HerrTom

I found an interesting "scan" of a report from the 1960s about the protection steel plates provide against artillery shells. It can be found here: http://tanks.mod16.org/2014/03/10/report-on-protection-from-fragments-from-he-ammunition/ Offers more... er.... ammunition on the debate on artillery's effectiveness against armored vehicles. Also I believe @TheForwardObserver has posted the following article here before: ("Who Says Dumb Artillery Shells Can't Kill Armor?" http://imgur.com/gallery/gIjCo Perhaps also of interest is the STANAG 4569 standards for armor protection - though it's not clear immediately what "protection" means in their definition - does it mean unlikely to penetrate or impossible? Usually these kinds of standards documents have definitions to deal with this kind of clarity problem, but I didn't see anything. https://www.unops.org/ApplyBO/File.aspx/4569eed02.pdf?AttachmentID=52d5a7b6-37ad-49bc-b18c-c468ea81787a ---- I wanted to start this thread to build a fact-based argument on how artillery performs in Combat Mission so we can continue to strive for accuracy in simulation (or something like that!). I haven't had time to read the first report in detail, but I realize it may be limited in utility for the discussion on armored vehicles since it talks about steel armor only. The big thing I've gathered here is the importance of fragments - and especially the variability. This seems to be one of the things that's missing from CM. Using the fragmentation density, we could construct a probability function of a fragment hitting a given area at any radius, and using data from tests like above we can also generate a distribution of penetrations. In my mind, this (as far as I know) relatively simple method may be a good way of "simulating" fragmentation in-game, especially compared to the brute-force approach of just shooting fragments everywhere! I'm a little too busy/tired during the week to really pursue this further, but I'd love to see what else we can dig up. Hopefully this weekend I can put together some plots to show what I'm talking about.

Ammo dumps are critically absent! Though I think that will be rectified when I release the scenario. I doubt I could get the team to move to a cache anyway. Everyone in 1st Company has broken morale and prefers to sit tight.

I think it's actually taken out four or five BMPs. But who's counting? Maybe they can get that T-72 too?

0819 - 2nd company arrives! But before that... The surviving BMP-2 gets nailed by a Russian 30mm cannon. 1st company has been essentially annihilated at this point. An ATGM team from the battalion AT company and approximately twenty men are all that are left at this point. Plus an FO team and a forward observation vehicle that is too scared to move from behind the building he's hiding behind. He's for sure going to get caught in the Russian assault on Pryvitnoe and cease to be an asset. The ATGM team in the town takes revenge on the offending Russian BMP. The shot lands straight on the top deck of the vehicle and knocks out its turret. Another Russian vehicle fires into the abandoned BMP-2. Gotta make sure it's dead, I guess. Especially after the losses this pair inflicted on the Russians! The ATGM team again takes revenge on the bold Russian vehicle... The ammo rack detonates, killing all aboard. I'm also getting reports of a Russian traffic jam attempting to cross the bridge. My FO reports that artillery called on the bridge is already in the air. This will be interesting. While the other battery cools down, I order the 82mm mortars that arrived with second company to shell the ford. As the action for this minute ends - 2nd company arrives, though not where I expected them! The damned commander took his main formation down the highway, while his command element screened to the west. At least a Russian platoon is already on the outskirts of Pryvitnoe. The sound of mines detonating across the canal indicates that the (last seen) company there is on its way across, as well. I don't have high hopes for the depleted defenders. My first priority is to get the company to spread out. The tanks are moving straight forward to interdict any Russian reinforcements crossing the bridge. 1st platoon is taking cover behind the copse of trees, shooting smoke to cover 2nd platoon's advance to the destroyed ATGM vehicles. 1st platoon will sprint across the field to take cover north of the town, linking up with the company headquarters, as well as the second FO team and the air controller. Once they successfully complete the movement, I think I'll pull the tanks into cover and send 1st platoon to the west as well, providing the others don't get shot up... Now I've got some 20-odd more minutes until 3rd company arrives.

Is it also painted white and costs twice as much as the competing ATGM systems?

Thanks for the answer Haiduk. I also applauds you for understanding me. Apparently the flu severely impacts my ability to spell! I'm particularly fond of the golf cart ATGM. It's just so dinky, I can see why they haven't been used in combat. Very interesting all around!

Mensch! Talk about HDR gore! Seeing these of course means I demand these little buggies in CMBS now. How are these used in Comcast? Are they like manpower intensive trucks used to sneak around from point a to point b?

I like the sneaky change from Wire-Guided to Wireless-Guided. I've always enjoyed the comma soup of DOD names... Sounds like a good thing for TOW reliability, though I'm always skeptical of radio links. I guess it's not too different from SALH, but I still have that gut doubt!

