Bomb Testing

[Caldera]

Hey all,

 

I have attached one file.  It is a mission file.  Take a look if you want.

 

I watched a video made by the Grim Reapers that had to do with bomb splash damage.  It surprised me quite a bit.  I decided to do my own testing.  I tested the CBU-103, the CBU-105, the GBU-38 and a version of the GBU-31 (top one on my list). 

 

My weapon test range is set up for rapid and consistent repeatability.  I only made 3-10 passes with each weapon, just to get a feel for them.

 

Hit Ranges:

Bomb               Infantry               Un-Armored               Armored               MBT T-55

GBU-38          250                      50                                50                        Nada

GBU-31          450                      100                               125                      Nada

 

Kill Ranges:

GBU-38          175                      25                                25                        Nada

GBU-31          300                      25                               50                         Nada

 

You had better pretty much shack the tanks to do any damage.  On my range the closest tank is at 25 feet.

 

I also discovered that the GBU-38 and GBU-31 are not the all conquering weapons that I thought that they were.  I saw quite a few attempts miss by at least 25 feet, especially the GBU-31.  I mean, they could miss my center target and it would survive.  I kept at it though and only counted the data when they shacked the center target.

 

I  can not explain the kill radius of Un-Armored vs Armored, but that is how It came out so far.

 

Kill Range CBU-105 HOF@1800:

1 bomb   300-350      2 bombs   450-500      3 bombs   500-550        4 bombs   no improvement

 

The CBU's are a different story.  The CBU-103 is basically return to sender and you should use the GBU-38 instead.  The CBU-105 must be a gift from Tony Stark.  The CBU-105 did kill the T-55's, but often these kills were delayed.  Everything else pretty much was killed instantly.

 

I need to test the CBU-103 at different HOF values possibly, no weapon should be that bad especially vs infantry at the default HOF value.  At least one time I got zero hits and zero kills.  I could not believe that, so I tested quite a few more times.  It never got very much better.

 

I tested the CBU-105 at all HOF altitudes, basically it seems that 1500 & 1800 are the sweet spots.  At 300 or 3000 your are just flak bait.  The other HOF's are mildly effective diminishing returns the farther you get from 1500 or 1800.

 

I also discovered that it is better to attack the south end of a south bound donkey.  What I mean by that for example, if a convoy is on a road traveling south.  Then if possible, attack from the south and target (SPI) a vehicle close to the front vehicle.  For some reason my testing indicated that the kill range was longer if the bomb overflew the convoy.  It seems the CBU-105 has a more effective kill range backwards to flight.

 

A quick question if some one has a minute.  The CCIP pipper for bombs, guns or rockets will blank out the SPI box on the ground when it goes over it.

 

Is there a way for this not to happen so that the SPI box would always be visible?

 

Caldera

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TRN-MSN2.miz

Edited January 18, 2021 by Caldera

[silverdevil]

@Caldera i have reading several posts that the GPS bombs currently have an accuracy issue. the CBU 103 and 105 are GPS versions of the 87 and 97. with that in mind the 87/103 are for soft targets. 97/105 are for hard targets. the damage models are off too according to other posts. i have seen it. i have also seen things seem to work right. yesterday i was in a mission and killed some armored targets (brdm or t72) with mavs. these targets were surrounded with troops. when i hit the armor many of the troops around it were killed too. and one last point to remember that sometimes even with a little damage on an object will render it non-mission capable. not dead. that would of course be a problem if part of the mission success is based on objects being destroyed.

 

i do not know about the pipper masking issue. i see that too. i essentially use kentucky windage. i have lots of experience in other sims that are WW2 based. there is usually no aim-bot assist for bombs.

[Caldera]

OK...

 

I need to take it back what I said about the CBU-103.  I re-tried my test at the default HOF=1800 today.  I was mostly able to drop 5 bombs in one pass, but a couple of times I managed to get 6 off the rails.

 

CBU-103 HOF=1800 @ 5 bombs:

Result               Infantry               Un-Armored               Armored               MBT T-55

Hit                    450                      350                             250                        Nada

Kill                    450                      350                             250                        Nada

 

I used 5 bombs per run and they will take out 100% of the infantry out to at least 450 feet.  They are sort of spotty on taking out the un-armored and armored vehicles, but they often do it. 

 

What I was doing wrong my first try yesterday was that I was so disappointed in the performance that I was rushing to retry.  I found out that waiting a few moments there were indeed later kills by secondary explosions to un-armored and armored vehicles.

 

From my observation, I did notice however that the kill density in the kill area vs vehicles was a little un-expected.   What happened was that the kill density occurred basically with a vehicles in the center area.  The vehicles at the middle radius were spared.  But largely, the vehicles that were nearer to the outer edge of the kill radius were destroyed.  Also too mention, it appeared that these vehicles kills were often the ones which were delayed.  Maybe just the RNG in the 5-10 runs I made?   I do not know.

 

In my opinion, I would still use the CBU-105 / GBU-38 or even the CBU-97 / Mk82 in a tight ripple release.

 

Caldera

[silverdevil]

have you reviewed any of the test missions in TACVIEW? i seem to remember watching a track when i dropped more than 1 at a time and the bomblets destroyed each other. after all they are magnetically directed and they happen to have magnetic properties. maybe that is why such a low kill rate?

Edited January 20, 2021 by silverdevil

[Caldera]

Silver,

 

I will try that.  You are talking about the GBU-103 correct?

 

Caldera

[Caldera]

CBU-103

 

I did six runs @ 1 bomb each run.

