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Possible bug - vast disparity in lethality Spike vs Javelin vs Armata


ChrisWerb

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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

Edited by ChrisWerb
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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.

Edited by ChrisWerb
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#2 & #7: (AI aim point) Ignoring the fact that the Spike can be steered manually after launch (which is something that the AI gunner doesn't do anyway), the Spike and Javelin are simply "locked on" the target, and it flies towards center-mass on it. The AI is not aiming at a specific point in space within the vehicle with these types of missiles (more on that below).

 

#3: (Top attack kills are highly depending on aspect angle to target) This is true with all AFV targets engaged by top attack missiles (Javelin, Spike, Hellfire).  Obviously though, yet again, if a vehicle has crew located in the center mass area of the target, then its more likely to kill that crew with the impact. There is nothing unique or unrealistic here about the T-14, other than what was already said before (the crew is in a relatively tiny area, safe from fragments/spall).  The improvement made in 4.1 though is that overpressure effects (from Hellfire, Spike, Javelin) can cause additional damages though (the first time you cause those damages, of course, because subsequent hits on the same target that cause the same damage will not be shown in the AAR).

 

The other thing to consider is that the ammo carousel, when viewed from above, goes around the sub turret like a donut. So, depending on how steep the angle of impact is, it could avoid the carousel. However, if you (apparently) removed all the ammo from the T-14, then you have also removed a large part of possible damage from the turret area, as the stored ammo in the rear of the turret can contribute to the T-14's destruction from a top attack missile - depending on impact angle.

 

#4: (Damage to the gun from mantlet impacts) This can easily happen, but it depends heavily on impact angle.  A direct, 90 degree impact (with no surface in between) on the gun or breach with a Javelin will yield a > 500% chance to damage the gun. However once you start factoring in the angle of impact, and surfaces between the impact and gun/breach, then the probability drastically declines.  This probability is exactly the same across all tank guns and breaches.  Also, once we start factoring in these extra variables (like impact angle and such) then its intentional that the target gets a sort of advantage (or at least a nod) because about 10-15 years ago, it was far too easy to damage the maingun from impacts, and we had scenarios where entire tank forces would driving around with maingun damage, as they would damage each other's guns with just about any impact on their gun. This was a very bad situation that the community complained about heavily, and we will not be going back to that.  So, about 10 years ago all the AFV guns were re-evaluated, and the armor models updated, and they were more realistically hardened a bit in this regard. In other words, that is by design.

 

#5: (Damage to internal components from fragments) Yes this can certainly happen, but it depends mainly on the penetration power and number of the fragments. That said, much of the components in the turret (of all AFVs) are pretty resistant to fragments and spall, except for the soft fleshy crew - which isn't present in this situation.

 

#6: (APS and counter measures) Correct about the smoke countermeasures; the smoke counter measures are not modeled - at least the smoke doesn't do anything to the incoming missile's ability to hit the target. Maybe one day. 

 

However, regarding the APS, IIRC, it doesn't have any capability to actually intercept top attack missiles because they are fixed in a specific angle and direction, among other reasons. As far as we know, there are no upwards firing APS rounds on any of these vehicles, currently. 

 

#7: In real life, once the missile is fired, it is homing in on the vehicle itself - its not aiming for some precise location like where the ammo or crew is (in front of the T-14 for example). The Spike is the exception because it can be manually steered by the non-AI gunner, but that is up to the user to do this. However hitting a specific place on the vehicle with an incoming Spike is very difficult to do. In other words, the "target frame" is only used by the AI gunner's aim point when it comes to guns, or non-fire and forget missiles (ie. guided types).

 

Maybe that helps explain some things at least. No time to explain much more, unfortunately.

 

EDIT: Ah, sorry if I misunderstood the Javelin to Spike comparison here, I was just wanting to explain how it worked on a basic level.  It could be that the Spike and Javelin have different impact angles which might make a big difference (impact angle probably depends greatly on max range of missile, and range of target to launcher).

 

 

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10 hours ago, Volcano said:

EDIT: Ah, sorry if I misunderstood the Javelin to Spike comparison here, I was just wanting to explain how it worked on a basic level.  It could be that the Spike and Javelin have different impact angles which might make a big difference (impact angle probably depends greatly on max range of missile, and range of target to launcher).

 

Note that you have the Spike LR here, which has a 4km max range. One thing you could do is use the Spike MR instead, which has a comparable max range to the Javelin, and then their angle of impact will likely be more similar (this would be a factor, actually).

