Very informative book on the subject. This fine book has a wealth of information on WW2 aircraft protection systems.

Dependability Excellent service

It ought to be 5 stars Takes on an important but neglected topic. Protection of aircraft of WWII. It’s the only book I know of that does this! Therefore it’s must have! It uses lots of official documents etc. Frankly this is an important area of history which needs years of research! But usually gets relegated to footnotes after most histories tell the tales of the Thatch Weave, Butch O’Hare etc. worst of all statistical analysis is needed. I give it 5 stars compared to anything else on the subject which is nearly nothing, but it’s more like finding King Tut’s tomb taking a look thru the door and never going in.

Original, innovative, authoritative Somehow I managed to miss "Exploding Fuel Tanks" for nine years. I'd seen the title mentioned and certainly knew of Rick Dunn's reputation, but what a revelation to see the book up close. Dunn takes an "everybody knows" type of subject (Our Airplanes were better protected than Their Airplanes), dips it in high-octane fuel, wrings it out, and sets it on the historical clothes line for examination while drying.Dunn's mix of a "rivet counter" tekkie subject combines with rare information and professional-quality insight that yields illuminating analysis. And along the way, he teaches aviation students more than a few things--but mainly he demonstrates that history is both a process and a journey, sometimes best experienced on what seems a well traveled road.

Extremely well-written and researched book For those who have a great interest in the Pacific air war in World War II, this book provides an extrermely well-written and detailed history of the conflict and the planes used by the U.S. and Japanese. I found it to be a fascinating read.

Easily the most in depth research I have ever had ... Easily the most in depth research I have ever had the pleasure of reading on aircraft development. Incredible detail is put into a detailed historical context to paint the full and complete picture.

but I have enjoyed it hugely and I've learned a great deal so ... Amazon tells us to compare the product with others in the same category. I'd say that is nigh impossible with this work, as I'm not aware of a current published work that has dealt with this subject. I've not finished it yet, but I have enjoyed it hugely and I've learned a great deal so far. Good money spent for your aviation research shelf!

More to this book that at first meets the eye I'll save your reading chops by adding only this to the above reviews, (all of which are spot on target):The author has made something clear here that most other aircraft books either ignore or gloss over with very ambiguous documentation. Until I read Mr. Dunn's work, I had not realized that the ".50 caliber" weapons fielded by the Imperial Japanese Army were machine cannon, not machine guns. Once alerted by Mr.Dunn's writings, I reexamined other source materials and found that they either called them machine guns (which are much less potent unless employed en masse, as with US fighter wing guns), or buried any reference in obscure tables.Also, this author addresses a topic not normally explored in depth by aircraft authors, that of armor plating. While mostly about the Japanese side of things, Mr. Dunn spends quite a bit of time looking at shot angles, plate fitting, and the differences between the rifle caliber weapons used by the Japanese and British early on, and the late war heavy caliber machine guns and aircraft machine cannon.All in all, an excellent overview of a very obscure topic.

Excellent book for those who care about the technology of war I care about the technology of war. I've been featured on nine History Channel programs (mostly Modern Marvels and Engineering Disasters) talking about the technology of war. This book adds a welcome new dimension to that field.I’ve just purchased a self-published, well-researched and remarkably readable book by Richard L. Dunn called “Exploding Fuel Tanks – Saga of Technology That Changed The Course of the Pacific Air War.”There is a strong mythology out there about the vulnerability of Japanese aircraft because they lacked pilot armor and self-sealing fuel tanks – this isn’t entirely true, as it turns out, but there is a massive chunk of truth to it. Dunn starts with looking at the adoption of armor and tank protection in Europe, and how it spread to the US, but not to Japan, by the start of the war. In this, he includes lots of tech stuff about the tanks, including tanks that were shot at (experimentally) to see how well it worked.Then he jumps to the Pacific War (my current area of real fascination), and goes plane-by-plane in showing what bullets and cannon and AA fire could do to protected and unprotected aircraft, from Pearl Harbor forward. He shows lots of proof that many Japanese planes were battle-damaged or shot down without burning (though also noting how some burned easily, most especially the Mitsubishi G4M (aka Betty) which was called the Type 1 Lighter by its crews, for obvious reasons.This book has lots of photos, lots of contemporary charts (taken from pilot’s manuals, etc.) and lots of anecdotal info. Photos include Japanese soldiers jumping up and down on the fuel tank of a shot-down B-29 to see how strong it was, and of women in the states using clothes irons like my mom used to use to seal up self-sealing fuel tanks in factories.There are enough photos here to interest modelers, but mostly, this is a very interesting and informative book about a subject often alluded to but not often studied. Well worth reading if you like the tech side of what we model.It is a self-published book, which is obvious from the typography and layout – but you don’t buy this book for the page layout – you buy it for the information. Great information … I’m glad I took the plunge.Ned BarnettIPMS Life Member #5544

An entirely new perspective of the Pacific War I confess that I never read something about this subject before so, given my professional formation, I really appreciated the book as it resemble more a scientific paper than a simple essay. The narrative and writing style are extremely readable and convincing even for those who are not specialists.The author surely made a "first" in historical studies.The introduction is the best example I have ever seen within a book with its clearly outlined method of research, scopes to be pursued and results expected to be reached.The illustrations and drawings are superb as well as the appendixes.In my opinion the author has unveiled a completely forgotten and overlooked subject in telling the relation between technology, research and air combat operations.The clear conclusions at the end of the book are absolutely a must and gave an original perspective to WWII in the Pacific.