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M-282L Laser-guided armour-piercing rocket: has it lost its teeth?


LeCuvier

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I've been away from the A-1ßC-II for a long time. When the laser-uided rockets became available they quickly became my favourite weapon against IFV's, APC's, Shilkas and any other lightly armoured vehicles. They were highly effective and killed even the BMP-3 mostly with a single strike.
Today I decided to refresh my skills with the hog, and I find that even the BMP-2 often requires multiple hits in order to disable it. It seems that the armour-piercing capabilöity of the M-282L has been downgraded.
Now I'm wondering whether the original lethality was unrealistically hihj and has been corrected downward, or the current "weakness" is an "accident". Can someone with knowledge clarify please?

Edit: I did some more testing, using M-151L rockets against the same kind of targets. To my surprise, I find that the M-151L repeatably kills a BMP-3 with 2 hits. It does as well as a M-282L. This does not look right to me. The BMP-3 has fairly solid armour I believe, and it should require armour-piercing wareheads for a kill. The way it looks to me, there is no significant difference between the two types of rockets in terms of lethality for IFV's and that does not seem right.


Edited by LeCuvier

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vor 1 Stunde schrieb Mike_Romeo:

DCS doesnt have realistic damage models. Ground units uses health bar system and missile lonly do 2 kind of damage which is all not enough for realistic damage models.

Just because you see a health bar doesn't mean it is the only "damage" modeled... Ever wondered, what that "critical" in the BDA overlay is for?

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This is something I really wish DCS would do better rather than a health bar. When the Air Force talks about killing something there’s different categories of kills. Mobility kill, functional kill, firepower kill, catastrophic kill. I’d guess a single AGR 20 could get one of those on a BMP but there’s a much lower probability of a catastrophic kill than the other types. 

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2 hours ago, shagrat said:

Just because you see a health bar doesn't mean it is the only "damage" modeled... Ever wondered, what that "critical" in the BDA overlay is for?

in my experience, "critical" typically means it's going to blow up a minute or two later...

FWIW, I have noticed occasionally requiring 2 M282L's to take out BMPs, BTR-80's, SA-9's and other light armor that used to be insta-kill with one M282L

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vor 2 Stunden schrieb jaylw314:

in my experience, "critical" typically means it's going to blow up a minute or two later...

FWIW, I have noticed occasionally requiring 2 M282L's to take out BMPs, BTR-80's, SA-9's and other light armor that used to be insta-kill with one M282L

The first time I noticed mobility damage effects on vehicles was when NTTR was the only other map, than Caucasus... Just saying. 😎

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16 hours ago, Yurgon said:

Last Thursday I killed 2 BTR-80 (or BTR-82A?) with one laser guided M282 each, so that felt pretty normal. I think I once read on Discord that the anti-armor performance of the M282 was tuned down, but so far I haven't personally witnessed it.

The BTR-80 is probably a very lightly armoured vehicle, and it takes only one hit to kill it. The difference is when you engage BMP-2 or BMP-3. I used to kill (kill meaning total destruction, cook up and explode) those with a single M282L hit, and that doesn't work any more. Yesterday I hit a BMP-2 with 2 successive M282L and it continued firing at me. That seems totally unrealistic to me. Even if a single hit does not make it cook up and explode, it should be sufficient to disable it.


Edited by LeCuvier

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I have gone through several additional missions to get a better picture. One can argue that the original super performance of the M282L was unrealistic and it was corrected to be more realistic. But the fact that the M151L is as successful as the M282L when used against BMP2/BMP3 does not seem realistic.
This is the picture I'm getting, always looking at targets like BMP-2 and BMP-3:
1. The M282L sometimes but rarely achieves a single-hit kill, and sometimes 2 hits do not disable it.
2. The M151L mostly achieves a "86% damaged" (which means that the vehicle has become a passive target that can be easily killed with guns) from 1 or 2 hits.
 

