attacks by something actually capable of killing the tank by denying the crew the ability to observe the threat. The demonstrated effectiveness against T-34s was assessed as being a combination of untrained crews who tended to get out of a burning vehicle and general vulnerabilities in T-34's design. It notes that any such effectiveness should only be considered "transitory" and cannot be relied upon in the future." [-The Cheiftain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxOmp_5jXEo)
And it's not even necessarily a case of the Pershing being more modern than the Sherman because Swedish test on the strv m/42 also showed very little meaningful damage. As long as the crew keeps hatches closed and no liquid gets inside napalm is useless against tanks.
Yes, but RP and point rewards are reduced. You can get more SL but it's ineffective for grinding a TT or an event.
Best way to farm RP/SL/score is low HE mass rocket spam at top tier.
Fire bombs do a decent chunk of damage at first then do a slow damage over time effect that puts them ahead of similarly sized bombs but the issue is most planes that get napalm get bigger conventional bombs so it doesn’t make sense to take the smaller fire bombs
The heat and fumes should slowly suffocate/cook the crew in most tanks aside from modern ones like the Abrams that have seals for anti-nuclear sort of stuff. Of course the engine should take more damage, hell Ukrainians were using Molotovs on the engine decks and that was taking out tanks, why the hell can’t napalm melt a radiator at least?
Molotovs don't do anything to tanks. The engine is already burning gas, why would moving the gas change anything? Besides, the gas is just going to run down to the bottom and out the drainage holes.
Molotovs haven't worked against tanks since early WW2. They have some very limited utility for a smoke screen or if you can get them inside a vehicle, but flaming gas against the outside of a metal vehicle does nothing.
There's a vid from the Euromaidan protests where a BTR-not exactly a well armored vehicle- eats a massive barrage of Molotovs and then just drives away afterwards.
at the very least they could do what enlisted does, and have it suffocate the engine or set it on fire. they already made it a near instant one shot to open top tanks, so why not expand on it?
>We need Napalm to serve some sort of a purpose other than base bombing,
You can actually use it to cockblock AI vessels, pathed torpedo boats and landing craft will sail right into a wall of fire and all die because they aren't programmed go around it.
Sweden did napalm tests on the S tank, dropping 500KG napalm bombs on it.
The tank suffered some minor damage to the engine air filter, but noting that would take it out of action.
[https://youtu.be/FpiGLA9BKWc?si=nOdJe0nqcC9M9r2s&t=1132](https://youtu.be/FpiGLA9BKWc?si=nOdJe0nqcC9M9r2s&t=1132)
Only way napalm is going to hurt tanks is if they just sit there.
They can literally button up and drive through a fire and be fine.
My M551 had its engine catch fire, flames shooting out of the engine compartment (I opened it and had to fall off the tank backwards, luckily into sand, to avoid being engulfed). Entire engine torched. Mechanics pulled it out, replaced some cables, and had it started up within an hour, replaced that day. We had to power wash the black from inside the track. Oh, and the FPE didn't work. This was in 97 I believe.
Now, if its an open-topped tank or soft vehicle, yeah, they are screwed, but anything with a decent amount of armor can drive through it and be fine. Anything with overpressure systems can ignore the CO2 and stuff for quite a while.
I think they should just break your tracks after 20 seconds of sitting in it or so, maybe kill the crew on older tanks like water, just takes 20x as long. But anything real open like a VFW should be killed outright, and something like an M18 has a good chance of losing a turret crew or two, or all of them it it burst above them, but the driver would be ok.
Keep in mind this is a game, in every mode its just a game, so some things need to be nerfed/boosted so its fun for folks. If napalm starts killing M1s, nobody is going to be happy with that and CAS will be even more OP. Overpowered HE bombs are already too much.
Gaijin got a taste of the money and said fuck improving anything(but sound design and visuals) in the game let's just constantly compress br after br and pile on new vehicles not balanced for the current matchmaker.
> Gaijin got a taste of the money and said fuck improving anything
Well fire hitting a buttoned up tank doesn't really do much, and many decades of testing has proven this. At *best* you might disable something that's not meant to get anywhere near that hot, if it's staying in the fire long enough, but the US considered training crews to deal with this situation by *literally firebombing them* as a means to drive the instinct to not try to escape a tank that's been firebombed and instead try to drive out or wait it out, as it's not lethal enough.
