Grenade launcher tickles

[deathbysybian]

 

Are these things meant to kill soft targets?

[Northstar98]

I would've thought they should, bear in mind the ammunition seems to be HE only.

 

Though it might be due to the fact that fragmentation is completely absent in DCS World.

Edited June 19, 2021 by Northstar98

[Hawkeye91]

On 6/19/2021 at 6:38 AM, Northstar98 said:

I would've thought they should, bear in mind the ammunition seems to be HE only.

 

Though it might be due to the fact that fragmentation is completely absent in DCS World.

 

Wags said in the Hind post that they increased shockwave damage to make up for the lack of fragmentation modeling. Maybe they haven’t made a pass at the grenade launchers yet.

[Northstar98]

10 minutes ago, Hawkeye91 said:

Wags said in the Hind post that they increased shockwave damage to make up for the lack of fragmentation modeling. Maybe they haven’t made a pass at the grenade launchers yet.

 

Most weapons were already boosted to compensate, though I don't recall looking at the grenades. That said, for most weapons I remember them being boosted such that the explosive mass was the total warhead mass.

 

Unfortunately they've hidden the .lua files so I can't check them.

[Flappie]

Here are two tracks showing the current damage area of these grenades.

And a short video:

 

 

EDIT: new picture (previous distance was incorrect)

 

EDIT: I would say these grenades currently have a 3 to 4 meters lethal radius.

 

Hind_nade1.trk Hind_nade2.trk

 

Edited June 28, 2021 by Flappie

[QuiGon]

7 hours ago, Flappie said:

I would say these grenades currently have a 1.5 to 2 meters lethal radius.

 

Or in other words: They are utterly useless...

 

I really hope ED will implement a proper fragmentation simulation soon. This is a huge issue in many areas in DCS

[WinterH]

They've been in DCS forever with Mi-8, and they are as useless as ever. Damage radius of just about everything is bit of a joke in DCS yes, but these are something else  a few meters off of an infantry dude, and they may not even get a scratch

On 6/22/2021 at 1:09 AM, Hawkeye91 said:

Wags said in the Hind post that they increased shockwave damage to make up for the lack of fragmentation modeling. Maybe they haven’t made a pass at the grenade launchers yet.

Yeah as far as I can see that compensation ain't doing much, if anything. Even bigger rockets just tickle soft targets with anything but a direct hit for the most part.

[Flappie]

5 minutes ago, WinterH said:

They've been in DCS forever with Mi-8, and they are as useless as ever. Damage radius of just about everything is bit of a joke in DCS yes, but these are something else  a few meters off of an infantry dude, and they may not even get a scratch

 

The question is: was the real weapon more efficient? Do we know the size of these grenades? Are they as big as hand grenades? Bigger? Smaller?

[Fri13]

I think that ED has protection for infantry as they only stand, can't get in cover. So they simulate soldiers being crawling on ground by the low damage values across weapons.

 

Those grenades are like hand grenades. Lethal from 5-15 meters and nicely wounds for 30-50 meters if hit. You can have fragments to fly far further but are they wounding or would they hit anyone is questionable.

 

Because fragments ain't simulated, it is more like 3-5 meters effective radius.

3 minutes ago, Flappie said:

 

The question is: was the real weapon more efficient? Do we know the size of these grenades? Are they as big as hand grenades? Bigger? Smaller?

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGS-30

 

If I remeber correctly, those same grenades are used in it. 

[WinterH]

3 minutes ago, Flappie said:

The question is: was the real weapon more efficient? Do we know the size of these grenades? Are they as big as hand grenades? Bigger? Smaller?

A cursory look online seems to suggest that the basic, unenhanced VOG-17M round available for these has an effective radius of 6m. And enhanced fragmentation options are available apparently, like VOG-30. Did soldiers beyond the ones that died took any damage in your test? Doesn't look like it but wasn't shown in the video.

 

Quite honestly, at this point I have absolutely no shame in directly assuming "DCS modeling is wrong" in these weapon damage related issues

[Fri13]

18 minutes ago, WinterH said:

A cursory look online seems to suggest that the basic, unenhanced VOG-17M round available for these has an effective radius of 6m. And enhanced fragmentation options are available apparently, like VOG-30.

 

Those radius values are fairly heavily understated to improve the capabilities. If you tell someone that lethal radius is 20 meters, then they expect everyone to die inside 20 meters, even if there is then only a 10% change to happen so. Why you give them the average aiming and hit probability and considering the cover and all, you give them a values that are closer to 80-90% than 30-50%. 

 

This cause the common problem in all kind games and such that values are taken as mathematical proof and middle finger is given for physics.

