ChrisWerb

Some "In an ideal world" wishes:

1. I understand the reason why infantry can only use their 40mm UGLs by direct player control, but I'd like to see an "Enable autonomous use of GLs" option. Furthermore I'd like: 

2. The ability to dictate the scale of issue of GLs per infantry section/squad selectable from 0-3.

3. The ability to choose whether squad GLs are single or six shot or better still the number of each.

4. Ammo selection for GLs to include HEDP

5. Rifle grenades - somewhat more powerful but less accurate and shorter ranged than 40mm, but with more effect - selectable in ratio of HE-FRAG, HEAT and smoke. Numbers to be selectable per rifleman equipped with rifle or carbine capable of launching rifle grenades and not already equipped with a UGL.

6. Ability to have more than one type of AT weapon per section/squad (four if counting 40mm HEDP, HEAT rifle grenade, LAW and MAW).

On 6/17/2018 at 6:09 AM, Breakthrough7 said:

I don't imagine I'll be making anything for public consumption, I'm not trained in graphic design, so my stuff sucks and the only thing I've ever cared about selling is fire support.  With that said I probably see non dress-right-dress vehicle camouflage similarly to how you guys see a-historical vehicle markings.

Beautiful, if slightly anachronistic in some cases  Your Apache looks like a Japanese example.

On 6/17/2018 at 2:56 AM, Gibsonm said:

 

Personally, I'm not interested as using as a RAAC vehicle since we had the 20Pdr and did not get the 105mm L7 until the new and exciting Leo1s rolled into the barracks in 1973 or thereabouts.

 

Most sources I've seen say they were delivered 1976-78. 

I think you may mean ACR rather than ARC?

Hi Dejawolf. Can I please request a new skin for the temperate climate, green scheme for the 2S6 SPAAG/SAM system? There are so many really beautiful vehicles in the Soviet/Russian lineup now that the 2S6 is looking a little bit "cartoony" by comparison. Many thanks.

Late edit: Apologies Dejawolf. I just saw the tutorial. I won't waste your time and will have a go at this myself following the excellent tutorial over Christmas. Thanks again!

On 12/10/2019 at 10:26 AM, Bond_Villian said:

There has been some nice improvements lately, a good time to upgrade i reckon

I'm not sure what the OP's level of interest in the area SB covers is, but SB has been my best value for money leisure purchase of all time. Besides the Harpoon/CMANO/CMO series, there is nothing out there with the level of depth and endless capacity to reconfigure and get new play value out of all the time. I'd also characterise some of the recent improvements as "fantastic" rather than "nice"

The two of you have done an amazing job. The other day I was watching a Youtube video of real life Japanese MBTs on exercise and found myself repeatedly trying to move the view around to get better angles. That's largely down to your work! 

On 11/16/2019 at 1:13 AM, thewood said:

Yes...the original report seemed heading in a very obsessive direction and ended up there.  Your patience as devs is commendable.

Me, obsessive? Guilty as charged! 😛

Seriously though, a lot of these discussions boil down to someone claiming something and posting a few screen captures. The devs then ask for more substantial proof and all they get back is a lot of undeserved antagonistic text thrown at them. I don't get antagonistic and I provide the data requested, even if it takes me A LOT of time to put it together. The 25 shot x2 test involved running two scenarios 50 times and collating the data. I also really appreciate the work Volcano and the team put into SB and I have constantly sung its (and by implication, their) praises elsewhere. It isn't perfect though and it's important to get the T-14 and it's vulnerabilities vs "Western" ATGW right as it's the threat MBT of the future for many professional SB users. Most of those clients have literally spent a fortune on either Javelin or Spike variants and those systems are the cornerstone of their anti tank defence - Belgium, for example, has literally bet the farm on Spike MR, but will get MMP in vehicle mounted form in the not too distant future.

