Gun is still weak

Running through an instant action mission, and I executed a gun attack on a T-55. My first few passes, with a deep dive angle, from the rear, effectively did no damage, even firing at .5nm slant range? I continued my attack, and only seemed to score damaging hits (hits that would deplete the health bar in f10 menu) at .2nm slant range. Still, it took multiple runs to kill a single tank. Considering the GAU-8's PGU-14/B API round is capable of penetrating 59mm if armor at 1000 meters, and .5nm is around 915 meters, I should have over 60mm of penetration. There T-55 has armor between 16-79mm armor except for the front.

As per the debriefing, I'm hitting it once or twice per pass. As per tacview, each pass, I'm hitting it 20-50 times.

Either ground vehicles need a rework on their damage model, the gun is nerfed, or his aren't being calculated properly.

Also, HEI rounds don't seem to do jack to infantry, but I believe that's a commonly known issue.

Part of the issue is the gun's accuracy too. https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=198156

The artwork for a vehicle only comes in three “flavors”

- Healthy

- Smoking

<insert explosion animation>

- Dead

BUT! Ability to move / fight does decrease with damage. As the OP says, the F10 health bar may be dropping, but for a static vehicle it’s kinda meaningless. You can see vehicles drop out of a moving formation though and (in the case of armor) their rate of fire will decrease or they will stop shooting completely. So even though something doesn’t look damaged, there are ways to tell that you are decreasing the enemy’s will / ability to fight...

The artwork for a vehicle only comes in three “flavors”

- Healthy

- Smoking

<insert explosion animation>

- Dead

 

BUT! Ability to move / fight does decrease with damage. As the OP says, the F10 health bar may be dropping, but for a static vehicle it’s kinda meaningless. You can see vehicles drop out of a moving formation though and (in the case of armor) their rate of fire will decrease or they will stop shooting completely. So even though something doesn’t look damaged, there are ways to tell that you are decreasing the enemy’s will / ability to fight...

The problem there, is mission objectives aren't based on breaking their will or disabling them, but destroying them fully. At least on the instant action missions (haven't really gotten into campaigns too much, as I'm still learning combat systems and tactics), the success triggers are only executed when things are dead. Especially annoying for infantry.

If they implemented a morale system and you could win by breaking their will, or some way of being deemed combat ineffective, and have a victory condition, that would help.

It still doesn't account for me unloading the majority of my gun rounds into a single tank to get a kill though, at inside 1000 yards. I'm well inside the effective range, but struggle to do any damage.

Well, the gun will kill everything else with just a squirt so I’m inclined to think it’s the armor rating on tanks.

I have the same thoughts. Fallowing the same tactics I have never been able to kill a tank with the GAU I can disable it but a full kill has not happened. Anything lighter than a tank though and it chews it up.

Interestingly though looking through youtube videos of the gun employment on an vehicle. There are many videos of the GAU obliterating soft targets like Hummers and light apcs. But virtually none of it "destroying a tank" so I did some further research.

While the GAU was designed to penetrate armor the most effective use of the gun is against soft targets facilitating its CAS role with more safty to near by friendly units. further more there are three states of "death" for a tank.

Mobility kill: in that you effectively stop it from moving at will on the batttle field .

A fire power kill: effectively stopping it from friing its main weapon.

A Catastophic kill: destrying the tanks and crews ability to fight. The GAU is designed for the former 2. The tactic is to hit the tank from the rear were the armor is weakest hitting the power plant. or from the side hitting the tracks to disable its movment or a steep dive angle attacking the barrel of the gun. These tactics work... in realife and effectively "kill" the tank. but as you said there is no win state for simply disabling the tank in really any mission I have flown. Would be nice if such a win condition was implemented.. more realistic too.

#1 20 and 30mm cannons are not effective against main battle tanks of any model made after 1940. You will notice all tanks, being designed to kill other tanks, utilise very large guns. This is not a coincidence.

#2 A BMP or BTR is a 'tank' in the loosest definition of the word. More technically speaking, they are 'light armor'. 20-30mm guns are highly effective against them. Therefore the A-10's gun can be considered a 'tank killer'.

