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Posts posted by Jochem
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The AI difficulty was increased for the gamenight. Stupid blind AI should be back
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For choppers:
1) get a gunner
2) fly atleast 1000m high
3) switch thermals on (gunner)
4) lock on (gunner)
5) point nose down (pilot) and fire (gunner)
You win and AAA can't see you
For jets:
I've no tips unless you wan't to end in a burning fireball
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Minipily was turned out as commander when our tank flipped, so his head got crushed (He survived it for some strange reason)
Oh btw, I take full credit for the last kill, my HESH round
Great vid man
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Kju stopped working on his All in Arma mod
[HOW TO] Tank
in Guides (How To)
Posted
The tank guide
Intro
In this guide I'll go over the basics of armoured warfare and discuss some more advanced tactic as well. I'll do both real life and in-game aspects (with or without RAM) and finally, I'll go over all the different tanks. This guide is based on my experience with tank games (World of Tanks, War Thunder, and Arma 3) and all the historical books/films I've read/seen. If you think I got something wrong, please tell me so I can check it. Enjoy!
What is a tank?
Before we start discussing about tanks, we first need to know what a tank exactly is. Wikipedia gives the following definition of a tank: “A tank is a large type of armoured fighting vehicle with tracks, designed for front-line combat“. I would describe a tank as a vehicle balanced between crew protection, fire-power and mobility. The balance will be different for each model, and is chosen around a specific goal. So comparing a scout tank to a main battle tank is absurd, because they were designed for other tasks.
Types of tanks
I'll divide tanks into different categories:
MBT
Light tank
Scout tank
Tank destroyer
In this guide I'll cover mainly the MBT because it's the only one of the list that is available in vanilla Arma 3.
Crew
Modern MBT have a standard crew of four: commander, gunner, driver, loader. In some tanks (i.e. the French Leclerc) is the loader replaced by an autoloader.
The commander: The commander is in charge of the tank. He tells the driver where to go, gives the gunner targets and instructs the loader what shell to load. It is considered to be the most difficult position in the tank as he has to manage not only the tank, but also incoming radio calls. Most tanks provide commanders smoke launchers to conceal the tanks.
The gunner: This is obvious. He shoots stuff and blows things up. He also has access to an MG to mow down infantry. Got optical/night/thermal sights.
The driver: I'm asking myself why I started explaining crew slots. He drives the tank OK?
The loader: Loads the gun and in some cases has a machine gun when turned out.
It's vitally important to work together as a team. Good solo crew members who are not communicating will result in a dead tank!
Ammo
The list of most common ammunition types:
APFSDS: armour piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot. Often called “sabot” or “AP”. Basically has the best penetration for almost all ranges, except extreme ranges. It's penetrating power comes from the extreme velocity it is fired.
HEAT: high explosive anti tank. A big shell that explodes shortly after penetrating a target. Very good against soft to medium armoured targets. Has no drop off in penetration and is so thus used for extreme ranges.
HESH: High explosive squash head. Ammo used by the British. The shell explodes on impact and releases a massive amount of small iron balls. Used to injure crew and is effective against most targets, including infantry.
HE: high explosive. Explodes on impact and has almost no penetration power. Cheaper than other ammo types and very effective against light armour and infantry. Does not bounce.
Note: if an ammo type is followed by ”-T” (like: “APFSDS-T), it means that the shell act's as a tracer and gives a light trail when fired (same effect as rifle tracers).
Armour and countermeassures
In this section, I'll cover the differant types of armour and other measures taken to protect a tank. I'll start with armour:
Other protective measures:
Basic Tactics
Time for some basic tactics. These will consist of tactics viable in vanilla.
First off all the positioning of the tank. In Arma, its best to keep a distance from the enemy. Thanks to laser-rangefinding a tank can be accurate up to 2km (technically it's possible to range up to 11.4km but the sights don't have the zoom to support that kind of range). At this range it's also quite easy to ID targets and avoid friendly fire.
Also it's always advisible to turn the front of the tank towards the enemy (I know, but you never know I guess). Some more advanced positioning tactics are:
Tanks in Arma 3
Before I finish I'll quickly go over all tanks in vanilla Arma 3.
M2A1/M2A4 Slammer: know as the Merkava 4 in real life and used by the Israeli army as their primary MBT. This tank is an unusual design focused on crew protection. To maximize the frontal armour, the tank's engine was placed in the front to serve as another layer of armour. As a direct result the back was free to store ammo OR house some soldiers (this is modelled wrong in Arma). The tank is using a 120mm gun(M2A1) or a 105mm gun(M2A4) and is the master of street and urban combat. In Arma unfortunately, this means every shot to the front will damage the engine and that the amount of real life armour made the top speed and acceleration bad, so I wouldn't recommend this tank in Vanilla Arma 3. Also, the M2A4 has some added armor plating and an commander MG but trades it in for a weaker 105mm gun. Altough irl this would be considered insane, it is better for street combat due to the extra MG, but bear in mind the gun is very weak.
MBT-52 Kuma: Know in real life as the Leopard-2SG. An up-armored version of the German Leopard-2 tank, this tank is fast and mobile has a good gun but has not the best armour (because of REASONS, remeber the UP-ARMORED). Very popular tank in Vanilla Arma 3 and definitely the best choice for any tank group that wants a tank that fit's into the BLUFOR army.
T-100 Varsuk: Fictional tank based upon a Russian prototype designated object-640, named by fans the Black Eagle. It uses a 125mm gun and is reasonably mobile and has good armour. A rail gun variant was planned for release with the game but got scrapped due to considered too futuristic.
That was it for my tank guide. I hope you enjoyed it and are a bit more interested in tanks then before.
-Jochem "Waffles", Bomb 1-1, 2nd Armor Division