Amount of Ammo in Vehicles

[BallSabre 1]

TL;DR, I have noticed that the amount of ammo in vehicles at the moment is really low. This is wrong.

[Notice; not talking about AH's here]

So,

we get 120 or so rounds into the Marshall's cannon and 400 rounds for HMG's?

These numbers must have been taken during a firing exercise because no-one is going to go to war with ammo enough for one engagement.

These weapons were meant to be fired in bursts or on full auto and if you do that currently in game you will be out of ammo really fast. I just can't believe that this is actually ment to be like this.

So what does the forum think about the current situation?

is it 'working as intended'â„¢ or 'its just beta'â„¢?

To me this seems like a big issue that no-one seems to have discussed in the amounts that this topic deserves imho

and I will begin the discussion by saying;

"current vehicle ammo count needs to be at least x5 the current amount."

[tremanarch 6]

maybe its soem case of game balance?

right now those vehicles are pretty deadly - as we dont have counter vehicles etc - and stratis doesnt give too many strategical options?

just a wild guess though. would also like to have more ammo.

[pettka 694]

The loads are according to current military tactics, don't forget that there are ammo resupply vehicles available in real life (yet to be added in game) and logistics is a vital part of military strategies :icon_twisted:

[krazikilla 5]

The amount of ammo is realistic and all fine therefore. Its not like they have 1000 shots in there in military operations. Ammo has lots of weight and eve bigger problem is the space it needs.

No idea how the threatstarter thinks they have more in reallife but obviously he has no clue.

[BallSabre 1]

The loads are according to current military tactics, don't forget that there are ammo resupply vehicles available in real life (yet to be added in game) and logistics is a vital part of military strategies :icon_twisted:

Not to be offencive or anything, but what country's military tactics are we talking about?

Two clips of ammo in an armored car or APC seems really illogical.

Its not like the vehicle has to think about the weight or space taken by said ammo much.

Also to establish that I'm not talking out of my ass, I have training with military vehicles; the Patria AMV to be exact.

When using a lightly armed APC in a compat situation their role is fire support, suppression and in extreme cases flash advances and attacks.

A battle when encountering an enemy unexpectedly should go like this (APC-company with infantry inside(4 teams), objective: defeat enemy and continue):

Encounter

Vehicles open fire and lay down suppressive fire. (normally the first vehicle that encounters the enemy will shoot the whole clip during this stage)

Vehicles pack up into relative cover (time against usable cover).

Infantry debloys into cover. (vehicles reload if possible or necessary)

Infantry advances.

Vehicles suppress the enemy if possible.

Team 3 or 4 begin flanking manuvers (with or without vehicles)

Team 1 and 2 (and 3 or 4) tie down the enemy with continuous fire to help flankers (usualle heavy vehicle fire, second and maybe third clip used at this point)

Flanker team defeats the enemy.

At this point a real military unit would continue on and the infantry would resupply at their vehicles (the four APC's, no logistics reguired) and complete their mission (which is usually a much bigger engagement), but in ArmA 3 you need to return to an ammo truck and leave the main objective unfinished just because of a little engagement.

To me this is just plain stupid.

Edit:

Logistics should come to play after the main mission (for that unit) is completed and not after every small encounter.

Edited July 24, 2013 by BallSabre

[roberthammer 582]

Vehicles in OA had accurate amount of ammo , why not in arma 3? because of "balance"?

these modern military vehicles are designed to have alot of ammo , because there isn't a rearm station/truck on every corner

---------- Post added at 12:49 ---------- Previous post was at 12:29 ----------

For example arma 3 AMV vs arma 2 btr90

AMV: main cannon - "60Rnd_40mm_GPR_Tracer_Red_shells", "40Rnd_40mm_APFSDS_Tracer_Red_shells"

BTR90: main cannon - "250Rnd_30mmAP_2A42", "250Rnd_30mmHE_2A42"

see the difference?

