Tracers working in the IR- instead of visible-light spectrum are available on the market, and they work great. You only see them if wearing NOD (which means a NOD-equipped opponent will be able to see them too). Don't know if this is possible or not to do in Arma3, but it's also an option.
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May 10 2016
Problem with wingsuits is that you're going to have a significant payload-issue with regards to the shyt and gear you're supposed to bring and carry with you in addition to yourself on OP.
Sorry, but this is downvoted for my part.
For the sake of gameplay, i'd support the idea of having an action to deactivate (or RSPing, Render Safe Procedure, in proper lingo) a mine by a specialist, but IRL tinkering with a live mine to render it safe is not something you'll be doing in any other situation than in very calm, structured and controlled forms. As a trained deminer, the preferred method we have for removing mines during standard demining operations is firstly to blow them up in place. If this isn't possible, we'll make first movement of them remotely, and then, but only after having a 110% confirmation of what type of ordnance we're working on, we can pick it up and move it to safe area for proper RSPing according to the book.
Many mines, and especially apers-mines, are simply too dangerous to be manhandling, either by design or after wear and tear of having been in the ground for a long period of time. In addition, certain types of mines come with built-in booby-trap functionality to kill deminers, as well as there being mines on the "market" that come two versions; One regular type designed to kill personell/vehicles, and another which looks the exact same, but with different interior workings designed to kill or incapacitate the deminer upon him handling it.
Breaching a minefield, with emphasis on minefield, in a combat setting will involve either plowing through the field with specialized vehicles or by using a so-called MICLIC to do it explosively. MICLICs come in shape and size of both a 900kg C-4 tube of X-length designed to create a path wide enough for a vehicle to pass through, or with a manportable backpack-version which will create either a 70m path or a series of mine-free craters (depending on version used) which troopes then can move through/step through.
For "covert missions" and the such, the natural way of getting through a minefield would be to simply not engage it in any way - proper reconnaissance and planning is your friend in that case. You'd have a very hard time finding any type of unit who would knowingly start wandering through a minefield in the middle of the night to "get to their objective", no matter how super SF they might be. A possibility might be using a metal-detector/tripwire-detector combo and mark a winding path through it as you're going, but in any case, this would be extremely slow-go at alot less than walking speed. Sort of beats the element of surprize in most cases...
Mind you, I don't want to be the big dick sitting here and belittling what everyone else is saying and suggesting, but for someone who loves his realism and has his background at five years infantry and then five years as a combat engineer, and currently still in, i'd like to see this game come out as good as possible. :-)
Kol9yN,
I don't have an issue with including robots, nor ATOs in bombsuits in ARMA3, but IRL there's quite a bit more to EOD/IEDD than simply driving a robot downrange and blasting objects. What the ammunition-technician specifically does on/at the object, either manually or through robot, as well as preperation beforehand and after EOD has been conducted is something that falls outside the scope of this game as well as being more of a need-to-know thing; Last thing one needs is the badguys learning how to counter TTPs and kill EOD-personell from playing a game.
For this reason, if including robots in the game, it should be kept at easy and simple IMHO.
rogerx,
I agree, but i have much on my heart. If i was to start a new ticket for every little feature i wish included i'd be spamming the place down. ;-)
To follow up somewhat on this, and please excuse me if this turns out as something of a wall of text;
To start off;
With regards to the demolition charges, i assume that the inclusion of these is;
1 - To provide a means of ambushing vehicles and/or dismounted troops roadside or elsewhere.
2 - To provide means to do "sabotage"-type missions ingame, ie. "Go to X and destroy Y amount of object Z".
3 - Or to provide a means to do "destroy own critical equipment before it falls into enemy hands"-type missions.
With explosives and demolitions, as i'm sure people know already, correct placement and amount of explosives is everything. The already included demolition charge (2kg C4) is more than enough to disable most static hardware, like an artillery-piece/tank, for a long time or even permanently if placed correctly.
But for disabling a tank or MRAP on the march however, you'll need alot more to achieve a complete-kill, or even a mobility-kill. Placing/hiding such a charge is another factor, especially on a hard-packed dirt-road, so setting up such a vehicle ambush IRL isn't something that is easily done "at the click of a button". IRL we're talking hours of work to dig a hole in a hard-packed road, place explosives and components and then camoflage it all up again properly.
