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maturin

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Posts posted by maturin

    Anti-tank rockets useless

    in DCS World 1.x (read only)

    Posted

    I have heard (not from an authoritative source) 20mm for thickness of Abrams roof armor, but this is surely absolute thickness, rather than RHA equivalency. Parts of the roof have a chance of withstanding RPG warheads that penetrate 300mm RHA. Also, the effective thickness would be greatly increased because of the angle of incidence of rounds, plus danger of ricochets.

     

    Edit: The ACE2 mod for ArmA 2 estimates 40mm RHA equivalency for roof armor, so conceivably vulnerable to the A10 at short ranges.

    Anti-tank rockets useless

    in DCS World 1.x (read only)

    Posted

    For perspective, the RHA penetration of most 80ish mm HEAT rockets is 300-500mm. That's many times more than the GAU-8 at point blank.

     

    But back on topic, I don't think an 80mm HE rocket would even scratch a tank. It's really just a little charge designed to throw fragments around, knocking over cinderblocks and infantry.

    Anti-tank rockets useless

    in DCS World 1.x (read only)

    Posted · Edited by maturin

    Oh, the GAU-8 is a poor MBT killer?? you must speak to some USMC personnel.. those out on tours in Afghanistan, ya?

    Lol, I'm sure they will tell me about the hundreds of destroyed MBTs they have seen... rusting in the desert from thirty years ago. I doubt that an A10 has destroyed a single MBT in Afghanistan with any weapon.

     

    Those armour values are accurate, the GAU-8 can never realistically penetrate the crew compartment of any MBT, but nor does it need to. A few rounds in the tracks, and IRL you have "killed" that target.

    I would be interested in reading a study on tracking tanks. Putting a few 1.5 inch holes in a tread or roadwheel isn't exactly debilitating, and the tracks are a difficult target from a variety of angles.

     

    And you are overly optimistic to assume that a mobility kill suffices in all situations. A tracked tank is easily repaired. Israel has won wars based on their ability to quickly redeploy their knocked out tanks, and in many missions a complete kill may be needed in order to secure the security of friendly troops.

     

    I'm not disputing that the A10 can mission kill tanks, or that that is valuable. But being restricted to mobility kills makes the GAU-8 a, as I have said, poor anti-tank weapon in some respects. You know what else is restricted to mobility kills against modern MBTs? The RPG-7. So the GAU-8 is in that category, despite the entirety of the internet masturbating to the fearsome roar of the GAU-8 'tank-killer.'

     

    So in the end we agree that it is not terribly realistic to burn up hundreds of tanks in DCS, because in real life most of them would not be burning, and that the GAU-8 doesn't chew threw tanks nearly so well its counterpart AT weapons.

    Anti-tank rockets useless

    in DCS World 1.x (read only)

    Posted

    And that's ignoring the fact that in a cold war type scenario, the A-10 (and every other aircraft) would be expected to operate even without air superiority or ground based air defences being destroyed/suppressed.

    Precisely why they were slated to be replaced by F-16s. The GAU-8 is a poor MBT-killer in conventional warfare. The A-10 was kept on because it's so good at CAS in assymetrical warfare, and has many other tools.

     

    But even ignoring that fact MBTs are far from the only targets for the A-10, in fact the bulk of the "targets" is would be tasked against are much less protected that an MBT.

    Obviously. My original post explicitly specified MBTs, in response to a post that did the same.

     

    Yes a high angle strafe will expose you to ground fire, but guess what, so will a maverick attack
    Yeah, except for the latter takes place from miles and miles away.

     

     

     

    I don't know where you get 500-1000 metres

    It's the kind of ranges people talk about on this forum, plus the published RHA penetration estimates for the gun are from those ranges. There's also that study out there that found tiny percentages of actual impacts and penetrations against T-62s, so things get chancy at long ranges.

     

     

    • 69 mm at 500 meters
    • 38 mm at 1,000 meters

    I don't know what happens to these numbers at 2000m, but by that point I imagine it barely qualifies as an anti-tank weapon. You might as well be dousing the enemy armor in Shilka fire and destroying optics that way. It'd be faster.

    The GAU-8 is effective out to 2Nm (nearly 4 Km) depending on the target.

    Depending on the target. Exactly my point. If the target it an MBT, it ain't optimal.

     

    Even MBTs can be effectively suppressed out that far should the need arise, although you'll only ever achieve a weapons or mobility "kill" from that range.

    And just about every AT weapon on any other vehicle (including the Maverick) can reliably burn the crap out of them from even greater ranges. Which is my point. And in DCS, you can't track or suppress tanks, which was also my point in the original post.

     

    You certainly don't sit up at medium altitude fat, dumb and happy staring at your MFDs.

    That would be far preferable when trying to blunt a Soviet advance across Europe, hanging out under the edge of anti-air umbrella.

    Anti-tank rockets useless

    in DCS World 1.x (read only)

    Posted

    Has any A-10 pilot ever fired his GAU-8 at a modern MBT on a battlefield without air superiority and neutered anti-air? Closest you can get is the Gulf War against T-72s.