Snake has hit it on the head that there is nothing "wrong" with the damage model nor with how Volcano applied it. It's that the missiles are way too consistently accurate. I'd challenge you to go back and take a look at the well over 100 shot Javelin AAR I posted and you will see that every missile hits the exact same spot on the tank - literally, the group would fit within the size of a DL envelope or at most an A5 sheet of paper, regardless of azimuth of launcher to tank. The point hit cannot be the centre of the image of the tank as perceived by the missile seeker for every shot either - just pan around a T-14 in game and you'll see what I mean. The Spike as modelled does not have the insane, tack-driving accuracy of the Javelin, but is still way too consistent.  I appreciate the devs have to work with what they've got and don't literally model image seeking logic which would be hideously and pointlessly processor intensive. Therefore, I'm guessing that impact location randomisation would be relatively easy to implement and would work just fine.

In reality you have a whole lot of variables acting on even a guided weapon. Yes, a 15 degree variation in dive angle can make a huge difference, for the same point of impact, but in reality those points of impact would vary, sometimes substantially, which would make a lot of difference to the likelihood of hitting something critical, and particularly the ammunition carousel. The optical centre of the vehicle would vary given different angles of presentation. The Spike is a relatively slow missile. After it enters a dive, the vehicle moving forwards or backwards (T-14s are fast!) is going to somewhat affect the angle of impact. I suspect the same is true for Javelin.

As to the "a kill on the gun is a mission kill" argument - well, yes and no. The tank invariably keeps rolling on to its objective, soaking up more missiles because no one can tell its main gun isn't firing (trust me, when you have a company of T-14s closing on you, you're not trying to work out if one has stopped firing its main gun at you!). The very effective 12.7mm armed RWS then comes into play and can be a lot more than a nuisance, particularly if you're relying on unguided shoulder launched AT weapons to stop the Armata. 

Also, there is something a bit uncanny about these missiles hitting 100% of the time - Raytheon only claim a >93%reliability rate for Javelin and >94% hit rate for a first time gunner hit* (presumably on a target range vs a static, well defined target in ideal conditions) - cumulatively that's c. 87% chance of a hit, on a range. I don't know if any of you hunt, but there is a world of difference between being able to swat horseflies and bluebottles at 50 metres with a scoped .22 rifle and taking that rig into the field after rabbits. I know the game doesn't model system reliability, but with wire and laser guided ATGW in SB, you have a realistic element of AI gunners missing or hitting in different places on the target vehicle. If you shoot those missiles yourself (which is highly enjoyable and realistic) you miss sometimes and don't hit dead centre with every shot. For that reason, perhaps randomisation could include a percentage of outright misses, particularly against moving vehicles?

I know I've said it before, but I think we are doing the T-14 a disservice by not modelling the upward firing rapid blooming smoke launchers triggered by onboard sensors. The system is specifically designed to counter the likes of Spike and Javelin. I think we may be lulling ourselves into a false sense of security without it.

Anyway, @TheWood, I realise I'm probably not on your Christmas card list anymore, but I hope you realise that we all ultimately want the same thing here. Obsessively yours. Chris.

* https://www.lockheedmartin.com/content/dam/lockheed-martin/mfc/pc/javelin/mfc-javelin-pc.pdf

Javelin vs Spike MR 25 hits Detailed report..xlsxJavelin vs Spike MR 25 hits Detailed report..xlsxJavelin vs Spike MR 25 hits Detailed report..xlsxJavelin vs Spike MR 25 hits Detailed report..xlsxHere (attached) is the detailed 25 round F8 view test you (Volcano) rightly claimed would be a lot more illuminating. Detailed methodology is in a paragraph at the start of the report. For those who don't want to read the report, both systems were amazingly consistent. Spike MR did not achieve a kill, but took out the main gun with almost every round and the radio with every round, but did little else. The Javelin killed with 23 out of 25 shots and one of the other two hits took out the main gun. I didn't note the details down, but three of the kills were not catastrophic ammo explosions. The reason I did not post the raw data is it would mean posting 50 AARs and reports and I'm sure no one would want to wade through that!

