BTR-4E Armament

[markus544]

I was trying to locate the BTR vehicle that has the 30mm cannon and the 30mm grenade launcher as well.  I thought that the grenade launcher was coaxial with the main gun, I can't seem to locate it in the Ukrainian inventory, or am I dreaming?

[Pete Wenman]

@markus544 Just to check are you unable to find the BTR-4E or do you mean that those you can find don't have the AGS-17 ?

P

[markus544]

Yeah I can find the BTR-4E...no problem there, just the one with the attached grenade launcher on the vehicle itself, not the troop units inside.

[Pete Wenman]

9 minutes ago, markus544 said:

Yeah I can find the BTR-4E...no problem there, just the one with the attached grenade launcher on the vehicle itself, not the troop units inside.

In that case they all have the AGS, but getting it to fire is more tricky. It looks like the 30mm cannon fires 30mm HE-1 and the AGS  (30mm HE) will not be used until the cannon has used its HE-1 up.

HTH

P

[Kinophile]

Actually - I'm playing testing a scenario right now with lots of BTR4Es (I love em) and I find the AGS fires intermittently when there is still HE, then more often when the 30mm is gone. 

It seems to fire AGS when reloading the 30mm, especially if it's set to target (not briefly target). Ie it keeps up the suppression until the 30mm comes available again, then switches back to that. 

One thing I've noticed is that it can waste APDS on structure fires rather than using the GL, wasting valuable, vehicle specific ammo on a non vehicle target. 

I'm hesitant to call this a bug, I haven't properly tested it.

But I have used that tendency to nail troops in a structure behind my actual targeted structure (as the rounds go right through, like poop through a goose).

Edited February 20, 2018 by kinophile

[Pete Wenman]

5 minutes ago, kinophile said:

One thing I've noticed is that it can waste APDS on structure fires rather than using the GL, wasting valuable, vehicle specific ammo on a non vehicle target. 

That's interesting as I'm testing things here also. I'm targeting trees and empty buildings (3 storey modular) and no APDS rounds have been used even when the cannon has expended all its HE.

It's also interesting that the cannon has to pause firing when its own smoke blocks LOS, while the AGS does not create any smoke and so not have this problem. The AGS however has a massive beaten zone. More control over multiple weapons would be nice, but I suspect no time soon.

P

Edited February 20, 2018 by Pete Wenman

[Haiduk]

17 minutes ago, kinophile said:

One thing I've noticed is that it can waste APDS on structure fires rather than using the GL,

In real world VOG-17 grenades too weak to inflict appropriate damage to troops, covered in structures (if you will not throw grenade directly in the window of course), so naturally it uses the gun, which easy crashes brick walls and even concrete roadblocks, which set as fortified checkpoint. 

Edited February 20, 2018 by Haiduk

[Kinophile]

Yah, in game structures don't seem to be as resilient as in RL. Often it seems like concrete structures collapse a little too quickly. But then again, Mosul.... 

[Kinophile]

17 minutes ago, Pete Wenman said:

That's interesting as I'm testing things here also. I'm targeting trees and empty buildings (3 storey modular) and no APDS rounds have been used even when the cannon has expended all its HE.

It's also interesting that the cannon has to pause firing when its own smoke blocks LOS, while the AGS does not create any smoke and so not have this problem. The AGS however has a massive beaten zone. More control over multiple weapons would be nice, but I suspect no time soon.

P

Yah, I've long been an advocate for vehicle ATGM control, treating it as an option like Light Fire (ie control can be taken over with a button press, otherwise AI remains in control).

[markus544]

So it seems that this vehicle has this capability but it is used in a way that is not particularly selective.  It depends on the amount of expended ammo from the main gun.   Am I wrong about this or what.    I think based upon my experience with this game that this vehicle is devastating in the 30mm cannon alone, but the grenade launcher is a anti personnel suppressing capability that is quite impressive.

[Kozlice]

Do you guys know what kind of logic is behind AI's choice of APFSDS or HEAT rounds on ru/ukr MBT's? 

[markus544]

Not especially, a choice was which type of round to be employed would be a nice thing to have.

[MOS:96B2P]

23 hours ago, Pete Wenman said:

It's also interesting that the cannon has to pause firing when its own smoke blocks LOS

This.  This is what made me do some testing and realize that the effect of smoke was changed in the game with 4.0.  At one time you could work around this by giving the vehicle/team a Target order and it would continue to fire through the smoke after the smoke blocked the LOF.   If you removed the Target order while the smoke was still blocking LOF  you would not be able to reestablish the order until the smoke cleared.  But prior to 4.0 it was a work around.  There was a thread discussing the 4.0 smoke behavior.  The link is below.    

 

 

[Splinty]

On 2/20/2018 at 1:15 PM, kinophile said:

Yah, in game structures don't seem to be as resilient as in RL. Often it seems like concrete structures collapse a little too quickly. But then again, Mosul.... 

Bear in mind that Middle Eastern construction isn't as resilient as it's western counterparts. Sand isn't a very good aggregate for concrete.