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Russian Optics and Spotting in general


nuzrak

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Anecdotal i know but a soviet.bmp3 iirc spotted my.ukr green bmp 2 wich was stationary in ambush position first. Soviet.bmp.was.moving. the mission was the one after poking the bear, us campaign. Now i dnt care abt that, what interests me is how ehe round fired.from the bmps.chain.gun penetrated the ukr bmp, went.in a straight line through one story building.and ko,d a ukr truck.after. ive seen other reports of this.i know.it was the same.set of.soviet rounds bc,one it was the only.armored units.in.contact at the moment and two you could draw a.straight diagonal line thru the ukr bmp, building, to truck. I have a save immediately after but not before,i dont save much at all in.single player only beginnings.of.scenarios,after long tedious setups,and.if.i have to sign out.

Ps sorry for the atrocious nature of.my.grammar and.periods im using a cellphone.to.post

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Rounds overpenetrating and then going through a building to destroy a soft vehicle isn't terribly surprising. Many buildings are basically irrelevant to modern ammunition. The 100mm gun on a BMP-3 is, I'd imagine, quite capable of overpenetrating the side armour of a BMP-2.

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The TIM5000 thermal camera on the Stryker should be less capable than the the Catherine FC used in the Russian tanks and IFVs (BMP-3M for sure, probably also BMP-2M gunner's sight).  TIM5000 is uncooled and lower resolution.  It might be worth checking to make sure that the thermal cameras in Russian vehicles do in fact have superior capabilities to this device, even if they still fall short of the Gen III devices in Abrams and Bradley.

But again, we don't know if the Stryker driver's thermal sight is affecting outcomes.  Although this is more of a poor visibility driving aid and probably only helps with spotting at closer range, the way CM accounts for multiple vision devices in use by multiple crew members may give an across the board boost.

 

Catherine FC

TIM5000

AN/VAS-5 Driver's Vision Enhancer

 

I have finally got some time to look into this. Despite being an uncooled device it is not clear to me that the TIM 5000 is necessarily less capable than the Catherine FC. It does have a lower resolution, but it sees further into the infrared spectrum than the Catherine FC and has a more powerful zoom.

Catherine FC

Spectral Band: 8-12 μm

Field of view (FOV):

  • Wide FOV : 9° x 6.7°
  • Narrow FOV : 3° x 2.2°

Electronic zoom (x2) : 1.5° x 1.1°

Image resolution: 754 x 576

 

TIM 1500

Spectral band: 7.5 - 14 mm

Format 640 x 480 28 mm pitch

Field of view (horizontal) Wide 10.1°; Narrow 3.3°

Electronic zoom 2x, 3x, 4x

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Vanir Ausf B,

 

Longest uncooled range says only it's top in that category, but it still can't compete with the cooled and much more sensitive detectors of the gear we're talking about for the tanks and IFVs. Nor can it begin to remotely approximate their magnifications (4x vs 50x in the case of the Abrams). I think it's fair to state the TIM1500 is fine for CROWS applications, but that's hardly an argument in support of its efficacy for engagements outside of typical .50 BMG shooting distances. It simply isn't designed for that job. The thermals common to the Abrams and the Bradley are.

 

Current and former Bradley (maybe Abrams, too) gunners and TCs,

 

I recently saw and linked to some images shot at the Bradley gunner's station. These were green, supposedly for night vision preservation, and I found them very hard to see much in. Visually muddy. Yet the B/W footage on YT, for example, is quite easy to see things in. Do you guys have any sense at all of what kind of hit, if any, you're suffering on display readability because of this? It looked pretty significant to me, but I was working solely from a photo, so there may've been further information loss as a result.

 

Regards,

 

John Kettler

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Longest uncooled range says only it's top in that category, but it still can't compete with the cooled and much more sensitive detectors of the gear we're talking about for the tanks and IFVs. Nor can it begin to remotely approximate their magnifications (4x vs 50x in the case of the Abrams). I think it's fair to state the TIM1500 is fine for CROWS applications, but that's hardly an argument in support of its efficacy for engagements outside of typical .50 BMG shooting distances. It simply isn't designed for that job.

