M1A2sep (aps) vs. 2x T-90am (aps)

[John Kettler]

General question

 

If APS for the M1A2 SEP V3 is speculative, then why is it in the game? Is it in the latest FYDP or has already been budgeted for? If not, then how's it supposed to happen by the 2017 timeframe for the game? And before anyone starts in with "It's nationalist bias against the Americans!," I live in the US and am a natural born citizen. Therefore, I'm arguing against my own side, but in CMBS, my loyalty is to getting the facts right, not national pride. The "goodness," if you will, of weapons in the game depends heavily on how accurately their various military-technical characteristics are modeled in it. If those things aren't right, then weapon performance isn't and we wind up with a distorted sense of that weapon. Given the enormous leverage APS provides, it seems to me that this is something really important to get right, for it has enormous negative impact on the combat capabilities of the Russian forces.

 

Kieme(ITA)

 

In the only QB I've so far played, the brace of T-90AM one of my Veteran Abrams M1A2 SEP V3 tanks spotted while on Hunt was destroyed in seconds from ~700 meter range, front to front. That grim tale is here, in a post I started over on Tech Support because I thought something was wrong with the blistering time to complete the kill chains. In 30 seconds, one Veteran T-90AM was hit hard with a first KE and died (4 sec total until killed). When the crew realized what had happened, the survivors fled the vehicle, only to be squashed by an AMP. The other Russian tank had a Regular crew, but the tank was tougher or the crew's luck was higher, for the tank, though badly damaged, survived a hit, but not the second, which arrived near instantly later. 3 x KE got 3 hits & 3 penetrations; 2 x AMP did in both crews. Given my QB experience (sample size of 1), I'm amazed Russian ERA on your end actually stopped Abrams KE from penetrating. It may be that the 300 meter delta between your engagement range and mine reflected the transition into an immunity zone, and that my unfortunate foes were on the wrong end of it. When I Hunted out my tank, I had no Spot initially at all. Nor did I start with any that I know of. That tank was closest to the enemy. The closest the Russians got to shooting was when my far left tank rolled up a ridge, got lased (no idea from where then), popped smoke and beat feet. The Russians may have a delay on popping smoke because Shtora has to be manually selected. And while the Russian aerosol cloud arguably screens a much larger sector of ground, the extra time to deploy it, via manual activation and longer TOF for the grenades was, in this situation, fatal. Had the range been longer, there might've been time to get their screens in place, but neither managed to get the screen up in time to avoid what came next. Were I the Russians, I'd be taking a serious look about going to an automated approach, for man-in-the-loop is likely to cost them dearly should a war break out. It occurs to me there's something a bit odd about this thread. Since the topic is cannon engagements, with the possible exception of CLGM (hate "GLATGM") on the Russian end. Given this, what relevance does APS have to things?

 

Regards,

 

John Kettler

Edited March 19, 2015 by John Kettler

[Stagler]

Not friendly with Win8...funny I have had three win8 laptops and not a single issue.  FRAPS works perfectly fine with CM in Win8.

 

I have to assume the issue is not very important.  Otherwise someone would just run a simple test in WEGO.  I see people coming in to complain, yet offer nothing to go on.  When tests are repeated, guess what...the issue is not there.  Again, if you want help fixing issues, bring something other than guesses, estimates, and propaganda to the table.  Its not about liking WEGO, its about not sounding like a child because your favorite toy broke

 

 

 

Cool story bro.

 

I would advise against using fixed wing for now, missile release rate is too slow and APS counters them. However I have had success with Ka-52, it fires fast enough to seemingly overwhelm the APS. Have not tried the Mi-28 yet.

Edited March 19, 2015 by Stagler

[Stagler]

Or do as Antares suggests and try and sneak up. Engaging from range is a bad idea. 

