Does Soviet tactics work in Combat Mission?

[BFCElvis]

1 hour ago, Artkin said:

This has also been an issue for years with the M1 taking tons of direct hits from big ordinance. There IS an issue with artillery. There is no need to have a pretentious snob here telling us what's up. Precision munition doesn't kill tanks. That is a big problem. 

There's no call for name calling and getting personal. OK? 

[Artkin]

Abrams #2:

Abrams #1:

Abrams #4:

 

I had four tanks lined up, each taking 3x excaliber rounds per salvo. All of these tanks should have been outright destroyed. Tank #4 didn't even take any subsystem damage.

 

Abrams #3:

Shell lands right under the smoke discharger and nothing changes on the subsystems. Then a second round lands just behind it and the discharger is a little more broken. It, and the tank should have been outright destroyed.

Abrams #4:

Shells land on top, behind, and in front of vehicle and do minimal subsystem damage.

Abrams #2:

Takes shell to the top, side and behind. Should have been killed.

Abrams #1:

Should have been killed after the first two salvos.

 

[slysniper]

Artkin, it helps if you are as clear as possible.  I am not even sure which game you are running your test from.

But I did do a test in CMBS with the Latest M1 with APS and ran the precision strikes from both 122 and 152 howitzers

and found you are correct in that a direct hit is not creating a kill, normally just substantial damage.

If the strikes are not direct hits, then as reported here, there appears no subsystem damage at all except for tracks.

 

Now that result, does seem unlikely. I would also expect a possible kill.

But is there a source as to what the likely sucess of such rounds should be vs the M1 top armor. I would assume pretty good, but maybe not. What is the results the game should be matching.

[Artkin]

14 minutes ago, slysniper said:

Artkin, it helps if you are as clear as possible.  I am not even sure which game you are running your test from.

But I did do a test in CMBS with the Latest M1 with APS and ran the precision strikes from both 122 and 152 howitzers

and found you are correct in that a direct hit is not creating a kill, normally just substantial damage.

If the strikes are not direct hits, then as reported here, there appears no subsystem damage at all except for tracks.

 

Now that result, does seem unlikely. I would also expect a possible kill.

But is there a source as to what the likely sucess of such rounds should be vs the M1 top armor. I would assume pretty good, but maybe not. What is the results the game should be matching.

It was CMBS, where the effects of artillery not doing damage is the most obvious. I will try it in CMCW next. 

I just tried it again T-64BV, and direct hits kill. They penetrate to kill though, unlike the Abrams where the 155 do not penetrate the top. Near miss hits sometimes do subsystem damage, but not always. 

Just tried T90AM, and same result. Broken tracks, no subsystem damage at all from salvos of 3 PGMs. 

Edited January 25, 2022 by Artkin

[SergeantSqook]

10 minutes ago, Artkin said:

I just tried it again T-64BV, and direct hits kill. They penetrate to kill though, unlike the Abrams where the 155 do not penetrate the top.

Okay? The Abrams is a subtantially stronger tank than a T-64BV, this doesn't seem particularly strange.

[slysniper]

I never noticed an issue in CMBS, but I am sure most of my results were from use against Russian units with US arty.

Which taught me to use 3 rounds minimun to get a likely hit and kill.

 

Not having many chances to hit M1's with precision's rounds, in normal play, not getting a kill might not been too surprising, but seeing it now as programmed as not being possible seems likely incorrect. but not knowing what correct is also a factor here.

 

[sid_burn]

1 minute ago, SergeantSqook said:

Okay? The Abrams is a subtantially stronger tank than a T-64BV, this doesn't seem particularly strange.

Source for this claim?

[Rinaldi]

3 minutes ago, SergeantSqook said:

Okay? The Abrams is a subtantially stronger tank than a T-64BV, this doesn't seem particularly strange.

Going to require a source on that. 

[SergeantSqook]

3 minutes ago, sid_burn said:

Source for this claim?

 

1 minute ago, Rinaldi said:

Going to require a source on that. 