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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.  :)

Edited by ChrisWerb
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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

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When I was looking into it last week damage seemed very dependent on the impact angle. Some angles lead to little damage, others lead to catastrophic kills, which makes sense to me. If the warhead penetrates into an area that isn't related to the ammo storage then the vehicle is unlikely to be killed, but merely damaged.

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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

Edited by ChrisWerb
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So, at least all the missiles hit without time acceleration.

 

WRT more randomization in the flight trajectory, we may be working on a new feature that might help with exactly that, for all missiles, in the future. But it's still in prototype stage and can't be immediately transferred. Nevertheless, I think it's going to help.

 

For the moment, keep in mind that all missiles will home for the exact same location, the same location that all other AI gunners will aim for, so the main variation in performance will come from the impact angle - which is nearly identical for the Spike, irrespective of range, due to its guidance mechanism of, essentially, approximating a logarithmic spiral; Javelin's impact vector is more range-dependent. So, from that characteristic I would expect more varied results from a Javelin test, provided that the range spread in your scenario will cover the full engagement envelope (say, 500...2,500m rather than centering everything to ranges around 1750m +/-275m.

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Here's the thing regarding the observations:  in the test you seem to be (apparently) basing the observation of what is damaged on the HTML report.  If so, these would be flawed observations because the HTML report is vague, and is lacking in detail.

 

I will try to explain:

 

The hits in the AAR (I have viewed all the AARs) state "Heavy damage" on the T-14. This is very general and could be any number of actual damages - including gun sights, stabilization, maingun, turret drive, ballistic computer, LRF, or anything related to the primary weapon system.  But unless you go to the vehicle and see/list what those damages are here, then all there is to go by is the HTML which is not sufficient because it is too vague. 

 

Since I knew that "Heavy damage" is just about anything relating to the gun, and because "heavy" (in SB) essentially means the vehicle is crippled  (ie. Maingun), I didn't say anything before because the AARs looked reasonable to me in this regard. (Also, there seems to be a general sensitivity lately in the forum where everyone thinks we are just explaining stuff away, and I felt that these observations from me wouldn't help). But I digress...

 

Now take a look at the HTML.  The only damage types that are actually recorded there are:

 

     Destroyed, Immobilized, Commander, Gunner, Loader, Driver, Fire Control System, Radio, Turret

 

There is nothing there specifically about Maingun damage, right? And (IIRC) as mentioned above, the maingun damage is lumped into the "Fire Control System". So how exactly are you basing your test results on whether maingun damage is happening off the HTML report? But perhaps you didn't know that the HTML report was vague to begin with.

 

In any case, when I place a T-14 into a scenario at similar range and shoot a Spike ATGM at it, then I get Maingun damage just about every time, and this is listed in the AAR as "Heavy damage" (confirmed).

 

 

Image1.jpg.8f57c4c2de6a70ae4d3d87914c88d862.jpg

 

Image2.jpg.928de8da71af830ffd47569bbb54e3df.jpg

 

...and this is the most "tame" result.

 

Many results look like this:

 

Image3.jpg.dc3e29fd32317fedbdbfd455c99f6ec8.jpg

 

...which looks exactly the same in the AAR and HTML report (in the former its all reported as "Heavy damage" and in the latter all as "Fire control system").

 

In my case I fired off 10x such ATGMs, and all produced maingun damage, at least.

 

Certainly this points out the known flaw with the HTML report - that it is not very detailed, and heavens knows we always want to improve the HTML report.

 

But the observations in this thread all seem to be based on the flawed HTML report.  Or am I mistaken?

 

What you would need to do, for a good observation, would be to specifically got to the T-14 in the game (F8 view) and note the exact damage types inflicted on the T-14 for the information to be useful. Example:

 

Hit #1: Maingun, radio, stabilization.

Hit #2: Radio, LRF, TIS, Maingun.

Hit #3: Stabilization, Turret drive, Radio.

....

Hit #20: Radio.

 

Not from the HTML report. Also, it must be observed as a fresh hit in the T-14, not additional ones on the same target (because you can't inflict the same damage twice as I already said).

 

So as far as I see it at this point:

 

a) To save you some time, the T-14 (in my observations) is indeed being crippled reliably with just about every top attack impact to the turret. So, in this regard, the actual damages seem reasonable from the F8 view.

 

b) An optimal test result (if you are still interested in continuing) would not be 100 HTML impacts, but rather about 25 detailed impacts with damages recorded from F8 view (mentioned above).

