dtacs wrote:I'd like to see anti-personnel IED's introduced, ones with ball bearings and shrapnel and whatnot wrapped around explosives.
To my knowledge, all of the explosives (to include IED) have two different damage ranges. The first is their kill radius, the second is their max wound radius. As it was explained to me, the amount of damage done between the numbers is going to be a percentage rate, with the damage gradually decreasing to the max wound range.
In other words, there is an "invisible" frag radius of all explosives, but no visual fragmentation in game. The data I provided and which I think was used to help modify the IED values was based on such wounding capability.
I heard somewhere about a Humvee driving in Iraq, when they stopped for a moment they noticed an IED full of steel balls mounted on the back of a stop sign, designed to go off when they drove past it, imagine that in PR eh?
Chances are that such a device against an up-armored HMMWV would have minimal effect, except maybe against a gunner using the older exposed "turret". Also, using a stop sign as a base is a poor choice, for reasons which I will not discuss here.
At the moment the ArtyIED has some awesome damage, great when you can set them off after a cache has been taken out in a revenge tactic, but the pipe bombs just feel useless.
The smaller IED can still prove quite effective, especially when used tactically.
A common use of such devices is to find a good choke point, such as narrow road/alley way or in between obstacles such as vehicle hulks or walls, and place the IED on one side of the road with an AT mine on the other. This works best if the IED is concealed, such as under a rock, garbage, or other debris in the road.
How it works is quite simple. The driver is likely to see the mine early, and will swerve to the other side of the road to avoid the mine. At that point, he has taken the "bait" and is very likely to drive directly over the IED.
Players can also use the IED in combination with grenade traps, using the traps as visible "arrows" trying to make the enemy follow a route that takes them directly into/through another kill zone.
Another tactic might be to conceal the smaller IED inside of a structure along an ambush route. When you engage the enemy, those that try to take cover inside the structure will get baked.
I could go on and on with various tactics, and similar can be used with BLUEFOR and their M18's.