TinManNFO

On that last point, I think people may be talking about the "Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System), which involves putting a small guidance and control system on the end of a Hydra 70 rocket body. One thing I would add to aiming the rockets is that when you are firing at fixed or slow-moving objects in forward flight in a helicopter and aiming downward from the flight path (this is most noticeable if you are in the AH-64D and on the IHADSS the velocity vector is above the waterline mark or aimpoint when you have the collective near maximum), you will have to aim a bit short of the target to have the rockets land where you want them to hit. This is the converse of leading a moving target when you're stationary; if you're moving and the target is stationary, you have to lag the target.

It might be a good idea to state the numbers explicitly, i.e. M2A2=300, M2A3=400. By the way, does anyone know of a list somewhere that states the vanilla armor config values as such of all or most of the armored vehicles? It may be useful to see if there are any similar errors for other vehicles and fix them at the same time.

See: http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ULB Basically, find the ULB module, instead of UAV, in the modules menu; place an AH-6X as the aircraft and synchronize it to the ULB module; also synchronize the module with an object you want to be the terminal. You can synchronize the ULB module to almost anything you want to use as a terminal and to multiple terminal objects simultaneously; I mostly use the terminal backpack object, as I can carry it with me, but it doesn't work when I'm inside a vehicle that way, and I have to dismount to use it.

Though I was an S-3 guy and not a Hornet guy (we didn't have HUDs in the Viking) and went through Advanced NFO training before we got the T-45s and T-6s, I did once get a chance to look through the HUD of an F/A-18F powered up on the ground, and it looked pretty much as I expected and the same as the videos that Suma and themaster303 posted. (If anyone has more direct experience with this in real life, please pipe up.) The symbology is projected at infinity (there might be some way to adjust the focus on some types of HUDs, but I haven't really tried to research this), and the collimation means that the symbology stays the same angular size relative to the background and that the pitch ladder is "fixed" to the ground and sky. In other words, if you were looking at the night sky through the HUD (the FOV isn't very big, though), it would look like the pitch ladder was part of the sky like the stars were. Sort of like in the old collimator gunsights that seem to be represented in the "Wings of Prey" video clip that themaster303 linked to, the symbols would not get bigger or smaller if you moved your head closer to or farther from the HUD, respectively, and they would disappear from view if you moved your head too far left/right/up/down, since they appear to exist on the world outside as seen through the HUD combiner glass and not on the surface of the glass itself. I don't have TrackIR or anything (yet), so I haven't had a chance to check this out in ArmA2/OA in any meaningful way so far, so i might be able to give more feedback later.

Yes, I actually do this myself also, and (as I have mentioned elsewhere) I seem to also be one of those weird people who like to have the throttle forward for thrust in fixed-wing aircraft but have the "throttle" back for collective in rotary wing aircraft. So far as I have seen, the only way to switch directions is to go into the control assignments page and reassign it. When you are assigning the throttle axis, you've probably seen that it notes which direction +/- you are moving it, so I just pull it back when I'm assigning for collective and push it forward when I'm assigning for throttle; obviously, you want it positioned beforehand so that it isn't already all the way at the wrong end before you try this or you won't be able to move it the correct direction and will have to do it over. I haven't seen anything that allows you to just toggle it between normal or reverse like you can in Microsoft Flight Simulator, etc.

You might want to try borrowing a different model of joystick from someone else you know and seeing if you can reproduce the problem. It could be some sort of weird driver conflict with that particular device, but I'm not that familiar with how everything is tied in...

I was looking at the Bradley Gunnery Field Manual 3-22.1, NOV2003 revision (which is "approved for public release; distribution is unlimited", BTW, and you can search for it on the internet), and it indicates (as others have previously mentioned) that the Stinger is the primary antiaircraft weapon system, and that the M242 provides additional coverage in missile dead zones and for self defense against ground targets. The M6's Stinger system has a slew-to-cue capability if the vehicle is on the forward area air defense (FAAD) network via Enhanced Position-Location Reporting System (EPLRS); i.e. if someone is tracking a target via radar, the track can be entered on the network, the M6 crew can select a track on their system, and the weapons can be automatically slewed to and track the reported target position. It doesn't seem to incorporate any sort of electronic ranging and lead computation capability for the M242, however, so it doesn't appear to have any additional ability to engage air targets with 25mm over the other Bradley variants, which are pretty much limited to barrage fire on anything moving at more than a slow speed or with a significant lateral/angular tracking rate. (Note that, as others have stated elsewhere, in real life the M6 Linebacker was phased out of service around 2006, so any further upgrades in capability, etc., would be fictional, at least at this point.)