Hi Volcano

Yes, I twigged the vagueness of the HTML report issue going over the reports vs AARs this morning   For the purpose of investigating this issue, the combination of AAR and HTML is indeed flawed vs screen capturing the damage from F8 view in game, but it is good enough to reveal a 63% vs <1% kill rate disparity. I really appreciate your time and explanations and I hope you accept that my tone is never adversarial and often praises your work, which I often think is little short of uncanny in depicting reality.  I also understand that you are being consistent in applying the damage models in SB and that these vary in accuracy from vehicle to vehicle due to the age of the vehicle and the user benefit anticipated from putting work into updating that model. I do think, however, having now tested both Javelin and Spike MR with the same paramaters that there really is something subtle going on that you may not have noticed. I think the way you have modelled the Javelin is different from the Spike MR in one crucial detail which makes the Javelin absolutely devastating vs the Armata, with lots of one shot ammo explosion kills (63% of hits resulted in kills - see attached spreadsheet and raw data) whereas the Spike MR tends to inflict gun, fire control damage about half the time and radio damage almost always, and kills <1% of the time.  I honestly doubt this disparity exists in real life. I think you and others will see the following difference borne out simply by reviewing the visual world AARs that I posted below and previously for the Spike MR.  The difference is as follows:

The Javelin in game always hits the same point on the vehicle, regardless of azimuth of approach. That very often results in an angle that passes through the ammo carousel or other ammo storage.

The Spike MR in game (and I mean in game as I know in RL the missile in fire and forget mode assesses the visual centre of the target and aims for that) seems to be programmed to aim for a specific point inside the vehicle which appears to be unchanging. Due to geometry, this results in a variety of hit locations on the vehicle, almost none of which transect ammo storage.

My assessment of how this could be fixed would be simply to move the point inside the tank that SB is using to align the missile impact lower in the tank as this will result in a greater variety of impact points that are more likely to transect the stored ammunition. Alternatively give it the same impact point as Javelin (with the caveat about the possibility of a steeper impact angle for the former). 

I hope this helps. I also hope you know I wouldn't bother if I wasn't a huge fan of SB and didn't want it, its user base and ESim Games to thrive.

Javelin_vs_100_Armatas_4328_111519HP-Z4401205.aar Javelin vs 100 Armatas.sce_4_11-15-19_12_05_32.htm Javelin vs 100 Armatas.xlsx

I've done a bit more testing. I had a lot of failures in my methodology and had to keep refining it. I'm not claiming it's perfect and I'm including all the files so you can see what I did.

I placed the 100 fully operational and bombed-up, but blind Armatas in groups of 5 around the edge of the map.  I then set up 10 missile teams with Spike MR toward the middle of the map with their defend priority arcs angled outward radially toward the vehicles. I watched one of the teams engage 12 times using unlimited ammo and an AI gunner to ensure I had at least 100 launches without having to count each one for every launcher. Every round hit and at least inflicted damage - but usually not very much and they only achieved one kill. Although there was some target fixation, if you review the AAR, you'll see that tanks were engaged from a usefully varied selection of azimuths. In the end I'd fired about 120 times, so, for the purposes of making a spreadsheet, I deleted the last shots to take the total back to 100 (the killed vehicle was in the first 100) and then sorted by target vehicle and time. I used shading to make it easier to follow which missiles hit which vehicle.  

OK, first to acknowledge that, in real life, the Spike MR is offered with and without fire and update guidance and in use this is optional even if the missile is so equipped. With the LR all missiles are equipped, but use is still optional. In game all missiles are fire and update (and dual IIR/CCD mode which only the very latest Spikes are - which offers great flexibility in game as you can choose whether to use the missile as single mode day or IIR or dual mode). As Volcano pointed out, if shooting the missile in game, first person, you can easily use the arrow keys to nudge the aim point to hit somewhere more likely to set off the ammunition of kill the crew etc. However, in game I rarely use them first person, particularly as I can have a few ATGW teams on the go at the same time and may well be commanding a completely different unit.

