Please tone down some of the directi fire accuracy

[Mr_sukebe]

ED seem to be gearing up to actually resolve a lot of the outstanding game issues.

As such, can I please take this opportunity to ask to have the accuracy of AI direct fire to be toned down somewhat.

 

Since I started with DCS, direct fire, whether from ground AI units, or aerial have always been ridiculously good. I’ve had helicopters hit by main guns of T55s, and the usual plethora of other aircraft shot down when I stray too close.

Edited April 8, 2019 by Mr_sukebe

[Sandman1330]

Yeah, their 12.5mm and 14.7mm guns mounted in the tanks, BTRs and BMPs are snipers. They take down the A10 despite having just received a dose of 30mm in their faces. Maybe some type of suppression effect could be tied in with this fix, if it is considered!

[Mr_sukebe]

Time to resurrect this request, following my purchase of the P47, and having seen what the AI rear gunner in a Ju88 will do to the jug with his sub-8mm machine gun.

[Dragon1-1]

I agree. All DCS AI shoot like radar-guided guns, even main guns of BMPs, which don't have even the simplest AA sight. They should have to spend at least some time trying to find the range, anyone who played ArmA will know how hard it is to hit a fast-mover with a realistic HMG, even with an AA gunsight. Accuracy should be modulated by line of sight rate, basically, it's nearly impossible to land a hit on something moving quickly across your line of sight (for instance, an A-10 that's overflying you), but something that stays in the same point of the sky (say, an A-10 on a gun run against you) is much easier, even for a tank's main gun. Helos are much easier to hit, but also far from trivial, especially if moving fast and not in straight line. Experience and training help, but not as much as you'd hope.

 

Suppression would be nice, too, but IMO, the biggest problem is how good they are when you're just flying around, quickly crossing their line of sight. Ranging an airplane is hard, and unless you have a radar, it generally involves spraying in its general direction and hoping for a hit. For main guns in particular, it might even be actually impossible to pull enough lead in some situations - if you aim at the point where you could hit the aircraft, it'd be out of your sight's FOV.

[Harlikwin]

Yup 100% agreed, most direct fire outside of stuff like radar directed guns is WAAAY too accurate. And while yes, modern tanks do have ATGM's or specific anti helo rounds. Something like the T-55 absolutely should not. A T-55 commanders first thought when he hears or sees a helo should be, where do I hide my tank, and do I just bail out now.

 

And yes an actual supression model would be greatly welcome.

[Dragon1-1]

Actually, even a T-55 could do it, you don't need anti-helo rounds or ATGMs (which, BTW, were first introduced on T-64). You only need a helo pilot dumb enough to fly around at low speed (or better yet, hover) in your vicinity for an extended period of time. If you can hit a tank moving across your field of view (not that easy in a T-55, but a competent gunner could do that), you can also hit a helicopter that's moving around in a similar way, as long as the range is also comparable and required gun elevation is not excessive. Finding the range would be an issue, but I think a trained gunner would have the rough dimensions of enemy helicopters memorized (just like with other vehicles), and thus be able to use the T-55's reticle for that.

 

The helicopter beats the tank hands-down, but only if proper tactics are used, namely shooting ATGMs from long range. Then, a tank is unable to shoot back (tube-launched ATGMs could help with that, but I'd still bet on the helo in a missile duel), and can only hide. However, if that range advantage is stripped away, only the speed advantage remains, and against a tank, that only serves one purpose - to regain the range advantage. DCS tanks are probably too good at this sort of thing, but at low speeds and altitudes, helicopters can be well within the their guns' engagement envelope.

[Fri13]

 

A tank crew is "blind" to outside. The commander has best vision and it is very limited really. The gunner has second best vision. And in T-54/55 it took time to use different periscopes (Mk-4 vs TPN-1) and sight to find targets, where commander vision was blocked somewhat and gunner vision was blocked.

 

The T-54 brought first Hunter-Killer capability, so if commander spotted an target, with press of a button the gun was rotated at max speed in that direction, and gunner task was just to find elevation. In the tests it was (IIRC) 3 seconds that it took from a commander to find the range on the target, and in that time the gunner has already found the target so the range information was already known. And it was 15% accuracy for the range data that one could achieve with the optical sight alone but it got better as the crew skills to estimate it more accurately made it better.

 

The T-54/55 sights were IIRC 18 to -12 degrees so if you managed to fly above that then you should have been safe from main gun. Leaving only the machine gun as threat. And a trained machine gun shooter can hit a moving helicopter even at 1000-1500 meters fairly easily using various methods.

 

The problem in DCS is that units are using a leaded aiming all the time. So they know the perfect lead point and shoot there while tracking target through the firing. Then there is added some random off-set shooting that just doesn't work. As you can be flying to left from their perspective and then they shoot to right, where you came from like total idiots.

 

Anyone would know that if target moves left, that they need to shoot at left, not to the right.

The basic training advice is that if target does not approach or fly away, don't try to hit it. Instead shoot a barrage front of it. Take an estimation of where the target will be in X seconds based range and aim at that point and shoot a longer burst like a one second. Then take a another estimation again to front of it and shoot a another stream of bullets straight at that estimated point.