Edited March 19, 2015 by Stagler

[A Canadian Cat]

Use covered approach .. Use precision arty on them when possible to degrade their external systems and optics or get the rare kill. Get close and come from two directions at once. Use infantry or recon troops with the tablets to recon (more discreet) .. Get spots on those Abrams, let the info disseminate through radio / constellation to your tanks before making a move. Will help spotting significantly. In defense, use higher ground, will negate armor sloping somewhat and give you top turret, top Hull hits even frontally if unlucky. Otherwise, double ambush (kill zones from two directions) with flank shots. If you have air assets or attack choppers, use them solely on the Abrams

 

Excellent advice.  I am having some success doing these things in First Clash.  My sneaking up is having rather mixed results though - I have scored some victories but taken quite few losses too.  So far my precision artillery is the hero of the battle - two M1 (mission kills) and one Bradley KO'ed

[antaress73]

relikt  on the turret is much more effective  at stopping the abrams 's sabot shots, so hull down is very advisable .. the hull is s***

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

 

 

If APS for the M1A2 SEP V3 is speculative, then why is it in the game?

 

There's a lot of speculative weapons in the game.  The T-90AM is actually an export model upgrade the Russians have not purchased, BMP-2Ms are not quite real yet, a lot of the top shelf Ukrainian stuff exists in numbers of like, 3-6 or so.  It's all based on what reasonably could happen in about two years.  APS mounted on Abrams is a pretty small leap.  The APS it has in game already exists and in service elsewhere, and it is the sort of system that can just bolt on to the outside of an Abrams pretty easily.  Tie to that the US Army has been looking at APS for tanks and Bradleys for several years, and historically has done similar purchases prior to going to war (see the M1A1HAs upgraded in Kuwait, same with the Bradley ODS, all the MRAPs and various anti-IED crap that was bought on short notice during 2003-2010), and if we're making speculation, it's a pretty modest leap.  

[Kieme(ITA)]

In my opinion BFC should take the step of representing US APS on vehicles, with some degree of freedom I would like this to be shown in game.

[Kraft]

I would advise against using fixed wing for now, missile release rate is too slow and APS counters them. 

 

 

Try Su-25SM cannons.

Edited March 19, 2015 by Kraft

[Jock Tamson]

What I've noticed is quite a lot of this:  tank 1 is the only tank with visual, but tank 3 is already slewing round to the target.  Observing the Russians, they don't slew until they have a visual.

 

[Thewood1]

I bet if you click on the 3rd tank, it has a ?-type sighting and that can cause a facing change.  Do you have a save of that?

[Stagler]

Try Su-25SM cannons.

 

Usually Kraft they dump all their rockets and bombs before they use their cannons. Lets see after patch.)

Edited March 20, 2015 by Stagler

[Jock Tamson]

I bet if you click on the 3rd tank, it has a ?-type sighting and that can cause a facing change.  Do you have a save of that?

Yes tt does have a ? , as you'd expect.

 

The point is (I was playing hotseat), the Russians all have ? too, and in every single test not one of them slewed to the ? prior to getting a definite visual.  Nor did any of the other platoon members slew to a ? when the first Russian got a definite visual.  The effect of this is that the Russians were always beaten to the draw.

 

I've got the btt.  But it would take less time for you to create it yourself.  Map is 1400 * 1400, units are all veteran.  Each side is given a move order in column to the other end of the map. T90AM v M1A2, dry, warm, clear, no EW.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Jock Tamson

[Thewood1]

Me building it might not be completely the same...there so many variables it is better just to post the btt.

[Jock Tamson]

btt attached in zip

 

Needless to say when I have tested it again this morning it is much less evident.  YMMV.

test.zip

Edited March 20, 2015 by Jock Tamson

[Apocal]

What I've noticed is quite a lot of this:  tank 1 is the only tank with visual, but tank 3 is already slewing round to the target.  Observing the Russians, they don't slew until they have a visual.

 

 

Who's icon mod is this?

[A Canadian Cat]

Who's icon mod is this?