Secondly, I can't believe that any ATGW achieves the kind of utterly repeatable extreme precision modelled in SB in real life in combat conditions. Yes, I have seen the video where one is piloted down the hatch of a static tank in fire and update mode, but, particularly in fire and forget mode, there has to be some variation in point of impact even if missiles are fired from exactly the same angle against the same target. Giving the missile a CEP of even 0.75 metres in game would help cause a variation in damage inflicted and more kills through hits to the ammunition carousel.

Lastly, and Volcano has addressed this, I think it's unrealistic that hits to the main armament breech area (of which the system, as modelled, achieves a lot as you will see from the AAR) do not take out the gun in a lot of instances. If you're going to use a damage model that relies on critical areas, surely those areas have to be vulnerable? What we currently have in Spike MR vs the Armata is a weapon that is extremely, and I believe, unrealistically ineffective.

I'll run the same test with Javelin tomorrow.

Spike MR vs 100 Armatas.sce_15_11-14-19_21_22_28.htm Spike_MR_vs_100_Armatas_15424_111419HP-Z4402122.aar Spike MR vs 100 Armatas.xlsx

OK, I did some more testing and got what to me are some really surprising results. 

I created a fully bombed up, but "blind" group of 100 Armatas pointing in pseudo random directions and shot at them 100 times with Javelin, Spike MR and Spike LR with unlimited ammo, counting to 100 with time set to x10. Results are still in the "statistics of small numbers" realm, but seem to bear out Volcano's observation about the Spike LR having a different trajectory resulting in a different and more effective impact angle. Remember this is for 100 shots fired.

Javelin, damaging "hits"* achieved 9.  Kills. 0. Damage done - invariably took out the vehicle's radio (presumably the aeriel)

Spike MR. damaging "hits" achieved 8. Kills 1. All damage to un-killed vehicles was to the vehicle's radio.

Spike LR. damaging "hits" achieved 16. Kills. 5. Of un-killed vehicles, there were 2 immobilisations, 2 FCS damage, 1 turret damage and 10 radio damages.

As the vehicles were blind, almost no Afganit interceptions were attempted and would in any case have been of dubious value against such top attack missiles. What I don't understand is the very high percentage of complete and often quite distant misses - much of the damage done was fragmentation from these misses. Every time I have played the Spike and Javelin in game, every round has hit. I think every hit I have ever made on a T-90 with Spike MR and LR has killed it, but I saw one only cause damage in a youtube video someone posted of ATGMS in SB. There must be something wrong with my testing methodology.

*Including fragmentation from misses.

 

Javelin vs 100 Armatas.sce_15_11-12-19_19_04_08.htm Spike MR vs 100 Armatas.sce_15_11-12-19_19_09_06.htm Spike LR vs 100 Armatas.sce_15_11-12-19_19_13_24.htm Javelin_vs_100_Armatas_15184_111219HP-Z4401904.aar Spike_MR_vs_100_Armatas_15184_111219HP-Z4401909.aar Spike_LR_vs_100_Armatas_15184_111219HP-Z4401913.aar

OK, when I get a moment I'll re-do the test with 100 fully bombed-up, "blind" Armatas at various angles and ranges and use the AI gunner for Javelin, Spike LR, Spike MR, AT-14 and TOW 2A and B RF Aero. That will make for an interesting comparison of contemporary systems.  

Godzilla (preferably crewable). 

I didn't know there was such a thing as blind status. I'll re do the test over the weekend. I can't see it would have made much of a difference in outcome to the test though given the impact point of the missiles and the design of the Armata. The disparity definitely occurred in games with fully bombed up vehicles with operational Afganit too.

