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How does the damage system work for vehicles?


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I'm wondering on how the damage system works for Black Sea and Combat Mission games in General.
Are vehicles given a 4 sided armour rating like in Wargame?
For example Left-Right side [5] Back [6] front [10] Turret [11]
Wargame doesn't include the use of ERA armour in its game engine which is a shame.
If the Challenger 2 was there with all its upgrades would it be a pain in the backside to destroy due to the strong Dorchester armour with TES and CLIP/CLEP built around it?
Giving the Challenger 2 survivability it would almost be like a boss at the end of a level. 

BTW....
Which is stronger Dorchester or Depleted Uranium?

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CM games work on a real basis, nothing like most rts games which give a fictional value x to armor or weapons.

In those games, if X is armor and Y is weapon, if X>Y the vehicle survives, if X<Y the vehicle dies. Rock paper scissors, just that.

 

In CM games there are a lot more variables taken into account, thus reducing the rng (random number generation - casuality) a lot.

 

This means that the armor of a vehicle is modelled as the real vehicle, for example: front armor is stronger than side armor, front armor can have weak points, there are different armor thicknesses based upon the precise spot etc. but their values are based upon reality (as much as references can give or proof or are estimated by devs). Same goes for the weapon systems, many calculations are taken into account when the game needs to decide what happens when a given weapon (or projectile) hits a given armor location.. angles of impact, technical characteristics of the projectile, speed etc. And the armor can be of very different kinds or have different layers (armor-era-spaced-stand off etc.)

 

Moreover, vehicles have Subsystems and crew that can be damaged or destroyed, thus influencing the said vehicle capabilities.

 

About ERA, example:

If an ERA block is hit, and works as it was designed, said block will be not visibile anymore in the 3d model of the vehicle and it won't be there the next time a projectile might hit there..

 

About the challenger, we have M1A2 SEP v2 now in game, and while being very difficult to destroy it's not at all an invincible tank.

 

In the interface you might notice some level bars and color indications (dots) which you might think give a value to some characteristics such as speed, acceleration, armor protection etc. but keep in mind those are only generic visual aids for the non-expert player intended to give a broad idea of what's what.

 

So, in the end, CM is a ton time more complex than you initially thought.

Edited by Kieme(ITA)
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Good explanation there by @Kieme. I'll just add two things. As he said the actual ballistics are modeled and each round tracked. Also after a round penetrates the armor the damage done on the inside will vary with the amount of energy the penetrator has left. Also there appears to be some abstraction for damage to subsystems even though many things get damaged because they are in the path some other things might also get damaged too.

Edited by IanL
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To expand a little further


This means that the armor of a vehicle is modelled as the real vehicle, for example: front armor is stronger than side armor, front armor can have weak points, there are different armor thicknesses based upon the precise spot etc. but their values are based upon reality (as much as references can give or proof or are estimated by devs).

Every polygon of the 3D model has its own armour rating. And hits can penetrate, penetrate partially, cause armour spalling off the back of the plate, or bounce.

 


Moreover, vehicles have Subsystems and crew that can be damaged or destroyed, thus influencing the said vehicle capabilities.

And some of these can be damaged even if the incoming shot doesn't penetrate the armour.

 


About the challenger, we have M1A2 SEP v2 now in game, and while being very difficult to destroy it's not at all an invincible tank.

 

And that "not-invincible" nature is a combination of weaknesses in the frontal armour array and many other factors, all of which are, as far as is possible, derived from the real characteristics of the vehicle. The same will apply for the Chally2 and Leo when they get included in a module.

 


So, in the end, CM is a ton time more complex than you initially thought.

Echo that. And that's just the vehicular combat. The trajectory of every small arms round is also calculated, and intersections with the pixels of the targets determine whether there's injury (subject to an "abstracted" saving throw to account for protective terrain and other features). Every individual pixelTruppe has their own morale status too; what you see in the interface is an average.

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Thanks Womble IanL and Kieme :)

So in a way it is sort of like a real life simulator, although sometimes reality can have its glitches too like perhaps a shell can go right through a vehicle not damaging a thing but only creating a superficial hole on either side.

