Will we ever get periscopes on tanks?

[cool breeze]

Periscopes seem to me a substantial real world advantage to Syria which is not modeled. Are there any plans to add this feature? What do y'all think? Can Javelins target tanks by locking on to the periscope?

Edit to add grimace and write the right word. Thanks Flaming Knives

[ June 22, 2008, 11:52 AM: Message edited by: cool breeze ]

[flamingknives]

Forgive my ignorance, but what's a parascope?

[cool breeze]

just realized I say it wrong too.

[Combatintman]

So Coolbreeze - I still don't understand what you're getting at with the periscope thing. Pretty much all armoured vehicles have vision blocks/periscopes so its not a particular advantage to the Syrian side as both have them. As to Javelin targeting - it has nothing to do with it. The Javelin CLU has a thermal seeker so anything with a heat signature can be targeted. As an example the Duke of Lancaster's Battlegroup in Iraq frequently used this capability to target IED teams at night. I can assure you - none of them had periscopes! Its probably still on You Tube somewhere.

[flamingknives]

Well, the IIR seeker of the Javelin can lock onto shapes in the IR spectrum, so they don't really need a heat signature in the conventional sense - i.e. being hotter than the surroundings - it just needs a difference to lock on to to create a reference.

What I'm not sure of is whether the seeker can lock on after launch i.e. be launched speculatively over a berm and hit a tank on the other side.

I suppose you could lock onto a item sticking up from defilade on the basis that you'll miss the small item and hit the target below a split second later.

[cool breeze]

I thought I read somewhere that most Abrams don't have periscopes.? Not that it matters normally with the heavy armor but Id definitely use my periscopes if I had them in-game.

[Combatintman]

Fire and forget - needs a lock before launch I'm sure. Look at all the engagement sequences on You Tube - there is a fair amount of fiddling around before the round goes downrange.

[birdstrike]

Abrams has 10 periscopes. 6 for the commander, 3 for the driver, 1 for the gunner/loader.

You can see them in the game, it's the little purple viewports around the hatches.

[Battlefront.com]

Vehicle vision, in all of its forms, is simulated in CM:SF already. All vehicles have direct optical views of the world, to some degree or another. Additional vision, such as FLIR, are in addition to this.

The Javelin works the way flamingknives stated. The CLU (Command Launch Unit) is a very sensitive thermal imaging system. When the gunner aims the crosshairs at a particular target the imager gets a thermal signature from it. Everything has a thermal signature, though it's conditional. The exact vehicle, what the vehicle is doing, the weather, etc. contributes to what it gives off in terms of heat. The CLU then assigns that value to the guidance system within the missile once the gunner has "locked on". The missile then fires and seeks that heat signature.

Unfortunately, the background heat (for example, hot hardpan desert ground) can blur the distinction between vehicle and the surrounding terrain. This can cause the Javelin to strike the vehicle in a suboptimal location or to miss it by a few meters. I saw a live Javelin test years ago and this is what happened. The missile impacted the tracks instead of the upper deck. After the tech guys crawled all over the tank they declared it a catastrophic kill anyway. Meaning, the vehicle was completely in operable and crew casualties were guaranteed. Therefore, even an imperfect hit can have the same end result. The target was a T-72 with ERA.

Steve

[tc237]

cool breeze,

What is your definition of a periscope?

[Darius359au]

Originally posted by tc237:

cool breeze,

What is your definition of a periscope?

I wonder if he means the CITV on the M1A2 and the T72 turms sight ?

[ June 22, 2008, 09:43 PM: Message edited by: Darius359au ]

[Chainsaw]

yeah hes talking about the PERI/CITV, wich only the M1A2 variants has and son the T-90.

But I dont understand what he means with "advantage for syria" ?

Ok hunter/killer capacaty is nice as hell but I cant see how we can have any use of it since we cant crew the vehicles?

[Pandur]

my guess would have been that he means such "extendable" optics to look above walls, berms and so on.

when i hear periskop, i think U-Boat , and there are also land vehicles with raisable pole with camera on top to get a picture from higher up, maybe by 0,5 to 1 meter higher.

i thought he means this, but if the syrians even have such a thing,...i guess not.

[Flanker15]

The T-90 is the only tank that has a submarine sort of periscope that I've seen. Other tanks might have them hidden away though.

