Proof BMP-2s do fire ATGMs

[John Kettler]

Sublime,

Considering how much misery you've been through over BMP-2Ms and the Kornets as turret ornaments you've had to put up with, I'm thrilled for you! I hope your PBEM with IanL shows Kornets fire there, too. It is theoretically possible, I suppose, that you've simply had an extremely long run of bad die rolls, so to speak. It occurs to me, though, that there may be some glitch in your game, a problem which could be fixed with a game dump and complete reinstall. I had terrible problems some time back with CMBN, and nothing seemed to fix them. I was told the next thing to do was a complete reinstall, which I wasn't looking forward to because I had all the Modules and the Vehicle Pack. Fortunately, BFC by then had that wonderful Installer out, and what would've been a slog went quickly and pretty painlessly. And the great thing about CMBS is there's nothing else to deal with, just the game proper! I look forward to learning how your PBEM goes in terms of Kornets.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Sublime]

I would agree maybe its my copy of the game but then why did it auddenly start workinng and over 5 pljs kornet fires in one single qb? Noway i had bad dice rolls that many games. No way. I didnt get the setup to IanL but I will today ( busy with my son ) and we.ll see if they fire as well in real battle conditions and online.

 

But i will say that what i was harping on about people not realizinf what a diff bmp2ms that readily fired kornets could make -the battle i played 2ms got the drop on abrams first in 3 sep instances. One salvoed the other shot one then another quickly one shot once. All ko.d catastrophically the abrams. All were from frontal aspects. These are situations that at least in MY past in BS would have required a lot of luck and ambish tactics with t90s and atgm teams and i probably would have killed 2 abrams. In my test the abrams have tight covered arcs but going by basically if they spot the 2m and a kornets not on the way they were screwed they would have lost 3 out of 5 and i would have lost 2 and my remaining 3 in later turns killed the abrams. Interesting note : my test wasnt a lane it was a small map with both sides being given movement orders aome to ridges; some depressions, woods, etc. So i saw the forces blunder into eachother in a variety of ways.

Edited July 30, 2016 by Sublime

[A Canadian Cat]

14 hours ago, Sublime said:

Ok ill have a file in the db later ian when my.son falls asleep. We.ll play it out but im limiting.myself to 2 tanks rest bmp2ms and inf with 1 off board arty. All i ask is you get no.more than 4 abrams and 4 brads. Any amt up.to that is ok but also bring a plt of infantry and one off board. 

The real purpose is to see the 2m missile performance you.ll.be attacking in a probe.

Roger that, it's not a real fight. 

[Sublime]

No it is a real fight but the true purpose is to see if 2ms shoot their missiles. By all means its a real fight but u know how we usually do bigger battles etc

[A Canadian Cat]

OK - I'll use it for some experimentation of my own then - secret topic :-)

[Sublime]

Lol

[A Canadian Cat]

Let the fun begin!

[kraze]

Playing a Shadow of the Motherland campaign where there is a ton of BMP2s and some russian tanks and I haven't seen BMP2s use ATGM in 4 missions thus far preferring to fire their cannons at the tanks instead which ends bad...

Edited July 30, 2016 by kraze

[Sublime]

Well that anecdotal report doesnt bode well... but evidence needs to be given. It was given FOR 2ms firing.

[Sublime]

ugh this looks bad. several 2ms have exploded without even seeing US tanks. my one t90 has fired several times, no hits.

if I lose and its certainly looking like it'll be a disastrous loss Im curious if Ian would be interested in a rematch same force size just a large map this time to see if I place 2Ms at long long distance and try to ambush and also use keyholes if theyll do better. Whats interesting is it could be the fact theyre being  KOd to easy or there is a bug too early to tell, all I know is no kornets have been fired this time

[Kinophile]

Shouldn't you guys play with RUS outnumbering the US,  so that you have more opportunities for 2Ms firing? 

[antaress73]

I play the abrams with regular crews +1 leadership ... maybe that is helping. I also never fire at "intact" M1s. The laser on the BMP-2Ms kornets will trigger the laser warning, slew the turret in the BMPs direction and anything better than regular will spot the BMP-2ms and kill it before the Kornets hits.

[Sublime]

Kino in my case i simply did a test instead of lanes i used a qb map and had varying 2ms in exp morale etc. Avrams were fanatic small covered arcs. I did this to test if they inly fire kornets  in certain situarions or whatever  i was shocked bc in the past theyve pelted abrams with autocannon sometimes for a turn then are blown up. This time in my one test they were shooting kornets and quickly too. Sometimes salvoing.

So they fire. But why do they fire now? Its not for nothing that so many ppl not just me cudnt get them to fire until now..

