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realistic rocket dispersion ?? rocket smoke?


Rick50

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So having seen many videos lately of the Hind in action, I notice that unlike the rockets in DCS, real Russian HIND rockets seem to put out dark black or gray-ish smoke, not the pure white smoke in DCS. Any chance of that being changed for realism?

 

 

A second observation: rockets in DCS seem to be really quite accurate at distance, seems to be little dispersion... just aim it right, get the trajectory right, and you are golden. But in footage of HIND's in action in the real world, you can visibly see from burst firing rockets, it's very much more "area", some are diverging by seemingly a couple of degrees right out of the tubes. Meaning, MUCH more dispersion than from an autocannon...

 

Are there some rockets that are MUCH more accurate than others, among HIND operators worldwide? Or are they all seemingly having more spread than a shotgun?

 

How do we feel about asking for realistic rocket accuracy dispersion, if it means having to fly quite close to a vehicle to be certain to hit it with rockets? I think I'd want realism, because changes in tactics occur with realistic results in the real world. Or to put it another way, sniping away at a convoy of trucks, one unguided rocket at a time at 1km, doesn't seem realistic, so maybe the values in the sim should reflect the reality and prevent such behavior in the first place.

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One large issue with rockets (an all explosive weapons) in DCS is the absence of fragmentation damage. Many real world rockets are efficient even if no direct hit due to neutralizing an area around the striking point. High dispersion might actually be a good thing IRL, but not in DCS.

The inclusion of fragmentation damage has to come before higher dispersion, even if the latter would be realistic.

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But... that wouldn't be realistic, keeping it as is.

 

Nor would it even appear realistic.

 

I mean, I see your point about frag patterns... but even without that being reformed, I think it's important to have rockets on the Hind and others feature wide dispersion and black smoke, instead of snipershots with white smoke.

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The smoke in this video looks pretty white to me. The color could depend on a number of factors such as atmospheric conditions or specific rocket or rocket fuel type, but at least some of the time the smoke is white.

 

Also... Holy cow, that cannon is a beast.

 

As for the dispersion, it can be pretty significant if you're shooting from a level flight or very shallow dive (or even in a climb, like the Russians seem to be doing in Syria) or a lot less significant if you're shooting in a steep dive. When I'm shooting from the Mi-8 I typically get a much larger spread then when I shoot the same rockets from a Su-25, mostly because of the dive angle. Not saying the current spread is necessary right, but keep that in mind.

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Hmm. Yea, in the video you posted, it does seem more grey to me, but with the overcast lighting, it might seem lighter colored than the surroundings. But you bring up a good point I'd not considered: lighting may have a huge impact on the color of the rocket smoke. The footage of Hind rockets from Afghanistan in the last few years, and also Syria, show that at least some rockets have a very clear black smoke... but is that simply a lot of sun showing the smoke with a different appearance?!?

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Realistic dispersion patterns would indeed be really cool to have, not only on the Hind. But a realistic damage system really is mandatory to be implemented before that step can be taken.

 

 

Mandatory? Hmm. I'll disagree: IMO the point of simulations is not to gain points or "klls" on trucks, but rather to simulate, as best we can, reality. Ok so the frag damage is not realistic, and will need to come later. But dispersion is (seemingly to me, I'm no coder, nor do I make simulations) simple to implement now. And dispersion should be real if we are to consider it "simulation" even minus the damage model being correct.

 

Not trying to pick a fight, but for me, it's not about how many units are destroyed by the end of the mission, but whether it's realistic that the rockets are sniper rifles instead of shotguns, because the effective distance at which you'll even engage an enemy is VASTLY different between the two. If it's super mega accurate at very long ranges, the sim pilot will develop ways to use that accuracy... and further stray from realism, stray away from what real Hind pilots would do when using unguided rockets. Maybe they have to close within 500m to ensure the CHANCE of a hit on a truck, or even closer.

 

The accuracy of rockets would dictate the tactics, to some degree: if they are not accurate, then a pop-up diving attack might start just 1km from the enemy, or even closer, while a very accurate rocket pop-up may well start 4km or even further.

 

All that said, a component of that would be frag damage, because if you are too close to the truck with your rockets, in the real world you may well take frag damage from your own rockets 'sploding. Maybe not much damage... but even beasts like the Hind and Apache, with modest armor and good design, at the end of the day they are still vulnerable helicopters, very vulnerable to damage to components. So I agree that frag damage should definately be a mandatory goal, I'd only disagree that we need that at the same time as dispersion gets implemented. (If ever!)

