GSprocket

W3 is not a good example. Draw distances are very short - the whole map is 4x4km of active area at most, and details are only drawn to a few hundred m. The number of active AI entities is small, with fairly canned routines. AI interaction distances are only around 50m. That is completely inadequate for a modern combat simulation. Weapon ranges can exceed 4km, sighted ranges to as much as 10km with ground based high magnification TIS or optical systems. AI entities may need to interact over 5-8km and will typically fight at 1-2.5km or more. "Too close" is a thing - with many sights being unusable/unhelpful at 200m or so. Infantry can be dangerous with organic AT weaponry at over 500m, and with support weapons to 2-4km, and can call fires all the way to their visual boundary.

Tank-net is being flagged up as a malicious site though by lots of AV suites. You'd have to add it as an exception to access it with some AV options.

You cannot guarantee 100% hits beyond a shorter range than that. At around 2km, with a working FCS there should be a reasonable expectation of not missing, but equally not necessarily striking a specific aimpoint. As the range increases beyond that, the apparent target size (and the ability to aim at a specific point within it) reduces, as the time of flight, superelevation and lead requirement and shot to shot dispersion all increase. Even identification can become troublesome with the older TIS devices, and near impossible with Txx FCS quality vehicles. At 4km the best situations are going to struggle to give consistent performance, and an expectation of 2-4 rounds per effective hit is probably a good basis for a starting point in benign conditions. With closer matches of ammunition and armour effectiveness which requires a smaller vulnerable area to be struck... that can rapidly climb to dozens of shots per kill (while a single shot and hit could still be effective). Add in terrain obstructions that inhibit clean lasing (and visibility of the entire target profile), uncooperative and erratically moving/accelerating targets, smoke, pressure of firing quickly or while under return fire... and all bets are off.

I thought that the early M60s had stabilised guns, with the sight slaved to the gun. The improvement with the more modern FCS was to stabilise the sight separately and to fire the weapon only when sight and gun were in an appropriately close alignment. The earliest sights (dating back as far as M4s) were suitable for observation on the move and firing from the short halt (or indeed from on the move if the ground and vehicle motion were smooth enough), later sights permit some degree of fire on the move capability at 'normal' cross country speeds over normally 'flat' ground - and the latest generations permit more frequently fire from the move at higher speeds and with rougher terrain.

The T80 didn't get thermal equipment until the T80U(M) in the early 1990s. (A few of the T80UK commander vehicles were also thermal equipped, and the Ukrainian T84 has thermal equipment.) Few T72 were fitted with thermals - and even the early T90 was still using II sights. In the 20xxs there were various projects to update various Txx series vehicles, but I'm not up to date with how many were actually completed and taken into service or with which militaries.

Also use the map during the approach to position to estimate the range to significant landmarks you may be able to see. It is quite possible to obtain first round hits when pre-ranged on a field boundary/road gap/building etc which the target is near, at similar atmospheric hazing etc. If you have to make corrections they are likely to be smaller than a completely blind guess as to first range. It can be helpful (to eliminate bad lases) in more advanced vehicles as well - at least to bound likely min/max ranges within an engagement area

While the charges may not be in place, were the wiring and voids removed/filled? If not then replacing the demolitions in the run up to high tensions could be expected perhaps? Wars don't always (seldom?) just come out of nowhere. In any case any Cold War gone hot scenario would have active demolition preparations by my understanding.

Most of the major German bridges are preprepared for Demolition. I suspect that the same is true of other European countries too... though not as far as I am aware in the UK. Improvised demolitions take much longer to set up than have a higher risk of inadequacy/failure than the pre-prepared demolitions.

You can pre-place the IED and then activate the trigger zones based on conditions/triggers during runtime. iirc

No such thing as a PC that can fluidly handle *any* scenario. It is quite possible to completely bog down the game by deploying whole Regiments in high intensity combat with accurate footprints and complex terrain. Fun to make and look at, but not as much fun to play. However, with restraint a tactical vignette can run successfully on lower hardware quite successfully. With the switch to 64bit and the 'larger' map formats the requirement for RAM at least should be expected to increase substantially. We will get example 'benchmarks' from the testing team once the optimisation/bug fix on the LOS calculations are done - probably best to make HW decisions after these are published IMO.