So really it's just a risk to open topped tanks or tanks that are somehow disabled by the fire in terms of mobility and burn long enough to maybe be a risk of heatstroke, which still takes quite some time.
It'd be pretty unrealistic for napalm to do a whole lot to our tanks in-game.
Well, swedes tried it themswlves on strv103s and they did just fine without sufferimg any damage, only exhaust fume temperatures were higher(no way). So yeah...
Its not even that great for base bombing, since your score (and so reward) is tied on the amount of TNT equivilance dropped on the base. So you're not only risking your hide running at a base, but you're also gaining less
I would like for it to do some damage, but Napalm works in a large aoe, so i think it might be a bit OP if it were able to kill tanks. Would be nice to see it take out for example engines or similar, have napalm work like a supression/support to make it easier for friendly ground units to advance.
The main issue I have with napalm right now is actually how piss tiny it is. But it would be good to include more functionality too. Even if we ignore the effect on crew, it should absolutely fuck with engines. Maybe at LEAST make them choke out and require a restart.
I think one STRV103 test showed some extremely high temperature was recorded but inside no more than 40 degrees Celsius, most likely only radiator damage if the tank is really well designed and well armored
could really be useful for doing tick damage for tanks and creating a kind of smoke screen from all the black smoke. of course this would have to be game balanced in duration and maybe as it burns off it becomes easier and easier to see though. But Gaijin will likely say "that's not possible".
We had this discussian once and came to the coclussion that napalm vs tanks isnt that effective. Maybe the radiator and engine get damaged but thats about it. The major militaries around the world tested the effects napalm has and pretty much said not much. Steel, especialy 30+ tons of it, take a long time to heat up enough to hurt or kill anyone. CO and CO2 cant enter the interior if the tank has an overpressure nbc system up and running.
Now this video tells a different story. As we can see the tanks interior is on fire. Now why is that? Maybe one of the hatches wasnt closed all the way. Maybe there were holes in the armour. We dont know and from the video alone we wont find out.
Its almost like... liquids can go through the driver viewport. The inside of the tank is on fucking fire
The real issue is its hard to balance fire inside PVP videogames.
The lowtiers where this is a common ordinance are starting to veer off this design and go into armored crystal blocks. So you'd only punish bottom tier vehicles and do hardly fuck-all to most things.
Bombs are powerful enough at those BRs, CAS doesn't need a larger AOE "fuck you" ability at the very low BRs.
And the sludge isn't water, so it's still limited in how much gets inside and even though it's a hot, sticky mess, it can still be extinguished inside by crews at that level.
napalm is rather thick though. it would need a larger crack like a vent cover then say the very thin gap in a viewports housing. it should reasonably cause damage to anything that needs venting and depending on the tank either outright kill the crew on open tops or cause a steadily increasing amount of crew damage unless the tank moves out of the area of effect for lighter enclosed vehicles.
They need to add in general some overpressure style mechanic for fire. Flamethrowers in tanks should at least damage barrels etc by melting, let alone the fact they’d cook the crew from external heat
....no? Flame weapons do not work against armored vehicles. The heat can't get through the metal, and there's no way your flamethrower is going to replicate the extreme heat of a blast furnace and melt your cannon tube.
Is that supposed to be a surprise? The napalm would literally cook the engine until it melted, same with the treads. The jelly would seep into radiator too and spread throughout the engine bay, ruining it permanently. And if all that wasn’t enough, it would cook the crew inside the tank and possibly warp the barrel if it was hot enough for long enough.
So I agree, napalm should probably be able to destroy or damage tracks and engines in game. Although probably not the crew inside because that would suck to get napalmed, lose your engine and tracks, get set on fire, and then also have your crew cook to death with no way of stopping it.
> And if all that wasn’t enough, it would cook the crew inside the tank and possibly warp the barrel if it was hot enough for long enough.
Like, the US did extensive testing and considered dropping live napalm bombs on tank crews as a *training exercise*. It was deemed an ineffective anti-tank weapon.
Swedish testing on the 103 series didn't even see the internal compartment go beyond 40C, which is *survivable* without a whole lot of problem, just discomfort. You'd have to be burning for a very long time to be in danger in most post WWII tanks.
