GSH-30-2 VS Western Armour

[Rick50]

 

Ok but please remember, just because it looks like a 113, doesn't mean it still has the listed protection you read in a Janes book.

 

Way back in the mid-90's, I was in Yugoslavian civil war as a UN peacekeeping mission, while a member of the Canadian Army.  Our M-113's had armor upgrades done while in the troubled lands.  From even a tiny distance, they'd look EXACTLY the same as any '113. But up close, you could just make out that it had an inch of ceramic armor added to the outside. Look closer inside, and you'd see a kevlar spall liner. Such upgrades, uparmoring, have been going on now for 35 years, and as armies look to maximise value for dollars spent, are increasingly looking to keep the same vehicles, and upgrade them with better armor kits, better fire control, and now threat warning detectors, blue force tracking and so on. Not to mention MANPADS additions. They'll also upgrade fuel tanks to be more resistant to fire and explosions, relocate the tanks for the crew to be more survivable. 

 

Even in those days, the increase in armor given to British Warrior AFV's made them big and wide, and meant that you couldn't simply assume RPG's and older ATGM's would cripple one either. Similarly, 20 and 30mm cannon shells were not nearly as guaranteed to burn out the hull.  Nowdays, just don't even engage EVEN the oldest APC's using heavy machineguns like 14.5mm, unless your intel is CERTAIN they never received any armor upgrades, and even then it's probably best to use your time doing something else, or you'll be laced with coax. Or have 30mm inbound.

 

I wouldn't want to be such an uparmored APC when hit with a 30mm, but remember, if your whole crew is also wearing individual kevlar too, the 30mm may not do much to the M-113 with ceramics, spall liners, armor spacing, and so on. I'd rather be in an uparmored APC taking a couple 30mm hits, than be in a HIND taking a Stinger MANPADS hit.... when those lose control, it's often a crash into solid ground at 200mph. 

 

[sublime]

Considering the point you make at the end I wonder what typical HIND crew casualties are in combat losses.  I always think of that vid on youtube of the helo (from the gunners seat)  in the Ukraine that gets downed.  You hear gunfire at the end and I wonder if it's battlefield or the crew being shot

[unipus]

1 hour ago, Rick50 said:

 

Ok but please remember, just because it looks like a 113, doesn't mean it still has the listed protection you read in a Janes book.

 

Way back in the mid-90's, I was in Yugoslavian civil war as a UN peacekeeping mission, while a member of the Canadian Army.  Our M-113's had armor upgrades done while in the troubled lands.  From even a tiny distance, they'd look EXACTLY the same as any '113. But up close, you could just make out that it had an inch of ceramic armor added to the outside. Look closer inside, and you'd see a kevlar spall liner. Such upgrades, uparmoring, have been going on now for 35 years, and as armies look to maximise value for dollars spent, are increasingly looking to keep the same vehicles, and upgrade them with better armor kits, better fire control, and now threat warning detectors, blue force tracking and so on. Not to mention MANPADS additions. They'll also upgrade fuel tanks to be more resistant to fire and explosions, relocate the tanks for the crew to be more survivable.

 

Sure. Those are essentially different vehicles, with different designations. Somewhere, there are still listed protections for any of them - even if they are radically different from the original design.

[Apok]

Problem is DCS doesnt simulate damage to vehicle. Except mobility degradation whenever hp gets very low. And we will probably never get dmg model like warthunder or similar. They might add somekind of random chance of failure in terms of being unable to fire exposed weapons like turret machinegun or even main gun if dmg is over certain value. If proper dmg model is too resource heavy.

Edited July 7, 2021 by Apok

[unipus]

Given that I can do it with dice and a notecard and get believable 100' results, I find that hard to believe. Of course I know DCS is already not incredibly performant as it is.

[Rick50]

10 hours ago, unipus said:

 

Sure. Those are essentially different vehicles, with different designations. Somewhere, there are still listed protections for any of them - even if they are radically different from the original design.

 

 

I don't believe that we re-designated those vehicles once they got the upgrade. And 99% of enemy soldiers would have assumed there was NO armor upgrade, because it just wasn't visible from further than 3 meters (10ft).  To us users and the rest of the world, it's still a '113 aluminum box battle taxi. 