My balls

[Redwolf]

Well, we are now looking at two different issues:

1) outright killing a tank with direct hits (this page)

2) Pelican Pal's findings that near misses never cause subsystem damage other than tracks

I find #2 much more interesting. Maybe there can be an engine 5 fix for it. PP has made an excellent argument and analysis.

 

 

[Artkin]

33 minutes ago, slysniper said:

Not having many chances to hit M1's with precision's rounds, in normal play, not getting a kill might not been too surprising, but seeing it now as programmed as not being possible seems likely incorrect. but not knowing what correct is also a factor here.

 

Yeah I can't see anyone having a source for this in the next 30 years. But 155's should absolutely crucify an Abrams. The hits on the blast doors would definitely wipe them out. At the very least temporarily disable crew function for a few seconds. I can't imagine it being a pleasant experience.

And there is clearly a problem with tanks not taking subsystem damage from near hits. I used CMBS for my first tests since the vehicles are littered with components. As opposed to something like the T62, which handles .50 cal rounds to the subsystems better than any other tank I've ever used.

[slysniper]

I am looking at both issues and so far I can find both are correct in what they are seeing and reporting.

So issue two was stated as being reported, if so, I will add additional notes and files that show subsystems not being affected by near misses. (Its a no brainer that there should be damage done in such an event) presently its pretty clear that is not is happening in the game.

Issue one is about M1 tanks not being killed by a direct hit.

I just finished a second test in CMSF THAT PROVES BRITSH 155 ARTY ROUNDS ALSO WILL NOT KILL A M1 with a direct hit from that game.  So it appears the M1 is one tough mother or maybe the assigned programming is a little over estimated.

[Artkin]

3 minutes ago, slysniper said:

I am looking at both issues and so far I can find both are correct in what they are seeing and reporting.

So issue two was stated as being reported, if so, I will add additional notes and files that show subsystems not being affected by near misses. (Its a no brainer that there should be damage done in such an event) presently its pretty clear that is not is happening in the game.

Issue one is about M1 tanks not being killed by a direct hit.

I just finished a second test in CMSF THAT PROVES BRITSH 155 ARTY ROUNDS ALSO WILL NOT KILL A M1 with a direct hit from that game.  So it appears the M1 is one tough mother or maybe the assigned programming is a little over estimated.

Thank you!!!

[slysniper]

CMSF does not have precision rounds for the Syrian forces or the Germans.

But the British round was designed for armor and still did not do the job.

I am going to try one more thing, going back to cmbs and use a US round on the M1, see if it has a different result 

[Redwolf]

According to CMx1 a 152mm Soviet WW2 round has armor penetration of 74mm at zero degrees. I think we can rule out that the top of the Abrams is that thick.

[slysniper]

Well, It does not answer the question, but it is a clue as to how the game is programmed. 

I ran US Precision rounds against the M1 and even they had a result of not likely achieving a kill but Yes, a US round managed a kill. So its odds appear to be 20-25% chance.

So what does that prove to me, that whatever they have the top armor programmed at, it is defeating the other rounds.

I would assume the US 155 round has a better penetrating factor over the Russian 152 round. Now if the US round is barely managing it, then the Russian round odds would be slimmer than that.

Maybe there is a slight chance for a kill, but it might be snake eyes type odds.

 

But running this test I do see the other issue as clear, not (1) 155 near miss has done anything other than track damage.

 

Personnally, any direct hit does plenty of damage to the tank, so a kill might not be a major issue in many events. but I agree, it seems to be the odds are unrealistic, but that is to my assumed understanding of the forces involved and that I would expect more damage and maybe the crew to leave. 

I can at least bring the point up and let them decide if they have the correct data they want in the game

Edited January 25, 2022 by slysniper

[Artkin]

I had actually never had an M1 killed after 6 or so hits to the tops of them. Looks like the odds were against me for that. I've also seen it worse in other threads which is why I immediately thought of the M1A2.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

7 hours ago, IanL said:

Thank you for clarifying.

Also thanks to @The_Capt for asking the right questions and for other testers to confirm that this was logged recently as a problem. So, it turns out this *is* on the list to be looked at.

