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.

[SaS TrooP]

Why to remove heavy SAMs if they engage units coming on map?

[DRG]

How's the weather in the Urals these days ? Don't worry about the language...you're doing well. I think 25% or more of the people who post here do not speak English at home
.
1/ removing weapons can cause chaos with scenarios. I recently made a few changes like you propose to the WW2 German OOB and had to redo 26 scenarios..... the end result is someone got a tiny detail corrected and I got an afternoon of work and the end result for gameplay is NOTHING

2/ Most of what you propose to remove was added by Russian or at least " approved " by Russians . That OOB has been "re-organized" a couple times already

That is not to say I am throwing your suggestions out...on the contrary they are already entered into next years list but I am very selective in what I remove and I only remove things if they are NOT used or something more important comes along and we need a slot......and that is not the case yet

Don

[Crueldwarf]

Originally Posted by DRG

How's the weather in the Urals these days ? Don't worry about the language...you're doing well. I think 25% or more of the people who post here do not speak English at home

Pretty nice for a February actually.

1/ removing weapons can cause chaos with scenarios. I recently made a few changes like you propose to the WW2 German OOB and had to redo 26 scenarios..... the end result is someone got a tiny detail corrected and I got an afternoon of work and the end result for gameplay is NOTHING

I know, I looked for stuff that not likely to be used in many scenarios specifically. The most problematic are 23 mm guns for airplanes (I assume that MiG-17s could be pretty popular for air support) and especially 7,62mm vehicle MGs.

But I still do not understand why previous makers of the OOB decided to make distinct coaxial and bow machine guns of the same type within the same class. Is there something that I do not understand about the mechanic?

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Crueldwarf

Pretty nice for a February actually.

I know, I looked for stuff that not likely to be used in many scenarios specifically. The most problematic are 23 mm guns for airplanes (I assume that MiG-17s could be pretty popular for air support) and especially 7,62mm vehicle MGs.

But I still do not understand why previous makers of the OOB decided to make distinct coaxial and bow machine guns of the same type within the same class. Is there something that I do not understand about the mechanic?

Detail freaks like details.......

Someone opens a book and sees that the standard BMG or Tank 'T' is XYZ and We used ABC they want it changed for "accuracy"..... the real problem is we didn't foresee running out of weapon slots when we expanded the unit and formations lists..... If we had done that at the beginning this would not be an issue but we never dreamed it would be and it is too late now.

The weathers been really nice here too for February but winter isn't done yet

[Crueldwarf]

Originally Posted by DRG

Detail freaks like details.......

Someone opens a book and sees that the standard BMG or Tank 'T' is XYZ and We used ABC they want it changed for "accuracy"..... the real problem is we didn't foresee running out of weapon slots when we expanded the unit and formations lists..... If we had done that at the beginning this would not be an issue but we never dreamed it would be and it is too late now.

The weathers been really nice here too for February but winter isn't done yet

Ah, OK, then I would ask some questions about overall design philosophy.

1. Soviet BMPs tend to have two more seats for the dismounts than they actually have in reality. First additional seat is vehicle commander seat I think as most IFVs and APCs have only two crew, but why there is another one?

Is it made because there is no way to split things like machine gun teams between two different vehicles?

2. Late 80s+ Soviet/Russian motor rifle platoons are under-strength in the game. Standard mech section have 7 men while support one have only six. It is 20 men total for the dismounted element and another 6 in vehicles.

Standard motor rifle section have 8 men in it (section commander, BTR/BMP gunner, BTR/BMP driver and 5 dismounts). And there is another 6 men in the platoon command group which is absent from the game as separate unit.

I always thought that command groups are simply spread out among the rifle squads. So mech sections should be either 7 men (if we have 3 men vehicle crews) or 8 (if commander dismounts too).

Also there should be two man PKM team in each BTR/Platoon after 90s as company machine gun platoon was disbanded. AT assets went to a company command and machine guns were spread out among the platoons.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Crueldwarf

Ah, OK, then I would ask some questions about overall design philosophy.

1. Soviet BMPs tend to have two more seats for the dismounts than they actually have in reality. First additional seat is vehicle commander seat I think as most IFVs and APCs have only two crew, but why there is another one?

Is it made because there is no way to split things like machine gun teams between two different vehicles?

2. Late 80s+ Soviet/Russian motor rifle platoons are under-strength in the game. Standard mech section have 7 men while support one have only six. It is 20 men total for the dismounted element and another 6 in vehicles.

Standard motor rifle section have 8 men in it (section commander, BTR/BMP gunner, BTR/BMP driver and 5 dismounts). And there is another 6 men in the platoon command group which is absent from the game as separate unit.

I always thought that command groups are simply spread out among the rifle squads. So mech sections should be either 7 men (if we have 3 men vehicle crews) or 8 (if commander dismounts too).

Also there should be two man PKM team in each BTR/Platoon after 90s as company machine gun platoon was disbanded. AT assets went to a company command and machine guns were spread out among the platoons.

1/ yes partly partly to save slots when one carrier has 8 capacity and one has 9 it saves making an entire set of 9 by making them all carry 8 ( or vise versa)

2/ we CANNOT simulate reality exactly...close enough has to do. As I said before we've already had other Russians all over this OOB and what you see in mainly their corrections

[DRG]

.....also. we are in the final stages of testing for the next patch and NOTHING get changed unless it's a showstopper and how Late 80s+ Soviet/Russian motor rifle platoons are put together does not qualify but maybe what you need to do is load the OOB in mobhack and experiment on you own then if you figure out a solution that makes everyone happy you can tell us about it

Don

[Suhiir]

I do agree some of the long minimum range SAMs could/should be removed from the OOBs simply because they're almost never going to be located in the FEBA WinSPMBT represents.

BUT !

This would cause problems for "raid" type scenarios taking place behind the lines. Maybe set them to "Nation 0" so scenario designers have access but the average player can't purchase them?

[DRG]

You are commenting on things that have already been changed in code and has not been released yet so this is a non issue until it's been played for a few months and it's all beside the point as I don't NEED more slots available yet and until I do it's a moot point