31st NORMANDY MOD - WW2 Â -BETA RELEASE

[Aqu 0]

Maybe they should :P

The armor debate should be interesting.

the thickness and penetration of certain rounds against certain armor and then taking into account the angle and deflection chance percentage

Does the Arma engine deal with deflection on tank rounds?

i know it can deal with deflection with small arms and MG rounds.

but would this work with tank round aswell?

if tank rounds don't have deflection is there anyway to make a tank that would fire a round that would deflect?

like an 88mm bullet  

The deflection for example is not just the hit angle, but depends on the size of the shell and the relative thickness of the armor (i.e if shell is bigger than the armor thickness it is more likely to go through).  It is also dependant of the shape of the round and how it affects is dependant of the angle it hits the armor. To make this even more tricky you could take into account the armor and the shell hardness and quality.

Often multiplier tables were used to convert the armor value of a plate in an angle to get the effective thickness against a certain round. For example German AT rounds against a plate in 40 degree angle:

APCBC: 1.60

APCR: 1.85

HEAT(any): 1.30

What I'm bit annoyed is that there isn't a way to change the flight characteristics of different ammo types. Some ammo types which had a better penetration in closer range could lose more power with distance and at some point they could even go below the otherwise worse ammo. Also some types are clearly problematic. Think about HEAT (shaped charge anti tank round). The penetration value is not in any way dependant of the range (or actually the velocity) because it is not a kinetic ammo. So should you put the explosive value to 1.0 in the config? I say heck no, unless you want people to use it against infantry. Also the HEAT penetration value doesn't change same way with the armor angles, like kinetic types. For HEAT type the effective armor thickness is more like the triconometric distance throught the armor

[rip31st 98]

ArmA whether its a tank round or bullet, can have a deflection parameter entered into the configuration.

[MK1 0]

I don't know so much about the damange values or models, but I just noticed that to destroy a Panther tank you needed more than 9 bazooka rockets after the tank had driven over two mines.

I can't say I'd know what it requires in real life, but isn't that a bit too much?

[miles teg 1]

Yeah I'd say that's too much. Oh..about HEAT rounds that Aqu mentioned. Actually they do have some effect on infantry in real life. Anyone who's been around the explosion of an RPG-7's HEAT rocket can attest to that. While the shrapnel effect is minimal, it can still produce enough shrapnel and blast effect to cause some injuries to anyone standing near the blast.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Col. Faulkner 0]

I don't know so much about the damange values or models, but I just noticed that to destroy a Panther tank you needed more than 9 bazooka rockets after the tank had driven over two mines.

I can't say I'd know what it requires in real life, but isn't that a bit too much?

One (if well placed) would have been enough. In theory

the M7 HEAT rocket would penetrate everything on a Panther

except the turret front. In practise it was less effective, of

course. Experiments done by the the US XV Corps in 1944

came to the following conclusions regarding the "bazooka's"

effectiveness vs the PzKpw V "Panther":

"The bazooka will penetrate the armor on the side, rear,

and side of the turret on the German Mk. V Panther tank. The

turret is very effectively penetrated and the blasted particles

on the inside most certainly are lethal. The side armor is of

less thickness than the [rest of the] turret and can be

penetrated more easily.

  The wheels and tracks are not profitable targets. Pieces

may be blown out of the wheel or tires cut, but the possibility

of stopping the tank is remote.

  The rear armor is a profitable target, because the engine

compartment is very susceptible to fire, even though the tool

boxes, jacks and exhausts are reduce the area of

vulnerability.

  Upon the front armor, it is difficult to get an effective

burst, as the slope of the armor will ricochet the rocket. No

perpendicular hits were obtained during the trial."

Much as I dislike the film "Saving Private Ryan", the way

the "bazooka" is shown being used in that film (ie. right up

close, ambushing the target and shooting it up the arse) is

authentic.