WooYay! 

We got there in the end. 

[The_Capt]

I am not convinced a 155mm HE round would “totally destroy” an M1 even with a hit on the top (a HEAT round being a different story of course). 155mm HE is not designed to penetrate armour so a delay time fuse might just have the round break up, a point detonated fuse is going to splash the tank but again likely not penetrate and an air burst will also splash but may not penetrate.

Blast is definitely an issue but those beasts can absorb a lot, IEDs showed us that.  But all that said, I do agree that a PGM 155 HE should be doing external damage.  The gun, optics and stabilizers are all likely to see damage on a point blank hit. A hit on the ground right adjacent to the tank should definitely hammer the tracks.  

Edited January 25, 2022 by The_Capt

[Sgt.Squarehead]

3 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I am not convinced a 155mm HE round would “totally destroy” an M1 even with a hit on the top (a HEAT round being a different story of course).

Maybe not as a matter of course, but I strongly suspect that it is possible.....That the US went to great efforts to conceal actual Abrams losses to IEDs & other weapons while they were deployed in Iraq is a matter of record.

[Artkin]

I think a clean slate of solid undercarriage armor would act entirely differently than a swiveling turret (with numerous components) on a ring. Look how simple it was for armored vehicles to gain IED protection by just altering the shape of the hull into a V shape. There is no chance a blast door will hold up to 155mm hitting it.

[Bufo]

Remember that the top armor is the weakest on all MBTs.

Some related simulations:

155mm M107 vs Leopard 1 hull top (30mm)

 

152.4mm F-534 HE vs RU251 armor (20mm thick)

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

1 hour ago, Bufo said:

Remember that the top armor is the weakest on all MBTs.

Some related simulations:

155mm M107 vs Leopard 1 hull top (30mm)

 

152.4mm F-534 HE vs RU251 armor (20mm thick)

 

Those are truly beautiful. 

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, Bufo said:

Remember that the top armor is the weakest on all MBTs.

Some related simulations:

155mm M107 vs Leopard 1 hull top (30mm)

 

152.4mm F-534 HE vs RU251 armor (20mm thick)

 

Ok, so these videos pretty much seal it as far as I am concerned and confirm what I suspected.  So for CMCW (CMBS is another matter but they are on the same engine so I am sure it will have impact):

- Right Tool for the Job.  So in both these videos I see that 1) these HE shells are at ridiculously low angles of attack, well outside what is reasonable for indirect fire, 2) they are optimized for what HE is designed to do and that is cause blast and frag damage 90 degrees from the nose of the shell, and 3) they can barely penetrate 20mm of what I am assuming is straight steel (not composite) and does not penetrate 70mm of hull steel (kinda hard to tell as it is a cut away test).  Even in PGMs HE munitions like Excalibur are designed for precision strikes on fixed targets, not tanks, that is why they use GPS and inertial guidance.  For moving targets you need something like a Copperhead which has a HEAT warhead or any number of those types of munitions.

- The Hollywood myth.  Big booms and light are actually a highly inefficient method of kinetic force. This is why it took ridiculous amounts of energy to kill vehicles with IEDs.  That big boom is wasted energy and why shaped charges were invented.  A 155mm HE round coming in at a high angle of attack, say higher than 45 degrees is going to blow off most of its energy into the air at something like R³ bleed off.  Fragmentation is going to splash off the roof or hull, you can actually see it in the first video.  It is possible for a 155mm to crack open an M1A2?  Sure, but the odds are likely so small that modeling that feature in game is a waste of time, may as well add lightening strikes and shark attacks.  I get that a lot of people think Big Boom = Instant Death, and for APCs and lighter skinned vehicles (like human beings) there is truth to that but for a tank, which is specifically designed to counter metal moving at it faster than the speed of sound...not so much.

