Problems with the current Russian OOB (#11).

[Crueldwarf]

Firstly, sorry for my poor English in advance. It is not my first language but I hope that it is still understandable.

Secondly, I want to address some apparent problems with Russian OOB in game. Especially with Weapons tab which is kinda a limitation on what newer weapons we can add in the game without breaking compatibility.

While looking at it I found quite a few barely used weapons and some that simply very close copies of other ones.

I do not propose to implement these changes into the game officially, but maybe it still be useful food for thought anyway.

So there is a list:

021. 2x122mm S13Kor. As I can understand this is a variant of S13 unguided rocket with a course correction system/laser guidance. Firstly, do high accuracy (90 or something) actually make much difference for the rockets in game? Secondly, this weapon is used by a single plane - 948. MiG-29SM.

030. 2-SG43 BMG. Only 006. T-54-1 uses this weapon.

036. .50 Quad AAMG. Only 399. ZSU M-17 have it. I'm not sure why it is in OOB at all. It is exotic unit and could be put into scenarios by using Allies system.

083. 76.2mm ZiS-3obr42. It is used by 471. Su-76M and 576. 76mm AT-Gun but it is the same weapon as 109. 76.2mm ZiS-3 FG. The difference is anti-tank stats and limited range. In most other cases on-map and off-map field guns/SPGs use the same weapon.

088. 57mm CH-51m gun - only used in 208. ASU-57 and could be changed into standard 079. ZiS-2. ASU-85 in game uses the same gun as T-34-85 already.

101. 9M39N Igla-N - not accepted into service. It is essentially the same as Igla-S anyway.

177. 23mm NR-23. It is used only on 134. and 135. MiG-17F and essentially identical to 181. 23mm NR-23.

182. 23mm VYa cannon. It is used only 126, 127, 937. Il-10 and 938. Il-10M. It is essentially identical to 181. 23mm NR-23. Slot 181 could be renamed into generic 23mm Cannon and cover three current slots.

188. 4x 80mm S-8 Ko. It is only used by 949. MiG-29SM.

201. 2x 82mm RS-82. It is only used by 938. Il-10M which have only 4 years availability span.

238. 3M7 Drakon. 656. IT-1 is kinda exotic and maybe interesting but the complex was in service for only three years not ten.Do it really needed to be included?

240. 23mm GSh-23L. It is only used in 968. Mi-24P. First problem is incorrect designation of the helicopter. 23mm GSh-armed Mi-24s are called Mi-24VP. Mi-24P is armed with 30 mm cannon. Second problem is that only about 30 such helicopters were produced. Is it worth the slot?

There also quite a lot of Weapon class 05 7,62mm machine guns in Russian OOB already and I fail to understand why is that? They are almost identical in capabilities and why you need to have coaxial/bow/turret versions of WC5 if it make no difference in game mechanics? As I can understand coaxial is any WC5 machine gun installed in 2 or 3 slot and bow machine guns could only be in Slot 4.

051. 7.62mm PKT BMG (?) - is only used by 648, 649, 665. BMD-2 Budka. Why not use 064. 7.62mm PKT CMG?
061. 7.62mm SGMT BMG. It is the same as 062. 7.62mm SGMT CMG.
063. 7.62mm PKT TMG. The same as 064. but used by 22 different units.
065. 7.62mm DTM BMG. It is the same 066. 7.62mm DTM CMG

It is of course much more difficult suggestion as there are a lot of vehicles with these machine guns and a lot of them were used in scenarios, so changing them is problematic indeed.

The last part is the presence of S-75/S-125/S-300/S-400 long range SAM systems in the game. They all have quite significant minimal engagement ranges so they could not be effectively used on the SPMBT maps.

135. V750V Dvina. It had minimal engagement range of 7 km.. Any reason to include heavy long range SAM into the battle order?
136. V600 S-125 Neva. Minimal range is 3.5-4 km. So it is the same reasoning as 135.
217. 5V55K S-300K
218. 48N6 S-300KM. Both 217 and 218 have 5km minimum range. Same reasoning as 135.

As I can see you can create at least nine open slots for another weapons easily by editing out exotic and rarely used stuff. 13 if you remove heavy SAMs.