Tanks - Damage improvements

[Imperator[TFD] 444]

G'day @Strike_nor any chance you could do some of your fantastic little testing with the Scalpel please?

 

After the latest changes I'm seeing it do almost no damage.  It took 2 to kill a single Ifrit or Tempest.

[fallschirmjgergewehr 1]

8 hours ago, Damian90 said:

 

Gun mantlets are always a weak zone on all, even most modern tanks.

 

However protection levels of gun mantlets will vary depending on design, size etc. But none is capable to protect against most modern APFSDS and HEAT.

Some tank have a armor made of special steel and protect by it(I saw Requirements document and it was written).But it is not matter, because it is not in arma3.

if there no such a armor, but atleast it can protect autocanon.autocanon(most pen 40mm canon 170mm in game) can't pen 350mm RHA.The summary is

Atleast MBTs should be protected there by autocaon or RPG(old ammo that added in Apex DLC).

[Beagle 684]

3 minutes ago, fallschirmjgergewehr said:

Some tank have a armor made of special steel and protect by it(I saw Requirements document and it was written)

if there no such a armor, but atleast it can protect autocanon.

autocanon(most pen 40mm canon 170mm in game) can't pen 350mm RHA.

Atleast MBTs should be protected there by autocaon or RPG(added in Apex DLC).

plain steel is basically not use anymore since the 90's. Layering today is a composite oft softer and harder rolled Steel, hard ceramics and or high density hard metal mesh and spall liners ranging from high density plastics to high tensile fabric liners (aramid) RHA equivalent is also a bit outdated as a good measure as well as for weapons as well as armor.

[fallschirmjgergewehr 1]

12 minutes ago, Beagle said:

plain steel is basically not use anymore since the 90's. Layering today is a composite oft softer and harder rolled Steel, hard ceramics and or high density hard metal mesh and spall liners ranging from high density plastics to high tensile fabric liners (aramid) RHA equivalent is also a bit outdated as a good measure as well as for weapons as well as armor.

not plain steel nor composited armor, it is special steel(only mantlet), and the document is official. but it is not matter because the tank is not in game.

I just say Atleast MBTs should be protected there by autocaon or RPG(old ammo that added in Apex DLC) .

And how about it do you think?

[Beagle 684]

1 hour ago, fallschirmjgergewehr said:

not plain steel nor composited armor, it is special steel(only mantlet), and the document is official. but it is not matter because the tank is not in game.

I just say Atleast MBTs should be protected there by autocaon or RPG(old ammo that added in Apex DLC) .

And how about it do you think?

It does not matter what I think, the question is: what will we get. I my opinion the whole situation is AGAIN a bit to WIP right know to say anything of substance.

[fallschirmjgergewehr 1]

24 minutes ago, Beagle said:

It does not matter what I think, the question is: what will we get. I my opinion the whole situation is AGAIN a bit to WIP right know to say anything of substance.

Ok, until now MBTs in game were easisliy destroyed battle capacity by APC's autocanon from front.You don't need flank enemy to neutralize MBT, you just fire 2~5 shot your autocanon to mantlet.

It was not realistic nor Good experimence of playing tanker. But If add more armor there, It will change good and not make game balance chaos.The change don't shake up sinario in Arma3.

 

[Strike_NOR 898]

3 hours ago, Imperator[TFD] said:

G'day @Strike_nor any chance you could do some of your fantastic little testing with the Scalpel please?

 

 

I did test it a lot yesterday and from what I can tell the scalpel tandem HEAT can pierce through most anything with ease, and like you say, does not inflict serious damage to Tanks and APC's global health. It does reach into them and can technically serve as module/crew "sniper". With the lack of a hitpoint type that represents ammunition combined with the fact that HEAT does very little damage to global health, vehicles explode less.

 

Technically speaking, HEAT jets can typically reach temperatures of about 400-600 deg C. This jet reaches speeds of about ~7000m/s and breaks into small particles along the way. These particles act as an incendiary shotgun inside the vehicle, igniting fuel or ammunition propellant with ease. This is what normally causes catastrophic failure. Like @Beagle says: being cremated alive is the primary fear. If the tank hatches are all sealed during ammo combustion, then the tank basically becomes a pressure cooker with too much pressure to contain, and whatever point is the weakest will break first (turret ring has been seen on many tank designs, can cause turret to pop off).

 

So long story short:

 

No, scalpels do no do much damage atm.

 

Hopefully that offset will be countered with vital "explodey parts" inside the vehicles. (That the Scalpel penetrator can reach).

 

[dragon01 902]

I don't think they need to explode. In fact, I'd rather see IR-guided missiles like Scalpel on Titan home in to the hottest parts of the tank, such as the engine. That'd allow a tank to be disabled by a HEAT jet more often than simply blowing up. There doesn't seem to be a mechanic for catching fire from engine damage, but from what I saw it can be quite enough to knock out a tank.

