Its time to stop the BS 50cals destroying armour.....

[hitech]

Would love to discuss this topic on vehicle damage, but first I wan't to know what you wish us to accomplish.

1. Tank damage with different armor thickness at different places on the tank, effected by angle of penetration,all set at real levels.
or
2. Damage modeled for game play purposes only.


Either is perfectly acceptable to me, but if we wish to discuss it I just wan't to know what we are trying to accomplish.

[Swoop]

HT,  get yourself a copy of Operation Flashpoint (or download the demo http://www.flashpoint1985.com).


There ya go.  That's about as complicated as we'd like it.  No need to go down the WWIIonline route of all kindsa stuff modelled which doesnt come through to the player unless you've got a log to view and 4 hours to spare to read it.

[eddiek]

What I would like to see is some more believable damage modelling, HT.
It is pretty strange to see the 8 50-cals from a Jug have no damage to a PNZR or Osty, yet the one 50-cal in an M8 or M3 can knock the thing out.  Multiple hits from 75 or 37mm cannon required to kill an armored vehicle, but the MG just mows them down.
In the same vein, you hit that M3 or M16 with cannon fire and you see the hit sprites and the guy drives on undamaged.  You almost have to open up on him with your MG to slow one down or kill it.
I've seen all sorts of weird scenarios in here, some in the name of gameplay, some just weird things that I know you guys haven't had time to look at yet.
If I strafe an armored vehicle with just my MG's, all I really expect to happen is maybe knock out the pintle MG on a PNZR, should kill the gun crew in an Osty since it is open topped, same thing with an M16 or M3, not sure about the armor on an M8.....it being basically an armored car I don't think the armor plate was too thick so it might be possible to concentate fire in one spot and punch through it.
Maybe its time to put the vehicle armor to where it really was in RL, and let the GV's perform their role, taking ground from the enemy.  I know there is no one easy solution, but it's worth thinking about.  Would it make the damage model too complex?  Only you and Pyro know the answer to that one.

[MANDOBLE]

hitech, this is just your decission. You cant have an idea about what people wants just asking here cause only a minimal part of AH community post here.

If you want to know what the community wants, what about setting up one question poping up each time someone enters the game?

Personaly, I would like to have a system where tanks are the primary antitank weapon. The situation, actually, is quite different. When someone detects GVs near a friendly base and notify it, some other will pick up a tank and will start a very long travel trying to get into firing possition, when this tank gets to the enemy GVs zone, there are a lot of jabos killing all the enemy GVs.

Also, in RL, tanks would look for good and protected firing posstions, but here we have no place to hide our tanks. You can see their dots from long distance and they have no hope to survive once detected. In RL, tanks were easy targets when traveling on roads, but very difficult to detect from the air with engine stopped even in open field (good camos).

Aside any modiffication to the armour modeling, what about making GVs invisible (icon and 3d object) to planes when stopped and not firing, at least invisible for ranges greater than 500 yards. 3d object visible only up to 5000 yards when the tank is moving (engine smoke), 3d object visible up to 500 yards when the tank is firing but firing flash visible up to 5000 yards with or without tracers. In any case, no icons at all for the GVs.

What I mean with 3d object includes the "dark" dot at long distances.

[ergRTC]

I think Gameplay is most important here, but if accurate modeling of armor is easier in the long run then do it right I guess......

I think the quick fixs could be......

1. panzer oblivious to 50cals, 30s (besides pintle, engine, and tracks).  Not sure what to do about the osties blowing tanks away.  And pretty much no way to die from getting strafed by machineguns, otherwise, why did they make tanks?  I am trying to imagine the troops who used tanks as cover when advancing, worrying about the 50cal machine guns taking out the tank in front of them.  Why would there have been so many anti-tank guns in ww2 if all they needed was a trusty 50cal at 800 yards?

2. Tanks, trucks, convoys, whatever should be damaged reliably by the big shells.  If this one could be fixed, wow what an improvement. If a truck takes it in the grill with an he or ap then boom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Maybe  getting close to a truck or m3 with a HE should have an impact?      

Probably cant do most of this though.

