Exel

Strykers (and Bradleys) have spall liners, so their post-penetration survivability should in fact be better than in Abrams. Whoever winds up in the way of the penetrator is naturally dead in any case, but the rest should have a fair chance of avoiding (serious) injury. As for slat armor, in the real world it is close to 100% effective against standard RPG given how they work - RPG simply can not survive the cage. That of course doesn't help when the RPG hits a spot not covered by slat. But that raises the other point of RPGs accuracy: there is no aiming for weak spots with the RPGs, they are fairly inaccurate weapons - hitting the vehicle will be an achievement most times.

Well a tank is designed to shoot the cannon at other tanks, if the person that loads the cannon is dead you can't really do that.... so yeah to the "mission" of a tank the loader is less expendable since the gunner can call his own targets if he needed to. Now having said that, you really don't want to lose anyone on a tank crew, which is why they put all of those safety measures into place. Now I'm not a tanker like M1A1 (he might be able to put it into better words then me), but I know a few of them. </font>

We really need a "Fire Weapon" command...

There's no reason for the loader to be buttoned up when out of contact. He should be spotting above the hatch same as the commander. On the other hand when contact is made and the main gun is used, he will naturally button up to load the main gun. There's no reason for ANY of the crew to be exposed when the shooting starts - sort of makes all the armor around you pointless. [ October 16, 2007, 02:12 AM: Message edited by: Exel ]

What he said. Reversing would only make sense if there's cover immediately available, and that rarely is the case if you're advancing. Popping smoke wont do you any good either if you're moving forward. Zig-zagging and shooting back at the spotted ATGM launcher or its general direction are the standard counter-actions.

All the reliable sources I've come across suggest that no version of the M1 have spall liners to this date. An official source from 1987 also confirms that there were no spall liners on the original M1s. They also were not added prior to Desert Storm unlike for Bradley. No official or otherwise reliable document I've read has suggested that they would have been added later either.

Bradley got spall liners added in its A2 model for ODS. I'd like a source on the Abrams spall liners though. Nowhere have I read that they would have ever been added on the Abrams.

And what's more SC2 is becoming the benchmark to which the others are compared, together with HoI. At least up here, where even the first SC got a 2-3 page review in the biggest gaming mag of the country. When they reviewed the new Matrix Games title which shalln't be mentioned by name, it was mercilessly compared to SC2 - and guess which one won!

forced Surrenders such as the Italian surrender of 1943 Does this mean that we can have a real Winter War where the war ends when the Mannerheim line breaks? :cool:

How about this: Give us TCP/IP WeGo as promised or give us a proper interface for the RT game.

How many people read the box before pre-ordering? </font>

Not nearly as much as older all-steel armor tanks were, but it does still happen occasionally, which is why most modern tanks have spall liners to protect from spalling of the interior armor walls. Then again, I don't think any of the tanks currently in the game have spall liners, though I'm not sure about M1A2 SEP.

Because someone thought that it'd be smart to use HE when AP doesn't work.

Partial penetration is discussed in effects to different layers of armor. In the game it is utterly irrelevant if the APFSDS penetrates the ceramic block or just the steel plate as long as it doesn't enter inside the vehicle. Partial penetration doesn't damage tank systems or crew. The round either penetrates the armor or it doesn't, the rest is informed by being hit and whether something got damaged or not. In modern combat you can expect a lot more hits in a much shorter period of time. If you have long hit messages stuffed with useless "cool" information it gets cluttered and you miss not only the "cool" bits, but also the crucial real information. So keep it informative and keep it simple. Now as for what's cool and what's not, if you find things like "Partial Penetration" and "Round Stuck" cool, I can't help you.

I care, since it was promised with the original game. I for one am not going to pay for any modules before I get what I paid for in the original game. If TCP/IP WeGo is added in a free patch, it's forgivable as a delayed feature. If it isn't added, or is only added in a commercial module, it's borderline fraud. It would really help if BFC cleared what it's planning to fix and include in future patches and what the "Known Issues" are so that the same discussions wouldn't have to be had over and over again.

What relevance does it have if the round is buried in the armor or deflected as long as it doesn't penetrate? The idea about text info is good, but the text-informativeness should be min-max to prevent needless text clutter. With the rapid pace of modern combat, there can be a flood of text messages in a short time period and it can get hairy real fast. So only show what is relevant to the informativeness of the message. Damage: Report damage to crew and systems, if any. Paint scratches and dents in armor are useless detail. Penetration: Report penetration or no penetration. It doesn't matter if the round exits or not once it has entered. What's a partial penetration? SLAT and reactive armor: Might be useful to know if SLAT or reactive worked or not. An "effective/ineffective" message will do. Especially with SLAT it either works or doesn't. Reaction: Did the hit cause the crew to button up or infantry to get pinned down? Report action taken in reaction to the hit, if any.

Exactly. Tankers in the real world don't speculate with mm penetrations versus given RHAe values. You have a tank up against you, the antidote is your AP round. That's what you use. The only exception is if you are either out of AP in which case you fire HEAT (not HE), or if you happen to have HEAT loaded in the barrel when you make contact. If you have just HE, you better bail the battle... Now, you might know that your primary AP round doesn't have much of a chance against your enemy. But you also know that your standard HE round has even less of a chance. And with the AP round you always have the chance of hitting a weak spot. If you see that your AP rounds have no effect on the target, you might try lobbing a HE round at it in desperation, maybe to hope to cause enough disturbance to buy you some time to evade return-fire and to get the heck away from there. HE rounds are NEVER the preferred AT round - simply because they aren't AT rounds.

I stand by my opinion that no sane tank (or IFV) crew would prefer HE against an armored target. Even if you get their sights or whatever with a lucky shot, the target would still have their secondary sights to make your vehicle a smoking coffin for you. Using HE against armor should be only an extremely desperate last resort and only exercised when AP doesn't work - in that the crew has tried AP before switching to HE. No matter how unlikely a penetration with AP, causing considerable damage with HE is even less likely. No one in their right mind would prefer it before at least giving AP a shot - literally.

I repeat my earlier point that if there are no obstacles between the unit and the waypoint, the unit should travel to the assigned waypoint in a straight line. Without any pathfinding algorithms. Those should only come into play when there is an obstacle that has to be evaded. Should save CPU time too when you don't use the engine to calculate its own path for every waypoint.

Yes it is, it doesn't hide your available commands like CMSF does with the tabs.

Well this definitely caught me off-guard. Muchos praise for Hubert!

Good idea, it would definitely ease command when on viewing the battles from high altitude. Of course when you zoom closer the current level of detail could be used.

Which should make no difference to your ability to see through IR smoke.

Not worth it jumping into 1.03. You'll just burn yourself. Wait for 1.04 and see what it fixes (and what's the feedback like here). At this point no one knows if that's the version where CMSF starts being really enjoyable to play, or if that's not going to happen til 1.05, 1.1 or whatever.

Except that TI is pretty standard today even in many 3rd world countries. Syrian T-72s have TI or at least IR imaging (depending on the model which). Newest ATGMs have TI imaging. Popping smoke is an extreme defensive measure in any case. If you are launching the smokes, you darn well want them to blind whatever threat you launched them for. You can worry about shooting back once you've gotten yourself out of the immediate danger under the cover of the smokes. Tactical smokes are another thing - such as with Russian-made tanks in Syrian use or artillery fired smoke shells. Their purpose is to blind the enemy and not yourself. But defensive smokes on the Abrams, Bradley and Stryker are not for that purpose.