Weapon tests

[-SaS- Setinha 7]

Is a good idea, nice

[kagenekosama 4]

Can you test what kind of impacts can damage an apc engine, like a weak point or something like that?

[pooroldspike 129]

On 04/04/2017 at 11:24 PM, kagenekosama said:

Can you test what kind of impacts can damage an apc engine, like a weak point or something like that?

Which APC's and which weapons?

 

[instagoat 133]

I did some more armour penetration testing in light of the upcoming DLCs, particularily tanks. This is to document a bit better how the armour behaves ingame.

 

Own Vehicle: Slammer M2A1

Target Vehicle: Kuma in frontal aspect.

Distance: 2126 meters

Gun and Ammo: Slammer 120mm APFSDS

 

All Green markers indicate hits. Numbers are the order in which the shots were taken. Numbers are to the right of the corresponding impact. Not all shots were taken against the same target. Everytime I blew the Kuma up, I reset. Below I will indicate shots taken against the same target by a number in brackets after the number of the hit itself. All orientations are made from the position of the target vehicle (left means left from the Kuma's perspective. I'm doing this simply because that's the way I wrote it down and I don't want to make transcription errors)

 

 

Hits:

1: Perforated Turret ring, ricocheted inside the turret and was stopped by the inner wall of the hull next to the gunners seat, at the height of the return rollers. Tank exploded after this hit.

2: Perforated the lower slope of the turret cheek, ricochetted on the hull top around the turret ring and was stopped by the gunners position. Tank exploded after this hit.

3: Ricochet off the gunners hatch. Main gun was completely disabled (red) after this hit. (Why?)

4: Perforated lower slope of turret cheek barely inside the non-inert parts of armor. Ricocheted off the hull while inside the turret, exited the turret rear and ricocheted again off the engine deck. Tank exploded after this hit (Ammo behind gunner?)

5: Ricochet off turret roof in front of the loaders hatch. Main gun disabled. (1)

6: Perforation of turret ring, clean through and out the back, stopped by engine deck. This shot blew up the tank. (2)

7: Ricochet off the shot trap's slope downwards, perforated the turret ring and was stopped inside the fighting compartment. Tank blew up.

8: Ricochet off the shot trap, perforated and overpentrated hull roof over the ammo compartment, exited through the floor of the hull. Tank blew up.

9: Perforation of turret roof well in front of the loaders hatch. Normalized lightly on the armor, went slightly downwards and exited the turret back and grazed the slat armour at the back of the tank. Tank intact. (1)

10: Clean shot against center of turret cheek. Shot was stopped inside the armour, slightly in front of where the gun mount would be. No damage to vehicle. (2)

11: Turret cheek perforated underneath gunners optics. Shot ricochetted downwards of commanders position and was stopped by the engine firewall. Vehicle destroyed (3)

12: Hit squarely on the right hand side of the gunners optic. Shot was stopped by something right behind the optics surface. Gun damaged. (1)

13: Perforated the turret just to the left and high of 12, shot ricocheted on entering the fighting compartment and exited the back of the turret. Turret clearly damaged after this shot. (2)

14: Perforated the gunners optics again, at 6'o clock from 13. Bounced through the fighting compartment and was stopped by the back wall of the turret. (3)

15: Gunners optics again, clean into the turret. Ricochetted through the commanders seat and was stopped short of the back wall of the turret. (4) Vehicle still intact!

16: Perforated the gunners optics 2:45 o´clock of 14, in through the fighting compartment and stopped by the comanders position. (5)

17: Impact in front of the optics on the cheek armor. Shot was stopped at the surface of the armor, no damage to vehicle. (6)

18: Impact 6´o clock of 17, shot ricochetted off the armor and over the optics, making no further contact with the vehicle. No damage. (7)

19: Square impact on the thick part of the turret cheek, just outboards of the optics. Shot was stopped by the armor. No damage. (8)

20: Ricochet off the shot trap below the gunners optics. Ricocheted again off the drivers hatch and was stopped by underside of the turret slightly in front of turret ring. Hull damaged, Vehicle exploded. (9)

 

Lessons learned:

This was a surprising test. At the distance, I had trouble with the first set of shots to not hit any parts that would immediately destroy the tank in one shot. Kuma stores ammunition on the loaders side in the turret bustle, which explains why the shots that penetrated and perforated that side of the turret resultet in one shot kills.

