HUMVEE armor and "health"
Posted: 2010-05-13 07:09
Forgive me if this topic has been written about before, I did quick search and my query yielded no results, so here goes.
Whenever I play on an Insurgents map whether it be on Karbala or Basrah or what have you, I notice that Humvee's are extraordinarily resilient towards much of what the insurgents can throw against it. I'm not saying they're invincible, a stupid driver is all it takes for a decent ins. team to blow it to kingdom come, but I was just playing a game and saw a couple of things that quite honestly dropped my jaw.
First, on Karbala, I see a CROWs Humvee suppressing my fellows more or less on the main road. Having already been killed by this guy once before, I painstakingly flank him by myself by going into the western suburbs and running RIGHT behind him, and managed to get right on his butt without him being all the wiser. Grinning to myself, I pull out my RKG, line up my throw, and let fly. BOOM, direct hit on the rear, a spark, gunner immediately whips around and kills me, and the Humvee drives off for repairs. Now I realize Humvees do possess light armor so while upset that my RKG didn't do the trick, I pretty much accepted it. Another couple of rounds from a rifle would have ended it, I was just unlucky.
Next, about 20 minutes later, I'm waiting in ambush with an RPG and a humvee drives by (CROWs again) and I fire; again, direct rear hit. One would think that an RPG round, a dedicated, shaped-charge anti-armor warhead would simply outright destroy a Humvee but once again I was only greeted by black smoke, no fire. This time, however, my PKM gunner put a couple of rounds into the engine and the thing started to burn so all was well and good there.
The final straw, however, was when I was waiting on the main road in Karbala as a sapper with an IED placed in some bushes on the center divide. I was concerned about the range of the IED to the main road, but they soon proved groundless as a Humvee went racing by the center divide. I wait till he's right on it before I detonate. Now, the HUmvee was AT MOST a foot away from the IED, and at best right on top of it. I detonate...and the thing simply drives away. I didn't get one kill, not even the .50 cal gunner. It wasn't even burning, just black smoke. I was infuriated, and still am a little peeved quite honestly.
I know I'm no soldier, and that I have no direct military experience, but in all of my interest in the military and all things related to combat including armor and munitions, I would expect an RPG to do quite a bit of damage to a Humvee and a ground-zero IED detonation to be nothing short of CATASTROPHIC on a soft-skinned vehicle based on videos I've seen and what my army buddies say, yet ALL THREE Humvees simply drover away as if nothing happened. The IED incident is especially ridiculous to me. I really want the Humvee's "health" to be toned down just a little so that an RPG will set a Humvee on fire and an IED outright destroy it. But as always I could be wrong. Has Humvee armor improved dramatically since last I heard?
Thoughts? Disagreements? Similar experiences?
Whenever I play on an Insurgents map whether it be on Karbala or Basrah or what have you, I notice that Humvee's are extraordinarily resilient towards much of what the insurgents can throw against it. I'm not saying they're invincible, a stupid driver is all it takes for a decent ins. team to blow it to kingdom come, but I was just playing a game and saw a couple of things that quite honestly dropped my jaw.
First, on Karbala, I see a CROWs Humvee suppressing my fellows more or less on the main road. Having already been killed by this guy once before, I painstakingly flank him by myself by going into the western suburbs and running RIGHT behind him, and managed to get right on his butt without him being all the wiser. Grinning to myself, I pull out my RKG, line up my throw, and let fly. BOOM, direct hit on the rear, a spark, gunner immediately whips around and kills me, and the Humvee drives off for repairs. Now I realize Humvees do possess light armor so while upset that my RKG didn't do the trick, I pretty much accepted it. Another couple of rounds from a rifle would have ended it, I was just unlucky.
Next, about 20 minutes later, I'm waiting in ambush with an RPG and a humvee drives by (CROWs again) and I fire; again, direct rear hit. One would think that an RPG round, a dedicated, shaped-charge anti-armor warhead would simply outright destroy a Humvee but once again I was only greeted by black smoke, no fire. This time, however, my PKM gunner put a couple of rounds into the engine and the thing started to burn so all was well and good there.
The final straw, however, was when I was waiting on the main road in Karbala as a sapper with an IED placed in some bushes on the center divide. I was concerned about the range of the IED to the main road, but they soon proved groundless as a Humvee went racing by the center divide. I wait till he's right on it before I detonate. Now, the HUmvee was AT MOST a foot away from the IED, and at best right on top of it. I detonate...and the thing simply drives away. I didn't get one kill, not even the .50 cal gunner. It wasn't even burning, just black smoke. I was infuriated, and still am a little peeved quite honestly.
I know I'm no soldier, and that I have no direct military experience, but in all of my interest in the military and all things related to combat including armor and munitions, I would expect an RPG to do quite a bit of damage to a Humvee and a ground-zero IED detonation to be nothing short of CATASTROPHIC on a soft-skinned vehicle based on videos I've seen and what my army buddies say, yet ALL THREE Humvees simply drover away as if nothing happened. The IED incident is especially ridiculous to me. I really want the Humvee's "health" to be toned down just a little so that an RPG will set a Humvee on fire and an IED outright destroy it. But as always I could be wrong. Has Humvee armor improved dramatically since last I heard?
Thoughts? Disagreements? Similar experiences?
