Request for expansion of infantry AT assets in view of Tanks DLC

[SuicideKing 233]

[I wasn't sure if i should put this here or in the general A3 topic, decided to put it here as it pertained to Tanks DLC. Apologies if this is the wrong place.]

 

The infantry-vehicle balance in Arma 3 has been very-all-or-nothing since the start. The situation improved slightly with Apex and the introduction of the RPG7 and open turret LSVs, however the situation remains undesirable. Let us walk through the issue in steps.

 

On the vehicle side, the problem is:

• CROWS turrets mean that MRAPs, IFVs, APCs all need to be dealt with an AT rocket, as crew can't be shot out of the turret.
• Vehicles can drive by at high speed, and still locate and shoot players accurately
• An AI vehicle can very accurately locate the person who fired even a single bullet at it, making attempts of disabling CROWS turrets by shooting at them very dangerous.
• Given all these factors, it's only really viable to use LSVs and off roads and not expect people to die random arbitrary deaths. Of course, the AAF is missing such a vehicle.
• i.e. to quote a fellow community member, "I think Humvees, M113s, and Vodniks are more critical right now than carl gustavs [for the infantry game]".

 

With Tanks DLC the expectation on the vehicle side is mostly limited to introduction of new tanks (and hopefully a more readable damage/armour model), so of course open turret M113s, BRDMs and vodniks seem out of the question. That brings me to the infantry side of the equation.

 

On the infantry side, the way in which we traditionally have run our Platoons is with:

1. a R(AT) being Light AT(LAT) integral to each infantry squad, expected to take care of everything up to and including wheeled IFVs/APCs at close to medium range.
2. For tracked IFVs (and in emergencies, tanks) or for multiple IFV class vehicles, we have a dedicated Medium AT (MAT) team.
3. To handle tanks, we use a Heavy AT (HAT) team.

 

To quote another community member, in Arma 2 the setup went like this:

Quote

in A2, we had 3 types of AT: light, medium, and heavy

light were the RPG and AT4, effective up to 100m, you don't miss because you don't aim further than that, and if youl generally one-shot an IFV and 1-2 shot a tank

medium were SMAW and MAAWS, with optics, up to 500m, you would aim carefully and oneshot most anything with a solid hit

heavy were guided, like javelin, and were just obscenely overpowered

 

Now the situation is really weird:

• RPG7 is the only Light AT asset available. Thematically doesn't fit NATO and CTRG, and I'd expect the AAF and CSAT to at least use more types of rounds (especially CSAT, if the argument were to be made that AAF has NATO stuff).
• PCML is on the heavier side of LAT, but has a medium range fire and forget system. It makes a dedicated Medium AT semi redundant if given to Rifleman (AT) units. While at times desirable, this limits the ability for us mission makers to provide NATO/CTRG/AAF with something lighter for use within fire teams. Regular infantry get a weapon with 500m range and fairly reliable accuracy and thus the only distinction between LAT and MAT becomes the amount of ammo carried about. The PCML thematically feels strange being a weapon system with a fancy fire and forget, yet having less punch than the RPG42.
• RPG-42 is a pretty powerful round and qualifies as MAT. One could argue that being a dumbfire projectile balances it out (and thus can be given to R(AT) units), however this brings two issues. First, it can take out a tracked IFV/APC in a couple of shots out to 500m, which fills the MAT role pretty well. The second issue is the same as with the PCML - the difference between LAT and MAT boils down to ammo count.
• Titan AT lies squarely in the HAT category.

 

So in effect, for NATO/CSAT/AAF/CTRG there are only two kinds of AT depending on your categorization: LAT and HAT, or MAT and HAT. FIA and Syndikat manage to avoid this issue by having RPG7s for LAT and RPG42 for MAT. One could suggest that RPG7s be used for CSAT LAT too, but then we're at the point where FIA, CSAT and Syndikat have the same AT weapons, which can be thematically jarring.