Thanks hitech

[Yeager]

I would prefer to have believable results.  I dont care whether its a game or a simulation.

FWIW, most of my encounters in the ground vrs ground catagory come away pretty squared but every once in a while something really queer happens.  Mostly I have fun and enjoy.

[SKurj]

4 passes by 51's yesterday and pop went my osty.  Not just turret (it went on pass 3).

just make MG's completely ineffective against armor (but not the guy standing in the Osty turret)



SKurj

[Hortlund]

Being a ground pounder who kinda drifted into this flight sim, I know alot more about tanks and armor than about aircraft. Someone wanted historical data, so this is what I can offer.

Armor penetration is dependent on a thousand variables, just about everything from the air temperature to the carbon percentage of the iron ore when the steel was made. It is not realistic to have a 100%, or even an 80% accurate damage model for armor penetration in a simulation like this, because soon you would reach impossible calculations. Just to determine if a projectile should richochet or not would take a very impressive formula indeed, and in the end you would realize that a simple random number would have given a just as accurate result.  

Someone asked how effective airpower is/was against tanks. Many use the battles in Normandy as examples of how devastating airpower is against ground units. In fact, most Whermacht-wieners (LW whiner sounds wrong when talking about ground units, but you find these guys everywhere there is a discussion about wwii) will claim that the only reason the allies won in Normandy was because of their airpower. While this may be true or not, airpower had an almost neglectable effect on combat damage in Normandy. Let me give an example:
Often the German attack at Mortain is used as an example to show the effectiveness of the fighter-bombers as tank killers. But in fact this engagement is rather an example of vastly exaggerated claims. The British 2nd TAF claimed to have destroyed or damaged 140 German tanks in the Mortain area 7 - 10 August, while 9th US Air Force claimed 112. This actually exceeded the number of German tanks employed in the operation. In fact no more than 46 tanks were lost in the operation and of these only nine had been hit by air weapons. That is 9 out of 178 tanks actually used in the area. It is also interesting to see the claims. British and American pilots claimed 252 German tanks destroyed or damaged, the real number was 9...

It seems that very few German tank were lost due to hits from weapons carried by aircraft. Probably no more than about 100 tanks were lost due to hits from air weapons during the entire Normandy campaign. Rather it seems that air attacks on tank formation protected by AA units were more dangerous to the aircraft than to the tanks. Allied losses of aircraft were considerable, the 2nd TAF (including elements of Air Defence of Britain that took part in the Normandy campaign) lost 829 aircraft, while US 9th Air Force lost 897

The main reason for the poor results of air attack on tanks was lack of suitable armament. Machine guns and cannons had sufficient accuracy, but lacked the power necessary to produce more than superficial damage. Heavy bombs could destroy a tank, but it took a direct hit, which was very difficult to achieve. The vaunted rockets had sufficient penetration capabilities. Trials against captured German Panther tanks showed that the rockets could penetrate the armour except on the front of the tank. The accuracy of the rockets was however alarmingly low, even when fired in salvos of eight. At trials on training ground in England the probability of achieving a hit on a tank was at most 4 %. On operations, when the aircraft was subjected to AA fire and the targets not stationary on an open field, hit rates must have been even lower.

Mortain is not an example of unusually low efficiency for the allied air forces either. It is interesting to see the causes for losses of Panther tanks. Three British studies of captured Panther tanks (or wrecks of Panther tanks), two of them during Normandy and one during the Ardennes battle gave the following results:

6 June - 7 August 1944
AP shot: 36
Hollow charge projectile: 7
HE shell: 7
Aircraft rockets: 7
Aircraft cannon: 2
Destroyed by crew: 6
Abandoned: 3
Unknown: 13

8 Aug - 31 Aug 1944
AP Shot: 11
Hollow charge projectile: 1
HE Shell: 1
Aircraft rocket: 2
Aircraft cannon: 1
Destroyed by crew: 44
Abandoned: 30
Unknown: 6

17 Dec - 16 Jan 1945
AP Shot: 16
Hollow charge projectile: 0
HE Shell: 3
Aircraft rocket: 3
Aircraft cannon: 0
Destroyed by crew: 10
Abandoned: 10
Unknown: 5

Evidently two of the main causes for losing Panthers were abandonment and destruction by the crews. These two categories accounted for nearly half the Panthers lost and during the period in August they constituted 80 % of all the Panthers lost. Air power only accounted for about 6 % of all the lost Panthers investigated. Those investigations showed above also included other types of tanks. Of 40 Tigers only one was hit by air weapons, of 121 Pz IV's (yup..our panzers)  nine were hit by air weapons. Evidently allied air power was not really capable of destroying large numbers of German tanks.

