Cannot kill tank (T-72) with GAU-8 Gun

[A10Yoda]

Well provided that the guy on the ground knew what he was actually looking at :music_whistling:

Ground? You mean trailer 260 miles out sipping his coffee..

 

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[lobo]

You know what else can't be killed by the GAU-8? This thread...

[A10Yoda]

You know what else can't be killed by the GAU-8? This thread...

Rofl..

 

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[Harlikwin]

Ground? You mean trailer 260 miles out sipping his coffee..

 

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

 

Used to be the ground when I was around. Then again I was talking to fast movers mostly :music_whistling:

[Harlikwin]

You know what else can't be killed by the GAU-8? This thread...

 

There's lots and lots of things the GAU-8 can't kill... :thumbup:

[Emmy]

Well, not really. The DCS version has hit points, so as they say in the movies, any resemblance to real tanks is purely coincidence. :)

 

It actually would be beneficial if tanks in DCS had documented “zones” to aim for (a la WOT) where you have a higher percentage chance of degrading said hit points to a point where the destroyed model kicks in and you get a kill. Visually, until it explodes, you have no idea what level of damage you’re causing (without enabling the arcade-ish BDA display)

[Fri13]

 

 

1) damage model in DCS for ground vehicles is simpliefied to a healbar sort of thing. If we had more Realistic Damage model it would still be possible to Mission Kill a tank by simply destroying its treads, immobilizing it, without needing to entirely blow it up.

[/Quote]

 

Getting a damage effects to ground units as such:

 

Gunsight damage

Commander optics damage

Driver optics damage

 

Radio antenna destroyed

Laser rangefinder damaged

 

R/L track cut

R/L track destroyed

R/L main wheel damaged

R/L wheel destroyed

 

Engine coolant leak

Engine oil leak

Engine damaged

Batteries damaged

 

Gun pipe damaged

Gun destroyed

Roof gun destroyed

Coax damaged

Turret damaged (rotation)

 

Armor penetration in:

- driver compartment

- Commander / Gunner compartment

- loader compartment

 

Armor penetration and:

- driver injured / killed

- Gunner injured / killed

- Commander injured / killed

- loader injured / killed

- internal/external/left/right/floor ammo rack damaged

- autoreloader damaged / destroyed

- diesel engine destroyed / damaged

- electric engine destroyed

- radio destroyed

- gun destroyed

- drive controls damaged

 

And then of course, far more effective than anything else above:

 

Driver / Gunner / Commander / Loader

- Worried / Stressed

- moral low / high

- panicked

- in shock

- unconscious

- abandoned vehicle

 

 

Now all those could be stacked, meaning you can drop a bomb 100-150 meters from the MBT (T-55) without any warning and you could cause:

 

- Driver optics damage

- driver stressed

- Commander moral high

- Gunner stressed

 

MBT starts maneuvering and retreat to nearest air cover.

Drop another to 30-50m from it and cause:

 

- right track damaged

- driver panicked

 

And minute later:

 

Abandoned vehicle

 

 

 

Why?

The vehicle is undrivable (stuck), it gets targeted from the air and staying in can kill all, so commander command crew to nearby position after reporting the situation and getting crew together.

 

 

With a two bombs that were not hits but one near hit, you got one MBT out of the action. And so on whole platoon halted as it is now defensive and regrouping.

 

More other units there are near by like trucks etc, moral impacts affects them all, but crew can be picked up and local air defense is set. So you are easily aimed by half a dozen MANPADS and AAA now if you get spotted and you are at range.

 

So you are not going to go back, you just slowed a whole company attack for a moment with two misses until MBT gets fixed. But same time you created a new defence area that denies any low level (<4000m) flying from 6x10km area.

As right then there is 250 eye pairs looking at sky, anti-air weapons readied and scattered around. And CAP arriving the area in few minutes.

 

So no, you are not there using a cannon or rockets etc. You're flying away with A-10 as well you can.

[Holbeach]

There's lots and lots of things the GAU-8 can't kill... :thumbup:

 

 

Except a T-72B, which it can kill. :thumbup:

 

 

..

