Weapon tests

[jgbtl292 0]

a dude with a 40mm rifle launcher has made my kuma immobile and has deactivate the main gun ......

with the last patch is very hard to play - lol

[kuIoodporny 45]

a dude with a 40mm rifle launcher has made my kuma immobile and has deactivate the main gun ......

with the last patch is very hard to play - lol

40mm HEDP nades should have questionable (to say the least) performance against STANAG 4569 Level 5 armour, that Kuma is equipped with... thanks for finding, will investigate that.

[pooroldspike 129]

AT MISSILES AS BUNKER BUSTERS

These tests are mostly for noobs to show you can still fire at bunkers and buildings and anything else even if you can't get a lock. (only vehicles are warm enough to be locked).

The Missile Specialist (AT) Titan is best because its a beam-rider and will fly down the scope crosshairs at whatever you lay the hairs on..

(target is that bunker on the hillside, range 340m)..

The Titan missile in flight. It's not locked remember, the launcher is projecting a radio beam at the crosshair centre and the missile is following the beam like a bloodhound..

direct hit..

burn baby..

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next is the Nato Rifleman (AT) with his PCML launcher..

It's not a beam-rider, so you have to use your eyeball to judge trajectory, here I lay the sights on the bunker but gravity drop pulls the missile too far down, so with the next shot I'll have to aim above the bunker to hopefully get a hit..

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Finally the CSAT Rifleman (AT) has a go with his RPG, like the Nato PCML it's not a beam-rider,so it's another eyeball job..

I lay its hairs on the bunker but the gravity drop is horrendous, so like the PCML I'll have to aim higher with future shots..

Summary: Get a Titan if you can because it'll beam-ride and hit whatever the hairs are on, BUT it's tricky keeping the hairs steady on the target all the way to impact because of sway, so try holding your breath. (or get a static Titan launcher, they're rock-steady)

The PCML is next best, it's gravity drop is only very slight.

Worst is the RPG because of its big gravity drop.

(But firing at shorter ranges will be more accurate because the trajectories will be flatter and gravity won't have time to kick in much)

Edited May 6, 2014 by PoorOldSpike

[pooroldspike 129]

a dude with a 40mm rifle launcher has made my kuma immobile and has deactivate the main gun ......

with the last patch is very hard to play - lol

Ach sooo, danke mein herr..

I just ran some tests to confirm it and yes, rifle grenades can wreck a Kuma track, but I wasn't able to disable the main gun, I fired at it's trunnion area where it enters the turret but maybe I didn't score enough hits, or missed its weak spot if its got one.

Here the Kuma track gets it..

I board the empty tank and see the track damage is red. I tried driving it but it just spun around..

I restarted with a bot crew aboard, fired at the track again and they bailed..

I restarted with an empty tank and fired grenades at the optics on the top of the turret and climbed aboard to check for damage, and found the commanders HMG and his optics were jammed, but the main gun still worked, maybe I didn't score enough hits on the gunners tiny hard-to-hit optic, or missed it completely.

I restarted 3 more times and poured grenades into the hull front, side and rear in turn, but the hits had no effect at all

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For good measure, I then ran the tests again with this T-100, and the results were exactly the same as against the Kuma, namely:-

rifle grenade hits on the track will make the crew bail,

Hits on the optic array will jam the commanders HMG and jam his optics.

The main gun seemed to be too tough to hurt.

The hull front/side/rear weren't even scratched.

Below: the T-100 track getting it..

..and the crew bail because presumably the hits have damaged the track.

They begin shooting at me, what cheek!

PS:- likeJgBtl292 said, patch 1:18 (which I'm now on) must have made the Gren launcher slightly more effective against tracks because in tests on early pages of this sensational thread it didn't seem able to damage tracks or force crew bails at all, so i've just edited the early posts to take these startling new revelations into account.

Edited May 6, 2014 by PoorOldSpike

[fraczek 4]

Maybe countermeasures are for the protection of friendly infantry and not for himself. Thermal vision can see through smoke.

