Infantry AT weapons

[M.Warren]

Warren, the LAT is horribly under powered, I firmly believe that all kits should be able to destroy at least one of their intended targets with the ammunition you carry, that being said, no matter where you hit, it takes two or more LAT hits to down an APC, and you only cary one tube. If you're ambushing, you don't have time to wait for the ammo to reload, then go through the reloading animation, zero in and fire, a good APC will have blown you away by then, but you do have time to shoot, reload, shoot. If anything needs to be done it's giving LAT another rocket.

Be careful. If Light Anti-Tank is capable of one-shotting an APC then it's just as strong as Heavy Anti-Tank now. And if this does become the case then Heavy Anti-Tank will have to be twice as strong, this means tanks will be one-shotted aswell by HAT.

If Anti-Tank is made that strong that means Tank vs Tank battles will probably be altered to match this one-shot situation against other tanks. Then proceeding to make the purpose of having Engineers on the battlefield a useless class.

If you also hand out large ammo quantities, you'll see people picking up Light Anti-Tank as the new Rifleman kit. Because if you got 2 Light Anti-Tank's on you, who cares to use grenades?

As much as I like reality based senarios, it will effect game play. The idea is to give armor that kind of "epic" edge in the battlefield that makes them so fearsome. Keep in mind that this is a modification and Black Sand Studios along with Project Reality are at the whim of the BF2 engine. If we could control ammo quantities, statistics, bullet drop, deviation and the like as intended we'd see a completely better game than with what we deal with now. Just gotta balance with what you can and can't do.

[Prejudicial]

I love this game, but my #1 complaint it is the AT kits, specifically with the HAT.

I've noticed while pubbing on Kashan, that the bunkers basically become a large barrel of fish in which the HAT snipers enjoy shooting. And it's not hard for them, nor does it require much teamwork outside of the squad necessity to acquire the kit. They simply go to the top of the hills with a jeep/HMMV/equivalent, drop ammo and nail away at any target of opportunity (usually infantry trying to progress from bunker to bunker). That being said I also believe that the HAT kit is necessary, but would make some small adjustments...

-Reduce splash damage; therefore it's still effective against armor direct hits, but requires skill to use and isn't that devastating as a "squad buster" (thats what the grenadier is for).

-Increase the reload time; this way people have to be selective about what they shoot. It won't be a constant stream of AT rockets from any given place.

-Decrease the ammo carried to 1; I never really understood why this kit had two missles versus the one that LAT carries.

As far as the light AT goes, I love the kit for the most part. I wish the field of view was a little better on the sight and that the ammo loadout was increased to 2, but thats it. It's already a slightly limited kit in that the drop is substantial at distance and requires some decent guesstimation to get those long-shot targets.

Just my $0.02

Looking forward to .8! You guys have provided an awesome game and despite my few minor gripes/suggestions your work is appreciated and greatly enjoyed! Kudos for taking vanilla BF2 and making it better!

[Cassius]

I feel the HAT is aright the way it is. I didnt see much HAT sniping if any. Only time I use it on infantery is on mestia at the start of the game to shoot in the bunkers and if the team wastes the HAT kit to get 1 or 2 kills untill they get sniped (Kshan) or killed in close quarters (mestia fools road) I would say tough luck for them when they need one against armor and none are avaiable.

[Pvt_Parts]

For theorectical gameplay:

... it would make sense if 1 LAT partially disables an APC, and 1 HAT partially disables a tank. Damage/disabling model should be expanded to partial failures (slower moving, etc), if possible. It should be present on all vehicles, even jeeps (simulating tire or engine damage). The idea of LAT/HAT/AA kits is to get the APC/Tank/Air to back off, right? And the idea of the APC/Tank/Air is to crush troops (well, APCs swat troops while transporting).

Since it is a game, AT splash damage should damage 50-70% health for troops in a small radius, 1m. (Can't you define a falloff over a distance, if so, 80% at 0.1m to 30% at 1m). Maybe 2m for HAT, but it would still make HAT weapons uber pwn@g3 weapons, so 1m would be better. The Devs claim they want each kit to have a specific role, so that means AT should be barely effective against troops. Reduced splash should eventually reduce HAT sniping from firebases unless it were against vehicles or bunkers.

To further the idea of conventional versus non-conventional armies, conventional AT weapons should partially disable armored target and destroy non-armored in one hit (if used against intended HAT->tank, LAT->APC, etc). Non-conventional should take twice as many hits. However, conventional carries one shot, and non-conventional carries two.