Catherine FC

Electronic zoom (x2)

 

As for the range, quote me some numbers, preferably not made-up.

Edited by Vanir Ausf B
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Aside from the electric zoom the Catherine FC offers optical magnification of 3x and 9x. I cannot find any magnification numbers for the TIM 5000.

 

Correction. That is the optical zoom for the ESSA gunner's sight on the T-90A. The Vesna-K sight on the BMP-3M only has 1.5x magnification.

 

http://www.kurganmash.ru/en/machines/bmp3u/fire_power/vesna-k/

Edited by Vanir Ausf B
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Aside from the electric zoom the Catherine FC offers optical magnification of 3x and 9x. I cannot find any magnification numbers for the TIM 5000.

 

Correction. That is the optical zoom for the ESSA gunner's sight on the T-90. The Vesna-K sight on the BMP-3M only has 1.5x magnification.

 

http://www.kurganmash.ru/en/machines/bmp3u/fire_power/vesna-k/

 

 

That is some weird way of describing field of view, not power, otherwise "wide" has 9x zoom.  Probably it is horizontal x vertical field of view.

 

Essa and Vesna-K should have the same Catherine FC thermal camera.

Edited by akd
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I see. So the question remains, is the Catherine FC sight better than the TIM 5000, and if so how much? I hate going to Charles and saying "we think X is better than Y because most things X-related are better than most things Y-related, but we're not totally sure and we don't know by how much. But fix it anyways ;) "

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Vanir Ausf B,

 

This is what Thales has to say about the Catherine. Inter alia, it's got a failrly detailed set of specs, with a valuable addition being a plot showing what Detection, Recognition and ID ranges (w/wo teleconverter) are vs a man, a tank, a helo and a jet fighter. The teleconverter extends the ID range vs tanks from ~2.5-3.5 km, a most worthwhile improvement, but are Russian AFVs so fitted? Here's the equivalent sheet for the TIM1500 (PDF via link on page). Unfortunately, it lacks the level of tech detail given on the Catherine FC.

 

Obviously, it's possible to compare FOV and such, and it may be possible to get the respective MRTs, but I have no handle at all on what magnification buys the user, once a certain point is reached. 4000 meter range for target ID is plenty good, even 2500 will get the job done for most engagements, but I've read accounts from Russia in which 88s were firing on a Russian tank concentration from over 5000 meters out and killing so many tanks the Russians thought they'd hit a minefield. They couldn't imagine coming under direct fire from such a distance. Remarkably, the NVA tankers at Dong na thought the same thing when the ARVN tanks were hammering them from twice the effective range of the NVA cannon on the T-54s. Parts of the steppe are flat enough to allow 5000 meter engagements to occur. Fofanov lists the Refleks-M as having a 5000 meter range. KBP, who build it, says the same. Last I checked, and the Russians are as pragmatic as they come, weapons are designed to address specific military situations, and no one in his right mind designs for 5000 meters when 4000 will do because of LOS considerations. These CLGMs were originally designed to give the firing tanks the ability to take NATO tanks under fire before they could get close enough to conduct cannon engagements. Otherwise, NATO tanks would outrange the Russian ones because of the poorer quality main gun FCS and other issues. That the Russians first bought and ar enow license producing the Catherine FC says quite a bit about how the Russians view the FCS disparity.

 

Regards,

 

John Kettler

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Hi all, I have been playing mt first Russian mission, I love Russian hardware and I want to learn how to use them well in CMBS.

 

The mission I have chosen is Gagarina Ave Checkpoint and I have been asking myself if what is the problem with my Russians as they seem to spot much less than the Ucrainians; I have created an scenario (same map as Gagarina) with loads of Ucrainian, Russian and US vehicles in order to run some tests. The US and Ucrainians are on the Ucrainian start zone and the Russians in the Russian start zone.