We can take the normal inverse square law and have a very good understanding of the fragmentation spread in hypothetically perfect scenario (lets give a specific density of specific fragments sizes and velocity) and get a good estimation of the spread for various distances like 2-4-8-16-32 meters. We could implemented that with a mathematical value for target size that makes it probability based instead just "inside" or "outside" of specific simple mathematical ring. 

[Flappie]

1 hour ago, WinterH said:

Did soldiers beyond the ones that died took any damage in your test? Doesn't look like it but wasn't shown in the video.

Good question. The answer is yes.

 

Another important point: distance was wrong in my initial drawing. Here's a new one with correct distances and life bars:

 

 

[WinterH]

Well that looks ok then (grumbles)

[QuiGon]

2 hours ago, WinterH said:

Well that looks ok then (grumbles)

 

Indeed, that's definitely not as bad as initially shown.

[Flappie]

Yes, this seems pretty accurate to me as well (the link posted by Fri13 reminded me of this lethal weapon mounted on UAZ in ArmA 1: bad memories when I was playing blue, but also very good memories when I was playing red!).

 

This weapon is just so hard to aim with from a fast moving vehicle... I've only used it in DCS for training purpose.

[Fri13]

I think it would be OK if the sight system would actually show where the grenades would approximately fall.

 

Tested it today and at about 800 meters the CCIP was on the target and grenades did fly 300-400 meters over the targets. This from a 150 meters altitude in shallow dive from 500 meters at 2500 m or so. It is just easiest thing to eye the target range and shoot short bursts to confirm the range and then go by the hip in final moment at 1000 meters or so.

 

If you manage to get the grenades close at the targets, then it is effective, but that is the  problem as it is so super accurate that grenades hit so tiny area and often misses. 

 

[Nealius]

Those infantry units with the yellow or red levels of health left: How much mobility/fighting potential do they have? That's one thing I've always wondered, and I don't think I've seen anyone test how effective a unit is at moving or fighting when its health is that low. Most experiments get bogged down in the minutiae of blast radii and frag patterns, but don't address the threat level of a highly damaged unit in the game.

Edited June 30, 2021 by Nealius

[Flappie]

I'm pretty sure a wounded DCS infantry unit is as much effective as an unscathed DCS infantry, but you can test this to be sure.

 

The new damage model is progressively being applied to all DCS units, but it's a slow process since there are so many units out there. It started with WWII aircraft. The all playable aircraft will get it, then ships and vehicles. But I don't know if ED plans on giving infantry a damage model as well. That's an excellent question to ask Nick Grey or Wags in a future AMA.

[WinterH]

18 minutes ago, Flappie said:

I'm pretty sure a wounded DCS infantry unit is as much effective as an unscathed DCS infantry, but you can test this to be sure.

I was pretty sure that after a certain bit of damage units progressively: slowed down, become unable to shoot, become unable to move. But sometimes they seem to randomly ignore this. Should test it more throughly when I get the chance.

BTW, do we know if infantry runs out of ammo or not?

[Flappie]

2 minutes ago, WinterH said:

BTW, do we know if infantry runs out of ammo or not?

 

Yes, they do. I've discovered this in a recent bug report where one specific infantry unit couldn't rearm while others could. Here you go: https://forums.eagle.ru/topic/269097-ai-m4-infantry-units-not-rearming-from-supply-trucks/

Edited June 30, 2021 by Flappie

[Nealius]

1 hour ago, WinterH said:

I was pretty sure that after a certain bit of damage units progressively: slowed down, become unable to shoot, become unable to move. But sometimes they seem to randomly ignore this

 I've experienced the same, particularly with AAA units like the WW2 assets flak. Healthbar down in the red and they're still bursting flak within 70m of my aircraft.

[QuiGon]

On 6/30/2021 at 9:49 AM, WinterH said:

I was pretty sure that after a certain bit of damage units progressively: slowed down, become unable to shoot, become unable to move.

 

That's what I thought as well. I'm not sure if this is true for infantry as well, but I've seen ground vehicles becomming much less effective when severly damaged. I think they react slower and become more inaccurate and they definitely move slower, which even applies to player controlled vehicles when using Combined Arms IIRC.

[WinterH]

Been wanting to test these for some days now, but been too swamped in work lately.

[Fri13]

7 minutes ago, QuiGon said:

 

That's what I thought as well. I'm not sure if this is true for infantry as well, but I've seen ground vehicles becomming much less effective when severly damaged. I think they react slower and become more inaccurate and they definitely move slower, which even applies to player controlled vehicles when using Combined Arms IIRC.

There are basic changes like that. But nothing dramatic.

 

 

[QuiGon]

22 minutes ago, Fri13 said:

There are basic changes like that. But nothing dramatic.

 

Those changes can be quite dramatic, as it can render a unit pretty much combat ineffective when it has recieved sufficent damage.