Ssnake

Not necessarily (but in this case: Yes). The description in the text box in the lower right corner lists what actual damages occurred - here, the destruction of the vehicle. Each event with an HE explosion in it has "sub events" that you can view by using the little extra toggle buttons, which may then reveal what exactly the simulation result was. A word of caution: While we're not "making shit up" it's still important to keep in mind that our model is, by necessity, simplified. AAR events in Steel Beasts should not be used to try and win an argument that with a certain HE explosion the resulting framents must perforate armor X. The fragments that Steel Beasts generates are stochastic. Their distributions are based on widely accepted models (Gourney (fragment velocities), Taylor (fragment vectors), and Mott (fragment mass)) but it's still a stochastical model, not all ammunition types have been completely adapted to it, and there's always the discussion whether certain parameters are chosen correctly (typically, the model is open, but the parameters are classified, so we must estimate them). Therefore, a virtual HE round in SB Pro might produce fewer and larger fragments (or smaller, and more of them) than it's physical counterpart. My expectation is that the discrepancies remain well under one order of magnitude - but can I guarantee it in every case? No. Likewise, we're not simulating how shockwaves expand, get reflected, etc.; the way we're dealing with spall on the inside of homogeneous armor (which has long been discontinued in AFV design anyway) is probably using a relatively broad brush. In a nutshell: You can have macro lens photographs of individual flowers. That's the level of detail that FEM analysis produces. You can have a camera snapshot from an airliner flying over a garden - the level of detail that a division level or higher wargame produces. Steel Beasts is the panorama painting of a garden full of flowers. Some of the flowers are painted in detail, others are colorful dots in the background. Each of these types of images produces an accurate picture within what it aims to do. But if you're a botanist trying to figure out the details of a certain flower, you need the macro lens photography. Putting a magnification glass on the panorama painting isn't going to help you find answers about a certain flower, it only tells you something about the paint that was used. Likewise, the scope of Steel Beasts is the tactical realm. Each scenario is based on (unspoken) assumptions of the strategic context in which a battle might occur. It's not going to answer your question about how many spare parts you will need to repair your tanks, etc.

Could be either. It can be a catastrophic destruction (fire, or worse), or a combination of key component damages, or all of the crew, or any combination thereof.

With special glass types and Germanium coating, it works. An essential component for the feasibility of thermal imagers as sensors. Vacuum-separated double-pane windows OTOH are effective means to keep a home insulated.

Well, there can be cases in which at least something similar could happen, like an explosion on the turret front right above the driver's hatch, or shockwave reflections. But these cases of impulse transfer are impossible to enumerate in a real-time simulation, and also resist stochastical approaches very well because so many variables are at play. Even then, numerical methods have made great strides as predictors in armored vehicle design phases to see what constructive countermeasures reduce shockwave energy transfer (decoupled, flexing plates with air gap as the most prolific example) so that short of a direct impact, modern vehicles can be assumed to be better protected than ever against indirect effects. This was impossible to figure out experimentally before the mid 1980s when the finite elements method started to become practical (it's computationally very demanding).

Conceivably, killed by air strike when it didn't expect imminent ground contact. Like I wrote, I'm not disputing that it happened historically. It's just that doctrinally the barrels are to be removed when preparing for combat, so that's why we decided years ago to show our tanks without these fuel drums. Won't stay like this forever, but short term we can't change it either.

Hmmmmm. Seriously? I mean, can you undo the Windows Update and then it works again? That would be, hm, quite interesting.

Not sure if the group/taskforce move works in the planning phase already, or only after mission start.

We wanted to dispel the impression that T-xx tanks could be reliably identified by those fuel drums. I guess, mission accomplished. Insofar there's no reason why we couldn't at least make those drums optional (though not for the 4.3 release, not enough time left).

