Re: Aircraft weapons
 

DRG,

There are pick out there on the net you just have to look. One of the sites I looked at had a pic of a Serbian M-84 that was destroyed by the GAU-8. No big holes just the turret blown off with a US GI standing on it. It had that funny burnt looking color of the M47 Patton that you mentioned. I saw that one too but never mentioned it because as you mentioned this does not compare to a modern MBT.

On another note I did some tests last night and by giving the GAU-8 sabot ammunition (9 Pen) and a weapons range of 130 and a sabot range of 130 it performed much better but was no uber weapon. About 1 in 3 or 4 passes were leathal to Iraqi T-72s. I also gave the gun a HE Pen of 2 and kept the 27 He kill value. This kept it effective against unarmored vehicles. Have not tested against infantry yet.
Another idea I tried was to give the A-10 was a AP value of 7 to match the number of tubes. This had little effect when loaded with only HE ammo but seemed to be to much with Sabot. So I put the AP value back to 1. More experiments to come.

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

What is the point of giving it a range of 130 when the game only fires aircraft weapons from 4 or 5 hexes away? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif You must have noticed that while running your tests. Give it 255 is you want it won't make the least bit of difference.

Changing the AP value to 7 won't work because that # of guns code for class 11 weapons is broken ( has been right back to SP2 ) but has been fixed for the next patch and, as I said, that "trick" won't work for Helo weapons.

Don

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

That's great Kevin... how about sharing the URL ?
Don

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

DRG,

I know that most all air gun attacks start a 250 to 300 meters in the game.
The longer range figures are to enhance the effects of the sabot rounds at close range. And it worked. Some of the reports read as follows, Pen 14, Arm 6 etc. a Pen of 14 was the highes I think and worked down to a low of 2 to 4 Pen.
I even had mobility kills. I'm going to try this with a sabot pen of 7 and see how effective that is.

Here is another tidbit I found,

"Stolfi, Dr. R., Dr. J. Clemens, and R. McEachin, Combat Damage Assessment Team A-10/GAU-8 Low Angle Firings Versus Individual Soviet Tanks, February-March 1978, Volume 1, Air Force/56780/February 2, 1979.

In this test an A-10 aircraft attacked two combat-loaded individual Soviet T-62 tanks in five missions totaling seven passes; technicians rehabilitated the two vehicles after each pass. The aircraft were seldom higher than 200 feet in altitude; firings were initiated between 2768 and 4402 feet and terminated at ranges of 1587 to 3055 feet at dive angles of 1.8 to 4.4°. The bursts ranged from 120 to 165 rounds.

Altogether 93 DU rounds struck the tanks during the seven passes, including no impacts on one pass. The ratio of impacts to rounds fired was 0.10. Of the 93 impacts, 17 penetrated the armored envelopes for a ratio of perforations to impacts of 0.18. The report noted many of the side or rear impacts that did not penetrate the armor nonetheless extensively damaged the tanks' exterior suspension components, whereas all the rounds that hit the tanks' front caused minimal damage. These results reinforced the strategy of attacking tanks from the side or rear to optimize damage potential."

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

Yes, strangly enough that is part of a quote I was about to post.....


How effective are DU shells anyway? Browsing through various literature about the Persian Gulf War one will encounter wonderful fairytales of British Challenger tanks penetrating Iraqi tanks with DU rounds at over five kilometers away and American Abrams tanks destroying two T-72s with one DU round at a distance of nearly 3 kilometers. One will also read stories of A-10s destroying scores of Iraqi tanks in one pass with their 30-mm DU shells. During the operation "Allied Force" against Yugoslavia stories of Serbian tanks being destroyed left and right attracted media attention just as well. After destroying hundreds of Serbian tanks in their own minds, NATO commanders were finally forced to admit the unimpressive reality.