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On 11/27/2022 at 1:16 AM, shagrat said:

The first time I noticed mobility damage effects on vehicles was when NTTR was the only other map, than Caucasus... Just saying. 😎

You can't specifically damage single systems on ground vehicles. There's only the overall damage, which has an effect on the units effectiveness, so if it is 80% damaged it will loose 80% of it's max speed, reaction time and accuracy (I'm actually not sure if it is a 1:1 relation between overall damage and decreased unit effectiveness, but it's definitely a direct relation).

The critical in the BRA info just indicates that the unit recieved enough damage to blow up as @jaylw314 said.

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The moderator has marked the thread with "missing track", so I play the game and do a systematic test. I created a mission with 10 BMP-2 as targets. The A-10C II carries 42 each M151L and M282L. I flew the mission twice. First run I used M282L only, and in the second run M151L only. I saved tracks of both and I also have the Tacview files. I evaluated the first run replaying the track. But I found that after the 8th target the track no longer reproduced the true action. So I used the Tacview records to capture the attacks on the last two targets. Herte are the results:

  Using M282L       Using M151L  
Target Hits to K.O. Weapon Remark   Target Hits to K.O. Weapon Remark
1 1 M282L     1 1 M151L damaged 86%
2 4 M282L     2 1 M151L damaged 86%
3 1 M282L     3 1 M151L damaged 86%
4 6 M282L     4 1 M151L damaged 86%
5 1 M282L     5 1 M151L damaged 86%. Killed with 2nd Hydra
6 1 M282L     6 1 M151L damaged 86%
7 9 M282L 5th rocket fell short   7 1 M151L damaged 86%
8 1 M282L     8 1 M151L damaged 86%
9 4 M282L  Track is invalid, using Tacview data 9 1 M151L damaged 86%
10 2 M282L     10 1 M151L damaged 86%
           

"Hits to K.O." is the number of hits it takes to knock the target out so it can no longer fight.
There is a difference in the way the two different Hydras are treated.
1. When you replay the track for the M282L and look at the debrief information you see that many hits that you witnessed in the track are not recorded as hits in the debrief. They are however recorded in Tacview. The hits not recorded in the debrief do not produce any damage in the target and do not affect its ability to fight. This explains the large number of hits required to destroy some of the BMP's.
You have to really kill the BMP (critical damage) in order to disable it.
It took 30 hits to K.O. the 10 BMP's.
2. The M151L disables the BMP with a single hit in all cases, resulting in "damaged 86%". At this damage level the BMP is totally unable to fight. You can just leave it there or give it the coup de grâce with a short gun burst.
It took 10 hits to K.O. the 10 BMP's.

My conclusion: the M151L is currently 3 times more effective against armoured targets like IFV's than the M282L.
This does not seem realistic. It would mean that the M282L has no reason for being.

The track files are too big for uploading to the forum. I will upload them to my OneDrive and add the link here.

Here is the link to my OneDrive folder with the two track files: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AmGPVJpzF_Q4mFRmHoXqP6__bUsp?e=wgYmoh

I'd appreciate if a moderator could clear out the empty lines below. They were caused by pasting data from Excel.

               


 

               
                 
                 
                 
                 
                 
                 
                 
               
                 
               
             
                 
                 
                 
                 
                 
                 
                 
                 
                 
               
                 
   
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       

 

Tacview-20221127-232520-DCS-BMP-2 Shooting Range M282L.zip.acmi Tacview-20221128-131405-DCS-BMP-2 Shooting Range M151L.zip.acmi


Edited by LeCuvier
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LeCuvier

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vor 15 Stunden schrieb QuiGon:

You can't specifically damage single systems on ground vehicles. There's only the overall damage, which has an effect on the units effectiveness, so if it is 80% damaged it will loose 80% of it's max speed, reaction time and accuracy (I'm actually not sure if it is a 1:1 relation between overall damage and decreased unit effectiveness, but it's definitely a direct relation).

The critical in the BRA info just indicates that the unit recieved enough damage to blow up as @jaylw314 said.