Actually, modern smoke grenade launchers on vehicles at least use newer smoke compositions that try to obscure the IR spectrum and scatter lasers as well. How well they manage to do that in practice is the question...

Edited May 6, 2014 by fraczek

[martin_lee 33]

could you give a hint or two about how you pop the smoke? :p

Curiosity is killing me :p

[pooroldspike 129]

could you give a hint or two about how you pop the smoke? :p

Curiosity is killing me :p

Ha ha okay i'll tell the secret!

Here are the two pics again, I'm on the hill looking at that T-100..

And in this second pic I've made it pop smoke..

Here's how:- It was an EMPTY T-100, and I placed a friendly bot rifleman down near it (he's too small to see in the pics). I made him 'Playable'.

I then hit 'U' (team switch) to put myself in his body, climbed aboard the tank, popped the smoke, then team switched back to myself up on the hill in the blink of an eye..:)

Edited May 6, 2014 by PoorOldSpike

[Greenfist 1863]

I'm surprised I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere, maybe because it's common knowledge but AT missiles like Titan will hold the lock indefinitely, you don't need the scope to get locking and the missile will always know where the target is, even if your character doesn't. And you can score efficient top-down hits from very close ranges by shooting to the opposite direction from the target. Like this:

(The yellow rectangle indicates the exact position of the tank)

[fraczek 4]

AT missiles like Titan will hold the lock indefinitely, you don't need the scope to get locking and the missile will always know where the target is, even if your character doesn't. And you can score efficient top-down hits from very close ranges by shooting to the opposite direction from the target. Like this:

(The yellow rectangle indicates the exact position of the tank)

Sigh. This is so ridiculous! Can't wait till ACE3 comes out. Reminds me of the old Arma2 "feature" where dumb bombs like Mk82 were able to lock on and steer almost like a missile.

Anyway, nice testing in this thread. Although I suggest you get hold of the penetration testing script - would make the whole thing more than a guesstimate. Protection of some A3 armour assets is changing continuously, just see the changelog.

[pooroldspike 129]

..AT missiles like Titan will hold the lock indefinitely..missile will always know where the target is, even if your character doesn't.

..get hold of the penetration testing script - would make the whole thing more than a guesstimate. Protection of some A3 armour assets is changing continuously, just see the changelog.

Haha yes, Arma3 is set in the future so I suppose weapon scientists will have invented "miracle missiles" by then, so we're lucky to have them in the game here and now if we like fictitious Star Wars technology..;)

But at least bots don't know all these little things!

Where can I find the penetration testing script?

Incidentally all my tests are vanilla Arma3 straight out of the box without any mods or addons, except for updates (currently on v 1.18).

It's worth remembering that if each update is going to introduce new tweaks they might make some of my earlier tests in this thread obsolete which can't be helped, but I will go back and edit earlier old test posts if and when they need it.

Edited May 7, 2014 by PoorOldSpike

[Greenfist 1863]

Haha yes, Arma3 is set in the future so I suppose weapon scientists will have invented "miracle missiles" by then, so we're lucky to have them in the game here and now if we like fictitious Star Wars technology..;)

I guess the missile remembers target's unique IR signature and when it goes up above the obstacles it scans the surroundings and finds that signature. :)

[pooroldspike 129]

I guess the missile remembers target's unique IR signature and when it goes up above the obstacles it scans the surroundings and finds that signature. :)

Yes, and I think some real-world helicopter-launched Hellfire AT missiles do something like that, certainly they did in some heli flight sims I had.

The chopper hovers behind a hill and slowly pops up to look over the top so the sensors can take an "IR picture".

The chopper then quickly drops back down behind the hill and the gunner looks at the picture and decides which target to engage, so he feeds in the target coordinates to the Hellfire's computer, then launches the Hellfire.

It zooms up over the hill then dives on the coordinates, locking onto the tank with its IR seeker during the descent.

[pooroldspike 129]

Manually firing the NATO M6 82mm Mortar

(I placed an empty M6 and fired it myself. No wind)

I could only get 500 metres max range out of it when manually firing it in the 3D world, I thought 82mm mortars could do a lot better than that?

