SVD too weak?

Am I the only one who has the impression that some of the (sniper) rifles are just too weak?

I have composed a test mission that leaves you on top of a few soldiers you can take out with an SVD, crouching behind a earth wall.

Tell me how many of them you need to hit two or three times with the SVD for a kill?? I'm not sure if this is realistic. A sniper rifle usually hits so hard that nobody is to survive one shot.

Maybe it's more realistic with the Medic Mod loaded, but then again, when I hit them in the front with the SVD, nobody is just laying there and aiming in my direction anymore.

EDIT: Use Veteran mode to make sure we have the same difficulty. I just tested it again and I had to hit one of them even 4 (four) times around the head/chest/torso region!!

Edited June 28, 2009 by Fireball

Make sure you are not hitting their weapons. In ArmA 1, infantry weapons were indestructible and impenetrable. They act like force fields.

Think of the fact that all regular soldiers (USMC, CDF and RDF) wear body armour in the game. Even though not strong enough to stop the 7.62x54mm they would dramatically reduce the effect of it (talking in gamey terms here, where damage are pure numbers. In real life they may actually make the damage worse depending on where/how the bullet hits, because you have a smashed-to-bits bullet tumbling at high speed through your body).

The above can of course not in its own justify 4 hits needed (assuming you didn't hit the weapon), but then again I'm not sure if there's been changes to the way bullet damage is calculated.

Remember that the bullet loses its energy over distance and don't expect from a 7,62x54 mm cartridge to do wonders. In fact the sniper rifles feel weaker because you can engange enemies at far greater distances while the energy of each bullet decreases with every yard.

Am I the only one who has the impression that c. A sniper rifle usually hits so hard that nobody is to survive one shot.

Wrong. A SVD in 7,62x54mm is not stronger than any other rifle that uses this caliber. Only the barrel length could increase the velocity of the round a bit, but not much. Also the amount of powder could affect the speed of the bullet but the rifle and cartridge set a limit to the maximum load. At 900 yards a 8mm round is not capable anymore to penetrate a steel plate.

So no, you can't have always one shot kills with wonder weapons like "sniper rifles" over a longer distance when not hitting the head immediately (even headshots are not lethal all the time...).

A rifle with a scope mounted does not make it any stronger...This is COD4 bullshit.:rolleyes:

Edited June 29, 2009 by Curry

Wrong. A SVD in 7,62x54mm is not stronger than any other rifle that uses this caliber. Only the barrel length could increase the velocity of the round a bit, but not much. Also the amount of powder could affect the speed of the bullet but the rifle and cartridge set a limit to the maximum load.

Wrong. The SVD is in 7.62x54mmR.

The round is colloquially known as the "7.62 Russian," although the "R" actually stands for "rimmed". The name is sometimes confused with the "7.62 Soviet" round, which refers to the 7.62x39mm cartridge used in the SKS and AK-47 rifles.

For precision shooting, specifically designed sniper cartridges are used, developed by V. M. Sabelnikov, P. P. Sazonov and V. M. Dvorianinov. The proprietary 7N1 load has a steel jacketed projectile with an air pocket, a steel core and a lead knocker in the base for maximum terminal effect. The 7N1 was replaced in 1999 by the 7N14 round. The 7N14 is a new load developed for the SVD. It consists of a 151 grain projectile which travels at the same 830 m/s, but it has a sharp hardened steel core projectile. The rifle can also fire standard 7.62x54mmR ammunition with either conventional, tracer or armor piercing incendiary rounds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62x54mmR

The 7.62x54mmR is a very potent cartridge, in the same power class as the .30-06 Springfield. The spitzer bullets used in the military variants have a particularly elongated shape which results in a relatively high ballistic coefficient contributing to good long range performance and high retained energy. Data for a 12.0 g (185 gr) FMJ Match bullet boattail fired from a Dragunov sniper rifle at 823 m/s (2,700 ft/s) muzzle velocity, shows a retained energy of 1,012 J (746 ft·lbf) at 914 m (1,000 yd) with the bullet still traveling at supersonic speed under ICAO Standard Atmosphere conditions at sea level (air density Ï = 1.225 kg/m3).

When used with modern hunting bullets, it is capable of easily taking large game. In Russia the 7.62x54mmR is commonly used for hunting purposes mostly in sporterized Mosin-Nagant rifles. In that country, widespread use of modern magnum cartridges is not common among hunters (in contrast to North America where such chamberings are commonly used) with the 7.62x54mmR even being considered a bit too powerful for moose. Large bears including polar bears are frequently hunted with it.

It needs some more power.

Edited June 29, 2009 by Zacho

Investigated a little bit since the SVD is my absolute favourite :cool:

My findings -

provided mission file:

• In 2 of 3 cases a prone soldier will really take up to 3 hits to the head/neck region
  
• Kneeling soldiers would rarely take two hits to the head/neck region before going down
  
• Standing soldiers not encountered because stupid AI comrade prematurely blew my cover

modified mission file*:

• Standing soldiers take 1 hit to the head/neck region and fall
  
• Kneeling soldiers also take one hit to the head/neck region and fall
  
• Prone soldiers again take up to 3 hits in the head/neck region (wtf!)

*(made player captive and removed his AI comrade, made enemys static to prone, kneeling and standing)

because the provided mission here isn´t good for a test environment

The only probable conclusion from this, at least to me, is that somehow ArmA2 gives prone soldiers a slight armor boost - OR - ArmA2 thinks you´re hitting an über-thick helmet (even though you clearly hit the face directly) - OR - while prone ArmA2 distributes all received damage to arms and torso first before even considering a headshot :confused:

edit: Having tested this numerous times now i´m assured that headshots do kill with one hit.

