Tank simulation in AA

[ninjatek 0]

For those who may need an glossry of military weapon acronyms:

http://www.aeronautics.ru/archive....ary.htm

It's not a complete list but a good start.

The DU round has been found to still leave a radioactive dust cloud along the tragectory and where it impacts. Some have claimed this is one of the causes for some cases of GWS but it is unconfirmed. Care should still be taken when handling DU munitions. This is simply from articles I have read on the subject while prepairing a merc 2000 rpg revamp for my saturday night games. But hey like shinRaiden said it's probably nothing to worry about unless you expose yourself to it too much. It's kind of like the paranoid skin cancer hoopah people yell about if you stay out in the sun too much.

Ya there is a chance, and ya cases have been made, but probability is slim.

[Rune 0]

I am not entirely happy with your speudo-scientific facts shinRaiden:

Quote[/b] ]No, the minimal - but still detectable - radioactivity of the depleted uranium is irrelevant. Some types of carbon in trees is radioactive

It is NOT irelevant, for many reasons. The danger is not when you stand next to the unfired shell, it comes when it is fired and the oxidized uranium dust is spread over a large area and is inhaled, or ingested. When inside the body the radioactivity becomes a very real threat because of its beta and in particular alpha radiation which is normally too short-ranged to be of danger when the material is outside the body.

It is also NOT comparable to the threat posed by a tree, because the radioactive carbon 14 is a VERY small fraction of the carbon in that tree, and also it is a beta-emitter and when it decays it becomes stable, whereas uranium progresses through a chain of further decays producing more alpha and beta radiation. Carbon is safe to be around, yes - and it is inside each and every one of us in decent quantities from birth until death - uranium however is not, and you risk any number of nasty consequences for having it inside you

Quote[/b] ]even cosmic neutrino particles penetrate 10's of meters of rock.

This does not make them any more dangerous, on the contrary the fact that they pass through makes them more harmless.

Quote[/b] ]Have you ever been to the dentist for a routine tooth x-ray? Ever broken a bone or had some other reason for having an x-ray? How about MRI's? That's all radiation.

Yes but neither are beta or alpha radiation, they are electromagnetic radiation like sun-light, not at all the same...

Quote[/b] ] Now of course you don't want to eat uranium dust, but any reports on the precise nuclear construction of the depleted uranium used is probably restricted information. The name 'depleted' refers to the fact that most - but not all - the radioactivity is gone due to halflife decay.

No no, you seem to assume that there is a stabile uranium isotope, there is not, you cannot 'clean out' the radioactivity - it is all radioactive, all uranium is.

And halflife decay is completely irrelevant for the composition since the material has been most likely purified when it went through the enriching process, in essence ensuring the uranium to be very pure indeed. On the other hand the isotope that has been 'depleted' would most likely cause the radioactivity to be reduced somewhat.

Quote[/b] ]The important part is Uranium has the best density/strength for commonly attainable mineral for use in bullets.

Depleted uranium is not the definitive matererial for rod-penetrators, the fact that it self-ignites when in contact with air has major handling, production and safety problems accociated with it. Tungsten is at least as good a candidate, everything taking into account. The reason depleted uranium IS used is not so much because it is so much better, but simply because it is dirt cheap for someone with a uranium enriching industry.

But safe it is not - that shinRaiden is propaganda...

And more on topic:

It is not enough to capture the hit location, the angle is also needed, it is VERY important so that a plane such as the A-10 can have the power of its gun calibrated properly, when it has to compete with 120mm guns from tanks it must be overpowered against other targets to be able to destroy a tank at all. and when you get a chance to shoot a HEAT-round into the bottom or top of a tank, it should be about as effective as against an APC.

Using the hit-location will help to make side and rear attacks more realistic, but without angle that will also be impossible to adjust to be really realistic since a tank even when viewed from the front will very often have a small part of its side visible to a shooter. By aiming there the shot will be much more effective than aiming at the front...the result can only be a compromise where a 'real' side attack is less effective than desired and a shallow angle attack is much more effective than can be considered realistic...it would be an enormeous improvement though.

About hit points, I personally think they belong in Dungeons and Dragons role playing games, I have never seen such a system act in a way that feels the least bit real for anything where high speed projectiles and armour are involved. Much better to simply have some simplified armour thickness values and a combination of average penetration of each weapon/ammo, offset by a random factor to make LAWs sometimes not kill an APC and sometimes get a lucky hit on a tank. And a factor to account for the angle...

[hellfish6 7]

Armor values can be debated for eons..

My big concerns about modelling armor in AA (or the "Next Game") are much more simple:

1. Named selections for armor faces in the model - so you can select an area of the model and mark it as "Turret Front" or "Hull Rear". Then in the config there is a corresponding value associated with it to determine the protection that named selection offers.

For example:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">

M1A2:TankW

{

...

...

ArmorTurretFrontKe=1200 //vs Kinetic ammo (APFSDU, etc)

ArmorTurretFrontHe=1600 //vs chemical energy ammo (HEAT, etc)

ArmorTurretFrontSp=800 //vs special ammo (laser, other, etc)

...

};

Thusly, you can set your vehicles to have differing values against different warheads. Right now, "sabot" and "heat" rounds have very little practical difference. With configged armor values you can model the differenced between steel, armor, chobham, spaced, layered, composite, ERA and all other kinds of armor that are not universally effective. Chobham, for example, is much more effective against HEAT rounds than it is against APFSDSDU rounds. OFP currently doesn't differentiate against impacts by those rounds.