The Altis runway provides a flat testing ground..

The round explodes down the runway..

I hop in the Hunter and go park on the crater..

..and the map reveals the range is 460 metres (each grid sq is 100m)

(I did the Hunter shuttle to and from all the other craters during the tests to take range readings from the map)

Edited May 7, 2014 by PoorOldSpike

[Greenfist 1863]

I could only get 500 metres max range out of it when manually firing it in the 3D world, I thought 82mm mortars could do a lot better than that?

500m is the close range (50-500m), change the mode to "far" to get 4km range (300-4000m).

Edited May 7, 2014 by Greenfist

[pooroldspike 129]

500m is the close range (50-500m), change the mode to "far" to get 4km range (300-4000m).

Thanks, I couldn't seem to find a far button but I'll run some more tests later. Presumably the rounds i've been using were all the "short" range variety with less propellant charge.

Meanwhile here are the final screenshots from the "short" range mode-

Ranging: Pgup and Pgdown are the default keys to adjust elevation, i'll try ELV: 88 degrees which is almost vertical, it can't be elevated higher than this, but nobody would want to anyway or they'd be bombarding themself..

..This is how 88 degrees looks..

Bang, the round lands just 35 metres away at 88 degrees elev..

..and this is ELV: 45 degrees which gives a max range of 500 metres, it can't be depressed any lower than this..

45 degrees

The mortar is presumably fitted with a laser rangefinder, here it reads RNG:706 to the control tower. The big red 'X' is an 'out of range' indicator..

..but this structure is RNG:195, well within range, so there's no red 'X'..

I bombard the radar thingy for fun..

The test data chart: it's necessary to know the range to the target in order to use this chart.

Example- if the rangefinder reads 315 metres, you'll need an elevation of 70 degrees.

But if the range reads 270 metres you'll need to guess at an elevation of about 73 degrees.

But don't get too fixated on the chart; just use it to get a rough initial idea of what elevation you need, then regard your first round as a "spotting" round, and walk the rest towards the target with the elevation keys and your eyeballs, especially as it's often difficult to get an accurate range reading through shrubbery etc or on flat ground where there's nothing for the laser to get its teeth into..

Edited May 7, 2014 by PoorOldSpike

[pooroldspike 129]

Just found this useful link-

http://killzonekid.com/arma-3-how-to-aim-mk6-mortar-in-first-person/

Edited May 7, 2014 by PoorOldSpike

[Greenfist 1863]

The REL value automatically shows the elevation you're supposed to use to hit the target in the crosshair. If it displays "--" then it's impossible to hit with current range mode. (Unless you aim manually, i.e. use lower trajectory to target, which might not work since mortar doesn't go lower than 45 deg)

You can change the distance mode by pressing F or through the artillery computer. Unfortunately the scope doesn't tell which mode is active.

Edited May 7, 2014 by Greenfist

[kolpo 1]

The test data: it's necessary to know the range to the target in order to use this chart.

Example- if the rangefinder reads 315 metres, you'll need an elevation of 70 degrees.

But if the range reads 270 metres you'll need an elevation of about 73 degrees.

But don't get too fixated in the chart; just use it to get a rough initial idea of what elevation you need, then regard your first round as a "spotting" round, and walk the rest towards the target with the elevation keys

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/Photos4-newPB/AA3-mort8_zps452d747c.jpg~original

Thanks I tested your test data on cars placed in the editor and it seems to be correct, most cars where hit on the first try.

---------- Post added at 19:10 ---------- Previous post was at 19:07 ----------

The REL value automatically shows the elevation you're supposed to use to hit the target in the crosshair. If it displays "--" then it's impossible to hit with current range mode. (Unless you aim manually, i.e. use lower trajectory to target, which might not work since mortar doesn't go lower than 45 deg)

You can change the distance mode by pressing F or through the artillery computer. Unfortunately the scope doesn't tell which mode is active.

Didn't knew about F key or REL, now I know all I need to manually fire when I have sight of target. The range table that you need when you don't have sight of the target, shouldn't be too hard to interpolate.

