Improved ground unit damage models

[Mr. Wilson]

The first missile test was carried out on the example of T-72 tanks, used all types of rockets HE\MPP.

 

It came as a surprise to me that the rocket attack dealt 0% damage to the tank, but with the GAU-8 gun I destroyed the same tank in one turn...

 

Is this done correctly?

[NineLine]

APKSW is not considered an anti-tank weapon, thanks.

[Fri13]

APKSW is not considered an anti-tank weapon, thanks.

 

Not as Anti-MBT.... Thanks.

[CaptJodan]

I was curious about this as well. I went ahead and fired a good 40 or so rockets at a single tank, and did 0 damage. Indeed, these are not anti-tank weapons, but in real life would a host of rockets do no appreciable damage to a tank? That's a legitimate question, not trying to be "gotcha" about it.

 

I went into this knowing APKWS wouldn't be great for tanks, definitely not the weapon of choice to take on a tank with. And if you fire at the frontal armor and the rocket hits at a shallow angle, I don't think it would do much of anything. But I thought with side or back hits, it might shave off some "percentage" points and with enough rockets, might take down a tank. But I'm open to being wrong about that.

[Fri13]

The first missile test was carried out on the example of T-72 tanks, used all types of rockets HE\MPP.

 

It came as a surprise to me that the rocket attack dealt 0% damage to the tank, but with the GAU-8 gun I destroyed the same tank in one turn...

 

Is this done correctly?

 

No. The GAU-8 should be useless at this current damage modeling. You shouldn't be there making any damage unless you get to shoot through engine inlets grid.

 

In future with a better damage modeling you should start to see possibilities to generate some damage to some of the ground units elements outside the armor. Like destroy radio antenna, destroy optics, damage cannon barrel, destroy roof MG, damage tracks and possibility to destroy engine in good angle (behind enemy lines).

 

With the rockets you would get better capability as you have a warhead option to have penetration for 300-350 mm RHA.

 

That is enough for good damage on older MBT and as well most IFV.

[Kippy]

... But I thought with side or back hits, it might shave off some "percentage" points and with enough rockets, might take down a tank. But I'm open to being wrong about that.

The current DCS damage model for ground vehicles isn't advanced enough to handle mission (such as maneuverability or firepower) kills. It's k-kill or bust. I suspect that each weapon has a scripted value for warhead weight and power, and if it fails to exceed the armor value for a ground target, zero damage is rendered to the target.

[Mr. Wilson]

I was curious about this as well. I went ahead and fired a good 40 or so rockets at a single tank, and did 0 damage. Indeed, these are not anti-tank weapons, but in real life would a host of rockets do no appreciable damage to a tank? That's a legitimate question, not trying to be "gotcha" about it.

 

I went into this knowing APKWS wouldn't be great for tanks, definitely not the weapon of choice to take on a tank with. And if you fire at the frontal armor and the rocket hits at a shallow angle, I don't think it would do much of anything. But I thought with side or back hits, it might shave off some "percentage" points and with enough rockets, might take down a tank. But I'm open to being wrong about that.

 

I thought about the same... For me it is also unclear how many missiles can do 0% damage.

[Fri13]

I thought about the same... For me it is also unclear how many missiles can do 0% damage.

 

Unclear why, or unclear how many?

 

As for armor penetration it is fairly easy, you either penetrate armor or not, or you cause spalling and kill a crew or not.

 

So at least there values should be for armor itself alone:

 

1) penetration or not.

2) spalling or not

3) shockwave or not.

 

As even if your weapon doesn't penetrate armor or cause spalling, it does major other effects to crew.

 

Then if we later on get at least few extra statuses for vehicles as:

 

1) K-Kill

2) Mobility kill

3) Engine kill

4) Weapons Kill

5) crew injuries/kills

6) Hydraulics/Power damages

7) Crew Moral/Will damages/effects

8) Communication damage

 

As if a crew down knows that there is a AT capable aircraft supporting enemy, it will make lot of effects to them.

Edited September 30, 2020 by Fri13

[Mr. Wilson]

Unclear why, or unclear how many?

 

As for armor penetration it is fairly easy, you either penetrate armor or not, or you cause spalling and kill a crew or not.

 

So at least there values should be for armor itself alone:

 

1) penetration or not.

2) spalling or not

3) shockwave or not.

 

As even if your weapon doesn't penetrate armor or cause spalling, it does major other effects to crew.

 

Then if we later on get at least few extra statuses for vehicles as:

 

1) K-Kill

2) Mobility kill

3) Engine kill

4) Weapons Kill

5) crew injuries/kills

6) Hydraulics/Power damages

7) Crew Moral/Will damages/effects

8) Communication damage

 

As if a crew down knows that there is a AT capable aircraft supporting enemy, it will make lot of effects to them.

 

I very much doubt that this will happen in the near future ... If we talk about what has been implemented at the moment, then the zero effect on tanks with these missiles looks very strange. I understand that these are not anti-tank missiles, but they still have to do some percentage of damage.

[Fri13]

I understand that these are not anti-tank missiles, but they still have to do some percentage of damage.

