CBU-105 overpowered?

[Guest]

In the last few days I was comparing the Viper to the Hornet to find out which of both modules will be the one I concentrate on in the next time. Therefore I've set up different scenarios to test both aircraft. One scenario was to destroy 9 T90s placed in a square with side length of about 100m (3 tanks on each side of the square, one in the center) with only one weapon load of each aircraft.

In the Hornet I had no chance to accomplish this, as it is simply not possible to load 9 guided weapons, may it be Mavs, LGBs or JDAMs. The maximum I was able to take out were 8 tanks if all fired weapons hit.

For the Viper this sceario was no problem using the CBU-105. I even had another 4 CBU-97 under the inner pylons in case the 4 guided bombs were not able to kill or disable all tanks. But with 4 CUB-105 fired at the tanks with the SPI on the centered tank (burst height 1500ft) lets hell rain down on the tanks either killing them or causing them critical damage. And I even had antoher 4 of similar bombs under the wings.

As said before, I've found no way to deal a similar amount of damage against armoured targets with the Hornet. So I wonder, is the amount of damage a CBU-105 can deliver in DCS realistic? Does its real world counterpart deliver also such a devastating amount of damage? And how can the Hornet in DCS even come close to this?

Edited August 8, 2023 by c0sm0cat

[Mr_sukebe]

Are you asking about accuracy, or balance?  They’re not the same thing.

Balance in a game is about whether two items are similarly capable.  From that perspective, you’re not wrong, the 105 is an utterly awesome weapon and definitely gives the F16 and F15 a real edge over the F18.

The core point here is that DCS is not about balance and never has been.  It’s about accuracy.  Historically, most air combat was not “fair” or balanced.  Typically, one side had better aircraft at a singular point in time, whether that’s the Zero in 1941, the Corsair in 1945 or the F14 in the 1980s.

As for the F18 and not using the 105.  That was just the choice of the USN.  They clearly didn’t believe that it was necessary for whatever reason.  Maybe their targets in the last 2-3 decades have generally not included armoured vehicles, which is what the 105 is for.

[Guest]

Balancing of the "game" is not my concern, although I am curiois about the capabilities of both planes in DCS. But maybe I should have asked about the capabilities of both planes IRL when it comes to take down armoured vehicles. And besides this balancing concern I am just asking myself if the firepower of the 105 in DCS depicts what this weapon does IRL. If the 105 is simulated realistically in DCS, everything is fine for me. But when I tested my scenario (admittedly not very realistic, just for testing...) the firepower of just 4 105s surprised me, as I was not able to do anything similar in a Hornet before. My questions were no critisism, I was just wondering how different a Hornet and a Viper are in this special role of busting armoured vehicles.

[jonsky7]

The bomblets don't seem to necessarily explode the tanks like they do in DCS, but disable them, maybe?

 

 

The only difference between the CBU-97 and CBU-105 is that the 105 has a guidance kit on the main weapon cannister, all of the internals are the same.
Like the difference between a MK-82 bomb and a GBU-38 

Looks pretty effective to me

 

 

Edited August 8, 2023 by jonsky7

[Guest]

Thx for the explanation @jonsky7

The first video is quite interesting. Obviously the effect of the 105 in DCS does not depict what happens IRL when a projectile hits a tank, as it can be seen in the video at 1:28: 

No explosion, quite unspectacular (does not mean the weapon is not effective IRL). It seems the real weapon simply disables the vehicle (perhaps by targeting its engine) instead of completely destroying/exploding it, as it is simulated in DCS.

[nickos86]

In general DCS got quite a gap in all related to ground unit damage modeling and the effects caused by a weapon onto a specific unit. 

Just as you've pointed out, IRL you won't see a "DCS style" explosion when a charge hits a unit. It's not a GBU12

The "explosion effect" simply showed when the unit get destructed. You can argue that currently the damage effect and units damage models not modeled well... I'll be the first to agree with that. 

[Ramsay]

2 hours ago, c0sm0cat said:

... when I tested my scenario (admittedly not very realistic, just for testing...) the firepower of just 4 105s surprised me, as I was not able to do anything similar in a Hornet before. My questions were no critisism, I was just wondering how different a Hornet and a Viper are in this special role of busting armoured vehicles.

There are whole books written on the subject and I'll try to keep my uneducated opinion simple without any politics.

Both aircraft are capable, however their roles and how the 2 services use them are different.

• The F-16 was/is evisaged fighting as part of a full scale war vs large numbers of enemy tanks, etc. thus it has weapons like the CBU-97 and 105 in it's USAF inventry and performs well in your synthetic scenario.

• The F/A-18 is there to defend the "fleet" or provide cover/support to expenditionary troops/marines with a philosophy of mobility and movement - deploying cluster munitions ahead of your own troops hinders that.

