Aimpoints in Red Pill

March 29, 2010 · Posted in Command 

A_10_burning_tank One of the posters at the Red Pill forum had a question related to the modeling of discrete vehicles/aimpoints. I considered it useful to have the response repeated here since it is an important new feature for Red Pill and a sore spot of the air/nav wargaming community for years now.

Q: Are Land Units simulated down to single vehicles and posts? Is a SAM battalion or Tank platoon just a single large target that can be zapped with a single weapon as long as its deals enough damage or are its parts actually modeled, both for damage calculation and positioning on the map?

A: Yes, mobile formations (and selected facilities) are modeled as containers of discrete vehicles or aimpoints, and each of them needs to be independently destroyed. No more wiping out a tank platoon with a single LGB.
Each of the vehicles/aimpoints is also evaluated separately for blast resistance on proximity explosions. So for example if you drop a bomb on that tank platoon it may impact close enough to one or two of them to damage or destroy them, but most of the others are likely to be far enough that they’ll shrug it off (typical vehicle/aimpoint dispersion distance depends on the nature of the unit/facility). This of course varies with target type & hardness; drop that same bomb on a truck section and you may well get multiple kills.
Vehicle/troop/aimpoint dispersion in Red Pill really makes cluster warheads meaningful again (aside from the nice visual effect). You can drop a very powerful unitary HE warhead on a vehicle group and get disappointingly few kills (particularly if they are armored); drop an equivalent amount of cluster munitions on it and maybe you will wipe it out altogether.
The same holds true for other area-effect warhead types such as FAE or incendiary. (And of course nukes).

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