     

    The fact is the GAU-8 can only penetrate the weak points of an even old (T-62) tanks, which is mostly what I was referring to. The tactical consequences for that are open to debate, but it seems logical that a top attack (unless the tank lets you approach it from the rear) means taking your plane off the dock and exposing it to all sorts of fire.

     

    The GAU-8 is second only to Maverick in its stand-off capability

    In what world does 500-1000m qualify as stand-off? It's within the engagement envelope of every heavy weapon ever. Even in this sim, people talk about requiring that sort of range to take out MBTs because of accuracy and because the API loses penetration power over distance.

    Anti-tank rockets useless

    in DCS World 1.x (read only)

    Posted

    I'm just amazed that no one cares to admit that killing tanks by guns is the only realistic way to fly and fight in this sim. I mean, A-10 is a frame around a big gun. a tank whacking GAU-8/A... start using it people!!! I don't see PAC-1 for rockets, do you?? why start fighting over things that are clearly viable to the restless mind????

    Because, err, the A-10 is only a single plane, and this is the DCS world forum.

     

    Russian aircraft and choppers carry huge amounts of dumb rockets, and they almost all have shaped charge variants that are very common. The SU-25T is still rare, and the former variant will go after armored vehicles (not necessarily MBTs) with FFARs a whole lot.

     

    Secondly, it's not terribly realistic to be killing MBTs with the GAU-8 either, since A-10s have to stick with Mavericks in an AO with any AAA to speak of. Without a vulnerable high angle attack run, you can't take reliably take out a modern tank.

    Anti-tank rockets useless

    in DCS World 1.x (read only)

    Posted

    Blow the tracks off , and its basically useless . A tank is basically an infantry support vehicle , if it cant move , its useless .

    Does DCS even model that? The only option seems to be fiery explosion or untouched tank.

     

    Frankly if tanks require an arbitrary amount of penetrative power to kill is so far down the list of things that could be better in this game. This will never be Arma or any other first person shooter, nor will Arma ever be DCS.
    Heck, no. From a ground attack perspective (aka, the entirety of A10C and Su-25T), realistic attacks on armor is vital. The simulator should punish having the wrong weapons, especially now that Combined Arms is out.

     

    One of my favorite things about DCS is how detailed the ground units are. Speaking as a diehard ArmA player (I WTFed at the suggestion to makes DCS more like ArmA, by the way), the armor and penetration system in DCS is more realistic than its vanilla ArmA counterpart.

     

    RHA estimates, go!

    Vikhr M rippling

    in DCS World 1.x (read only)

    Posted

    I'll spell it out.

     

    1) Fire a missile

    2) The missile loses guidance because of bad firing procedure or known glitch and hits the ground

    3) Laser remains on, yet there is no launch authorization for second Vikhr until you wait several seconds, or restart the laser

    Vikhr M rippling

    in DCS World 1.x (read only)

    Posted

    I believe it has something to do with the laser life span. I think you can overheat and burn the laser if it stays on for a longer period of time.

    That doesn't make sense. My laser can stay on for multiple minutes while I target something with a Kh-29.

     

    What it can't do is fire a set of Vikhrs, have them dive straight into the ground because of that (RAGERAGERAGE) glitch, and then fire another pair. It has to wait a good ten or fifteen seconds before the next launch, unless I restart it.

    What's a SAM site like?

    in DCS World 1.x (read only)

    Posted

    Alright, cool, I found the S-300 template... and promptly deleted by hitting the red X button accidentally. In a case of non-idiot-proof design brilliance, this deleted the template for the entire game without a prompt. So same question over again... anyone know what's in a S-300 site so I can re-do the template? A mission with one would do as well.

    Terrain updates for Caucasus

    in DCS Wishlist

    Posted · Edited by maturin

    I assume that FC3 is going to keep the same terrain. In order to keep the terrain quality up to ED's high standards, there are some changes which are necessary to make, if you purport to model the Caucasus.

     

    #1: You need braid streams: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braided_river

    Almost all rivers in Georgia, for the upper half of their drainage network, take this geological form, which is quite distinctive. In spring, snow melt makes the small winding channels into a single torrent, but in other seasons the river bed is choked with stone or sand, breaking the water up into thin little channels.

     

    #2: Suburban village and urban (think Tbilisi) architecture. The Caucasus is much more residential and less developed than the urban Kuban or Crimea. Currently, DCS models only Soviet-style settlements well, but the Caucasus has its own styles of construction. Currently, Tbilisi looks all wrong, as do many mountain villages, which are too industrial.

    • Like 1

    What's a SAM site like?

    in DCS World 1.x (read only)

    Posted

    One thing that DCS is missing from old LOMAC is pre-made ground unit groups.

     

    It used to a work of seconds to slap down an entire S-300 SAM site. Now it takes a lot of fiddling with the editor, and more importantly I have no idea how many tubes etc there are supposed to be. Does anyone know where to find some template or list of units in various SAM setups, like Patriot, Buk, etc?

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