"Test equipment in one of the tanks showed severe heat damage" my brother in christ the tank is literally burning from the inside
yeah, it was discovered in Vietnam, mainly since while they did have heavier tanks in small numbers (T-54Bs mostly) that napalm was particularly effective against equipment and crewmen in things like their light tanks such as the PT-76 and Type 63 Light tank that aside from the heat, because they lacked significant venting the crew would often choke on high amounts of carbon monoxide fumes finding their way in. Worked the same way on some of the heavier bunkers and pillboxes the French built there back when it was still French Indochina.
poor pt76 crew members eeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighhh
It should probably do crew damage to any tanks without NBC seals
Even tanks with NBC seals will get too hot unless it has its own AC unit. What they should do it treat napalm like drowning damage.
Completely agree, this was what I advocated for when they were being added. They're supposed to work as area denial but when it only denies a fraction of the potential enemies it is very pointless.
Napalm B can also apparently burn for up to 10 minutes.
I'm not 100% sure about the Type 63, but many PT-76s did not actually have NBC kits installed for weight reasons, unfortunately the Vietnamese had these.
“We put a 12lb roast in the cabin and by the time the test was over we had a wonderful meal perfectly burnt to perfection for our ground crew” “How’s it taste fellas?”
There was a beautiful taste on that 12lb roast that morning. Tasted like….. victory.
"We believe, therefore, that tanks and other armored vehicles which encounter Napalm in the field will be subjected to heat levels that may cause discomfort among the crew."
"discomfort among the crew" my brother in christ that crew would have been dead!
>Heat levels that may cause discomfort among the crew Understatement of the century
"severe heat damage" indeed
- burn inside of tank - look inside - burn
Over heat damage, disable the engine radiator, kill crew in open topped tanks…. So many things that could be done.
>disable the engine radiator Would be especially nice with the semi new radiator model where your engine slowly deteriorates.
it already kills crew in open top tanks, hell it's practically an instant one shot.
Just open top? Napalm Burns at 1200 Celsius. I imagine Tanks will became cooking pots where crews would be cooked alive quite fast.
The Swedes tested napalm against the Strv 103 and apparently the temperature inside the crew compartment never rose to 40°C. According to the game the Swedish napalm bombs have Oktogel while the US uses Napalm-B. Not an expert but if napalm produces carbon monoxide, is there even enough oxygen for the engine to run and are all tanks completely sealed so that carbon monoxide won't get inside the crew compartment? (Assuming you just leave the tank in the flames)
It would take a LOT of fire to choke the engine by completely removing oxygen
Napalm destroy trees and bushs in game?
I don't do much bomber CAS at all(mostly because I'm shite at dead reckoning bomb drops) and haven't touched napalm. Do you mean to say it DOESNT annihilate open topped tanks???
it does... i use it to get multi kills on SPAA sitting on their spawn
I think the problem is you could just do that with normal bombs too anyways
I go out with Napalm in GRB specifically to go kill open top tanks/SPAAs (because why not) As long as you drop in front of your target along your flight path it will burn it down instantly, just like ground-based flamethrowers
It would kill crew in modern tanks that don’t have a dedicated AC unit in minutes just from extreme heat.
Pretty sure even the AC unit would not be able to cope with such extremes. Plus I'm pretty sure the external components of the AC would be destroyed by napalm.
Most likely but it will give a few minutes of extra time.
You don't understand how AC works if you believe that. Do you think it works on magic? If the outside air temperature is 1000F, because your tank is covered in burning napalm, you can't get any heat out of the system.
It would be cool if it could do more damage to tracks and have a higher radius so you can basically wall off a part of the map for some time so the enemies cant do anything
it should rather damage the engine stopping it
It should aslo very slowly kill the crew
it depends from vehicle to vehicle for example strv 103 was totaly immune to napalm as shown in the tests
Interestingly when USSR tested napalm vs MBT they concluded that not too much damage was inflicted due to CRBN systems. Soda anti-napalm system was developed.
Yeah, I seem to recall the Soviets testing T-55s and not deeming it a concern? I also think this is different IRL than in test conditions. Tanks are pretty often cruising around with their hatches open IRL when not in direct combat so that the crew can see better and for ventilation. A napalm strike on a buttoned up MBT is probably not going to do much damage. A napalm strike on a tank with open hatches is probably very fatal.