Hm..drifted off the subject a bit perhaps, but I hope you found it interesting.

Oh..and the number of German tanks knocked out by MG:s or .50 cals is 0.  

Source: I. Gooderson, Allied Fighter-Bombers Versus German Armour in North&endash;West Europe 1944&1945: Myths and Realities (Journal of Strategic Studies, vol 14, No 2 June 1991) p. 221. The basic sources for the data on destruction of German tanks and other equipment used by Gooderson are the reports of the operations research teams that investigated the battlefields after the end of the battles and examined the wrecks found. These are probably the most reliable sources for such information avialable today.

[hazed-]

HT thnx for answering.
my answer would be no. 1

But if this starts to behave strangely (ie 50 cal pintle guns are more effective than 75mm ap rounds) then it will need adjusting.

I would like for the GV model to 'behave' believably.If at all possible id like it to be highly accurate to how it really was BUT if this means that GVs become next to useless as a tool in the game then some concession is necessary.

So far my favourite suggestions are:

 from tac concerning which guns should be able to penetrate armour. 50cals,(non AP)20mm or 30mm should not peirce the armour protection IF its there.
Aircraft historically used as anti tank planes(ie iL2 or ju87 with 37mm,hurricane with 40mm etc) should be more of a threat and therefore more of a temptation to use FOR THIS JOB
Open topped vehicles should be easy to knock out (as they would be in real life right?).In the case of the ostwind the gunners should be vulnerable but not the driver or gunner in the protected main body of the tank.
If the shots come in from an angle where armour would protect them then let the shots fail to kill.Its only fair that some skill be needed to take out vehicles.

As to the ease with which GVs are spotted heres what i think would be an excellent idea if its possible.
We all know the 'black dot' is very easy to spot and in an aircraft the final part of an attack on GVs is very easy due to the icon range finder so i would request that GV icons be removed for aircraft all together.
Could we have the long distance dot removed also? if possible i think this should also be done.

What we then have is the ability to sneak in vehicles which is sorely missing at the moment.
However, tracked vehicles moving fast should produce dust clouds that CAN be spotted from a reasonable distance.
This would mean if you move fast as you near enemy bases you can be seen but if you plot yourself up in a forest or near some trees you become very hard to spot.

My personal opinion at the moment is that whilst vehicles are so vulnerable to almost any gun they are going to be looked at as the most unrealistic aspect to AH and therefore spoil the whole point of AH which is claimed as an accurate simulation.
(a good example of this was when i used the 50 cal(30 cal??) on an M3 to knock out a ostwinds engine from extreme range. the bullets were spread all around the ostwind with one or 2 flashes of hits and bingo there goes his engine) Good for me but absolutely frustrating for the other player.

Basically no concession should damage or impair the enjoyment of other players.

We dont need super pintle guns : pilots are then frustrated at the ease with which they die
We dont need small calibre fire from aircraft killing tanks : this leads to frustration on the tank drivers side
We dont need super armour either : all we need is an acceptable death ie killed by rockets,bombs or guns designed for the job and used skillfully.

we need to allow what ever model we choose , be it aircraft or ground vehicle, to have their real abilities. Ground attack being more stealthy,tank buster planes better for the job, bombers that may be less accurate but can plaster the area with more bombs.
fast vehicles like m8's that had low profiles and were camoflaged should be able, upon spotting an aircraft, slow to a stop, duck into trees and become HARD to spot.

its really a matter of making us all feel our deaths in whatever we choose to fly/drive is an acceptable one and matches the things we all love to read about.Thats where the immersion comes from and thats when the fun starts.