Yes, I know and agree; I should have been clearer and was more trying to say that the A2 and later variants have a muzzle device that incorporates a recoil effect reduction function, unlike the ones on the A1 and prior models, which had the slots evenly spaced around the circumference and are only flash suppressors.

I can attest that I've only ever had one single stoppage with an M16 or M4 using live ammunition, and it was because I had a round with a bad primer. (I ejected the round, and I could clearly see the firing pin mark on the primer; nothing else seemed wrong about it, and I decided to single-load it back in and see what would happen, and it did fire on the second try...) It did jam like crazy using the blanks, though; I either couldn't get a good seal on the blank firing adaptor/attachment (BFA), or those blanks just didn't have enough gas pressure, or both...

Well, the M16A2/3/4, the M4/M4A1, and also the M249 with the normal barrel have a combination flash suppressor and compensator. Note how the five slots are on the upper half to direct propellent gas upward to help reduce muzzle climb.

Hmmm, well if you were trying to do this in a mission in the editor you could try to see what happens if you remove the cannon ammo, but if this were in mulitplayer or something where that was out of your control, I'm not sure how you'd tell him to do that unless you were the vehicle commander or such.

Just as an FYI, note that the ANZINS weapon mod lets you move your head (camera viewpoint) to the same position as if you had a CQB sight, but most of the weapons don't actually have a back up iron sight (BUIS) or red dot sight there, so you have to guess the aim point a bit until you get used to where it is for that particular weapon.

Well, for me it's not so much a "problem" so far and more that it just "feels off" to me. Some people are more concerned about it, however, so I'm suggesting something that could make them satisfied while still preventing rapid fire from being too accurate for the people who like the current implementation. In this case, I was doing calm shooting at the range in the game as a starting point, so at least from my own point of view I would prefer that it fairly accurately represent my real life experience of calm shooting at the range if that's what I'm doing in the game, and any combat stress related effects be added on top of that when I'm in a combat situation in the game. I actually don't disagree with you on this, but note that I'm talking about the aim point, and not the impact point of the bullet, which as someone else mentioned is additionally affected by dispersion and other effects, which is a different topic. As far as I can remember, if I had a good prone supported position it settled back within maybe 4-5 MOA or so (near the edge of the circle on the zeroing target); of course I wanted to take the time to reaim it at the center of the target and get a clean trigger squeeze, because you're supposed to use the same point of aim for every shot when you're zeroing, and because all else being equal anyone would want to be as accurate as possible, and not reaiming would be potentially adding another ~4 MOA error on top of my current ~4 MOA error. Unfortunately, vanilla A2/OA doesn't take into account unsupported vs supported (whether it be with a bipod or on a sandbag or rock, etc.), but generally that should just make the amount of error bigger but not change the basic behavior. In any event, I feel that to be realistic the weapon should come back down eventually, it's just a matter of how far away from the original aimpoint it would end up and how long this would take. Again it's been a while, so I'll try to go to the range in the near future and try to see how much movement I get in various positions. Carl Gustaffa, I don't doubt that the difference in caliber may be relevant to our differences in experience with this; after you'd mentioned it, I remembered a conversation I'd had with a friend several years ago who was a fairly small woman, and she said that when she had trained with an M16 as a policewoman in a previous occupation she found the recoil to be very easy to handle. I imagine if she had been using something like most 7.62mm battle rifles she would have had a harder time.