[Mars Exulte]

@Fri13

If you had that kind of vehicle simulation, ala Combat Mission, you could forget about playing the game in FPS above single digits :p

[silverdevil]

LOL, nope... :megalol:

 

Its depleted uranium so not radioactive. DU is pyrophoric which several folks have already pointed out. And the residual heavy metal contamination and DU nano particles do pose health risks.

 

to clarify. depleted uranium rounds emit alpha, delta and gamma radiation that stick to airborne particles. which outside of body do not cause problems. there are lots of studies where the remnants of the projectile cause cancer because of inhalation.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium

 

but you know everything on the Internet is a lie and the world is flat.

[Harlikwin]

to clarify. depleted uranium rounds emit alpha, delta and gamma radiation that stick to airborne particles. which outside of body do not cause problems. there are lots of studies where the remnants of the projectile cause cancer because of inhalation.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium

 

but you know everything on the Internet is a lie and the world is flat.

 

Allright sprays radiation man lets leave it there.

[Harlikwin]

Except a T-72B, which it can kill. :thumbup:

 

 

..

 

Indeed :thumbup: at least from some ranges and aspect angles.

[Harlikwin]

@Fri13

If you had that kind of vehicle simulation, ala Combat Mission, you could forget about playing the game in FPS above single digits :p

 

I think however you could abstract it to very general categories. I.e. So many rounds get you a mobility kill, or a FCS (optics) kill, morale kill or something like that. And that should be computationally tractable on larger DCS scale.

[Fri13]

@Fri13

If you had that kind of vehicle simulation, ala Combat Mission, you could forget about playing the game in FPS above single digits :p

 

That kind simulation levels are done on other RTS games, but question is always how you implement such functions in DCS. Should be doable with thousands of units.

 

And that is where multicore CPU should be useful. One core for REDFOR ground units, one for BLUFOR ground units etc etc...

 

You wouldn't have hundreds of units taking his simultaneously, just a few if even that. As DCS is not about 15-30min "total war" simulation but should be 12-64 weeks war.

 

Where a dynamic mission/campaign should be reflecting such timing and progress instead quick and fast.

 

Meaning of someone has one hour, or just 15-30min in their weekly life to spend for DCS, it would be still slow, and it should be able be saved and continued on next day. Fly one or two sorties and that's it. You might blow just one or two targets but have more fun doing so as slow is war as life is.

[Rick50]

You know what else can't be killed by the GAU-8? This thread...

 

You sir, win the internetz today!!:thumbup:

[Kev2go]

Kev, I enjoy our back and forth but... Aww man... Now I'm the one to have to say AkTShually! :)

 

And by and large you are correct.

 

However,

 

NATO, by and large didn't use DU anything turns out that Ze German people weren't really fond of the idea of turning germany into a glowing radioactive wasteland, so they were quite opposed to any anything with the word radioactive in it (regardless if it was or not). Only the Evil 'Muricans and Limey's used DU. And sadly for Ze Gemranz, the majority of forces in Germany, were in fact German at least during the cold war.

 

But moreover, no DU ammo was actually tested at Haide (or at least thats publicly known) so, at the end of the day we don't know how well it would have performed.

 

DM53 120mm APFSDS (in service in 1999 well after the cold war) could penetrate a rusty 70's era T72 at over 1.5km

 

DM33 120mm APFSDS (in service in 1987)could "kinda" penetrate at shorter ranges

 

DM12 120mm HEAT could penetrate at any range, but given that it was HEAT it wasn't too accurate at long range. Maybe 500-1000m given what gunnery is for tanks in Germany.

 

All non DU 105mm rounds failed to penetrate... End of story.

 

I agree wholeheartedly that 80's era rounds like M829, and 833 could penetrate (Both DU) an early cast turret 1970's T72. At what specific range... I'll leave that guesswork to "experts" (at a guess the US military got to do some early testing on some models "acquired" by the Israelis) which then prompted the accelerated deployment of 833...

 

So yes, NATO had a shiny window at the very ass end of the Cold war (from 1987 to 89 lets say) to fight that magic conventional war that they all so desperately wanted, that wouldn't have happened in the first place, because quite literally all the WARPAC plans involved nuking them till they glowed from 0 Hour, with highly detailed plans of which airbase/ground base/pershing site etc got how many Kt in the first few minutes, and how many more Kt in the next few... So the question is rather academic.