#3 Most the confusion comes from people hearing 'tank killer' and assuming that it works equally well against all treaded vehicles from 10 to 60 tons in weight. Not true.

#4 As TOS above mentioned, in RL there is more than one kind of kill.

#5 The simplified damage model combined with questionable balance causes inexplicable results more often than not.

Ultimately, however, look up the armor ratings for various tanks and conpare it to the penetration values of the GAU. You'll quickly nltice even the rear armor is apt to be thicker than it can pen from beyond a few hundred yards, if that.

The new damage model will solve all these issues, as for the GAU-8 power a 150-200 round burst high from the rear at .7-.6nm will disable if not destroy any tanks on the planet, that said it's not properly modeled now since the old way of damage modeling was never intended to do that :thumbup:

I dunno man...

I think the take away is that the gun in DCS is functioning\modeled correctly we are just using it incorrectly. A column of tanks is better served with A CBU or a Mk 83 than the GAU.

The GAU 8 is not the weapon of choice to kill MBT. You CAN kill them, but that doesn't mean you SHOULD do it.

Against MBT use cluster munitions, LGB or MAVs.

Save the Avenger for IFVs, artillery and utility.

Also as some other forumites already said, in reality you don't need a K-kill (catastrophic kill) to disable a tank.

Even if you don't pierce the main compartment you can disable optics, range finders, ERA armor packs and tracks, making easier for the friendly MBT to disable it, or just removing it altogether from the battlegrounds for repairs.

Even if you don't pierce the main compartment you can disable optics, range finders, ERA armor packs and tracks, making easier for the friendly MBT to disable it, or just removing it altogether from the battlegrounds for repairs.

Or just scare the shit out of the tank crew with the sound of a few 30mm rounds impacting on their tank..

The GAU 8 is not the weapon of choice to kill MBT. You CAN kill them, but that doesn't mean you SHOULD do it.

 

Against MBT use cluster munitions, LGB or MAVs.

 

Save the Avenger for IFVs, artillery and utility.

 

Also as some other forumites already said, in reality you don't need a K-kill (catastrophic kill) to disable a tank.

 

Even if you don't pierce the main compartment you can disable optics, range finders, ERA armor packs and tracks, making easier for the friendly MBT to disable it, or just removing it altogether from the battlegrounds for repairs.

It would be nice to see the damage model of ground vehicles work in this fashion. I'd like to see systems modeling and damage to the same degree we have in aircraft, across all vehicles. There's plenty that doesn't "kill" me in the hawg, but either makes it harder, or impossible to fight in.

I hope that once they get the F-18 done, they will take a break from making any more modules until they come back and fix the old ones, and the problems with the world itself.

I dunno man...

 

I don't know. It's a somewhat modern main battle tank. I'm not sure you could penetrate even it's weakest armor points. Only lucky shots hitting the gun, tracks, sights, and maybe exposed top of the engine.

When I shoot at these, all I get is them popping smoke on me. Really, a waste of ammo. Mavericks and 70mm Hydra AP rockets are made to use against these.

Dont waste your ammo on tanks, save it for the other stuff as others have said. Only if you have nothing left give it a go, otherwise, cbu's and mavs etc

...the GAU-8 power a 150-200 round burst high from the rear at .7-.6nm will disable if not destroy any tanks on the planet...

Uh-huh...

Uh-huh...

I'm willing to bet modern armor and systems have advanced quite a bit, so it may not be an instant kill. However, 40+ depleted uranium slugs mixed in with 160+ high explosive shells, impacting within a second or two, is bound to leave more than just a dent.

wow....I thought at was just me. I set up a bunch of T55 tanks just for target practice and really had to hammer em to get any kills. 2 or 3 passes. It never use to be like that.

I'm willing to bet modern armor and systems have advanced quite a bit, so it may not be an instant kill. However, 40+ depleted uranium slugs mixed in with 160+ high explosive shells, impacting within a second or two, is bound to leave more than just a dent.

Sure, its not gonna be good for the tank.

And sure, killing a tank - even a modern MBT with enough luck and bullets - with a GAU8 is far from impossible.