 

So far after about 2 hours of testing (not so many tests, maybe two of each type) I have found that:

 

- BMP-3 are moles (not BMP-3M, I just tested the same ones as in the scenario), without any crew they have a really hard time to spot things that sould be reaaaally easy to see (BMP-1U 600 meters ahead on the road, lolz).

- BMP-1U are sweet, they can spot reasonabily well and they punch nice, now I want to play Ucrainians, I wasn't very interested.

- BMP-3 with some crew spots much much better.

 

Also

- T-90A spots not so bad but it takes its time : (

- T-90AM spots reaaally nice

- Ucrainian tanks aren't as good as the Russians but they are good enough.

 

And....

- Abrams spot INSANELLY well, they can shot anything no matter if they see it or not, if there isn't a mountain between you and the Abrams you are NOT safe

 

Don't believe me?

The reason for these tests was also to know better the capabilities of each army, I was sending three T-90 up a road while sending two oblots and a bulat up another road, both roads intersect (the road to the left of the Russians); they were going to clash and I wanted to see if Russian armor could spot them so much better and own them easily.

 

While the T-90 were on the road BAM, one is destroyed long before the Ucrainian taks could see it, OMG, one of the Abrams in the starting Ucrainian zone, separated from the T-90 by 2-3 squares of dense forest spotted it and destroyed it!!!! WTF, I thougt it was a bug and I saved the game. I resumed the test and while I was testing ZAM, another T-90 gets nailed by the same Abrams... It was also 1 km away from the Abrams separated by the thick forest. Afteer thinking it I see that I have a US sniper team in a house with vission of the whole battlefield, maybe the sniper team is comunicating with the Abrams and giving it info about the T-90 but there is no way the Abrams can see them.

 

 

SO, overall results of these weak tests.

 

1 - In plain day Russian and Ucranian soldiers spot about the same, Russian tanks spot better, BMP-3 and probably BMP-2 are bad spotters and you can't trust them, this may be the case in real life so if Battlefront thinks so I think it's ok.

 

2 - I have to run some tests on US armor and soldiers.

 

3 - Is there a way to send the scenario and the savegame to BF? I really don't think that Abrams can spot anything in the other side of that forest. This said, one of the T-90 fired on the Ucrainian start zone without much vision and nailed two APCs (both zones are packed with vehicles), just not through dense forest.

 

 

 

Srry for the long post, hope it has been constructive.

EDITED, just wanted to add that in the first mission of the US campaign my abrams seemed to spot just right, in fact I was shocked of how well Russian tanks spot.

Edited by Djiaux
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It sounds not bad to me from what you describe. The BMP3s have a commander's spot with additional visions equipment for the mounted squad commands.

As for the M1 hitting stuff through forests... it depends how dense that forest is. Don't forget that trees on grass is like a park. Trees on light of dense forest is a like a forest.

You can zip the scenario and any saves and attach them to a post here. Press the more posting options and you will get controls to attach stuff.

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I know I asked this before and accepted the arguments about inferior equipment but the Russian infantry with their NV scopes cannot spot a single thing in a foggy night. Is that a accurate? The US troops and vehicles are actually at arms length and I still cannot see them. Can't even do blind fire on sound contacts.

Edited by jomni
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I know I asked this before and accepted the arguments about inferior equipment but the Russian infantry with their NV scopes cannot spot a single thing in a foggy night. Is that a accurate? The US troops and vehicles are actually at arms length and I still cannot see them. Can't even do blind fire on sound contacts.

 

U.S. troops have thermal sights on there weapons and as head gear.

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Yes I know but is it really too hard to see anything 10 feet away without equipment? I suggest we fire up a QB at night and fog and see if the Russian spotting is logical based on their equipment. Unless the fog in the game is so bad.

Edited by jomni
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Yes I know but is it really too hard to see anything 10 feet away without equipment? I suggest we fire up a QB at night and fog and see if the Russian spotting is logical based on their equipment. Unless the fog in the game is so bad.

 

Sorry I misread your question!

 

As for the fog, it depends on how thick it is, there are a few options in the QB selection screen.