Yes, of course the damage taken is a direct relation to the damage effects.

And, yes, as there is no system modeling with ray tracing to determine components hit for a couple hundred ground units in realtime... There is a very basic "simulation" of damage effects. One very noticeable is mobility.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/26/2022 at 7:15 PM, shagrat said:

Just because you see a health bar doesn't mean it is the only "damage" modeled... Ever wondered, what that "critical" in the BDA overlay is for?

The only other thing that's considered is an abstracted armour layout for some vehicles. When I say abstracted, I mean it considers the armour layout in terms of front/side/rear for the hull and turret and maybe a couple of others (such as the cupola), the actual armour layout isn't considered (let alone something that's volumetric etc). The values it uses seem to be approximate RHAe against KE projectiles.

As for critical damage in the BDA overlay, all that means is that the healthbar has been depleted and the vehicle is burning and is about to explode - there is no component level damage model of any degree, it is purely a healthbar based system.


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In LUA, the M151 has 1.04 kg explosive mass, with a 1.33 Coefficent in direct hit and blast radius. So 1.38 kg effectively. 
 

the 282 has .4 kg with a 1.17 Coefficent on both as well, Giving you 0.47 kg effectively. So M151 is over twice the strength. 
 

By comparison, the 229 has a 2.18 kg explosive mass with 1.33 Coefficent, giving you 2.9 kg effectiveness. So 229 has over twice the effectiveness of M151

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@AeriaGloria: As far as I know, the destructive power of armour-piercing projectiles is not derived from the mass of explosives alone. The M282 has a penetrator warhead which allows it to penetrate light armour like that of IFV's and create havoc from the inside. So comparing just the mass of explosive neglects a major piece of the equation.

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12 hours ago, LeCuvier said:

@AeriaGloria: As far as I know, the destructive power of armour-piercing projectiles is not derived from the mass of explosives alone. The M282 has a penetrator warhead which allows it to penetrate light armour like that of IFV's and create havoc from the inside. So comparing just the mass of explosive neglects a major piece of the equation.

In the LUA, there is a cumulative value for armor penetration. A figure of 1.0, is 1000mm penetration. For example, Hellfire is 1.2, for 1200mm armor penetration. If armor penetrated is les a then armor penetration value, then often a 2-4x bonus is applied, 3x in case of hellfire. 
 

The M282 gets no cumaltive armor penetration value or bonus. It has a 50% Coefficent for concrete structures it seems. That is it, so does even less damage against concrete. 
 

You can compare all the rockets and missiles here, rockets are in G/weapons_tables/nurs https://github.com/Quaggles/dcs-lua-datamine

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@AeriaGloria: thanks for this information! I didn't realize the WeaponsTable LUA is gone!
It seems then that in the process of restructuring the weapons data they have changed the effectiveness of the weapon.
When I used it earlier it was a single-hit killer for all IFV's, APC's, Shilkas and the like. Now it's fairly useless.

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  • 3 months later...

Hey All,

I know this thread is a bit old, but I got to doing some testing.  This is a continuation in testing related to a post that I made yesterday.  I posted in A-10C, but it got bumped to Weapon Bugs.

So I tested some more today.  Specifically the APKWS M-151 and the M-282.   From memory, M-282 vs T-55 took 5 rockets to destroy the tank and the M-151 would not even put a scratch in it.  Now again from memory, the real M-282 has an armor piecing or HEAT warhead (Is that correct?). 

As Lecuvier, and a few others, describes the M-282 was the go to rocket.  It was able to just about a guarantee a one shot kill vs most light armor.  The ZSU-57-2 was a notable exception, I assumed that was because I believe it has a tank hull.

So my testing today was weird.  I was firing from the tanks 6 o'clock and aiming for the engine vents.  I fired 5 M-282's at a T-55 and did not damage it a bit.  So I fired the remaining 37 M-282's (in ripple) at the tank.  And, did not even damage it.

Huh...

