fixed BTR-82A has weaker armor than BTR-80

[Shadow KT]

Not just weaker, substantially weaker. They are the equivalent of a balloon filled with propane. 

3 track attached. First track shows how a single HE shot from ZSU-57-2 nukes 5 BTR-82s parked next to each other, while doing exactly the same setup against normal BTR-80s, only one is destroyed.

Second track shows how you can shoot the 100mm HE-FRAG shell on the BMP-3 (and its chinese copy), into another vehicle and the explosion, will still cause damage to nearby BTR-82s.

Third track uses the same 100MM HE-FRAG shell and two shots at a distance between 40 to 60 meters, destroy 5 BTR-82s.

 

BTR82 Armor.trkBTR82 Armor II.trkBTR82 Armor III.trk

Edited January 8, 2021 by Shadow KT

[Flappie]

Here's my contribution. Each BTR stands 15m away from an force 15-explosion (same test with a force 25-explosion leaves BTR-80 unscathed).

 

 

I strongly agree with your diagnostic: those BTR-82A must be filled with gas!

BTRs_EXPLOSIONS.trk

[Blinky.ben]

Yep I can kill 5x BTR-82 with one MAV

[RichardG]

.50 cal. will knock out a BTR. in real life. Just saying.

Edited January 10, 2021 by RichardG

[Fri13]

10 minutes ago, RichardG said:

.50 cal. will knock out a BTR. in real life. Just saying.

 

BTR-60 and BTR-70 yes. But BTR-80 and BTR-90 and especially BTR-82 already received the spalling lining and better armor to protect against 12.7 mm. The older BTR's are vulnerable for 12.7 mm caliber even without penetration, because spalling. And you can likely destroy tires as not all have full rubber tires but normal ones. There are various other parts that you don't want to get hit at, like the BTR-82 has the huge autocannon turret with optics and all.

The 12.7 mm caliber is effective at long ranges, challenge is just to hit with it.

 

 

We just currently don't have proper damage modeled. I was hoping that BTR-82 would have been first one to present it on the ground units, allowing to start testing it.

[Blinky.ben]

7 hours ago, RichardG said:

.50 cal. will knock out a BTR. in real life. Just saying.

 

Do you seriously believe they would make a armoured AFV if it only took one .50 cal to make it explode? A .50 cal wouldn’t even wipe out a family street car if It just went through one door and out the other, you would just have a hole in your doors. I get it that in a testing environment it is rated to below what a .50 cal could penetrate but that doesn’t mean it will kill the vehicle. The round has to actually hit something important like a engine block for a mobility kill but the turret will still work. Or get a turret kill but they are all hard to do and it will take a few rounds to go through the armour before it actually brings it to a stop, especially with slanted armour like the front of the BTR-82, a .50 cal is not going to go through that front armour at all unless it’s fired from the sky.

 

But splash damage and blast damage is entirely different. Even if a .50 cal could go through the armour a Maverick exploding a vehicle even 20ft from another vehicle is going to do very little to the other vehicle. At the moment in DCS one Maverick will wipe out a convoy of 5 BTR-82’s just with blast damage which is completely incorrect.

Edited January 10, 2021 by Blinky.ben

[Fri13]

5 hours ago, Blinky.ben said:

But splash damage and blast damage is entirely different. Even if a .50 cal could go through the armour a Maverick exploding a vehicle even 20ft from another vehicle is going to do very little to the other vehicle. At the moment in DCS one Maverick will wipe out a convoy of 5 BTR-82’s just with blast damage which is completely incorrect.

 

Nothing can be done until we get a proper damage modeling to ground vehicles. It would at least require major parts to be like a hull with few compartments (crew, engine, transport, possible ammunition storage and fuel tanks) that are protected by the few different areas (floor for mines, roof, bottom/top sides, front bottom/top, rear), the main elements (tires, tracks, wheels, axles as individual parts, engine coolant, hydraulic systems, batteries etc) for mobility and main elements for combat (turrets, guns, missile launchers), the sensor systems (windshields, windows, vision blocks, hatches, lights, optical targeting cameras, antennas and radars). There should be individual soldiers seats modeled. So there is driver seat, commander seat, a squad leader seat and each squad seat. Even special positions like MANPADS launcher or ATGM launcher positions for the infantry so if they are buttoned up you can kill squad members to their corresponding hatches.

 

We already have a proper kinematic impact calculation system, where DCS calculates each individual bullet trajectories, energy and all, but the effect is simple. It is either a "hit" as kinematic hit (something did hit at this position) or it is an area of effect hit (hit here and that hit damages everything at radius of X meters with damage at origin of Y and damage falloff from origin to end of radius) that is like a High Explosive. That is basically like a old RPG game kind dice rolling. You have weapon that does AOE 5 meters and damage is 150. Then you take the armor that is like "Armor value -45" and then you calculate 150 damage - range - 45 and you get values like "32" and then you take off the 32 from the vehicle 100% health.