Look, the release notes include a detailed guide/how-to. I don't think that an even more detailed guide is the solution when people have trouble with understanding basic principles of the operating system, or if they are oblivious of the status of free disc space on various drives. We have a bundle installer that is about as simple in its operation as it gets, but it cannot catch every possible combination of special local circumstances. That I was out of office for a week and had computer trouble that prevented me from polling emails has certainly compounded on the problem. I'm sorry for that and assure you, it will remain the exception.

Evidently, that's not the case. The biggest difference seems to be that missiles tend to come in lightweight bodies and try to deliver primarily a HEAT jet, with spherical overpressure around the detonation point as an unavoidable side effect. HE artillery shells come with a massive body, e.g. 8kg HE filler mass and 32kg steel for the surrounding shell. At at least doubled or even quadrupled mass, the impulse of the impacting round is equally doubled or quadrupled. I'd also think that the artillery shell deforms less than an ATGM body, so the stress on the armor plate of the impact location must be higher, too. Combined, this probably means more cracks in plate and weld joints with the obvious consequences for the components underneath/behind the plate. It's just a theory. I have no extensive experimental damage or first-hand experience with battle damage analysis.

Writing the AAR data to disk is done in a separate thread, so it "shouldn't" create a noticeable problem. But if it happens in regular intervals no matter what you do, that's still what I'd suspect first. If it happens whenever you move the free-flight camera at or near top speed, it might be a matter of the terrain paging. That "should" also not happen, but depending on the amount of available video RAM, well, it might.

Hard to say, to be honest. I believe that for most tanks it will at least be a mission kill, with a giid chance to put the tank completely out of action. Tanks are designed to protect against large caliber artillery fire in 8...15m, sometimes 25m distance. Direct hits are a decidedly higher load on man and machine. Also, 125mm HE seems to be a common choice in the anti-tank role in Ukraine, which suggests to me that even heavier calibers probably do even more damage. But if the overpressure inside the vehicle exceeds a certain threshold, who knows. I think that other destruction mechanisms are at play, like ripping open fuel tanks by cracking welds or the armor plate itself, and then igniting the fuel through the flame of the HE explosion (and hot metal fragments). In short, I think the assumption that a direct hit of a 155mm artillery HE shell will effectively destroy an MBT is a pretty safe bet. How exactly it will be destroyed is a question about which I have no reliable information.

That's hard to dispute. Whoever that "real enemy" is. Not sure if I want to know your answer TBH, but it sounds so nebulous to me that it reminds me of certain conspiracy theorists. a. Russia, at a reduced and further receding amount b. Russia, as was to be expected c. Most probably not An economic recession is possible, but there's no sign that heating for the population is endangered. Furthermore, the decision to rid Europe of energy dependency from Russia seems to have been made across all of Europe, and as far as I can see it's not going to change even if Russia decided today to pull back its forces, annul the annexation if Crimea and Donbass, and pay reparations. "The West" won't strike a peace deal in the strict sense because officially it's not at war with Russia. Heck, even Russia by all official accounts is not at war with anyone. The theory that mutual dependency assures peaceful relations has been thoroughly debunked. As long as Russia maintains a policy of hostility towards the EU and NATO, I just don't see how there could be a return to relaxed relations. I see no reason for "the West" to change its attitude which is fundamentally non-aggressive towards Russia. It is Russia that defines the nature of its foreign relations, at the moment. What's more, the conduct of Russian troops in Ukraine makes it hard to imagine that on an emotional level its neighbors are going to restore relations to at least where it was before Feb 24. In short, I fundamentally disagree not with the quoted part of your analysis, but with your conclusions. I don't think you're following the current political and strategic debate within the European Union (and, you being a Canadian, that's somewhat excusable; hard enough to keep track of it while living here).

How do you define "code complexity"? I wouldn't know how to answer such a question. Let's just say that SB Pro has about a million lines of code. If I remember correctly, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 had about 300,000. But long code can be simple in structure, or convoluted, so quantity doesn't say much about complexity. Why do you ask?

Me neither. Shipping@eSimGames.com has the answer.