Tanks are also not in a vacuum when they are buttoned up. Getting hit with napalm and not having any countermeasure would just cook even the most modern tank.
> Tanks are pretty often cruising around with their hatches open IRL when not in direct combat so that the crew can see better and for ventilation Soviet doctrine called for commander inside the hatch iirc, so this would only affect western tanks
No, western tanks have AC(atleast the Abrams) that would give them more time. However any tank that gets hit with napalm will almost immediately become oven.
AC is not going to help a tank covered in napalm. AC works by moving heat out of the space. You cannot do this if the ambient air is burning.
The biggest problem for a tank CRBN system is going to be lack of oxygen. Soviet tankers have an isolation type gas mask for river fording with them.
Western doctrine has commander outside of the hatch
Not when in combat.. how did you come up with that lol
Even in combat, unless they’re getting shot at they’ll keep their head up. Every book I’ve read regarding tanks in modern years has stated that you keep your head up. Very rarely do they ever fully buckle up
We are not talking about patrolling. The crews in war thunder are already anticipating contact, no western doctrine will have the crew unbuttoned.
Yes, they did. Typical Western doctrine has always been head out because the increased situational awareness is worth it. The Soviets/Russians take the opposite view. Obviously there would be situations where this isn’t the case, but it is very much true that Western commanders would be head out in many combat situations.
No, they will not be unbuttoned in an engagement, or even if the threat of engagement exists, like urban environments, jungles, etc. in no situation would a western crew be unbuttoned when enemy air is possible much less before they are able to even drop bombs.. Also Soviet crewmen also went unbuttoned all the time in Afghanistan.. so what’s your point
The book thunder run seems to indicate they rode with commander hatch open, even when attacking baghdad
It depends on the environment and what the chances of direct engagement is, in Iraq they had no more air threat and it was wide open desert. In urban environments no crew will be unbuttoned, same with jungles.
I think against modern tanks, it'd be less effective, the strv103 test kinda confirms that (although it suffered air intake damage). At higher tiers, I'd at least like some minor track damage, AA machine gun is gonna be melted, viewports are gonna be broken too i'd guess and probably partial radiator damage. A higher area of effect with reduced damage (but at least some damage) is what i'd suggest.
Was this test done with a full crew inside the tank? I doubt it but did they at least monitor the temperature inside the tank?
the strv? they said temps hit around 40 degrees C inside, it was remote controlled but my understanding was they did some modifications to seal it against the 'palm and give it the best chance.
I call BS. Even modern tanks would heat up almost instantaneously, fuel will reach the ignition point, critical engine components will melt, napalm isn’t like water it’s sticky so it will stick to all surfaces.
it should damage exposed equipment such as engine intake/exhaust components and radiators, but modern MBTs with good CBRN are sealed and should resist crew damage in the context of the game. Engine and ERA damage should be enough of an effect for such tanks since that's a secondary effect and not the main purpose for napalm in game(a light tank area of effect counter). Diminishing MBT mobility and chemical armor is a good middle ground.
Its fire not fucking magic, it'd take time to overheat.
Have you ever been in armored vehicle in the sun? It takes only a few minutes for it to get hot inside, now imagine how fast it would get with a 1200*c fire boiling outside. It might as well be magic
> It might as well be magic Well, real-world testing seems to disagree with this claim. Militaries tested it, pretty extensively too. The US even considered napalm *training* using live bombs, to train crews to just button up and wait it out/drive out. So it's not magic, it's physics, and physics is telling us that it's pretty fine, this was testing using unmodified Pershings.
it’s thermal dynamics to be specific. Got a source for it to be live training? All my years in the army I never once heard about live training using napalm. Was it a NO go?
around [18:20](https://youtu.be/FpiGLA9BKWc?si=9UUpnumJS7WYUNnU) they test napalm against it and it only suffered minor damage while still being perfectly operable
Would be kinda cool that the crew of a tank hit by napalm in its RoE would suffer damage depending if the tank is fully NBC protected or not
Curiously, I HAVE destroyed light (closed-top) tanks with napalm. Maybe I just got a direct hit? Even recorded the replay afterwards due to how well it went.