On some of the above mentioned attempts my aim was prolly shite.

The tricky part is not to mistake hits to the arms/backs/legs of a prone soldier for a headshot.

PS: this unlucky spectator decided to appear on the scene right after test #4

Just for the record, it also took one hit before going down

...

Ohh yeah, I forgot the R. And I wrote "than any other rifle that uses this caliber"....

But even your 7,62x54mmR is not capable of making one shot kills over greater distances all the time...

Edited June 29, 2009 by Curry

Putting R on the end is not really a necessary distinction because there is no other 7.62x54 mm bullet to confuse it with.

I re-tested myself again and I can confirm that when I have to hit them two to three times, that I hit the arms. But they also lay in a angle, that the bullet, also according to the description of the ammo by Zacho, must go through the arm into the torso - that should be absolutely devastating!

But the main problem seems that the arms are absolut bullet stoppers and while prone, they can cover the torso with them - so this should be fixed and rather not the SVD then.

EDIT: Ohh and Curry, while your point is taken, in the test mission, that's not exactly a "great distance" - even with a normal assault rifle shots on these distances would be mostly lethal or incapacitating, unless you really only inflict a flesh wounds on extremities with no arteria hit. But the soldiers just lay there, still aiming at me (and probably shooting if I showed myself).

Edited June 29, 2009 by Fireball

Remember that the bullet loses its energy over distance and don't expect from a 7,62x54 mm cartridge to do wonders. In fact the sniper rifles feel weaker because you can engange enemies at far greater distances while the energy of each bullet decreases with every yard.

The distances in ArmA2 aren't all that great. Actual distance in ArmA2 is about 1/3rd what it was in OFP:R. OFP:R's perceived:actual distance ratio was about spot on. ArmA 1 and 2's is not, because the FOV needs to be expanded in order to provide more peripheral vision...something to do with widescreen monitors, I think.

7.62 x 54mm Soviet doesn't lose that much energy over the distances we are dealing with in this game. You'll find your optics (with a basically nerfed zoom, thanks to the FOV, again) preventing you from making the shot long before the distance or MOA of your weapon do. In other words, sniping in ArmA 1 & 2 seems to be relatively close-quarters.

From my very empirical point of view, targets go down in 1 or 2 shots.

I use the SDV very often on reflexive shooting with 2 shots, and most of the time the target is down.

The only difficult targets are the ones lying down, far away.

Bug filed in CIT: http://dev-heaven.net/issues/show/2386

EDIT: Ohh and Curry, while your point is taken, in the test mission, that's not exactly a "great distance".

Why the quotation marks?

Why the quotation marks?

Because I felt like it. :j:

Because I felt like it. :j:

Okay.:)

I maybe have to revise my conclusion; I've just re-tried the mission with the KSVK sniper rifle and then it was one shot, one kill - thus it's not a problem with the arms being inpenetrable, but it's either a "percentage" system which reduces health more with the KSVK than with the SVD or the penetration is just so much better with the KSVK - in either case, the SVD would then be too weak, as I suspected originally. Specially at distances up to 1000 m.

---------- Post added at 12:56 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:18 AM ----------

Open question: Does ArmA2 take in account the penetration of the bullet or simply the overall damage it does to the body when hit, which differs then according to the part of the body?

Or put another way; does hitting the soldiers into arms just reduce some health percentage until it dies or does the speed and thus thrust and penetration of the bullet matter?

Maybe some dev can shed some blood ehhh light on this?

Open question: Does ArmA2 take in account the penetration of the bullet or simply the overall damage it does to the body when hit, which differs then according to the part of the body?

Difficult question to answer. The bullets take into account their velocity. The damage is their damage rating * their velocity or some similar function. Does that take into account penetration? It seems to take into account projectile energy. The damage is done to the target's hit location hit points and also it's global hitpoints. Hits to its global hitpoints are modified by hit location... perhaps if you hit the leg, you do (the total damage done) * 0.5 or something. The damage is also modified by the target's armour, structure, and maybe some other ratings. I think the size of the object mattered in OFP. The long and short of it is, you can keep plugging away at some target's global hitpoints by shooting the legs until they die.

What I don't get is why the M107/KVSK only have ball ammo. These weapons are too easy against soft targets, and I never use them in my missions because of this. But without any potent ammo like multipurpose HEAPI, Raufoss), they can also never be used properly as anti material.

Edited June 30, 2009 by CarlGustaffa

Why aint they gave the rifles the power what they give in real life. stand to civilians in a row and shoot them with a M107 and the bullet only sinks the first guy. this is a rifle that puts a hole in solid steel.

I want to line up about 5 people and have a 1 shot 5 kill. dont tell me that it's bullet deflection and hits a bone thats why coz thats rollox.

50 cal goes through bones like a hot knife through butter.

That's probably waaaayyy to hard to achieve with this engine.

The PKT on the MI-8, which is supposed to be firing the same round, seems to be firing subsonic ammo, so maybe that is part of the problem?

That's probably waaaayyy to hard to achieve with this engine.

Probably but if wooden fences, concrete, and even window glass can have deflection, penetration, and ballistic reduction statistics I can't see why it can't be applied to vehicle targets (in OFP speaking, vehicle are all man, car, plane, static vehicles).

Hello all

I love the SVD and havnt noticed this issue in game, although I have noticed the SPR seems to be far different to Arma1.

Im having to put multiple rounds in chaps and the distance seems to have been nerfed as well as the larger recoil and smoke effects.

But to me (without any major testing) the SVD seems to be comparable to Arma 1.

rgds

LoK