 

Yes as ive said, I only agree thats only largely true for non DU L7 105mm which were for leopard 1's,in contrast I will tell you I disagree that non DU L44 120mm guns on Leopard 2's cant penetrate "old rusty 1970s" T72 Russian tanks. I will go even further by saying with confidence ( depending on the ammo type) they can penetrate some 80s Soviet tanks.

 

 

105mm Isreali made M111 hetz ( which Germans license built as dm23 for 105mm Leopard 1's) could very much penetrate vanilla T72A production tank beyond 1.5 km Soviet testing of this confirmed this. hence why the then starting welding on 16mm steel plates onto the main glacis of T72A's, which in turn reduced its effectiveness to whats estimate to be close range of 500M distance. Only the turret was immune.

 

120mm Dm13 is already more effective than than 105mm M111 hetz. and DM23 further improvement of the Dm13. Therefore the Glacis of a 16mm upgraded T72A would still be expected vulnerable to DM23 at average combat ranges.

against the Glacis the 120mm Dm33 would totally be overkill against a even late model T72A. Even in a Russian made tank game ( semi realistic sim) came up with thier own similar estimates that the 120mm DM33 could still penetrate mod late model T72A and T80B glacis beyond 3km distance. Same goes for the T80B, given it has the same Glacis array ( but refitted with thicker 30mm welded Plates), Same Turret composition as the T72A. Only the turret of the T72A would be strong enough to withstand DM33 at extremly long distances, but that armor too was deemed vulnerable. However when taking into consideration that the average engagement distance was expect to be 1.5- 1.6 KM distance, Such non DU ammo is more than adequate enough for most typical expected engagement distances in the Germany. Seriously the T72A wasn't designed to be invulnerable to 120mm ammo, the 16mm plate was just a quick fix against then newer 105mm non DU ammo like M111 Hetz.

 

T72A mod 83 glacis array is really just 16mm Applique ( welded add on plate) + 60mm RHA steel glacis + 105mm Glass Textolite + 50mm RHA steel , 3 layers sandwiched together angled at 68 degrees. textolite itself barely has no impact on kinetic based rounds. That's only when mixed with steel providing extra protection against Shaped chargers relative to protection against Kinetic energy, which again 120mm Dm12 HEATFS, is in turn again powerful enough to negate Glacis of T72A armor, and even turret.

 

Thats why the T72B was developed. To counter newer 120mm kinetic based ammo, known at the time ( IE 120mm DM13 and DM23, and against late american DU 105mm) with spaced armor in the glacis, and a thicker Turret with spaced steel arrays, and add on Kontact 1 to help deal with newer shaped charges. Thatas also why a number of older T72A tanks were equipped with Kontact 1, to attempt to reduce effectivness of 120mm HEAT rounds, and AGTM's, but still would have resulted in lower protection overall given the older Turret and Glacis armor.

 

Remember that the T72A was arguably the most common soviet tank of the 80s, ( T72M1 was the best warpact tank allowed for production, still lots of T55's in service) followed by the T72B which didn't accumulate enough serial production until 1988. only the followed by the elite Guard units which had more expensive T-64B's, T80B's/T80BV's and some T80U's.

 

So with DM23 and even more so with late 80s with Dm33 Germans could counter the most common warpact threats and even older elite soviet tanks like the T64B and T80B, T80BV, the latter of which remained the most common available T80 variants until the end of the cold war.

 

leaving at best T-72B and only T-80U strong enough on both turret and glacis to counter most 120mm tungsten ammo.

 

Edit:

 

"AkTShually" DM53 was a very capable ammo type when introduced. Especially when fired from L55 equipped Leopard 2( Leopard 2a6 or other similar derivatives) , that is said to more or less rival M829A3 in performance, because L55 fires at a higher velocity than american M256 120mm ( l44 derivative), which very much does alot for compensation of not getting the extra penetrating power that lower velocity DU round achieves.

 

You can dismiss this as a pointless academic discussion and brush it off with "but a cold war would never go hot" thats not the point here. , but an attempt to rectify incorrect information for the record.