In fact, HE rounds are often too effective against tanks because they affect several areas, as they are typically configged as area effect weapons with a larger blast radius. Where in real life a 73mm HEAT round might be totally ineffective against an M-1A2 tank, in OFP it does damage not only to the component it hits, but often it damages surrounding components as well. Not realistic.

Armor, likewise, should not degrade over time and rounds impacted.

2. Thermal sights

Absolutely vital on all NATO and some Soviet/Russian tanks since 1980.

3. No BVR targeting by AI armored vehicles. I really get irked when I can't crank my view distance up to 2000m, the point at which AI tanks and vehicles can usually engage me beyond visual range (depending on terrain), and I get killed. If I can't see them, they shouldn't see me. Unless they have thermal sights and I don't.

[tankieboy 0]

Good post. Thermal sights deffo.

[benreeper 0]

Couldn't you simulate this with event handlers? And would it be more CPU intenive?

--Ben

[hellfish6 7]

Why simulate with event handlers when there's the opportunity to put it in the core?

[Taconic 0]

Armor values can be debated for eons..

My big concerns about modelling armor in AA (or the "Next Game") are much more simple:

1. Named selections for armor faces in the model - so you can select an area of the model and mark it as "Turret Front" or "Hull Rear". Then in the config there is a corresponding value associated with it to determine the protection that named selection offers.

For example:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">

M1A2:TankW

{

...

...

ArmorTurretFrontKe=1200 //vs Kinetic ammo (APFSDU, etc)

ArmorTurretFrontHe=1600 //vs chemical energy ammo (HEAT, etc)

ArmorTurretFrontSp=800 //vs special ammo (laser, other, etc)

...

};

Wow. I've been thinking that exactly. IMO OFP2/AA really need to expand on the armor simulation, and it wouldn't be very hard to to it.

I was thinking along the exact same lines:

For vehicles,

armorKE (APDS, etc.)

armorCE (ATGMs, HEAT, etc.)

armorAP (HE-FRAG, HMGs, etc. (for lightly armored vehicles))

But you'd need to take it a step farther with ammo:

hitKE (APDS, etc)

hitCE (ATGMs, HEAT, etc)

hitAP (HE-FRAG, HMGs, etc.)

With that, you could have something that's all but impervious to HEAT, but very vulnerable to APFSDS.

I also agree with the named selection bit...

There should be a way to independently control armor values for the front, back, top, and sides of the turret as well as the front, back, sides, top, and underside of the main chasis. If you could do that, then it would be VERY easy to come up with standardized armor values for addons since there's nothing abstract about it (just use published RHA estimates for each part.)

With those two things, the armor simulation in OFP would improve by about 500%.

BIS could even take that more in-depth by adding more values...

armorCP (composites like Chobham)

armorRA (ERA)

Of course, that would require more work and would be a little bit more iffy to implement. I think you could get something reasonably realistic with the three I mentioned.

Another handy feature would be better ballistic physics model...

It'd be great if you could use a value like "ammoWeight" to set the weight (in kg) of a projectile and then the physics model would match that up against the muzzle velocity and calculate how quickly its speed (and thus penetration) drops in flight.

Hey, I can dream.

[funkster 0]

What I really hope that AA has is a more efficient unit script. Why?

I am currently trying to make a mission where there are constant dynamc tank battles raging back and forth, but this lags my computer unbelievably! I have around 40 armoured units, from what I can gather talking to others, the most you can get away with without mega lag is around 25 armoured units on the map.

I know there are few missions that have this many in them, but it would be nice to havesuch massive battles....

[ninjatek 0]

These ideas for armor vs. weapon are really good and will hopefully be considered for Game 2. I'm sure there is some military test study data out there someone could get their hands on.

Angle of impact is also important for purposes like glancing.

I'm not sure if reflexive armor is worth mentioning or fesabile to work in.

Using hit points or not to use them is a tuff one. When armor takes damage it's integrity is most likeley lessened. The easiest way to handle this seems like to use a HP system but doesn't always seem realistic.

In my game Black Ops RPG we came up with giving each armor segment it's own armor piercing rating depending type and thickness of armor, also each segment has x amout of hit points depending on mass and/or scale of the segment. Weapons all have their own penetration value which may or may not be adjusted by range. If the weapons AP score is greater then the penetration rating of the armor then it does damage against the hit points of the segment. Some weapons penetration as AP rounds or sabot may have their penetration score modified depending on angle of impact. A round may glance off or the the segment become dented but not penetrated from anangled hit, with greater chance of penetration from head on impacts.

We have to use spreadsheets and protractors, but it's the closest simulation we've found for pencil and paper war simulation.

[Jezz 0]

the problem with the hit point system is the cumalative damage you get form just firing several weak anti tank weapons at a tank. for example just using simple figures here we take a tank with 400mm on the glacial plate and a anti tank weapon with 201mm penetration with hit point system you get the following

1 hit tank is down to 199mm

2nd hit tanks armour is defeated

this is not realistic yes the armoured plate would be weakened but not to the extent that the second round would defeat the armour this would only really be possible if you aimed for the exact same spot. whats maybe better is a percentage chance of penetration linked to the penetration value of the round ie if the AT round has a greater penetration than the armour it hits it will have a good chance of penetration but not assured something in region of 80 or 90% chance depending on how much it is over the armour. where as if a round has poorer penetration value it will have a very unlikly chance of getting through but there is the chance of the lucky shot that does so maybe something like the following

200mm penetration v 400mm = 20%

300mm penetation v 400mm = 35%

400mm penetration v 400mm = 50%

500mm penetration v 400mm = 60%

its just an idea and the figures are just plucked out of thin air but i hope you can understand what i mean