Colorful folklore aside, in 1978 the US Army and the Air Force conducted a test in which an A-10 Thunderbolt ground attack aircraft engaged a pair of stationary Soviet-made T-62 tanks. The overall effectiveness of A-10s and their DU rounds did not exceed 2 percent:

"In this test an A-10 aircraft attacked two combat-loaded individual Soviet T-62 tanks in five missions totaling seven passes; technicians rehabilitated the two vehicles after each pass. The aircraft were seldom higher than 200 feet in altitude; firings were initiated between 2768 and 4402 feet and terminated at ranges of 1587 to 3055 feet at dive angles of 1.8 to 4.4 degrees. The bursts ranged from 120 to 165 rounds.

Altogether 93 DU rounds struck the tanks during the seven passes, including no impacts in one pass. The ratio of impacts to rounds fired was 0.10. Of the 93 impacts, 17 penetrated the armored envelopes for a ratio of penetrations to impacts of 0.18. The report noted many of the side or rear impacts that did not penetrate the armor nonetheless extensively damaged the tanks' exterior suspension components, whereas all the rounds that hit the tanks' front caused minimal damage. The results reinforced the strategy of attacking tanks from the side or rear to optimize damage potential." 12

The result of this exercise was fully confirmed during the operation "Allied Force" despite the upgrades of the A-10 and its weaponry. For tens of kilograms of DU introduced into the environment an A-10 has a slight chance of making a hole in a tank, which may or may not destroy it.

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

http://www.military.cz/usa/air/in_se...u8/gau8_en.htm

This one is an Iraqi T-72. It may be the same photo I was talking about. Still looking.

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

My guess is that the cause of the final state of that T-72 is M-Rick, not GAU.

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

More stuff,

"This report describes firings of the A-10/GAU-8 weapon system against individual combat loaded Soviet main battle tanks. The pilots making the firing passes attacked at low altitude and corresponding low dive angles simulating movement through a hostile air defense system. Ammunition used in the attacks comprised 30mm armor piercing incendiary rounds, which proved to be effective damage agents against substantial areas of the Soviet T-62 tanks used as targets. The pilots in six successful firing passes (one additional pass resulted in a miss) scored 95 impacts on target, which included 17 perforations through the armored envelope. The six tanks which were impacted received damage physically assessed as ranging from catastrophic in the case of two combat vehicles to negligible in the case of one tank attacked directly from the front. (Author)"

" Meant to be 30 Years Ago": That's the view of Air National Guard Lt. Col. Donald Henry of the "new" A-10C, which he helped bring to fruition as Air Combat Command's ANG A-10 program element monitor and which he flew in combat in Afghanistan. "The A-10C is the heaviest modernization program the A-10 has ever gone through," he said and added, "This is what the A-10 was meant to be 30 years ago." The new avionics, fully integrated targeting pods, and smart weapons, such as the Joint Direct Attack Munition, have produced an "effects-based upgrade" that enhances pilot situational awareness, said Henry. During one close air support mission, Henry said that the C model Hog enabled him to drop a JDAM "right in the middle of the target." He added: "I could see exactly where the friendlies were, where the enemies were. It would have taken much longer to verify their location, to roll in with dumb bombs. The JDAM made it extremely easy and precise." USAF has set 2011 as the date by which it will have all Hogs upgraded to C models and has issued a contract for new wing sets to prolong service life. Now, if USAF could just get new Hog engines. (Langley report by SSgt. Thomas Doscher)"

I think I miss named the photo. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

The pick posted by DRG of a Soviet type tank hit by a Maverik showed substantial hull damage. You could realy see where it hit.
The little photo I posted looks more like a ammo cook off that could be caused by a lucky 30mm DU pen.

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

Shouldn,t the P-51 Mustang in the OOBs that are armed with 50cal MGs have a AP rating of 6 instead of 4? The Mustangs that carried 4 guns were armed with 20mm guns.

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

Wow, heh, I'm amazed I hadn't noticed that myself before. But that's definitely a little error. It seems to be the case throughout the OOBs, like it originated in one place and as the unit was copied it just became the standard.