So then I proceeded to ripple fire 42 M-151's at the same tank.  And it blow up!  Now I am scratching my head.  In further testing I determined that it takes about 15 M-151's to take out a T-55.

There is now doubt that the M-282 has been nerfed vs infantry and the M-151 got better.  I have convinced myself that Armor Piercing or HEAT rounds really may not be modeled, at least at this time.  This begs the question in my mind, if armor is really even modeled or is each unit simply given a certain amount of health. 

If I watch weapon strikes in very slow motion I can see concentric rings forming after detonation.  I am guessing this is for graphical purposes (which looks allot like shock waves), but also may directly effect damage.  As each ring would produce different damage values to a target depending on which ring the target was in.  With the inner rings producing more damage and the outer rings producing less. 

On the other hand, perhaps armor may play a part with the blast ring value having to be greater than then the armor value in order to penetrate and then be able to actually do damage.

Does anyone know for sure?

Caldera

 

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  • 1 month later...
On 3/23/2023 at 4:14 PM, Caldera said:

Hey All,

I know this thread is a bit old, but I got to doing some testing.  This is a continuation in testing related to a post that I made yesterday.  I posted in A-10C, but it got bumped to Weapon Bugs.

So I tested some more today.  Specifically the APKWS M-151 and the M-282.   From memory, M-282 vs T-55 took 5 rockets to destroy the tank and the M-151 would not even put a scratch in it.  Now again from memory, the real M-282 has an armor piecing or HEAT warhead (Is that correct?). 

As Lecuvier, and a few others, describes the M-282 was the go to rocket.  It was able to just about a guarantee a one shot kill vs most light armor.  The ZSU-57-2 was a notable exception, I assumed that was because I believe it has a tank hull.

So my testing today was weird.  I was firing from the tanks 6 o'clock and aiming for the engine vents.  I fired 5 M-282's at a T-55 and did not damage it a bit.  So I fired the remaining 37 M-282's (in ripple) at the tank.  And, did not even damage it.

Huh...

So then I proceeded to ripple fire 42 M-151's at the same tank.  And it blow up!  Now I am scratching my head.  In further testing I determined that it takes about 15 M-151's to take out a T-55.

There is now doubt that the M-282 has been nerfed vs infantry and the M-151 got better.  I have convinced myself that Armor Piercing or HEAT rounds really may not be modeled, at least at this time.  This begs the question in my mind, if armor is really even modeled or is each unit simply given a certain amount of health. 

If I watch weapon strikes in very slow motion I can see concentric rings forming after detonation.  I am guessing this is for graphical purposes (which looks allot like shock waves), but also may directly effect damage.  As each ring would produce different damage values to a target depending on which ring the target was in.  With the inner rings producing more damage and the outer rings producing less. 

On the other hand, perhaps armor may play a part with the blast ring value having to be greater than then the armor value in order to penetrate and then be able to actually do damage.

Does anyone know for sure?

Caldera

 

Armor and HEAT exist in DCS. Tanks and other units have different amounts of armor in different spots. Different armor piercing weapons have values for how much armor they pierce, and how much damage they do after piercing armor. 
 

The M151 and M282 just don’t have any HEAT effects in their files. Are you sure M282 is a HEAT warhead? Every source I see online says “M282 is for lightly armored vehicles and structures such as caves and bunkers,” and indeed in its LUA file it has a Penetration bonus for concrete. 
 

In addition, the M151 in the files has a larger explosive value 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Aeria,

Are you sure M282 is a HEAT warhead?

Absolutely not...

My best guess is that it has an armor piercing tip to the warhead.  If you look at the M151 and the M282 (in DCS), from what I can tell they look the same.

I just noticed that the characteristics between the M151 and the M282 had changed.  In the past the M282 was the go to weapon with significantly larger blast radius.

All that being said, I need to do some more testing as recent missions have indicated that the M282 can indeed kill a BTR-80 with one missile, when at the time of my testing this was not the case.

Caldera

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