Hi.  I have been having a lot of fun creating and playing scenarios/missions trying to come with mixes of weapons and tactics that work against the Armata, and I've discovered a huge disparity in lethality between the Spike LR and the Javelin vs the Armata.

Scenario 1. 

I manually aimed and fired one Spike at each of 50 Armatas, immobilised by damaging both tracks, without Afghanit and with ammo removed. There were 50 hits. All 50 took out the radio and one took out a vehicle's FCS.

Scenario 2. 

Because I find using the Javelin so tedious (and it does represent RL very well), I let a Javelin crew fire 58 missiles (I lost count and had to go back and count them from the report) at the same array of Armatas. Some of the vehicles took more than one hit, but that didn't make much difference to the subsequent evaluation. There were 58 hits of which 24 were immediate kills (probably all ammunition explosions, although I had removed all ammunition, the ready carousel still counts as full in the damage model). Of the remaining hits all took out the FCS. Interestingly, every hit damaged a vehicle's radio except one that damaged the turret - the only non fatal hit to do the latter.

Some observations.

1. I never had the "Spike gunner target fixation problem" in this testing - this seems only to happen (sadly, almost inevitably) when obscurants or the vehicle moving in and out of cover or concealment is involved.
2. I could have varied the point of impact of the Spike using Fire and Update. I mostly don't shoot missiles myself in scenarios though, so I accepted the default aim point and fired manually simply so I could count off one missile per target (I'd forgotten how much more onerous doing the same thing with Javelin at that stage would be). Javelin doesn't have fire and update.
3. Whether the Javelin killed was highly dependent on the angle of presentation of the target vehicle.
4. With Spike, some of the hits were clearly around the gun mantlet and I would have expected gun damage, given the angle of impact and the non trivial penetration of warhead.
5. I'd have also expected fragmentation damage to the RWS (that may have happened but was outside the scope of the report)
6. Though not covered by this test, I also find that Javelins are highly effective against Armatas with their APS fitted. In reality the vehicle has what I believe is a high angle smoke launching system linked to the AESA radar to hopefully blind the missile well before impact, hopefully causing it to miss. Perhaps the simulation (which already pops smoke when the vehicle is lased) could add some smoke popping off high up and well away from the vehicle toward the missile to simulate this? (there is also a claim that the RWS can shoot down incoming missiles, but I think that sounds a bit far fetched).
7. What I would like to see, and what might fix the problem is randomisation of the exact impact point on the vehicle. At the moment the missiles seem to be trying to hit a point inside the vehicle with the actual impact point dependent on the angle of the vehicle to the missile launcher. I am guessing the exact point chosen by the developers for the "interior aim point" used by the simulation differs between the two missiles with the HEAT jet from the Spike never transecting the ammo carousel regardless of azimuth of the vehicle relative to the launcher at impact.

All the usual disclaimers apply about this not being an implied criticism of ESim Games, nor of any of the developers thereof. 

Spike vs 50 Armatas.sce_8_11-08-19_13_35_20.htm Javelin 50 Armatas.sce_8_11-08-19_14_06_58.htm Spike vs 50 Armatas_8368_110819HP-Z4401335.aar Javelin_50_Armatas_8368_110819HP-Z4401406.aar

On 11/7/2019 at 7:48 AM, Ssnake said:

My 141% where honestly earned with random chance overlapping a dead and a live target, not by deliberately lining up a dozen vehicles behind each other, or using 3P or KETF rounds. I'm not going to risk the legend, however. It would probably require a lot of retries (although I'm confident that I could still do it, given the right circumstances.

I ended up with crazy high hit percentages like that in Instant Action with the M1A2 in 4.0 as enemy vehicles (sometimes over 100 of them) piled up behind the trees. One of the less mentioned improvements in 4.1 is the Instant Action scenarios are now MUCH more challenging.