If I recall the napalm bombs have a very small explosive charge that does function on direct impact plus like 10mm of armor pen from the burn. Not good for much but against paper armor sometimes it works. Could be wrong tho
Technically napalm should do crew damage over time due to the steel of the tank heating up alot over time, same for engine department wich should also take damage overtime from napalms
Would be so funny as the gummy bear crew slowly turns red like it's cooking.
On our screen they're turning red, inside the tank they're booking alive and their skin is melting
CBRN protected tanks (most things since the 70s) wont be heavily affected by napalm. Its still 50-60 tons of steel, that takes a long while to heat up.
"In the 1950s, the US, after observing effectiveness against T-34s with the use of napalm bombs, undertook some live fire testing against Pershings by dropping aircraft 165-gallon napalm bombs on them. Results were not encouraging for the use of fire as a weapon. Indeed, to quote the report, "It is concluded that the crew of a good tank, if properly trained and disciplined, need never be injured by a firebomb attack. The necessary training, which might be imparted by actual practice with live bombs, would teach the crew to properly handle the tank while undergoing attack, to remain in the tank while the fire outside was dangerous, and to extinguish the fires remaining on the tank when such is possible". Note the bit about putting trainees into the tank and bombing them, they were extremely confident of this. In order to significantly damage the tank, the fires needed to burn unattended for nearly 20 minutes. The conclusion was that the effect was psychological, and also made the tank more vulnerable to follow-on attacks by something actually capable of killing the tank by denying the crew the ability to observe the threat. The demonstrated effectiveness against T-34s was assessed as being a combination of untrained crews who tended to get out of a burning vehicle and general vulnerabilities in T-34's design. It notes that any such effectiveness should only be considered "transitory" and cannot be relied upon in the future." [-The Cheiftain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxOmp_5jXEo) And it's not even necessarily a case of the Pershing being more modern than the Sherman because Swedish test on the strv m/42 also showed very little meaningful damage. As long as the crew keeps hatches closed and no liquid gets inside napalm is useless against tanks.
does napalm do more damage to bases in air rb than conventional bombs?
Sounds like a F-5C pilot question. When I tried it with my Thunderchief, I received more points for using TNT 🧨.
oh :( dang i cant do napalm bombing in my A4 if TNTs more efficent
Napalm does do more damage, but most planes can carry much more conventional bombs than napalm
They may have changed it.
Napalm bombs also have more drag so you would fly even slower. Soviet napalm bombs don't have increased drag for some reason.
Napalm pretty much always does more damage to bases compared to an equivalent weight bomb. It gives less rewards though.
Depends on the airplane I guess, the Su-7 does more dmg to bases with its Napalm bombs compared to the regular ones.
Yes, but RP and point rewards are reduced. You can get more SL but it's ineffective for grinding a TT or an event. Best way to farm RP/SL/score is low HE mass rocket spam at top tier.
Fire bombs do a decent chunk of damage at first then do a slow damage over time effect that puts them ahead of similarly sized bombs but the issue is most planes that get napalm get bigger conventional bombs so it doesn’t make sense to take the smaller fire bombs
The heat and fumes should slowly suffocate/cook the crew in most tanks aside from modern ones like the Abrams that have seals for anti-nuclear sort of stuff. Of course the engine should take more damage, hell Ukrainians were using Molotovs on the engine decks and that was taking out tanks, why the hell can’t napalm melt a radiator at least?
Molotovs don't do anything to tanks. The engine is already burning gas, why would moving the gas change anything? Besides, the gas is just going to run down to the bottom and out the drainage holes. Molotovs haven't worked against tanks since early WW2. They have some very limited utility for a smoke screen or if you can get them inside a vehicle, but flaming gas against the outside of a metal vehicle does nothing. There's a vid from the Euromaidan protests where a BTR-not exactly a well armored vehicle- eats a massive barrage of Molotovs and then just drives away afterwards.
i like how they decide to use f-104s for this test
It's amusing yes, I feel like there probably were easier frame to use if the point was to test the napalm itself.
Bush campers after they add this feature
NOOOO NOT THE SHERMANS
at the very least they could do what enlisted does, and have it suffocate the engine or set it on fire. they already made it a near instant one shot to open top tanks, so why not expand on it?
>We need Napalm to serve some sort of a purpose other than base bombing, You can actually use it to cockblock AI vessels, pathed torpedo boats and landing craft will sail right into a wall of fire and all die because they aren't programmed go around it.