I also ricochetted twice off the turret roof, and in both cases the main gun was unuseable after that. No clue why, the shot wasn't even close to the gun. Maybe hitting the gunners seat counts as hitting the weapon?

On the commanders side of the turret, the tank is surprisingly resilient. It obviously would have been unuseable as a fighting vehicle because the main gun was down immediately, but overall, hitting the turret front on the commanders side without impacting the hull allowed it to survive 8 hits, 3 of which did not penetrate at all. The 9th probably killed it because it made contact with the hull (bouncing off the drivers hatch) and going into the bottom of the turret. I suspect it was not hitpoint depletion because then it would've burst into flames immediately.

The distance was 2126 meters. At that distance, only the small, vertical parts of the turret cheeks actually were effective in stopping incoming rounds from the Slammer. I would imagine that the bigger gun on the T-100 could probably do better than the Slammer. Hitting the shot trap at the lower parts of the cheeks results in a one shot kill most of the time.

 

Ammunition is ricochet happy. I am not sure that this is realistic, because modern APFSDS is specifically designed to not bounce. There's 60 years of engineering behind these, if anything they should nose into the target unless the angle is so acute that the shot would just plow through armor all the way anyways, and not perforate the armour. That's another reason why sloped armor isn't a thing anymore, unless it's ERA. Angled armour sandwhiches with air gaps are used because of this tendency of the rounds to nose into the target, with alternating layers causing the projectile to fragment as it passes from layer to layer. 3 was okay, but 5 would probably have plowed into the armour and gotten stopped by it as it tried to nose into it from its very acute angle.

Shot 8 was interesting because the round ricochetted off the turret cheek, went through the roof of the hull and had enough force left to go back out through the bottom of the tank.

 

I hope this is at least somewhat interesting. I'll see if I can do more of these, maybe with more detail. I'll also try different angles and shooting at different parts.
 

Edit: I reviewed this

 and now the damage to the gun on ricochets explains itself. All there in the pudding. This is really something that needs to go: if your gun can damage the vehicle, it will always do damage no matter if it actually penetrates the armor. Killing a tank by ricochets only is completely feasible because they often disable weapons. Disabling the tracks and/or engine also makes the crew (if AI) bail, so killing tanks is -way- easier than it should be.

[kagenekosama 4]

On 7/4/2017 at 8:19 AM, pooroldspike said:

Which APC's and which weapons?

 

the wheeled apcs from opfor and nato, try caliber from 6.5, 7.62, 9.3 and .338 from different distances.

[pooroldspike 129]

On 08/04/2017 at 5:06 PM, kagenekosama said:

the wheeled apcs from opfor and nato, try caliber from 6.5, 7.62, 9.3 and .338 from different distances.

No need to do tests..:)

I've logged 1500 hours in online servers over the past year and find the easiest way to trash wheeled vehicles with all kinds of small arms and MG's is to shoot at their tyres to immobilise them.

Then when the driver and passengers jump out just hose them down..:)

PS- Grenades and rifle-grenades will also blow out tyres, you don't need to get a direct hit as a nearby ground-burst will riddle the tyres with shrapnel.

[Firebird-B4L 51]

I know this is off-topic and this thread is outdated now, but Charles Rabbit loves doing this sort of thing.  Together we've tested some simple ballistics things and I enjoy doing it to.

 

Maybe we could all get together and do some testing or whatever as time allows.  I enjoy reading your threads and enjoy your humor, haha.  A couple of them gave me some much needed laughs, especially the one about the wonderwoman costume, lol

 

Also, related to the heli camera thread, Rabbit is an amazing Blackfish pilot and is able to fly really well with the new change.  If they don't fix it, he could give you some pointers so you can get back in the air.

[pooroldspike 129]

9 hours ago, romille1 said:

Maybe we could all get together and do some testing or whatever as time allows...

