artillery cluster ammo

[Marcello]

Some considerations:
Cluster bomblets are quite capable, for example the M77 used in the MRLS is rated as being able to penetrate four inches of RHA.
Most tanks, including many modern ones, have substatially less top armor than that, often as little as 40mm (protection level against fragments and such).
The Abrams seen from the top aspect is probably all plain RHA no more than 80mm thick at the most and probably less in several areas. Upper glacis appears to be a relatively thin steel RHA plate designed to cause ricochet and fuze failures against Sabot/HEAT but somewhat weak from the top, ditto for the turret roof (such armor scheme makes sense against the threats it was indended for).
Even the tanks where considerable attention has been paid to the top aspect, such as late Merkava, some late Leopards etc are still vulnerable in the engine deck (you still have to radiate away the heat somewhere).

[Imp]

Urban
Fail to understand the test old tanks as used in the videos so I know they should go bang pretty often run the same test on Abrams Challenger or Leo.
Bear in mind as said game does not model damage to secondary equipment.
I would consider a tank that is hit losses its TI FC RF & maybe a weapon so it is less effective than a WW2 tank to be destroyed for game purposes.

Koh
Its hard to tell because the tank completly disapears even in slow mo but lets assume the tank is roughly in the centre of the strike which is about 3 times the size of the tank.

The central ones hit it on the top with a good chance to damage.
The others nearby fall around it so will hit front side rear with varying degrees of success & angles.
Ones on the perimiter just provide a blast wave no effect unless its a soft target.
Consider the top ones a direct hit the others a near miss type thing

It would be intresting to know the Db noise rating in the tank the crew could well be shocked.
Say a dozen hit it virtualy simultaniously plus the shock wave of all the near misses total crew disorientation seems possible.

On the total blast as in shock wave it looks more powerful than a regular arty shell blast probably because a lot of it is airburst rather than being absorbed by the ground.

[Wdll]

I wonder what it would be like if artillery CM only affected hex it hits directly and not also adjusting hexes. Do you think it would reduce any overpowerful feeling it has among some of us?
In my view, and this is speculation and nothing better, it would greatly reduce the amount of kills it does in a game battle. The user will have to be more careful, use proper spotters more often, and since artillery is still cheap (as it should IMO), it would require a slightly larger number of units for the same hits and it would create IMO, a more balanced usage.
All that speculation.

[Urban]

You just need to keep in mind one thing. You have 3 majors kinds of cluster ammo :

- the M77, BLU 3, tennis bomb or golf bomb have the size of a 40mm (+/-) grenade and detonate on contact. The major drawback of this desin it's the lake of terminal aiming. So the ammo ares just realase and dispersed one a wide area. Some hit de ground and act as anti personale frag grenade (the heat jet is wasted in the soil), other on the side or various angles. On the final only few sudmunition hit an hard target verticaly on a weak spot.
Another thing some munition could be detonate/disable/deviate in air by shrapnel/shockwave of close exploding ammo.

- BLU 108, Bonus shell submunition incorporate some detector (mainly IR) to track specifique target. This systeme use EFP (Explosively Forged Penetrator) and detonate at an average altitude/distance of 200m (600 ft) from the target. In this case you could see an airburst with a king of lighting under the smoke (the fast traveling projectile). It's more accurate, more powerfull (bigger diameter) but you have less sub munition (2 for the 155 mm Bonus shell vs 64 for the old M77 155m cargo shel).
- the third are the mines but it's another unit for WSPMBT .

I hope it's could help you to have a better wiew of you videos or pictures.

[Imp]

Well the one that blew the turret off was certainly multi burst as said 3 times the area of the tank but I would say set for airburst most went off at about half to 2x tanks height from memory hence you could not see it. May well not have been US.

[Wdll]

Well, considering that the artillery cluster ammo in the game can easily destroy MBTs that are located 2 hexes away, which do you think are from the above?

(I am not complaning, I have found a solution, never refill them)

[Imp]

Originally Posted by Wdll

Well, considering that the artillery cluster ammo in the game can easily destroy MBTs that are located 2 hexes away, which do you think are from the above?

(I am not complaning, I have found a solution, never refill them)

Not quite sure what you meant but from my experince will only kill a tank in hex it lands in splash is only 1 hex total diamater of 3 & wont kill a MBT or possibly if the 1 in a 100 event occurs

[Wdll]

Then I guess we have different experiences. There hasn't been a battle where CM from artillery will not kill a MBT (and lesser armoured vehicles) from 2 hexes away. I am not saying that every strike on one hex means it will kill 2 hexes away, but the percentage is high enough to make it a frustrating but expected pain when it happens, and it will happen.

[Imp]

Okay me bad switched fast arty off yes it seems to if hits anywhere other than front assumed it was just a stray shell landed by it.
Think you suggested & in line with urbans post that it delivers 2 warheads (air more) you could reduce the warhead size to try & stop it hitting more than 2 targets. It does however deploy them at 1000ms on delaying fins so it has time to search for targets & probably should hit 2 most times if in the area.
Tend to keep 50-100m between tanks most of the time if expect it so had not really noticed just took as bad luck if 2 died.

As a note the mortar variety should only hit one (Bofors site & mortar)
The powerful version with sensors should probably generaly hit the top as arty models that it can hit sides more often in fact I think Koh said the penetration is probably boosted to reflect that

[Urban]

Ok, have made another tests .

LRM cluster ammo :
HE pen = 20, Heat Pen = 10
Target = packed M1A2

HE bombardement :
Almost 50% of Top hit.
Penetration is changing from 0 to 20 vs HEAT armor factor with no "angle of attack" correction.
You have some kills vs hard target but side, front or rear hit will also penetrate softer target like moderne IFV or older tanks.

AP bombing :

50% of top hit

Penetration is changing from 0 (rarely) to 21 ()with a lot of result between 10 to 14. The problem is the "angle of attack" used for top hit. Is generaly 70° and rarely lower of 30° (looks like a strafing aircraft). The result is a to hight armor factor. Increasing the Penetration will probably fixe that but conduct to have "overkill" against softer target because side or front hit have a lot of angles < 30%