[hattori]

Why do they fire now?  I'm not sure anyone did any real testing before, we were all saying, "I've never seen my 2M fire it's Kornets in a battle".  

In testing, I've gotten the 2Ms to salvo fire and destroy Abrams ... only if the Abrams has nowhere to reverse and hide, and if it has a short cover arc so it won't fire back.  Every other time, I trigger the laser warning in the Abrams and/or it spots the 2M and destroys it before the 2M can pop off one (and especially a salvo) Kornet.  Also frequently with the good American communications, a lot of times the Abrams are aware 'something' is in the area from other units spotting, and ready to quickly destroy.  I think that is the real issue.  The 2M has no chance of spotting and salvo firing on an Abrams before the Abrams will spot the 2M and destroy it.  Perhaps a platoon of 2Ms swarming one Abrams they might get some missiles off?

I'm also not sure anyone has done any good testing on the effects of trees or any other obstacles that could potentially be in the Kornet flight path -- which might force the 2Ms to use their cannons (in the software code)

[antaress73]

Well, I've made a few tests. All regulars crewed +1 leadership BMP-2Ms. Sometimes they first fire a few bursts from their auto-cannon, revealing themselves and getting killed quickly. Sometimes they fire their missiles. Is there a way to modify the behavior of the troops so they do NOT fire their auto-cannon when they have a weapon system available that can kill a tank  ? It is complicated actually. You can`t really program a tactical A.I that will react like a human do. There`s too many variables. If the missiles have a good chance to kill, they should use their missiles. If not, use auto-cannon while popping smoke and backing-off.But using auto-cannon when you have something that is much more likely to kill the target, it's just plain frustrating. Even the Bradleys should use their TOW-2Bs instead of the 25mm against russian tanks facing them frontally at range. But if they can hit the sides, they should use auto-cannon. Depends on the equipment. Maybe it should be related to experience level, so you can get more optimized decisions the more experienced the crew is. Should also be linked to the morale status. A rattled or panic or nervous crew should take less optimized decisions. I dont know if that`s possible.

 

[hattori]

I don't think it would be difficult to program.  The code would calculate odds to kill with cannon, and odds to kill with ATGM.  Whatever is higher, go with.  You could add a modifier based on experience to see if they actually select the correct choice.

[antaress73]

11 minutes ago, hattori said:

Why do they fire now?  I'm not sure anyone did any real testing before, we were all saying, "I've never seen my 2M fire it's Kornets in a battle".  

In testing, I've gotten the 2Ms to salvo fire and destroy Abrams ... only if the Abrams has nowhere to reverse and hide, and if it has a short cover arc so it won't fire back.  Every other time, I trigger the laser warning in the Abrams and/or it spots the 2M and destroys it before the 2M can pop off one (and especially a salvo) Kornet.  Also frequently with the good American communications, a lot of times the Abrams are aware 'something' is in the area from other units spotting, and ready to quickly destroy.  I think that is the real issue.  The 2M has no chance of spotting and salvo firing on an Abrams before the Abrams will spot the 2M and destroy it.  Perhaps a platoon of 2Ms swarming one Abrams they might get some missiles off?

I'm also not sure anyone has done any good testing on the effects of trees or any other obstacles that could potentially be in the Kornet flight path -- which might force the 2Ms to use their cannons (in the software code)

Attacking abrams that have all their bells and whistles intact is a bad idea unless you have many well hidden and distant kornet ATGMs launchers that can salvo launch from many different directions or a russian tank. The first part of the battle, you need to degrade their sub-systems, sacrificing a few units to achieve that. I find that AGS-30/17 grenade launchers, vanilla bmp-2s with 30mm auito-cannon, Tunguskas, Artillery (when Abrams are on defense) are pretty effective. Cheap KOrnets atgm crews , even if they do not kill the Abrams, will severely degrade their sub-systems with non-penetrating hits (with the bonus if getting a chance of killing it outright from any aspect). Same as precision arty. THEN you hit them with your tank reserve which should destroy the Abrams with minimal losses to themselves. You must split and isolate the abrams from the Brads and infantry. Or simply kill the brads first with AT-13s and scatter the infantry with Airburst artillery. Playing the russians are a challenge

Edited August 30, 2016 by antaress73

[Sublime]

4 hours ago, hattori said:

Why do they fire now?  I'm not sure anyone did any real testing before, we were all saying, "I've never seen my 2M fire it's Kornets in a battle".  