Also, related to the heli camera thread, Rabbit is an amazing Blackfish pilot and is able to fly really well with the new change.  If they don't fix it, he could give you some pointers so you can get back in the air.

 

Thanks, I do about 6 hours a day on the KOTH servers 24/7, so if we bump into each other in there we can team up, there seems to be a chronic shortage of experienced tank gunners. I spend big cash buying a tank and say "I need a gunner" and then keep my fingers crossed that the guy who jumps in will know what he's doing!

For example when I'm a tank commander or driver, I constantly have to keep screaming at the gunner "WATCH YOUR FRIGGIN FRONT, I'M FACING THE TANK AT THE ENEMY" because they have the infuriating habit of continually swinging the turret around to look in all directions including directly behind, you couldn't make it up!

Regarding the Blackfish VTOL, I'm still grounded because I can't get the new key combos to work since the 1.70 update, and neither can most other people, so sadly the KOTH skies are now almost empty of Blackfishes.

If Rabbit or anybody can help please let me know by posting here or by PM or email, thanks..:)

pooroldspike (at) aol (dotcom)

[Firebird-B4L 51]

Well, we play mostly on CodeFourGaming servers for better frames (less players than HT).  But codefour seems to be everincreasing their player count, but that's another story for another day.

 

Our squad has a handful of guys, mainly Rabbit and Zylience who do a lot of the no-jets server on Codefourgaming.  They are experts and they or a few other guys could be a tank gunner.  I'm not the go-to-guy for that, piloting is my strength, but I've spent a lot of time as well trying to become a well-rounded player and can be of some help too.

 

Would be nice to meet you.  There's another old timer that joins us as of recently, Stug whose in his sixties, and we mostly have a lot of fun on TS and in-game.  Would be nice to talk in TS and do some tanking or ballistics tests with Rabbit or whatever.  We're pretty active on KOTH and sounds like you are too.  

 

You'll have to fly with Rabbit in the armed blackfish, he is truly our best, and in my opinion among the best and smartest players and pilots in the game, especially the armed blackfish--his favorite and specialty.  

 

I'll stay in touch and we'll get together soon one way or the other, i'm still waiting to get my computer back in action, if possible, after the lightning took it out during a storm.

[Ex3B 266]

Removed images to reduced post length:

On 4/14/2014 at 11:26 PM, pooroldspike said:

GM6 12.7mm Lynx sniper rifle against Marshall turret

I loaded for bear with 12.7 APDS rounds..

...

Like a knife through butter! After only about 5 rounds the gun drooped, I climbed aboard and found it was disabled, locked at this downward angle, so presumably the APDS rounds had damaged its mechanism.

It also drooped when I put a live crew aboard and opened fire in another test, so maybe the gunner himself was hurt.

...

For comparison I shot at the turret with 60 rounds from this ordinary 6.5mm rifle but it had no effect; the gun worked fine when I climbed aboard..

...

Conclusions:- ordinary rifles can't hurt light armour, but the Lynx firing APDS can.

Of course, some light armour is thicker than other light armour, so this test only holds good for vehs around the same thickness as the Marshall.

(PS- if you do testing yourselves against empty vehicles, the gun sometimes doesn't droop even though it may have been put out of action, so climb aboard after every so many shots to find out, and if its damaged it'll droop the instant you get in the gunners seat)

 

Recently it came to my attention that the turret of the Marshall is much more vulnerable to SAF than what is shown here.... perhaps too vulnerable.

I've found that even .308 can be deadly to the gunner.

Where you were shooting here:

Just to the right of where the turret was shot is the vulnerable part, the "metal sheet" with 4 bolts on it

Its right inline with the crew hatch and its viewing prisms. 

I first noticed this when testing the HMG_NSVT against the marshall (I wanted to make an upgunned Ifrit, since NATO (with the Blackfish from Apex) has an amphibious and airmobile vehicle with moderate armor and an autocannon, but CSAT can't airlift anything heavier than an Ifrit). I had crew in the turret (but no ammo) so I could see exactly when the turret drooped. I was testing vulnerability from the side, when if I shot there and saw red hit effects. I was able to kill both the gunner and commander inside the turret without disabling the gun (firing a bit more probably would do it). The NSVT uses the same 12.7x108mm cartridge as the Lynx, so I presume the Lynx with normal ammo can do it.

