Abrams Main gun calibration, mission and info

Because I personally didn't understand it, I looked into the the gun sight and the accuracy. Here are some things I found out along with a mission and hint at a small modification.

The sight visible from the gun when you play the US MBT is called the Gunner Auxilliary Sight or GAS. It's meant as a backup because the real process is from another station with simpler reticules, the process being, put the target under the boresight, fire the laser for range, computer adjusts and locks on, fire weapon.

As far as I can tell we have simple uncalibrated versions which appear at least confusing to me. What i did is setup a mission with 6 Opfor tanks at 800m and at 400m increments until 2.8km as per the markings on the current view.

I located the TGA for the HUD markings and drew calibration lines at intervals for each tank and range. Firstly I used the automatic aiming setting to draw the target symbol for the locked target and recorded that it both was accurate (it was) and the elevation. The system I used was to use the top of the tanks turret, obviously then it's only calibrated for T-80's but at 3km a tank is 5-7 pixels or so high, so in practice it's not as drastic an issue. It reminded me somewhat of Silent Hunter and stadimeters, its always prone to error.

The results were satisfactory enough for me to get a one shot kill at nearly 3km with target and firer stationary, without targeting assistance.

Anyway if you are looking for a solution (worst pun evar) to customising sights, then here's the detail.

1. Backup your existing HUD in C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World\Mods\tech\CombinedArms\Cockpit\blueHUD.tga by renaming it something similar

2. Get GIMP (free paint program)

3. Open file and edit. Check the help manuals if you want help, not me.

4. Export to TGA of the same name

5. Check out your cool skills in game and the wonders of opacity

You might also want to edit the auto targeting bracket that computes your solution in the same way. It's called arcade.tga in the same folder. For example i put a red dot in the centre which simplifies aiming immensely and its accurate. The image is recognisable on the second row at the far left when you open the file.

Image and mission attached. Hope it helps someone.

Range.miz

Can't someone with MOD skills fix this as a downloadable?

Great stuff Pikey, I'm going to have to try my hand at cooler looking primary sight for the M1

Dude you're a genius! I'm definitely going to have fun with this :pilotfly:

An attempt at a Bradley reticle

I tried the exact same thing last night by D/L gimp and gave it a try but the gimp interface just confused me and couldn't get anywhere so uninstalled it,not my forte I'm afraid,

So if some good chap could take the pain out of this it would be much appreciated,

Cheers.

That's brilliant!! And they look great too!

Have to agree I'd like a downloadable version of these sights, especially the M1 and the lead computing dot for the AAA systems.

Excellent. Is it possible to put a Fire control system in along with that primary sight, or is it too tough for a mod?

Now that would be awsome!! If they could make it so if you hit the L key for instance to lase what's in the center of the reticle, and the turret would adjust itself automatically to hit that spot. Almost like the real deal. Just need dual axis stabilization and a very high magnification thermal sight lol.

So if some good chap could take the pain out of this it would be much appreciated,

Cheers.

I used photoshop for this. Basically you need an alpha channel mask that is the shape of your reticle. I should say that I'm really not good with photoshop, I followed some tutorials on youtube and was pretty surprised when it worked :D

Excellent. Is it possible to put a Fire control system in along with that primary sight, or is it too tough for a mod?

Too tough for me I'm afraid.

Dude you're a genius! I'm definitely going to have fun with this :pilotfly:

An attempt at a Bradley reticle

Can you post these as downloads, please. They look great.

Excellent. Is it possible to put a Fire control system in along with that primary sight, or is it too tough for a mod?

It's just weapon sights, no coding, just drawing a picture on the screen with a paint program.

The main one I want to draw is the computer lead frame that's currently a yellow dashed circle. Whatever we come up with would most likely be completely fictional since the whole computer system for targeting and locking won't exist until it's a 3rd party addon and someone does it with C++ and LUA.

If anyone has ideas about what we can change with the existing views then pile in with the ideas.

Can you post these as downloads, please. They look great.

I'd be happy to. I've got three in the works, Abrams style, Bradley style and CROWS style.

I've just got to tweak these a bit to ensure that I like the size and placement (you can see that the bradley reticle is not currently centered :)). Hopefully I'll be able to get it done after work tonight

I'd be happy to. I've got three in the works, Abrams style, Bradley style and CROWS style.

I've just got to tweak these a bit to ensure that I like the size and placement (you can see that the bradley reticle is not currently centered :)). Hopefully I'll be able to get it done after work tonight

I look forward to it!

It would be nice to have separate reticules for each weapon system. I took a look through the tga files and it seems that many if them are used for several weapons. Each weapon system should have its own reticle.

It would be nice to have separate reticules for each weapon system. I took a look through the tga files and it seems that many if them are used for several weapons. Each weapon system should have its own reticle.

not if they use the same sight..

Maby ED have plans to change the sights, it's just a early beta folks.

(HJ)

It would be nice to have separate reticules for each weapon system. I took a look through the tga files and it seems that many if them are used for several weapons. Each weapon system should have its own reticle.

 

not if they use the same sight..

Agreed. I should rephrase that; each gun site should have its own unique reticle.

It would be most fair for all players if ED implements the sights in to the CA package.

EDIT: OR there are a MOD that all can use.

Is it possible to use a similar method to change the particle effect (color, alpha, transparency, etc) on AP impacts? I'm (still) having difficulty gauging where my shots land. If I'm not looking exactly where they end up, the shot's lost and nearly useless for correction.

Not something I can do unfortunatly. I'd recomend you check out Mustangs excellent mod that gives tank rounds a tracer effect, it's helped me a lot

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=1489820&postcount=10

Aaaah, that alone will be a life saver, though! Thanks!

I really hope ED implements real fire-control computations eventually; they make a huge difference (and are probably part of why the M1s are having such a hard time against T80s right now).

If you've played a bit of Steel Beasts before, you'll know how feasible 4km+ sabot kills against moving targets are in the western tanks... and also how HARD those same kills are for the T72, with it's lack of automatic lead computation.

Hey, was leafing through the SA-13 strela manual and found a pic of the sight. I was wondering if you could model that? The circle with four lines is the sight's boresight, the circle is the seeker boresight ( to replace the horizontal bars ). The other black circles on the edge of the sight aren't pertinent to combined arms. The symbology is the same zoomed out and non zoomed out. ( The real thing has no zoom ). The three circles at the bottom are the missile seekers that are not in use ( no need to model ). And just in case you were wondering, the " Active " missile's seeker is overlaid on the sight's boresight when not in use ( "Caged" ). When the seeker is uncaged, it searches in circular patter ( maybe something else, I don't know ). The black circles can change color to indictate a seeker lock on, and therefore, readiness for launch.

The color of the symbology is black, just as in the picture.

In case anyone is interested. I have made a few reticules.

First is the actual M1 gun site.

Second is a standard crosshair for MG's

Third is an update to the targeting site, that adds a dot for better precision and accuracy.

Enjoy

Reticules.zip

Could you perhaps post a few screenshots of what they look like?

SA-13 photos are rare online man, and I had to try to get to that photo, as well as the fact that I'm not a crewmember for an SA-13.