BFC, please provide a threat quadrant (or better) when LWR goes off

[John Kettler]

BFC,

Having miraculously gotten at least temporarily functional enough to play CMBS (or any CM, for that matter) after four frustrating months of being unable to do so because of TBI issues, I got my feet wet again in a Tiny QB (Large map) with an American armored attack against an AI controlled Russian defender. Losing an M1A1 SEP V3 (APS) practically out of the gate to what I later learned was a T-90AM sucked (entire crew survived and was only Rattled), but my remaining mixed Abrams and Bradley force rallied and carried on the fight, but when I moved up on my left, I got lased, but have no idea from whence. Arena gives IRL a laser location cut to no more than, say, 20 degrees. Presumably, the American LWR is at least as good. But neither, that I'm aware of in CMBS, knows anything other than it's being lased. Even the early Warsaw Pact systems gave a quadrant warning. Could we please have at least that so that we can fight our armor appropriately?

Regards,

John Kettler

 

[General Melchid]

I thought they swung their turret to face the laser direction, does this not give enough of a hint for target direction; or would you like a separate UI element indicator?

Edited July 8, 2016 by General Melchid
coz i can

[Kinophile]

I think if the tank is already engaged (ie aiming/firing main gun)  it prioritizes it's current target but pops smoke and backs away from the laser. 

That's my anecdotal experience at least. Otherwise yes,  it does slew it's turret to face. 

But sometimes, if it's a clean shot,  I've seen T90/M1s laze/aim/shoot in seconds. 

Sometimes it's just a swift, clean kill....

[Atago]

If the tank isn't firing at a target it will rotate the turret to face the threat even as it pops smoke and backs up.  If you are playing real time it's much harder to use the turret facings to get a direction of the lasing unit - you have to be watching it obviously.  In turn based - it's possible to watch the tanks and get a fair idea of where the guy with the laser is hiding.

I have not watched other vehicles to see if they 'point' to the laser or not.  Just tanks.

[MikeyD]

I don't believe US vehicles are currently fielding a laser warning device (last I read) so what a future device does or does not do in the game's 2017 timeframe would be a matter of speculation.

Being commander (player) doesn't guarantee an 'eye-of-god' all-seeing omniscience anyway. One wonders how the combination of electronic warfare and operational security restriction might limit timely command reactions. Are your radios or GPS or communications links being jammed? Are you operating under strict radio use protocols for security reasons? A joke of mine is an Arena's millimeter radar transponder would act like locator beacon for any opponent with the least hint of technological savvy. Like in Star Trek: "Captain I'm detecting four Romulan cruisers off the port bow!"

[John Kettler]

BFC,

Oops! Should've written Shtora, not Arena, but the point still stands.

MikeyD,

The Abrams and Bradley already do have LWRs fitted. Excerpt from the December 2013 Journal of Electronic Defense article called "Seeing the Light" flatly says so. JED is the defense/defense industry bible when it comes to countermeasures.

(Fair Use)

"GROUND SYSTEMS

The deployment of, and design requirements for, laser warning systems intended for ground-vehicles has also evolved over the years. ISR Systems’ AN/VVR-1 laser warning system has been tested and incorporated and the M-2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle. This was improved by the subsequent AN/VVR-2 version that incorporated a single mast-mounted sensor, and again with an AN/VVR-3 which added a beam-rider detection capability."

And from Army Guide we get this on the LWRs from the manufacturer, Goodrich Corporation.

http://www.army-guide.com/eng/firm1630.html

(Fair Use)

Goodrich is the world's leader in laser warning receivers has produced over 2500 laser warning systems for both ground and aviation use. Laser rangefinders, designators and beamriders can be located with accuracies of up +1 degree of accuracy in both azimuth and elevation with very low false alarms.

Presumably that was supposed read "up to +/- 1 degree of accuracy." That's hardly in the category of "matter of speculation."

