Rockets

[Reticuli]

Rockets

Hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah

 

I don't really know where even to begin with rockets in DCS BS2.

 

A rocket will work a couple dozen feet from targets at least, practically point blank in aircraft terms.

 

They are mildly effective against light targets if I turn on infinite weapons and lay down a massive blanket of them.

Horrendously difficult to target.  Practically nonexistent shrapnel effects.  Just wow.

Between the squirly-acting poorly-named FD mode, appalling shkval, the yaw, and now the rockets, sometimes I wonder if ED is intentionally trying to hamstring the shark in DCS.  No idea why, because if you're looking at balance in multiplayer, it's basically got zero chance against the other vehicles right now as it is.

Edited December 8, 2020 by Reticuli

[Volk.]

The area of effect of rockets (splash damage) in DCS is generally considered to be weaker than it should be.

But IRL rockets outside of APKWS and the JF17 BRDMS are also area-effect weapons IRL, not expected to be on target with every volley.

 

Just note most rockets you can carry in DCS aircraft are ineffective against armour. You practically need a dead-on hit from a heavier armour-piercing rocket (maybe S-13) in the rear of armour like a tank to even scratch it, which is pretty close to reality if one's not modeling sensor suppression etc. (which would take more outta your CPU/frames). And most missions I've seen made for the Shark, it's set to attack AAA and things with TOW missiles, so that very approach to within 4 or less kilo's for an inaccurate volley (closer = more less spread), and of course wanting to dive a little to reduce spread rather than a level hover-popup, puts you in danger of getting shot by those thing. Similarly the Cannon, while a really powerful accurate 30mm, also won't be effectual until you start getting into range where return-fire is a thing.

So for most part if you're taking on armour, then you need to use the Vikhrs or Kh-25. Trucks, infantry, BTRs and that stuff the guns can take out fine and rockets will work there (again splash damage not quite as damaging as it should be).

 

So rockets IRL are also considered area effect weapons, not necessarily expected to land on target and with a few small exceptions not expected to take out a tank - that's where the ATGMs or precision bombs come in.

 

There's a couple of tuts out on rocket runs and how to do them as accurately as possible - short version is slightly faster dive into the wind (or with it), when your flight regime is already stable and the cursor stays level on the target rather than creeping up to it.

[Cheetah7798]

Volk's answer is on point.

 

I notice a lot of people become caught up in the idea that every ground-attack aircraft is a tank-killer, when, in reality, that's more the exception to the rule. Don't get me wrong, rockets could stand to be more effective in DCS, though not for the reasons you may think. The whole MO of unguided rockets is a compromise between explosive output, area saturation and, most importantly, affordability. You see the Russian air force make use of them a lot because they are extremely effective for their price, which is dirt-cheap compared to anything precision guided. Remember, for most militaries, the goal isn't to make the best weapon there ever was; Rather, it's to make the most cost effective weapon there ever was.

 

Now, under what circumstances would rockets be used in reality? Simply put, area targets. Clusters of vehicles, manpower and defensive positions. A typical sortie for an attack helicopter like the Mi-24 would be flying out to some arbitrary, hostile defensive position, unloading rockets haphazardly around the area, then heading home. Again, the primary target here isn't individual vehicles (especially not tanks), it's going to be strong-points. Logistics vehicles parked in close proximity. Infantry huddled together in some trench or another. Typical, light skinned stuff.

 

Here's a little experiment you can run in DCS. Set up a little camp in the editor. Tents, trucks, infantry, bunkers, etc... Fill a 500-1000m² area. Then, load up a Ka-50 with 4 lots of S-8OFP2 rocket pods, set the thing to a medium burst-length. Lase the place and, at about 4-5km, unload an salvo and adjust your shots visually, based on the impacts. I think you'll find the effectiveness to be adequate.

 

The primary reason rocket effectiveness suffers in DCS is because, in reality, most of the time the rockets don't need to completely destroy their targets. Imagine an APC that's have its tires shredded into rubber streamers; or trucks that have their fuel-tank perforated in fifty different places, or tanks with their optics shattered and antennae damaged. Mobility or mission kills, etc. If that were modeled, then you'd see the true effect of unguided rockets.

