reported cbu-97 damage

[Flapjacks]

So, I use to be able to take out a T-72 or T-90 tank with a single cbu-97 and now it only seems to damage them and the amount of damage varies wildly. Was this an intentional change? Anyone else noticing this? Not sure if it matters but this is while flying the F-15E.

[Flapjacks]

cbu97.trk

[Moonshine]

seeing the same with the viper. not a single tank was dead or even severely damaged.

CBU-97_damage.trk

[NineLine]

I'll take a look

[_SteelFalcon_]

comparing the cbu_97.lua from dcs 2.8 and 2.9 for that weapon, it looks like the explosive mass value of the warhead changed from 3.0 to 0.3

that‘s a pretty large difference

same applies to cbu-105

maybe that’s a typo @BIGNEWY/ @NineLine

Edited October 21, 2023 by _SteelFalcon_

[LePaul]

Yes, i noticed this as well.  I dropped two CBU97s on a group of tanks in the F-16 last night.

Many beautiful explosions but no kills.

Meanwhile in Ukraine, a $79 FPV drone with a small warhead is tearing up T72s, T-80s and the like with ease.  

[NineLine]

I am looking into it, I might not get a response until Monday.

[Flapjacks]

Thanks for checking and the update!

[Moonshine]

buddy of mine said he had issues with hellfires fired at tanks not doing any damage. maybe unrelated or maybe something wrong with the tanks all together and not the weapon itself. probably worth checking both possibilities

 

Edited October 21, 2023 by Moonshine

[Hobel]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb Moonshine:

buddy of mine said he had issues with hellfires fired at tanks not doing any damage. maybe unrelated or maybe something wrong with the tanks all together and not the weapon itself. probably worth checking both possibilities

 

 

track?what tank is it? could be something known that has nothing to do with this here

[Moonshine]

t80 he said. dont have his track, ill ask him

[Bunzy]

I was just about to post about this, thankfully I searched the Forum a bunch first.

I too am seeing this issue. CBU-97's now hardly do any damage to Main Battle Tanks. 

[QuiGon]

CBU-97 IRL (for reference):

 

[NineLine]

Dear all, I have done some tests myself and also checked with the team Indeed a change was made to correct the warhead to a pure armor-piercing warhead that has no high explosive effects. This means that the submunition must directly impact the unit and no collateral damage should be done by near misses, especially on a Main Battle Tank.

In my tests, I can get excellent results from the A-10C II with default settings on the CBU provided the bomb is dropped well. Please see my video:

I think I could get even better results by tuning fusing options and such. But based on the changes made and tests I did I do not think there is an issue beyond keeping in mind a poor drop could impact performance. 

Please note that when checking LUA files and such, they don't always tell the whole story, but I apologize that this change missed the changelog. Thanks all. 

[Moonshine]

not what im seeing in the viper:

in this track here i drop 2 CBU105 and afterwards another 2 CBU97 on target, not a single tank is dead CBU-97_damage_2.trk

in this one, i redid the cbu 97 drop, lowered the burst altitude to 1000ft so less spread, still no kill at all: CBU-97_damage_3.trk

1x blu 108 does 11% damage. of course if you are lucky and 10 go for the same tank then it dies, but that is very very very rarely the case 

 

regarding the "fuzing option": the only changeable thing is AD and burst altitude. yes with lower BA you get more bomblets in a smaller area, yet are still at the mercy of how they disperse themselves (skeets flying everywhere with sensor fuze). still with that many tanks in the area and so many bombs dropped there, getting no kill at all is not an acceptable result. hell, most of them are still operational, only 2 have been slightly smoking

 

now even if the bomb is modelled correctly, the ground units lacking any sort of damage model that would allow the bomb to perform adequately doesnt make this easier. so as of now the bomb feels like it underperforms, might also just be that the ground units arent in a stage where the bomb would do adequate damage.

whichever is the case, currently this bomb doesnt do much against MBTs, even against T55.

Edited October 23, 2023 by Moonshine

[Flapjacks]

In the track I provided, my cbu-97 dropped as accurate as it could be and only did a little over half damage to a T-72. If it were the T90 it'd have been even less damage done. Also, what about when we ripple these bombs? There's no way to get all 13 of the bombs I can carry to hit precisely on each target. They aren't guided weapons, so I don't see why we're expected to get pinpoint accuracy in order to take out a armored unit. If the change is left as is, I won't see a point in equipping these bombs if I can't count on them to do the job. Which sucks as a F-15E pilot since most of our ordinance choices aren't viable at the moment. Please ask them to reconsider this change. 

