Aircraft weapons

[thatguy96]

kevineduguay1 said:
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.

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.

[DRG]

I will look into the P-51 issue later.

Don

[DRG]

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

Tony Williams said:

It's quite difficult to get any firm comparative information on the penetration abilities of this round. However, the APFSDS rounds recently developed for the same cartridge for use in AFV guns like the US MK44 and the Mauser MK 30 are reckoned to penetrate around 90-100mm/1,500m/60 degrees. There is no way that any of these could penetrate anything like 200mm armour, and they would be considerably more effective than the API.

I have no reason to question the FAS figures, although I'm not sure of the striking angle used.

As a matter of interest, in early firing tests by an A-10 against a T-62 tank at ranges of 500-1,340m, only about 10% of the shots fired actually hit the tank (they have much better sights now) and of the ones which hit, only 20% penetrated the armour, although others damaged the track and suspension.

Tony Williams

Homepage: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk

[DRG]

"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."

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

[kevineduguay1]

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.

[Marek_Tucan]

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 ), 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.

[kevineduguay1]

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?

[kevineduguay1]

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

[DRG]

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

[kevineduguay1]

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.