[ergRTC]

what hazed said

[hitech]

Hazed, on one had you are stating you want it realalistic , on the other hand you are stating you wan't it balanced to game play, i.e. you state that a 50cal should not be able to kill a tank, well if in real life it could,even thow it wasn't done much, what do we do?

For instance right now the most complaints I see on the damage modeling with vehicles is quite francly do to the more realistic aspects of the damage model.


People complain that they put 20 ap rounds into a tank and it dosn't die, yet they get killed with 1 round.
This is completly realistic. what people are not considering is where and at what angles they hit the tank, if your round isn't penatrating the armor, more rounds won't either.

I was in a tank battle the other day at a range of about 1500 to 1800 yards. Before I stoped to shoot i turned my tank directly at the other tank. He was stoped , and shooting out the right side of the tank. He took out my track, but thats all he could do, i on the other hand blew him up with 2 hits. He comes on the radio complaining how the damage model is porked because he hit me quite a few times and couldn't kill me. Well guys this is what pure realism produces, his shots were all hitting in my strongest armor, mine hit him on his side armor. Mine penatrated, his did not.

Now look at an m3, if you put an ap round into the side of the truck, odds are in real life it will just put a hole in the sheet metal and continue on.

So once again ill ask what you guys desire, not so much what we will implement, but on what basis do we start this discusion on.

Understand that if you make sweeping statments like a 50cal should not be able to kill a tank, you are in no way on the realism side, unless you can show that 50 cals will not penatrate any armor on the vehicle in descusion.

Understand also that if you wish to use  antidotal evendence you are also comming down on the game play side because you wish to change the damage to match uses vs match what could be done.

Please don't let this discusion get into a flame war, this isn't a contest to see who wins, this is a descusion to figure out how we wan't things to work.

For me im just playing more of a modirator function, pointing out what different desires entail.


HiTech

[Karnak]

Nice info HortLund.  That's the kind of arguement I like to see.

[Sabre]

HiTech, for sticking your head into the beehive here.  My own personal opinion is that number 1 is more important, with concessions for gameplay only where absolutely necessary.  I would like to see greater realism in the armor penetration and damage model.  True, you can’t model all the variables, but average values would suffice.  We can’t do away with icons IMO, as it’s too easy to frag a friendly that way.  Likewise I like the current range counter as a concession to gameplay, one that overcomes limitations imposed by our computer-generated environment.  What I would like to see regarding visibility of tanks is for them to be harder to spot from a distance when they’re stopped and not firing.  I’d like to see a rooster-tail of dust when they move (like the smoke plume from a damaged airplane we have now), and the big puff of dust when they fire their main gun (you’ve seen those US Army commercials, where the M1 Abrams fires and the dust clouds swirl up around it, haven’t you?).

The point is, the target/mission should determine the most effective weapon.  If ballistics and physics say the weapon shouldn’t penetrate, than it shouldn’t.  A head to head contest between a tank and an M-8 should result in the M-8 dying, unless the M-8 driver manages to use his superior speed and/or the element of surprise to get a rear or flanking shot.  If you’re caught by a Panzer in your M-3, than you should be toast unless you run and jink like heck.  A hail of 50-cal fire should have a realistic chance of doing realistic damage.  Gameplay is also about taking the right weapon for the job, and using its strengths against the other player’s weapon’s weakness.  My two cents worth, and thanks for listening.

[sourkraut]

Hortlund/Steve -
Don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up. Nice bit of info though.

I think we need to keep in mind that GVs were added for a little spice in the game, not as a major element. If armor divisions become impervious to aircraft, it will cause game imbalance.

That said, I'd rather have HTC working on more aircraft, better strat elements, etc than worrying about the DM of GVs. Leave the DM alone (for now).
Sour

[MANDOBLE]

I'm for the maximum realism here. If 50" were really able to kill a panzer, so be it. But, in any case, make the GVs very hard to detect from the air. I agree with Swoop, OPF is a very good example of how hard are the armoured units to be clearly detected from the air, even when moving.