 

 

In the future we need the new damage modeling that includes the penetration and armor calculations. So kinematic energy on the bullet hitting a surface at X angle on armor to calculate is it penetration or not. Then check is the armor spalling protected or not, is there enough energy to cause spalling or not, if the penetration happens what is behind the armor and did it hit that.

Every vehicle needs eventually proper statics effects. Engine, transmission, hydraulics, electronics, and wheels/tracks.

Example engine can be operational, damaged so it will lose power or it will die in X period of time or it is destroyed right there.

Batteries or electronics can be damaged so it is lost and electronic systems turns off (mainly is the turret electronically turned or hydraulically) like lights and targeting systems.

How many wheels or tracks needs to be destroyed to get mobility kill.

 That work is more of that you need to program the model, assign the effects and then apply that model to each vehicle parts. That is what makes it faster to program as you make simple diagram kind code (even basic coding would be enough for that) that is used for every ground vehicle, be it a BTR or a Tunguska.

 

Then we would have situations where we can shoot .50 cal on the ground target and get proper effect or no-effect at it as vehicle.

But that is still not enough. It is still just a physics all the way to that point.

 

What we require, is the human factor. Humans are not robots that just work until they die. We need the proper war element and that is the moral system for everyone.

In DCS the main problem in air combat is that no one needs to fear death. No one needs to fear failing their mission or returning back to base intact. There is just no reason to fool around, to take idiotic risks, to just know that it is doomed idea.

I have talked about that previously.

 

 

And is as well applied to AI. Every soldier has basic statics like in some RTS games like famous Close Combat:

 

 

 

You can see the three green bars above each individual soldier. Healthy, Stable, Rested. You can change those conditions to something else like "Healthy" turns to "Hurt", "Injured", "Incapacitated" or "Killed" etc.

 

Example hitting a 12.7 mm caliber on a BTR side when squad is inside, can cause spalling even when not penetrating. The infantry on that side will turn from "Healthy" to "Hurt" or someone even "Injured". The "Stable" moral status change to "Frighten" or "Worried" by most, but injured one becomes "Panic".

 

 

What those does mean? It is just statics for the individual unit that will affect it core values:

Movement speed

Reaction speed

Accuracy to shoot

 

As right now every soldier (RPG, MANPAADS, AKM etc) has all those things alreay. It just should be refined for more fitting.

The unit leader would make decisions to move, hold the ground, advance, attack, retreat etc based how many individual soldiers in unit are changed by the basic rules like 25-30% casualties is no-go. 50% casualties is retreat etc.

The same thing goes for higher hierarchy, a squad leader makes similar way decision that if 2 of 5 squads are not capable continue fight, attack is stopped. The company leader makes decision based platoons so if 3 of 7 are not able continue fight..

 

Eventually even the 12.7 mm caliber turns to be effective weapon as you can suppress a infantry squad or you can put a single BTR to retreat from its position back to cover.

Your each attack and engagement can have negative or even positive effects for the enemy, as they might get more courage to attack even harder when you can't hit them, or they see enemy destroyed, suppressed or crippled.

 

It all starts from so simple small things as "What does a 7.62 or 12.7 mm caliber do at target of X".

 

And this is not heavy for the CPU because this is not happening everywhere on the map at once. The war is not won in a day. In a real time war there is just few individual units that actually are in engagement at the same time. And with proper cheating AI telling what to be simulated more accurately - it actually becomes far easier for the CPU as units behind front line are not to be even considered for such calculations. They just exist there as stored values as their status doesn't change.

 

Even in a mechanized infantry company attacking, their tens of BTR's are not engaged same time on the same second. And with small features like these the combat does slow down, the comes transforming engagements and it creates more time required for attack and so on, and that is what human pilot simulator as flight simulator needs, that there is a reason to fly 40 minutes from the carrier to battlefield to drop a to bombs on JTAC requested targets and positions and return to rearm etc. On next time player loads the mission, it continues from either that position on rearming at carrier or the thing is simulated in minute or two to advance time etc.

 

When 12.7 mm becomes more effective (helicopters and such), one can actually stop or delay some units attack. Make them retreat or so.

And the combat isn't anymore "drop bomb there and here, launch maverick on that" but smaller caliber weapons becomes more useful and important, and larger effective weapons less required.

[BIGNEWY]

Seems fixed internally, hopefully in the next patch