Increase PG-9 damage against helicopters.

[dtacs]

Situation
Currently the PG-9 HEAT round, fired from the SPG (and soon to be BMP-1) cannot kill a Blackhawk in one shot. It puts it on light smoke, allowing the chopper to return to base safely.

Problem
This is grossly unrealistic. Excusing the fact that its unrealistic for technicals to be in such widespread use in modern day Afghanistan, a PG-9 round hitting a Blackhawk, or really any other transport or attack helicopter, would completely sever vital avionics, hydraulics and other critical pieces of machinery that keep the helicopter in the air, not to mention sending lethal shrapnel throughout the cockpit.

Solution

Have the PG-9 HEAT and Fragmentation rounds put all helicopters on fire when hitting engine or cockpit hitboxes, or destroy them instantly. Below is an example of the PG-9 round exploding on a target.

[Murphy]

I can't count the number of times I've hit a chopper gunning for an SPG only to have my jubilation turn to dismay as it does quite minimal damage. It took 2 spgs and a load of RPK fire to finally ground a blackhawk.

Ma1212121 has a video of us trolling around in an SPG techie and you can clearly see hits on the chopper but normally it can just fly away full speed with very light smoke.

Hitting a chopper with any AT is quite hard to do I think it would be nice to reward the players who do land hits with something more then the chopper pilot going "huh whats that, a rock hit the chopper?".

[Xander[nl]]

I agree, although IMO it should only do 80-90% damage (to whatever the final hp is for the engines to be set on fire) so the pilot still has time to crash-land.

IRL such a rocket would probably never instantly blow up a helicopter and giving the pilot this chance to crash-land would simulate that; as well as the fact that IRL people often survive helicopter crashes which would be impossible in the BF2 engine.

[Mikemonster]

It's not just the SPG, it's everything vs helicopters. Although I agree.


Edit: * Airtanks.

[ma21212]

skip to a) 2:00 Murphy hit it, but it still made it back. b) 2:50 notice that the BH was smoking b/c of the Stinger, but the SPG still did not do enough damage to destroy it.

[lucky.BOY]

I support these poor SPG crewmen. Thou I dont know what other AT, Murphy? I killed a huey with one TOW shot (MEC), and you often see CAS helicopters (havoc, apache) killed by a single HAT rocket (also MEC, but i guess things like TOW and HAT do the same damage in all conventional armies, no matter if its american, british, chinese or MEC...)

lucky

[Navo]

Pfft, trans choppers have way too much armor anyway. Only in PR a huey can survive 2 direct hits of an AA missile, while a heavily armored Apache instantly explodes after one.

[KiloJules]

Imo the availability of trans choppers to eat AA rockets counts:

a) only for enemy choppers...when i sit in one we will die!!!

b) is a gameplay decision

BUT

as stated in the OP, the actual SUGGESTION I must FULLY AGREE.
Seeing the fact that it is hard enough to hit it with the SPG (at least from the stationary position not so much the vehicle) it would be way more rewarding if that thing goes down on a hit.

[Mellanbror]

Not sure if an RPG should take a Blackhawk down always.
But an SPG HE round, deadcenter on a littlebirds cockpit should.

[fillsson]

I'd like to add that the HEAT round on the spg-9 doesn't kill hmmwv's/Jeep's in one shot either, you have to use the fraground for it to instantly explode.

[KiloJules]

Yeah that is always a bit "weird" - same goes for the stationary AT-cannons. You can kill an APC with two AT rounds but still need two for a small, tiny, unarmored jeep or logy.

But I guess that is some gameplay mechanic to simulate different kind of damage on a soft and a hard target as in you would penetrate armor and destroy vital electronics or even ammunition and on the other hand just shooting actually through the driver cabin or the back of a truck for instance.

Still would like to see a fix for of some sort.

---------

In general: hitting sth. with the SPG doesn't always get the hoped result.

Yesterday I shot a really good HEAT round ONTO THE TOP of a stryker and it was just smoking, easily rtb. while other rounds on other strykers (side, front-side, etc.) resulted in tracking or more or less directly killing them. Bit confused...

[SamEEE]

I think that helicopters are extremely fragile by nature. Even one specifically designed for combat do their best never to get in harms way (AH-64 etc).

It's a bit backwards that a Twin-Huey has more surviability than an Apache. SPG-9s can penetrate up to 400mm of rolled homogenised armour. An Eryx (the most common PR HAT) which can penetrate up to 130mm (still enough to smash a MBT to bits).

As a side note here is how I would rank the surviability of the choppers.

* Apache (By a country mile)
* Havok (Don't know much about the Havok - I would guess it would sit somewhere between an Apache and Cobra)
* Cobra (Pretty much a twin huey with some added armour)
* Twin Huey - Hip - Chinook (twin engine should reflect better combat surviability)
* UH-1
* AH-6/Kiowa/Chinese equivalent (These things find their survability in other means than armour - they shouldn't even have flares.)

I assume these things have been done for balance - but I would argue that the choices made were wrong and need revising to reflect the real life characteristics of helicopters. Heck even a burst of 50 calibre or the russian equivalent (14.5) would absolutely wreck a transport helicopter.

If there is something I know about - it is helicopters. I like how their threshold for being disabled was upped - that is a great idea - but I think that their hitpoints before being disabled needs to be a lot lower. Especially for transports.

Also agree on the SPG-9 being buffed.

TL;DR: Make helicopters generally a bit squishier to reflect better their characteristics IRL.

[Sgt. Mahi]

It has been mentioned numerous times that the Black Hawk's armor will be nerfed in the next patch. I would just wait and see what happens there before increasing the damage for a weapon like the PG-9.

[Mikemonster]

I'd also love to see all of the bulletproof glass removed, unless it exists in real life. The side windows of the chinook for instance..

[SGT.MARCO]

I think that the SPG is underpowered in many ways, on many maps you find that armor does not take it seriously. The SPG-9 has many capabilities that make it far weaker than its counterparts

1. Turning speed (A-D movement)
2. anti-tank (takes over 4 rounds to track abrams)
3. adjustment time (calculating range)
4. reloading time (should take less time then a TOW)

[Murphy]

It may have those disadvantages, but it has a huge advantage in that it can relocate to another ambush point if/when needed. I believe as an asset in the right hands an SPG is a very, very powerful weapon (static or techi) it just requires a lot of patience and the innate ability to judge distances off the top of your head unless you are/with an SL.

The frag rounds do indeed destroy light vehicles in a single round, albeit not instantly and not in every single case (I've HATed T72s to the rear only to watch then drive away with white smoke, so that might be an issue with hitboxes). That being said the rounds could use a bit of a damage buff considering the overwhelming penetrating power of it's real life counterpart (basing this on the assumption that the information posted in this thread is indeed correct).