Stryker slat armor

[tmhippo]

I have noticed that the slat armor has no effect on RPG's in the game. I feel this is very unrealalitic, as this armor has proven to work in actual combat in Iraq. If it were only RPG 29's being fired I could understand. Plus reactive armor for The Bradley should be modeled as it is now standard for M2's in a combat area.

How does everyone else feel

have a good day

Rodney

[Beastttt]

I've had Strykers hit 2 or 3 times and the slat armor protected them

were the shots coming from an upper leveland hitting the top of the vehicle(no slat armor there)

[CptWasp]

I'm with you, tmhippo. I have a Osprey book about the Stryker family: it reports that some strykers in Iraq resisted multiple hits from RPG-7 with minor damage. This has never happened to me. 1 RPG-7, 1 kill, very often.

I think the RPG-7 is greatly overrated in this game.

[Huntarr]

I concur with it's kill rate being over rated and it's accuracy is a little high

[MikeyD]

Stryker slat certain isn't foolproof in-game but it seems to do a decent job for me against 'standard' rounds. Alot of the RPG kills i've seen have been the round skating over the top of the forward cage. I've got into the habit of turning my vehicles broadside to the threat, which appears to offer a bit more overall protection

[molotov_billy]

RPG-7 accuracy and lethality is ridiculously overmodeled in CMSF. Real-world data across multiple conflicts has shown that the weapon is fired in volleys at single targets - for a reason.

Also - The case of entire squads (passengers) getting wiped out from single penetrations is absolutely the norm ingame, and yet there is no real world data to support it. The instances of entire crews with full squads vaporized from RPG-7's is incredibly rare - in fact I've never heard of such a case.

Occasionally we have a single crew member survive in shock force.

[TheVulture]

I have a suspicion that that is a bug personally molotov_billy. I'm testing a scenario of my own design, and so far have seen about 20-30 strykers taken out by a combination of RPGs and ATGMs. Without exception, every single passenger has died. The two-man crew escapes a fair fraction of the time, although they usually die before getting too far. But I've not seen a single passenger surivive an RPG / ATGM hit.

[molotov_billy]

Originally posted by TheVulture:

I have a suspicion that that is a bug personally molotov_billy. I'm testing a scenario of my own design, and so far have seen about 20-30 strykers taken out by a combination of RPGs and ATGMs. Without exception, every single passenger has died. The two-man crew escapes a fair fraction of the time, although they usually die before getting too far. But I've not seen a single passenger surivive an RPG / ATGM hit.

Thanks for doing the tests. Maybe start a new thread at some point with screenshots etc of your findings? Feels like a pretty major issue to me.

[SgtMuhammed]

I think that it is a reflection of the overmodelling of ATGM blast effects. It is the same reason that you can take down buildings with a Javelin.

Or maybe every RPG hit goes through the fuel tank and sprays the interior with flaming JP8.

[Exel]

Strykers (and Bradleys) have spall liners, so their post-penetration survivability should in fact be better than in Abrams. Whoever winds up in the way of the penetrator is naturally dead in any case, but the rest should have a fair chance of avoiding (serious) injury.

As for slat armor, in the real world it is close to 100% effective against standard RPG given how they work - RPG simply can not survive the cage. That of course doesn't help when the RPG hits a spot not covered by slat. But that raises the other point of RPGs accuracy: there is no aiming for weak spots with the RPGs, they are fairly inaccurate weapons - hitting the vehicle will be an achievement most times.

[Statisoris]

The Abrams does have a spall liner Exel, I asked a real world tanker. He didnt know if they had been in since the beggining, but they are now. Its made of thick kevlar.

[Guinnessman]

Originally posted by TheVulture:

I have a suspicion that that is a bug personally molotov_billy. I'm testing a scenario of my own design, and so far have seen about 20-30 strykers taken out by a combination of RPGs and ATGMs. Without exception, every single passenger has died. The two-man crew escapes a fair fraction of the time, although they usually die before getting too far. But I've not seen a single passenger surivive an RPG / ATGM hit.

Same here. Although when two British Warrior IFVs were hit by Maverick ATGMs during Desert Storm, although nine crew and passengers were killed the rest made it out. Needless to say the Maverick is a lot more powerful than an RPG, and it hits from above.

