RPG-7V and Low Conscript Troops

[DaveDash]

Based on the Javelin/AT4 thread, I decided to see if I could emulate an Iraq/Afghanistan like situation in CMSF (IE RPG alley).

I had a long stretch of road surrounded by woodlands from a map that I had. In the surrounding woods were RPG teams with the following attributes:

5 teams of Conscript Combatants

Poor Quality Equipment (RPG-7V)

Ambush 150m

Set in various ranges of 50m to 200m out

They were targeting various US vehilces going at 'move' speed with covered arcs as to not engage (and thus test accuracy)

These were my findings in over 100RPG fired:

CMSF Accuracy:

Average Accuracy between 50m-100m was roughly 80%

Average Accuracy between 100m-200m was roughly 60%

Average Accuracy at 200m+ dropped to around 20%

Under Fire these percentages dropped considerably

Real Life Accuracy (Trained Soldiers - not conscripts)

Range........Percent

50 m...........100%

100 m..........96 %

200 m..........51 %

300 m..........22 %

400 m...........9 %

500 m...........4 %

Damage:

All RPG rounds detonated apart from against the Stykrer (see below)

Vs M1A2SEP

The tank often was lightly damaged with quite a few big and small +'s. It was never once immobilized however

vs M1A2

Tank was often immoblized (interestingly enough that is when they'd ignore their cover Arc and start shooting) and got badly mauled

vs M2A3 Bradley (ERA)

IFV hardly took a scratch (even less so than the M1A2SEP) but was sometimes destroyed with a rear shot

vs M2A3 Bradley

Pretty much suicide. The Bradley barely made it through the first three RPG teams alive

vs Styker

Often the Stryker would get immobilized or heavily damaged, but interestingly enough the slat cage stopped a lot of RPG hits (they didnt detonate)

vs HUMVEE

No chance. Would be rare if it survived the first team let alone the second

Conclusions:

Based on the data above, accuracy for low experience troops is probably a little too high in CMSF, however when under fire low experience troops tend to miss a lot more putting them more in line with how you would expect. Those first accurate shots though IMO are the killers so the key is to hose everything down with surpressive fires

Based on everything I have read, seen, and heard the damage of the RPG-7 with low quality ammo is way too high in CMSF

ERA and Slat Armour are very effective against the RPG-7 in CMSF

Crew survivability is about what you'd expect given the information available on current conflicts

Ammo reliability in CMSF is way too high for poor ammo

So all in all the RPG-7 is more or less in line with what you'd see in real life, apart from damage in some cases (however I was impressed with the modeling of ERA and slat armor, goes to show the attention to detail in this game). Reliability of poor quality warheads doesnt even seem to me modelled. This explains why you tend to get a much higher vehicle kill ratio than in real life against poorly equipped troops.

Given CMSF models high intensity conflict (which the game is based around) quite well, I don't think any of this really matters! However its worth considering for low-intensity scenarios.

[hcrof]

Interesting test, they seem to hit a bit much for conscript level (which I take to mean basically untrained)

Have you tried the same test with regular troops?

[LongLeftFlank]

Very useful information, thanks.

The tactical problem for the Blue vehicles, then (assuming they haven't got more pressing concerns, i.e. Red armour or ATGW), as in the real deal, is to spot and kill/suppress the RPG teams first. And spotting is a function of (a) eyeball time ( concealment.

The best concealment is inside buildings. But set against that is the difficulty of firing a backblast weapon through a restricted aperture -- not impossible but harder to draw a bead even if you're standing right in the window or door.

So therefore, a significant accuracy penalty should attach to backblast weapon fire from inside buildings (not balconies or rooftops). It doesn't AFAIK.

[Alan8325]

It's interesting that the M1A2SEP took less damage than the M1A2, especially from hits to the tracks. The CM:SF manual mentions a hull and turret armor upgrade from M1A1 to M1A2, but no mention of armor changes from M1A2 to M1A2SEP.