[Aqu 0]

Yeah I'd say that's too much.   Oh..about HEAT rounds that Aqu mentioned.  Actually they do have some effect on infantry in real life.  Anyone who's been around the explosion of an RPG-7's HEAT rocket can attest to that.  While the shrapnel effect is minimal, it can still produce enough shrapnel and blast effect to cause some injuries to anyone standing near the blast.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

Well, true in a small amount. It depends also where you stand. If it hits a wall (building or armor) and you are behind the wall the blast effect can be very lethal.

Anyway I would not model it same way as normal high explosive rounds. Actually after thinking it bit more I think it could be modelled as almost fully kinetic (yes, you read it right, kinetic) ammo, but if using the variable "typicalSpeed" in the config and setting it very low, say 1 (dunno if it works with 0) it should have the same penetration power no matter how fast or slow it travels. e.g. a very limited ammo config example (only the relevant data shown).

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

class myHEATround

{

  hit=500;

  indirectHit = 1;

  indirectHitRange = 5;

  explosive = 0.05;

  maxSpeed=800;

  typicalSpeed=1; // <-- for HEAT!!!

};

[rip31st 98]

I don't know so much about the damange values or models, but I just noticed that to destroy a Panther tank you needed more than 9 bazooka rockets after the tank had driven over two mines.

I can't say I'd know what it requires in real life, but isn't that a bit too much?

Yes it is a bit much, I agree. However I have noted several times before I will post all the damage values and we will come up with a respectible formula.

[frostwyrm333 1]

Is it somehow possible to change AI to do charges?

So they could use something like swarming tactics, because normal AI is always advancing cautiosly, and if there would be some fortificated enemies it wouldnt be very practical in WW2.

But the AI would have to break formation, so is it even possible?

Just remembered there is that SP mission.

[miles teg 1]

Somebody like Tony Ranger would be the man to talk to about modifying AI behavior.  He did the FFN mod which is outstanding...but not for any kind of mass attacks.  He's one of the few addon makers in OFP/ArmA who has successfully HEAVILY modified the AI behavior.  There might be one or two others...but in my opinion his mods have been the best in that regard.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Törni 0]

The biggest problem with ArmA system comes with the way that every weapon can damage anything in large enough quantities. If you scale WW2 armor to realistic levels you can also easily damage a tank with a machinegun.

[rip31st 98]

The biggest problem with ArmA system comes with the way that every weapon can damage anything in large enough quantities. If you scale WW2 armor to realistic levels you can also easily  damage a tank with a machinegun.  

That is why we will come up with a solid damage system.

UPDATE:

Here's some WIP pics of the improved terrain.  Please note for intensive purposes there is no ground clutter and no ground textures, just default ArmA textures.  Still a lot of work to do.  Working on some nice field objects ( tall grass, thorn bush) that AI can't see through. Obviously the terrain is no longer a flat waste land.

It should look pretty when she's done.

[oldbear 390]

That's a nice move !

[ck-claw 1]

That's a nice move !  

Yepp definatley!

Looking alot better Rip!

[Aqu 0]

The biggest problem with ArmA system comes with the way that every weapon can damage anything in large enough quantities. If you scale WW2 armor to realistic levels you can also easily  damage a tank with a machinegun.  

Yes, that's true, but that's why it makes no sense doing that. This WWII stuff do not have to fight against the modern BIS equipment, so let's just add Tiger the same amount of armor as Abrams. I commented some time ago that if we do not try to scale these to modern equipment but use happily bigger armor values and bigger hit point values in guns, we should minize the MG can hurt tank problem.

@rip

That new terrain looks a lot better now Maybe you could add few rocks here and there?

[rip31st 98]

Well if you did increase the hit damage you could still sit there with a machine gun, even though it might take a considerable amount of time. You could still blow up a tank. That's just the way ArmA's damage system works.

[miles teg 1]

Yeah I agree. Giving tanks modern armor values and adjusting weapon values to suit is probably the easiest way to solve the problem as their really is no reason why any of the tank addons should be mixed with any modern addons other then just to mess around with stuff in the mission editor.