On a separate note, and perhaps this has already been spotted, the CMBS Manual lists the Abrams as M1A2 SEPv2 instead of M1A2 SEPv3. Should that ever get corrected, I would further note the "V" is supposed to be capitalized. 

Regards,

John Kettler

 

Edited July 8, 2016 by John Kettler

[AttorneyAtWar]

The M1 Abrams represented in Black Sea is not intended to be the SEP V3, I'm also skeptical of this LR receiver claim because last time I saw Panzer said they were not installed on any vehicles.

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

Errata:

I'm no longer active in the armor community beyond being a casual observer, I'm still in the National Guard but we're in the process of going Strykers.  So keep in mind I'm very well informed on stuff Abrams circa 2007-2015 or so, but anything after or before that I'm about on par with the average well read dude.

When I hopped off an M1A2 SEP v2 for the last time in late 2014, it had no laser warning system mounted, nor was the equipment available for local installation.  As far as I can tell no laser warning system was fitted to our M2A3s, or M3A3s within the organization.  I do not recognize any of the sensor arrays Kettler posted as pieces of equipment I have seen installed on a US Army piece of equipment within my time in ABCTs.

What I do know is that the system exists as a concept, and the integration piece is pretty modest (or it could be done "ghetto" with externally mounted and lightly armored wiring conduits external with few hours and some enthusiasm, likely a week or so at depot for a legit completely within the main armor array mounting).  It fits right in with the APS as something the Army could do on a fairly short notice, and is less out there than a lot of other inclusions. 

Re: Abrams labels.

I've always used the lowercase v.  I'm on my drill weekend for the guard, but if this turns into a controversy I'll go into my stash of tanking memorabilia and dig out my boresighting checklists or something and see if it uses capitalization for the v.   If you want to sound cool, here's how the various models of Abrams are generally refered to:

M1: Almost never even mentioned circa my time in service, someone who used one as a brand new LT in Germany would have been nearing 20 years service when I first went on active duty.
M1IP: Same as above, generally though referred to as M1IP simply to keep it clear.
M1A1: Virtually all of them, regardless of M1A1HA, HC, AIMS, D, SA whatever are called either "M1A1" or just "A1s."  Generally the first question you got asked coming into an armor unit was if you were coming from A1s, or A2s, because the gunnery, and controls are different enough that A1 guys basically had to get a fast and furious train up on A2s.  In practice the various A1 designations meant little outside of what it said on the Technical Manual when conducting maintenance, and in practice, units had homogeneous fleets (so it wasn't like your platoon had two M1A1HAs, and then an M1A1 baseline and a M1A1HC, they were all one model).  
M1A2: M1A2 or just A2. The absolute base models were fairly uncommon outside of a few units.

M1A2 SEP: Almost always just the "SEP" as there's nothing else that carried the SEP designation in service.  
M1A2 SEP v2: SEP v2 (say it like "SEP vee2"), or less common, SEP vic 2.  v2 (again, vee2) was used sometimes too.  

More commonly given again, that if you were standing in a battalion footprint, 99,9% of the time every tank would be the same model, they were just referred to as "tanks," "Abrams," or "M1s" 

Bradleys were even simpler, almost always being called "Bradleys" or "Brads."  Sometimes when relevant they will be called as "ODS" (for the virtually 100% fleetwide upgrades received to the A2 for the Persian Gulf War) or A3s went relevant.  

No one says "TUSK" or "BUSK" unless it's in reference to the kits or parts of them (so no one will ever be like "LT, get up on your SEP TUSK and get going!"  but "Yeah we need some new seats for the troop bay on B12, it's got BUSK so use LIN 123456" would happen).  There was no special designation for ERA mounting outside of as part of the TUSK/BUSK kit, although the ARAT/BRAT is correct when referring to the armor elements themselves.  

I'm sure with the coming of the M1A2 SEP v3 or even an M1A3 on the horizon a lot of this is subject to change however.