 

c) Also to save you more time, one thing that we were already investigating is whether the T-14's ammo carousel is consistently represented compared to other similar Russian tanks (it has nothing to do with vehicle diagrams, but is to do with consistency in 3D modeling - the suspected issue is that the T-14 might be *too detailed* in this regard - sometime too much detail makes things behave very strict in comparison to other vehicles). Nothing was mentioned about it because it is ongoing, but I may as well comment in this thread if anything changes from it (because it would be relevant here). [This information is just a courtesy FYI -- I am not going to comment on this further until something does or does not change here, I only mentioned it as something that is being investigated.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

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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

Edited by ChrisWerb
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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!

 

 

 

Edited by ChrisWerb
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Some explanations:

 

It was never mentioned that the kill ratio should be higher with those missiles. So, if it is there is a low kill ratio with the Spike (as you say), then fine - that doesn't mean its not realistic if the vehicle is being crippled every time.  Kills happen for a reason, because the vehicle explodes, or the crew is killed for example.  Otherwise, the missiles are crippling the vehicle with maingun damage, which is rendering it non-combat-effective - and that is what I said was a realistic expectation all along (since the crew cannot be hit in that area (unlike a traditional vehicle), and because the ammunition is somewhat protected. Sure we could splash some redundant kill damages all over the vehicle just for wishful thinking, or because someone expects a certain result, but at this point we are chalking it up to the vehicle's natural survivability because its not a traditional, fully manned vehicle (maybe we can refer to it as a partially manned vehicle).

 

Beyond that, you that took on your own from there and are attempting to make a case that it isn't being killed enough, apparently, but that is simply what you expect to see and is not necessarily based on reality (especially considering that the T-14 actually has counter measures for these missiles which aren't currently modeled in the first place).

 

The only thing I can say between the difference of the Spike and Javelin (at this point) is the difference in the angle of attack. Just a slight difference in degrees of impact angle can mean a major difference in what the results are, because it means the path of the penetration is going to be different.

 

I don't see how the Javelin and the Spike are aiming at different points in the vehicle, because that is not how they work  in the game AFAICR. To investigate that, it would take a programmer to dig into the code here, which I don't see as something that is going to happen anytime soon. But then again, maybe I can do some experimenting with the T-14 to test the theory when I have time.  At least from a comparison between them at similar ranges, the missile seem to be aiming center mass on both, but the difference being the angle of attack which is based on other things (the missile's data itself).

 

Besides that, I am not seeing what you are observing in the reliable-kill against Javelin, vs unreliable-kill against Spike in every situation.  In some tests here with Javelin shots, I caused the same non-killing damages as I got with the Spike in my comment above.  However, when I adjusted the distance to the target in both cases, I got kill results on occasion, and sometimes reliably.  What that tells me is that the angle of attack matters a great deal, and with the target at different ranges, then the AOA is naturally going to be different because of that, and because of the difference between the two missile's performance.

 

What would be a concern is if the missiles didn't cripple the vehicle with their impacts, and this appears to be fine from what I can see (which is contrary to your previous observations because they were based on the HTML report).

 

Unfortunately I don't have much more time to devote to this at the moment, but feel free to continue making observations if you like.  I will see if I can test whether the aim point of the Javelin and Spike differ at some point (by temporarily modifying the model), when there is time, depending on how tedious it is to do it.

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11 hours ago, Volcano said:

c) Also to save you more time, one thing that we were already investigating is whether the T-14's ammo carousel is consistently represented compared to other similar Russian tanks (it has nothing to do with vehicle diagrams, but is to do with consistency in 3D modeling - the suspected issue is that the T-14 might be *too detailed* in this regard - sometime too much detail makes things behave very strict in comparison to other vehicles). Nothing was mentioned about it because it is ongoing, but I may as well comment in this thread if anything changes from it (because it would be relevant here). [This information is just a courtesy FYI -- I am not going to comment on this further until something does or does not change here, I only mentioned it as something that is being investigated.]

 

 

OK, I was corrected here by the modeler.

 

The decision was that the difference in the ammo carousel representation on the T-14 is actually based in reality (and is not a modeling inconsistency).  Without going into too much detail, the T-72s ammo carousel is shaped (from above) like a disk. This is because, due to space limitations, the rounds are stored horizontally in the carousel with the charges.  The T-14 doesn't have this limitation so the rounds are stored vertically around the sub turret so when viewed from above its more like a donut with a hole in the middle (the carousel going around the sides of the sub turret, as opposed to going around bottom of the turret floor).  This provides natural protection from above, but makes them more vulnerable from the side.