 

So what are the solutions to this? Well it's tricky without suggesting production of new assets but:

1. The easy way: Introduce more variants of warheads. RPG7/RPG42/PCML could all use things like tandem warhead rounds, etc.
2. The harder way:

• Introduce the AT4 and increase the lethality of the PCML (or at least, introduce a heavier round to avoid breaking the campaign ;) ). This lets us give LAT to AAF/NATO, while giving MAT a stronger warhead with the PCML.
• Introduce the Carl Gustav you guys have lying around unfinished https://www.artstation.com/artwork/5V03E . It'll let us differentiate the AAF more from NATO, i.e. AAF MAT could use Carl Gustav while NATO uses PCML.
• Introduce heavier warheads for both the RPG7 and RPG42. Sights like the PGO-7 could be introduced too, This will allow us to give FIA/Syndikat/CSAT a standard warhead for use as LAT while the heavier one as MAT (or indeed, HAT).

 

That's all i have to suggest for now. Would be great to have any of this implemented with Tanks, since the last few years making missions has been at times quite frustrating because of the limitations within which we've had to work. Arma's issue with combined arms is less "needs more tanks", but more to do with needing a nice smooth infantry-vehicle interface when it comes to balance.

 

p.s. Would be great to get the M4A1 too, AAF spec ops would be a thing then :P

 

EDIT: Seems the Carl Gustav and M4A1 were taken down, but here's a screenshot of the discord embed.
https://imgur.com/AjfgKgy

[Alwarren 2765]

I agree with most of what you say. There are other things that need to be done about AT weapons in Arma 3:

1. Reduce the number of rockets/missiles carried to a realistic amount.
2. Increase the reload speed to a realistic level

#1:

The default Rifleman (AT) for the NATO side carries three missiles for an (in reality) not even reloadable launcher. The CSAT Rifleman (AT) carries five (!) missiles, three of which are (by the looks of it) tandem AT warheads, and two are HE. If you ever lugged around a Carl Gustav Launcher with ammo, you'll agree that this is rather on the high side.

Even worse, the Missile Specialist (AT) both carry three missiles of a type that in reality is an anti-personal warhead. I know, 2035, but there are certain laws of physics that aren't that easily circumvented. 

Lighter AT like the AT-4 would cure this problem. Make them single shot, make it possible to carry one or two in a backpack.

 

#2:

Reloading a launcher is way too fast. Reloading most rifles is actually slower than reloading a launcher. Especially with AI, this leads to an offensive potential of AI infantry that is just way out of proportion. Apart from the fact that reloading the launchers till uses the "voodoo magic" reload animation, it's just unrealistically fast (and in some cases, unrealistically possible like with the NLAW/PCML). In comparison look at the much-demonized "Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising" for how reloads SHOULD look: https://youtu.be/PNVjR_8nbQ4?t=623 (check the time index 10:20 and onwards)

 

 

 

[R3vo 2652]

I totally agree. I believe we need more launchers and the launcher we have need to be tweaked, especially the number of rockets a solder can carry.

 

4 hours ago, Alwarren said:

the launchers till uses the "voodoo magic" reload animation

 

They should have made all launchers one-time useable, that way we wouldn't need to deal with those ridiculous reload animations...

 

Furthermore, I hope the Carl Gustav M4 will be part of one of the DLCs. Paired with various types of ammunition it could will quite a few gaps.

[roberthammer 582]

and no mention of going prone with AT? 

[twistking 204]

On 20.9.2017 at 6:10 PM, SuicideKing said:

[...]

 

Good write-up and i mostly agree. I had planned to do my own write-up on the issue, since the AT-weaponry was something that bugged from the early days of arma 3...

For me the most obvious problem concerning realism AND gameplay has always been the NLAW. It is too powerful for a squad-based weapon, while being boring to operate because of its bland fire&forget mechanics.

In the past, i have always asked for a realism-overhaul for the NLAW with proper predicted-line-of-sight , but sadly dev oukej confirmed, that they could not archiev this even with the new tank-fcs improvments in the pipeline...