[DaveDash]

Interesting test, they seem to hit a bit much for conscript level (which I take to mean basically untrained)

Have you tried the same test with regular troops?

I think the accuracy is OK, when shooting is going on these guys do end up useless, however being uncons a good chunk of them probably haven't fired an RPG too many times (where do they train exactly?) so the accuracy of those first shots needs to be a lot more random. I don't imagine hitting a tank at 50-100m is too hard, but only if you know where to aim etc. This takes practice.

The real problem IMO is damage and lack of duds. M1A2s should not be getting mauled by conscripts with RPG-7s or Iraq would have turned out wildly different.

[Jonny(FGM)]

however being uncons a good chunk of them probably haven't fired an RPG too many times (where do they train exactly?)

Aren't the uncons supposed to contain men who faded away into the population after their unit ceased to be (ala partisans after barbarossa) and foreign insurgents who received training at foreign training camps.

Granted this should be modeled into the troop quality setting by the scen designer but just trying to show that not every uncon has no military training.

[DaveDash]

Aren't the uncons supposed to contain men who faded away into the population after their unit ceased to be (ala partisans after barbarossa) and foreign insurgents who received training at foreign training camps.

Granted this should be modeled into the troop quality setting by the scen designer but just trying to show that not every uncon has no military training.

I assumed based on what the manual says the guys with training were "Fighters" and "Combatants" were armed civilians.

I was looking at cars between 50m-100m this morning traveling at slow speeds on the road. Basically I have no training with an RPG. I don't think I'd hit a moving target very often with my first shot since I don't know how fast it travels, how the wind effects it, how to make proper use of the sight, etc. If I survived however, I could probably adjust my shot to be more in line and actually hit something up to 100m (doing damage is another story entirely). However, 100m is actually a fairly long way for a moving object the size of a car (not a tank though) firing something you've had fvck all training in. I'm actually pretty skeptical about the 96% accuracy at 100m against a moving target figure given above.

This is why I'd want far more randomness in first shots since these guys would be nervous as hell and not know what they're doing. Under 100m in CMSF they were just far too accurate and deadly (damage), there would be mass protests in the US against putting troops in deathtrap vehicles if this was even close to real life.

This also doesn't explain the real life dismal performance of RPG's against vehicles by the Iraqi Army who you'd assume would have some level of training. So some sort of dud munition mechanism needs to be implemented or tweaked so its far more common on poor equipment settings.

Overall this has minimal impact on the game IMO since you're not likely to have a Blue vs Uncon scenario fighting conscripts (what challenge would that be?) but it would be nice to get this tweaked for atmospheric value for scenarios that wanted to emulate certain parts of real life scenarios (BHD, Generation Kill type scenarios might become far more viable).

I also ran some tests using the RPG-29 with combatants with no experience and these guys absolutely chewed up everything that got in their way (although the M1A2 SEP still survived the gauntlet multilpe times, although badly mauled). Experience needs have more variance I think and combatants need to suck more.

[Jonny(FGM)]

I assumed based on what the manual says these guys (with training) were "Fighters" and "Combatants" were what you'd see in Iraq.

From the manual

Fighters are regular soldiers, mercenaries and other types of irregular

military personnel who operate in small groups and

use guerrilla tactics instead of conventional military method.

They can be well trained and motivated and occasionally have

access to fairly sophisticated and advanced equipment. Some

heavy weapons are mounted on civilian vehicles, otherwise

known as Technicals. Since they are armed and wear distinctive

clothing, the Stealth rules do not apply to Fighters.

Combatants are civilians who pick up weapons and organize themselves

in small groups, usually on short notice and in an ad-hoc

way. Combatants are usually only lightly armed and untrained,

though probably well motivated. Some heavy weapons are

mounted in civilian vehicles, otherwise known as Technicals.