[cool breeze]

Thanks for all the responses. Yea I am talking about those PERI/CITV kinds of things for the commander to look over berms and walls without exposing the turret. I see how those vision blocks kinda count too since they are above the turret but I was thinking about something high enough that we could take turret-down as well as hull-down positions. I was thinking it would be good way for Syria to have a chance at getting a first shot on an American tank. Since Syria gets shot before finding its target when cresting to look for a spotted American tank, I was thinking that as Syria Id rather wait a while before cresting for my TC to find the enemy with the periscope.

Apparently this thread was inspired by a an old wrong assumption of mine. I was wrongly thinking that most non Abrams had some kind of periscope. Don't know where I got that idea.

[Chainsaw]

I dont know how it works in the dessert, but here in woody sweden we are teached (and practice) to have the tank turret down and the TC standing on the turret roof with binos, still attached with hes helmet scanning for enemys, so only thing aproaching enemy see is a head, wich isnt THAT big on average engagement distances compared to parts of a tank.

but dont know how that works in the desert thoe.

[tc237]

That procedure would work in the desert also, a desert is not perfectly flat, there are many low/high spots for vehicles to hide behind.

cool breeze, the gunners sights on most modern tanks are on top of the turret, so it is possible for the tank to remain 95% turret down while scanning for targets using it's sights.

Of course the vehicle would have to move to expose the main gun in order to fire.

[M1A1TC]

Originally posted by Chainsaw:

I dont know how it works in the dessert, but here in woody sweden we are teached (and practice) to have the tank turret down and the TC standing on the turret roof with binos, still attached with hes helmet scanning for enemys, so only thing aproaching enemy see is a head, wich isnt THAT big on average engagement distances compared to parts of a tank.

but dont know how that works in the desert thoe.

Same way with American tankers. TC can also send out the loader with binoculars to crawl up the crest of a hill and scout out ahead. This feature is not yet in CMSF

[Sivodsi]

Steve posted:

I saw a live Javelin test years ago and this is what happened. The missile impacted the tracks instead of the upper deck. After the tech guys crawled all over the tank they declared it a catastrophic kill anyway. Meaning, the vehicle was completely in operable and crew casualties were guaranteed. Therefore, even an imperfect hit can have the same end result. The target was a T-72 with ERA.

So an impact on the mg is also likely to result in a kill?

... but he just kept on rolling.

[cool breeze]

Sounds like a cool feature M1A1 TC. Anyone think this will be added?

[JonS]

Originally posted by M1A1TC:

Same way with American tankers. TC can also send out the loader with binoculars to crawl up the crest of a hill and scout out ahead. This feature is not yet in CMSF

Yes it is, albeit perhaps not as perfectly as you'd like. You can dismount/bailout crews CMSF for recon and other tasks, then re-man the veh when desirable.

[Battlefront.com]

Ah, Sivodsi found a bug Fortunately, it's already been corrected for v1.1. There was a rare chance of top attacks failing to do what they were should have done when the detonation angle was fairly extreme. My guess is that hitting the MG tripped that particular bug. It's apparently be in the game for a long time but it's not something that's likely to come up so it was discovered only recently. As I said, all fixed!

As JonS said, you can dismount and scout using the whole crew. I don't know that we'll allow anything different than that. It's starting to get into the slippery slope of too much micromanagement over individuals. Too much of that is bad for gameplay in general, however it's also bad to have an imbalance of capability between units. If we added the ability to scout with a single guy for vehicles, then we'd get calls to allow Squads to section off an individual for scouting purposes. Or MG Teams, etc. It's a can of worms I tell 'ya!

Steve

[Sivodsi]

Steve wrote:

Ah, Sivodsi found a bug

Nice to have confirmation. I reckon it happened to me twice in one minute of action, though this time it looks like it hit a glancing blow on the ERA at a shallower angle so maybe not the same bug, or just super effective ERA?

Point of impact:

[Sivodsi]

Gee, almost missed this from Steve:

it's already been corrected for v1.1.

Eh? The next update is 1.09? Is this a slip or a vague kind of bone?

[YankeeDog]

Originally posted by Sivodsi:

Gee, almost missed this from Steve:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />it's already been corrected for v1.1.

Eh? The next update is 1.09? Is this a slip or a vague kind of bone? </font>