Just aesthetics in the mod. Due to CtA having different netcode than AS2, I can't implement the original composite armor and ERA coding I did. So it just serves as an aesthetic piece for now.

I see, could you then somewhat fix it for now by increasing side protection?
In vanilla they jumped from 300mm to 500mm for the side hull, which imo is too drastic, like sure, ERA is cool and all, but i doubt it would increase effective thickness by 66.66...%.

So maybe a smaller increasement would be better? Like currently M1A2 SEPv2/3 have 110mm side hull thickness, so maybe a small increase for the TUSK variants like 10-20% might be okay?

That would make side hull of TUSK variants have 121/132mm thickness, IIRC tanks get basically instakilled from autocannon fire to their sides, so a small increasement in side armor shouldn't be enough to make them immune to autocannon fire.

Alternatively you could somewhat simulate ERA being used up by simply adding the armor thickness to the Side Skirts, that way the tank would be more protected, but it could still be "blown off" so to speak?

I would prefer the main hull option though, because the ERA blocks aren't disappearing anyway, so we might aswell treat that 10-20cm thick block as if it were armor, although not 100-200mm please, since it would be used up, so to balance it out maybe make it 10-20% of it's thickness as if it were an armor upgrade?

Originally posted by KampfTomate007:

I see, could you then somewhat fix it for now by increasing side protection?
In vanilla they jumped from 300mm to 500mm for the side hull, which imo is too drastic, like sure, ERA is cool and all, but i doubt it would increase effective thickness by 66.66...%.

So maybe a smaller increasement would be better? Like currently M1A2 SEPv2/3 have 110mm side hull thickness, so maybe a small increase for the TUSK variants like 10-20% might be okay?

That would make side hull of TUSK variants have 121/132mm thickness, IIRC tanks get basically instakilled from autocannon fire to their sides, so a small increasement in side armor shouldn't be enough to make them immune to autocannon fire.

Alternatively you could somewhat simulate ERA being used up by simply adding the armor thickness to the Side Skirts, that way the tank would be more protected, but it could still be "blown off" so to speak?

I would prefer the main hull option though, because the ERA blocks aren't disappearing anyway, so we might aswell treat that 10-20cm thick block as if it were armor, although not 100-200mm please, since it would be used up, so to balance it out maybe make it 10-20% of it's thickness as if it were an armor upgrade?

Not a bad idea. It ain't the best but it's an effort to fix, at least.

I got another idea, idk the composition of the ERA blocks on the Abrams, but if they work remotely similar to russian ones then they probably have 1 or 2 solid plates inbetween which the explosive filler is sandwiched, so maybe if we can find out how thick these solid plates are in the ERA blocks we can combine all values and then add them to side hull thickness?

Originally posted by KampfTomate007:

I got another idea, idk the composition of the ERA blocks on the Abrams, but if they work remotely similar to russian ones then they probably have 1 or 2 solid plates inbetween which the explosive filler is sandwiched, so maybe if we can find out how thick these solid plates are in the ERA blocks we can combine all values and then add them to side hull thickness?

Noted, I'd assume the TUSK ERA blocks probably work in a way similar to Kontakt 1 ERAs

I must admit i'm not really that deep into the whole military stuff, like all i know about those sort of things are 90% from games, and then maybe 10% from youtube videos where veterans/enthusiasts speak about vehicles, eg Matsimus, Red Effect, etc, which is where i've seen some russian ERA have 2 plates combined with explosive materials, but idk how thick these plates, or their respective RHA thickness would be, and i haven't seen anything talking about Nato ERA yet either.

Speaking of the TUSK variants, do you guys plan on adding stuff like abrams with TUSK 2 equipped? Idk how comfortable you are with modeling and all, but i think even just using regular TUSK with the added 12.7mm basically taped on top of the main gun as another coaxial would be nice?

You basically did that with the M1128 Stryker MGS, which now has a 12.7mm on the right side of the turret, which btw is super nice.
I did notice that the 12.7mm doesn't have traverse limitations, so it can rotate 360° freely even through the main gun, but idk if it's intentional or not?
I also forgot to mention that the M1128 Stryker MGS only comes with 3 crew members, even though it has 4 crew slots now, which again idk if it's intentional or not, but i thought i'd let you know just in case.

Originally posted by KampfTomate007:

I must admit i'm not really that deep into the whole military stuff, like all i know about those sort of things are 90% from games, and then maybe 10% from youtube videos where veterans/enthusiasts speak about vehicles, eg Matsimus, Red Effect, etc, which is where i've seen some russian ERA have 2 plates combined with explosive materials, but idk how thick these plates, or their respective RHA thickness would be, and i haven't seen anything talking about Nato ERA yet either.

Speaking of the TUSK variants, do you guys plan on adding stuff like abrams with TUSK 2 equipped? Idk how comfortable you are with modeling and all, but i think even just using regular TUSK with the added 12.7mm basically taped on top of the main gun as another coaxial would be nice?

You basically did that with the M1128 Stryker MGS, which now has a 12.7mm on the right side of the turret, which btw is super nice.
I did notice that the 12.7mm doesn't have traverse limitations, so it can rotate 360° freely even through the main gun, but idk if it's intentional or not?
I also forgot to mention that the M1128 Stryker MGS only comes with 3 crew members, even though it has 4 crew slots now, which again idk if it's intentional or not, but i thought i'd let you know just in case.

