StarHopper

And here lies the craziness. Side armor of about 700mm RHA (kinetic) and the bullet can pierce probably about 80mm RHA (and that's probably being too generous). The tank should just laugh at it. I just saw a show about an M2 shooting its 25mm BushMaster at a Iraqi T72 tank at point blank range of about 10 meters. The bullets just bounced off its front turret. The commander started to panic. Fortunately for the M2, another M2 hit it with a TOW and killed it. This was a real life accounting from the beginning of the Iraqi War. The M1 has much better armor than the T72. We need MUCH better damage and penetration code. The flight simulation is excellent, but you need to start working on the world. MUCH better AI is also needed. People and vehicles just mindlessly standing around like sitting ducks is not acceptable. Before you start working on another aircraft, you need to work on the world a lot more. At least bring it up to Arma 2 standards.

Fair enough. But I think most armor is ignoring the fact that it got hit with an HEI. To the tankers, it probably felt like someone knocked on their door. At most, it might have damaged some sensors. HEI disabling treads, jamming the turret, and getting a shot into the engine from the top or rear would be considered extremely lucky. And even if you damaged a gun sight or such, the tanker can still pop his portal, and aim and fire manually. AI and damage systems on objects other than yourself seem to be critically lacking in this game. Watching an M2A1 be destroyed at 2km by HEI doesn't seem anywhere realistic. I feel like the sims in Game Mode or something. This is what API, SAPHEI, APDS, HEDP, and all the other armor piercing rounds were made for. So, in the end, we need better AI, and better damage systems.

Lol, oh, there's probably a lot of people on this board who could argue about this all day! But, I'd like to stick to the subject of HEI (NOT!) pentrating armor. I think it is way overdone in the sim. I mean, come on, the 2A42 is killing a M2A1 at like 2km with HEI! Is the top armor THAT WEAK?

They're probably talking about armored vests. Full 7.62x54 can penetrate up to a level 3 vest with trauma plate. Even the lightest BDRM can stop full 7.62 rounds. @Jax - The level 3 vest with trauma plate is designed to stop all assault rifle rounds, including the 5.56x45 and 7.62x38 (AKM). Or its supposed to. Hate to break it to you, but the interceptor vests are really bad and ill-designed. That's why we Americans are having so many deaths in the field. The vests don't work. Composition is good for penetration, but mass, energy, and velocity are everything. Thats why molten copper ( just a bunch of atoms ) at a million atmosphere's pressure can pierce through the armor of a main battle tank (Steel and composites ). Composition is where you don't want the round to break up ( strong molecular forces ) before it penetrates the armor. Which is fine, but you need energy ( inertia ) to get it through. And Inertia = Mass x Velocity. Without enough inertia, the round will simply stop halfway through the armor, still whole or not. That's why full 7.62 can penetrate a level 3 vest, where 5.56 will not. Inertia. Energy. While the round may dull because of its copper composition, it will still have enough energy to break the bonds of the steel and kevlar, and literally tear its way through. Like Spetz said above, "cratering".

30mm Hole in the side of an M113's aluminum armor. As you can see, there are no other holes near it, and this is after being shot at by the GAU-8. So, even the GAU isn't going to hit in the same place twice. No where near it at 5 MOA.

That's what I'm thinking. An M113 has 12 - 38mm of aluminum armor ( not steel ), and as you say, the HE only chipped and cratered the armor. The chances of a gun like the 2A42 putting a round in exactly the same place again is pretty much non-existent. If we hit the top armor, its usually at an angle, so much more chance of it ricocheting off. However, we need to take into account how thin the top armor is as well, and I have a hard time finding that info. Still, I'm guessing its probably going to be at least 10mm. I'm beginning to think as before, that HEI is only really effective against unarmored trucks and such.

Well, I see the problems with recording now. 1) It takes a lot of CPU with the game running. 2). Its just whatever you record. I have also noticed there are a lot of problems with the .trk editor. Its seems to only record YOUR actions. Not sure about wingmen, but objects on the ground seem not to be recorded at all, as they all do their own thing, just like in normal game. So, in the end, you will notice you are shooting at things that were there during the recording, but are not there now during the .trk playback. Noticed that in Viper's HEI .trk from the HEI Penetration thread. Plus, I had to edit out the M2A1 because it kept killing the heli 10 seconds into the .trk. Edit: Oops. Just saw Peter already said this. Oh, well. It would be nice to have a .trk recorder that recorded the actions of every object within say 10km. Otherwise, the tracks don't make much sense.

Flaring hard from high to low speed seems to do all kinds of wicked things to your engine in the sim. I always get the sense of metal tearing and engines groaning.

I wouldn't call everything light armor. There's a HUGE difference between say a BDRM and a BMP-3. And between old and modern APCs. The thing that needs to be considered here is the thickness of the steel round holding the explosive and its inertia at the time of hitting the target. 20mm HEI piercing 12.5mm RHA at 100m (manufacturer's stats ) seems feasible, if its a thick steel shell. And that's probably vertical armor, not at an angle. But watching 30mm rounds penetrating modern APCs at 2km range does not. Thats 20x farther in range than the max range penetration of the 20mm. There can't be THAT much more inertia in a 30mm shell. Does not compute.

Well, the problem with the R73, Igla, etc. is that there is no fire control currently for it. There probably have been experiments with Mercury Pods, AA, HAR missles, FLIR, etc, but no ones been able to find any real proof of it yet. I would think it wouldn't be too much of a problem to put IR missles on a heli though. All you really need is to do is aim your heli at the jet, etc, and listen for a lock tone. No hud symbology, etc. really needed. The big problem as far as I can see, would be can the Shark handle it physically? We do handle the Kh-25 pretty well though, so I would think we would be able to handle an R73 or Igla's. In the game, you can't put anything new on your heli, but you can put it on your wingmen! It may or may not work.