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I know I asked this before and accepted the arguments about inferior equipment but the Russian infantry with their NV scopes cannot spot a single thing in a foggy night. Is that a accurate? The US troops and vehicles are actually at arms length and I still cannot see them. Can't even do blind fire on sound contacts.

 

A foggy night? I would say ten feet is extreme, but yeah, regular (non-IR) night vision gear is pretty well degraded in those conditions.

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Slightly off topic like, but on the damage indicators on Russian kit it mostly has IR optics listed in subsystems. It says IR optics on things that should have TI (BMP-3M), not IR (not that TI is not IR, but I refer to IR as night-vision green on black IR). Maybe this should be changed to indicate more easily what has TI and what has IR optics.

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I have finally got some time to look into this. Despite being an uncooled device it is not clear to me that the TIM 5000 is necessarily less capable than the Catherine FC. It does have a lower resolution, but it sees further into the infrared spectrum than the Catherine FC and has a more powerful zoom.

Catherine FC

Spectral Band: 8-12 μm

Field of view (FOV):

  • Wide FOV : 9° x 6.7°
  • Narrow FOV : 3° x 2.2°

Electronic zoom (x2) : 1.5° x 1.1°

Image resolution: 754 x 576

 

TIM 1500

Spectral band: 7.5 - 14 mm

Format 640 x 480 28 mm pitch

Field of view (horizontal) Wide 10.1°; Narrow 3.3°

Electronic zoom 2x, 3x, 4x

 

 

Maybe we can calculate the maximum effective range from the data available. The question could be formulated as follows: At what range will the longest side of a 6x3m target (like a tank) be smaller than 1 pixel on the 640x480 screen? The only additional information we need to do this would be the diameter of the lens. We assume that if there is only electronic zoom for 2x, 3x, 4x, the optical magnification is 1x, so it only a geometrical problem.

Edited by agusto
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Sorry I misread your question!

 

As for the fog, it depends on how thick it is, there are a few options in the QB selection screen.

 

I'll probably do different set ups and report back on the view distance of those Russian optics (infantry).

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Interesting idea, but I suspect the image would have to be larger than 1 pixel to be useful.

Maybe we can calculate the maximum effective range from the data available. The question could be formulated as follows: At what range will the longest side of a 6x3m target (like a tank) be smaller than 1 pixel on the 640x480 screen? The only additional information we need to do this would be the diameter of the lens. We assume that if there is only electronic zoom for 2x, 3x, 4x, the optical magnification is 1x, so it only a geometrical problem.

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It's been requested. Right now thermal imagers and image intensification NV are lumped together under the same subsystem.

Slightly off topic like, but on the damage indicators on Russian kit it mostly has IR optics listed in subsystems. It says IR optics on things that should have TI (BMP-3M), not IR (not that TI is not IR, but I refer to IR as night-vision green on black IR). Maybe this should be changed to indicate more easily what has TI and what has IR optics.

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Interesting idea, but I suspect the image would have to be larger than 1 pixel to be useful.

 

 

You can take any number of pixels for the calculation. 1x1, 2x2, 3x3 etc...as long as you keep it a square you will only have to solve a single equotation for each target. If you can get me the diameter of the lens i will do the math for a given number of pixels and post the results on the forums.

 

EDIT:

 

Ahh that is interesting:

 

http://www.google.at/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCoQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.baesystems.com%2Fdownload%2FBAES_020343%2Fthermal-imaging-module---tim-1500&ei=gxIHVZSsDovcUZ6TgIAL&usg=AFQjCNFhcNPt4rJaB-aewRPDZ5717THrSg&bvm=bv.88198703,d.d24&cad=rja

 

On page 2 it says:

 

Physical characteristics

Length (276 mm) 10.9 in.

Width (178 mm) 7 in.

Height (178 mm) 7 in.

Weight (5.7 kg) 12.5 lbs.

 

When i come home from work tonight in will see what i can do with these values. It has been a while since I had to do math the last time, but i think i can do it.

Edited by agusto
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