 

I would therefore suggest, tuning the NLAW in a way, that the locking and/or guidance is less effective and maybe requires some leading by the operator on fast moving targets. Also the interface/sight picture could be tuned in a way to convey the high-tech-character of the weapon. As it is now, the NLAW is probably the most un-immersive weapon to use...

More importantly i would like to see a new lower tier disposable AT-weapon for all factions like an AT-4 or even more low-tier like an modernized M72 LAW (MLAW). From a realism point of view these low-tier launcher would probably be carried not as an AT-asset, but as a light support weapon. For gameplay however they could be used as a "cheap" weapon to fend of tanks and apc. While they would not be effective at destroying them, they could scare tanks away or damage them to reduce their effectivness. This would introduce much needed "granularity" into AT-gameplay and would also improve gameplay when playing as tank as it would introduce smaller threats, that are dangerous but not super lethal.

If you are just concerned about gameplay, this weapon could maybe even be sth. like a special AT-round for an under-barrel-grenade-launcher, but for realism i think a lightweight, disposable shoulder-fired launcher would be best!

 

Also i would love to see one faction getting their titan replaced by sth. like a modernized M47 Dragon, simply because these kind of manual guided AT-weapons are the most fun to use and require more skill to operate. Concerning realism, i also could see these more simple guidance-systems having a comeback in arma 3 timeline, because of advanced counter-measures, that reducudes effectivness of self-guided systems...

[froggyluv 2130]

 

 Agree and this is a huge area (Tank vs Infantry) that needs to be better fleshed out. One thing I really miss is the 'Fire' command from OFP actually worked -meaning if I told an AI to arm his RPG (because i knew armor was inbound) I could tell him to target even an area and he would shoot. Now there is just way to much hesitation, which in the high stakes chicken game of milliseconds man vs tank, is a real killer. Nothing worse than having the proper spots, proper angles and proper gear to counter armor and just having your guys refuse to fire because maybe the side of a bush is blocking some of their vision. In Arma, Not Firing seems to be the default behaviour and it would just be so much more enjoyable if we could get the AI to just light it up.

[Strike_NOR 898]

I'd say that one of the main issues regarding vehicular warfare in ArmA 3 at the moment is the lack of proper armor and module simulation.

 

Firstly, the damage models are more advanced than average games, but less advanced than war-thunder (semi-simulation) type games. ARMA would benefit so much from revisiting the Armor system because it affects all types of ammunition and armor.

 

In my opinion, for tanks DLC this has to change. I'm making an educated guess here that the current AT-soldier options and loadouts are there because of a few reasons, the main one being balance. 

If you were to only reduce the amount of rockets/missiles one could carry, you would need two to three AT soldiers to take down a Main Battle Tank. Why? Because the rockets deal indirect damage (splash damage) to tanks in an unrealistic way. Pretty much all modern rockets or missiles have too slow velocity in order to successfully penetrate armor with kinetic energy, therefore they use HEAT warheads. HEAT warheads have the same penetration values at ALL ranges, due to the fact that it is a shaped charge explosive. This is the main advantage of HEAT and is why it can be used in mines, grenades, rockets, missiles and shells. 

 

However, HEAT is not simulated in ArmA3 and therefore this "indirect hit" damage is used instead. The result is that using AT rockets on tanks becomes really predictable, no matter where you hit them. They will ALWAYS take some damage, and most likely always blow up no matter where you hit them, after a few shots. 

 

My ideal proposal for the HEAT ammunition would be as follows:

 

The projectile impacts a target at sufficient angle for the impact-fuze to detonate. This creates a grenade-like explosion which deals some splash damage in the area (intended to damage nearby troops or turned-out crew, optics, machine guns, CROWS etc). At the exact time of the explosion, an AP-projectile (the molten copper jet/pressure blast) is spawned with the same orientation as the shell before it exploded and works as following: It has high speed, but it falls off immediately, very fast. If it does not hit anything armored, it will be lethal for up to a few meters. However, if it hits armor, it will have very good penetration.