Since they are always visibly armed, and sometimes carry special

clothing, the Stealth rules do not apply to Combatants.

I didn't see in either of those descriptions where the soldier who's unit has just been destroyed but carries on the fight fits in. Personally i'd put them in as combatants. The way I see it is that fighters are foreign personel who come in for "jihad", whereas the combatants are natives who just don't like the coalition being there. For an afghanistan analogy i'd say the Al-Quieda are Fighters and the taliban are combatants, although the afghanistan analogy probably doesn't hold up.

Overall this has minimal impact on the game IMO since you're not likely to have a Blue vs Uncon scenario fighting conscripts (what challenge would that be?) but it would be nice to get this tweaked for atmospheric value for scenarios that wanted to emulate certain parts of real life scenarios (BHD, Generation Kill type scenarios might become far more viable).

I have made a scenario like this, you can make it fun by fiddling with the parameters, for example it's almost a given that the blue force will take the ground, but at what cost? If an uncon force managed to inflict even a 10% casualty rate on a conventional force that'd be at least a political victory.

[DaveDash]

I have made a scenario like this, you can make it fun by fiddling with the parameters, for example it's almost a given that the blue force will take the ground, but at what cost? If an uncon force managed to inflict even a 10% casualty rate on a conventional force that'd be at least a political victory.

Yeah I'd find stuff like this fun, because I like to play things that have happened in real life. Also because CMSF is fantastic at modeling what we see in many areas, to have some areas out of whack stands out.

I'd love to do BHD type scenarios with HUMVEES etc for example but the way things work now it would be a struggle to get right.

[Ryujin]

What was the wind like in the test? RPG's are rather wind-adverse from what I've heard. Damage seems to sound about right for single warhead RPGs (stopped by slat/ERA, but able to punch through the IFV's armor. The accuracy sounds maybe a tad high, but about right for an unsuppressed team.

The main reason a "BHD" senario would be tricky is that even at the lowest setting, they still aim to some degree. They may spray and pray and not do a good job of it, but you don't see some guy just fire off a whole clip in the general direction of the enemy, especially if they're not suppressed. Your not going to get that Somali holding down the trigger while running inaccuracy. It however seems about right for the Syrian setting and keeps things a bit interesting.

[DaveDash]

What was the wind like in the test? RPG's are rather wind-adverse from what I've heard. Damage seems to sound about right for single warhead RPGs (stopped by slat/ERA, but able to punch through the IFV's armor. The accuracy sounds maybe a tad high, but about right for an unsuppressed team.

I can't recall but I think wind was minimal. I'll go back and check.

Accuracy seems OK to me, slightly high based on my arguments above, but damage seems completely overmodeled to me, especially against heavy armour which by all accounts pretty much shrugs off to older RPG-7's hits to the sides.

There was a thread about the RPG-7 on militaryphotos.net a while back where a whole bunch of people dug up all sorts of statistics about them and how they can penetrate this and that, but then a whole bunch of tankers and infantry from Iraq said they saw countless RPGs hit tanks from the front and sides and do next to no damage. I recall one guy saying a few RPGs hit his Chally 2 on the side and there wasn't even enough damage to take a photo. Does this mean tanks should be invulnerable? Absolutely not, but a M1A2 getting badly mauled by a bunch of conscript combatants is a stretch.

If you read the article I posted in the Javelin / AT4 thread it is about a battle in Afghanistan in 2009 where the Soldiers inside said RPGs were bouncing off the armoured HUMVEE and it was only a matter of time before one penetrated the armour. This is a HUMVEE we are talking about, not a Bradley or M1 tank.

If you read about the Thunder Run, one tanker says he was hit by over 20 RPGs and sustained minor damage.

In my tests it is suicide to drive any vehicle without ERA, slats, or extremely heavy armour anywhere near untrained troops with poor ammo and that is seems overmodelled to me based on all these accounts.