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

I will look into the P-51 issue later.

Don

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

I contacted Tony Williams in regard to the DU ammo fired by the Gau 8. Mr Williams has published a number of books on weaponry. This is his reply

(A bit of background. in one posting I found on a message board the poster claimed the DU round....."A 1,000M the current round will penetrate almost 200mm of RHA(steel) plate"....and Tony had posted other info later and that was how I found his website so Tonys comment about the 200mm comes from that. )

Don

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

So set up two t-62's in the game . Make 7 passes on each from the rear/side quarter of the vehicle with the stock gun set up in the OOB's now and tell me it the game doesn't give similar results.

Don

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

Done!
I set up as follows---Date Feb 1979 All Preferences set at 100%
Map--100x100-- Flat open ground-- No terrain features.
Visibility 65
Spotter--M981A1 FIST-V-- Exp-120-- Art com-120
4 A-10 Warthogs FC-15-- No TI/GRS-- Exp-100-- Morale-80-- Arm com-100.

Targets-- 14 immobile T-62 M1975-- No AAMG and NO MA Not dug in.

Each test consisted of 2, 4 aircraft gun runs attacking the rear of the target vehicles. Test was repeated 6 times.

Test 1, 3rd attack-- Shell Splinters=No Effect, Other 7 passes were misses.

Test 2, All misses

Test 3, All misses

Test 4, 3rd attack-- Pen 3, Arm 4=No Effect, Other 7 passes were misses.

Test 5, 4th attack-- Shell Splinters=No Effect, 5th attack-- Pen 3, Arm 28=No Effect.(This is the front turret value, how I hit that fron the rear is a mystery) Other 6 passes were misses.

Test 6, 5th attack-- Shell Splinters= No Effect, Other 7 passes were misses.

Of 48 attacks no tanks were damaged or destroyed.

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

Set up a similar test (as your results seemed really odd to me, don't have such weak results when I'm being attacked by 20mm-armed planes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif), flat land, vis 50, four T-62M1975, four Warthogs, two attacking from the rear, two from rear-flank. Spotting M981A3, clear view on all T-62's.

1st attack (rear): Two solid hits, one top (No Effect) one Turret front (Tank fired on aircraft, turret was turned rearwards; No effect).

2nd attack (rear): First hit - * damage, second hit * IMMOBILISED.

3rd attack (side-rear): Side hit, destroyed.

4th attack (side-rear): one miss, one No Effect.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

My computer is acting up. Fonts and colors are screwed up and other things just are acting funny. I have a new computer sitting on my dining room table but a Im waiting for a new desk, Trying to find problem now.

As far as my test went I should have given my T-62s some mobility to check that effect. What aircraft did you use and what was the fire control?

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

Fixed!! Very strange. Could it be the video card? Hmmmmm?

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

First off "kevineduguay1" I have NO idea how you could get the results you got. No idea at all.

Every time I run a test like that ( and I don't even bother trying to inflate the experience and moral modifiers ) I get dead and immobilized tanks. I do not see ANY way your game could generate 48 attacks and have "no tanks were damaged or destroyed". I consider that impossible and I'm running my tests using the same OOB's and game EXE you are using ( that assumes you ARE using V3.5 )

I'm asking you to post that test scenario so we can all replay it. There is NO way to judge what you have done without seeing it. In fact I would like as many people as possible run your test and report the results on the forum

There is something seriously "OFF" with your game to generate those results. I would suggest you delete your Game Preferences.ini found in the Game data folder. I can only assume it has been corrupted in some way because when I run test just like that tanks get damaged AND die

I have attached a simple test. 14 T-62's and 14 A-10s. The A-10's are only set up with guns and the T-62's don't have AAMG's to interfere with the test and slow it down.

The first time I ran it.. and just to remind everyone these are the stock V3.5 OOB's and game EXE, I got 3 kills and 1 immobilizations as well as 5 other tanks with varying degrees of damage.