 

After penetrating, effectiveness drops immediately, but it generates a small "spalling effect" behind (either an splash-damage style orb or a few shotgun-like projectiles). This "spalling" effect is meant to damage crew or internal modules in the immediate vicinity of the penetration area. If the main "jet" still carries enough speed after penetration, it too will continue on until it hits something it can't penetrate, or exits the vehicle. If it exits the vehicle, the speed falloff is still there so it will mostly despawn/disappear immediatly.

 

An effective way to counter HEAT is therefore, as in real life, spaced armor or anti-HEAT cages on vehicles. These will force the charge to detonate too far away from the armor, and the heat "JET" will have lost it's effective penetration before hitting the vehicles main armor. 

 

As tandem HEAT would be near-impossible to properly model, because it requires a first charge to blow a hole in the armor, and the second charge to pass through the same hole (i hardly think it's possible to do in the arma engine), I would recommend just upping the main jet's effective penetration values to make it pass through thicker armor.

 

I also wish for better High-Explosive ammo, that would work like this:

 

The projectile impacts a target at a sufficient angle for the impact fuze to detonate. Depending on the fuze type, it is either impact-detonation, or delayed impact-detonation. If the HE-round explodes on impact, it will deal superficial damage to thick armor, some damage to medium armor (APC/LAV) and heavy damage to light armor (trucks, jeeps etc). However, if the projectile has a delayed impact fuze the following happens: 1. The penetration is calculated - if it does not penetrate, it explodes on surface. 2. A successful penetration will cause the shell to detonate approx 1 meter behind whatever it penetrated.

 

This not only makes HE extremely effective against light vehicles, but also against lightly fortified buildings or walls. As for using it against enemy tanks, it would damage turned out crew, and external modules, impairing the tanks performance. 

 

These HE-effects could be used for other things than tanks. For instance, artillery shells or bombs. An air-dropped bomb or artillery shell could easily pass through a building roof and detonate inside for maximum effect.

 

Lastly I also wish for better AP handling:

 

Armor Piercing projectiles should bounce or break if the angle is either too shallow or if the armor is too thick. In which case they should deal 0 damage to the target. However, another factor should be considered. Overpenetration. If you shoot a lightly armored vehicle, like a car, through the drivers cab. it should effectively just pass through. Very little of the kinetic energy is absorbed by the car, so it basically deals 0 damage to the vehicle. If it hits the engine block, fuel tank or other hard objects inside the car, it could easily tear it apart, because the energy is absorbed and distributed within the vehicle.

 

Therefore, using AP ammo on cars and trucks may be very ineffective, unless you penetrate vital parts. HE would be the preferred option here as any hit would guarantee a detonation.

 

AP ammo comes in different styles too. Sabot ammunition (dart ammo) and shells, some with explosive filler. Making an explosively-filled AP round would essentially be like copy-pasting the HE shell and give it more penetration value, but less explosive force. Using a pure AP shell would give higher penetration values, but less "beyond armor" damage. Using Dart ammunition would be the ultimate penetrating shell, and because of the high velocity, it generates a lot of heat and spalling effects when penetrating armor of a certain thickness. This ammo is best suited for heavily armored tanks, because with thin armor, it essentially overpenetrates before the energy of the dart can be absorbed in the vehicle.

 

 

 

How would this work though?

 

• Armor plates would have to be fitted to all vehicles (defined areas of armor with defined thickness and type (steel, aluminum, composite etc)).
• Crew fighting compartments would have to be "free of  firegeometry" so that deadly effects could happen inside the tank (splash damage, spalling etc).
• Tanks (and preferably other vehicles) would require more types of damage modules (ammunition, transmission, turret ring, elevation mechanism, optics, CROWS etc.)
• Vehicles  and soldiers would need wider selection of ammunition types.

 

Why would this work?

