What does tracer colors mean?

[Darcaem]

What does the green or red color of tracers fired at me mean?

 

 

For some reason I always assumed this was some kind of help, green tracers won't likely hit you but red ones could. I was googling how to disable them and I found out this old post

 

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=132505

 

 

So now I am confused, what does tracer colors actually means? Type of ammo as stated in that post? Coalition as also stated in that post?

 

 

Thanks!

[Tholozor]

It's a product of the chemical compounds used in the tracer round's pyrotechnic charge. You could put any country on any coalition, the tracers will still be the same color for the ammunition type.

Edited November 14, 2019 by Tholozor

[Darcaem]

Yeah, I do unterstand the chemistry involved on tracer ammo. My question is why some are rendered in game in green and others in red, if any of the explanations given on that post are correct, and in that case, which one. Or if maybe there is no other explanation than just that different units use different colors :P

Edited November 14, 2019 by Darcaem

[Kang]

There is no special meaning to it. Some weapons fire red and some fire green tracers in DCS.

 

In real life it depends on the ammunition used, red and green are just the most common colours. It used to be that most Russian calibres tend to use green tracers and most Western ones have red tracers, but this is far from a rule, just a rough preference of the superpowers, so to speak. German machine cannons of WW2 often had blue tracers.

[razo+r]

German machine cannons of WW2 often had blue tracers.

 

Off topic, but still, got any source for that at hand right now?

 

I've tried reading into that, but except Red and Yellow tracers (for 2cm shells) I haven't read about other colors.

[Darcaem]

Thanks for the answers :thumbup:

 

 

 

There is no special meaning to it. Some weapons fire red and some fire green tracers in DCS.

[Baaz]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that red tracers are primary weapons and green are secondary.

 

For example, on the BMP-3, the 30mm cannon would fire red tracers, but the 7.62 machine gun on that same vehicle would fire green.

 

 

It is not based on caliber of weapon, only if primary or secondary.

 

Infantry will always fire red as they only have a single weapon.

Edited November 16, 2019 by Baaz

[Northstar98]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that red tracers are primary weapons and green are secondary.

 

For example, on the BMP-3, the 30mm cannon would fire red tracers, but the 7.62 machine gun on that same vehicle would fire green.

 

 

It is not based on caliber of weapon, only if primary or secondary.

 

Infantry will always fire red as they only have a single weapon.

 

AFAIK it's not specific to really anything at all. Maybe ammunition type in some cases but by no means universal, and varies between nations. For instance I think Russian 30mm Frag-T rounds used on the AK-630 are green, American M940 MP-SDT rounds are red (I think API .50s are red too, as well as many western weapons including infantry weapons).

Edited November 17, 2019 by Northstar98

[Kang]

Off topic, but still, got any source for that at hand right now?

 

I've tried reading into that, but except Red and Yellow tracers (for 2cm shells) I haven't read about other colors.

Not quite at hand, to be honest, but I seem to remember it was somewhere in Cajus Bekker's book Angriffshöhe 4000, but I might be mistaken. I'll try and find it again sometime soon.

You are definitely right that the MG FF 2cm cannons used red and yellow tracers, the blue colour was widespread for the 'later' MG-151 cannons, though.

 

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that red tracers are primary weapons and green are secondary.

 

For example, on the BMP-3, the 30mm cannon would fire red tracers, but the 7.62 machine gun on that same vehicle would fire green.

 

 

It is not based on caliber of weapon, only if primary or secondary.

 

Infantry will always fire red as they only have a single weapon.

It could be that it was meant like that back a long time ago in FC1, but it doesn't really hold true. A Cobra APC fires green tracers, for example, from its only weapon.

[Mars Exulte]

I'm 99.9% certain there is no significance to color, I've seen a variety of colors used by a variety of nations at various times throughout history. Considering the way the military generally operates, it's probably more influenced by what is cheapest at the time, rather than any "higher meaning". For example, the famous British redcoats were not initially red for any particular reason other than at the time uniforms were being designed, red was cheaper than other colors, becoming "tradition" after the fact.