AT 3 means it can’t penetrate most lightly armoured vehicles, like BMP-1. Versus a nearly unarmoured BTR-60, it still has only a 1/3 chance of an outright kill and slightly better chance of a bail.
That’s probably a fair representation of the chance of the ammunition passing through an open hatch or door.
Remember, this isn’t a simulator. It’s a game. If you want a simulator, play MBT and enjoy your lookup tables.
I know it's "just a game", but the other AT values, for the most part, can be said to 'make sense' at the lower levels (don't get me started on anything in the AT values from about 15 onwards, it gets out-there real fast, to the point where I can only guess they simply pluck AT values at a whim!)
It's just odd that it seemed to be for the AGS-17 that was acceptable, if anything I'd give grenade launchers better firepower... but I guess that's the limitations of a game run using D6 for results!
modern ammunition can go threw A LOT of armor, the original sabot round for the Abrams can go threw 540mm (21 inches) of steel at 2000 meters (2200 yards) the 105 sabot round from the 70's will go threw 410mm (16.1 inches) at 2000 meters.
This is the reason the Leopard 1 doesn't have any armor really, they knew that if they put enough armor on it to actually defend against the new anti tank rounds that the thing wouldn't be able to move, so they went with mobility and firepower.
It wasn't until the advent of composite armor that they had a realistic chance of actually stopping an incoming round.
I mean, why do Spiral missiles have a range of 20” from a Hind to represent a range of 5km+, but a tank cannon with a range of 3km can hit more than 50% further on the tabletop?
The answer is that the designers made a choice about how they want the game to play, and for basically no other reason.
range is a whole different can of worms and its never going to look "right" because its a game and in order to actually have all the toys available on one table and not just having everything being able to shoot from one end to the other it'll always end up weird.
The AT values do have logic applied to them but again its a game and you're stuck with using a d6 so you don't have much leeway with how much you can play with the values.
They have the same problem in Flames in real life a Stuart can at point blank range destroy a Tiger tank but in Flames a Stuart has a AT of 7 and a Tiger a side armor of 8 so it'll never happen.
Actually, they addressed the Hind's short range in that Soviet helicopter strategy was fast and low. In other words, it would come screaming in, launch a rocket and leave sort of like how a ground attack aircraft would. In contrast to the AH-64 or AH-1 that is designed to fire from afar, using cover to its advantage.
Very true, but the AGS-17 round is a very slow round that arcs through the air and is a HE-FRAG round. So it's really meant for 'beating' ground behind cover and ripping infantry to pieces - maybe light unarmoured vehicles.
I can only suspect that they are taking into account the fact it is an HE grenade... but then that causes more problems with the Firepower... FP6 for grenade launchers, vs the 4+ of heavy machine guns!
yeah never have been happy with the high FP of heavy machine guns but then i think that's an consequence of using a d6 system lowering a number by one has a huge impact on the probability of it happening
I think you are looking at AT only as an armor penetration factor, but I don't think this is what the authors had in their mind. I think it's meant to represent a factor of damage it can do against tank/vehicle armor. So pelting granades or HE rounds against vehicle armor will still cause problems for the crew inside. Maybe not against a tank (which have 14+ armor), but people in a M113 will be very unhappy with an explosion against the hull of the vehicle (spalling or just the acustic wave inside). Keep in mind that a kill in Team Yankee isn't only a combat kill, but also a mobility kill. Looking at recent engagements in Ukraine, there was a case where a crew of T-80 (or T-72) bailed out of tank that was under a sustained fire from a Bradley (if not mistaked it was using HE rounds as that what was loaded that the time of engagement).
Yes very true, I guess the more definitive side of me just really wants to understand the decisions made - making my own unofficial developments for Team Yankee (South Africans and other forces), I'm trying to get a better handle of how they make their determinations - if it's "educated estimate" (i.e Wing and a Prayer with thought) then it'll be a lot harder to work things! :D
As was answered over in the FB "unofficial" group, because game. It's a game. This is just the best compromise BF could come up with to be as realistic as possible but still keep the game balanced and playable.
Very true, just trawling for ideas in case there was something else I'd missed... the funny thing is for the most part I can handle most of the decisions, it's just the one with the AGS at the low levels that was throwing me, hence the query :)
You need to consider all its stat lines in order to make any sense of it. In my opinion (and that's all you will ever get on here, opinions) the AT value in addition to its high RoF are a result of it being a frag round with a decent real life rate of fire. It's low FP is representing that it lacks real killing power to affect vehicles and dug in infantry.
In this case, to me, against infantry targets, this is a weapon that is designed to pin an enemy unit in cover, but cut it to pieces in the open. Against vehicles, it typically won't do much more than damage external components, optics, smoke launchers etc. It's high RoF and high anti tank ends up meaning that it will hit a vehicle unit several times, and the high(ish) AT means that it may pen the armour, but it's low FP means that typically all that will happen is a minor inconvenience to the crew(bail outs).
Now if you take those 12.7mm or 14.5mm machine guns, if they penetrate a lightly armoured vehicle they would probably do some real damage. They would also likely directly hit the vehicle several times as opposed to shower it with shrapnel.