The M1128 MGS with the Ma Deuce is actually an optional addon. It's
too complicated for me to add a proper mount and rotation for it, so I left it as it is. That's why the M2HB is left in the inventory not mounted. It is supposed to have 3 crew members, but the extra 1 to man the M2HB is as said, optional crew addon (albeit flawed). It's just an option, really, in case someone doesn't mind going out of the realism barrier to use that wonky M2HB mount (or because they just want to shoot some ass)

Mdl coding and modeling may be more complicated than you think. The current M1A2 SEPv2 and SEPv3 are not proper models, but sometimes we have to make do with what's available. We can't just put in random new models and call it day -- we need to ensure they fit with the other models too, to avoid them looking "alien" compared to the others. And ensure they function well.

We're aiming for quality > quantity, and functions, not the opposite. And we aim for flexibility of use of assets.

Also I don't follow Matsium and RedEffect honestly, since I consider them not knowledgeable enough on the topics or have flawed perception. Spookston and Laserpig are my go-to, along with certain armor simulators, plus credible documents/blogs, and combat records/military personnel memoirs.

Huh, i watched some videos from spookston about some vehicles, but they always seemed to be about war thunder, rather than the actual real life counterparts, which is why i prefered matsimus, since we is an actual tanker, but i guess spookston is worth looking into again, thanks for the tipp!

Originally posted by KampfTomate007:

Huh, i watched some videos from spookston about some vehicles, but they always seemed to be about war thunder, rather than the actual real life counterparts, which is why i prefered matsimus, since we is an actual tanker, but i guess spookston is worth looking into again, thanks for the tipp!

Plenty of his vids actually aren't just about War Thunder, he covers actual history or facts of certain vehicles too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5Rpux2Gcr4

here's a good example of Spookston's vid

This is only mildly related, but i'm currently playing the 10. mission of the US campaign, and i noticed that the Abrams you get is the M1A2 SEPv3, with 55-820mm armor, and the tank that you can call in as the marines is the M1A2 SEPv2 TUSK, instead of M1A2 SEPv3 TUSK, which although the SEPv2 TUSK has 130mm side hull compared to SEPv3 110mm, the SEPv3 has 820/570mm front turret/hull, while the SEPv2 TUSK only has 720/520mm

So the TUSK tank has +20mm side hull thickness, while the regular abrams has +100/50 front turret/hull thickness, which to me doesn't seem that fair, considering that you usually angle your front towards the enemy.

This seems like the regular abrams that you can call in if you play army is better than the tank you can call in as marines, is this intentional?

Originally posted by KampfTomate007:

This is only mildly related, but i'm currently playing the 10. mission of the US campaign, and i noticed that the Abrams you get is the M1A2 SEPv3, with 55-820mm armor, and the tank that you can call in as the marines is the M1A2 SEPv2 TUSK, instead of M1A2 SEPv3 TUSK, which although the SEPv2 TUSK has 130mm side hull compared to SEPv3 110mm, the SEPv3 has 820/570mm front turret/hull, while the SEPv2 TUSK only has 720/520mm

So the TUSK tank has +20mm side hull thickness, while the regular abrams has +100/50 front turret/hull thickness, which to me doesn't seem that fair, considering that you usually angle your front towards the enemy.

This seems like the regular abrams that you can call in if you play army is better than the tank you can call in as marines, is this intentional?

You suggested the side armor buff and I did :/ beside that side armor is still rather weak anyway. Don't attempt to angle 45 degree with modern tanks, at all.

Intentional. Realistically, Marines wouldn't even have any tank since they already gave them to the Army. But due to the lack of present USMC assets, we have to make do. And yes, USMC gets worse AFVs than Army does and less mechanized options. In turn they have better armed general infantry and bigger squad size.

Overall, yes it's intentional that US Army as an option is more well rounded than USMC.

Hell, even the mission where you take over an oil field as USMC in vanilla -- they've been replaced with US Army units instead for more accurate representation

There's a reason why the "USA" faction in the mod is renamed to "U.S. Army" as majority of the assets in game represent the US Army assets

Oh no, don't get me wrong, i'm not saying that the side armor of the TUSK variants isn't good, i was only wondering if you intended to give the marines a SEPv2 instead of a 3, since in vanilla the Marines got the better abrams tank, with the second 7.62 mount, and RWS 12.7mm, and +200mm side hull thickness, but in return the Army got the tier 4 rangers or tier 2 soldiers that have more men, cost less, and also have somewhat better equipment like M203s, etc.

While now the Army got the better infantry options, the MK19 Stryker, and the Bradley, and the Marines only got the TUSK but SEPv2, so it seems a bit unbalanced, or rather there is close to no point in choosing marines over army.

It's not really an issue though, i guess a positive side effect would be that people who like to play casually can play army, and those who like more of a challenge play marines.Almost like another difficulty adjustment.

Originally posted by KampfTomate007:

Oh no, don't get me wrong, i'm not saying that the side armor of the TUSK variants isn't good, i was only wondering if you intended to give the marines a SEPv2 instead of a 3, since in vanilla the Marines got the better abrams tank, with the second 7.62 mount, and RWS 12.7mm, and +200mm side hull thickness, but in return the Army got the tier 4 rangers or tier 2 soldiers that have more men, cost less, and also have somewhat better equipment like M203s, etc.

While now the Army got the better infantry options, the MK19 Stryker, and the Bradley, and the Marines only got the TUSK but SEPv2, so it seems a bit unbalanced, or rather there is close to no point in choosing marines over army.

It's not really an issue though, i guess a positive side effect would be that people who like to play casually can play army, and those who like more of a challenge play marines.Almost like another difficulty adjustment.

Yeah, Marines is just the harder option. That's it.