I was looking at this a little bit, and I think I may have a compromise solution. Unfortunately, I haven't shot in real life for a few months (a little too busy with other things, and ammo has been a bit expensive), though this topic has made me somewhat inclined to try to go to the range to check this out if I have time in the next few weeks. However, I do think I have enough muscle memory from putting probably a few thousand 5.56/.223 rounds downrange over the last few years to remember the feeling pretty well, and I was holding my rifle (a CA-legal configured AR about as close as you can get to an M16A4 in semiauto) and trying to simulate it indoors. One thing I remember pretty clearly in my more formal rifle training in the Navy Individual Augmentee Combat Training course that I did with the Army in Fort Jackson, SC, before going to Iraq was about how once you get a good prone supported position (which is probably the same as what you’d be able to get with a bipod), you should be able to fire, and the weapon should kick but settle back onto essentially the same position and sight picture you had when first aiming. This is pretty evident when you are doing a 25m zero on the weapon for the first time, and it does work about as advertised! So, I was testing the new recoil on the known distance range I have set up (in the Zargabad map), and I think what would be something that can make most people happy is the following; note that this is for a 5.56 rifle firing semi-auto from prone as a baseline starting point: 1) When you fire, first the recoil as it is now occurs in v 1.54. 2) At the end of the current recoil, the aim point settles back down over about 1 to 1.5 seconds back to approximately the same point that you were originally aiming. In my indoor simulation holding my weapon, this was what I seemed to remember to be the approximate time it normally takes for my weapon and body to settle back to the original position. This way, you still get the realistic return to aim point but are forced to shoot more slowly if you want that to happen. 3) If you want to try to shoot faster, you can override the settling of the weapon by pulling the mouse down and reaiming yourself. (This would cancel the settling movement so that you don’t reaim the weapon and then after that it settles lower down than where you were trying to aim.) This may appease those people who like the current v1.54 recoil representation. 4) The position to which the weapon settles is randomly placed within ~1 milliradian (mil) or ~3.5 minutes of arc/minutes of angle (MOA) of the prior aim point. This is equivalent to ~10cm at 100m or ~3.5in at 100yds, and seems close to the error bar size I probably get when the weapon settles when I’m shooting in real life; 3.5 MOA also appears to be an approximate desired accuracy for trainees according to the US Army Field Manual 3-22.9 Rifle Marksmanship for M16/-M4-Series Weapons (see paragraphs 5-15 to 5-18 and 5-125 of the 2008 version). Also, this would be equivalent to ~0.5m at 500m, enough of a miss if you don’t correct to turn a potential lethal shot to the head or CG into a harmless dust cloud next to the target. The effect would probably need to have modified values for settling time and ending position error related to (ideally) the weapon caliber, weapon weight, barrel length, ammunition type, stance, etc. (e.g. the settling time would be longer and the ending position error greater if you were standing). Any thoughts?

Just to give people some situational awareness anchor points on the discussion, in real life the TOW has a maximum range of about 3750m (though the -2B (Aero) version can go out to about 4500m), and the time of flight out to max range is about ~20 seconds. (Any real Bradley guys, please chime in if this info needs correction or clarification.) I actually prefer to leave the game in Regular mode most of the time, especially when I'm using the more advanced armor, because it lets me do some things that approximate features that the real vehicles have. The M2A3 variant has a aided target tracker (ATT) mode in the improved Bradley acquisition system (IBAS) that allows you to lock two separate targets in the FLIR field of view and swap between them; which ever one you have selected at that point will have the crosshairs centered on it if it's moving (a centroid track, for those of you familiar with thermal targeting systems). While it can have issues from what I've read (like jumping onto an incorrect target if the intended target passes near another significant heat source), not surprisingly it's intended to help reduce crew workload and improve hit probability in heated combat situations, and I feel that the lock-on feature operates closely enough to real life to justify using it in the game if I'm an M2A3 commander or gunner. (The functional difference is that if portrayed realistically it would force the turret and optics to be pointed at the locked target rather than letting you continue to slew the turret around freely.) Most of this info comes from the field manual 3-22.1 and some other printed literature on the vehicle. On a side note, I also feel that the extended map information provides an adequate substitute for the Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below (FBCB2) system (displayed on a screen at the commander station in the M1A2 and M2A3, and also on that display screen you see in the game next to the right side of the turret if you're riding in the back of the M2A3) that I feel justified using that in most of the US vehicles (Stryker and HMMWVs generally have it these days also). (The system allows automatic encrypted position reporting of friendly units, as well as allowing you to mark observed enemy units on the map and transmit them to all other friendly units on the network, as well as various other useful functions.)