Anyone who complains that his Tiger can take out an M1A1 Abrams tank is most likely an idiot who just throws every addon they can think of into the mission editor and proclaims his mission a "Nazi Zombies coming back from the dead" type mission.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[rip31st 98]

Yeah I agree.  Giving tanks modern armor values and adjusting weapon values to suit is probably the easiest way to solve the problem as their really is no reason why any of the tank addons should be mixed with any modern addons other then just to mess around with stuff in the mission editor.  

Anyone who complains that his Tiger can take out an M1A1 Abrams tank is most likely an idiot who just throws every addon they can think of into the mission editor and proclaims his mission a "Nazi Zombies coming back from the dead" type mission.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

LOL ok that was awesome there at the end.

[Enigma85 2]

Rip!

I want to complain that your Tiger can take out an M1A1 Abrams tank!

This ruins the immersion in my new

"Nazi Zombies coming back from the dead"

Mission.

God rip now what do i do? XD

i kid,i kid.

Anyways on a more serious note,

I thinking basing it all from modern values isn't the answer.

Having a damage system worked out for the mod would be the better option,We can figure out some system for the working out of armor values and damage on rounds.

not getting into the grades of materials used as that might take it a bit far.

as a quick example,

Give a base value amount of points per mm of armor plate thickness of the tank,

Then work our an armor value by taking the maximum armor thickness.

multiply by the value of armor points per mm.

to give you your base value.

Then you could add certain modifiers for advantages and disadvantages.

IE

advantages

sloped armor

extra armor/protection

disadvantages

poor reliability

poor crew protection/damage protection

getting kind of complex

But all this would be worked out at set values.

something like a 5-10% + or - for modifiers.

So as an example and test of the theory

The tiger and the m4 Sherman worked out from the quick value system.

Values in example might not be 100% accurate.

Base value of armor thickness =20 (for example).

All modifiers will be worked at 5-10% ratio.

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">m4 sherman

thickest armor=76

so Sherman value(76) X armor value(20) = 1520

- 5% due to exploding/burning crew after kinetic round hit.

1220 - 5%(76) =1444

so rounded up

Final Sherman armor value=1450

And the tiger

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

Tiger I

thickest armor = 110mm

So Tiger I value(110) X  Armor Value(20) = 2200

no real problem with the armor of tiger as i recall.

Final Tiger armor value = 2200

Obviously this is not a full proof way of doing it still needs polishing,but you get the idea.

This way all tanks can have there own armor values quickly from real life data.

All the tank rounds,

AT gun rounds

infantry Anti tank weapons

would have to have there own way of being worked out so that it balances with armor values though.

[Ragnar_Darude 2]

I don't know much about addon damage models but wouldnt it be a good idea to have a script-based damage system? Then you could make the tanks indestructable by machine-gun fire and HEAT-round have low effect on infantry. You could for example assign a eventhandler to a tank to check when it is getting hit if the ammotype is armor-piercing or not and if so in what angle the round hits and assign a damage value dependant on that. You could also kill/hurt crew members according to where the tank is hit, ie if hit in front: kill driver. As others have stated before, you don't really need to make the addons compatible with other non-31stWW2Mod units...

[Enigma85 2]

sounds interesting,

but i think it's a flaw in the arma engine that everything can be damaged by weapon fire,

i'm not sure if scripting can fix it.

i would like to see damage effects though.

I know this is possible through scripting and might solve the "is that tank destroyed or not?"

problems that have been showing up.

a visible damage model would be amazing but quite labour intensive to create.

however i recall a addon in creation to show visible effects of catastrophic explosion in a tank that would blow the turret from the hull.

effects like this be used to stop the problem of verifying if something is destroyed without using the burnt out shell destroyed RVMAT.

how hard to implement i don't know.

i know the Lancaster loses a wing when destroyed but the dynamics don't change.

it still floats on the same path as it was heading rather then spiraling into a dive.

is/was anyone working on something that deals with a damage system that shows visible damage and perhaps effects performance?

or is this even possible in the Arma engine?