I tried with the normal 12.7x99mm HMG, and it also went right through and killed the gunner.

I then tried with the LMG_coax (7.62 x51mm ammo), and I saw a mixture of brown puff and red puff hit effects - like sometimes the armor stopped it, sometimes it went through and injured the crew. The gunner did not die after the first shots like with the HMGs, so I think the 7.62 rounds were barely penetrating and not doing much damage to the gunner.

Based on this... a marksman with a 7.62 caliber weapon would be able to kill the gunner with a few mags, if it can get the right shot angle (not sure how much range will affect this). A Zafir at close range should be able to do the job though. This would very much depend on getting a good angle and landing many shots going in perpendicular to the armor.

A SPMG/Navid should do much better.

I'm going to guess that the .408 sniper rifle could kill the gunner in a few shots or less.

I haven't tested 6.5mm ammo against it, but already the vehicle mounted 7.62 NATO caliber was having trouble. Also as soon as your shots start pinging the marshall, its turret will probably start to turn to find the threat, and you won't have a shot anymore.

If you've got a sniper rifle or HMG and spot a marshall with its turret in this position relative to you, you can take out the gunner. This is about the only way an Ifrit HMG can kill crew members of the marshall, otherwise its just hoping to get a firepower/mobility kill before the marshal gets a hard kill.

[Baitem 0]

40mm Grenade Launcher is not suitable for armored vehicles: /

[pooroldspike 129]

On ‎01‎/‎03‎/‎2018 at 3:33 PM, Baitem said:

40mm Grenade Launcher is not suitable for armored vehicles: /

 

Right, it can't scratch tanks, but it might damage light AFV's, and it can puncture armoured car tyres..:)

 

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

PS- everybody, I've still been grounded with the Blackfish and Xian VTOL's since patch 1.70  year ago, despite watching youtube instructional vids and trying in vain to contact somebody who can tell me how to fly them.

The main problem is that they only seem to have two throttle settings, 0% and 100% with nothing in between!

For example when flying something like a standard Mohawk chopper, thrust can be increased/decreased simply by moving my joystick throttle lever up or down a few notches to get a desired intermediate setting such as 25% / 50% / 75% etc, but with the Blackfish and Xian the throttle immediately goes to 0% or 100% no matter how gently I move the lever.

I've put in 3000 hours on the King of the Hill servers, and in the past the skies there used to be full of Bfishes and Xians, but now the skies are almost empty of them because most people including moi can't fly them.

Occasionally some brave soul will have a crack at it but usually ends up strung up on wires or in a treetop!  

[Grumpy Old Man 3546]

3 hours ago, pooroldspike said:

PS- everybody, I've still been grounded with the Blackfish and Xian VTOL's since patch 1.70  year ago, despite watching youtube instructional vids and trying in vain to contact somebody who can tell me how to fly them.

The main problem is that they only seem to have two throttle settings, 0% and 100% with nothing in between!

For example when flying something like a standard Mohawk chopper, thrust can be increased/decreased simply by moving my joystick throttle lever up or down a few notches to get a desired intermediate setting such as 25% / 50% / 75% etc, but with the Blackfish and Xian the throttle immediately goes to 0% or 100% no matter how gently I move the lever.

I've put in 3000 hours on the King of the Hill servers, and in the past the skies there used to be full of Bfishes and Xians, but now the skies are almost empty of them because most people including moi can't fly them.

Occasionally some brave soul will have a crack at it but usually ends up strung up on wires or in a treetop!  

 

Throttle should be adjusted with shift and z/y per default, with all increments in between 0 and 100.

Are you sure you're looking at the plane control keybinds? The blackfish is classified as a plane in these regards, even when AI usually make a vertical takeoff.

