RPG accuracy - place your bets!

[Bufo]

1 hour ago, Lethaface said:

Not necessarily. Are you talking about RL or ingame? 

Do you realize that if a chance for something is 50% than it doesn't matter how many times you run it, it will remain 50%?

For example in roulette the chance for red isn't higher if you just had a black number.

Although in RL the operator might learn to aim a bit lower or higher. But between reloading and the rocket standard inaccuracy not sure how much that would mean. 

In game I don't know if chance gets bigger.

But what's your point anyway? you haven't made one.

I am talking about RL, since You were the one linking a RL document about chances to hit.

And this game claims to simulate the real world, hence this entire discussion.

Edited September 28, 2021 by Bufo

[Muzzleflash1990]

In-game tankers also brackets for range right? If a gunner shoots high, the next shot will have a tendency to be lower and vice versa until on target, at which point natural shot dispersion decides the rest. So, I don't think it is unreasonable to assume a similar thing is done for RPG shooters.

[Lethaface]

1 hour ago, Bufo said:

I am talking about RL, since You were the one linking a RL document about chances to hit.

And this game claims to simulate the real world, hence this entire discussion.

I didn't provide any document I guess you mistake me for someone else.

But your point is that RPG are not accurate enough?

[Sgt Joch]

2 hours ago, Bufo said:

I am talking about RL, since You were the one linking a RL document about chances to hit.

And this game claims to simulate the real world, hence this entire discussion.

Well, you are picking ONE outlier event which means it is worthless as an exercise in predicting game outcome.

I have also seen instances where the same type of AT weapon scores a kill on the 1st hit, which is just as meaningless.

If you really want to see if there is a problem, do what we do, setup a test scenario with 50-100 shooters trying to hit a stationary target at 225 meters, then come back with the results and we can see if the accuracy needs to be tweaked.

[Bufo]

1 hour ago, Lethaface said:

I didn't provide any document I guess you mistake me for someone else.

But your point is that RPG are not accurate enough?

Ah it really wasn't you, sorry for that.

My point is this was very frustrating. Also, not so much realistic.

[Bufo]

19 minutes ago, Sgt Joch said:

Well, you are picking ONE outlier event which means it is worthless as an exercise in predicting game outcome.

I have also seen instances where the same type of AT weapon scores a kill on the 1st hit, which is just as meaningless.

If you really want to see if there is a problem, do what we do, setup a test scenario with 50-100 shooters trying to hit a stationary target at 225 meters, then come back with the results and we can see if the accuracy needs to be tweaked.

There you go, clearly the situation I had was absolutely correct and realistic, me only being a bad guy here. Move along, nothing happened.

[Artkin]

Damn 11 shots. That's a lot. It makes sense since the gunner is trying to aim low for something that immediately bows upward after firing.

The RPG teams are so useless. I had one fire 5-7 grenades into a barn wall with infantry on the other side of it. I didn't even kill one, nor knock a hole through that wall. The enemy were so suppressed after two turns of punishment that my men walked right up to them and blew their faces off.

Give the rpg teams some love BFC!

[chuckdyke]

Does anybody test this: Manual Plotting vs Letting the TacAI do his thing. I go by the latter just check the LOF and point my unit in the right direction. I think it works better than to click the mouse one time too many. 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

5 hours ago, Bufo said:

You realize the chance to hit goes up with every shot, right?

This is correct, the RPG gunner should get the range after a shot or two and adjust his aim accordingly, especially if he remains undisturbed.

5 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Not really there is a math formula for this. Like the lotto each ticket has a 1 in 100000 chance. 

That's the Monte Carlo or Gambler's Fallacy, but it doesn't apply here.

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Double post, sorry! 

Edited September 28, 2021 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Lethaface]

23 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

This is correct, the RPG gunner should get the range after a shot or two and adjust his aim accordingly, especially if he remains undisturbed.