I think the bone they threw us specifically regarding Black Sea is that they wanted to flesh out the existing belligerents first - VDV for both sides. Marines. Morskaya Pekhota. That kind of stuff.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this serve essentially the same role as the RPK did in the Soviet army? It's a rifle slightly better suited to automatic fire compared to the standard issue. Though at some point I think they replaced the second automatic rifleman with a normal rifleman and gave the other a PKM. Anyone know why? Did they deem the RPK ineffective? Maybe following PzSrktWfr's logic on conventional warfare you want the heavy hitting guns?

I'd be impressed if that were remotely reliable. Hitting ATGMs and cruise missiles is one thing. AAMs and SAMs? That's a new ball game! I agree with your bet on the laser system. That's the only way I imagine you're going to reliably engage the missiles haha

Vacationers? Possibly related to the trench-by-trench actions Haiduk is reporting in the other thread?

Seriously! And you guys were telling me the Ukrainians didn't have enough troops at the start! ...Well, I don't... but that's beyond my point! I kinda enjoy asymmetrical games and odds. It's not whether you win or lose to me - it's whether you had a damn good fight!

Doesn't a lot of ammo, especially missiles release toxic fumes when they burn like this? I seem to remember the catalyst in one of Steven Zaloga's books being a fire at an ammo dump that killed a bunch of civilians due to the fumes... Definitely doubleplusungood for the city if true

Thanks for the info steepdate. I didn't know there were newer versions than 3.0.4. 0818 - in other words: Man, I can't count! The timer says 1:12 remaining - 18 minutes since the start... so I'm not sure why or how I got so confused earlier! Maybe this cold has me seeing double... Dust kicked up by one of 3rd platoon's BMPs temporarily obscures its vision of the advancing Russians. But that doesn't stop the other BMP from nailing another BMP-3 driving down the highway! The autocannons keep chattering away, lobbing 30mm shells into the thin skin of the Russian IFVs. I don't envy the men given the order to charge! (Maybe I should have a score for Russian units exiting the far side of the map, and maybe a score for Ukrainian units to retreat when I update it? The Russians get a lot of points for exiting, so the Ukrainian player must interdict them to get enough points...) Alas! The Russian numbers are too many, and 30mm shells blast into the forward BMP, killing the gunner. The ATGM team takes revenge and fires a Konkurs at one of the enemy BMPs The HEAT warhead stops the vehicle in its tracks. And as the minute draws to a close... a foreboding sight crosses over the bridge... one of the Russian T-72s! I'm not sure 1st Company has enough munitions or firepower to knock out this threat. 2nd Company's tanks may be their best hope! Still not much cmoing across the ford, as far as I can tell. I still have my artillery landing sporadic shots on the crossing to deter that. I have a feeling they may have hit the mines I placed on the crossing and are playing it safe on the actual crossing effort. I know at least one vehicle also hit a mine attempting to cross at the bridge, too. Don't have good eyes on to know exactly what it was, though. I have worn down at least a company, if not more, of Russian troops, though I doubt my ability to continue to resist their technological and numerical superiority... 2nd Company's fate may decide the battle. This is definitely getting interesting, and it looks like we are indeed going to fight across the entire map - something which I'm quite happy about!

Beautiful data - from the standard deviations we have we can figure out roughly what number of samples we need to get particularly useful data - if we want the standard error to be 1 second that's an alarming 625 samples (from my data - from yours far far more! Almost 2,000 ). Another anecdotal thing I noticed in my test was that the T-72 missed pretty much all but one shot, while the M1A2 may not have missed at all. Accuracy, man If you miss the Abrams, it won't miss you!

I just noticed that the standard deviations were practically the same between the two vehicles in all cases. Perhaps it would indicate that the spotting follows a normal distribution that's shifted by factors left or right? This is just pure speculation, I don't have nearly enough data to say anything definitive, and it's too late for me to really put brain cells to work! Edit: And for those unfamiliar with statistics - the standard error on the bottom line of the table is the "standard deviation of the mean" - a simpler way of saying that, in theory, if you took this test again, the standard deviation of the calculated means of any identical test you run will likely be that value.

I did my own tests on spotting, which I admit I don't have a ton of data, but as Vanir said, there is a metric ton of variation. The M1A2 definitely spots faster, but there were a couple of cases where it took significantly longer. I haven't filtered out the outliers from this data set if there are any, but there doesn't appear to be a huge difference between the two tanks... Who spots first shoots first though, and the M1 tended to take about 2 seconds to aim and fire compared to the T-72's 4 seconds. Anyway, read into it what you will... Map looks like this - flat terrain Both tanks were Regular, Normal, +0, etc... middle of the line.