I've also noticed that RPGs and ATGMs used against dismounts are overly-effective - perhaps RPGs (in particular) need to be reduced in effectiveness yet their availability increased?

[SgtMuhammed]

Originally posted by Statisoris:

The Abrams does have a spall liner Exel, I asked a real world tanker. He didnt know if they had been in since the beggining, but they are now. Its made of thick kevlar.

They have had them from the start. The book "King of the Killing Fields," notes that the designers were concerned about stopping Soviet versions of the British HESH warhead which creates spall effects as its primary killing agent.

In any case, HEAT rounds are entirely overmodelled in the game. A Javelin missile will NOT take down a building other than a wooden shack. In the game you can bring down a skyscrapper with 2 or 3. In RL the U.S. fired 16 TOW missiles at a building during an attack on Somali warlords. They caused a lot of damage but the building was in no danger of collapse. Delta went in and cleared the room after the attack.

[Exel]

Originally posted by sgtgoody (esq):

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

The Abrams does have a spall liner Exel, I asked a real world tanker. He didnt know if they had been in since the beggining, but they are now. Its made of thick kevlar.

They have had them from the start. The book "King of the Killing Fields," notes that the designers were concerned about stopping Soviet versions of the British HESH warhead which creates spall effects as its primary killing agent.</font>

[MikeyD]

About effectiveness of the slat cage.

I believe i read somewhere slat's effectiveness was once listed as about 50%. That's on top of the 50% RPG dud rate from crap rounds the insurgents were throwing at us a year into the war. Slat's supposed to stop detonation by shorting out the fuze as it passes through the bars. But if a round hits the bars dead-on its BOOM! The first RPG round to hit a Stryker detonated against the cage and pierced the engine compartment, cutting cooling lines. So you've got a 50% chance the round is a dud, a 50% chance the slats will short the fuze of the good rounds, after that you're looking at angles of attack, standoff distance of the cage to the hull plus the ceramic tile topcoat to cut through. I read the second round to hit an in-theatre Stryker (2 days after the first) detonated against the forward cage again but was at such an angle to the hull that it simply ripped up external stowage - shredded those plastic side bins i hear.

[jBrereton]

Originally posted by Guinnessman:

Although when two British Warrior IFVs were hit by Maverick ATGMs during Desert Storm, although nine crew and passengers were killed the rest made it out. Needless to say the Maverick is a lot more powerful than an RPG, and it hits from above.

Ah, but you have to remember that a Warrior IFV is better than any other IFV in the world that I can currently think of.

[YankeeDog]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

About effectiveness of the slat cage.

I believe i read somewhere slat's effectiveness was once listed as about 50%. That's on top of the 50% RPG dud rate from crap rounds the insurgents were throwing at us a year into the war. Slat's supposed to stop detonation by shorting out the fuze as it passes through the bars. But if a round hits the bars dead-on its BOOM! The first RPG round to hit a Stryker detonated against the cage and pierced the engine compartment, cutting cooling lines. So you've got a 50% chance the round is a dud, a 50% chance the slats will short the fuze of the good rounds, after that you're looking at angles of attack, standoff distance of the cage to the hull plus the ceramic tile topcoat to cut through. I read the second round to hit an in-theatre Stryker (2 days after the first) detonated against the forward cage again but was at such an angle to the hull that it simply ripped up external stowage - shredded those plastic side bins i hear.

Indeed. It's important to remember that the slat cage exploits a *specific* weakness of a *specific* type of RPG warhead; older, RPG-7 warheads. This was (and I belive still is) the majority of what has been thrown against Strykers and other AFVs in Iraq. MikeyD's point that the apparent effectiveness of the slat cage may was probably further enhanced by a high dud rate is important to remember as well.

AFAICT, reliable figures on the effectivness of the Slat cage against more modern RPG warheads are not available to those of us without security clearances. But the Russians, Iranians, Chinese and those who buy weapons from them have been watching the same Iraq war the rest of us have, and I think it's pretty much a no-brainer that they've taken note of the Slat armor issue, and are working on (and have probably already completed) improved on the fuses for RPG-7, and other AT warheads.