Edited August 19, 2019 by Kev2go

[Zimmerdylan]

I was in this thing in Kuwait in the early 90s. I remember seeing T55 tanks with A10 rounds through the front of the turret.

 

M113 or Brdm or mtlb is NOT a tank. A tank chassis does not a tank make.

 

I have to absolutely second this statement. I have personally seen what a 30mm round from an A10 does to a T55. And while I remember that the penetration (make no mistake, it was complete and devastating penetration) was mostly in the turret I did see where rounds penetrated through other areas of the tank. I remember distinctly thinking to myself how insanely powerful those rounds must be. And that I would never want to be in that tank while an A10 was attacking. My experiences are from the early 1980's but I know what I saw.

Plus, I had the great pleasure to get to know one of the A10 flight instructors from Davis Monthan AFB some years ago. He told me that an A10 could absolutely disable many of the cold war era soviet tanks with the cannon. And that it was not uncommon. He told me that you had to get in pretty close to do any real effective damage but it was not that uncommon. He told me a story of some Iraqi tankers that surrendered immediately following an attack from an A10 using it's cannon. They said that they though that a demon of hell fire was coming after them (paraphrasing) when the rounds were hitting the tank. The only reason that they survived the attack was that the pilot of the A10 was shooting from over 2 miles away because he was unable to get any closer due to other threats, and the cannon was all he had left at the time.

So I can look at all of the statistics from people who have never seen an A10 in action, or never seen the aftermath of what it can do. I am not saying that the 30mm in an A10 is the end all of weapons. I'm saying that I know what I have seen with my own 2 eyes. And I know that my source for my information is very real and dependable. My experience doesn't seem to match up with what many here are claiming.

I do believe that the DM in DCS is fundementally flawed. It always has been. At times, I can't kill a gaggle of ground troops with the cannon while my pipper is right on them. But That's an issue in all computer based games and sims. I do believe that it's a very low priority in DCS so it's something that we all have to live with.

[A10Yoda]

I have to absolutely second this statement. I have personally seen what a 30mm round from an A10 does to a T55. And while I remember that the penetration (make no mistake, it was complete and devastating penetration) was mostly in the turret I did see where rounds penetrated through other areas of the tank. I remember distinctly thinking to myself how insanely powerful those rounds must be. And that I would never want to be in that tank while an A10 was attacking. My experiences are from the early 1980's but I know what I saw.

 

Plus, I had the great pleasure to get to know one of the A10 flight instructors from Davis Monthan AFB some years ago. He told me that an A10 could absolutely disable many of the cold war era soviet tanks with the cannon. And that it was not uncommon. He told me that you had to get in pretty close to do any real effective damage but it was not that uncommon. He told me a story of some Iraqi tankers that surrendered immediately following an attack from an A10 using it's cannon. They said that they though that a demon of hell fire was coming after them (paraphrasing) when the rounds were hitting the tank. The only reason that they survived the attack was that the pilot of the A10 was shooting from over 2 miles away because he was unable to get any closer due to other threats, and the cannon was all he had left at the time.

 

So I can look at all of the statistics from people who have never seen an A10 in action, or never seen the aftermath of what it can do. I am not saying that the 30mm in an A10 is the end all of weapons. I'm saying that I know what I have seen with my own 2 eyes. And I know that my source for my information is very real and dependable. My experience doesn't seem to match up with what many here are claiming.

 

I do believe that the DM in DCS is fundementally flawed. It always has been. At times, I can't kill a gaggle of ground troops with the cannon while my pipper is right on them. But That's an issue in all computer based games and sims. I do believe that it's a very low priority in DCS so it's something that we all have to live with.

Accurate..

 

If you are given the green light to hit a target with the 30mike, you hit the target with the 30. In a lot of situations it is meant to disable the target not always destroy.

 

That said, from incidents before my time (sounds like yours), the 30mm was used in dire situations and unfortunately ended in FF.

 

I believe it probably is the highest FF % in combat if not mistaken...and that is sometimes do to glancing rounds off armor close to friendlies..

