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I've heard it many times, and it's great, but I think it must not be true. Planes had hardly any armor at all and all I've ever seen was put in very logical pla
by hackerbabz 7y ago
I've heard it many times, and it's great, but I think it must not be true. Planes had hardly any armor at all and all I've ever seen was put in very logical places. Protect the engines, fuel, pilot, and other crew.
It's not like they welded a piece of steel into a random place on the hull because they'd never seen it get hit before.
- chrxr 7y agoWhilst it may not have been Blackett or his team doing the research, research in this area does seem to have been done(1), and there are books and papers written about it(2). 1- https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kyZgEKzZZtJQTCSG2/examine-your-assumptions https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kyZgEKzZZtJQTCSG2/examine-yo... 2 - https://people.ucsc.edu/~msmangel/Wald.pdf https://people.ucsc.edu/~msmangel/Wald.pdf
- mannykannot 7y agoThe point is that it would not be a random place. The complete absence of armor in the Mitsubishi Zero is often cited as one of the reasons why it became outclassed by American fighters later in WWII.
- taneq 7y agoAlso it's not like they had no clue which parts of an aircraft were important. The less-snappy but likely more accurate story is they looked closely at the parts without bullet holes in them to see what important components in those parts could use some more shielding.