Thanks, Sobek, but the only hint it gives that there is some penetration is that it has a delayed fuse. Everywhere I look, I usually get an N/A when it comes to how much RHA the round can penetrate. The only value I've been able to find is the 20mm HEI able to pierce 12.5mm RHA at 100 meters. I think that was for the round on the M61 Vulcan.

Which is why I'm interested in how much armor a HEI round can pierce. :music_whistling: All API is, is literally a hot crossbow bolt. It punches through the armor, punches through any people in its way, and usually exits through the other side, maybe catching any flammables on fire. DU is said to be somewhat frangible, and might break into a few pieces, bouncing around the inside of the tank. An HEI round on the other hand, has a delayed fuse ( looks like 0.15 ms in this case ) which allows it just enough time to explode AFTER penetration of the armor. Now you've got a decent sized grenade exploding in the APC. Very good chance of a crew kill, which is the best kind of kill. No crew, no tank. Of course, you can't use HEI on a tank. I doubt if it could even pierce the top armor on main battle tanks ( one would hope! ). Rear shot to the engine through the grill would probably work pretty well though! I don't know about M1A1's, etc., but I spent enough time in JROTC years ago at a National Guard Tank Company. We had an old M60 tank. The engine in the back was COMPLETELY exposed. Just a grill. No armor whatsoever. A few 30mm HEI in the back would have been interesting. @Viper - thanks for the track!

What!? No R-73's!??? /me ducks for cover

I agree with what your saying, but I wonder what the MOA error is for the 30mm gattling gun. I'm thinking not good, so your getting more of a "cone" of bullets. Just like you see when the ZSU-23 shoots at you. It looks like a cloud of bullets because of the moderate MOA of the barrels. Really good sniping rifles have an MOA of .5 which means half-inch groups at 100 meters. Now think of a cannon no where near that accurate at 1 to 2 kilometers. Trampoline area accuracy?

I know! It drives me nuts! Non-human eyes! And the enemy is just as bad! DCS needs to work on the AI seeing at average human distances.

Lol, we'll I know you can't use HE on tanks. Thats just for hosing off any infantry on top of them. Newer Battle Tanks have upwards of 800 to 900mm of RHA (chemical) value at places, and about half that kinetic. And a lot of new APCs have good RHA values, at least at the frontal arc. What I'm wondering is how much it can pierce, so I can use it on older APCs and such, with very light armor. I know a lot of armor values from ACE 2 research in Arma 2, but I really don't know the 30 or 20mm HE RHA piercing values.

Anyone have any info on how much RHA a 30mm HE round can penetrate? After a few hours of research on the net, all I could come up with is a vague mention of a 20mm HE round being able to penetrate 12mm of RHA at 100m range. I've always wondered how much the average 30mm HE can penetrate at close range. If I can find that out, then its just determining what vehicles have what armor.

Yeah, this works with a LOT of things. I once had my wingie carrying R-73's and firing them at jets. So, you can do all kinds of fantasy loadouts. "Permission to engage bogies!" "Go for it!" "Fox-1! Fox-1!" Bye bye F-18.

Wait till you get in it 30 meters above the ground. To bail or not to bail, that is the question! :lol:

Yeah, since its a round tunnel, that makes sense. Have to try it with the blades flat. Just that in the sim, when I had the blade half way pitched, it seemed to take forever when going forward, but faster when going sideways. Maybe its just me.

Ahh, you put your collective down to get rid of the vortex. I usually keep mine about mid level and lean out sideways with a hard bank so my rotors can grab clean air and rip me out of the downwash. I guess with collective down, and forward, you kind of slide out of the downwash. That's why me trying to go forward wasn't working. I still had the collective up. And yeah, I was thinking tandem meant co-axial.

Nope, if you want just dampers, hit the Free Flight button.

Actually, pushing the nose down and going forwards doesn't work well. I've found through experience that flying sideways gets you out of it much faster. And I said "roll" above, not turn. I guess it would have been more correct to say "bank". I also noticed in the wikipedia article that they say if the heli is single rotor, to go forwards, but if its tandem, go sideways. Something in the design. Lol, I know, "wikipedia", but its that way in the sim as well. Going sideways rips you out much quicker for some reason. As for track, I fast forwarded a for a little while, then let off. He's hovering, looking at something, then he just starts descending at high speed, around 15 m/s, looks like he's fighting it a little, but never recovers, so maybe were all seeing something different. Can someone with a good computer make a movie of the track? I tried to, but my comp nots good enough to do that and fly the sim at the same time.

Yeah, Ring Vortex. Just got through watching the track again. You are near hovering and descending at about 15 m/s. Right into your own downwash. That's why you couldn't stop falling. Next time, do a hard left or right roll at about 45 degrees and hold it steady until your out of the vertical tunnel of your downwash and into fresh air. What's happening is that you are trying to push against air that is already traveling downwards at a high rate (i.e. the air you already pushed on before! ). So you fall like a rock. Also, never descend over about 5 m/s in a hover or going very slow. If you use the auto descent switch on the collective, it will drop you at 2 m/s. If anyone want to watch the .trk, its only about 5 minutes long, and where he goes into Vortex is right at the end. Vortex Ring Effect in Helicopters - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_ring

Ring Vortex