 

So, long story short, this is a non issue. But at least we made sure. (I will strike out that text in the previous comment to hopefully prevent confusion.)

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Indeed, the AOA is very important (the most important factor here, it seems).

 

5 hours ago, Volcano said:

...I will see if I can test whether the aim point of the Javelin and Spike differ at some point (by temporarily modifying the model), when there is time, depending on how tedious it is to do it.

Actually, good news in regards to my previous text: It turns out that it wasn't such a pain to test this. I (temporarily) modified the T-14 model and moved the "target" frame outside of the vehicle. As I said, the "target" is something the trained AI gunner aims for to kill the vehicle. It turns out that the Spike behaves as I suspected, aiming at center mass of vehicle object. The Javelin however does aim at the "target", and in the case of my test, missed the target.

 

But here is the rub: the "target" frame is very closely located at the model's center, probably only slightly off.  Still, in our quest for perfection, the Javelin ATGM shouldn't be aware of the "target" and should instead aim center mass (the computer controlling the missile wouldn't know about every vehicle's 'sweet spot' like a trained human gunner would - it would simply lock-on and fly center mass like the Spike does). When I put the "target" back in its proper place, the aim point between both missiles is very similar (off by inches).

 

The real different factor here (after additional testing) is the angle of attack, not so much the aim point.  That said, we recognize that three long term improvements can be made here (we actively look for areas of improvement):

 

  • The Javelin should aim center mass on the vehicle, like the Javelin. In the case of the T-14, this won't make much of a difference, but still its important for consistency (and strive for consistency). Of course this means that the Javelin performance against other targets in SB might change though.
  • The angle of attack of both missiles could be re-evaluated at some point.  The issue here is that we don't have a high fidelity flight model, so its like that the missiles are given an altitude that they climb to, at which point they angle down to descend, in which case their angle of attack is dependent on range, distance, velocity and so forth. It could also be that the Spike's climb altitude is too high too, or some other detail. Or maybe its all correct. Still, there *could* be some consistency investigation that could be done there.
  • (edit) As Ssnake mentioned in the comment after this, the lock-on missiles do aim for the same exact point on the target, and this could improve as well - some slight deviation would make them less-perfect.

 

(Keep in mind also that the T-14's counter measures against these missiles aren't even modeled -- which means the missiles are even less useful against them in real life).

 

A short term improvement can also be made here...

 

  • I can slightly adjust the target frame on the T-14 for the AI gunners to help them more likely hit the ammo carousel (by lowering it about 6 inches). This is unrelated to everything else, but at this point we are simply looking for anything to improve (the tail is definitely wagging the dog here now). 😑

 

Beyond that though, there appears to be no issues with the simulation, in general.  Yes, the T-14 is not reliably killed by top attack missiles, or at least it is heavily dependent on AOA, which in turn is dependent on the missile's performance and range to target (and maybe its better to put the Javelin in DIRECT mode against the T-14, perhaps -- something for the human user/gunner to consider). The different AOA can mean a great difference in what the penetrator hits inside and these are all plausable, natural results from the model.

 

Apart from that, the T-14 is being crippled by these top attack hits (and sometimes destroyed by it depending in AOA) and that is all we can realistically expect, given what we know about the vehicle's design - contrary to what was first reported here (based on HTML files). But yes, the reliability of this does depend on the impact angle, which in turn depends on the missile type and the range to the target.

 

All that said, development has to move forward here now (hours have been spent here, where we tried to find anything that could be improved upon), but maybe some long term improvements can come from all this. B|

 

 

 

 

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Main gun damage is a mission kill. Let's not forget that.

That the crew survivability of the Armata is high shouldn't be held against the top attack missiles.

 

I'm not sure if a 39% mission kill rate is adequate, maybe it should be higher - but we will not chase an arbitrary damage/kill ratio for a specific pairing of attacking projectile and a certain target; if we did that, Steel Beasts' damage model would degenerate into total subjectivity, and lose all consistency.

 

That being said - as you rightly pointed out the hit location may be too uniform/perfect at the moment, and should be somewhat more randomized. That is certainly a suggestion worth some consideration.

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38 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

That being said - as you rightly pointed out the hit location may be too uniform/perfect at the moment, and should be somewhat more randomized. That is certainly a suggestion worth some consideration.

This is a lot of obsessive time spent to get to that conclusion.

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