(As a conventional: ) It should probably take 2 LATs to partially disable a tank, 4 to disable a tank, 6-7 to burn it (slow), and 8-10 to outright toast it. 1 HAT to partially disable, 1-2 to disable (chance of burning), 2-3 to toast. 1 LAT to partially disable APC, 2 (1 if from rear) to completely disable (no turret, little/no driving), 3 to toast. There should also be long reload times. But for non-conventional, it should be less of a reload time.

If its not already done, it may be a good idea to have non-conventional vehicles have less health, but spawn more often.

Just my thoughts on it, I'm sure most (if not all) will disagree.

[IAJTHOMAS]

Was off to test but just noticed I forgot to reinstall the training mod.

Personally, and this is coming from someone who is mainly an inf player and so has a healty distaste for armour rolling up, I think its pretty well balanced atm i terms of AT v armour. Skilled and co-ordinated LAT and HAT crews have litte trouble dispatching armour. APCs are quite often death traps anyway, as they're one shot killed by most anti armour devices at the moment, even if it does take 2 LAT shots. The HAT is so effective that even long range inf support is risky. (TBH perhaps HAT should one have 1 missile on them and have to rely on ammo like LATs).

Also, the size of the maps means that view distance etc must be scaled and armour can't operate at the long range it might in real life, its primary defence against such AT weapons, so perhaps this can be seen as bit of a compromise.

[Thermis]

IRL most modern Armored Vehicles can sustain multiple hits from weapons like RPGs. American vehicles are built on a principle of crew survivability so very rarely will anything "kill" a vehicle but a multiple hits to a APC or Tank even with light AT weapons will disable an Abrams Tank.
I'd like to see a better system of disabling vehicles but I'm not sure that's possible. So I think 2-3 hits is good for an APC. 4-6 should disable a tank. I think it would be nice if they had a larger splash damage area too.

[Tirak]

Be careful. If Light Anti-Tank is capable of one-shotting an APC then it's just as strong as Heavy Anti-Tank now. And if this does become the case then Heavy Anti-Tank will have to be twice as strong, this means tanks will be one-shotted aswell by HAT.

If Anti-Tank is made that strong that means Tank vs Tank battles will probably be altered to match this one-shot situation against other tanks. Then proceeding to make the purpose of having Engineers on the battlefield a useless class.

If you also hand out large ammo quantities, you'll see people picking up Light Anti-Tank as the new Rifleman kit. Because if you got 2 Light Anti-Tank's on you, who cares to use grenades?

As much as I like reality based senarios, it will effect game play. The idea is to give armor that kind of "epic" edge in the battlefield that makes them so fearsome. Keep in mind that this is a modification and Black Sand Studios along with Project Reality are at the whim of the BF2 engine. If we could control ammo quantities, statistics, bullet drop, deviation and the like as intended we'd see a completely better game than with what we deal with now. Just gotta balance with what you can and can't do.

I'm not asking for one shot LAT, or huge ammo counts, I just want another rocket for LAT, that's it. No replacement for grenades, no increase in power, no greater kit availability, no uber awsome addons, no HAT increases etc.etc.etc. Just one more rocket for LAT. It won't replace grenades because it's direct fire, and it's not offering a major edge, just giving LAT a fighting chance against a two manned APC.

[IAJTHOMAS]

Get a rifleman?

[M_Striker]

I'm not asking for one shot LAT, or huge ammo counts, I just want another rocket for LAT, that's it. No replacement for grenades, no increase in power, no greater kit availability, no uber awsome addons, no HAT increases etc.etc.etc. Just one more rocket for LAT. It won't replace grenades because it's direct fire, and it's not offering a major edge, just giving LAT a fighting chance against a two manned APC.

@Tirak, all the light AT weapons featured in Project Reality (cept the RPG probably), are throwaway weapons - you fire, you discard. No reload. carrying another rocket wouldn't be realistic for this type of weapon, lol. It'd be useless.

@Warren, So the problems with the AT kits are all for gameplay purposes then.......

[Conman51]

@Warren, So the problems with the AT kits are all for gameplay purposes then.......

unfortunatly..i think they are

[Grizzly]

Just FYI the AT-4 is not a re-loadable weapon, its one shot and discarded after use. At 40in long and roughly 15 lbs, I personally would not want to carry two on my back and on that note HAT should only have one round due to total weight of the weapon system and size. I personally do not have any problems with AT but I do have a few questions. How many LAT infantry can be in a squad? Also why was the AT-4 chosen over the SMAW?