---------- Post added at 13:12 ---------- Previous post was at 12:49 ----------

also checked the Polish Rosomak which is their version of AMV

AMV (Battle Version) The winner of the tender in 2001 to supply the Polish army, the APC was AMV 8x8 Finnish company Patria Vehicles Oy. The first nine transporters went to the Armed Forces 8 January 2005 (including three armored vehicles of the Italian OTO Melara tower HITFIST-30P).

General characteristics of the weapons

Purpose: to fight, to use in peacekeeping and stabilization, transport troops, conduct reconnaissance and patrol operations and command specialized subunits.

Armament: ATK MK44 gun caliber of 30 mm and coupled with her ​​machine gun UKM 2000C 7.62 mm and a grenade launcher dispersion (smoke) caliber 81 mm (6 units).

Power Cannon: two-way left-sided tape (two bands at 140 and 110 rounds).

Guidance: horizontal and vertical - Electrical stabilized.

Drivetrain: Engine SCANIA D1 12 56 A03 PE diesel in-line 6-cylinder, with turbocharged and intercooled intake air cooler, water-cooled, displacement 11.7 dm 3, the compression ratio of 18:1, a maximum torque of 1970 Nm.

Power transmission system: automatic ZF gearbox 7HP 902S Ecomat, seven forward gears, 1 reverse, all-wheel drive.

Viewfinder: day-night dating DNRS-288's Kollsman and thermal imaging camera II on generation TILDE FC's Gallileo Avionica.

Equipment: automatic recognition of chemical contamination and radioactive ASS-1 Tafios (ProVision), land navigation system GPS UKZ-90 (PIT) system warning laser irradiation Obra-3 (four sensors SSP-1) (PCO).

General Characteristics

Dimensions: 7700x2830x2990 mm.

Combat weight: about 22 000 kg.

Combat weight of the tower: 2850 kg.

Weight of gun: 156 kg.

Firing angle in the vertical plane from -10 o to 60 o.

Firing angle horizontal: 360 degrees.

Muzzle velocity APFSDS-T: 1430 m / s

MP-T/SD muzzle velocity: 1070 m / s

Rate of fire: fire and single variable (theoretical rate of 200 or 400 rds. / min).

Crew: 3 8.

Engine power: 360 kW (483 hp).

Fuel capacity: 325 dm 3.

Top speed: 100 km / h.

Driving Range: 500 km.

Ground clearance: 430 mm variable (center position).

Ability of the area:

- Trenches with a width of 2.1 m,

- A wall with a height of 0.5 m,

- Chin depth: 1.5 m,

- Prevent water: swimming 10 km / h,

- Gradient of slope: 60O,

- The slope of the hill side: 30O.

Ammunition for cannon

Type of cartridge: chips, 30x173 mm.

Types of missiles:, APFSDS-T, MP-T/SD, TP-T.

Weight cartridge APFSDS-T: 695 g.

Weight cartridge MP-T: 860 g.

Stocking transported ammunition: 250 rounds to 750 rounds for cannon and rifle UKM-2000C 7.62 mm.

Edited July 24, 2013 by RobertHammer

[instagoat 133]

http://www.army-guide.com/eng/product3096.html

This cites a ready rounds storage of 65 for the autocannon and 800 for the LMG, for the Turret type the AMV-7 uses (Denel Land systems LCT-30). The Arma 3 LCT-30 has a CT-40 mounted instead of a GI-30, but still has more ammo than listed there. In fact, it is carrying 35 rounds too many, and considering it uses 40mm instead of 30mm ammo (though telescoping), I don´t think one can complain about the amount of rounds it carries.

Ultimately the Turret was designed for a Gun with higher precision than the average autocannon, as well as advanced, super-lethal ammunition (such as guided 40mm rounds as well as air-bursting 40mm rounds). So the higher amount of ammo in our AMV compensates for the lack of such advanced ammo types.

Edited July 24, 2013 by InstaGoat

[Brenton 10]

We are a mechanize platoon that uses the AMV-7 as the main IFV. Our missions run about 2-3 hours long. We use 4 x AMV-7 in a platoon.

I have been the gunner for a number of missions.

