Ammo Use values determination

[Wiedrock]

Is it possible to get an insight on how the "Ammo Use" values for individual Ground Elements have been calculated?

I've found that doubling that Number halves the number of shots that can be done from 1ton of Ammo. Since many Tanks with same caliber (75mm vs. 76.2mm) have different Ammo Use values (182 vs. 112) and therefore the first will "pay" ~60% more Ammo per shot done while essencially having the same caliber/shell weight, I wonder what else has been factored in.

[Joel Billings]

You could try pinging jaw (Jim Wirth) as I think he's the one that came up with the values in cooperation with Gary.

[Denniss]

I believe it depends on the actual loadout of a (tank as axample), the combined weight of its artillery and MG ammo.

[Wiedrock]

You could try pinging jaw (Jim Wirth) as I think he's the one that came up with the values in cooperation with Gary.

Thanks, I contacted him though he hasn't been active since last year.

I believe it depends on the actual loadout of a (tank as axample), the combined weight of its artillery and MG ammo.

I tried recreating it this way, I did not manage to.

As in my post about the Ammo Use German/Soviet I know that it's being used to determin the Ammo(ton) Need of a Division, that's fine.

Then when testing Attack battle consumption to find out how much Ammo is being used in combat I found that a Panther with 182 Ammo Use can fire ~10,6 AP shells for 1 Ammo ton spent.
Increasing those Panthers' Ammo Use to 500 reducted the shots which could be fired to ~3,9 AP shells from 1 Ammo ton.
So there is a factor of 0,36 applied.

Since almost all Soviet medium tanks have a 40-60% lower Ammo Use than their German counterparts while having almost the same caliber/shell weights/shell storage I tried figuring out why that is....and the only thing which made sense for the calculation was the lower RoF of Soviet tanks.

As seen in this example the guns are the same.

ammo_PaKvsSdkfz.png (521.7 KiB) Viewed 818 times

The PaK has a RoF of 14 and Ammo Use 70, the Sdkfz has RoF of 14-6=8 and Ammo Use 40.
So having a RoF of 57% decreases the Ammo Use to 57% in this case.

The biggest Discrepancies (balancing-wise) I see between German/Soviet tanks since those have the biggest difference in RoF, Artillery and other types of Guns seem "equally balanced" (although it's strange for a PaK40 75mm to consume more Ammo per shot than a Tiger 88mm or Jagdtiger 128mm ....if my results apply to all types of assets equally (only comparing AP-shots)).

So if my testing setup was right and Ammo use is also influencing the Ammo spent per shot then the PaK will have a 57% higher Ammo consumption per shot (if applied same way as for the tanks AP shells).

Yes I need to triplecheck all my tests, compare the different types of Assets and so on ... but maybe this short insight encourages others to disprove me and makes me saving time doing tests!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

shots_per_ammo-ton.png (52.87 KiB) Viewed 817 times

[Wiedrock]

At least RoF and caliber may be used,...additional the type of barrel seems to matter.

75mm comparison.png (43.49 KiB) Viewed 800 times

[Wiedrock]

All of the sudden the "light went on".

Ammo Use Value (hoever it is determined (see above)) has the unit lb. Therefore a Tank with 182 Ammo Use can shoot 2000lb/182lb=10,99 shots from 1ton of Ammo/freight.
A edited Tank with 500 Ammo Use can shoot 2000lb/500lb=4 shots.

Now the question is why a AP shell of ~15-26lb would be calculated as 182lb concerning freight usage?!

[Wiedrock]

A possible explanation to this is:
Panther D - 75mm - Panzergranate 39 - weight ~7kg
182 Ammo Use - 11 RoF

182/11=16.5lb -> 7.5kg

The combat log and battle reports tell us, that 1 Shot is fired, while the Ammo consumed is 1 Shot*RoF!

[Wiedrock]

Some examples, not 100% sure when to use "Projectile weight" and when the "whole weight before shooting" has to be used.

[Wiedrock]

Once again the request to get some insights on how Ammo Use (this time for Squads) is created!

