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M1 Abrams currently with not APS?


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Re: BTR

 

Yep, as far as I can tell at least. Mine is from max magnification anyway so it'll look pretty crap, but it's still a useful tool given how much you can blow up a series of blobs to try to get some more definition on what sort of blobs you're looking at (like if the blobby movey thing is a deer or it's a man)

 

Re: Blue Force Tracker

 

It's a C3 system that does a variety of things.  One of its functions is displaying the present location of friendly forces within a high margin of accuracy.  It also allows for information sharing across a wide spectrum of units, and for radio-less communications.  It's a satellite system so you get a little lag, but since it is entirely non-line of sight it is a great tool for keeping in touch with folks that are far away, or behind terrain that would impede a radio broadcast.   Also talking to someone is as simple as clicking on their icon on the map and you can send a text message to them*

 

Additionally on newer AFVs, the BFT will automatically populate contact reports if you start engaging someone with your weapons system.  So once you break triggers, everyone sees the enemy contact report on the map, and where it is within a meter or so.  Then details can be added as needed (so if the platoon in contact destroys the enemy, they can fairly quickly update the contact to a battle damage assessment that everyone can see, or if it's a longer fight the guys at the command post can fill in all the information they're getting via voice from the element in contact).  This is also a neat trick from the AFV crew perspective, because you can get the BFT to feed you 10 digit grid coordinates which will let you do calls for fire pretty effectively** 

 

The capabilities are unclassified, but the physical output onto the map and other details are classified.

 

*With associated priority and separate inboxes for each.  The flash traffic priority more or less makes sure you look at it or else, while the routine box is a good thing for reporting that it's 0200 everyone is still here, all their gear is accounted for and all is well.

 

**In practice we usually sent the information for a fire mission through the FIST because translating BFT call for fires stuff to the fires systems took longer than the FIST plugging the information received over FM into the fires network stuff.

At least that's how I remember it.  

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Re: Sharing

 

It's no problem.  There's parts of being a soldier full time I do not miss for a second (in fact I'd argue a majority of it was pretty crap), but the clanking around on a tank, and the time spent with the overwhelming majority of my soldiers is still something I get all nostalgic about.  I enjoy rambling about this sort of stuff because it's sort of an outlet for all the "army" stuff still piled up in my brain that's well past practical use to my day to day life.

 

Re: Thermals in games

 

Most of them tend to be a lot like the gunnery simulators in that the image is just too clean/targets pop out too much.  Like there's some artifacts and terrain that's well illuminated...but usually the vehicles just leap out at you in terms of being different from the terrain.  In reality there's a lot more false positives, on really hot days, or with bad targets on the range often it feels like you're trying to peer into muddy water to find a fish (especially so on the M1A1HC/early model M2A2 generation optics).  It's light years better than just using your eyeballs, but it's very much operating a sensor system over the automatic badguy finder it tends to be in games and even the real simulators*  

 

Which is why I keep harping on the difference between sensors.  The russian stuff can find thermal sources out a reasonable difference, but historically has lacked the definition or sensitivity to do good target ID on if a tank surrounded by well heated rocks, or tell the difference between cold tank and cold ground. And the longer you need to stare at whatever blobular thermal image you're getting, the less terrain you're scanning effectively, and the longer from "see something" to "shoot something" it takes.

 

Re: Borg Spotting

 

Yeah pretty much. The map should be populated by a lot of ? regardless of LOS to area.  On the other hand, LOS still very much applies so there's a long distance between "I know there's a tank in that thicket!" and "I see enough of that tank to shoot!" 

 

 

*I think in part it's more the trick of the eyes, like even daylight sights in games work better than real life.  The target always seems to pop out more and fit in less effectively, while a real tank blends in a lot better.

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Steel Beasts currently doesnt really do the whole temperature differences in terrain thing well at all.  Thermals there are a bit too God mode in my opinion.  DCS (the flight sim series) also sadly just has flat "Thermal" textures for stuff, and terrain is just recolored for thermal imagers.  This creates some really bizarre visual scenarios that arent in fact relative to a thermal viewer's actual view at all; its just a recolored/inverted normal image.

 

ArmA3 mods however are featuring some cool stuff like vehicle temperature increasing as a vehicle moves or is driven, etc.  A tank that is just placed in the editor, and does absolutely nothing, is cold for all intents until it heats up over a bit of time.  It actually turning on causing the most immediate increase in temperature.

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Steel Beasts currently doesnt really do the whole temperature differences in terrain thing well at all.  Thermals there are a bit too God mode in my opinion.  DCS (the flight sim series) also sadly just has flat "Thermal" textures for stuff, and terrain is just recolored for thermal imagers.  This creates some really bizarre visual scenarios that arent in fact relative to a thermal viewer's actual view at all; its just a recolored/inverted normal image.

 

ArmA3 mods however are featuring some cool stuff like vehicle temperature increasing as a vehicle moves or is driven, etc.  A tank that is just placed in the editor, and does absolutely nothing, is cold for all intents until it heats up over a bit of time.  It actually turning on causing the most immediate increase in temperature.

Sadly, ArmA 3 still doesn't have the terrain absorbing any heat, which means that humans and vehicles glow like flares in the dark even on a sunny day in the desert

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Sadly, ArmA 3 still doesn't have the terrain absorbing any heat, which means that humans and vehicles glow like flares in the dark even on a sunny day in the desert

 

In ARMA 2, background temperature was only modelled by month, not by actual in-game "simulated" temperature. In Nov-Jan, thermals did not work as well due to overwhelming cold backgrounds and it was hard to distinguish terrain features, if at all able to spot them.

I'm not sure about ARMA 3 because I honestly don't think I have played a mission set in that time period, but I shall endeavour to investigate and report back.

 

All vehicles are cold on placement, but get warm when moving or firing by default in that engine. Same with weapons and small arms.

Edited by Stagler
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