At the end of most of the missions I will have expended about 40-50% of the main cannon and about 70-60% of the MG ammunition in the AMV. The other vehicles are in similar state.

Using the correct munition on the correct target prevents you from running out of ammunition. We use the infantry to take out enemy armour. The only time we use the IFV to engage another vehicle is if we are taken by surprise.

The only time we have a problem is if someone becomes trigger happy and starts wasting the auto cannon fire on infantry. The amount of ammunition in the AMV-7 is fine. Our rate of expending ammunition in an AMV would put us at 4-5 hours of mission time before we ran out.

Conservation is key and using the correct weapon in the correct situation will lead to your success.

[Damian90 696]

Vehicles in OA had accurate amount of ammo , why not in arma 3? because of "balance"?

No, not all vehicles in ArmA2 and AmrA2:OA had accurate ammo count. For example M1A1/M1A2 had only 1200 rounds for coax, in reality ammo load for 7,62mm M240 coaxial machine gun range from 11400 rounds to even extreme 12000 rounds from which approx 2000 is ready to use and rest in storage, and 12,7mm M2 HMG used by commander have a full ammo load of 1000 rounds in 100 ammo belt boxes.

There would be plenty of such examples I think.

The problem is that besides so called ready ammo that is loaded to gun (or in case of higher callibers like 120mm is stored in ready ammo rack), there is also storage ammo which is not ready to immidiate use and needs to be reloaded to ready status.

Which means for example that if AMV-7 have as Robert Hammer writes : "60Rnd_40mm_GPR_Tracer_Red_shells", "40Rnd_40mm_APFSDS_Tracer_Red_shells" then this is ready load, and more can be stored in non ready status inside vehicle.

This is how it work in reality, and is not a problem to be made in game.

[no use for a name 0]

Doesn't the mission maker determine how much ammo is in vehicles? The default loadouts might be low, but hopefully the mission makers will determine what's necessary

[PantherAl 11]

I'll agree the co-ax might be a bit on the low side, considering the calibre of the round, but the 120 rounds of 40mm might be a shade high. These are not 40mm grenades, but full up cannon rounds, then even while they might be Bore Telescoped, are still pretty sizable. If they was 40mm Bofors, it would be even more overstated.

Remember the mission of the thing: Its not to go out and hunt out other vehicles and kill them, they are meant to provide transport for a squad of infantry and then provide support when possible and pratical. They don't have the armour needed to get stuck in, and hence don't need that kind of Ammo Load. Especially since more ammo = more weight = less capabilities.

Ammo is never endless. Usually you never have what you want, and have to make do with what you have. And for the record, yes, at least in the M1, you go into the fight with enough ammo for one real good heavy engagement, and a few spare (6 in the hull rack). At least, back in the cold war it was considered one good heavy engagement. These days less so. ;)

[da12thMonkey 1943]

Vehicles in OA had accurate amount of ammo , why not in arma 3? because of "balance"?

these modern military vehicles are designed to have alot of ammo , because there isn't a rearm station/truck on every corner

---------- Post added at 12:49 ---------- Previous post was at 12:29 ----------

For example arma 3 AMV vs arma 2 btr90

AMV: main cannon - "60Rnd_40mm_GPR_Tracer_Red_shells", "40Rnd_40mm_APFSDS_Tracer_Red_shells"

BTR90: main cannon - "250Rnd_30mmAP_2A42", "250Rnd_30mmHE_2A42"

see the difference?

There's a major difference between how the ammunition is handled by the 2A42 on BTR-90, and the CTA-40 on the Marshall though.

2A42 is belt-fed so you can extend the belt of 'ready' ammunition that is feeding the gun, with large amounts of additional links from the 'to hand' supply of ammunition stowed around the vehicle. In effect the gun has access to 500 continuously feeding rounds if the crew are johnny on the spot when it comes to keeping the belt topped up.