 

The pros:

 

• Realistic vehicle damage leads to realistic tactics and approaches.
• Player ammunition choices have greater influence to outcome of vehicular combat.
• More incapacitated vehicles, rather than burning, exploded wrecks.
• Players will less frequently experience being "one-shotted" or obliterated.
• More focus on repair logistics and ammunition resupply. (more ammo types means you need to rearm frequently used types more often).
• Better infantry vs vehicle combat (HEAT ammo) means you have to think about where you hit enemies, because it will no longer damage the entire vehicle, just the modules/crew behind the point of impact.
• Better vehicle vs infantry combat (shooting the tarp on a transport truck with AP shells no longer vaporizes the truck - the shell simply penetrates and flies out the other side).
• Warrants more types/specialization of Anti-Tank infantry. 

The cons:

 

• New ARMOR system means ALL vehicles, vanilla, mods, etc will have to be updated with proper values. Some vehicles may require little tweaking (such as planes, helicopters, cars), but armored vehicles such as tanks, IFVs, APC etc require armor type and thickness alterations.
• New ammo types mean breaking existing types and "synthetic HEAT simulation". But this compliments a new armor system well. So this bullet and the previous go hand-in-hand, or not at all.
• Certain anti-armor weapons may prove absolutely ineffective against main battle tanks, leading to player confusion. Mainstream games have us believe that rocket launchers make everything explode into a fireball.
• New damageable modules require a lot of existing vehicles to be revisited.
• Questionable reliability of HEAT/delayed fuze in arma 3 environment. If CPU is under heavy load, will the shell detonate at the correct "frame" ? This question is a little bit out of my league.
• AP shots would drain very little health from the overall target. Meaning that you could probably shoot and penetrate an MBT 50 times without it exploding, if you never hit the critical modules inside. This may lead to some confusion if you don't know how armor penetration works.

 

 

 

I guess all in all i'd say. Try to copy WarThunder wherever you can. It makes armored warfare 100x more interesting. The major ACE up the sleeve of arma is that, unlike warthunder, you can bail out of an immobilized tank and continue the fight (or flee :) )

 

 

[lsd 147]

Good suggestions, but if BIS have no basic launchers planned for NATO/AAF, I'd be happy with a neutral-textured RPG42.

[jone_kone 158]

On 22/09/2017 at 6:45 PM, lsd said:

Good suggestions, but if BIS have no basic launchers planned for NATO/AAF, I'd be happy with a neutral-textured RPG42.

 

This!.. Don't get it why they didn't do with APEX. Solid black or similar "neutral" color would give more options to use it for different factions.

[SuicideKing 233]

Some resources for the NLAW, RPG32 and RPG7:

• SAAB page on the NLAW http://saab.com/land/weapon-systems/support-weapons/NLAW/
• ARES post on the RPG32 http://armamentresearch.com/ansar-al-sharia-with-rpg-32-rocket-launcher-in-yemen/
• ARES articles on the RPG7 and its proliferation http://armamentresearch.com/tag/rpg-7/
• US Army TRADOC on the RPG7 https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/row/rpg-7.pdf
• Small Arms Survey summary (includes geographic distribution) http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/Weapons_and_Markets/Tools/Weapons_ID_DB/SAS_weapons-rocket-launchers-RPG7.pdf
• Small Arms Survey - M72 LAW http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/Weapons_and_Markets/Tools/Weapons_ID_DB/SAS_weapons-rocket-launchers-M72LAW.pdf
• Small Arms Survey weapon database http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/weapons-and-markets/tools/weapons-id-database.html
• Small Arms Survey light weapons notes http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/weapons-and-markets/products/light-weapons.html

Idea behind all of this is to examine how these weapons are used in the real world and by which kinds of actors, along with the types of ammo, optics and operation mechanics that they use. 

[mickeymen 322]

Just now, SuicideKing said:

Idea behind all of this is to examine how these weapons are used in the real world and by which kinds of actors, along with the types of ammo, optics and operation mechanics that they use. 

Thanks for info. Super usefull info, espesially for @BIS. I fully agree with the author of this topic

[Chairborne 2594]

I dont know if this was already mentioned but as it is right now the manual guidance for missiles doesn't exactly behave like one would expect.

I like to play with modded mid-tier weapons sometimes (TOW, Metis, vehicle operated ATGMs) so it's a bit more engaging than just spamming tablock with the super turbo deluxe Titan and manual guidance (SACLOS) is almost never accurate.