 

Cheers

[pooroldspike 129]

On ‎04‎/‎05‎/‎2018 at 4:58 PM, Grumpy Old Man said:

 

Throttle should be adjusted with shift and z/y per default, with all increments in between 0 and 100.

Are you sure you're looking at the plane control keybinds? The blackfish is classified as a plane in these regards, even when AI usually make a vertical takeoff.

 

Thanks mate I tried it and you're right, the trick is to use the keyboard for throttling like you said and not the joystick throttle lever..:)

I also fly in external view so I can see how the machine is sitting in the air and get better situational awareness than if I was cooped up in the cockpit.

I can now fly the Blackfish and Xian reasonably well, takeoff is easy but for landing they both need fierce concentration as you have to carefully juggle nozzle angles and throttle settings to overcome their massive inertia and they're still a lot harder to land than before the infamous patch 1.70.

To make matters worse on the servers you're continually getting your concentration broken on the landing approach by an insane cacophony of warning beeps as enemy SAM's and jets are locking you up, they can sense you're a sitting duck and go into "feeding frenzy" mode..:)   

  

[pooroldspike 129]

On ‎27‎/‎05‎/‎2014 at 12:45 AM, zguba said:

I've noticed that many players still try to take out helicopters with small arms. It's probably caused by former fragileness of their hitpoints, letting players to use even their pistols as AAA weapons; this has improved over last months. Shooting down military helicopter now requires proper weapons and some skill rather than random firing towards target.

What about testing helicopters against projectile weapons - should be enough to try both gunships, any transport copter and one weapon of each caliber.

Player can damage various parts of helicopter: engines, rotors or their shafts, fuel tank (usually under vehicle's center of mass), in case of gunships also turret guns. Pilots are obviously fragile, but most have protection enough to stop 7.62x51mm rounds.

 

Well I've put in over 3000 hours on the KOTH multiplayer servers and have had plenty of goes at assorted chopper types with assorted weapons, and below are my findings as of May 2018, (I presume playing AA3 offline in single-player mode will produce the same results?)

 

AA launchers vs choppers- one missile hit will usually bring down any chopper in the game IF- repeat IF- you can get a lockon AND IF your missile isn't decoyed away by chaff/flares!

(It's harder to lock up gunship-type choppers because presumably they've got some built-in stealth properties)  

Generally speaking, I'd estimate that your chance of downing a chopper is only about 25% for each missile launched, and if you weren't carrying many, they soon run out.

 

Navid 9.3mm MG- I love this baby more than I like AA missiles, so it's my preferred anti-helo weapon!

It's ammo loadout (in KOTH) is 4 x 150-round mags and the trick is to hose down choppers with sustained fire (keep the trigger held down for an entire 150-round mag without a pause) and the chance of downing a chopper at low-to-medium range and altitude is about 70% for transport choppers and 50% for gunships. Range has an effect so don't waste ammo shooting at far-away choppers or high-flyers.

PS- even if you haven't brought a chopper down, you might still have forced it to return to base for repairs.

 

Bazooka-type rocket launchers, e.g. RPG's- Yup, they can make mincemeat of choppers IF you can get a hit, and that's the problem because they're not lockable (unless new DLC's have introduced lockables), so you have to use your eyeball alone to get a hit which is bloody difficult, so forget it unless they're flying lowish, slowish and close-ish.

 

AT missile launchers - yup that's what I said, antitank missiles such as Titans can down choppers, (I've done it myself) BUT, and it's a big BUT, they have to be hovering stationary or near-stationary or you don't stand a chance of getting a hit.

The AT won't lock on to airborne choppers but no sweat, just fire and keep your crosshairs on the chopper and the missile will fly down the crosshairs and toast it even at very long range.

(If a chopper lands, you CAN get a lockon because your AT launcher will now classify it as a ground target hehe)

 

Small arms are not renowned chopper killers, but you might as well have a squirt at choppers if you like (preferably on full automatic) and maybe you'll nobble the pilot or inflict some damage, especially against weaker transport choppers.

However, sniper rifles can kill chopper (and Blackfish) pilots with one shot and down they go , (it's happened to me more than once, grrr...)