Depending on the particular vehicle configuration, CTA-40's ready ammunition is either held mixed together in a large single carousel (tend to be ~70 rounds IRL I think), or two much smaller independent magazines for each type of ammunition (each mag held fewer than 20 rounds IIRC). Rounds are not linked, so when the carousels or magazines are depleted you have to feed new rounds from the additional 'to hand' ammunition stowage into the carousel/magazine one at a time until the system is sufficiently replenished to continue fighting.

In the case of the single, mixed carousel this is complicated by the fact that you have to tell the ammunition handling system which type of ammunition you are restocking the carousel with at a given time, and how many; so that it knows which slots in the carousel, contain which type of ammunition.

This means it takes far longer to top up the ammunition feed fully and ingame it wouldn't really be appropriate to be able to restock the CT40's feed with large quantities of ammunition in a small space of time or have continuous feed of every round available for the weapon system. However, IRL it has a major benefit in that you can be a lot more flexible in ammunition selection by introducing single rounds of, 'special' ammunition types from your 'to hand' supply, into the ammunition handling system as and when they are needed; without interrupting the 'ready' ammunition feed too much.

Edited July 25, 2013 by da12thMonkey

[dale0404 5]

There's a major difference between how the ammunition is handled by the 2A42 on BTR-90, and the CTA-40 on the Marshall though.

2A42 is belt-fed so you can extend the belt of 'ready' ammunition that is feeding the gun, with large amounts of additional links from the 'to hand' supply of ammunition stowed around the vehicle. In effect the gun has access to 500 continuously feeding rounds if the crew are johnny on the spot when it comes to keeping the belt topped up.

CTA-40's ready ammunition is either held mixed together in a large single carousel, or two much smaller independent magazines for each type of ammunition. Rounds are not linked, so when the carousels or magazines are depleted you have to feed new rounds from the additional 'to hand' ammunition stowage into the carousel one at a time until the carousel is sufficiently replenished to continue fighting.

In the case of the single, mixed carousel this is complicated by the fact that you have to tell the ammunition handling system which type of ammunition you are restocking the carousel with at a given time, and how many; so that it knows which slots in the carousel, contain which type of ammunition.

This means it takes far longer to top up the ammunition feed fully and wouldn't really be appropriate to be able to restock the CT40's feed with large quantities of ammunition in a small space of time. However, IRL it has a major benefit in that you can be a lot more flexible in ammunition selection as by introducing single, 'special' ammunition types from your 'to hand' supply, into the ammunition handling system as and when they are needed; without interrupting the 'ready' ammunition feed too much.

I love you.

[das attorney 857]

That was a tasty bit of behind the scenes stuff there Da12th :)

[roberthammer 582]

Good info guys :D

and ye you are right ,but i didnt meant alot of ammo for ready ammunition - i meant more something like stored ammunition when you ran out of ammo

then you will reload new magazines which will take some time to load it , after that you are ready to fire again

Edited July 25, 2013 by RobertHammer

[BallSabre 1]

There is a problem with all of you guys logic though.

Those ammo counts are not desined to fight a war against an equal enemy. Like was said before around 60% used fighting an inferior enemy for 2-3 hours.

The thing is though, we are fighting a war in this game where the NATO forces are going against enemies who have RAILGUNS(lol but anyway) on their tanks.

In this game you will in most cases meet an egual enemy or a superior one. Not some rebels that barely know how to drive a car and say "Allah Akbar" (sorry for sounding rasist), so you will be using more AT-missiles and high power weapons than any peace keeper force can even imagine.

Say Russia and USA go to war right now,

I find it hard to belive that the US will send a company of mechaniced infantry into battle with 100 rounds(30~40mm) in the supporting vehicle(or if HMG then 400 rounds).

That is called being under equiped and you should get ready to get rolled over by Russian tank spam.

I'm sure some (like the Marshall's) ammo counts are close-enoughâ„¢ when compared to real world counter parts, but we need to consider the bigger picture.

I think we have been spoiled by the small Stratis map in a way. Playing on that map is pretty close to peace keeping operation scale in a simplistic way.

When Altis is finally given to us people should start to see the problem in such low ammo counts, you will literally have to always have an ammo truck trailing behind your attack force or get rolled over after the first engagement.