 

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[Kid18120]

A10's GAU ricochet is incredibly dangerous. That's why a JTAC will never call a strafe run with the aircraft "flying" towards them. Even if you hit the target, bullets ricochet on the ground can travel for hundred of meters

[Rick50]

travel hundreds of meters, yea, and then still go through a basic APC sideways maybe! But to unprotected meatbags, those would be deadly even more than a kilometer or even two after bouncing. Might not be much good for taking down an MBT, but it's still got a LOT of energy.

[Zergburger]

Allright sprays radiation man lets leave it there.

i feel you bro, the autism on this forum never ceases to amaze.

[Dragon1-1]

travel hundreds of meters, yea, and then still go through a basic APC sideways maybe! But to unprotected meatbags, those would be deadly even more than a kilometer or even two after bouncing. Might not be much good for taking down an MBT, but it's still got a LOT of energy.

This is the case even with normal bullets. People have been killed by random fools firing their guns wildly into the air, sometimes quite a distance away. Mythbusters tested it, too. A bullet that's not going straight up remains lethal until it hits the ground.

 

On top of that, a good part of "combat mix" are HE rounds. In DCS, you can sometimes see, after a low-level strafing run, scattered explosions way past the target, from rounds that bounced off without detonating the first time. HE rounds may remain lethal even after hitting the ground, if they don't detonate right then.

 

BTW, OT, I was recently flying the Shturmovik campaign, and in one mission I had to kill a tank, IIRC a T-55, and I ran out of mavs. All I had was my gun and some HE rockets, and I engaged with the former. It took quite a few rounds from up close, but it eventually blew up. It helped that it had its MG trained on some friendly vehicles, so I wasn't flying in through a flurry of tracers. On top of that, I think that its turret got locked up after taking some damage. We do need a new vehicle damage model that would allow for things like detracking, damaging the MG and main gun, killing the crew and so on, but at least for T-55, it's already possible to kill one with the gun.

Edited October 10, 2020 by Dragon1-1

[silverdevil]

good point. though when i damage a tank with gun, they seem to stop doing anything when their damage reaches a certain level. i may not get the points for a kill but the threat is removed.

[Fri13]

not just going to rattle around like a .22 round in a beer can...it explodes.

 

The .22 caliber is deadliest caliber in the world. It is not a joke as people think it is.

 

It is deadly at all ranges, limited only by the shooter accuracy to hit target.

There are confirmed kill over 3.6 km with .22 caliber, because some people have not understood that regardless "it is just a .22 caliber" it will fly far if you shoot it at angle upwards and it will kill if hits someone.

 

And .22 caliber doesn't "rattle around" in a beer can, it goes though without nothing. An airgun with a flat head can get stuck inside a beer can and rattle it in a good luck.

 

The GAU-8 is a tank killer, but not a MBT killer. That is why you have Mavericks, because before then you needed to use a Mk.82 bomb to kill a MBT. And you had 4% change to hit a tank with 12 bombs. With Maverick, it is 30-50% change from 1.5-3 km distance, that raised to 50-80% with latest ones like K variant, still having shorter lock distance than in DCS.

 

But no tank crew is going to stay around if there is indirect or direct firing at them. The deadliest weapon against tanks is even today same as 70 years ago, the artillery. Then comes mortars, ATGM, other tanks and A-G weaponry.

 

To get a mission kill, you don't need much, and that is where GAU-8 performs greatly. There is no such armor in even a MBT that is protecting its optics against 20-30 mm caliber. Even a 12,7 mm is serious threat to those, with combat plates just lowering risk but not guarantee protection.

 

That is one common problem in DCS that ground units has zero skill and self protection that they would avoid to get shot by a enemy.

No skill whatsoever to perform local air defense tactics etc.

Combine it with all the fancy healthbar system and simplified damage system and people really think that GAU-8 is awesome against all tanks.

[Dragon1-1]

But no tank crew is going to stay around if there is indirect or direct firing at them. The deadliest weapon against tanks is even today same as 70 years ago, the artillery. Then comes mortars, ATGM, other tanks and A-G weaponry.

You're forgetting real the big killer - CBUs. CBU-97 really is an MBT-eating monster it is in DCS (in fact, I suspect it's even better IRL), and before that, Rockeyes and other types of antitank cluster bombs were in common use. In fact, even the artillery uses such munitions, this is the real reason they remain so deadly against armor, despite advances in mobility and protection.