The head‐on collision of equal sized drops is studied by full numerical simulations. The Navier–Stokes equations are solved for the fluid motion both inside and outside the drops using a front tracking/finite difference technique. The drops are accelerated toward each other by a body force that is turned off before the drops collide. When the drops collide, the fluid between them is pushed outward leaving a thin layer bounded by the drop surface. This layer gets progressively thinner as the drops continue to deform, and in several of our calculations we artificially remove this double layer at prescribed times, thus modeling rupture. If no rupture takes place, the drops always rebound, but if the film is ruptured the drops may coalesce permanently or coalesce temporarily and then split again. Although the numerically predicted boundaries between permanent and temporary coalescence are found to be consistent with experimental observations, the exact location of these boundaries in parameter space is found to depend on the time of rupture. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.