This is far more effective than trying to track the target and hit it with all. As you likely will anyways miss if trying to track, but you increase change to hit the target multifold with barrage method.

 

And if you are using tracers, then the pilot will get very serious stress and fear to fly as even maneuvering can lead to fly straight to stream of bullets.

That is major difference in DCS that if AI would be shooting barrage method, people wouldn't be flying around just avoiding impacts at all so easily.

As when AI is tracking a perfect lead, it is just up to pilot to change angle little bit to avoid all the impacts, meaning the pilot is in full control to getting shot down.

But in barrage method pilot is not in control, they now need to observe where the stream of bullets will fly to, and maneuver away from that position. And as the stream of bullets flies randomly front of their flight path (above, below, straight ahead etc) they become highly stressed from requirement to observe, maneuver, observe and maneuver process and if they don't immediately break off they likely get hit.

 

The unit self air-defense task is not to destroy target, but make so high threat airspace that pilot can't proceed flying in that area but must brake away and take distance. And from distance they can't spot the units and engage them. And that is a mission kill effect just with simple infantry and HMG self air-defense tasks. So 600-2500 meter range is too dangerous/deadly for the pilot to fly if they have lost the element of surprise. And that is part of the attack helicopters tactics that one helicopter attacks from east and escapes to north, while after that run another comes from south and turns to west, and again one comes from east and turns to south. As only part of the ground units can have visibility to given direction, only part of them can be engaging new threat, and when they come as surprise it becomes stressed experience for ground units if direction of attack can't be detected in time. Why infantry outside of the vehicles are important to hear and see the possible new attack directions and inform it to responsible troops and crews.

 

 

 

 

 

[Dragon1-1]

It would be good if they attempted the "barrage" tactic with HMGs and such, but remember, if you can't put the target in your gunsight, you're not going to be shooting anywhere near it, and in most cases, the gunsight FOV is too small to capture both a fast-flying aircraft and the point in front of it where you should shoot. Also, a tank that is shooting its antiaircraft HMG isn't really blind, because in all but the most recent designs, the commander has to turn out of the hatch to use it. Of course, that causes another problem, namely an exposed tank commander. Most notably, while the A-10 has little chance of killing a T-80 with its gun, if the T-80 was shooting back, this means the commander was out and had probably been shredded by shrapnel from the shells, even if the A-10 didn't actually hit the tank. They'd lose their HMG, their SA, and their leader in one gun run, which is almost as good as crippling the gun or the tracks. Some modern tanks have remotely controlled HMGs, but we don't have any of those in DCS.

[Vanguard]

I think I saw some changes to the wordings of some of the skill levels lately, which is good. From a scale of 1-5 they should be named Rookie, Novice, Average Veteran, Cyborg. I think the real issue is, most missions have everything set to level 5, which is effectively Cyborg, so they are doing what they should be IMO. The real solution is to use lvl 3, as it's "average" and more appropriate. I think people spam lvl 5 because they think it will solve all the other inherent problems with the AI... and it doesn't ;)

 

I agree with what has been stated already, I'm simply saying we, the mission creators are exasperating the problem by trying to use the highest skill level to solve other AI problems, and it doesn't work and makes this situation even worse.

[Northstar98]

Agreed with all of the above, it seems that a better implementation would be desireable.

 

Yesterday, I was having a go at one of the Viggen's instant action missions on the Caucasus, where you have to interdict a beachhead, I got swatted by a BMP-2, who managed to land 10-ish 30mm rounds onto me, meanwhile the ZSU-23-4 wasn't having much luck at all...

 

Most notably, while the A-10 has little chance of killing a T-80 with its gun, if the T-80 was shooting back, this means the commander was out and had probably been shredded by shrapnel from the shells, even if the A-10 didn't actually hit the tank. They'd lose their HMG, their SA, and their leader in one gun run, which is almost as good as crippling the gun or the tracks. Some modern tanks have remotely controlled HMGs, but we don't have any of those in DCS.

 

I'm fairly sure that some tanks with an MG on the commanders hatch/cupola can be aimed and fired from inside, but suffice to say it would have the same problems as discussed.

[Dragon1-1]

I'm fairly sure that some tanks with an MG on the commanders hatch/cupola can be aimed and fired from inside, but suffice to say it would have the same problems as discussed.

Aiming is the problem, it's very difficult to control the MG from the cupola where you can't see the sights (no, except for remote weapons stations, I haven't seen any tank with a periscope for that purpose). Also, the commander's gun was usually designed as an anti-air weapon, with the anti-infantry role being secondary. On Soviet tanks, you may notice they're usually pointed up. On all tank designs I've seen up close (either in ArmA or in museums), the commander's MG was a simple AA mount aimed with iron sights, or a full RWS.

 

For engaging infantry from inside the tank, the coaxial MG is used. It's typically smaller caliber and operated by the gunner. The gunner's job is to engage targets, the commander should be looking around and, well, commanding, not wasting time picking off infantry.