[Conman51]

rpg vs. abrams

read the third post down..and the 7th...well all i can see is taht rpgs arent very effective against tanks...idk how a LAt 4 would do agaisnt a tank similar to teh abrams..im guessing its the at4> rpg..in RL...

[Flanker15]

rpg vs. abrams

read the third post down..and the 7th...well all i can see is taht rpgs arent very effective against tanks...idk how a LAt 4 would do agaisnt a tank similar to teh abrams..im guessing its the at4> rpg..in RL...

That really depends what kind of warhead you stick into it, the original PG-7V warhead has about 100mm less penetration than the At-4. The larger version of it (PG-7VL) has about 100mm over the AT4 and the T-heat warhead version will go through almost twice as much armor (even higher than most modern ATGM such as the Javelin, SRAW and AT-14).
The reloadable over-caliber design of the RPG-7 meant that it could remain useful far beyond it original purpose.

[M_Striker]

Also why was the AT-4 chosen over the SMAW?

Cause the SMAW is more of a bunker killer and the AT4 is more classic

[jhoson14]

If u want two shots just let the squad have more then one guy with LAT!!

I dont want any changes on game about the LAT and HAT,i am just sayng a way to go around the tnink about 2 rounds on the kit.

Squad with 2 LAT would kill a APC inside Flag very Easy.

And with 2 guy's with LAT and the limited number of Kits others Squad's will run without a LAT on group.

[ostupidman]

Actually 2 LAT's would be realistic for a squad. General doctorine is that you fire both rockets at the same time thereby giving a high probability of a hit and kill. Squads aren't big enough in PR though.

As for RPG's against tanks. If you look back to the soviet invasion of Afghanistan RPG's were used to great effect against the soviet reactive armor equipped tanks. The RPG squads would work in groups, the first shot would set off the reactive armor and the following two shots to the same location would allow penetration.

HAT does not need more of a reload time. It's reload time is already massive as is. As for the splash damage a HAT is not only designed for anti-armor purposes but also anti-emplacement and infantry. If we look at how the SRAW ingame is portrayed is would be the SRAW-MPV which has a large blast radius designed to absolutely obliterate light armor entrenched infantry emplacements.

[IAJTHOMAS]

As for RPG's against tanks. If you look back to the soviet invasion of Afghanistan RPG's were used to great effect against the soviet reactive armor equipped tanks. The RPG squads would work in groups, the first shot would set off the reactive armor and the following two shots to the same location would allow penetration.

That was in late 70s/80s though wasn't it? Hardly relevant to todays tanks.

Not all of the Soveit tanks would have had reactive armour either, and even if they did it didn't always cover all of the tank from what I can make out of the soveit MBTs of the era.

But obviously such tactics would work, as the soveits used a form of ERA I think. This would differ in the way it work from the composite type armour such as chobham/dorchester.

[Katarn]

The majority of todays tanks were designed in the 70's and 80's. It is still relevant today.

[Eddie Baker]

Also why was the AT-4 chosen over the SMAW?

The Mk-153 SMAW is not a squad level, single-shot disposable weapon. It is found in the weapons platoon of a US Marine rifle company in the assault section. Two-man SMAW teams are attached to the rifle platoons or are otherwise task organized. The US Army does not use the Mk-153 SMAW, and only has a comparable weapon system in one unit, the 75th Ranger Regiment (Carl Gustav M3 84mm Recoilless Rifle). However, both US Army and US Marines use the AT4/M136.

If you meant the SMAW-D (single-shot, disposable "bunker buster" weapon based on the HEDP round used by the Mk-153 launcher), it can be used against soft-skinned vehicles, but its preferred use is against structures and fortifications. It is issued as the Bunker Defeat Munition (BDM) M141.

[00SoldierofFortune00]

The Mk-153 SMAW is not a squad level, single-shot disposable weapon. It is found in the weapons platoon of a US Marine rifle company in the assault section. Two-man SMAW teams are attached to the rifle platoons or are otherwise task organized. The US Army does not use the Mk-153 SMAW, and only has a comparable weapon system in one unit, the 75th Ranger Regiment (Carl Gustav M3 84mm Recoilless Rifle). However, both US Army and US Marines use the AT4/M136.

If you meant the SMAW-D (single-shot, disposable "bunker buster" weapon based on the HEDP round used by the Mk-153 launcher), it can be used against soft-skinned vehicles, but its preferred use is against structures and fortifications. It is issued as the Bunker Defeat Munition (BDM) M141.

Actually, the USMC does not use the AT4 much at all is what I was told. I was told by one of my instructors that we don't even primarily use the AT4 but the LAW instead(costs?).


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