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Damage to vehicles in the drink


Pop Smoke

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Having seen a video tutorial on using the M88 (here http://www.gettacticaldammit.com/sb_pro.htm) I decided to see if it would drag vehicle out of the water, so I made a quick .sce and eventually got a tank into the water sufficiently to kill it but not lose it (I lost three first as they slid entirely out of sight with the stolid TC calmly telling that the Coax was not a viable option anymore, "We're drowning, and you can't shoot the machine gun!")

Anyway, enuff frivolity!

I did eventually drag a tank from the water and towed it to a repair unit, who commenced fixing it, and this is really the point of the thread, the Main Gun was wrecked, how? it only went under water, even if it got plugged with silt it wouldn't take long to fix, but it did not even have a time to fix on it, I assume this means "It's broke guv, we can't fix that"

Is this a small oversight? The main gun should surely not be damaged too much by a submerging, and even if it is, then it ought to be repairable in a fairly short time period.

Considering the AI's (albeit reduced) but continued propensity for driving into ponds this should be something we really could use the recovery and repair vehicles for, especially for the longer scenarios.

Given the suggestion in the future features thread that a save game option be considered is at some time immplemented, particularly with the option to save and continue editing from that point, this recovery and repair thing would really be very handy as you could have a more "campaign" based scenario to run and the long repair times would not be such a problem as they can be in a shorter .sce, rendering it pretty pointless to even bother.

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Ah, so I had better go back and try again and see what happens then, any reason why the main gun wasn't included it the repairing list? (I am assuming that if an item in the list does not have a time left to repair figure by it, then it is not being repaired, is that right?)

cheers Ssnake.

You are probably right with real world situations MM, but it's about how it is modeled in sim and I don't think that the firing circuit is included in the damage modeling, though the stabilization is, and it is fixable (it was being fixed in the test).

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Field repairs aren't possible with gun barrels. OK, you can replace them within 15 minutes in the Leopard 2 and M1, but you need a repair site for that. Repair vehicles don't piggyback spare gun barrels. Therefore we exampted gun damage from the ability of repair vehicles to treat them. Repair conditions however can result in gun damages be fixed, e.g. if a vehicle is in a certain region for a certain minimum amount of time. But that's something that the mission designer must prepare.

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That's an excellent work round, I had not considered or even thought of that and it fits in nicely with the recovery vehicle as well, plus it could be a quicker fix for a done in engine (how long does a real life engine switch take?). Off to try it out!

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Hmm, I have an idea:

Maybe if a cargo truck (or more likely a couple of Trucks), repair PC and an M88 were all within a few metres they could repair, given time, anything cept a hole in the armour.

So the cargo truck(s) carries the spare parts, the PC has the guys and, the M88 has the crane (sorted).

Though it would still be a fair amount of time before the thing is anywhere near operational.

Though Pop Smoke, I'm sure it takes less than 5 hours to swap an engine

out. Its closer to 30mins for an AS90.

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Hehe, we must think alike hedgehog, I just spent the last two hours running a similar idea!

I adjusted the little .sce and ran some tests. I added an area and called it "repair depot" added an M113 repair vehicle and set a condition that the repair vehicle be inside the depot area.

then using the "repair if" Option I set all the different bits that could be repaired to 5 minutes as long as the vehicle was inside the repair depot and that the condition was true.

(I used 5 minutes because I don't have all day to see if it worked!)

It was a partial success. Most of the items that were actually damaged inclding the engine and main gun were repaired, however, despite it being on the list of repairable items, for some reason the stabilization would not "speed repair" as the other items had and continued to be repaired at the standard rate, being unaffected by the "repair if"function.

Also Suspension, Fuel Leak and Coolant leak would not repair at all and neither were they options in the list.

Would it be possible to add an option to select all the vehicle repairs in a list (excluding the commander and gunner as they are not really repaired per se) because it is really tedious to have to go through each and every item in the list should you wish to add them all. An option that just says "All" would be the ticket.

For large and long scenarios this sort of thing could really be a viable option, especially for single play, where time is much less of an issue than in multiplay. Also it expands the playability of the sim, increasing the potential various happenings within a given .sce while making fuller use of the myriad of extra details that pro-pe provides.

(I should be selling this thing!)

I should also add that it does seem that the Main Gun can indeed be damaged during the tow by the M88, in the test the main gun was fine after the dip in the pond, but by the time I got it towed back to the depot, it was damaged. This did not always happen though.

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Actually, that reminds me.

How many fuel cells does a Leo 2 have? (M1 has 6)

Cos at the moment if you get a fuel leak in an M1 you lose all the fuel?

Surely if only one tank was punctured you'd lose only a sixth of your fuel, right?

What kind of dunce actually pumps fuel into a tank with a hole in it?

Though given the AIs (lack of) intelligence with all things liquid this isn't beyond the realms of possibility....

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Why not repair armor too?

Reading the book "Death Traps" about the divisional maintenance liason officer for the 3rd Armor Division in WW2, he spoke about repair crews taking "killed" Shermans, using the AP penetrators that "killed" them that were still inside the tank, welding them into the hole that the penetrator made, and then grinding them down.

A quick hose out of various body parts and fluids, and then you're up and ready to go again! :)

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Why not repair armor too?

Reading the book "Death Traps" about the divisional maintenance liason officer for the 3rd Armor Division in WW2, he spoke about repair crews taking "killed" Shermans, using the AP penetrators that "killed" them that were still inside the tank, welding them into the hole that the penetrator made, and then grinding them down.

A quick hose out of various body parts and fluids, and then you're up and ready to go again! :)

I read that book too. Different times back then...

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hmm, war isn't a desperate situation?

In this context - depot maintenance or not - the big picture is only relevant to the extent that there must be a logistical system that supports the replacement of battle damaged vehicles - both the collection of damaged equipment and the distribution of new equipment.

Iraq, for example, was never a desparate war situation in this isolated context as the ability of the US to maintain the flow of supply materials was never seriously challenged.

This was different in the North African campaign of WW2, both for the British and the German troops in various stages. Consequently a lot more had to be performed with field repairs (which weren't as difficult then as they would be now, without sacrificing a lot of the protection level).

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