Yep, that definitely happens. More often with vehicles that are not stuffed full of systems and consumables (and infantry) than with tightly-packed explsions-waiting-to-happen like BMP-3s :) When the first target is sufficiently lightweight, and the projectile sufficiently powerful, you can even get more than one vehicle being cored out by the one shot. Mostly happens with top of the line KE rounds hitting the side armour of light AFVs.

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Thanks Womble IanL and Kieme :)

So in a way it is sort of like a real life simulator, although sometimes reality can have its glitches too like perhaps a shell can go right through a vehicle not damaging a thing but only creating a superficial hole on either side.

 

Now that I think about it, I've never seen that happen to a full-up AFV in-game even though it apparently happens IRL often enough.

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For one it might just be never modelled. And even if it does the TacAI always chooses the proper ammo before firing.

 

It is modelled; run an Abrams out of HEAT rounds then have it fire the main gun on a BTR like 2km away. The round will (sometimes) go right through without doing much of anything. Or, you could simply watch a Tigr being hit by the CROWS 50; a lot of full penetrations, but not much damage done on a per-round basis.

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The damage system can be pretty random as an AP round can go thru a tank without much effect as well, we know energy past armor is the kill criteria but it's very random. More tests...

Yeah, I've just never seen a round get a full pen on an MBT and fail to damage something inside. It may be because my (limited) sampling includes mostly vehicles with terrible internal arrangement prone to exploding though...

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I shot at Abrams with RPGs and got full penetrations knocking out the tank but with whole crew exiting uninjured many times.. Only to be mowed down by nearby infantry.. The same RPGs against soviet- ukrainian tanks and BOUM !

Edited by antaress73
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As for angles. It goes as far as If you face an Abrams full on at the same elevation , you won't be able to penetrate the two left and right slabs on the front turret (960mm of armor) .. But if you are a little sideways to the left or right of the tank or from higher ground, you can penetrate it with the Russian 125mm at 800-1000 meters (I,ve seen it) because you negate the sloped armor effect adding to the thickness of the armor (by as much as 250mm, which gives you real thickness of 700mm when hitting it at 90 degrees, which the svinets-2 round the Russian tanks use can penetrate easily). That's the amount of detail that's in the game.

Edited by antaress73
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I shot at Abrams with RPGs and got full penetrations knocking out the tank but with whole crew exiting uninjured many times.. Only to be mowed down by nearby infantry.. The same RPGs against soviet- ukrainian tanks and BOUM !

 

The Abrams design is focused on crew  survivability. Minimal ammo is stored in the chasis, most is stored in a magazine in the turret which has reinforced blast doors, which only open when a handle is depressed, then automatically closes when the round comes out. It also has automatic fire suppression systems (and automatic gas/shock venting in the magazine) and extensive spall lining.

Edited by tyrspawn
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I recall once asking programmer Charles a question about Hetzer TD armor and he replied something along the lines that the hull front and side armor plates were given different Brinell hardness numbers to match their different armor quality. Wow... really? The game can do that? Again, wow!

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There simply is no other game out there that models the penetration characteristics and protection levels the way CM does. HEAT is different than APFSDS. ERA is different then RHAe which is different than composite armor. All is modeled.

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There simply is no other game out there that models the penetration characteristics and protection levels the way CM does. HEAT is different than APFSDS. ERA is different then RHAe which is different than composite armor. All is modeled.

 

Steel Beasts and War Thunder (Ground) get pretty nitty-gritty with armor/damage modeling. I think WW2 Online got pretty deep as well, but that was years ago for me. It might be cool if CMx2 ever got a post-mortem damage reporting system, because it can be pretty informative.

Edited by Apocal
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Graviteam seems to be more detailed in armor and at least as detailed in damage.  At least they show it.  I am not sure how anyone can claim CM is the most detailed when we have no idea how its done.

Well, we only have BFC's representatives' (Steve, Chris, Charles, PhilC) word for how precise the armour modelling is (and that seems, to me, to be taking into account all the practicable variables at the finest granularity available to the game), so what do you think makes GT more  detailed in its armour modelling? Just because it's made explicit on-screen doesn't mean the underlying modelling is more (or less, or as) detailed and accurate.

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