Soldier Classes;
To keep things simple (enough) and still enjoyable in Arma3, without going completely overboard with details, i suggest the following for implementing this ingame;
- The demolition class, or whatever one calls it, still carries a backpack. He there has in total say 10kg of C-4 over 5 charges, in addition to 3-5 breaching charges.
Another option might be to have 10kg/20 bricks of C-4 available in the backpack, where each 500gram brick has a set value for damage and blast-radius generated (500grams placed on a tank track should be able to damage it enough to necessitate changing the effected links and/or wheels, or disable it's gun if placed inside and detonated, for example), and then through a dialog-system or similar be able to combine or make your own sized charges (up to a maximum of a single 10kg charge), where said damage and radius increases depending on amount used.
Important here not to make it too complicated with endless mouse-wheeling up and down and clicking <<-- Sort of like Dingers/CoC-groups otherwise amazing artillery-system in the original Operation Flashpoint CWC back in the day.
- The mentioned miner/deminer and/or CIED-/Route-clearance Specialist might also be combined into a single type of soldier. He carries 3-4 AT-mines and a metal detector to detect the enemy's mines. Deploying the metal-detector could be an action much the same as deploying the NLAW. Again, for simplicity and not going overboard with details this would mean only being able to walk whilst the detector is out (with a nice swiping-animation of the detector) and rather than having a full-on and complicated simulation of how these detectors actually work and the training needed to use them properly, there would simply be a sound or beep whenever the detector-head is over a metal object like a mine or (most types of) IED(-components).
But there would also be a "screw this and f...ing leg it!"-button to press if you come under fire whilst doing this, sort of like how one currently transitions from weapons held low to ready, as is ingame per now.
But then again BIS, your game your rules and choices... :-)
Breaching;
- With regards to explosive door-breaching (as breaching is more than just taking down doors), which almost is a trade on it's own, i don't know if destroyable/lockable doors is something BIS plans on including in the final product, but if so, i suggest keeping it simple and just including a single type of charge for all types of doors - not the least because there are a few ticks-of-the-trade here that not everyone needs to know about. The rule of thumb for door-breaching is to attack the door from one of the sides. In game terms, IMHO, this could translate to a prep-and-priming time progress-bar, or similar, of around 10-15 seconds, with remote detonation (to avoid the need to program/add stuff like shocktube/NONEL into the game), and with a cutting charge texture/model running the full length of the door on the hinge-side of things.
- For breaching of walls to gain entry, well, one doesn't merely blow a hole through a reinforced concrete wall - this takes some calculations, preperations and not the least explosives to do. However, it could be interesting if a system was included to place said (larger) charges from the demolitioner at the base of a wooden- or brick-wall and this would create a generic-type slot wide enough for troops to pass through, including frag effect on anything standing behind it (or in front of it!) when it goes off.
- Mechanical breaching, that is using sledgehammers/rams, crowbars and boltcutters, might be something worth looking into. Seems straightforward enough for me, but then again, i'm no programmer! :-)
- A backpack-mounted collapsible/telescopic entry ladder would also be an interesting addition to the game IMHO, which in many cases will be a preferred method of gaining entry to a building/compound over blowing up doors and entering where the enemy expects you to come from.
The way i see it, this could translate to ingame as follows;
- Action "Deploy ladder"
- Action "Extend Ladder"
- Action "Climb Ladder"
- Someone else, if not carrying a backpack or other back-mounted equipment, then has the possibility to use actions "retract ladder" and "pick up/carry ladder".
- There should also be a possibility to pick up the ladder and hoist it up from above, retract and carry from there.
Other/Misc;
- Placement and priming times;
When i say "longer placement and priming times" in my initial ticket, IRL setting up a AT-mine for instance, including digging a hole, placing/arming and concealing might be a lengthy process, especially if the ground is hard. The harder the ground, the longer it takes, naturally.
With regards to anything remotely detonated by wireless (that is, proper off-shelf military stuff, and not IED-type stuff), there are different types of systems on the market. Quite common though is that these from you set them to "arm" usually have a grace/wait period before the actual arming starts, to enable the operator to get to cover/safety first should there be a fault in the arming process/hardware and the system accidently fires prematurely. They have built-in capacitors that generate and store enough power to be able to set off the electric detonator in the explosives, which is what the arming time is actually about. The actual arming time varies by system, but in many cases we're talking minutes from the system is set to "arm" until it's actually armed and ready to fire.