 

 

H = Hit

K = Kill

 

             Infantry                                              Un-Armed Vehicle

Range  H K   H K   H K   H K   H K   H K        H K   H K   H K   H K   H K   H K

0                                                                                       X X

25                 X X

50                 X X                      X

75                                            X X

100                        X X            X      X X

125                        X X            X X

150                                         X

175

200                        X X                                                               X X

250     X

300

350              X X                     X X        

400                              X X

450                             X                                                             X X

500                      X      

 

This testing is not really worth the effort.  Additional runs that I did not record showed similar, but not exactly the same results.  None the less, with the use of a single CBU-103 the area of effect is very spotty.  All of the vehicles died after a delay.  Infantry can be hit and not be killed.

 

I have zero clues as to how well this relates to the actual CBU-103 performance.  But, if do drop CBU-103's (CBU-87's) in this game then I am going to drop at least two, probably four.  Best to be pretty sure of my target configuration.  Allot of weight and drag for the performance of the ordnance.

 

However...

 

Watching videos of the real CBU-87, the attack is often made with multiple bombs.  The ones I watched dropped 4 per pass with with two sorties  The results looked not conducive to biological life and could be extremely effective.  I don't think that the bomblets destroy each other.  i think their effect becomes purely additive.

 

Caldera

 

Edited January 20, 2021 by Caldera

[silverdevil]

i really have no evidence because i could not find the videos i mentioned but i distinctively remember remember something on the order of BLU destroyed by BLU blah blah. i do not scour the tracks that often.

 

have a look at this. the is RL and may not be what DCS does. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/wcmd.htm

[Caldera]

Here is one video.  I think it is kind of dated, back when only the F-16 could drop them.

 

CBU-87

 

Caldera

Edited January 23, 2021 by Caldera

[silverdevil]

@Caldera there is a mission i got from user files that has an A-10 flight tasked with CAS saving some hostages. enemy ground units are guarding the hostages in an enclave. then friendlies attack the camp. they ask for assistance from the A-10s. a little bit later a B-52 drops a bunch of MK-20s. they are on target and the spectacle is pretty cool. not CBUs but similar effect. my point i guess is not all the munitions have issues w ith destroying targets. i am unsure of the author but here it is if you want to try it.

ISIS_CRISIS_Mission_2_SP_no_mods.miz

 

EDIT: forgot to mention to change AC type to the C2

Edited January 23, 2021 by silverdevil

[silverdevil]

i found an example of where munitions kill each other and what sort of damage they do to ground troops

 

[Caldera]

Silver,

 

The TacView display did not come out so well.  I will take your word for it.

 

How do I play your miz file?

 

Caldera

[silverdevil]

 

10 hours ago, Caldera said:

Silver,

 

The TacView display did not come out so well.  I will take your word for it.

 

How do I play your miz file?

 

Caldera

@Caldera go into your saved games\dcs folder. there is another folder called missions. save the MIZ files there. then open it up with mission editor and make changes.

 

 

the tacview screenshot clearly shows 05:37:46 'MK-20 has been hit 7 times by MK-20' in one entry. further down there are more. i even saw (not shown in the screenie i shared) a cbu-97 and a gbu-12 destroying each other.

[Caldera]

OK thanks!

 

I was thinking that a miz file was for playback.

 

Caldera

[Caldera]

Hey All,

 

This old thread is resurrected!

 

One of the first things I did when I started playing the A-10C was bomb testing.  And probably a review for many folks. 

 

Practicing with MK-82's, the lower and closer I go the more accurate the impact is.  This is especially important for tanks that must be hit within a 25 foot radius.

 

So for this test I used a GBU-12 for high accuracy on target.  My target was a Russian APC set at various distances from a Russian A-10C.  I wanted to find out the splash damage range vs aircraft.  This is so I would know how low I could actually drop MK-82's and not catch my tail feathers in the blast.  Doing so often results in the instantaneous loss of both engines.  Among other things...

 

The results I got were very similar to dropping the same bomb at the same distance from infantry.

 

Basically:

Infantry can be hit, but not killed at 250 feet.  They will most often be killed at 225 feet.

An A-10C can be hit and killed at 225 feet, but will be left untouched at 250 feet.

 

So what I got out of this is that I can drop low drag MK-82's at 250 AGL (depending on air speed and dive angle) and I should be dropping high drag MK-82's below that.  Depending upon the attack profile (diving or low level toss) the difference in fragging my own back side vs hitting the ground using low or high drop bombs is practically mute.  However, the low drag bombs seem like they should be more accurate in a dive.

 

Sound about right?

 

Caldera

[Caldera]

Hey All;

 

I just noticed that THIS THREAD got moved to General Bugs.  I am not sure exactly why, but maybe because I had put some info about the JDAM's and their accuracy at the time.  To my knowledge those weapons are now working correctly.  However, I put allot of good information in that thread that got pigeon holed in a Bugs thread.

 

I continue to test using my weapon test range and I am currently working on rockets.  For accuracy I am using APKWS.

 

So there is a weird thing here.  One would think that the HE would have a larger splash radius than the AP, because they are HE.  However, that does not appear to be the case. 

 

Infantry are spaced at 25 feet.  With the HE rocket, one is killed (the target) and the two adjacent are wounded up to 86%  With the AP rocket all three are killed.

 

Unarmed Vehicles are spaced at 25 feet.  With the HE rocket, one is killed (the target) and the two adjacent are undamaged.  With the AP rocket the target is killed the two adjacent may be damaged up to 50%.

 

BTR-80 are spaced at 25 feet.  With the HE rocket, one is killed (the target) via BDA and the two adjacent are undamaged.  With the AP rocket the target is killed the two adjacent are undamaged.

 

I have not finished testing to see if the firing range has any effect.

 

Caldera