But in between shots he will have to reload and thus 'lose' the aim. Depending how much zoom the RPG optic has, determines whether there is any improvement after one or two ranging shots. Also, depending on the accuracy at a given distance there might be more offset from the rocket inaccuracy than the ranging increment will make.

Anyway, for in game I don't know if it's modelled that after each shot it will get more accurate. 

1 hour ago, Bufo said:

Ah it really wasn't you, sorry for that.

My point is this was very frustrating. Also, not so much realistic.

No worries. Frustrating: I understand  
 

1 hour ago, Bufo said:

There you go, clearly the situation I had was absolutely correct and realistic, me only being a bad guy here. Move along, nothing happened.

I don't think that is what anybody is saying. 

However, chance can be a frustrating thing. Especially when the chance is close to 50%. You expect to have 'it' happen once in every two events. But if your unlucky it might not happen in 20 events, or heck 1000 events. Now the chance for the latter is quite low, but there is a chance.

So, if you have frustrating bad luck once that doesn't mean it happens often.

Also, it is not per se unrealistic. Let's say if that document is correct and after one ranging shot the chance is 70% to hit. Let's also assume the chance stays 70% after that. I forgot the formula but it's quite a small chance that you won't hit with 10 shots at 70%, but still a chance. 

So if it happens a lot it is a problem and unrealistic. If it happens only once it's just a small chance.

What did you expect? Is any occurrence of a rare event per definition unrealistic and therefore a problem? 

If I'm honest it seems you are reacting from frustration and not from ratio. 

Edited September 28, 2021 by Lethaface

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Just now, Lethaface said:

But in between shots he will have to reload and thus 'lose' the aim.

He won't lose the range setting he dialled into the sight.....With each shot he should get a better indication of the distance.

[Lethaface]

2 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

He won't lose the range setting he dialled into the sight.....With each shot he should get a better indication of the distance.

Even if he'd zero'ed the range accurately,  he still has to put the crosshairs at exact the same spot. I don't know how big the target picture would be on the standard RPG-7 optic. Than there is wind to factor in, etc.

Edited September 28, 2021 by Lethaface

[Lethaface]

3 hours ago, Muzzleflash1990 said:

In-game tankers also brackets for range right? If a gunner shoots high, the next shot will have a tendency to be lower and vice versa until on target, at which point natural shot dispersion decides the rest. So, I don't think it is unreasonable to assume a similar thing is done for RPG shooters.

Well tanks have a stabilizer, ballistic computer and computerized barrel adjustments pairing with optics, etc. 
So, the tank will be able to know exactly where the crosshair was when he fired the last round. A person is not (AFAIK).

[Sgt.Squarehead]

10 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Even if he'd zero'ed the range accurately,  he still has to put the crosshairs at exact the same spot.

 He's a regular and a RPG gunner.....That's his job! 

10 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

I don't know how big the target picture would be on the standard RPG-7 optic.

These give us some idea (from a game obviously):

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by Sgt.Squarehead

[chuckdyke]

8 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

He's a regular and a RPG gunner.....That's his job!

There is a thing called 'stress fire'. 

[Centurian52]

5 hours ago, Lethaface said:

Do you realize that if a chance for something is 50% than it doesn't matter how many times you run it, it will remain 50%?

The probability only remains static for events that are independent of each other. Die rolls are independent events because there is no way for the first roll to influence the second roll, and so on. So the probability of rolling a nat 20 on a d20 will always be 5%, each and every time. But shots fired by an intelligent gunner are not independent events. The gunner may lose his sight picture when he reloads, but he still knows he was low or high, or too far to the left or right, and that is going to influence how he aims the next shot, changing the probability of a hit.

Anyway, if I haven't already skimmed over the answer, my bet is a hit on the second shot.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

6 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

Anyway, if I haven't already skimmed over the answer, my bet is a hit on the second shot.

You did and you were nine out.....Hence the comments! 

[Lethaface]

24 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

 He's a regular and a RPG gunner.....That's his job! 