Now i'm no fan of dumbing down games, and i like it hardcore personally, but i also understand that alot of players don't want to sit around and wait forever for stuff to start working. For the sake of gameplay, placement and priming of explosive objects should IMHO be something like 10-15 seconds rather than more or less "instant with a beep at the end", to get a balance between the fact that this isn't something you normally do in the middle of a firefight (ie. set up a claymore Tears Of The Sun-style) to not having to have to wait forever for stuff to happen.
- Frag generation by environment placed in;
As another user above me pointed out, frag generation would be an interesting addition to Arma. I know it was done before in OFP CWC, where the modgroup Chain Of Command made a mine- and artillery package that included actual ingame frag objects with velocity/trajectory, and even sound effects factored in. To take this a step further, it could be interesting to see frag generation from explosions (any type) based on where these occur. Sandy beach will generate less than a large blast going off in rocky terrain, a shell hitting inside a forest will break trees and generate wood splinters etc.
- EOD-robots;
"Realistic" EOD/IEDD would be outside the scope of this game, as the finer details to this is quite sensitive stuff that alot of people don't need to know about. However, the inclusion of a generic-type EOD-robot able to camera around objects and carry drop-charges or fire at IEDs to set them off is well doable and would be a good addition to the game IMHO.
- CIED;
Will write some on this at a later time.
Again, keep up the good work BIS, and thanks a million for letting the community have such a say as this for the game development. This is pure gold! :-)
^^-- Indeed it would, but not to the same extent as a dedicated container designed to produce frag (artillery shell, claymore, etc) or as an improvised frag-charge, containing stuff like bicycle-chains, nuts, bolts and screws and so on.
Personally, 2kg of C-4 placed by itself on loose sand, i wouldn't have too much of an issue being something like, say, 10m from it when going off, if laying prone and wearing a helmet/body armor, ballistic eyewear and looking away - if i had to and there were no other options for proper cover.
I'd be alot more skeptical if placed on solid rock or in a crevice, or on a tree/in a wooded area where wood-splinters would be an issue. Explosives placed on the ground will result in most of the blast and frag going upwards in a wide'ish cone-shape. :-)
Anyhow, thanks BIS for assigning this ticket!
I'll elaborate some more here when i get the time! :-)
May 9 2016
Don't want to get into an argument with you over a Youtube flick on an ARMA3 Alpha feedback discussion-board, but i'll leave it with two things;
- I'm aware of user Funker530 on YT, and IMHO he is more concerned with posting as many action-clips as possible to his channel, rather than having a critical eye on the quality of the craftmanship in the flicks he posts. Meaning that,
- If i'm to pass judgement solely on what i'm seeing and hearing in that clip, i'd be right embarrased if i was the guy who filmed it and it suddenly showed up on the internet.
I cleartext: The amount of incoming in that clip in no way warrants the amount of outgoing. In my world, that there is a situation under control with only sporadic and/or harassment fire coming in.
For the untrained eye (and ear), this might look like something hardcore kickass out of Blackhawk Down or something, but IMHO, judging from what i'm seeing and hearing mind you, this would be a study and prime example on how to waste ammunition for nothing and how not to do this sort of business.
The aim of firing your weapon is to hit the enemy, even when laying down rapid suppressive fire. All this talk about putting the most rounds downrange in the least amount of time, "to scare the enemy", is pure nonsense IMHO. It's not how suppression works.
IRL, a slower rate of fire with well disciplined, aimed shots is alot more effective on the receiving end than a section or platoon of infantry all firing mag after mag for the sake of firing like there is no tomorrow. It all boils down to how the enemy perceives your fire; The sound of near misses around your head, as well as the visual impact of seeing rounds hit the ground around you (not to mention the sound this makes) tends to be alot more, for lack of a better word, scary than having a ton of rounds pinging off far above you or to your sides. ARMA3 has the sounds of this pretty well nailed IMHO.
You want to sprint and hipfire a rifle? Sure you can do that IRL. It's also physically possible to dual-wield two rifles and fire them between your legs if you want, but you're not going to hit anything at all apart from the 1/1000 lucky shot. This doesn't automatically mean that it should be implemented ingame though.
There's a reason i hate MOH/COD/BF with a passion, and it's because of rubbish like this. ARMA should stay the way it is, and i'm confident that this is what the devs are planning on doing.
Downvoted.