In testing, I've gotten the 2Ms to salvo fire and destroy Abrams ... only if the Abrams has nowhere to reverse and hide, and if it has a short cover arc so it won't fire back.  Every other time, I trigger the laser warning in the Abrams and/or it spots the 2M and destroys it before the 2M can pop off one (and especially a salvo) Kornet.  Also frequently with the good American communications, a lot of times the Abrams are aware 'something' is in the area from other units spotting, and ready to quickly destroy.  I think that is the real issue.  The 2M has no chance of spotting and salvo firing on an Abrams before the Abrams will spot the 2M and destroy it.  Perhaps a platoon of 2Ms swarming one Abrams they might get some missiles off?

I'm also not sure anyone has done any good testing on the effects of trees or any other obstacles that could potentially be in the Kornet flight path -- which might force the 2Ms to use their cannons (in the software code)

No actually someone did do a test which resulted in 2ms not firing. It was a couple mnths ago and shudnt be hard to find.

 

However subsequent tests showed they did hence my question. In fact antaress im sure would back me up on this that he basically is the only person whose reported 2ms firing since the beginning.  Im sure he remembers me and others endlessly complaining about it hattori.

Edited August 30, 2016 by Sublime

[antaress73]

2 hours ago, Sublime said:

No actually someone did do a test which resulted in 2ms not firing. It was a couple mnths ago and shudnt be hard to find.

 

However subsequent tests showed they did hence my question. In fact antaress im sure would back me up on this that he basically is the only person whose reported 2ms firing since the beginning.  Im sure he remembers me and others endlessly complaining about it hattori.

yup !

[Sublime]

Thanks buddy

[hattori]

Well, Antaress kinda makes my point.  If Antaress was seeing 2Ms firing from the beginning, then they obviously always could.  It would seem the test that was done was flawed then if it showed they were not firing.

I see in the 1.03 patch notes, "IFVs (such as BMPs or Bradleys) are now better at choosing the optimal weapon system for engaging enemy IFVs. In most cases this means that they will favor immediate use of autocannons over ATGMs."  This means they've actually toned down how often 2Ms try to launch their Kornets -- perhaps this is where things really started to take off that 2Ms just wouldn't fire Kornets.

I think Antaress also did a test recently that showed that BMPs spot much, much faster if you keep a 2 man scout team mounted inside?  Perhaps all your 2Ms are completely dismounted, and you are constantly losing the spotting -> aim -> fire -> kill race.

[Sublime]

No its been known since release that 2ms and 3s if you add a scout team or another member of any sort somehow he takes the cmdrs spot and then the better visual equipment gets used.

Im not exactly new here man..

 

 

Yes Antaress' fired. But lots of other ppl had the same problems as me. I only did one test against AI. Im not sure if its ever been tested against a human and Id be interested if that.d change things as I dont play SP almost at all.

Edited September 2, 2016 by Sublime

[hattori]

I didn't point it out to ask if you knew about keeping a team in the BMP -- you post on here a ton, I would be shocked if you didn't.  I said it because I can't recall in any post or DAR that you regularly kept teams in your BMPs to improve spotting -- knowing and doing are two different things.  Remember, we are looking for reasons why you  (well, me included) are having such crappy ATGM firing luck.  Your implication seems to be there is a bug in the code, mine is that there isn't, and that there are other good reasons your ATGMs might not be firing.

If you recall, I also had the same problems as you.  I also said, "I can never get my 2Ms to fire their Kornets in battle".  Then I ran some tests, and realized, yes, provided nothing is firing back, they will dual launch.  I've repeatedly done it.

I personally would be absolutely shocked if testing in another game mode showed any other result.  I've done a ton of coding, and there is no way I would NOT have the exact same game engine for all game modes if I were the development team.  Feel free to check it out, but I would guess that would be a waste of time.

[Sublime]

Well i cant get anyone to do any evven one or two turns to test. 

However now you mention it i think youre absolutely right. Mine fired at abrams with tight arcs and fanatic crews so they wouldnt shoot back. Ive never seen one  shoot when getting shot back at.

 

I dont think I specifically mentioned it in any DARs I made but then again I prolly did at some point during the setup. See the incomplete combined arms attack me and jammer never finished. I explaoned my motives fairly thoroughly. And usually Id put igla cmdrs, igla teams etc in their they fit perfect...

Barring that split some of those hq admin squads from mortar batteries or somefink.

I never ride my troops mounted. Especially with the javelin of death. Its unfortunate jammer never finished i was about to roll his flank up. He gave me a real hard time with what i suspect was just crunchies. If your expecting abrams you proceed cautiously with at least several tanks and atgms able to return fire at once. If u do so however amd the enemy is loaded with javs youre making it easy.

Battle was notable for one t90A that took 9 excalibur strikes on it (think 7 actually struck) with minimal damage besides.m kill