Bigger booms in SH3?
 

http://www.ussbush.com/slotow.htm

It seems like in SH3, that we never get a chance to see a really, really big explosion. I've seen a several ships really get to blowin', but it's always a series of smaller blasts going from one end to the other. On occassion, I've seen larger cargo ships break in two, but never the blinding flash and massive, mushroom cloud-inducing boom that a fully-loaded ammunition ship should have.

I don't know much, but is there any way to mod those kinds of sequences in the game?

Now that's a pants wetting explosion!

Yeah I have seen that explosion on the color film reel those photos are from. That blast looks just like the post war underwater nuke they set off around Bikini Atoll. Blown out of the water does not do justice to that explosion, absolutely blasted that ship and everyone on board into orbit. There is this film I have seen on cable call "Trinity and Beyond" about the US nuke tests, shown in stunning High Definition, if anyone gets a chance watch it as it is outstanding.

Would it make that much of a difference since the pictures were of damage from a suicide bomber as opposed to a torpedo strike?

Actually reading the captions it seems the suicide bomber hit a different ship. The one that blew up was the one that was orignally struck, I believe, that's the way I'm reading it anywa.

In my mostly uninformed opinion, it wouldn't, given that both bombs and torpedoes explode and Liberty ships had little in the way of armor. In both cases, any munitions onboard would be exposed to massive amounts of heat and pressure, albeit from different directions, causing them to detonate.

What causes an explosion of that magnitude is the sympathetic detonation of 10K+ tons of high explosive. When something hits it just right the whole thing goes at once. Bomb, torpedo, mine, anything could set it off. If a sub had done that within 1000m it would problably be destroyed too.