Edited December 8, 2020 by Cheetah7798

[Reticuli]

So the rocket shrapnel or at least the nuanced effects from it in DCS might not be quite up to snuff.  Does the ka-50 use the EO and laser system in any way when you're aiming the rockets if you're laser designating?

[Taz1004]

25 minutes ago, Reticuli said:

So the rocket shrapnel or at least the nuanced effects from it in DCS might not be quite up to snuff.  Does the ka-50 use the EO and laser system in any way when you're aiming the rockets if you're laser designating?

 

You have to use the Shkval and laser with rockets for accuracy.

 

Damage model sucks.  Why I exaggerate them in lua files but of course will break IC.  Not really exaggerating it actually if I'm making it to be more realistic.  I just increase the blast radius so they have more splash damage.

[Reticuli]

But I assume that's just for the targeting reticle purpose, not for any auto tilting the hardpoints are doing, right?

[Taz1004]

48 minutes ago, Reticuli said:

But I assume that's just for the targeting reticle purpose, not for any auto tilting the hardpoints are doing, right?

 

Rockets don't tilt.

Laser is for ranging to calculate impact point.

[Gunnar81]

On 12/8/2020 at 9:24 AM, Cheetah7798 said:

Volk's answer is on point.

 

I notice a lot of people become caught up in the idea that every ground-attack aircraft is a tank-killer, when, in reality, that's more the exception to the rule. Don't get me wrong, rockets could stand to be more effective in DCS, though not for the reasons you may think. The whole MO of unguided rockets is a compromise between explosive output, area saturation and, most importantly, affordability. You see the Russian air force make use of them a lot because they are extremely effective for their price, which is dirt-cheap compared to anything precision guided. Remember, for most militaries, the goal isn't to make the best weapon there ever was; Rather, it's to make the most cost effective weapon there ever was.

 

Now, under what circumstances would rockets be used in reality? Simply put, area targets. Clusters of vehicles, manpower and defensive positions. A typical sortie for an attack helicopter like the Mi-24 would be flying out to some arbitrary, hostile defensive position, unloading rockets haphazardly around the area, then heading home. Again, the primary target here isn't individual vehicles (especially not tanks), it's going to be strong-points. Logistics vehicles parked in close proximity. Infantry huddled together in some trench or another. Typical, light skinned stuff.

 

Here's a little experiment you can run in DCS. Set up a little camp in the editor. Tents, trucks, infantry, bunkers, etc... Fill a 500-1000m² area. Then, load up a Ka-50 with 4 lots of S-8OFP2 rocket pods, set the thing to a medium burst-length. Lase the place and, at about 4-5km, unload an salvo and adjust your shots visually, based on the impacts. I think you'll find the effectiveness to be adequate.

 

The primary reason rocket effectiveness suffers in DCS is because, in reality, most of the time the rockets don't need to completely destroy their targets. Imagine an APC that's have its tires shredded into rubber streamers; or trucks that have their fuel-tank perforated in fifty different places, or tanks with their optics shattered and antennae damaged. Mobility or mission kills, etc. If that were modeled, then you'd see the true effect of unguided rockets.

 

Great intelligent post. Most of DCS’s limitations for rocket use are just in mission design.

[Chaders]

Splash damage isn't as effective as it could be in DCS but the big issue is AI ground forces will still take extremely acurate shots back at you even as the world explodes around them. In reality APCs/tanks would be buttoned right down with very limited visibility if ever there was a threat of attack helicopters in the area let alone unguided rockets exploding all around.

[Taz1004]

I know this is something ED needs to fix.

But just for anyone who wants to modify, you can open /Scripts/Database/Weapons/warheads.lua

Find the weapon and change the value below.

For S-8OFP2 for example at line 198

 

Quote

other_factors    = { 0.5, 1.0, 1.0 },

 

other_factors is when warheads hit ground.

 

First number is power multiplier.  It multiplies with expl_mass.  So this rocket when hits ground has explosion mass of 1.35.  Too low if you ask me.