[Strike_NOR 898]

@dragon01 

 

28 minutes ago, dragon01 said:

I don't think they need to explode.

 

Of course not, but right now the HEAT weapons will take AT LEAST 12 hits to kill an MBT according to my tests(where either crew dies or tank explodes), while war footage generally show 1-2 hits. In some instances it would take 30 hits to kill a tank (in game). This is largely due to the lack of an engine/fuel module that does not catch fire/explode and the absence of ammunition.

 

What you are talking about is other "kills" or "soft kills".

 

Mobility kill

Crew kill

Combat effectiveness kill

 

Etc.. All of these leave the vehicle unfit for combat, and as such are counted as defeated or "killed".

 

Right now, the HEAT projectile deals minimal damage to the hull (global health) of strongly armored tanks, but unlike before they now pierce tanks.

The HEAT parent ammo (warhead) deals splash damage that really punishes soft targets, but does little towards armored stuff.

 

As such, HEAT is now truly an MP weapon. HE damage against soft targets, AP damage against armor.

 

The part you are talking about regarding where the missile impacts (hottest part) is kindof outdated. IR seekers have come a long ways since the AIM-9. Most seekers today don't use photocell sensors, but rather IR camera technology with algorithms to recognize the geometry/shape of a vehicle. It will then attempt to hit center mass in order to :

-Increase hit probability

-Hit crew compartment/ammo storage area.

 

Most tanks, until recently, store ammo where it is accessible to the loader, which should be in the turret bustle or under the turret, protected in hull-down situations.

 

The T-140 Angara is therefore exceptionally well protected from these kind of missiles because:

-Crew are all in hull, well in front of vehicles center mass (i.e not where the seeker will aim)

-Ammo is in turret, which is separated from crew, so even if ammo cooks off, the crew are safe.

-Ammo is also in turret bustle/rear portion so most likely the HEAT jet will just strike the gun breech area and less frequently hit the actual ammo.

 

I think we need to see what the devs have planned for HEAT and AP projectiles that interact with tank internals before making the final assessment of the DLC :)

 

 

 

[dragon01 902]

Do note that a "mission kill" such as engine, gun or tracks, is in general, pretty much a reason for the crew to either surrender, or bail out and run (if it's too bad to be fixed in the field, of course) once the immediate threat has been dealt with. For most situations, this is as good as dead. Modern tanks are very well protected, so actually killing the crew is rather difficult. Disabling a mission-critical system is easier and has, more or less, the same tactical result.

[guidaguida 6]

I feel like yes the the crew should take minimal damage in a tank from HEAT rounds. However I do feel like the crew in an apc or ifv should be mostly dead as the armor in an apc is much less thick and the crew is less protected against such things. Again I know the damage is WIP.  In my experience correct me if I'm wrong but HEAT rounds are generally used against apcs anyways, and yes I'm neglecting atgms which are more powerful. I don't however know how much damage atgm HEAT should do to the crew. Crew damage from atgm HEAT is generally done by an egnited ammo compartment so maybe atgms should do the damage to the crew as if they should be in an apc as ammo compartments are not simulated. 

22 minutes ago, dragon01 said:

Do note that a "mission kill" such as engine, gun or tracks, is in general, pretty much a reason for the crew to either surrender, or bail out and run (if it's too bad to be fixed in the field, of course) once the immediate threat has been dealt with. For most situations, this is as good as dead. Modern tanks are very well protected, so actually killing the crew is rather difficult. Disabling a mission-critical system is easier and has, more or less, the same tactical result.

 

[Strike_NOR 898]

SCALPEL HEAT VS SOFT/LIGHT ARMOR TESTING

 

I have been testing the Scalpel with IR-lock from Blackfoot against the following targets in the editor:

 

• IFRIT GMG
• QILIN (minigun)
• TEMPEST Transport
• MARID

Each vehicle was attacked by a single Scalpel missile from the side and front during medium speed, to simulate typical attacks one would witness while playing.

 

Post-attack damage was assessed and recorded.

 

Note: Individual vehicle modules were not looked upon, just the "result" of the attack.

 

Each attack I recorded the following information in this format:

 

ATTACK

HE (% He damage dealt before the AP projectile hits)

AP (%AP  damage dealt after projectile life has ended)

Total = (% total vehicle damage after single attack)

Crew = (% average damage between all crew members after attack)

 

Result: Notes in relation to the attack.

 

Regarding screenshots: All screenshots are captured during realtime so sometimes the vehicle will have moved after the attack is finished, meaning that the projectile path does not longer match with the actual situation at the time of impact. (You will see projectile paths behind the vehicle in general - where the attack happened). The screenshots are more to visualize the end result of each attack. Where the projectile path is important, I have made a note in the "result".