I mentioned this in passing on another thread but I'd love to see fragmentation simulation. That way, we could really see the effect of artillery! I can't find the video from my phone but the ACE mod for Arma does a nice job for it, I think. I feel it would give extra depth to treebursts and airbursts since it becomes much easier to model the blast pattern this way. And the fragments could bag AFVs too! The possibilities are endless! (I also agree visible aircraft would be pretty cool, but I feel less strongly about that haha)

0817-0818 I think I doubled up a number earlier or something. By my count this should be the right time... The easternmost Shturm locates a BMP-3, but not quickly enough. 30mm cannon fire slams into the thin vehicle body, killing the gunner. Artillery continues to land around the ford. I'll have to do a BDA after the battle to see how much damage it did. Another barrage is set to land on the bridge. If it doesn't collapse, I'll direct Grach 010 and 011 to sink that bridge. CM does provide quite the destructive panoramas. There are still two more companies of blood and steel to throw into cauldron! The westernmost Shturm confirms my suspicion that Shturms are useless as it gets nailed by another BMP-3 while it aims. (Does anyone have any tips on how to use these guys? I know they were a little close at about 1 km, but how often do you get sightlines longer than that?) One of 3rd Platoon's BMPs rakes a Russian transport flying down the highway. The last remaining dismounted ATGM lands a shot on another enemy BMP. The round penetrates through the left hull, setting off a catastrophic explosion in the ammo carousel. Two more BMPs rush forwards, under autocannon fire from my defending BMPs. They're beginning to panic just at the sight of enemy vehicles. It may have something to do with the 80% or so casualties that 1st Company has taken thus far... Still no activity from the ford. Maybe my mines and artillery has stopped them from attempting a crossing for now. The main enemy thrust appears to have transitioned to the bridge. At least a platoon has already crossed. In the next minute or two, a retasked artillery battery will begin to slam the bridge crossing to deter any additional crossing. Good news is we've held off the Russian advance just barely. 2nd company should be arriving in about two minutes from the northwest corner of the AO. They're going to rush down the road towards Pryvitne. Depending on the situation, I may divert a platoon supported by tanks to take the defensive works by the Shturms. Time will tell.

I'll humor you . Back of the envelope: The missile seems to weigh about 210 kg empty, and has a cross section of 0.3 meters diameter. Call the drag coefficient about 0.3 for finned missiles. This puts the terminal velocity at 392 meters per second. Okay, that's probably wrong - that's over Mach 1! At around Mach 1, the drag coefficient shoots up to somewhere around 0.5, so I'll use that. Maverick terminal velocity: ~300 m/s. Kinetic energy: 9.68 Megajoules. 22kg penetrator at 1,000 m/s. Kinetic energy: 11.00 Megajoules. So the energy is comparable, but in the penetrator's case it's concentrated in a depleted uranium slug, where the missile is made of aluminum and steel. This will probably make a sizable dent on the top armour. In the end, I guess it's like stabbing a guy in an armoured vest versus hitting him with a hammer... As to the blast - that's a done deal. At 5 meters, 150 kg of TNT will put 1,242 kPa-ms of pressure on the tank. That's enough to fracture most materials. Goodbye tank. (I know these equations are for a hemispherical blast, but I'm too lazy to do the real math). Explosives stuff from here https://unoda-web.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/assets/convarms/Ammunition/IATG/docs/IATG01.80.pdf#page=10

Nailed it right over the driver's hatch, I think.

Both cases from within 100m I think. I didn't see what killed my tank at the ford, though. Surprised me, too!

0814-0815 Autocannon fire from across the canal knocked out my T-64 at the ford. No bueno. Meanwhile, Russian forces rout the infantry dug in around the bridge, practically driving over the prepared positions. This does not go unnoticed by the T-64 parked in the trees. Boom! One of the BMP-3s gets nailed by a 125mm shell. Infantry begin to exit the vehicle, contused and confused. The commander fires his machine gun at some of the dismounts while the gunner aligns his next target... The catastrophic detonation roars above the battle, knocking leaves off of trees dozens of meters away. A third BMP rolls into the kill zone, but catches the T-64 reloading. 30mm APFSDS shells kill the driver, panicking the crew. They dismount and are cut down by coax fire. Meanwhile, a survivor from the first line of defence opens fire on a Russian team entering the southern bank of the cana. So far, no one seems to be hit and the Russians dive for cover. I think most of my forces are going to panic at the first sight of return fire at this point. It's getting pretty desperate. Five more minutes until 2nd company arrives. Hopefully they can delay the Russian attack for further reinforcements... Artillery began landing on the ford, and I haven't seen any further crossing attempts by the Russians after the first one was foiled. Hopefully the ground bursts can take out some BMPs and injure any dismounted infantry in the treeline. There is at least 1 BMP-3 across the canal at the bridge, and I don't doubt more are coming. Hopefully the Shturms and BMP-2 can get a firing solution on them once the smoke clears.

Haha! Nice to see you back, Vladimir. Does this extend to clinics as well?