 

Grenade launchers vs choppers- I've had the occasional pop at nearby airborne choppers but have never managed to hit one, however if they've landed and are within reasonable range you can hit them fairly easily  but it might take more than one grenade to do it. 

Same with hand-thrown grens, it might need two or more to trash the chopper. 

 

PS- As I mentioned, I've been playing almost solely on the AA3 KOTH servers for the past few years, but if anybody can recommend any other fun servers I'd like to give them a try too..:)

[teabagginpeople 398]

Eutw warfare is something similar to Koth. 

 

Only it is played out over a bigger area. with several capture points. the team who holds all the points wins. If you are handy in pvp you might find it interesting.you get set  income  amount but on top that the more you kill, the more money you have to buy better scopes, guns, vehicles.

 

It is a little more rare to get it going but can be good fun.

[HaseDesTodes 62]

1 hour ago, teabagginpeople said:

Eutw warfare is something similar to Koth. 

 

Only it is played out over a bigger area. with several capture points. the team who holds all the points wins. If you are handy in pvp you might find it interesting.you get set  income  amount but on top that the more you kill, the more money you have to buy better scopes, guns, vehicles.

 

It is a little more rare to get it going but can be good fun.

 

you should mention, that unlike Koth, the EUTW mission only saves your equipment and money for the currently running layout.

so no saving money for later games. but also no tanks and jets when the mission starts.

[CertainDeath7 11]

A Hmg can shoot out people of AA Tanks, and even disable the gun, is that intended?

Also it happens very regularly, that the cheetah engine is disabled, after hitting a little stone while driving. really annoying on hardcore servers, where you often cant even see this little rocks as driver.

[oukej 2911]

18 hours ago, CertainDeath7 said:

A Hmg can shoot out people of AA Tanks, and even disable the gun, is that intended?

Definitely not intended (unless you're hitting some weak part of an APC or AWC, afaik e.g. Nyx shouldn't be able to protect you 360° from .50)

 

18 hours ago, CertainDeath7 said:

Also it happens very regularly, that the cheetah engine is disabled, after hitting a little stone while driving. really annoying on hardcore servers, where you often cant even see this little rocks as driver.

Yup, agreed, it's a bug and to be fixed :).

[Ex3B 266]

@oukej

Is it intended that a 7.62x 51mm LMG can kill all the occupants of an AMV-7 marshal? Firing from straight ahead at the driver's hatch will easily kill the driver. Firing perpendicular to the turret sides can kill the gunner (firing from one side of the turret) and the commander (firing from another side of the turret).

The commander and gunner are fairly resistant to the .308 shots (they penetrate, but not very far, multiple shots are needed), but a 50 hmg will go right through one side and out the other, killing both the gunner and the commander.

From straight on, the driver is vulnerable to SAF. From the turret sides, the gunner and commander are moderately vulnerable to SAF, and very vulnerable to HMGs.

 

Is this vulnerability of the crew intended? it might be lightly armored as a trade-off for packing the 40mm cannon, but then it seems the gorgon is preferable. Of course, the marshal is airmobile with the blackfish, but this vulnerability was around before there was a blackfish afaik.

 

I'm not complaining, it still protects the crew against 6.5mm weapons and below. The gunner and commander are pretty safe from 7.62 rounds as long as they aren't fired from close range.

In a hull down position with the turret facing the enemy/direction of incoming, the crew is safe from incoming rounds, and will basically survive as long as the vehicle does... unlike in a potential urban scenario where MMG or sniper fire (marksmen MMGs/rifles, Lynx, M320) can kill the crew and leave the vehicle in nearly pristine condition.

 

Despite the crew's vulnerability, the AI doesn't really seem to kill the crew, whereas I've been killed in a Nyx by AI firing HMGs multiple times

[CertainDeath7 11]

Thanks for the answer oukej.
On this i also want to point out, that the cheetah, even if it has a slammer chassis, and is much much less mobile then its csat counterpart, has about the same vulnerability to AT weapons. as a pvp player i feel it could need a buff on the armour side. at this moment, tigris is just better, because of high mobility, with no tradeoff.