 

Open the spoilers to see each vehicle attack:

 

IFRIT GMG:

Spoiler

SIDE ATTACK

HE =5% 

AP=22%

Total=27%

Crew=20%

 

Result:

Shot entered in front of driver, went through dashboard and out the other side.

Mobility kill. All four wheels gone. Crew bailed, 2 died from ejecting at high speed.

 

FRONT ATTACK

HE =5%

AP=53%

Total=58%

Crew=40%

 

Result:

Shot entered front, magically missed crew (under their seats) and exited the rear hatch of the vehicle. This shot registered more hits along the projectile path compared to side attack.

Mobility kill. All four wheels gone. Crew bailed, 2 ragdolled from ejecting at high speed, got up severely injured.

 

 

QILIN:

Spoiler

SIDE ATTACK

HE =Unknown

AP=0%

Total=Unknown

Crew=100%

 

Result:

The Scalpel aimed too far ahead and misses the Qilin front end by about 0.5m. I thought "well, that's that then?", but to my amazement, the Scalpel explodes about 5 meters behind the Qilin and kills all four crew members instantly.

Vehicle damage unknown (was not able to obtain shot info diagnostics info, hitpoints diag was disabled). Engine still running, seemed fully operational, although visibly damaged.

 

FRONT ATTACK

HE =19%

AP=81%

Total=100%

Crew=100%

 

Result:

Initial HE explosion is pretty potent, deals 1/5th of the health, but this vehicle is obviously very susceptible to HEAT penetrator damage as the first hit registered did the remaining 81% needed to obliterate it.

 

 

TEMPEST:

Spoiler

SIDE ATTACK

HE =6%

AP=52%

Total=58%

Crew=46%

 

Result:

Shot hit drivers door, went behind drivers seat and exited just behind passenger door.

At first, seemed like mobility kill (all four wheels gone), but after crew bailed the vehicle automatically exploded. ??!! Maybe the engine or fuel tank took critical damage, because global health was pretty good (only 58% dmg)?

 

FRONT ATTACK

HE =6%

AP=94%

Total=100%

Crew=100%

 

Result:

Shot hits drivers compartment, exits drivers compartment rear wall, enters engine compartment and dips into the flatbed before terminating.

The 1st, 2nd and 3rd pen do little damage, but the 4th penetration skyrockets the global damage to 100%, killing the vehicle instantly. I am suspecting this is the engine hitpoint receiving full damage?

 

 

MARID:

Spoiler

SIDE ATTACK

HE =3%

AP=97%

Total=100%

Crew=100%

 

Result:

The shot enters behind the commander/gunner and does almost no damage (8%). However, the 2nd pen (in the engine compartment) does a whopping 89% damage and subsequently obliterates the vehicle. I suspect this is from the engine or fuel registering full hitpoint damage.

 

FRONT ATTACK

HE =4%

AP=96%

Total=100%

Crew=100%

 

Result:

The shot enters dead center in the vehicle front armor plate. It penetrates 3 times, dealing minor damage to global health, before the 4th pen hits the edge of the engine compartment (same area as the side shot hit) and skyrockets the damage to 100%, detonating the vehicle.

(I think I see a pattern here?)

 

FRONT ATTACK V2 (Offset with manual laser guidance to hit the L/H side of the vehicle to avoid hitting the engine area)

Total=88%

Crew=Unknown - survived and bailed out.

 

Result:

As an extra experiment I switched to laser guidance and hit the Marid from the front, but this time I hit the vehicle at the same height, but a little bit to my right (vehicle's left) to try and hit the crew area. In light of the previous attempts, I was also trying to avoid hitting the engine compartment. My expectations were met, the shot entered, went underneath the crew, entered the L/H passenger bench and penetrated that multiple times on it's way out the rear hatch. After this, the wheels were all gone (mobility kill), but the crew bailed with the engine still running. The vehicle did not explode, even though the damage values were high (88%). Had there been passengers in the rear, most likely all of them on the L/H side would be dead.

 

Conclusion:

What I observed was:

 

• All vehicles were taken out (rendered useless or destroyed) with a single scalpel.
• HE damage (indirectHit) is very consistent in damage for every "Scalpel vs X" situation, where the damage varies based on vehicle type (X). (See results under "HE=" in every case).
• The more "internal walls/geometry" the AP projectile hits - the more damage is dealt to global health (and thus, crew).
• None of the projectiles directly hit/killed a crew member, even though it sometimes missed by less than 5cm!
• There seem to be modules that immediately kill the vehicle, regardless of global health.
• HEAT is now a lot more random and sensitive to where and how you hit, compared to before (with indirectHit) where you basically did a fixed damage value each time. (Which is a huge improvement).
• Wheels seem to suffer immensely from the initial HE damage dealt by the parent ammunition!!!