But theres no justification at all for saying that a rear shot can kill "any tanks on the planet", thats just misinformation.

It doesnt matter how close you shoot, 30mm is still 30mm.

You have to go way back into the 1970's to find a tank with rear armour thin enough to be *reliably* penetrated (remember A-10A initial service entry wasnt until 1977). Add on to this the near-impossibility of achieving a perpendicular impact.

So even in its prime, this gun was only just a "tank killer" (other types of "mission kill" notwithstanding)

Thats not to say that in DCS, the GAU8 could stand to be a little more effective against something like a T-55, but then who knows, has anyone actually seen the effects it has on a T-55 in a real-world setting?

Uh-huh...

Actually, the guy you are addressing isn't too far from the truth as far as I know. I only say as far as I know because I've been out of the military for 30 years and don't keep up on the modern tanks. But when I was in the Army, we use to go out and watch A10's obliterate T55's in just a few short seconds. The T55 tank was like warm butter being pummeled with a BB gun. I do remember seeing what the A-10 cannon did to a T-72, not as it happened but we looked at one and it was pretty messy also. No tank could have survived that kind of damage. Never seen a T-80 as there were no captured ones on the range that I knew of.

As for T-90, past my time. The A10 also has trouble with the German WWII tanks in DCS and that's just out and out silly.

There are some issues that ED never seems interested in addressing, and this is one of them. And you can say that the new damage model is coming all day long. With ED, I believe it when it gets here, not before. Sun rises in the East..........:music_whistling:

I have the same thoughts. Fallowing the same tactics I have never been able to kill a tank with the GAU I can disable it but a full kill has not happened. Anything lighter than a tank though and it chews it up.

 

 

Interestingly though looking through youtube videos of the gun employment on an vehicle. There are many videos of the GAU obliterating soft targets like Hummers and light apcs. But virtually none of it "destroying a tank" so I did some further research.

 

 

While the GAU was designed to penetrate armor the most effective use of the gun is against soft targets facilitating its CAS role with more safty to near by friendly units. further more there are three states of "death" for a tank.

 

 

Mobility kill: in that you effectively stop it from moving at will on the batttle field .

 

 

A fire power kill: effectively stopping it from friing its main weapon.

 

 

 

 

A Catastophic kill: destrying the tanks and crews ability to fight. The GAU is designed for the former 2. The tactic is to hit the tank from the rear were the armor is weakest hitting the power plant. or from the side hitting the tracks to disable its movment or a steep dive angle attacking the barrel of the gun. These tactics work... in realife and effectively "kill" the tank. but as you said there is no win state for simply disabling the tank in really any mission I have flown. Would be nice if such a win condition was implemented.. more realistic too.

What is footage of a couple of F-15s flying over a tank covered with bad pyro supposed to prove?

Actually, the guy you are addressing isn't too far from the truth as far as I know. I only say as far as I know because I've been out of the military for 30 years and don't keep up on the modern tanks. But when I was in the Army, we use to go out and watch A10's obliterate T55's in just a few short seconds. The T55 tank was like warm butter being pummeled with a BB gun. I do remember seeing what the A-10 cannon did to a T-72, not as it happened but we looked at one and it was pretty messy also. No tank could have survived that kind of damage. Never seen a T-80 as there were no captured ones on the range that I knew of.

As for T-90, past my time. The A10 also has trouble with the German WWII tanks in DCS and that's just out and out silly.

There are some issues that ED never seems interested in addressing, and this is one of them. And you can say that the new damage model is coming all day long. With ED, I believe it when it gets here, not before. Sun rises in the East..........:music_whistling:

Which is a much healthier way to live than stressing over how 1s and 0s react to other 1s and 0s... :music_whistling:

The mission of the A10 has changed. It's not a "tank killer" it's a CAS platform. It's not like there will be too many instances of Danger Close calls with tanks in the picture.

Also, the reason why the A10s are so effective is because in the last 20 years of OIF/OEF, we've had 100% air superiority. A10's can't be dodging Mig while doing CAS missions. And as mentioned before SEAD missions are supposed to help with containing SAMs.

But overall, it's still a blast to fly in DCS!