So I would expect the slat armor on Strykers to be somewhat less effective in a hypothical 2008 invasion of Syria, as compared to the historical performance in Iraq, especially against higher quality, regular Syrian troops that would presumably have the more modern weaponry.

How much less effective the slat armor should be is definitely a debatable point, though. It would be interesting to know where BFC arrived at their figures and estimates of RPG performance, and whether they feel the game engine is currently working the way they want it to in this area.

Cheers,

YD

[Chainsaw]

http://dejawolf.com/steelbeasts/ammoeffects.html

About ATGMs effect on tiny APCs

Mind you that PBV302 dont have spall liners.

(I was a gunner on one of those babys as conscript )

/Chain

[flamingknives]

Originally posted by jBrereton:

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

Although when two British Warrior IFVs were hit by Maverick ATGMs during Desert Storm, although nine crew and passengers were killed the rest made it out. Needless to say the Maverick is a lot more powerful than an RPG, and it hits from above.

Ah, but you have to remember that a Warrior IFV is better than any other IFV in the world that I can currently think of. </font>

[Chainsaw]

I second that, CV90B over anything else! (But then Im biased as I served on a CV90 Coy!)

/Chain

[Exel]

Originally posted by jBrereton:

Ah, but you have to remember that a Warrior IFV is better than any other IFV in the world that I can currently think of.

Uh-huh? CV90 is better protected, more mobile, has more firepower and better sights too. Warrior doesn't even have a stabilized gun until it's upgraded (Warrior Improvement Programme). Even after that there's some pretty stiff competition from CV90 Mk.III and Puma, and that's just for Europe. You just can't help it that Warrior is an old design, even though far from obsolete after the upgrades.

[jBrereton]

Originally posted by Exel:

Uh-huh? CV90 is better protected

I'll give you that, although Warriors are proving near-impossible for the Iraqi insurgency to kill with RPG-7s, mines, IEDs, you name it.

more mobile

Erm it has half the operational range of a Warrior, and is 5 kph slower..

has more firepower

It carries a larger cannon, but doesn't mount missiles.

and better sights too.

Aye, can't argue that.

Warrior doesn't even have a stabilized gun until it's upgraded (Warrior Improvement Programme)

Nor did the CV90 until the CV9040B, which compromised turret elevation.

Even after that there's some pretty stiff competition from CV90 Mk.III and Puma

The Puma?

It's about as good as a Warrior, just with better fire control and, again, no ATGMs, as well as being able to carry one less soldier, having the same speed but about 80kms less of range on roads. Oh, plus it costs 5 million Euros per IFV, which is pretty costly, I'm sure you'll agree.

I do, however, give it credit for essentially bringing back the Nahverteidigungswaffe, with its close-in 76mm grenade launcher, however pointless that may be in the field.

and that's just for Europe

Aye, what's the rest of the world got?

The M2 Bradley, which is like a Warrior, but slightly lamer.

The BMP-3 is probably the best real contender, what with its solid main gun, missiles and 3 machine guns, as well as a carrying capacity of 7 fully equipped troops.

You just can't help it that Warrior is an old design, even though far from obsolete after the upgrades.

It's about as capable as anything else not from Russia, if not better IMHO.

[ October 24, 2007, 04:05 PM: Message edited by: jBrereton ]

[Exel]

Originally posted by jBrereton:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />more mobile

Erm it has half the operational range of a Warrior, and is 5 kph slower..</font>

[tiny_tanker]

The slat armor should defeat pretty much any RPG-7 from what I've been able to tell, it exploits the odd fuze placement in the warhead by crushing it, I don't think theres a work around since the fuze is internal.

[Chainsaw]

there is a ATGM version for the CV90, it has 2 BILL2 mounted on the side of the turret and own sight for it.

But we dont use it as we dont need ATGMs on our IFVs, the 40mm does a damn good jobb of any MTB in side aspect and rear aspect and our battalion have 2 mech coys of CV90 and 2 tank coys of strv122 that are working tightly together (we form battlegroups of 1 tank and 1 CV90 with one squad and then they work together)

/Chains