 

 

This evening was dedicated to @Imperator[TFD]. Cheers mate!

Edited March 26, 2018 by Strike_NOR
Tidying up :)

[Imperator[TFD] 444]

I'm glad we've got you around for this empirical testing; I just like to blow stuff up.  It's nice to see that mobility kills will become a lot more common rather than outright catastrophic destruction.

Appreciate it mate!

 

[Hvymtal 1251]

I'm off making a lore friendly Isla Duala series in the Photography thread, and here you are doing approximately empirical testing and being properly useful to the community and generally actually productive. Lookatchu, you overachieving bastard 

 

EDIT: Since Yoshi specifically asked me to do so, I think it I should return the favor. Discussion of the HEAT mechanics and missile/rocket/RRs are probably a bit more appropriate for the missile thread than the Armor improvements thread 

 

[scavenjer 112]

@Strike_NOR

IIRC the T-14 Armata doesn't have any main cannon ammunition stored in the turret or turret bustle, it uses a similar autoloading system as the T-72 or T-64, meaning most of the ammunition is still stored inside a carousel under the turret.

 

Though I have to point out that I'm sceptical this is entirely true.

The hull doesn't seem to have enough space under the turret between crew and engine compartment for an entire circle shaped ammunition carousel, most likely has most ammunition there in a half-moon configuration or just plain stacks, likely does have 1-3 rounds in the turret.

 

Secondary ammunition I definitely think is mostly stored in the turret or turret bustle as you say.

[Strike_NOR 898]

I have a question for the Devs. Maybe @oukej or @Asheara can comment?

 

Before I ramble off into the abyss about stuff, the question at hand:

 

"Can we get some documentation on the shots diag tool?"

 

I see that it is listed as lacking description/documentation on the diag tool page.

 

Specifically I am wondering what some of the things you can see here mean:

 

 

Specifically I am curious to what the following means:

 

• Penetration:

distInside: I am assuming this is how many meters the projectile travels through the fire geometry? (What is it used for? Calculating speed loss? If penetration is possible? How far it penetrates even if it doesn't go through?)

 

Speed: The first number seems to be speed at impact, but what is the second number, and the two % numbers in parentheses? 

 

• Impact:

thickness: is this firegeometry component LOD thickness or material-applied thickness?

distInside: I assume this is same from the penetration section. Why is it replicated?

surface: I assume this is the applied material surface, which can override the generic "armour.rvmat" (RHA equivalent). For this example image it is 60mm, and as such, thickness is also 0.06m.

speed: again, replicated?

 

• Damaged:

It appears to list all config class types (individual entities) that were damaged from this hit, how much their health is initially, how much damage is applied, and new total. This is fair enough, but I wonder - why not add a tool that allows you to see which hitpoints are affected for each class as well? Yes, it will be crazy amounts of detail, but the hitpoints diag tool doesn't really overlap well with this one.

 

First of all, the hitpoints diag tool demands the player to be hovering his cursor over the target, even when using splendid camera (unlike shots diag, where you can use mouse in splendid camera to get detailed hit info).

It would be helpful to see penetration and damage to hitpoints simultaneously. 

 

• The actual graphical cues that are drawn (lines, crosses, circles, colors etc).

RED ARROW (see image): There is a red circle around this particular hitpoint when I hover the mouse over it. What does it mean? Is it the indirect hit range from a shot?

GREEN ARROW (image): There is a green line behind the shot impact. Is this a visualization of distInside? To show how far the shot goes through fire geometry?

 

 

 

 

 

So many questions.....

 

[scavenjer 112]

13 hours ago, Strike_NOR said:

-snip-

Speed seems to indicate their initial speed of the projectile before the impact/penetration simulation is done, the second number is the "exit" or resulting velocity after simulation.

 

The % numbers are how much speed over the initial speed the projectile lost during the simulation.

 

Not entirely sure what the second % number means.

 

Difference between "impact" and "penetration" is which simulation is run, I believe.

Impact: damage simulation?

Penetration: penetration simulation.

 

Other than these (which I think are mostly correct) I have no real idea what the rest means in practical terms.

[Strike_NOR 898]

Disappointing results from testing 120mm APFSDS vs Kuma

 

Sorry, I don't mean to be dramatic, but there are some really circus things going on with the way tanks are damaged in ArmA. At least from a military simulation standpoint. The reason I am so persistent about these things is because there are some games out there that do tanks really well - and the players that play those games typically play ArmA too because of the same reasons. Authentic experiences! When they get drawn towards ArmA Tanks DLC, they will be confused over the same issues that I am experiencing.

 

If you are used to a world where armor actually prevents damage, like a shield, then you are in for a surprise with ArmA 3. Because right now, tanks are accepting damage from all kinds of weird things, that should not be the case.