Of course a lot of these will be 'dud' RPG's but these don't even seem to be modelled in the game in the tests that I did.

The main reason a "BHD" senario would be tricky is that even at the lowest setting, they still aim to some degree. They may spray and pray and not do a good job of it, but you don't see some guy just fire off a whole clip in the general direction of the enemy, especially if they're not suppressed. Your not going to get that Somali holding down the trigger while running inaccuracy. It however seems about right for the Syrian setting and keeps things a bit interesting

Yeah I agree the game is primary designed for a high intensity setting and not low so this isn't really major, and I prefer the challenge as it is.

[Ryujin]

@DaveDash: Duds and ricochets aren't modeled AFAIK, so yeah, that would make a difference. From what I've seen in CMSF, the damage model seems about right for the IFVs, I don't think the tanks are too far off either.

Front armor is everything for a tank, I think many of those accounts of tanks taking tons of hit's were probably mostly to the front armor. Those side skirts are not RPG proof. Now just because the HEAT pentrator made it through the armor doesn't mean it's going to do critical damage, I'd imagine there wouldn't be much penetrator left after going through the armor. However, the crew have a tendency to abandon the tank a bit too quickly.

I do think the Bradleys without ERA may be a bit weak though, they supposedly can take a bit of RPG fire.

Interesting document:

http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/US-Field-Manuals/abrams-oif.pdf

[DaveDash]

@DaveDash: Duds and ricochets aren't modeled AFAIK, so yeah, that would make a difference. From what I've seen in CMSF, the damage model seems about right for the IFVs, I don't think the tanks are too far off either.

Front armor is everything for a tank, I think many of those accounts of tanks taking tons of hit's were probably mostly to the front armor. Those side skirts are not RPG proof. Now just because the HEAT pentrator made it through the armor doesn't mean it's going to do critical damage, I'd imagine there wouldn't be much penetrator left after going through the armor. However, the crew have a tendency to abandon the tank a bit too quickly.

I do think the Bradleys without ERA may be a bit weak though, they supposedly can take a bit of RPG fire.

Interesting document:

http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/US-Field-Manuals/abrams-oif.pdf

According to many accounts of the Thunder Run a lot of OPFOR were within 20m of the tanks and the Commanders were shooting at them with pistols at some parts. One tank was disabled by a shot to the side by a recoilless rifle and one Bradley also disabled by an RPG, but other than that they were mostly 'fine', apart from their rucksacks and gear which was burning from multiple RPG hits.

Those roads are extremely wide so I doubt most engagements were from the front, especially given the fact most commanders were out of the hatches engaging OPFOR to the sides with small arms.

"By now the resistance was organizing. Fighters who appeared to be dead or wounded were suddenly leaping up and firing at the backs of American vehicles. Schwartz ordered his gunners to "double tap," to shoot anybody they saw moving near a weapon. "If it was a confirmed kill, they'd let it go," Schwartz said later. "If it wasn't, they'd tap it again. We were checking our work."

Grab some M1A2's, M2A3's, make a long map of wide road with plenty of foxholes, buildings, and hiding spots, and put in a few hundred RPG teams (conscript, poor equipment) and see how long your vehicles last. Surpress the crap out of everything if you like, but I guarantee you will take lots of casualties.

M1A2 SEP and Bradley ERA feels right to me, but the normal M1A2 takes a mauling with most systems "Red" apart from the main gun and the standard M2A3 was a moving coffin. I might do some more tests using covered arcs (covering sectors) and guys out of hatches to simulate a Thunder Run and see how I go. All in all I think the game has come a long way from where it was in the beginning and has a pretty good feel now.

You can read about The Thunder Run here - it's pretty interesting:

http://www.tankmastergunner.com/thunder%20run.htm

[Ryujin]

I've read about thunder run, but you can clearly see that RPGs can go through the side skirts (evidently some side skirts are better armored). The question is often more of the damage done rather than whether it will penetrate or not, in many cases it seems minor. I would still say the damage model of the tanks seems rather accurate.