- What is the Problem?  Since we built and shipped CMCW, I have learned that the process of finding an actual problem is not a simple or straight line.  We wind up with a lot of opinion, even our own, anecdotal experiences (often our own) and often contradictory evidence.  Rarely do we ever get a definitive study that put the entire thing to bed.  So what we wind up doing is navigating an observation and narrowing it down to some core issue that is far less dramatic than people think.  So what I think is happening here, and we are going to follow up on, is that fragmentation and blast HE damage on external sub-systems is a little anemic. This does not mean that "Artillery is fundamentally broken!!" or any other hyperbole, it means we should probably be seeing a bit more secondary damage to things like gun systems and tracks.  My sense, based on studies we could source, is that cluster munitions are about right.  If you do tests with US DPICM you see a lot more sub-system damage, which makes sense.  HE should be doing less than DPICM but more than it is doing now, on tanks in particular.

So we are talking a tweak here, if you are looking for tanks exploding into fireballs when hit by HE, go play "War Duty, Medals of Thunder - RTS version...clickity, click-fest".  There are numerous titles out there that will fill a deep seated explosion/chaos lust...go ahead, we will still be here and it will not hurt our feelings. 

We will take this back for review and see what makes sense; I make no promises but we are reviewing it. 

Finally, I did notice someone concerned about an artillery tweak effecting play balance, well it might but in CMCW we did not build for play balance when it came to artillery, or anything else really.  We started with what doctrine tells us X unit should have and then added or subtracted for context.  We did really not test the scenarios and campaigns and add or subtract support assets based solely on balance.  For example, if you play the Soviet campaign, you should see what an MRB should expect as support assets for an MRB on the offence (giver or take).  Air assets are probably where we had the most swing as they are not doctrinal but there we almost always used operational context to determine that equation.  So what? Well whatever changes, if any, with HE artillery vs armored vehicles it may result in changes to balance, but remember those changes will effect both sides.  So it is more likely that we will simply see a more lethal battlefield for all parties.  We would not go in and change scenarios and campaigns at this point because the underlying doctrinal-based design has not really changed. 

Anyway, thanks for the feedback and hopefully we can see some tweaks, particularly with the v5 engine coming out.

 

 

[A Canadian Cat]

17 hours ago, slysniper said:

I would assume the US 155 round has a better penetrating factor over the Russian 152 round. Now if the US round is barely managing it, then the Russian round odds would be slimmer than that.

Maybe there is a slight chance for a kill, but it might be snake eyes type odds.

I have had M1s KO'ed in Black Sea from precision Russian 155mm shells. I did not do a precise test to determine odds - I as just making sure it could happen. And it does. Which is why people saying that artillery never kills tanks became uninteresting to me. I saw it happen regularly and didn't think the numbers were our of line with expectations.

 

17 hours ago, slysniper said:

Personnally, any direct hit does plenty of damage to the tank, so a kill might not be a major issue in many events.

This too. Hits do cause sub system damage.

 

17 hours ago, slysniper said:

but I agree, it seems to be the odds are unrealistic, but that is to my assumed understanding of the forces involved and that I would expect more damage and maybe the crew to leave. 

I can at least bring the point up and let them decide if they have the correct data they want in the game

Yep, phrased as "hey shouldn't external systems suffer more from near misses" is a lot different from artillery is broken.

 

Snipping all of @The_Capt's excellent analysis.

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So we are talking a tweak here,<snip>

We will take this back for review and see what makes sense; I make no promises but we are reviewing it. 

Expectation setting is important.

 

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Finally, I did notice someone concerned about an artillery tweak effecting play balance, well it might but in CMCW we did not build for play balance when it came to artillery, or anything else really.  We started with what doctrine tells us X unit should have and then added or subtracted for context.  We did really not test the scenarios and campaigns and add or subtract support assets based solely on balance. 

This is important too. CM has always been about giving the vehicles and systems the properties as close as they can to reality. It's never been about creating a balance of equipment. Scenario designers tweak various things especially scoring to give both sides a chance to win the scenario.

If your favourite vehicle is not a tough as you think it should be chances are likely you don't have a realistic assessment of its capabilities. Sure there can be bugs but I usually start by asking my self is that result really out of line? Most of the time it's not.