Anti-armor artillery rounds don't work

[Redwolf]

I am pretty sure that the "anti-armor" artillery option in CMx2 is not supposed to model a different kind of ammunition like e.g. TacOps does. In CMx2 it only seems to adjust the height of the airbursts, but it's still shooting HE.

On the scale of a CMx2 a true ICM barrage of realistic scale with realistic ammunition and accuracy would just wipe out all enemy armor on the map.

Another reason why the whole mix of scale, options and tuning down lethality doesn't work for me.

[M1A1TC]

Originally posted by Rollstoy:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Rollstoy:

SO what does "Target Armor" mean in terms of 80mm and 120mm mortars????!??

Is there any chance for an official answer?

Best regards,

Thomm </font>

[Thomm]

Originally posted by M1A1TankCommander:

No, there isn't.

[JasonC]

On terminal IR homing by the bomblets, that is still a development stage thing. The standard DP ICM dispenses the submunitions as you state, but they then just fall wherever, no terminal guidance system involved. So they just fire enough to blanket the impact area with submunitions.

Compared to firing standard HE, this multiplies the chances of a direct hit approximately in the ratio of the number of HEAT submunitions, or roughly 50 fold. A battery shoot will fire perhaps 4 rounds per gun of DP ICM, putting over 1000 HEAT submunitions in an area roughly 200 meters across, with rounds impacting and submunitions detonating for about one minute.

The cross section of a T-72 is about 25 square meters from above, and that density will put on average one HEAT bomblet in each 25 square meters of impact area. Because they clump somewhat, obviously you can still "miss" - in the sense of the nearest HEAT bomblet being a near miss rather than a direct hit. You have about the same chance of hitting with more than one bomblet.

The bomblets themselves will hole light armor like APCs even without a direct hit, if close enough. On the other hand most APCs are a bit smaller. The main kill drawdowns after that are orientation of the warhead when it detonates, and the fact that some of the surfaces of a T-72 can withstand the relatively modest HEAT blast involved (front hull, turret front e.g.).

These factors may drop the kill chance for each MBT in the impact zone to something on the order of 20-30%, when combined with clumpiness misses. APCs have only about that chance of surviving. Infantry in the open get shredded, of course (but well down in e.g. slit trenches have a fair chance).

An MLRS strike is far more dramatic because it covers a much wider area, but the effects within that area - at least the middle part - are similar. A single full salvo by a battery of 3 vehicles delivers 24000 submunitions, 20 times the figure for a 1 minute 155mm battery shoot. The beaten zone is significantly larger, with an area of a full square km considered to be effective or too dangerous for friendlies. Coverage is best in the middle half click of that grid square, and the saturation there will equal that of the smaller 155mm battery shoot described above. In the outer half of the grid square, the coverage will be significantly less (like by a factor of 3), but still somewhat dangerous to APCs and exposed personnel.

When you are firing tens of thousands of submunitions at a time at entire grid squares, you don't care a straw about terminal homing. The intended target is a tank battalion or more, not a platoon or less. Tube artillery does the same thing by firing whole battalions or brigades worth and shifting beaten zone every few minutes. Entire corps worth of artillery assets made massive shoots like this during the first gulf war, and they were fearsome things indeed and extremely effective. A few on a smaller scale occurred in the active phase of the second gulf war, during the run to Baghdad.

Next generation terminal IR bomblets or "BATs", and/or smart 120mm mortar rounds (the planned medium brigades intend to make greater use of vehicle mounted 120mms), will matter for shooting at smaller targets of a enemy tank platoon or company. Obviously, saturation fire tactics, being area effect, multiply their effectiveness as target density increases. Half the point is that modern ICM equipped artillery can smash *locally massed* armor - while thinly spread stuff can't stop an Abrams charge.

[flamingknives]

There are MMW radar and IR imaging submunitions in service - namely the Bofors/Nexter BONUS submunition and the Rheinmetall SMART. Also the SADARM submunitions in the US sensor-fused weapon, although those are not artillery delivered.

[Guest Guest]

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