 

Seeing that video also really emphasizes the amount of recoil that 30mm has at full rate of fire! Sure, the slow shots look like the heli isn't bothered by it at all, but in rapid, it really seems to push the nose downward quite a lot! :cry:

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Depends if you're after appearances or outcomes.

 

In reality, in a rockets run on some soft targets reasonably close to each other you should be able to kill a few things on a pass...

 

Without fragmentation, you have to either hit even a soft target, or hit very close to it for it to die (& if it doesn't outright die, it will continue on as if undamaged until it does).

 

Without dispersion, you get a higher density of rockets on the ground, and so in the target area get a reasonably good kill pattern, but over a much smaller area than you'd expect.

 

With dispersion, you'd just get (essentially) nothing happening but smoke generation over a bigger area. The odds ofanything being killed would be very low.

 

Dispersion without fragmentation would look more real, but have an even less realistic outcome than we have now.

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Depends if you're after appearances or outcomes.

 

In reality, in a rockets run on some soft targets reasonably close to each other you should be able to kill a few things on a pass...

 

Without fragmentation, you have to either hit even a soft target, or hit very close to it for it to die (& if it doesn't outright die, it will continue on as if undamaged until it does).

 

Without dispersion, you get a higher density of rockets on the ground, and so in the target area get a reasonably good kill pattern, but over a much smaller area than you'd expect.

 

With dispersion, you'd just get (essentially) nothing happening but smoke generation over a bigger area. The odds ofanything being killed would be very low.

 

Dispersion without fragmentation would look more real, but have an even less realistic outcome than we have now.

 

+1 on this.

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Also, "killing" a unit means in DCS (and in most simulators, in fact) takes unrealistically much. For instance, most unarmored trucks could be put out of commission by two bullets: one to the engine, one to the driver. Fragments from one hand grenade, or a 30mm cannon round hitting a meter or two away, could do that as well, and maim the passengers too, depending on where exactly it goes off. Physical damage won't be apparent, especially from the air, but the truck will be totaled. However, scripting triggers in all simulators so far (except ArmA, if the script's author is any good) usually require you to reduce your target to a pile of burning scrap in order to count it as "dead". While this does simplify the BDA, it makes explosive weapons much less effective than they should be.

 

I hope the new damage model will also provide a way of addressing that, because it has a chance of making vehicles (particularly armor) more resistant to spectacular explosions, but more capable of being crippled. Even now, you can shoot up a tank so much its turret locks up. That's a mission kill, all right, but the sim will neither score you for it nor will the triggers acknowledge the crippled vehicle as no longer a threat.

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Regarding rocket dispersion... Unlike bullets, rockets accelerate in flight... it takes a second or two for them to get up to full speed...

 

Rockets fired from helicopters are usually fired at much lower air speeds (e.g. 500 km/h lower) than those fired from a fixed wing aircraft. Any rocket which relies on aerodynamic stabilisation will have less air flowing over it during its first few moments of flight and less stabilisation.

 

Rockets fired from helicopters are also initially flying through turbulent rotor-wash.

 

So one initially has an under-stabilised rocket, flying through turbulent air, while it is accelerating itself... and any small deviation at the beginning of the trajectory matters a lot more than it does near the end of the rocket's flight.

 

This all adds up to the fact that rockets fired from helicopters often have much higher dispersion than the same rocket would have fired from a fixed wing aircraft - something like up to two and a half times more dispersion if I recall correctly (although someone should really look up the numbers).

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I feel that the rocket dispersion is not a bad thing, after all we want is an area weapon against infantry and light vehicles. Only problem is that in DCS we lack the frag damage and better vehicle damage model, so rocket in game effectivity is reduced.

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  • 3 months later...
On 10/15/2020 at 9:49 PM, Stratos said:

....... Only problem is that in DCS we lack the frag damage and better vehicle damage model, so rocket in game effectivity is reduced.

 

This! Until ED sort out the area of effect weapon damage from rockets and cannons etc, aircraft like Hind are pretty pointless in DCS doing what they are supposed to do.

 

A 30mm round doesn't need to hit you to kill you, and seeing nil effect on nearby soft targets and troops 'walking it off' after a rocket salvo is just rubbish.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The rocket dispersion is determined by the speed of the helicopter, if your going fast there wil be minimal spread, whereas if your slow the spread will be much greater. There is decent dispersion in DCS at the moment, they might tinker with it later on, who knows.  Howevever I agree that the smoke effects do need work, but one thing to remember is that weather conditions effect the look of the smoke. So you might see a certain colour ploom of smoke emmiting from the rockets in a video, whereas that might not be accurate for such case in another climate. 

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