IRL in your scenario there'd be
• more F-16's carrying less weapons due to fuel/drag concerns, possibly ROE* against using cluster munitions.
• more F/A-18's as RL warfare is a team effort.

*CBU-97 USAF doctrine is to use the weapon to halt/hold an enemy's main armored force in a major conflict, providing time for other U.S. forces to arrive in the theater.

Edited August 8, 2023 by Ramsay
typo

[Guest]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Ramsay:

There are whole books written on the subject and I'll try to keep my uneducated opinion simple without any politics.

Both aircraft are capable, however their roles and how the 2 services use then are different.

• The F-16 was/is evisaged fighting as part of a full scale war vs large numbers of enemy tanks, etc. thus it has weapons like the CBU-97 and 105 in it's USAF inventry and performs well in your synthetic scenario.

• The F/A-18 is there to defend the "fleet" or provide cover/support to expenditionary troops/marines with a philosophy of mobility and movement - deploying cluster munitions ahead of your own troops hinders that.

IRL in your scenario there'd be
• more F-16's carrying less weapons due to fuel/drag concerns, possibly ROE* against using cluster munitions.
• more F/A-18's as RL warfare is a team effort.

*CBU-97 USAF doctrine is to use the weapon to halt/hold an enemy's main armored force in a major conflict, providing time for other U.S. forces to arrive in the theater.

Very helpful, thx for this clarification.

If you try to figure out the differences between the F-16 and the F/A-18 as DCS modules, the most common answer is "they are both multirole aircraft and can perform the same tasks". Under this premise I've done my comparison in admittedly synthetic scenarios. What I did not consider was the fact that both aircraft are used for completely different tasks by their operators (USAF and USN/USMC) and that in DCS also the weapons for each aircraft are simulated according to these real world tasks.

So the statement that both aircraft can perform the same tasks as an answer to the question "what module should I get" is obviously wrong. Theoretically both aircraft are multirole fighters and are capable of performing the same tasks, but as they are modelled after their real world usage, in DCS they are not able to perform the same tasks. They are capapble to perform the tasks according to what the operators of their real word counterparts use them for and therefore are not interchangeable, as most statements about the comparison of both modules suggest. I think I'll use them both, each one for what it is used for IRL.

Edited August 8, 2023 by c0sm0cat

[Gunfreak]

Realistically the F16 rarely would carry more than 2 air to ground weapons. 2 bombs(of any kind) 2 air to ground missiles (of any kind) it can carry more. But rarely do so in real life scenario. 

So in a real mission your F16 would have 4 air to air missiles,  2 fuel tanks. CBUs.  And various pods depending on the mission. 

You would fly in a 2 or 4 flight. They would not necessarily all carry the same weapons. One might carry CBUs while the other HARMS( if going against air defences) 

One my carry CBUs while the other Mavericks.

[Dragon1-1]

Still, CBU-105 is good, and IRL it really is that good. Sure, those tanks shouldn't explode, but that's an engine limitation, we don't have more subtle ways of showing damage (and that's a pity, real BDA is often quite a bit more difficult). And since you can have them on a dual rack, carrying 4xCBU-105 isn't particularly fanciful, a Viper can do it no sweat. In fact, the Viper would rarely carry only two bombs unless we're talking 2000lbs ones. More often, you'll see them with four JDAMs, and LGBs would be carried on TERs, two per station, as well. Four bombs seems to be the most typical loadout.

The flight will carry appropriate weapons for the target being attacked, so a strike on a tank column could have one ship with Mavs to take out any attached mobile SAMs, and one ship with four CBU-97s, to kill the armor itself. That, or perhaps a two ship carrying only CBU-105s, which can be dropped from a high altitude, above maximum engagement altitude of the smaller SAMs. IRL, the biggest constraint on the latter scenario is money, both the WCMD and smart bomblets are somewhat pricey, to say the least. If you can get enough of them, great, but you won't always be able to.

[SickSidewinder9]

Post-2008, their offensive air-to-ground capabilities -- namely, which weapons they can carry -- probably come more in line with each other, but that timeframe isn't the focus of the modules.

[Hazardpro]

On 8/8/2023 at 5:36 AM, c0sm0cat said:

Thx for the explanation @jonsky7

The first video is quite interesting. Obviously the effect of the 105 in DCS does not depict what happens IRL when a projectile hits a tank, as it can be seen in the video at 1:28: 

No explosion, quite unspectacular (does not mean the weapon is not effective IRL). It seems the real weapon simply disables the vehicle (perhaps by targeting its engine) instead of completely destroying/exploding it, as it is simulated in DCS.

Operational tanks, as opposed to empty hulks on a firing range, are usually full of very energetic ammo/charges which can burn quite spectacularly when penetrated. 

[gmangnall]

Yes - very overpowered IMO

[Hobel]

vor 6 Stunden schrieb gmangnall:

Yes - very overpowered IMO

yeah and?
 

