Matrix Games Forums

Is it me or the interaction between a weapon's AP value and a vehicle's armor (to put it mildly) is "weird"?

Take the below picture for example.



Leo2 vs a dedicated AT platform:

• The leo has (or should have on paper) a formidable frontal protection;

• 71/60 against AP and 129/120 against HEAT;

• that SHOULD mean that the tank is INVULNERABLE from the front from Konkurs ATGM missiles (heat pen 66)

• and yet when i tried to move a 4 unit section forward using deliberate, the 3 soviet atgm platforms on the other side of the hill decimated them by the end of cycle (all tanks were lost)

• the same thing happened throughout the entrire campaign, my tanks were knocked out left and right by ATGMs, and tanks (even T55s!!!) - and no I am not talking about "same hex" or "1 hex" engagements where side and rear shots become much more probable - with pen woefully insufficient to even scratch the paint.

One caveat. Most of these "kills" resulted in the tanks being fallen out rather than destroyed so from a campaign perspective it has some significance.

From a strictly scenario perspective however i find it not only annoying but extremely frustrating from a game that aims for realism.

Fallen out means damaged (or injured), so yes you can argue that non penetrating hits can still damage sensors, other equipment, but this kind of damage should in the majority of the cases not make a unit totally combat ineffective (ie removed from the given scenario).

Combat mission simulates this very well. You can have your panthers face tank T34s or Zis anti tank guns, but then you may lose your tracks, your optics, radio, or the gun could get hit making the tank unable to fire. HOWEVER the vehicle is still on the field and can partake in the operation albeit with degraded capabilities.

In conclusion i really dislike the system where (and iam obviusly exagerating) anything can knock out anythink, but hey ho dont worry it didnt get destroyed, it is just fallen out.

It was painful to watch some t55s, t72s or bmps casually stroll up to my leos (who were in hold position, in a forest with 90% cover, and in a dug in state) and take them out or cause significant damage.

Or am I missing something?

(the above observation was written after having completed the Czech, the Big Red One campaign and 3 screns from the W German camp)

Yes, this issue of WP vs NATO armour and armour piercing capabilities has been dragging itself for months with no satisfactory answer from the developers. Quo usque tandem abutere patientia nostra? We've had in the meantime several patches, but I doubt they addressed the problem.

To answer the first post, everything cannot take out everything. It is possible for a non-penetrating hit to cause a fall-out, weapon system, engine, tracks, or crew to be disabled, and that takes out the subunit, not the entire unit. Not all shots at range are per frontal. The open salvo from an unspotted enemy can engage the flank of a target. That would be most of those ATGM versus Leos, as the ATGM is unlikely to fire against the frontal aspect given the very low chance of a hit and kill/knockout. Another point is that nothing is invulnerable on the battlefield in certain situations. If those Leos stumbled into an ATGM ambush, the ATGM is able to hit the flank of the tank or hull and score a kill. Currently, we do not have a state of hit and degraded, but operational. That is something we will be working on down the line for the Modern game, and it will eventually filter back into the Cold War game when it is done. With the current code and model, we are not in a position to effectively cover a non-functional subunit. The biggest issue being the case of a mobility kill that still has a functional weapon. It can't move, we don't split units in the game, so we list them as fallen out. Maybe that changes in the future, but for now it is what it is.

@nanni - What major issues with the armor and pen system? I'm not aware of any issues, or I may have missed something. As the head of data and combat models, I'd like to know if there are any so I can address them. Feel free to list those issues here for me to review. We are not perfect, and some of the data may be outdated with new info on the web.

Thank you for your kind reply, Capn Darwin. To answer your query, the question of Armour vs AP values has cropped up at least three times before the current thread.
On July 17-18, 2026, a thread initiated by Zumwalt;
from January 22 to March 7 a long thread begun by William Betson (T-80 vs M1A1), with other players sending comments;
and from January 5 to January 15, 2026 a thread (Yak B autocannon vs Leopard) started by someone calling himself DIVM.
This is what I could find, at least.
Oddly enough, though a majority of players complain that NATO AFVs are more vulnerable than Pact ones, a few report having slaughtered Soviet armored equipment (for example, the thread titled "I love Jaguars").
Has any thought been given to address this issue, perhaps with the new DLC in the works?

The Yak-B autocannon on the Hinds did get a tweak for autocannon systems in 3.0.3. It was more of a range issue and a bit of a data issue on the AP. They can still cause fallouts on armor, as they are top attack from helos when hitting ground targets. As for the pen and armor ratings on the platforms, we are using the best open-source values for both within our combat model, and if foils have a bias one way or the other, they are free to make or edit data files and redo scenarios with altered kit. In the few cases where we have been given data sources that are newer or better than what we used and I can verify the numbers, we have made changes. I feel what we have is well balanced, and we see about an equal number of NATO/WP tanks in OP threads. With a lot going on under the hood for each combat shot, it's easy to get some RNG effects coupled with user confirmation bias that leads to OP/Bugs reports. We are in the midst of a major refactoring for armor and other combat-related model elements, and hopefully some of these issues will be better shown, and any remaining bugs or logic issues knocked out of the code. We always welcome user comments and suggestions so we can improve on the gaming experience with our sim.

One additional point here in relation to the discussion of fallen out vs destroyed:

I have repeatedly encountered a situation where mechanized/motorized units (with both infantry and vehicle subunits) take losses but are then partially reconstituted in the next scenario of a campaign. The partial reconstitution results in (for example) a US mechanized infantry platoon having two infantry squads and one Bradley, which in turn means that the movement speed is limited by the excessive infantry squads. This essentially makes units like this unable to be used in anything except a static defense due to the low movement speed compared to vehicle-borne movement.

I'm both curious as to any potential fixes for this issue and what the real-life protocol would be in a situation like this (attachment to another unit, consolidation of multiple units, something else?) But having some logic in place to prevent these situations would be very useful in my opinion.

Thank you Capn Darwin. Looking forward to the coming updates. Love the game.

Zumwalt, I have noted your issue with the Dev team. It's the first time I've heard of it, but you make a fair point. I will see what we can do to fix this.