 

Look, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if 30mm will penetrate this or that armor. These days, aircraft cannons are NOT employed against even the lightest armor vehicles, unless they are DESPERATE. Desperate as in "it's gonna kill us now!", or "we're out of munitions but that thing just won't die, and the refugee encampment is just 5km away".  Thin skin vehicles, dismounts, ok sure, but EVEN THEN they are taking a huge risk of a AAA or MANPADS ambush. Does it even make sense to risk your aircrews, and your very valuable (relative to your nations' tax base) and rather expensive,  attack helicopter, say one of only 12 such units (small poor country), to plink away at armor that will likely just shrug at your efforts and then reward you with many holes in your airframe and rotors? Armor doesn't usually travel alone, so while you are linning up your BMP target, 6 more vehicles are lnning up on you with their HMG's, RPG's (remember Black Hawk Down were shot down using primarily VERY common unguided RPG-7 rockets) and maybe even GPMG's like the PKM on you. That vulnerable truck might have a ZU-23-2 and blast you hard. Sure, the armor in your HIND might save your life initially... but chances are high that you are going to have a hard landing.

 

[Fri13]

13 hours ago, unipus said:

if these guys want to shoot at you, they're putting their faces right in the line of incoming fire. Most people are probably not that brave/stupid to do so when they can see autocannon or rockets coming right at them. That's what I was referring to.

 

M113 gunner is that brave, standing right there half body exposed and killing everyone with its M2. 

 

Downside we have is that engagements ranges are typically at maximum, instead closer to minimum, because there is no ground clutter and no ways to get in cover and hide. 

[Fri13]

13 hours ago, Rick50 said:

I wouldn't want to be such an uparmored APC when hit with a 30mm, but remember, if your whole crew is also wearing individual kevlar too, the 30mm may not do much to the M-113 with ceramics, spall liners, armor spacing, and so on. I'd rather be in an uparmored APC taking a couple 30mm hits, than be in a HIND taking a Stinger MANPADS hit.... when those lose control, it's often a crash into solid ground at 200mph. 

 

That is another annoying thing in DCS that we can't have automatic doctrinal operations between APC/IFV and infantry squad they are supporting.

 

Even a trucks would become dangerous when transported squad would unmount and scatter for defense against spotted air threat.

 

Having quickly dozens of MANPADS and HMG spread around the area, moving their location depending your actions and situation.

 

While every destroyed vehicle would become achievement, there would be far more danger for helicopters and low level planes than ever.

 

One moment you see a column moving on road, each vehicle having a good 300-1000 meters spacing (instead current 20 meters), suddenly they all pull over and disappear to nearby forest, towns and such. You curse that they were alarmed about your presence and are prepared to engage you in 15-30 seconds from now. 

Then you would notice that some idiot fighter pilot was flying at high altitude looking at them with TPOD and was detected by a EWR some 100 km from your position.  Suddenly couple MANPADS are launched at it and is required to perform some maneuvers and maybe even drop heavy ordinance load to survive.

 

 

Your capabilities to engage couple of those trucks became near zero as you have no idea where they are, and how well they are defended.

 

 

[Cheetah7798]

8 hours ago, Rick50 said:

...Look, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if 30mm will penetrate this or that armor. These days, aircraft cannons are NOT employed against even the lightest armor vehicles, unless they are DESPERATE....

Paraphrased, your case is "Aircraft cannons would never be employed against individual vehicles, therefore their penetration characteristics are irrelevant."

Something of a non sequitur, no?

 

From the real-life footage I've seen of hinds, there is enough evidence to suggest that their usual attack run consists of a pop-up, rocket barrage, and occasionally followed up by a few cannon bursts at high RoF. Usually the target is a strong-point or some such; Vehicles, infantry, etc. Since this is the case in reality, and since I would like to experience the hind in much the same way as it is employed in real life, is it unreasonable of me or others to explore and compare the effectiveness of the Hind in DCS versus real life?

 

20 hours ago, Rick50 said:

...Our M-113's had armor upgrades done while in the troubled lands.  From even a tiny distance, they'd look EXACTLY the same as any '113. But up close, you could just make out that it had an inch of ceramic armor added to the outside...

M113 would Ideally refer to the base vehicle, without any field additions; You do not see other vehicles in DCS with field mods applied. For instance, say, T-72s from the Syrian battlefield, with concrete and contorted metal rods haphazardly bolted to the sides, so why wouldn't the same logic be followed with the M113 we see?

 

Admittedly, anyone could try to get lost in the details if they wanted. After all, vehicle names in DCS often omit which specific variant they represent. I'd argue that, when not specified, the vehicles represented in game are based on the variant most commonly associated with the name, while being visually similar. Never the less, this is largely beside the point, and it's not a hill I'm about to die on.

Edited July 8, 2021 by Cheetah7798

[unipus]

On 7/8/2021 at 2:20 AM, Rick50 said:

 

 

I don't believe that we re-designated those vehicles once they got the upgrade. And 99% of enemy soldiers would have assumed there was NO armor upgrade, because it just wasn't visible from further than 3 meters (10ft).  To us users and the rest of the world, it's still a '113 aluminum box battle taxi. 