 

It's difficult to see improvement, when you don't really know what you are looking for (read: devbranch updates "Various vehicles armor balancing tweaks"). What vehicles? What balance? What tweaks?

 

Where do I start looking? So I apologize in advance if the Kuma is one of the vehicles that has not yet been "updated" or tweaked properly, but at least it serves as a good example of how NOT to simulate armor!

 

Enough ranting, and on to the pictures:

 

UPPER FRONT GLACIS 500m range - Semi-penetration (does not enter crew compartment).

Spoiler

Description:

Two pictures of the same shot, different hit markers used.

 

 

 

As can clearly be seen in both images, the shot enters the upper front glacis, which is one of the toughest parts of a modern tank. This is due to the fact that it's sloped, which makes effective armor thickness very thick.

 

As you can also, clearly see, the shot fails to penetrate it. However, it registers multiple hits while passing through, what should be, the same block of armor. Each time it registers a new hit, the vehicles damage increases - and with it, the crew damage. And no, not just the driver, which is close to the impact, but ALL THREE members of the crew.

 

Did I mention that the shot did not enter the vehicle crew compartment? Well, in case that didn't impress you, the vehicle ended up taking ~52% damage from this shot. All while the front armor was doing its job of stopping the round!

Instead of taking minimal or zero damage (as should be), the Tank is halfway dead, and all three crew members have lost over a third of their health.

 

 

THIS HAS TO CHANGE!

 

RIGHT SIDE HULL 500m range - Full penetration (does not enter crew compartment, only engine compartment).

Spoiler

One picture:

 

 

As can be seen, the shot passes through the 80mm thick armor skirt at a very shallow angle (roughly 22.5 degrees), meaning it is effectively a lot thicker.

It then passes through a 30mm plate over the tracks, before going through another 60mm plate outside the engine compartment.

 

Lastly, having lost about half its speed, the shot enters the cast iron (engine block), and is stopped here after going 1.3 meters through the engine block.

 

The good news:

The engine is more vulnerable to damage than armor plating, so it actually increases the damage done to the tank, compared to the rest of the hits. This means some parts are more susceptible to damage than others!

 

The really bad news:

Because an engine hit does increased damage to the vehicles health, it also penalizes the crew with more damage. This means that a shot that didn't even enter the crew compartment, does about 15 times more damage to the crew, than a shot that enters the turret or hull crew compartment. 

 

THAT HAS TO CHANGE!

 

Oh and by the way..... (double spoiler)

Spoiler

 

This shot enters the turret and passes 10-15 cm behind the commander. How much damage exactly is done to the commander is not relevant, just that he took LESS damage from this shot, than from the engine block hit above^

 

 

COMMANDERS CUPOLA MIRROR 500m range - Overpenetration (goes through the mirror, exits the other side and misses the rest of the tank).

Spoiler

One picture:

 

 

This shot, enters the mirror, exits the mirror and continues about its way across the VR map. The shot loses about 1.4% of its speed, does not enter the crew compartment, only breaks a mirror. Surely, this can't damage the vehicle or crew? YEP it can!

 

Tank receives 4,3% damage. This implies that one mirror held ~1/20th of the tank together!

All three crew members receive about 3,6% damage. Why!?

If anyone should receive damage, maybe JUST the commander!? Maybe he caught some glass shrapnel from the mirror? But the driver? Why involve him!?

 

THIS SHOULD CHANGE!

 

So I naturally increase the shot range to 1 km and try my luck here :)

 

UPPER FRONT GLACIS 1KM range - Ricochet into turret cheek, semi-penetrates.

Spoiler

First picture: Ricochet!

 

 

Finally, something interesting! A ricochet! The shot velocity is now a little lower, and the impact angle is very oblique, so the shot deflects!

 

But wait! The shot looses 62% of its velocity!? What? At this kind of angle I can't see how? according to data, it went about 12 cm into the armor, which may suggest that a lot of energy was lost, but 62% sounds a lot to me.

 

Not only that, even after FAILING to penetrate, the shot ricochets and the ricochet itself deals full damage potential to the tank (about 10%) and crew (average 8%). This should not be the case!!

 

So now it travels at ~650 m/s into the turret cheek (second picture).

 

The turret cheek armor successfully stops the ricocheted Sabot, but just like the Upper front glacis, the damage mechanics show no mercy. 

 

"What's that? Your tank stopped the shell? Hmm... that sounds unfair to the shell, let's give the tank some damage anyways, and by some. I mean A LOT!"

 

So the damage mechanic god inflicts a whopping 48% damage to the tank health - bringing it up to nearly 60% damage.

That's 60% damage to the TANK from a deflected shot, that then is stopped in the turret front armor.

 

Oh, and the crew? You guessed it: They all got in on it and received about 43% damage total.

 

COME ON GUYS!? CHANGE THIS!