When saying that you should pick your targets and not waste ammo, I will have to think that while the thought is cute that is not how a real war works (especially not ArmA war). In ArmA because vehicles have HP instead of real armor people will, if met by an MBT for example, shoot it with an autocannon in hopes of disabling it and use up most of their ammo while doing so.

In this case the extremely low ammo counts will begin to hinder basic gameplay.

Even if Marshalls ammo is correct the 400 rounds for all HMG's is just too low, when playing with my friends we use the vehicle HMG's as snipers with single shots to conserve ammo and we still manage to run out because it take anything form 30 to 60 rounds to disapple a moving armored car.

---------- Post added at 09:42 ---------- Previous post was at 09:38 ----------

Good info guys :D

and ye are right ,but i didnt meant alot of ammo for ready ammunition - i meant more something like stored ammunition when you ran out of ammo

then you will reload new magazines which will take some time to load it , after you are ready to fire again

This would be ideal.

And would only need a small amount of programming to work.

Just have an variable for amount of clips used and after said number is used a longer reload time comes into effect for the next one. And ably a special reload command into command menu that resets the values and takes used ammo form the total amount.

[Hud Dorph 22]

Imho - as long as the game do not have ammotrucks the ammoamount in vehicles should be

fairly high - realistic or not..

Players dont seem to use the vehicles much, as they dont want to drive to the other end of island

to fight for 5mins then drive 15mins to reload. Ammo/repair trucks will fix this (soon i hope).

Mission makers could place vehicle ammoboxes around island in the meantime:)

[doln 10]

Military vehicles generally don't load themselves all the way to the gills with ammo when they go into battle.

[heruon 1]

Military vehicles generally don't load themselves all the way to the gills with ammo when they go into battle.

But shouldn't they be able too? We have an ammo slider in the editor, so isn't it up to the mission maker to decide?

[doln 10]

But shouldn't they be able too? We have an ammo slider in the editor, so isn't it up to the mission maker to decide?

The vast majority of mission makers won't do that though. Vehicles as they are in Arma 3 (and in all the arma series) have been such a 1 sided force multiplier that it makes it almost pointless to put them in a mission for anything other than spectacle. This sorta (I hate to use the word balance but its the most apt here) balances it out.

[Masharra 10]

(and in all the arma series) have been such a 1 sided force multiplier that it makes it almost pointless to put them in a mission for anything other than spectacle.

Utter bollucks

[doln 10]

Utter bollucks

You put an IFV/Tank/Attack heli in a mission, and if the enemy has no AT/AA, you steamroll them.

If you give them even just 1 AT/AA soldier to balance it out, if he's good enough, he'll blow you up. Short of giving the enemy an identical force composition, one side will always be steamrolling the other.

1 IFV can just hold the trigger down with explosive shells and absolutely wreck a town packed with infantry. Tanks too. Attack helicopters too.

[RSF TheCapulet 59]

You put an IFV/Tank/Attack heli in a mission, and if the enemy has no AT/AA, you steamroll them.

If your squad is on foot without AT/AA, and you see an AFV/Tank/Attack heli, then you've made costly mistakes. If you're on foot with no AT, your objective is to avoid being seen by attack vehicles, not trying to zerg rush them like a (dead)fool.

[dale0404 5]

You put an IFV/Tank/Attack heli in a mission, and if the enemy has no AT/AA, you steamroll them.

If you give them even just 1 AT/AA soldier to balance it out, if he's good enough, he'll blow you up. Short of giving the enemy an identical force composition, one side will always be steamrolling the other.

1 IFV can just hold the trigger down with explosive shells and absolutely wreck a town packed with infantry. Tanks too. Attack helicopters too.

Sorry buddy your wrong.

If there are IFV's in the game scenario against Infantry then I would suggest that the Infantry would win 99% of the time if the Infantry team is properly equipped. And to go 1 further, I would be very uncomfortable if I was the gunner / driver / commander of that IFV without Infantry support.