 

Look, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if 30mm will penetrate this or that armor. These days, aircraft cannons are NOT employed against even the lightest armor vehicles, unless they are DESPERATE. Desperate as in "it's gonna kill us now!", or "we're out of munitions but that thing just won't die, and the refugee encampment is just 5km away".  Thin skin vehicles, dismounts, ok sure, but EVEN THEN they are taking a huge risk of a AAA or MANPADS ambush. Does it even make sense to risk your aircrews, and your very valuable (relative to your nations' tax base) and rather expensive,  attack helicopter, say one of only 12 such units (small poor country), to plink away at armor that will likely just shrug at your efforts and then reward you with many holes in your airframe and rotors? Armor doesn't usually travel alone, so while you are linning up your BMP target, 6 more vehicles are lnning up on you with their HMG's, RPG's (remember Black Hawk Down were shot down using primarily VERY common unguided RPG-7 rockets) and maybe even GPMG's like the PKM on you. That vulnerable truck might have a ZU-23-2 and blast you hard. Sure, the armor in your HIND might save your life initially... but chances are high that you are going to have a hard landing.

 

Give me rockets that have something resembling real-world effectiveness and I might use them more and the gun less. Until then...

Also, limiting yourself to how helicopters are employed in 2020 is painting with a pretty small brush. What if I feel like simming something other than a low-intensity modern conflict? What if I feel like using the Hind for the kinds of conventional war missions it was actually intended for? The fact that DCS has lots of issues representing these sorts of scenarios is a big issue, sure, but all I see here is "no one would fly the helicopter like that" which is not only untrue, it completely disregards tons of other situations. Suddenly I find myself curious about, say, Iraqi Hinds in Iran.
 

[Rick50]

 

Ok I'll bite: anyone have any kind of data about how many armored vehicles have been destroyed using the P's 30mm cannons ? And if such document is public, does it list what armored vehicle class/type/model were destroyed?

 

Edit:

Real life examples/data please. Where getting shot at has a deep effect on how someone flies and fights different from a "retail entertainment sim". Real world after action reports. I mean, surely if this is done in the real world a lot today, there is surely reports about successes and outcomes.

 

Edited July 14, 2021 by Rick50

[Deimos]

I made some hits on an M1 with my 30mm brrrt into his rear from above. He started to burn. Didn´t know what i was shooting at until i came back to take a closer look. i thought it was a M113 ^^

[fargo007]

On 7/6/2021 at 2:03 PM, unipus said:

This is the boogeyman that's going to raise its head everywhere. Without meaningful fragmentation and splash effects and specific damage effects, weapons other than precision-guided are at a massive disadvantage. You see this even in AA missiles that lack proximity fusing.

 

A 30mm cannon can't destroy an Abrams, no, except under extraordinary circumstances. But it can certainly do enough damage to immobilize it or render it combat ineffective in a whole bunch of ways that are not modeled at all in DCS. We also don't have a decent model for the suppressive power of any type of ordinance really. Until those things are represented, it's going to be disappointing.

 

The damage model is also a huge factor here. It's good that they're working on it. 

[m4ti140]

Armor on Bradley is broken right now, it's more resistant to damage than some MBTs

[Grodlund]

Just want to add my 2 cents to this.

I took part in an event, some time ago. It was Bradleys vs BMP-2's, combined arms event.

 

Before the event I did some testing.

I put a couple of Bradleys as targets, set them to hold fire and hold ground. The objective was to find out the weak spots and how much damage a BMP-2 could do to a Bradley.

 

Now the BMP-2 doesn't use the GSH-30, but the Shipunov 2A42 > never the less, it uses the same ammunition.

 

During my tests, I found that the 2A42 of the BMP-2 did absolutely Zero damage to the Bradley's frontal armor, as expected.

What made me kinda bummed out about the whole event though, was that I noticed I did ZERO DAMAGE to the side armor, and even rear armor. This was tested at all ranges - Including point blank range!

Turns out the BMP-2 can only damage the Bradley by using it's 2 ATGM's

The bradleys smaller 20mm autocannon could however, happily destroy a BMP-2, even by shooting it's front armor - no problem.