 

And now for the grand finale:

 

What the actual......?

 

FRONT/RIGHT APS LAUNCHER THINGY DEVICE WHIPPERSNAPPER GADGET 1500m range - Ricochet, no penetration.

Spoiler

Two pictures. To show different hit locations and what happens there.

 

First picture: Hit APS Thing

 

HOL' UP! I need to get whatever that thing is made of, and build a tank out of it!

 

Seriously though, the APS thing registers as a 30mm plate. It DEFLECTS a Sabot round, which is approx 30mm thick going 1600+ m/s. Wow, the shot actually loses a magical 1400 m/s velocity being deflected by that thing! HOLY COW!?

 

What is going on here?! Not only that, it deflects it at an extreme angle straight down into the turret roof (second picture).

 

So naturally at this point we know what is going to happen:

 

Tank suffers 11% damage, from this hit. Wow, that's like the commanders mirror all over again.

 

And the crew? Yup, they are in for it too. Even though they are well out of harms way, they suffer an average of 9% damage.

 

Do you see a pattern here?

 

CHANGE! Change it so that even Obama would be impressed!

 

 

Well then.

 

Having said all that, and seen all this. I need to put this firing range statistical data on hold.

 

Something SHOULD be done.

 

My main comments after these incidents are:

 

• Penetration or no penetration, if armor.bisurf or armor_x.bisurf is hit, then some damage is calculated and transferred to the hull and crew health. There should be a MAJOR tweak to these values, in terms of decreasing them by at least tenfold. If that isn't an option, then all tank crew compartment walls should be created in a new material, that transfers damage to crew upon hit - and the rest of the armor materials should not transfer damage to the crew. I'm just suggesting a change here.
• Since some materials take more damage than others (engine iron_cast.bisurf for instance), why not do like I stated in the above bullet point? Make exterior armor plating exceptionally resistant to damage, but have the inner layer (crew compartment walls/liners) susceptible to crew damage. This way, crew will only take damage IF the compartment is compromised, not external plating.
• Ricochets still deal way too much damage. Should be close to 0 if penetration is less than half the armor thickness.

 

 

These points try to address that armored combat in ArmA 3 is still very Arcade-like with "guaranteed bang for your buck" type damage modeling, where any hit will get the job done, and some hits will get the job done immediately/faster.

 

I hope something can be done to the way this works, and I think you will agree that it needs some love for Tanks DLC release.

Come on guys, you can do it! :)

Edited March 28, 2018 by Strike_NOR
Woops, forum decided to post before it was complete.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

15 hours ago, Strike_NOR said:

...

 

KotH players want bang-for-buck shooting. if they hit a tank they will want some benefit, or there will be cries and complaints of “i shot him 6 times but he shot me once and i dead”

[Strike_NOR 898]

4 hours ago, fn_Quiksilver said:

KotH players want bang-for-buck shooting. if they hit a tank they will want some benefit, or there will be cries and complaints of “i shot him 6 times but he shot me once and i dead”

 

I see what you are trying to say quiksilver - a significant piece of the playerbase may become butthurt. This only really applies if BI fail to make a proper PSA statement about the overhaul. If the community is well informed, then the community members will handle the "the new damage mechanics are broken plz fix" crowd.

 

Besides, if the damage mechanics are improved, hitting a tank with dart ammunition is pretty much going to render it useless anyways, and only glancing hits or shots into flimsy exterior parts will be "disregarded" in terms of damage.

 

Either way your comment is a quick stab at something that obviously bothers you from before, where KotH players seemingly get to dictate what an authentic military experience should be.

[x3kj 1247]

I'd just like to name drop this ticket again, because the deficiencies we are seeing after the improved hitpoint, fireGeo and penetration simulation are explained by it.

[scavenjer 112]

1 hour ago, x3kj said:

I'd just like to name drop this ticket again, because the deficiencies we are seeing after the improved hitpoint, fireGeo and penetration simulation are explained by it.

I disagree with some of the points, namely: shells when penetrating should cause "splash" damage, otherwise it's like you're trying to snipe components with a needle.

 

The dependency on velocity I don't think is particularly bad, though I get what you're trying to say, you want more consistent behaviour.

For tanks and other AFVs, this kind of system is better but for infantry I agree that a different system could improve the general playing experience.

 

The reason why for tanks this system would be better is for example shooting an offroad through the back bed with a 120mm APFSDS shell shouldn't do much but doing that on a tank should result in a disable/ destruction.

Probably the best thing they could do is readjust the behaviour of surfaces and layered surfaces, you want a shell to only do damage if it actually penetrates the "internal" armour of a tank, not the skirts or outside components.

 

IMO the armour itself is the cause of a lot of the things we're seeing, shooting the T-100 in the UFP of the hull you can see that the shell often only loses about 20% of it's speed, which would indicate taht the armour is more akin to a WW2 tanks than modern tanks...

