Barges - unsinkable islands.

[Epoletov___SPR]

To drown Barge, it is necessary to shoot 5-7 times at it precisely from gun.
In my opinion they are very difficult for drowning or immobilized (for example, it is damaged the rowing screw).

And still, passengers do not suffer from damages put by the opponent to the barge.

Ferry through the rivers on barges very easy action now.
Even if the opponent is a lot of and precisely shoots on barges.

[iCaMpWiThAWP]

Hum... it might be your guns, because 2-3 hits are usually enough for me, it seems to depend on the WH size, a 240mm gun will obviously do more damage than a 2pdr, not sure about ATGMs and bombs, btw, can barges get immobile? didn't knew that, and if a barge sinks, everything on it dies

[Ramm]

Damage to crew is moddled by damage to barge from rifle and light MG bullets that hit the "top", in reality these could not even damage the steel hull but they do in the game signifying damage to troops from bullets that come in from a higher elevation, we are not talking about swift boats here which are made from tinfoil.

fig. 1 (imagine a much smaller scale version but with steel hull, this is the barge that lifts your AFVs)



To sink barge with rifle and MG simply have a squad or MG at a higher elevation then the barge, higher the better.

fig. 2 (I've actually been on one, maybe about a half inch of steel)



You could be right about them taking too many large caliber rounds to die, one hit below the water line from 90mm should over come the bilge pumps and destroy it over the course of some turns.

There is no way to model below water line hits, As Don or Andy will tell you this is not a turn-based naval strategy game.

[Lt. Ketch]

Originally Posted by iCaMpWiThAWP

...not sure about ATGMs...

I'm sure - they'll sink a barge, no problem. I dinked around with a Marine beach landing in N. Korea ~1999 and the enemy had the entire beach overed with ATGM teams. I lost over half of my forces to those stupid, effective little blighters!

That's what happens when you don't buy enough artillary support for smoke and HE missions.

[DRG]

Barges used to be coded not much differently than tanks but naval vessels, even relatively small ones, don't blow up with one shot so we coded them to be a bit tougher and handle multiple hits. They are far from being "unsinkable islands" that is a gross exageration but like anything in this game SOMEBODY will think it should have been done a different way usually after a limited series of events. personally both Andy and I think the survival rate of barges etc is just about right from a game standpoint



Don

[PlasmaKrab]

I have been toying around with boats recently and noticed that they show about the right amount of endurance to multiple hits, even being able to get back to operations after a few turns reducing suppression after taking serious damage.
The only thing that put me off a bit (but as Don said, there is always something) is the ability of even small warhead sizes to sink a boat completely. Rendering it completely useless I don't mind, but completely disappearing from the surface with just one more burst of 20mm or a LAW?
Granted, there may not be any other way to model a boat being completely out of action (floating hulks would be fun, but more trouble than worth).

Just a side question, Don, does the endurance of boat classes have any relation with other values, say, unit size?

[DRG]

I belive size is a factor but I'm not 100% and I'm a bit busy ATM

However these two posts prove my point ---- one guys says they are "unsinkable islands" and another says "ability of even small warhead sizes to sink a boat completely...........disappearing from the surface with just one more burst of 20mm or a LAW"

I guess we do the impossible here as those two statements are not compatable


Don

[PlasmaKrab]

Don, don't get me wrong, I don't find boats in general to be too easily sunk on the whole. When I say that soe get sunk by what I find to be too small-caliber weapons. In the end. After being showered with other small-caliber weapons for some time.

In a test scenario I set up, it took me in at least one instance a half dozen LSTs firing all they had (12.7 to 57mm, four slots each) for two turns full to get one small gunboat under. Nevertheless, the gunboat was still taken under by a weapon with WHS<3. And yes, I lost at least one LST to a LAW, again not the first shot. This is my only (little) peeve on this subject.

As little as I have learned from historical accounts, it seems to me you have to put a significant amount of HE to sink a boat of any significant size (larger than your average Rigid Raider).
Of course, you can render it utterly useless (no crew, no movement, no carry, no weapons) with nothing but MG fire, but in this case, realism would call for the floating hulk to linger on as 'abandoned' or something.

As I said before, I understand there may be no way to do this in the game, and 'sinking' a boats altogether may be the only way to render it completely useless.
If a threshold in Warhead Size to 'kill' naval units is introduced in the game, and naval units that are not 'killed' still have some fight (or can land their complete carry, as observed), then they would indeed become unsinkable islands.

[DRG]

I realize this is going to end up being argued to death but WH2 is any gun type shell from 20mm- 39mm so why do you think 30mm autocannon shouldn't give LC grief ? Personally I think it should ( and would )

Also all barges in MBT have a nominal steel armour rating of 4 ( and yes I know someone is going to argue that to death too.. PLEASE spare me the aggravation ... we did it that way for a reason) but what that means is there are only a scant handful of weapons in the game <2 WH that have AP Pen equal to the armour of a LC. The story changes with WH 2 and if we bumped up the "armour" of a LC to defeat the WH 2 weapons we would need increase it to at least 12 and then how many complaints would we get about "Barges - unsinkable islands"




Don