 

[Mike_Romeo]

Imagine balancing a war because it would be otherwise too unfair for one side.

[gmangnall]

On 7/17/2024 at 11:07 AM, Hobel said:

yeah and?
 

 

The EFP in a BLU108 is more than capable of penetrating the top armour of most if not all tanks, it's copper EFP could possibly penetrate 500mm RHA - but probably much less as NLAW with twice the size warhead can only do 500mm...even so teh top armour of say a T72 is around 200mm...it's not capable of penetrating the glacis plate. More importantly is capable of missing most of the time.    Your vid is a computer generated video showing "how it's supposed to work", my video is actual film of it in real life.....not quite the same as we see in game.....and you can CLEARY see them missing and bouncing off the armour the only part which looks like it might have got a mission kill is 36 in where a tank with it's turret turned gets hit. Now these vehicles have no fuel or ammunition on board to brew up but irrespective there seems zero correlation between what we see in DCS and this. Your own video even states that it's good against light armour and the softer parts of an MBT. Can a CBU-105 kill a tank...probably.....but not the mass destruction we see in DCS.

 

[Dragon1-1]

Again, the huge explosions we see in DCS are an engine limitation, this is the only way DCS has of showing a damage that counts as a kill. Most of the time, you know a tank is dead when it stops moving, shooting or whatever. If the crew is still alive, they'll bail, and if you're staring at it through the TGP you should see them open the hatches, climb out and run for the hills. This is, essentially, what a "mission kill" entails. A mission killed tank might not even be immobilized, but it's no good in a fight. This doesn't happen in DCS, though a heavily damaged tank might move very slowly.

What should be happening is that the bomblet hits the tank, and the tank is no longer capable of performing its intended task. If mobile, it might try to drive off, or the crew might abandon it if not. The point is, the tank is no good to anyone at that point, except perhaps to try to tow it away and fix it. CBU-105's bomblets are more than capable of inducing that state. Few tanks have any sort of decent protection from the top, though Russians started putting ERA tiles up there some time ago. In DCS timeframe, however, it would absolutely butcher an armored column. That's what it's for.

[Hobel]

vor 7 Stunden schrieb gmangnall:

The EFP in a BLU108 is more than capable of penetrating the top armour of most if not all tanks, it's copper EFP could possibly penetrate 500mm RHA - but probably much less as NLAW with twice the size warhead can only do 500mm...even so teh top armour of say a T72 is around 200mm...it's not capable of penetrating the glacis plate. More importantly is capable of missing most of the time.    Your vid is a computer generated video showing "how it's supposed to work", my video is actual film of it in real life.....not quite the same as we see in game.....and you can CLEARY see them missing and bouncing off the armour the only part which looks like it might have got a mission kill is 36 in where a tank with it's turret turned gets hit. Now these vehicles have no fuel or ammunition on board to brew up but irrespective there seems zero correlation between what we see in DCS and this. Your own video even states that it's good against light armour and the softer parts of an MBT. Can a CBU-105 kill a tank...probably.....but not the mass destruction we see in DCS.

 

In DCS you need 3 skeets/BLU108 to kill a tank, I think that's a good compromise because the damage model can't simulate a lot of things

CBU-97/106 there are 40 skeets, and not every one of which hits every time.

 

and a T72 tank has a top hull armor of ~30mm, top turret ~45mm

 

here are 2 more videos that also show how the sensor works in parts, unfortunately, as in your video, you can't see what a possible direct hit looks like

 

[gmangnall]

Again the video shows the skeet missing most of the time...that's the issue...it's far too accurate. Also an improved damage model would help. We need more than the command and conquer style damage bar. A tank should have at least track, gun, turret and hull as separate entities...ideally engine, optics as well. It would be soooo much better if you could hit a track so a tank cannot move - but can fire...or vice versa. Killing one crewman would slow down firing, killing all crew would stop it. 

[Hobel]

Am 24.7.2024 um 17:14 schrieb gmangnall:

Again the video shows the skeet missing most of the time...that's the issue...it's far too accurate. Also an improved damage model would help. We need more than the command and conquer style damage bar. A tank should have at least track, gun, turret and hull as separate entities...ideally engine, optics as well. It would be soooo much better if you could hit a track so a tank cannot move - but can fire...or vice versa. Killing one crewman would slow down firing, killing all crew would stop it. 

maybe and that's exactly why you need 3 skeets to destroy a tank in DCS. a hit on the engine or turret would be enough.

I think that's a good compromise and many misses in DCS too.

DCS could add the same missrate, but we would have a worse result than in irl because the weapons do no damage, not to mention mission kills with the current DM model.
apart from that, we can hardly judge the exact miss rate on the basis of the videos, in DCS there are also a lot of misses. the best thing would be a paper documenting this exactly

 

 

 

 

Edited July 25, 2024 by Hobel