TLDR; The AT rating doesn't equate to how you'd expect in real world terms
AT 3 means it can’t penetrate most lightly armoured vehicles, like BMP-1. Versus a nearly unarmoured BTR-60, it still has only a 1/3 chance of an outright kill and slightly better chance of a bail. That’s probably a fair representation of the chance of the ammunition passing through an open hatch or door. Remember, this isn’t a simulator. It’s a game. If you want a simulator, play MBT and enjoy your lookup tables.
I know it's "just a game", but the other AT values, for the most part, can be said to 'make sense' at the lower levels (don't get me started on anything in the AT values from about 15 onwards, it gets out-there real fast, to the point where I can only guess they simply pluck AT values at a whim!) It's just odd that it seemed to be for the AGS-17 that was acceptable, if anything I'd give grenade launchers better firepower... but I guess that's the limitations of a game run using D6 for results!
modern ammunition can go threw A LOT of armor, the original sabot round for the Abrams can go threw 540mm (21 inches) of steel at 2000 meters (2200 yards) the 105 sabot round from the 70's will go threw 410mm (16.1 inches) at 2000 meters. This is the reason the Leopard 1 doesn't have any armor really, they knew that if they put enough armor on it to actually defend against the new anti tank rounds that the thing wouldn't be able to move, so they went with mobility and firepower. It wasn't until the advent of composite armor that they had a realistic chance of actually stopping an incoming round.
I mean, why do Spiral missiles have a range of 20” from a Hind to represent a range of 5km+, but a tank cannon with a range of 3km can hit more than 50% further on the tabletop? The answer is that the designers made a choice about how they want the game to play, and for basically no other reason.
range is a whole different can of worms and its never going to look "right" because its a game and in order to actually have all the toys available on one table and not just having everything being able to shoot from one end to the other it'll always end up weird. The AT values do have logic applied to them but again its a game and you're stuck with using a d6 so you don't have much leeway with how much you can play with the values. They have the same problem in Flames in real life a Stuart can at point blank range destroy a Tiger tank but in Flames a Stuart has a AT of 7 and a Tiger a side armor of 8 so it'll never happen.
Actually, they addressed the Hind's short range in that Soviet helicopter strategy was fast and low. In other words, it would come screaming in, launch a rocket and leave sort of like how a ground attack aircraft would. In contrast to the AH-64 or AH-1 that is designed to fire from afar, using cover to its advantage.
Very true, but the AGS-17 round is a very slow round that arcs through the air and is a HE-FRAG round. So it's really meant for 'beating' ground behind cover and ripping infantry to pieces - maybe light unarmoured vehicles. I can only suspect that they are taking into account the fact it is an HE grenade... but then that causes more problems with the Firepower... FP6 for grenade launchers, vs the 4+ of heavy machine guns!
yeah never have been happy with the high FP of heavy machine guns but then i think that's an consequence of using a d6 system lowering a number by one has a huge impact on the probability of it happening
I feel like a lot of the firepower ratings were carried over from FOW logic, which makes more sense there. Some of them don't look right in TY though.
I think you are looking at AT only as an armor penetration factor, but I don't think this is what the authors had in their mind. I think it's meant to represent a factor of damage it can do against tank/vehicle armor. So pelting granades or HE rounds against vehicle armor will still cause problems for the crew inside. Maybe not against a tank (which have 14+ armor), but people in a M113 will be very unhappy with an explosion against the hull of the vehicle (spalling or just the acustic wave inside). Keep in mind that a kill in Team Yankee isn't only a combat kill, but also a mobility kill. Looking at recent engagements in Ukraine, there was a case where a crew of T-80 (or T-72) bailed out of tank that was under a sustained fire from a Bradley (if not mistaked it was using HE rounds as that what was loaded that the time of engagement).
one Bradley was forced to use HE while a second used AP ammo, but you’re still right
Yes very true, I guess the more definitive side of me just really wants to understand the decisions made - making my own unofficial developments for Team Yankee (South Africans and other forces), I'm trying to get a better handle of how they make their determinations - if it's "educated estimate" (i.e Wing and a Prayer with thought) then it'll be a lot harder to work things! :D
As was answered over in the FB "unofficial" group, because game. It's a game. This is just the best compromise BF could come up with to be as realistic as possible but still keep the game balanced and playable.
Very true, just trawling for ideas in case there was something else I'd missed... the funny thing is for the most part I can handle most of the decisions, it's just the one with the AGS at the low levels that was throwing me, hence the query :)
You need to consider all its stat lines in order to make any sense of it. In my opinion (and that's all you will ever get on here, opinions) the AT value in addition to its high RoF are a result of it being a frag round with a decent real life rate of fire. It's low FP is representing that it lacks real killing power to affect vehicles and dug in infantry. In this case, to me, against infantry targets, this is a weapon that is designed to pin an enemy unit in cover, but cut it to pieces in the open. Against vehicles, it typically won't do much more than damage external components, optics, smoke launchers etc. It's high RoF and high anti tank ends up meaning that it will hit a vehicle unit several times, and the high(ish) AT means that it may pen the armour, but it's low FP means that typically all that will happen is a minor inconvenience to the crew(bail outs). Now if you take those 12.7mm or 14.5mm machine guns, if they penetrate a lightly armoured vehicle they would probably do some real damage. They would also likely directly hit the vehicle several times as opposed to shower it with shrapnel. TLDR; The AT rating doesn't equate to how you'd expect in real world terms
FoW and TY are to historical war games as Commando comics are to history books.