 

In the end, I wrote it off as the usual DCS western bias 

 

Edited July 25, 2021 by Grodlund

[Rick50]

 

Bradley's don't use 20mm. They use 25mm, and while a difference of 5mm diameter doesn't sound like much, with autocannons it really does make a significant difference. Then some autocannon / caliber combos have a lot more kinetic energy due to velocity and mass increase, maybe significant better projectiles... and suddenly some real damage is being done. And yet, armor upgrades as seen the last 30 years on many APC / IFV's can really diminish autocannon effectiveness. So we come sorta full circle. But now with huge additional conditions and ambiguities! 

 

There was a time, way long time ago, when I was able to remember a lot, about this system and that, what the capabilities were. But since around 2000, the pace of weapons systems development, dramatic increase in the number of variants in use and development, and in many cases we know less about their ACTUAL capabilities, despite having more access to articles and manufacturer's "sales info" than ever...   sooo... maybe there IS a Bradley 20mm variant that I don't know about yet! But through it's history, the M2 Bradley and it's M3 Bradley Cavalry Fighting Vehicle used a single barrel 25mm chain gun known as the M242 Bushmaster chain gun.  So some people get confused about "chain guns", equating them with gattling guns. This is because they sound cool and are mounted on cool aircraft, and maybe partly because both are powered by electric motors. In a Gatling, the motor spins the 6 barrels (give or take a few for some versions). In a Chain Gun, the motor moves a chain, that has pulleys and idlers, the chain attached to the breach, moving it open and closed. It's... slow to cycle, but it's reliable, and i believe is fairly easy to continue firing even if an individual round fails to ignite, it just gets ejected (that's theory, I'm sure it's more complicated in real world on a live rage, or "down range"). Since the barrel is fixed, and the action cycles slowly, and cycles without using recoil or tapping off gasses, theoretically it should be a bit more accurate at long distances... but I'm not sure it actually is more accurate in real world, gotta ask a US Army specialist about that!

[Cheetah7798]

On 7/13/2021 at 1:02 PM, Rick50 said:

Ok I'll bite: anyone have any kind of data about how many armored vehicles have been destroyed using the P's 30mm cannons ?

Still missing the point. The cannon, irrespective of its history, or its employment protocol, will penetrate a certain amount of material. Simple as that.

 

17 hours ago, Grodlund said:

The bradleys smaller 20mm autocannon could however, happily destroy a BMP-2, even by shooting it's front armor - no problem.

Modern Bradleys use a 25mm M242. By all accounts a very capable cannon with impressive statistics. The frontal armour of the BMP-2 was only rated for 23mm protection beyond 500m. so the Bradley would probably be able to penetrate even the frontal armour out to about 1-1.5km.

 

For what it's worth, I think the Bradley's armour in game is properly borked at the moment. It seems to have uncanny protection from any angle. A 30mm shell is nothing to laugh at, either. Sure, it's conceivable that it has 30mm protection in the frontal arc beyond a certain distance, or even the sides; but the rear, or the turret. Unlikely.

 

---

Using the Hind a lot over the last month, I've realised that penetration of M113s and Strykers with the cannon seems to be oddly inconsistent. I've had runs where I've been within 1km, and an M113 takes numerous 30mm rounds with no effect. Others were it cuts through them like butter.

[Grodlund]

Ok, slight typo on the diameters of Bradley AC.

Either way - that was not the point.

The point was that the Bradley seems impervious to the 30mm AP rounds of the BMP-2 - from all sides - including rear!

Which means I am not surprised the Mi-24P struggles to damage it, with it's 30mm cannon

[Cheetah7798]

Decided to do some tests today and set up the hind at a fixed range (500m) from various vehicles, counting how many AP rounds it took to destroy the vehicles (front aspect).

Those tested (and their average hits to destroy) were:

• AAV (31 rounds)
• Stryker (33 rounds)
• M2A2 (Undamaged after ~230 rounds)
• M113 (2 rounds)
• BMP-2 (24 rounds)

Attached are the first track files (and their respective Tacviews, to avoid inconsistencies in the replays) of each vehicle, to get an idea of how the test was set up.

Now, I can't really speak with any authority on the matter, but the numbers of all but the M113 seem unreasonably high, considering the AAV and Stryker were mainly geared against rounds up to 14.7mm, The BMP-2 up to 23mm, and the M2A2 between 14.7 and 30mm depending on the variant.

I'll probably do some more tests at longer ranges, but I can only imagine the results will get worse.

GSH-30-2 Tests - 500m.zip

[WinterH]

Now I wanna run tests too  Thx for the post.

As far as I know (not sure tho), GSh-30-2K does not use high penetration sub caliber rounds like 2A42 can, but even then Stryker and AAV does strike me off as potential anomalies, even BMP-2 feels too much tho. Bradley may perhaps be able to resist 30mm AP at that range frontally, not entirely sure.