I've listed some of the Squads and tried to figure out how much 1 Gun of a type contributes to the Ammo Use values. Since otherwise I have no idea how to change the Ammo Use numbers for Modding Squads.

I thing the results are not too far off, but see yourself.

• The blue coloured cells are my guessed "weights", and there are still two orange coloured cells I am not sure about since there's too few Squads using these Devices.
• If the last column is white it's almost perfect. They can only make "full numbers", so there will always be some rounding.
• If the last column is red, the ingame numbers seem too high and if it is green the numbers seem too small.
• Looking the grey AU column shows the Ammo Use of the Squad. This means every time the Squad fires (at any distance, with whatever weapons) it will consume exactly this amount of pounds of freight/ammo. So if a Squad has one SMG with a range of 150yard and additionally 10 Flamethrowers with range of 50yards, the Squad will use the full weight when engaging with it's single SMG on 150yards, so consume 180lb of Ammo wit one SMG.

What stands out:
Assuming my numbers are about right there are several Squads have pretty high or pretty low values (red/green marked).

One case which seems obvious is ID:100 Pz Grenadier Squad 44v2.

[Denniss]

Just looking at labor squads the rifles and/or carbines may be just .33.
But eng-sap sq #733 is too low then with just 2 and should be 3 instead
It may also be that labor squads already have reduced ammo use as their main object is not fight but dig

[jaw]

I can't tell you how the Ammo Use value is actually used by the program (only Gary or Pavel could tell you that) but the value itself for non-infantry type ground elements is based on the weight in pounds of the main armament expended in 1 minute of firing assuming full rate of fire. For example, ammo use for a tank would only be based on its main gun ammo not any of its other weapons. These non-infantry type ground elements are assumed to be generally firing at a range beyond the effective range of their secondary weapons. For example a howitzer would be rarely, if ever, be firing at a range at which the crews secondary weapons (rifles) would be in range of anything.

Infantry type ground elements ammo use is more broad including all their weapons "firing" for 1 minute. For example, the ammo use of a rifle squad includes 2 grenades being tossed.

In the case of both infantry type and non-infantry type ground elements ammo use is a simplification of a complex situation. In reality there would be instants where non-infantry types would fire their secondary weapons and ones where infantry types would only fire their LMGs and rifles. What the designer was going for with the concept of ammo use was a means of assessing the logistical cost of keeping units in action in an abstract manner. To be technically precise we would have needed a system to assess the ammo expenditure of each individual weapon (device in game terms) in "real time" as the weapon was fired. Gary may have been considering that originally when the AMMO field showing the amount of ammo for a particular weapon carried by the ground element was included in the ground element data base. However such a calculation of ammo use was never implemented and the AMMO value has always been nothing more than "color".

One final thing I want to mention. An update of ammo use has been made recently attempting to standardize ammo weights across similar calibers which should be going out for beta testing soon. It may answer some of your concerns.

Jim

[Wiedrock]

Infantry type ground elements ammo use is more broad including all their weapons "firing" for 1 minute. For example, the ammo use of a rifle squad includes 2 grenades being tossed.

Thanks for giving the Grenade hint, helps with immersing how it's being done.

In the case of both infantry type and non-infantry type ground elements ammo use is a simplification of a complex situation. In reality there would be instants where non-infantry types would fire their secondary weapons and ones where infantry types would only fire their LMGs and rifles.

Yes, the Flamethrower example was/is just the most outstanding one since they have the highest consumption with a single gun I suppose.
Ofc with thousands of Soldiers in a battle they do not all halt at the 400yard line to fire, generally I think for Infantry the "use it all up" per "shot" is alright since there are plenty of other things, like smokes grenades, flares and so on which also somehow need to be simulated.

One final thing I want to mention. An update of ammo use has been made recently attempting to standardize ammo weights across similar calibers which should be going out for beta testing soon. It may answer some of your concerns.

Thanks, yes I am looking forward to this.
Are there also the Squad Ammo Use values updated? (and you could share the formula used?) Since that's my current issue, not knowing what exact ammo use to take for a modded Squad having 7 different guns.