These give us some idea (from a game obviously):

 

If that's any indication, I'd say that the margin for aiming errors is rather low even at 200m

8 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

The probability only remains static for events that are independent of each other. Die rolls are independent events because there is no way for the first roll to influence the second roll, and so on. So the probability of rolling a nat 20 on a d20 will always be 5%, each and every time. But shots fired by an intelligent gunner are not independent events. The gunner may lose his sight picture when he reloads, but he still knows he was low or high, or too far to the left or right, and that is going to influence how he aims the next shot, changing the probability of a hit.

Yeah I could have phrased that clearer probably. What doesn't help is that my statistics lecture was all in Dutch. 

Anyway I'm not sure whether the game deals with subsequent RPG shots at the same target as independent events or not. Also, the chance of the rocket actually hitting what the crosshair is aimed at IS an independent event for each rocket fired. Given the inaccuracy of RPG rockets, that's a significant part of the chance of hitting. 

And finally, human error / variance will offset part of the information he gets from ranging the shot.

If you fire a glock at 25yards you'll notice how pressing the trigger and our natural body movement can already influence a 'grouping'. Let alone when firing a RPG.

Anyway I guess I've made my point 

 

[Sgt Joch]

The game does take into account shooters adjusting fire on subsequent shots, tanks do it all the time in game.

Edited September 28, 2021 by Sgt Joch

[Redwolf]

1 hour ago, Sgt Joch said:

The game does take into account shooters adjusting fire on subsequent shots, tanks do it all the time in game.

Yes, but I don't think we have confirmation either way that this applies to infantry (not counting towed guns).

[The_Capt]

Ok, typical grogs, all standing around arguing.  Ran a short test scenario (see attached).  Setup is best attempt to re-create conditions described by OP.  Ran the test 10 times and got the following results:

Test

1 - 2 shots until a kill

2 - 1 shot kill

3 - 3 misses and the Bradley killed the team

4 - 1 shot kill

5 - 5 misses and Bradley killed the team

6 - 1 shot kill

7 - 1 shot kill (Bradley managed to kill the team at the same time)

8 - 2 misses and Bradley killed the team

9 - 2 shot kill

10 - 3 shot kill

So in 10 engagements we saw a 70% success rate (i.e. Bradley killed) with about 1.5 shots per kill.  So what?  RPGs not too bad at 225-ish ms at least according to these conditions.

RPGTest.btt

[Sgt Joch]

so, according to this 1976 U.S. Army document, hit probability of a RPG-7 against a Hull down M-60 at 225 meters is as follows:

- 1st shot 15%

-2nd shot 30% 

/tardir/tiffs/a393159.tiff (dtic.mil)

see pages 15-16.

That more or less matches the test results by Capt.

[The_Capt]

21 minutes ago, Sgt Joch said:

so, according to this 1976 U.S. Army document, hit probability of a RPG-7 against a Hull down M-60 at 225 meters is as follows:

- 1st shot 15%

-2nd shot 30% 

/tardir/tiffs/a393159.tiff (dtic.mil)

see pages 15-16.

That more or less matches the test results by Capt.

Yep, pretty close.  Looks like OP had a pretty bad run (what was the wind in that scenario btw?) but I am not sure the one test I ran with 5 misses would not have gone the same way.

[The_Capt]

Ran a second test but turned the wind way up (Heavy) and it definitely makes a difference:

Test

1 - 5 misses, no kill

2 - 4 shot kill

3 - 3 shot kill

4 - 2 shot kill

5 - 5 misses, no kill

6 - 2 shot kill

7 - 3 shot kill

8 - 3 shot kill

9 - 2 shot kill

10 - 1 shot kill

So again about an 80% success rate but a lot more shot taken.  Average shots per kill went up to 2.5 shots per kill, which in-game means nearly twice as long, which is an eternity for that RPG team if they get spotted by enemy supporting units.  For the OP, how did you manage to get 11 RPG rounds on a team, did they go back to an APC and reload?