 

Mine: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/118057-nato-tactical-symbol-icon-replacements/ You might notice the last post is by @Jock Tamson who says he is using Vein's FOW icon in combination with mine.

[Vanir Ausf B]

btt attached in zip

 

Needless to say when I have tested it again this morning it is much less evident.  YMMV.

 

The only time I see tanks slew towards a "?" contact is when it has 2 of them. They seem to routinely ignore single contacts.

[Thewood1]

What I have seen is the turret will slew if the ? is on the way to being ID'ed as a positive.  I never timed it.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I think it's more than just that. I set up my own test with isolated tanks (each tank could spot one enemy tank). I probably ran the test a dozen times and never got a tank to react. It's possible that it could be tied to crew experience. I was testing with Regular crews.

 

EDIT: Nope, not crew quality either.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Vanir Ausf B

[Stagler]

I did think that veteran crews spotted faster.

[Kraft]

Usually Kraft they dump all their rockets and bombs before they use their cannons. Lets see after patch.)

Not if you use a Light mission, Cannons only.

Tested this for forest deleate the Stinger if you want AT capability alone.

Tested this for open

open 1 pass => wrecked tank

forest 1-2 attack runs before fully wrecked.

That's with 1 plane, not both.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Kraft

[Thewood1]

OK ran this 5 times and on the 4th, one of the US tanks starts rotating as soon as it gets three ?, but no solid contacts.  There were no laser warnings, but all other US tanks were engaged.  The one M1 rotated its turret 3-4 seconds before having a solid contact.  But again, it already had three ? and all its platoon-mates were engaged.

 

I am going to run it a few more times on the Russian side.  If anyone from BFC wants the save, PM me with an email address.  Its almost 5Mb so I am not going to upload it.

[Euri]

I did a test myself. I run it several times

CONDITIONS

10 Abs (Standar - Regular) vs T90AM (Standard Regular)

Distance 2km - Map clear.

First Round all tanks get restricted cover arcs. Second round, weapons free

TEST RESULTS

First Round

Ab spot all or at least 9 T90s within 17secs. 

T90 spot at least 9 Abs within 20 secs and takes longer for the last one

Second Round (everything spoted) 

Abrams always fire the first shot faster than T90. (Note: I do not understand why is that)

Invariably the result is 10-0 in favor of the Abs 

I have run also the tests at 1km stand off distance. Again Abs fire fist and my take 1-2 armor penetrations. But again it was 10-0

 

I have no expert opinion on how the tanks perform in real life, but in the game it seems that Abs is one generation ahead. 

PS. I have uploaded the initial conditions for anyone interested to run the test himself.

Test.btt

[Vanir Ausf B]

Abrams always fire the first shot faster than T90. (Note: I do not understand why is that)

I don't know, but I suspect it is intended as a means of representing the fire control system or something similar. Russian tanks are not all the same either. T-90AMs fire faster than T-72s.

[Nefron]

This whole obsession with placing things more or less in the open and drawing conclusions from which is "better" is sort of....weird.  The game is not designed to support this behavior.  Nor is establishing it takes 1.34 T-90s to kill .56 Abrams especially helpful outside of measuring net trends over several battles.

Well, why not? I've had issues with encounters at even closer range where one vehicle consistently spots better when in reality there should be no difference. Think 20 meters down a street, if you have eyes you will see that Bradly or a tank, yet all my unit sees is a big question mark slowly rolling towards glorious victory. 

I have no issues with how the game works at long ranges, and yes we can assume that the Abrams will spot its target first in most cases. However, having an invisible tank right next to your unit is really frustrating. At those ranges the optics and whatnot should matter that much. 

Also, I believe spotting in open terrain should be better across the board. If there is concealment on the terrain, we would see it. You have forests, shrubbery, smoke etc. I don't see the point in simulating some magic cloaking device that is not being rendered by this pretty 3D engine we have. 

Edited October 8, 2015 by Nefron