This has been an issue since time immemorial, would be nice if BI finally addressed this problem too to give a bit more meaning to asymmetric warfare against tanks.

[oukej 2910]

On 10/6/2017 at 5:20 PM, Chairborne said:

I dont know if this was already mentioned but as it is right now the manual guidance for missiles doesn't exactly behave like one would expect.

In what way? That it flies directly to the position you aim at and doesn't follow the beam line from the launcher?

[Strike_NOR 898]

27 minutes ago, oukej said:

In what way? That it flies directly to the position you aim at and doesn't follow the beam line from the launcher?

 

I assume that what he means is that manual guidance in vanilla appears to be based on the missile aiming for a virtual point in the game world, as if it were a laser dot. While many real life counterparts follow the actual beam, and not the dot at the destination, just like you say.

 

These guidance types differ greatly between designs, but it often leads to the in-game missiles following a so-called "pursuit" path to their target. If the target is stationary, this usually never becomes an issue, but with moving targets, the missile will always take the longest route, lose most of its energy and have the least chance of hitting. If hitting, it will generally hit the back of the target at an acute angle, minimizing the potential effect of the weapon.

 

The lead pursuit method is often preferred, where by using proportional navigation mathematics you can use the rate of change in missile Line of Sight (LOS) to lead onto the target. 

 

This will essentially make the missile aim for where the target is heading, always adjusting for any course/velocity deviation made by the target. 

 

For weapons such as the NLAW, if I understand it correctly, it uses predicted impact point lead calculation. In an instant, it calculates range to target and target speed/bearing. This is then compared to the missiles speed, or time of flight to the predicted point, and a firing solution is fed to the missile. Upon firing, the missile automatically adjusts its course and heads for the predicted impact point. If the target stops or makes any large adjustments after launch, the missile will miss.

 

 

Anyways, I could go lecture about this with half-science forever. I'm guessing that manual guidance in vanilla ArmA currently operates on point tracking (pursuit), not lead pursuit like the guided weapons (tab-lock) use.

 

Needless to say, I wanted to shed some light on this as it may become more important for Tanks DLC :)

[oukej 2910]

You're right - in Arma the munitions with "normal" locking and guidance can lead their targets - the pursuit and lead ratio can be adjusted by ammo's property trackLead. This isn't the case with manually/SACLOS and laser guided munitions because the aimpoint (in case of manual guid.) or laser spot painted by the player doesn't have its own movement and the missile won't lead. However, if you directly "attach" the laserTarget to a vehicle via script then the missile is be able to predict and lead the target.
Atm we can 'only acknowledge' this shortcoming :/

[Strike_NOR 898]

2 hours ago, oukej said:

Atm we can 'only acknowledge' this shortcoming :/

 

And I believe "we" (the community) acknowledge and value your transparency. 

 

Actually you even bring a possible workaround to the issue, so good on you :) !

 

It would be very interesting to see a beamriding missile in ArmA. It would technically want to keep itself center of the player-to-target line of sight at all times, leading to some very different behavior (probably more erratic zig-zagging or corkscrewing).

 

As of ArmA's native 2035 scope, maybe this would fit as the "premium anti-tank weapon" for the Syndikat or FIA (low tech), instead of Titan or NLAW style weapons.

[Chairborne 2594]

6 hours ago, oukej said:

In what way? That it flies directly to the position you aim at and doesn't follow the beam line from the launcher?

Yes, that's what i mean.

Furthermore, there are major issues with what the game sees as targets with the current system (which, imho, even if addressed, would still be sub-optimal). Only the terrain is kept for reference with missile guidance, so ALL other objects (be it terrain objects like houses, or vehicles of any kind) seem to be completely ignored by the guidance system. This becomes most apparent when you are on ground level and trying to engage targets that are skylining on a hilltop. Because of the fact that there's no terrain in the background the game can use as reference, the guidance system seems to go on tilt and it's extremely hard to hit anything.