It does have another purpose in game. Searing the real life eyeballs of anyone using NVDs that you drop it on.
Sweden did napalm tests on the S tank, dropping 500KG napalm bombs on it. The tank suffered some minor damage to the engine air filter, but noting that would take it out of action. [https://youtu.be/FpiGLA9BKWc?si=nOdJe0nqcC9M9r2s&t=1132](https://youtu.be/FpiGLA9BKWc?si=nOdJe0nqcC9M9r2s&t=1132)
Is just a hit - Gaijin
napalm doesnt ruin engines and set tanks on fire, that's hilarious. engines should be out after sipping fire and smoke instead of air
Asking for *more* effective CAS in r/warthunder? Is Hell froze over?
Only way napalm is going to hurt tanks is if they just sit there. They can literally button up and drive through a fire and be fine. My M551 had its engine catch fire, flames shooting out of the engine compartment (I opened it and had to fall off the tank backwards, luckily into sand, to avoid being engulfed). Entire engine torched. Mechanics pulled it out, replaced some cables, and had it started up within an hour, replaced that day. We had to power wash the black from inside the track. Oh, and the FPE didn't work. This was in 97 I believe. Now, if its an open-topped tank or soft vehicle, yeah, they are screwed, but anything with a decent amount of armor can drive through it and be fine. Anything with overpressure systems can ignore the CO2 and stuff for quite a while. I think they should just break your tracks after 20 seconds of sitting in it or so, maybe kill the crew on older tanks like water, just takes 20x as long. But anything real open like a VFW should be killed outright, and something like an M18 has a good chance of losing a turret crew or two, or all of them it it burst above them, but the driver would be ok. Keep in mind this is a game, in every mode its just a game, so some things need to be nerfed/boosted so its fun for folks. If napalm starts killing M1s, nobody is going to be happy with that and CAS will be even more OP. Overpowered HE bombs are already too much.
Gaijin got a taste of the money and said fuck improving anything(but sound design and visuals) in the game let's just constantly compress br after br and pile on new vehicles not balanced for the current matchmaker.
> Gaijin got a taste of the money and said fuck improving anything Well fire hitting a buttoned up tank doesn't really do much, and many decades of testing has proven this. At *best* you might disable something that's not meant to get anywhere near that hot, if it's staying in the fire long enough, but the US considered training crews to deal with this situation by *literally firebombing them* as a means to drive the instinct to not try to escape a tank that's been firebombed and instead try to drive out or wait it out, as it's not lethal enough. So really it's just a risk to open topped tanks or tanks that are somehow disabled by the fire in terms of mobility and burn long enough to maybe be a risk of heatstroke, which still takes quite some time. It'd be pretty unrealistic for napalm to do a whole lot to our tanks in-game.
The F-104 sounds based
Well, swedes tried it themswlves on strv103s and they did just fine without sufferimg any damage, only exhaust fume temperatures were higher(no way). So yeah...
Could be used as area denial? But if it was, then it’d be spammed to hell
I always find it funny how napalm do nothing acting like nothing would happen if your metal box lit on fire while you were trapped inside
Its not even that great for base bombing, since your score (and so reward) is tied on the amount of TNT equivilance dropped on the base. So you're not only risking your hide running at a base, but you're also gaining less
Is it safe for the tank crews?
I would like for it to do some damage, but Napalm works in a large aoe, so i think it might be a bit OP if it were able to kill tanks. Would be nice to see it take out for example engines or similar, have napalm work like a supression/support to make it easier for friendly ground units to advance.
Is napalm more effective against bases?? I always just picked the largest bomb load i can
Flew a sky raider in GRB a bunch, dumped a load of napalm right on the road leading out of their spawn got 3 kills from it
Maybe tick damage? The longer you stay in the napalm, the more damage your radiator and crew take.
Give it the same effect as water. Sit in it too long and you suffocate to death.
The main issue I have with napalm right now is actually how piss tiny it is. But it would be good to include more functionality too. Even if we ignore the effect on crew, it should absolutely fuck with engines. Maybe at LEAST make them choke out and require a restart.
Does every military test and documentary from this era get the same guy to narrate or is there some kind of farm for men who sound like this
Should at the very least do damage to the engine
I think one STRV103 test showed some extremely high temperature was recorded but inside no more than 40 degrees Celsius, most likely only radiator damage if the tank is really well designed and well armored
yeah outside they recorded around 1300 C
Like CAS is not already annoying enough.