 

Couple of "figures" to visualise what I'm trying to say:

DM63A1 fired from the L55 120mm smoothbore on the Leopard 2A5 (or Kuma in-game) has 910mm of RHAe penetration, the front hull of the M1A2 abrams is considered to have around 600-700mm of actual RHAe protection (not talking about LOS).

That would mean that about 70% of the velocity of the penetrator would be needed to get through the armour, that's ofcourse a massive simplification but it works ofr what arma is currently simulating.

 

Now, actual damage is dependant on a lot of factors, spall liners, composite armour arrays, etc.... all contribute towards final damage.

Again, for simplification's sake this isn't important, we should focus on making it work within arma's engine and systems.

 

 

Remarkebly, Warthunder does damage simulation of APFSDS quite well.

[Strike_NOR 898]

*Rolls up sleeves*

 

2 hours ago, scavenjer said:

I disagree with some of the points, namely: shells when penetrating should cause "splash" damage, otherwise it's like you're trying to snipe components with a needle.

 

 

I think what @x3kj means, is that shells should not cause splash damage that directly transfers to nearby hitpoints in an omnidirectional sphere. Also, it should not throw damage at the hull/vehicle global health "hitHull" so aggressively.

 

The point here is that, you can't have an "ammo hitpoint" (custom hitpoint) close to a wall meant to stop penetrations, because even if the bullet does not penetrate, it deals splash damage to it and can cause it to "kill" that hitpoint. It taps into the same observations as I had with the Kuma vs APFSDS testing above. Even if I just hit a mirror, there is splash damage occuring. Even if the armor stops the shell half-way through, there is splash damage. 

 

How much velocity is lost inside a piece of dead armor, should not really matter that much to how much splash damage is generated, because unlike tissue, armor does not expand and contract as violently. For infantry wounds, there could be splash damage based upon this concept though, as AP rounds zip right through without much speedloss, and hollowpoint ammo stops, meaning all projectile energy is transferred to the tissue.

 

It is somewhat true for armor, if you compare 2mm sheet metal to 800mm RHA, the sheet metal isn't going to react much because the projectile will go straight through. This wouldn't really generate any spall either. However, piercing 800mm RHA is different. If almost all speed is lost, and the shot barely makes it through - then what really should cause damage? Pretend the projectile comes out going 100km/h. How much spall would that create? What would the spall speed be? Is this considered a lethal shot?

 

The way arma has it, is that yes, a projectile that is fully stopped deals FULL damage potential, and a projectile that barely makes it through, deals less. A projectile that just zips clean through with minimal speedloss, will do almost no damage, even if it is 800mm RHA. That is equally odd, no?

 

This all comes back to the key element of having the actual penetration of protective armor plates cause direct damage, and indirect internal damage to nearby hitpoints. Problem B from X3KJ's ticket quoted here: 

Quote

Problem b) prevents us from doing detailed damage models for tanks. With the A3 penetration mechanics and now improved hitpoint system we can achieve similar damage models as in Warthunder (minus the spalling and shrapnell)*, where you have to hit certain components directly to disable a vehicle/ have it explode (or increase damage upon hit of these) Due to this problem, a projectile with high hit value can impact on the outer armor and destroy the interior components without penetration.

 

And my comment to the asterisk:

 

WARNING: TECHNICAL WALL OF TEXT INCOMING

 

*If I am not mistaken, we now have new parameters for submunition handling (https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_3_Weapon_Config_Guidelines#Ammo_changes_on_fly_and_on_hit) .

 

For vanilla ArmA3, this may not be a good option due to performance cost. I am not sure how bad it is, but technically speaking I see a possibility here to create dynamic and accurate spalling mechanics in ArmA3, just like War Thunder.

 

You create the following ammo:

 

simulation shotSubmunitions for an APFSDS ammo type will activate submunition type if certain criteria are met (triggerOnImpact in this case).

parameter submunitionAmmo tells what type of ammo will be spawned upon activation, and how many. Theoretically speaking you can create a new ammo type called "spall_fragment", or "apfsds_shard", or "small_fragment", "large_fragment" etc. and use any number and mix of these in the submunition. For this example let's imagine i created "spall" ammo, that does high damage, has high air resistance but low penetration capability.

submunitionConeType[] defines how the "spall" will deploy. You can set something here to get a random pattern, a cone for instance with random spread.

 

triggerOnImpact(bool) will cause the "spall" to be generated upon hitting something, with the ammo types, amount and spray pattern as defined above.

deleteParentWhenTriggered (bool) can be de-activated, so that the "parent ammo" APFSDS Dart still continues on with its path through the target.

submunitionParentSpeedCoef set how much faster or slower the generated "spall" will travel in comparison to the "parent ammo". So this could be set to inherit parent speed, but with a high air friction, they will slow down fast. Or they could be set at a lower speed initially by using this parameter.

