AP rounds fired by arty

[thatguy96]

Maybe I've got it backwards, but I seem to remember artillery launched CMs being relatively effective against infantry.

As for artillery launched CM's intended targets, you're right too, that most of the modern ones are dual purpose in nature. Aircraft CMs follow more what I was talking about historically, though artillery launched CMs were initially what I said too...but that was 30 years ago. The development generally seems to have been toward dual purpose CMs over the last two decades or so.

[PlasmaKrab]

If you look at the orbats, you'll see that the AP (cluster) rounds tend to have both kill and penetration in various ratios, meaning that most are effective against both infantry and armor.
AFAIK these cluster weapons (both artillery and air) are meant to be more effective against infantry on the move and/or on open terrain, while basic HE shells work better against entrenched infantry.

[loktarr]

What seems to me very funny is the resistance of unarmored vehicles against this type of ammo.
Just try with two guns, one firing on APC and one on trucks...
The result is so odd...

[serg3d]

It seems to me AP cluster kill soft vehicles perfectly well. One hit and vehicle killed. On the other hand on the armor it making not-penetrating ding sometimes.

[loktarr]

Made some test (I love doing tests with SPMBT...):
the poor English were the target, firing unit was US paladin.
Target were grouped by 8 (vehicles or team), with two paladin firing at each target group. Target were immobile...
Here are the losses ratio[%], with (20)= roof anti-heat armor:
Challenger 2 (20) [50%]
Warrior II (5) [90%]
Spartan (1) [90%]
LandRover (0) [35%]
Medium Truck (0) [35%]
Infantery (-) [15%]

(I got these figures after 5 tests)
I may have the reason why there is a lowest ratio of destroyed unarmored vehicle: the ammo are AP and it seem that unarmored vehicle are easily destroyed by HE but not by
AP...
A test with MRL confirms it: for MRL cluster ammo are HE ammo and it's able to destroy easily unarmored vehicles...
Does anybody know more about how SP deals with unarmored vehicles hit by AP rounds?

[PlasmaKrab]

I didn't do any test on that, but I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't smothing related to the way soft vehicles are dealt damage (any damage).

Try firing against trucks or such with a tank or any heavy direct-fire weapon, and you'll have chances of seeing the truck losing crew members, but still technically running between two shots.

Just my 2c, I don't know if there is any relation with what you saw. If there is, you may want to check non-lethal damage done to the trucks, maybe several of them are technically "ready" but have suffered several damage points.

P.S. just another idea popping up: how about unit size? Tanks tend to have a high size ratio, and seeing how cluster rounds work, I'd find totally logical that 'smaller' units get less hits.

[Mobhack]

Soft vehicles take crew casualties. If they are not located by the firer at the time that will not be reported to him in your testing. They will tend to debuss any passengers when hit, and the supression levels will go up as well - they may be in retreat status. Again - your test may not show this if the potential targets are over a hill say. Only total kills will be shown in such a test (to test arty it is best to have a spotter close to and overlooking the impact zone)

Cheers
Andy