 

They are against almost anything expect MBT's, large ships or a like.

But against most tanks they are fine, as many kind AFV are tanks, but not all tanks are MBT.

[Northstar98]

As far as I know (or have tested for that matter), it seems the current system is a pretty basic; there seems to be separate hitboxes for the front, top, sides and rear for the hull and the turret.

 

As far as I know, it seems that weapons have a certain damage value to them, and vehicles have a certain number of hitpoints. Once a weapon exceeds a certain threshold for a particular hitbox, it subtracts hitpoints. How far above the threshold determines how many hitpoints get subtracted from the unit's health.

 

The calculation is something a long the lines of if weapon damage value > damage threshold value, hitpoints subtracted = weapon damage value - threshold value.

 

There also seems to be some degree of differentiation between purely kinetic and explosive rounds, with maybe different thresholds for each, though practically, it's pretty difficult to tell, and as far as I can tell HEAT, HESH and HE have the exact same effect, it just varies on warhead size. I'll do some more testing, and edit this post as required.

 

There is some degree of blast/splash/fragmentation, but it's implementation seems limited, I'm not too sure what's going on, or whether or not the current system is accurate or not. I know that vehicles don't get shunted by blasts, and unarmoured vehicles don't seem that effected by near misses, even with 500Ib class bombs. Personnel units on the other hand do seem much less resistant (which is probably to be expected) if a rocket/bomb lands near to them, but vehicles (even completely unarmoured ones) not so much. Aircraft however can be much further away than a ground unit from a blast and take really significant damage/be destroyed completely...

 

This seems to be the extent of DCS' damage model for anything that isn't an aircraft.

 

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In an ideal world, we'd have a dramatically overhauled damage model, with the actual armour accurately simulated, with penetration and post penetration effects accounted for. We don't have to go mental here, we can simplify stuff, if need be.

 

I'll do my best below to try and provide a reasonably comprehensive glimpse how to maybe go about implementing it, though bear in mind I don't know a heck of a lot what I'm talking about.

 

Okay, here goes.

 

For penetration itself, it is just a matter of if penetration value (which should be a function of speed and incident angle) > effective LOS thickness = penetration (the main issue here is going to be how we do the geometric calculations for calculating the effective LOS thickness and the angle of impact).

 

Compositions, and what their effect on a particular type of weapon is (i.e chemical vs kinetic), can simply be a multiplier for the effective LOS RHAe thickness for a particular weapon. For modules that comprise multiple layers, of different compositions, you would probably only need 1 multiplier for the entire module.

 

For instance, with the composite armour we see on MBTs, against APFSDS munitions, the effective thickness, in most cases will essentially the actual LOS thickness of the armour (correct me if I'm wrong), so our multiplier will be close to 1-ish. But for HEAT, composite armour is much more effective, maybe doubling the RHAe thickness against said munitions, so our multiplier will be 2.

 

Then there's post-penetration itself, personally I think the best way of going about it, is by drawing a cone outwards from the impact, starting with the point. The apex angle can be made dependent on the round type, and armour type (for instance a spall liner, should reduce the amount of spalling and fragments, which would mean our cone is narrower).

 

The cone represents a volume, whereby any module inside it has an amount of hitpoints subtracted. The exact amount of hitpoints subtracted should probably be a base value which can be made a function of whatever amount of penetration value the round has left, and the length of the cone/distance from the penetrated point.

 

If you want it to be simplified you could just have a cone whereby any module within the cone be destroyed.

 

Interior modules/systems would each have their own hitboxes, with a certain number of hitpoints; once the hitpoints are depleted, that particular module/system is destroyed and no longer operational. This would allow allow for firepower and mobility kills. The main things to include are probably the cannon breach, elevation and traverse drives/rings, crew members, ammunition, engines, transmission, fuel tanks and electronics (fire control/communications).

 

For things like fuel tanks, spaced armour, and internal armoured bulkheads, you'd probably need to simulate multiple penetration events (probably best using whatever penetration the round has left over), and maybe multiple fragmentation cones.

 

The same thing applies to external components like barrels/launchers, optics/sensors, tracks, antennae and ERA (though in the latter, when the round hits it, you'd have to subtract the penetration value the round has). Slat cages and similar could be approximated as spaced armour, with its own health points.

 

 

The thing is, all of the above is a heck of a lot of work, and would necessitate every single ground vehicle (including the newest ones) undergo a massive overhaul. It would probably also mandate changes to the AI, vehicle physics model, and graphics (for instance modelling damaged external components).

 

Also, the above sounds like a fair bit of number crunching, especially if you consider multiple rounds and multiple vehicles.

 

There's also the problem of fragmentation, you'd almost certainly need to limit the number of fragments created from bombs and rockets, and you'd probably have to skip the cone and just do a straight line (assuming no extra spalling). This might even be the better option for rounds.

 

Suffice to say I strongly doubt any of the above will get implemented any time soon, and it'll probably take at least a higher fidelity/full fidelity vehicle module before we see anything like this, even if it were to be considered.

Edited October 2, 2020 by Northstar98

[stormrider]

Unfortunately, like most things DCS, it's only half-finished.