 

Wow. If I'm not mistaken, I just created a form of spall generating APFSDS projectile! Not only that, it will spall after hitting everything....

 

Dangit, that's unfortunate. If you hit a sheet of paper, it will still generate the same amount of lethal spall. 

 

So there's an issue here I can't see a workaround for at the moment.....

 

Second issue:

the spall generates OnImpact. this means, it will spall the surface of the armor, meaning it most likely won't get through the tank. And even worse, it will spall every single time it strikes something. And with the wonky armorpiercing stuff that is going on now (where you can register 5-6 hits in the same block of upper glacis armor), it is going to generate 5-6x the amount of spall.

 

Dunno about you, but that sounds resource costly.

 

So how does one go about that...

 

Well, if none of the two issues can be tackled, there is one option: Generate very small amounts of spall (maybe 2 fragments per hit), and you won't really notice this when shooting at technicals, sheet metal or other lightly armored things, because generally there will only be 1 instance of spall created. On MBT's which register as many as 4-5 hits during penetration, this will generate 8-10 spall fragments, which drastically increases chances of wounding crew, without bogging down CPU resources.

 

A different approach is to introduce the submunitionInitOffset parameter, to set the "spall" creation behind of the impact. For this to reliably work though, you would have to use the same physical thickness on all firegeometry (let's say 30mm) and override them using custom plates (to set other thicknesses for the penetration mechanic to use), and then set the "spall" InitOffset to +40cm. It should then start spalling 10cm from the wall inside the tank.

 

However, a MUCH BETTER approach would be a new parameter, called "triggerOnExit", which would create an event when the projectile leaves the firegeometry. Then the spall wouldn't immediately collide with the outer surface, and would be generated from the backside of your armor and spread out. This way, shots that do not fully penetrate armor, also do not create spall - which saves resources.

 

Additionally, the triggerOnImpact parameter, could be divided into an customizable setting that discriminates between object types. Like "TriggeronImpact (tanks), (vehicles), (structures), or (all) etc, so that submunitions would only be generated for armored vehicles.

 

 

But that may be a long stretch. It would, however, make ArmA 3 act more like War Thunder so to speak :) 

 

TL;DR

 

I do believe that at this time, in devbranch, you can do exactly what I said above. It can generate fragments, or spall if you like,  when ammunition strikes something, however it may prove to be a very resource costly affair. Correct me if I am wrong oh knowledgable @x3kj, as I have very limited experience with configs.

Edited March 28, 2018 by Strike_NOR
Removed second asterisk, various touchups

[scavenjer 112]

4 minutes ago, Strike_NOR said:

-snip-

Well, we already have a system that could be used for spall simulation, indirect hit shouldn't be allowed to travel through armour and then we can use it to generate a cone of it to simulate spalling.

Otherwise doing it through submunitions is going to be extremely resource expensive.

 

Hitting a thin piece of steel with a penetrator actually would cause quite a bit of spalling, though little fragmentation.

The speedloss should be used to determine the amount of indirect hit or cone of the shot.

1. Little speedloss would mean small long cone with not that much damage.
2. High speedloss would mean big shorter cone with substantial damage, unless the speedloss is great than 95%.

This way you can simulate soft targets and hard targets better when hit by high velocity projectiles.

 

Though, this is just my opinion and would rely on indirect hit damage not transferring through armour (though it should be generated on each armour piece it goes through)

[Strike_NOR 898]

1 hour ago, scavenjer said:

is going to be extremely resource expensive.

 

Can you prove that? RHS mods simulate spall, and yes, sometimes I notice some FPS drop, but they are using scripts to do it.

 

Please provide evidence if you are going to argue against it.

 

1 hour ago, scavenjer said:

Well, we already have a system that could be used for spall simulation, indirect hit shouldn't be allowed to travel through armour and then we can use it to generate a cone of it to simulate spalling.

And the current system is not ideal, and we don't have a cone. However, I know that engine-wise, indirect hit damage is not blocked by occlusion or ray-tracing inside vehicles, so if the spall cone extended through the gun breech and the gunner/commander would technically be shielded by it, they would still get the full damage. So it's not ideal. In terms of resources spent on this, I don't know if indirectHit is resource friendly, because it still has to check all nearby hitpoints and add damage to them simultaneously, where as a projectile/submunition type would spread this damage application over time, although barely noticable).

 

It would be interesting to make a test case using the physical fragment method and see how it works. After all, it's not like there's gonna be more than 2 APFSDS impacts at the same time in a game scenario. The fire rate and amount of tanks would have to be pretty high.

 

I may look into that when I get home from the night shift... Edit some configs... Make a mess...