The second time I ran it I got three kills and four tanks with varying degrees of damage

If you have been running tests like this and getting zero kills and damage I can see why you would think something was wrong with the game but when I run it this is NOT the case . It would be MOST helpful to see this test you set up that gave you "48 attacks no tanks were damaged or destroyed. I have never, EVER in all the tests or games I've played with A10's seen anything like that

Don

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

No DRG, it seems my first test was messed up. For some reason when the tanks had no MA or mobility they just weren't
important enough to hit

2nd test with a Main Gun but no ammo and a 2 speed factor added to the T-62s things changed quite a bit.

I did 24 runs this time with many more hits. Results were as follows,

Misses----------1

Immobile--------1

Kills-----------6

Hits No Effect--12 These were Pen-0 vs Arm-4 or in some cases only a 1 armor factor above the Pen factor.

Oddballs--------4 Hits that should be kills. They read out as high as Pen-10 vs Arm-4 with no effect on the vehicle besides suppression (buttoned).

All shots were from the rear. Test set up was same as above.

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

Last test of the night changed gun to fire a mix of HE and Sabot. Everything else was the same. Could only run 16 passes. (started to run out of targets)

1 tank after 2 solid hits was in retreat

5 tanks were immobile (1 abandonded)

5 tanks were kills

1 Shell Splinter

1 Miss

3 Should have been kills (P-6 vs A-5, P-8 vs A-4, P-9 vs A-4) The first one listed in this group I can forgive, the other two should have been kills IMHO.

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

If we go back and carefully review the original, real world test. ........

TWO T-62 target tanks
AND
7 PASSES TOTAL


Then the actual results

So, only 10% of the rounds hit and only 18% penetrated in real life on two targets and SEVEN passes.

I have NO idea what you mean exactly in your 2nd test by "24 runs this time " 24 runs what ? 24 individual attacks ? 24 passes on 14 tanks with 4 A-10's ? IDK, you still haven't posted your test as I asked you to so we can see what you are doing. I don't want an explanation, I want to see your test.

When I run the tests as close to the real life test as I can both of the target T-62's either end up dead or severely damaged.

IDK what your tests are telling you but mine tell me everything's working just fine. Maybe too well.

Don

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

Each pass is an individual attack. One A-10 vs one T-62.

DRG,
The tests had to be done this way for the GAME.

If you read that the actual test carefully you will see that after EACH ATTACK the tanks were refurbished. In other words repaired to some degree.

In the game there is no option to patch holes, repair suspentions, or for that matter fix anything that happens to get blown off of a tank.

From your post,
"In this test an A-10 aircraft attacked two combat-loaded individual Soviet T-62 tanks in five missions totaling seven passes; technicians rehabilitated the two vehicles after each pass."

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

I do not know how to post the actual tests. Tell me how and I will do it if my computer is up to it. If not you will have to wait till I get the new one up and running.(Monday maybe?)
The thing is now that I'm getting a variety of results. So far they vary from hitting almost every time with some kind of damage, to hitting maybe 60% of the time with few damage results.

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

Why do these old gun ships (units 829, 827, and 825+826) Have Fire Control ratings of 8? Why not the A-10? Also units 829 and 827 have a Fire Control rating of 20 while the A-10 has a FC rating of 15, the same as a WWII fighter plane.
Why do you people think the US Military is that stupid?

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

While the A-10C upgrades might be different, the avionics on the O/A-10A and O/A-10B were pretty bare bones. This is a well known reality. While it could carry most of the weapons in the USAF inventory, it couldn't use many of the smart munitions without additional equipment or cooperation with other aircraft or ground forces.

Furthermore, at least the MobHack help file says that the FC rating affects hitting moving targets. Its been shown that aircraft flying in a pylon turn are able to achieve extremely high accuracy even against moving targets. Gunship type aircraft, regardless of their age seem to warrant a high FC rating if any of the many historical studies and anecdotes concerning their abilities are even remotely true.

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

"Why do you people think the US Military is that stupid?"

