Damage to tank fire control systems

[Mustang]

I've noticed in the game that a tank will ocasionally get it's main gun knocked out by a large-calibre hit, but this isn't a very good way of representing fire control systems knocked out. It seems to me that there is a pretty good chance of a tank's fire control system being knocked out in combat, considering that the gunnery sights are made out of glass that can be penetrated by small arms fire (it actually lists this as anti-tank technique in a US Army manual). Once you knock out the gunnery sight, a tank is practically worthless and blind, except for a few modern tanks that have two systems (one for the laser range finder and the other is a backup manual "battlesight").

This would probably a major part of tank combat in real life, as I'm sure at very least 10%, and probably more like over 20%, of the time a modern tank gets hit it's laser range finder will get knocked out by shrapnel or a direct impact. If you want to keep it simple, you could then halve the fire control rating of the vehicle to reflect this. Or, you could give each tank two FC ratings- one for the laser range finder system, and the other for the battlesight.

[narwan]

Hehe, those aren't simple solutions!

Narwan

[PlasmaKrab]

Makes sense, except from the programming point of view

You would have to integrate a couple more variants though, like the angle sector where the target is hit (few chances of busting a glass window by shooting at the armored casing), the WHS of the attacking weapon, plus some others you cannot implement in the game I guess, like relative sensor-to-armor target surface, sensor survivability...

In all fairness, you could also have fire control computers disabled by non-penetrating shots.

As you said, the solution would be to have one "minimal" FC rating and one "best condition", and hover between both depending on damage. And even without the bother of adding at least one parameter to each and every unit in the game, the whole routine is practically sure to be hell to program.

[Mustang]

I didn't suggest two different fire control ratings, per se. I recommended that a tank's fire control be halved. As most modern tanks have an FC of about 40-50, it would make sense if their FC was reduced to 20-25 after a damaging hit.

And you don't have to integrate any more variants, as there is going to be enough shrapnel flying around no matter where the tank is hit, except maybe in the rear, to do plenty of damage. If you really want to be technical, you can set different FC knockout percentage values for every point (side hull, front turret, etc.) that the tank is hit.

And as for sensor-to-warhead target surface, these things are made out of glass. You can pierce or damage them beyond repair with a 9mm pistol. You don't need to worry about armor values.

[Mustang]

Mobhack or DRG, do you have anything to say?

[MarkSheppard]

Actually, a better solution would be to reduce it to about 4-5 for 40-50 tanks; and to 0-1 for 4-5 tanks. WWII tanks didn't IIRC have backup sights.

[Mobhack]

Mustang said:
Mobhack or DRG, do you have anything to say?

Nothing to say, because this has already been covered before.

Why add screeds of micro-detailed damage code, for some pseudo-realism that would have no practical efect on the game itself?.

It is the sort of LOD you would perhaps want on a tactical level game such as the "Close Combat" series, where you have 3-4 tanks and 30-40 men modelled as individuals.

It is irrelevant at the company/batallion scale of WinSPMBT, which basically uses the US Army criteria of Kill, firepower kill, and mobility kill.

Cheers
Andy

[DRG]

.......or we could simply add code that puts 99 surpression on the tank when it finds itself with damaged RF and FC and it immediately heads for it's map edge and retires from the battle becasue that's what would happen during a real battle when a tank crew finds it cannot see or properly fire it's main armament. Removing the main gun to represent the fire control systems knocked out is a perfectly acceptable way of representing these event at this scale of combat.

Don

[Mustang]

Well, the main armament knockout rate should be increased, because I know that in WWII, for example, artillery HE would often knock out tank FC systems. This is really an important part of a battle, even at batallion level, and it isn't represented enough. But you're right about just disabling the main gun, even if the modern tanks would realistically have a backup FC system.

And I don't see how it's micro-detailed. Creating a 10% chance that a tank's FC rating will be halved when its hit would take up maybe a few lines of code. But I'm not complaining, increasing the main armament disable rate be good enough also.

[Basileus]

Hi. Not to get into when the tank slides off a narrow raised road surface and spikes their main gun in the dirt, effectively killing said tank...or the poorly maintained recoil mechanism failing, resulting in a wrecked turret upon firing the first round (yes these things do happen)...

While the Army's criteria of kills may satisfy their requirements, realism suffers in that partial kills like suspension hits that degrade performance or the above mentioned FC/RF damage are either glossed over or become outright kills. Another feature (perhaps mercifully) not represented includes overrunning infantry with tracked vehicles. The designers had to draw a line on how much realism to add before it either impacted game play or overburdened the code. I feel they've done a good job at it.

Basileus