The WW2 M107 had 1,240 fragments capable of penetrating 0.125" of plate at 20ft. The lightest of these was 0.035oz... But, there are at least 111 fragments that would remain capable of damaging this target at 400ft (1.61 oz and heavier)... So to characterise this as the "maximum" that the fragments could penetrate is to seriously underestimate them. They use modified 20mm rounds as fragment simulators for STANAG protection testing (saboted 12.7mm blunt projectile) - and we know they are more capable than 6mm... 7.62mmAP @30m - 20mm FSP @60m = lvl3 14.5mm @ 200 - 20mm FSP @25m = lvl4 25mm APDS @ 500m - 20mm FSP @25m = lvl5 30mm APFSDS @500 - 20mm FSP @10m = lvl6 Not equal standards, but both are of similar degree and required for meeting the STANAG protection standards over a substantial portion of the vehicle. Also the unitary shell has a considerable impulse, which could seriously damage internal and external components by direct impact and shock. Even with tank gun energy and impulse there are issues with crew injury if in contact with the vehicle shell - and insurgents use artillery shells as improvised mines because they are effective in that role.

I did include the possibility of direct fires. But no searching fire is possible within at least 2km... and with the most common charges around 5km or so. However... if you think AW "gets it right" then I guess it must do. </shrug>

A tank/missile and artillery effective range (min & max) would also be entertaining. For most artillery the minimum useful range is around 2km, with maximum ranges ~15-18km for the in game examples. (around half the maximum range for each charge is a reasonable minimum useful range with a fall adequate for limited searching fires). Which means the AW artillery game is quite impossible... with a 1.4km map - the only location targettable by anything other than direct fire would be the extreme opposite corner.

It always used to be a Pro only 'range target'. Horrid thing given that we can do force on force stuff with real (if 'blind' or 'kill on hit') targets. No need to do 'plywood cutouts' or cloth to save money.

It is a terrain theme thing. Make the rough ground harder, soft ground flatter and it will look more consistent. There aren't ruts left by vehicles but on soft ground you do get considerable sinkage. Can be tweaked to suit in any case.

It could be something akin to the Samson RWS. Or maybe some other (existing) single weapon RWS with option to use either AGL or MG?

4 Looks like something with an AGL (CMW) and coax (MG). I've not rewatched the vehicle video to see what that might be.

Exhaust plumes are hot, but they lack the mass necessary to produce much influence on thermal cameras (which is why they are used by firefighters to see through flames and smoke in burning buildings etc - the burning materials show clearly through the flames and smoke which obscure and distort the visible spectrum.) IR masking smoke has to use particles which absorb the wavelengths of light that the imager is sensitive to, but this is outside of the normal range of smoke or dry air.

I'm assuming that the theme is per-scenario, or is it attached to the TER file?

Might be more useful to have english legends. You can download a crib sheet from the bottom of this page: http://www.mapsymbs.com/mapsymbs.html

http://www.kotsch88.de/munition/120mm_L11/120mm_L31_a.jpg Not seeing a tracer. A base fuse, main charge.. that looks to be about it. The L32A6 Prac version contains a "flash pellet" for "spotting purposes". Which would be redundant if the round was traced??

I've noticed it most often when using the default "null" map, when trying out various vehicles. I'm sure I've seen it at much longer range, with the vehicles with higher magnification. (M1A2 for example). It has also happened on regular maps, but I'd not call it repeatable then. The ground needn't be level, just that the target vehicle is on ground with a slope which matches the LOS elevation. Rare, but not vanishingly.

I have experienced errors when lasing centre of mass. There are intermittent 'flashes' of gap between turret and hull at some ranges (on T-xx tanks most often, but that may be merely because of my preference for mission/target). Sometimes a centre of turret ring first return lase will give a 'far' range well in excess of the target distance at similar ranges which seem anomalous. As the lase is only approximated by a few rays traced over the area, it is possible that this is only luck playing it's part, but I wonder which LOD is tested, and whether the visual glitch applies to the lase testing... as the consistency may be much better when the lase centre is offset from the turret ring, either to the turret face or the hull. No large systematic test to provide numbers. Just an observation on the preponderance of the "wtf" moments when simulation doesn't match expectation in this area.

T62 started to receive an external armoured LRF from 1975 onwards. There was a modified T62 with a FCS and improvements to mobility deployed from 1983 onwards. This also received a LRF in armoured box during it's improvement programs. This also had Bra armour added to combat shaped charge warheads. Other nations have deeper modifications including regunning with the L7/M68, adding LRF and TIS and ERA suites.

T54/T55 and one of the Soviet IFV seem to be the most obvious 'gaps' in coverage. So BMP1 or BMP2 and the T55.