Second number is splash radius.  If you want bigger splash damage radius when rockets hit ground, increase this value.

Third number is just for visual effect.

 

And of course this will fail IC.  But rockets are so much more fun now.

Edited December 27, 2020 by Taz1004

[Sh4rk]

On 12/8/2020 at 3:34 PM, Reticuli said:

So the rocket shrapnel or at least the nuanced effects from it in DCS might not be quite up to snuff.  Does the ka-50 use the EO and laser system in any way when you're aiming the rockets if you're laser designating?

You need to use the laser for ranging AND have the knob on the back right panel (#3, the one that goes 0-10) set appropriately to the weapon you're carrying. 

 

[FalcoGer]

Sure, rockets are area weapons and are not meant to take out tanks.

But when a rocket lands 2ft next to a fuel truck and it still doesn't take it out, then that's just silly. The tires would be popped, the tank perforated and the driver's body would contain 20% shrapnel by weight (read: he's dead).

If you hit a tank with an HE rocket head on, you'd certainly not kill it (blow it up and kill the crew), but you'd detrack it, you'd kill the optics, possibly bend the barrel, destroy the antenna, etc. For all intents and purposes it's out of action and needs to be either field repaired or towed away or at the very least have reduced combat effectiveness. The rocket would do something to it. Killing a tank in real life doesn't mean a burning wreck or the turret flying off in a massive explosion.

You can shoot a rocket 5ft away from infantry and they'll happily keep on standing. The gun is deadlier than a salvo of 80 rockets in some cases. Might as well save the fuel and take empty pylons, rockets are like shooting cotton balls right now.

 

An m67 hand grenade has supposedly a lethal radius of 15m. That's a tiny thing. Just place 20 infantry evenly spaced on the kobuletti air strip, load 80x s-8 ofp2 (supposedly anti infantry rockets) and just dump them evenly across that line. I get as good as 60% and as bad as 10% kills. The visuals tell me though that there should be nothing but body parts and mists of gore left. And an s-8 is somewhat larger than a hand grenade and yet you supposedly have to shoot someone in the face to kill them with it? It's not like the algorithm is hard.

 

objects = list of objects in <explosion radius> of explosion point
for (obj in objects)
  raycast point of explosion to object // acount for cover
  if valid
    dmg = explosion damge / (armor_rating * (distance_to_explosion²))
    apply damage(dmg)

of course objects could also include subobjects, such as sensors, wings, the canopy, etc.

also the damage formula could be altered. i just came up with that nonsense in 3 seconds, but it would still be a better model than the current: if hit in face then dead, otherwise nothing.

[Avimimus]

Hmm... I'm not sure if that equation covers it. If one looks at the manuals there are also '50% kill' zones and 'unsafe zones' where there is a lower probability of being killed. The fact is that fragments spread out into an ever increasing volume of space and gaps begin to form between the fragments.

 

There are usually a few large fragments that are lethal at a much larger distance but at those distances the probability of being missed entirely is higher. This is especially true if one is thinking about 'soft' vehicles with a low probability of unusually large or high-energy fragments hitting tired, cabs, radiators etc.

 

1) I would suggest adding a probability function for escaping without damage that decreases with range... (a simple probability function is less computationally intensive than ray-tracing fragments).

 

2) One could have the probability function be have different values depending on the type of warhead (e.g. expanding road warheads, modern fragmentation warheads which have much more even fragmentation, thermobaric warheads which are killing through over-pressure rather than fragments)... and also build in a capacity for having more than one effect (e.g. the Vikhr should be modelled as two warheads, the HEAT warhead itself and the fragmentation belt).

 

P.S. It might also make sense to have a check to see if a large number of rockets have been fired and then switch off these calculations if the salvos exceed several dozen rockets.

 

  

On 1/6/2021 at 11:56 AM, FalcoGer said:

Sure, rockets are area weapons and are not meant to take out tanks.

 

Well some of them are. The high velocity CRV-7 for example has a warhead variant that releases five tungsten flechettes per rocket with the intent of kinetic kills on light armoured vehicles. It really depends on the rocket variant we're discussing.