Sorry, Dejawolf. I know Ssnake is (justifiably) reticent about discussing his business model, but I always assumed that, besides community sourced material like tutorials and skins, everything in SB was made by paid staff and therefore bore a significant cost to ESim Games. Do I understand from the above that Al Delaney's accessibility of vehicle implementation work made it possible for unpaid community members to get involved in implementing new, non-crewable vehicles, or doing the non programming work in creating crewable ones? If so, I'd love to have a go at that.

And that's where I'd much rather your effort went, even if it meant an end to new vehicles or changes to the damage model for the forseeable future. What we've got is entirely workable - it just throws up an occasional anomaly which we can easily chalk up to "unlikely stuff happens in war". When I request something on the Wish List thread these days, it's either something I think won't take a staggering amount of effort (for example, a guided round for the Armata) or it's something that might take significant resources, but will have a huge benefit to realism right across the game (subtley more realistic infantry behaviour). I often just post stuff out of curiosity about how things work, particularly when I see apparent anomalies and things I don't properly understand, and, because of my poor communication skills, it's sometimes taken to be a request for a huge amount of time and effort to be spent on something with negligible training benefit and thus unlikely to generate a financial return, which I really don't want.

PS: This is what I would expect from propellant in cased ammo being ignited.

 

Hi Ssnake - I thought that with combustible cases or bagged charges etc. (if not in water jackets etc.) touching off one would set off the others so fast that there would be an explosion, rather than a Roman candle, it's just that the explosion would be a "low order" explosion, perhaps blowing the turret off, rather than a "high order" explosion, through sympathetic detonation rather than ignition. which, particularly when the vehicle is carrying a high proportion of HE and HEAT rounds, will tend to totally blow the vehicle apart, as seen in some knocked out MBTs in Ukraine. This may be an incorrect interpretation on my part.

I marvel at the work that has gone into SB every day and, as you know, I am a huge and consistent proponent of SB elsewhere.

On 10/27/2019 at 5:14 PM, Assassin 7 said:

CVC'S saves lives. lol

An ear piercing they can brag about in the bar.

Sorry Volcano, the fault is mine as usual. There was nothing wrong with your original explanation either - I just didn't click that carousel stowage was "ready" rather than "stored". I completely understand that with c. 250 vehicles in SB, they are not all going to be kept updated to the same standard of damage modelling. I am still learning about the way damage is modelled in the game and about the vehicles themselves, both as modelled here and as they exist in RL. Your explanations made me work to understand how to kill the Armata and I discovered it had significant vulnerabilities and was eminently defeatable, particularly with solid combined arms tactics as others have pointed out.  I did not know, for example that Roman candles were the result of hydraulic fluid. I thought they were the result of a penetration into a cased round setting off propellant (which is silly as they sometimes happen with vehicles using caseless or stub only case ammo), so Hedgehog's explanation makes a lot of sense. I read somewhere a long time ago that hydraulic vs electric turret drive made a significant difference to crew survival in Israeli M48/60 vs Centurion which is why they and I would be amazed if Armata used hydraulic. I think later M60s went to electric traverse, retaining hydraulic elevation and the M1 was electric from the start. The fact that vehicles with no ammunition in them blow up is of no consequence in target vehicles from a training perspective as you want to train users to aim to penetrate the carousel anyway - trainees will never know for sure that an enemy vehicle is out of main gun ammo after all. It really doesn't bother me from a vehicles on my side in gaming perspective either, particularly as the effort by yourselves to make ammo explosion probability truly realistic would be non-trivial to say the least. 

3UBK21 Sprinter and 9M119M1 Invar-M missiles and NII Stali Upper Hemisphere Protection Complex for T-14 Armata.

The ability for infantry or engineers to lay AT mines and set up claymores in game. 

Infantry that duck when shot at, displace when out of sight and pop up somewhere else and generally make realistic use of cover and concealment.

The option of more clutter (when smaller map areas selected) for infantry to hide behind in or under.