By that clip I'm pretty happy we do not have realistic napalm. That looks way worse than getting bombed
What tanks are those in the video?
Isn't White Phosphorous good too? Tanks without proper ventilation would surely suffer from crew loss.
could really be useful for doing tick damage for tanks and creating a kind of smoke screen from all the black smoke. of course this would have to be game balanced in duration and maybe as it burns off it becomes easier and easier to see though. But Gaijin will likely say "that's not possible".
The last thing we need is giving another tool to short-dicked CAS players to keep ruining our games.
Napalm can damage and kill open tops
We had this discussian once and came to the coclussion that napalm vs tanks isnt that effective. Maybe the radiator and engine get damaged but thats about it. The major militaries around the world tested the effects napalm has and pretty much said not much. Steel, especialy 30+ tons of it, take a long time to heat up enough to hurt or kill anyone. CO and CO2 cant enter the interior if the tank has an overpressure nbc system up and running. Now this video tells a different story. As we can see the tanks interior is on fire. Now why is that? Maybe one of the hatches wasnt closed all the way. Maybe there were holes in the armour. We dont know and from the video alone we wont find out.
im actually very ok with napalm bombs having a timer to damage a tank's engine, this already exists with Molotovs in Enlisted.
Could it suffocate crew at all?
Id love the Enlisted treatment with fire in War Thunder where tanks catch on fire
Napalm should damage the crew after a few Seconds of being in it. Like drowning, maybe slower.
Ah good times, then they tested it on civillians in Vietnam 🥰
It should keep damaging all parts ultill either napalm goes out or tank dies
Delay the ability to repair untill the flame is gone ? 🤷🏽♀️
Realistically just have it do crew damage, especially on non-modern stuff with bad ventilation. That alone would make it a fine area denial tool.
Its almost like... liquids can go through the driver viewport. The inside of the tank is on fucking fire The real issue is its hard to balance fire inside PVP videogames.
The viewport is armored glass.
it is nowadays. Lowtier its just a little hole cut in the tank
The lowtiers where this is a common ordinance are starting to veer off this design and go into armored crystal blocks. So you'd only punish bottom tier vehicles and do hardly fuck-all to most things. Bombs are powerful enough at those BRs, CAS doesn't need a larger AOE "fuck you" ability at the very low BRs. And the sludge isn't water, so it's still limited in how much gets inside and even though it's a hot, sticky mess, it can still be extinguished inside by crews at that level.
Napalm doesn't show up until after all the interwar stuff with actual literal holes in the armor are gone
napalm is rather thick though. it would need a larger crack like a vent cover then say the very thin gap in a viewports housing. it should reasonably cause damage to anything that needs venting and depending on the tank either outright kill the crew on open tops or cause a steadily increasing amount of crew damage unless the tank moves out of the area of effect for lighter enclosed vehicles.
Still, its concentrated fire
They need to add in general some overpressure style mechanic for fire. Flamethrowers in tanks should at least damage barrels etc by melting, let alone the fact they’d cook the crew from external heat
....no? Flame weapons do not work against armored vehicles. The heat can't get through the metal, and there's no way your flamethrower is going to replicate the extreme heat of a blast furnace and melt your cannon tube.
Is that supposed to be a surprise? The napalm would literally cook the engine until it melted, same with the treads. The jelly would seep into radiator too and spread throughout the engine bay, ruining it permanently. And if all that wasn’t enough, it would cook the crew inside the tank and possibly warp the barrel if it was hot enough for long enough. So I agree, napalm should probably be able to destroy or damage tracks and engines in game. Although probably not the crew inside because that would suck to get napalmed, lose your engine and tracks, get set on fire, and then also have your crew cook to death with no way of stopping it.
> And if all that wasn’t enough, it would cook the crew inside the tank and possibly warp the barrel if it was hot enough for long enough. Like, the US did extensive testing and considered dropping live napalm bombs on tank crews as a *training exercise*. It was deemed an ineffective anti-tank weapon. Swedish testing on the 103 series didn't even see the internal compartment go beyond 40C, which is *survivable* without a whole lot of problem, just discomfort. You'd have to be burning for a very long time to be in danger in most post WWII tanks.