A lot of the stuff of course needs to be looked from the game developer's point of view. Those numbers alone won't tell the whole truth, the result all those variables have on the game world is what counts, right? I mean that even if there is a variable called FCS, and one called LRF etc. they do not have the same effect directly in this game as they do have in real world.

As an example should the Swiss Leo 2A4 have higher FCS rating than basic one (German 2A4) as it can calculate lead not only from the turret's horizontal movement compared to hull position and range that is used by the computer, but also the gun's vertical movement when lead-button is pressed by the gunner... in this case it sounds like yes, as the vehicle can fire more accurately at enemies going up and down hills, but also a big NO, as that will also affect the vehicle's chance to hit other targets, that are not going up and down hills, right?

So no-one is thinking the US Military is stupid, it may be just, that in game terms, everything is not what it seems...

Zip

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

And Kev. please download and play that test scenario DRG posted and you will see that the A-10 is not useless. I had 3 tanks destroyed and 5 imobilizations in it!

its in DRG's post as an attachement incase you cant find it heres the link to it also:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...?Number=584308

And if you want to post your own test create it whit the scenario editor then save it. Then just go to your games \Scenarios\ -folder look for the scenario there its 2 files and ZIP it and post it here on as an attachement.

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

An increase in FC for later A10's **MAY**may be an option. As Tony noted, the sights have gotten better since the first ones were built but it does present some problems with the OOB as there are not an unlimited number of units slots left and I really don't know if it's justified. For a moment there I thought Kev was going to accuse us of having an anti American bias in the game which nicley balances the the accusations the game has an anti "east bloc" bias as well. It's tough to do both at once folks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


However as I have demonstrated over and over and over and others have confirmed the A10 using the cannon only is NOT useless in the game if used correctly despite claims to the contrary or you do not have unrealistic expectations of the weapons capabilities. It could also be this "old computer" Kev is using is toast and giving out weird random numbers. The game lives on random number generation.

I have stated this before but it obviously needs repeating. I started looking into the A10 / Gau-8 issue long before it was brought up on this thread and the more I dug and the more I tested the more I became convinced that we do not have a serious problem with the way this gun is modeled though the whole "gatling" class of weapon could benifit..maybe... from a higher numbers of hit's due to the higher volume of fire and ......maybe..... that could be "simulated" with an increase in accuracy ( thereby increasing the chance of a hit ) However, when the real world results are compared with the tests anyone can easily set up in the game to recreate the real world tests I think the existing set up stands up quite well and so far only ONE person is disputing that and he's using an old computer that is due for replacement.

Don

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

Ok everyone, I'm happy with all the above answers. I understand the problems of space in the OOBs and I'm happy that this issue will be looked into. Thats all I ask. And yes, as soon as my new desk shows up my new computer will be up.

Now lets fix that P-51 Mustang. Should be AP-6. The only 4 gun version of this aircraft was the attack version used by the British early in WWII. AFAIK it carried 4 20mm cannon and I think it was called the A-36.

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

The mustangs in all the OOB's that had four guns are all fixed now

Don

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

Rodger that.

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

The A-36 was the the P-51A with .50 cal mg and dive brakes.
The P-51 used with 4x 20 mm cannons was the Mustang I and was used as a low level attack craft. They used a common airframe and engine that was only good at lower levels. The Mustang became a supreme fighter when then added the Merlin engine

http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/p51_6.html
http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/p51_7.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-51_Mustang

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

All Mustangs in the game now have 6 .50's. There were a mix of 4 and six gun .50 cal versions and all are 6 now

Don

Re: Aircraft weapons
 

That makes sense. I doubt they had any four gun models left in 1946.

Speaking of cannons and guns the F-35 Lightning II series of aircraft is now supposed to be fitted with the GAU-22/A, which is a lightened version of the GAU-12/U. Originally the JSF was going to use the German 27mm Bordkanone which is what the F-35 series currently has in WinSPMBT but the designers changed their mind.