[_SteelFalcon_]

looking at @NineLine's video, the problem is shown there perfectly. it takes 8!! skeets to kill a tank.

Edited October 23, 2023 by _SteelFalcon_

[NineLine]

1 hour ago, Moonshine said:

not what im seeing in the viper:

in this track here i drop 2 CBU105 and afterwards another 2 CBU97 on target, not a single tank is dead CBU-97_damage_2.trk

in this one, i redid the cbu 97 drop, lowered the burst altitude to 1000ft so less spread, still no kill at all: CBU-97_damage_3.trk

1x blu 108 does 11% damage. of course if you are lucky and 10 go for the same tank then it dies, but that is very very very rarely the case 

 

regarding the "fuzing option": the only changeable thing is AD and burst altitude. yes with lower BA you get more bomblets in a smaller area, yet are still at the mercy of how they disperse themselves (skeets flying everywhere with sensor fuze). still with that many tanks in the area and so many bombs dropped there, getting no kill at all is not an acceptable result. hell, most of them are still operational, only 2 have been slightly smoking

 

I have asked the team to review the pattern set from the F-16, it seems quite large no matter the settings. 

[Moonshine]

still took your test 9 skeets to kill that tank. you can see the unit number and the amount of times it has been hit. that seems excessive

[NineLine]

18 minutes ago, Flapjacks said:

In the track I provided, my cbu-97 dropped as accurate as it could be and only did a little over half damage to a T-72. If it were the T90 it'd have been even less damage done. Also, what about when we ripple these bombs? There's no way to get all 13 of the bombs I can carry to hit precisely on each target. They aren't guided weapons, so I don't see why we're expected to get pinpoint accuracy in order to take out a armored unit. If the change is left as is, I won't see a point in equipping these bombs if I can't count on them to do the job. Which sucks as a F-15E pilot since most of our ordinance choices aren't viable at the moment. Please ask them to reconsider this change. 

Sorry I do not use the F-15E much yet sadly for me. Can you tell me if they have all the release options set up already for the 97? I will try and test with your tracks later. 

Just now, Moonshine said:

still took your test 9 skeets to kill that tank. you can see the unit number and the amount of times it has been hit. that seems excessive

That doesnt mean it took that many, it means that 9 hit it. 

[Moonshine]

doesnt the bda "kill" only show up once its dead?`otherwise its just "hit"

in your log in the end, Ground Unit 1-7 only died after the 9th 
you have 2 hits, then another 6, then one, only then the "bda" shows up. prior to that its just "hit"

 

Edited October 23, 2023 by Moonshine

[NineLine]

There is no good way to see how much each hit did, I have asked for clarification on this. But where it hits should be important as well. Because for performance reasons some BLU-108s are not shown, its difficult to say where each of those hit, and which one was the killing blow. 

[Flapjacks]

13 minutes ago, NineLine said:

Sorry I do not use the F-15E much yet sadly for me. Can you tell me if they have all the release options set up already for the 97? I will try and test with your tracks later. 

That doesnt mean it took that many, it means that 9 hit it. 

They do have release options set up, but in auto mode the accuracy is off for the time being (for all unguided bombs) if dropping a single bomb. If set to ripple single, and setting the BOT to 1, it does good. Or if dropping a single bomb, putting in a 10-15 degree dive when the release cue starts falling works as well.

Edited October 23, 2023 by Flapjacks

[Moonshine]

okay, did one more test, BA 1000ft, dropped 5!! out of 6 CBU97 on ONE tank. you can also see the amount of damage the bomblets do. anywhere between 10-15% damage each hit. you can also refer to the units health bar on the F10 map while watching it...

two of the bombs dropped exactly on target didnt even have a single skeet hit the tank.

only after the 9th bomblet hit he died (can verify it in the after action report) only after the last hit it said "critical damage" on the BDA popup ingame. there i ended the mission

CBU-97_damage_4.trk

Edited October 23, 2023 by Moonshine

[NineLine]

I am still pushing back on a few things. My concern is these changes are fine but we are missing aspects of the ground DM that are required to make this work. As in a 108 generating in and exploding ammo storage, or Mobility and Crew kills. So I am not giving up, but also the weapons can be effective still, although the F-16 patterns seem to be off somehow.