I did a quick test where I let 5 elite RPG-7 teams with poor gear pound the side armor of an M1A1SA at 50 meters. They hit it 8-10 times each test. Only serious damage was to the tracks and once the engine, crew were fine and all other systems were operable, if a tad damaged. This sounds correct, some penetrations through the side armor, no major damage aside from the one engine hit (tracks could be repaired in the field later if not too badly broken, possibly within the time frame of a longer CMSF battle).

I did some more tests with a target arc (so all freebie shots), often took well over 10 RPGs to knock out the tank, seemed to be turret or engine penetrations that did it in. One time it had to have been around 20 RPGs and these were ALL side hits. The tank's systems would degrade slowly over all these hits, but the crew tended to be fine until a golden BB set something on fire or penetrated the crew compartment (one time I think one hit the turret ring or something).

Did one more test using the M1A2 SEP TUSK. They ran out of RPGs after about 30(!!!) side hits. One crew casualty and immobile, but still functional.

[Alex]

You should remember, that in game RPG-7 have few types of AT grenade:

PG-7V (70mm)

PG-7VM (85mm)

PG-7VL (93mm)

PG-7VR (T-HEAT 105mm)

And they have different penetration power.

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/РПГ-7#cite_note-10

[Ryujin]

These tests were done (at least mine) with mostly PG-7Vs and VMs, no tandem HEAT rounds. Were talking in terms of poorly equipped UNCONs.

[Alex]

PG-7VL is too not T-HEAT (i don't sure but some unconventional forces have it) but some time it works against ERA

[hcrof]

If insurgents are firing from 20m away the warhead may not have armed properly. In addition, penetration is variable over range. Here is a chart I posted a while back:

The penetration is related to the speed of the warhead, too fast and the penetrating jet cannot form properly. This is not modelled in CMSF AFAIK

Edit: Reading through the pdf reminds me: If the round hits and there isn't even cosmetic damage the rounds may have been HE rounds. Either that or they failed to explode properly due to poor maintenance and didn't form the penetrating jet.

[Alex]

Bay the way RPG-7 grenades don't explosion if target close than 25m from the shooter.

[Ryujin]

The RPG teams in my test were 50 to 80m away. The last few RPGs on the TUSK may have been HE-Frag, but the majority were HEAT. Probably a couple VLs mixed in, but mostly older warheads. The PG-7VL is not a tandem HEAT.

[Sgt Joch]

Aren't the uncons supposed to contain men who faded away into the population after their unit ceased to be (ala partisans after barbarossa) and foreign insurgents who received training at foreign training camps.

Granted this should be modeled into the troop quality setting by the scen designer but just trying to show that not every uncon has no military training.

true, but as you say, the experience level of troops can be altered by the scenario designer to reflect previous military experience.

many factors in the game determine accuracy of a particular weapon: visibility (day/night, clear/hazy), experience level, morale/suppression state and leadership modifier of leaders in C2. Added to this are certain "fuzzy" modifiers so you do not always get the exact same results.

On a more general comment on the accuracy of RPGs in game, I have been playing through the first mission of the TF Thunder campaign in the base game, testing various aspects of 1.21. The red forces in that mission are reserve syrian infantry which I have been pounding pretty hard with artillery and suppressive area fire. So far, 25 turns in, they have fired 20-30 RPGs, often at stationary vehicles and 100% of the shots have missed.

[Battlefront.com]

Good discussion. There are, of course, several intertwined aspects that we need to keep separate. I'm going to just pound out a quick list

1. Fighters and Combatants (and everything else) are just broad categories that are inherently affected by Experience and other variable attributes. I'd take a Crack Combatant force over a Regular Syrian Mech Infantry platoon (with BMPs even) any day of the week in a dense urban environment. The Combatants might have lower quality weapons, but they are likely to hit what they shoot at and stay in the fight even when peppered by Blue's outgoing fire. In a far distance battle the Combatants don't stand a chance simply because they lack quality long range weaponry.