[ShrubMiK 0]

I think the idea of having a quick formula to arrive at vehicle damage points from the real life data is fine...you can always tweak the values a bit more later, but the important thing si to get the vehicles all more or less right in relation to one another rather than spending a lot of time trying to get them all exactly right.

A thought though - it would perhaps be better to base the formula on average* armour thickness rather than maximum. All tanks had thicker frontal armour than side or rear. Some tanks though had very much thicker frontal armour than side or rear (e.g Panther), whilst others had less of a difference (e.g. Tiger 1). Basing the formula on the maximum armour thickness unfairly favours the former over the latter.

* A true average cannot be computed of course. But data is available for turret front, turret side, turret rear, hull front, hull side, hull rear for all WW2 tanks. Add them up and divide by 6 would seem a reasonable approximation.

[Aqu 0]

Anyways on a more serious note,

I thinking basing it all from modern values isn't the answer.

Having a damage system worked out for the mod would be the better option,We can figure out some system for the working out of armor values and damage on rounds.

Yeah yeah. The meaning what I said at least was that the armor can be as good as some modern tank. I didn't mean we copy them 1:1 from Abrams to Tiger for example. Of course we should work some formula to convert the real data in the game data. Just like with the weapons hitpoints. That's my opinion.

There is some basic armor value system for different vehicle parts in the config. So I don't think we have to use just some average.

The script system suggestion...Well I guess that might in some situation, but what happens when the hit kills the tank straight away? To my experience you cannot bring dead back to life. I suppose it would work with the setDamage command? If so, it won't work because you cannot set what parts in the vehicle the damage goes. E.g if you have 50% damage and you get damage 60% and then you try to negate it with setDamage 0.5 It won't work quite right because the set of damaged systems would be different. I tryed that some time ago and what happened was that using the  setdamage it seems always to clear e.g wheel damage. Someone who has more information on this could comment, but AFAIK with setdamage it won't work quite right.

[miles teg 1]

Aside from the script issues...about what XxEnigmAxX posted earlier... having a Tiger with armor value of 2200 is a bit much as a Bazooka then would need to be so powerful that it would likely take down a building with one shot. I was thinking more along the lines of a Sherman having a max armor value of around 900 and a Tiger I with something like a value of around 1,400 or 1,600. That way if Bazookas have the same dammage of roughly a BIS RPG-7 it would take around 4 to 5 bazooka shots to take out the Tiger. Sherman would be taken out in around 2 shots from a Panzerfaust. But again, these are all things that can be played around with and that would need some good beta testing.

I would highly recommend getting advise from Col. Faulkner who is pretty much our resident historian. He's a good source of info on such things as the practical armor penetration (in combat) of certain weapons. He could also probably recommend to you some good books to look for in a library or websites online with that kind of info.

At any rate, as mentioned earlier in this thread, specific sections of the tank can be set to have weaker armor settings. I believe the Merkava Mk2 that ModemMaik (sp?) fixed up for us has such values if I remember correctly. When I get home I can check it out or see if I can find some other examples of this type of variable armor system so that it can be applied to the tanks in this mod.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[whydoyouwanttoknow 0]

Yeah I agree. Giving tanks modern armor values and adjusting weapon values to suit is probably the easiest way to solve the problem as their really is no reason why any of the tank addons should be mixed with any modern addons other then just to mess around with stuff in the mission editor.

Anyone who complains that his Tiger can take out an M1A1 Abrams tank is most likely an idiot who just throws every addon they can think of into the mission editor and proclaims his mission a "Nazi Zombies coming back from the dead" type mission.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

I think it'd be cool to get a mission or a campaign or whatever like John Birmingham's Axis of Time trilogy. Who wouldn't want to take on an M1 Abrams or a T72 with a King Tiger with the "proper" armour and gun ratings and see what happens?

[rip31st 98]

A little WIP vid of the scenery I'm working on.  Lots of hours into now.

Here is a little surprise that will be in the next patch after some fine tuning:

Thanks Aqu!