[Jona33 51]

Just as some advice the screen actually provides all the information you need to get accurate rounds down. On the crosshairs there is a number to the left, in one of your pictures that is 1.1. In the bottom right you have ELV and REL. ELV is the current elevation of the barrel at the moment, in the mortar it varies between 45 and 88 degrees. Either the number on the left or the REL number are how you hit the target. In the mortar you will use the REL number because the first one is too low for the mortar. Use page up/page down to adjust ELV to match REL. When it matches, fire at will!

[Greenfist 1863]

Didn't knew about F key or REL, now I know all I need to manually fire when I have sight of target. The range table that you need when you don't have sight of the target, shouldn't be too hard to interpolate.

If you don't have line of sight to the target, you should use the artillery computer. Anything else is very inaccurate and possibly dangerous if you have friendlies anywhere near the target. Sure, that's what they do IRL but there's no reason you should to do it in the game.

Just as some advice the screen actually provides all the information you need to get accurate rounds down. On the crosshairs there is a number to the left, in one of your pictures that is 1.1. In the bottom right you have ELV and REL. ELV is the current elevation of the barrel at the moment, in the mortar it varies between 45 and 88 degrees. Either the number on the left or the REL number are how you hit the target. In the mortar you will use the REL number because the first one is too low for the mortar. Use page up/page down to adjust ELV to match REL. When it matches, fire at will!

The number on the left is your scope's elevation, it's not the solution to target. But I really hope BIS adds the lower arc solution to the display. That would make the artillery insanely dangerous in close ranges. Maybe that's the exact reason they don't add it.

[the_demongod 31]

I know it's a few pages back, but keep in mind that the RPG-42 has range markings, unlike the PCML. yes the PCML can lock, but free firing it is a pain (the missile is pretty unpredictable) whereas the RPG you can at least accurately compensate for range.

[Gutsnav 13]

Go to "Killzone Kid's" website and look at the blog on how to manually fire the mortar. It's really easy.

[Jona33 51]

The number on the left is your scope's elevation, it's not the solution to target. But I really hope BIS adds the lower arc solution to the display. That would make the artillery insanely dangerous in close ranges. Maybe that's the exact reason they don't add it.

Oh damn, thought it seemed a bit inaccurate. It seemed about right so I assumed that's what it was for.

[kolpo 1]

I made a table for mk6 including the charges(selected with F key) until 1000m

range/charge 0 1 2

50 75,03 / /

100 84,2 / /

150 81,25 87,84 /

200 78,17 87,12 /

250 74,95 86,4 /

300 71,5 85,67 87,89

350 67,7 84,95 87,53

400 63,33 84,22 87,18

450 57,76 83,48 86,83

500 / 82,75 86,47

550 / 82 86,12

600 / 81,25 85,77

650 / 80,5 85,41

700 / 79,74 85,05

750 / 78,97 84,7

800 / 78,19 84,34

850 / 77,4 83,98

900 / 76,6 83,62

950 / 75,8 83,26

1000 / 74,98 82,9

Edited May 11, 2014 by kolpo

[pooroldspike 129]

CLAYMORES against INFANTRY

Here's one with a rifle for size comparison. The blast comes out of this convex side, I think its a zillion ball-bearings..

..so face yourself towards the enemy when you place it.. That's it on the ground just above my head..

Trigger by radio command or on a 40-second timer. Note you can be quite close behind it like this and not get hurt, but don't push your luck because in some tests I DID get wounded, so stay further back than this..

..the casualty pattern shows the blast is fan-shaped. Some bots were killed, some wounded and some unscathed but were upset and shot at me, note the red tracer from a slug hitting my chest..

Below- in this test I moved the claymore back a bit so its blast fan would cover all the bots. Like before, it produced a mix of killed, wounded and upset, but the blast must run out of punch at longer range because the bots at the back are still on their feet.

(Note: if a bot goes prone it doesn't necessarily mean he's dead or hurt, he can still shoot at you so watch out)..

Edited May 12, 2014 by PoorOldSpike