2. Remember that a lot of the non-damanging hits to vehicles in real life were from anti-personnel rockets and not anti-armor. You can fire fragmentation RPG-7V rounds all day long at the front and sides of a Blue tank all day long and probably not do any significant damage. Tracks and wheels being the possible exceptions, but even that should be pretty low. Rear is a different story depending on vehicle.

3. One possible problem is we may have introduced too many antitank rounds into the game environment. This is partly due to limitations of how ammo is allocated (it is too ridged force wide). Perhaps in a real war with Syria maybe 1 in 10 rounds would be antitank and 9 in 10 would be antipersonnel. But because of how the game works we may have the ratio more like 1 in 4. Obviously if in Iraq it was 1 in 10 or worse... the results compared to actual Iraq results should be quite different than what is seen in the game.

4. It is true that the best defense against an RPG gunner is a good offense. Time and time again I've read accounts of RPG gunners never getting off a single shot or never getting off a second shot.

5. We gamers tend to play battles that happened only a handful of times even in the initial invasion of Iraq. It's just more fun from a game perspective So when someone thinks "well, if these results I see in CM:SF are accurate than we would never have made it to Baghdad" they are correct if the Iraqis had mounted as many organized and well fought battles as you guys have done virtually in CM:SF. Put another way, if the invading Coalition forces of OIF had their average battle look like the average battle in CM:SF then I do agree the chances are Saddam would still be in power now, just like everybody in France would be speaking German because Hitler would never have been defeated

6. Fear negatively affects accuracy and even desire to fire or move. We have this modeled with Experience and the other factors. Especially Morale. However, it should be that some enemy units cause more fear than others. This is complex and situationally dependent. A Regular RPG-29 gunner should have less to fear from an Abrams than a Crack soldier with an AK-74. Likewise, a Crack RPG-29 gunner would have more to fear from an advancing enemy Rifle Squad than a Regular soldier with an AK-74 in a Rifle Squad. Because this is so difficult to model we don't.

7. Having said all that, it is quite possible that Conscripts should have lower first shot hits on moving targets. We can look into that.

Steve

[dima]

5 teams of Conscript Combatants

Poor Quality Equipment (RPG-7V)

Ambush 150m

Set in various ranges of 50m to 200m out

Dave, can you upload the test missions you used for your tests, this will help try to recreate the results you saw. Thanks!

[DaveDash]

Interesting points Steve, also I never really considered the ratio of HE to HEAT warheads to be honest. Makes a lot of sense.

Ryujin: I found that most tanks were in line with exceptation except the bog standard M1A2 which got reamed. Maybe damage isn't overmodeled perhaps but certain units are under modeled? (Such as the standard M1A2 and standard M2A3)

Sgt Josh: Interesting!

Dima: Yep. I can upload later.

I also did some tests with the RPG-29. All I can say is... ouch.

[Battlefront.com]

For better or worse (usually better) I have to hard code weapons, ammo, and other goodies to individual soldiers. Which means it's very difficult to balance an ammo load over a large number of units because I can't say "overall the ratio of RPG-7 rounds should be x% this, y% that, and z% the other thing". Varying Equipment levels and force types will change the overall balance, for sure, but probably the ratio of anti-infantry and anti-tank remains roughly the same even though the specific rounds within each grouping can vary by quite a bit.

We've been "liberalizing" this over time, allowing more things to be randomized within defied parameters, but we have only recently added variable ammo supplies. For example, WW2 German soldier can have different models of Panzerfaust depending on the date, whereas in CM:SF I would have had to specify PF60 or PF Klein. Same thing is now possible with weaponry, starting with Afghanistan. For example, a single type of Mujahideen may be armed with G3, M16, or even a SMLE.

Steve