BF:BC2 Weapons Testing
last updated: April 20, 2010
Warning: all data here is as of April 20, 2010, before the patch that changed weapons characteristics.
I found most of these facts out from testing on empty servers for Isla Inocentes, Panama City, Arica Harbor, and Atacama Desert. Regular servers, but from what I can tell, hardcore servers have the same results for antitank, at least.
Soldiers (gleaned from posts): Shooting the head usually does 2.1x what a shot to the body does, more for some sniper guns. Generally, aiming seriously decreases recoil and increases accuracy, moving decreases accuracy, crouching has no effect (except for LMGs, where there is a tiny improvement). In a hardcore game a soldier has half as many hitpoints. Ceramic body armor in either increases health by 25%. Amazing tables here and here.
Soldier light machineguns on down do not damage helicopters at all, despite the bullet holes they leave. Tank, jeep, and stationary MGs do: about 45 shots destroys one, jeep's gun is a bit more powerful than the tank's, I think. The M95 sniper (only) does considerable damage to helicopters: 15% damage per shot, so 7 shots destroys one. One shot of an antitank weapon, at any angle, destroys any helicopter. 3 40 mm grenades destroy a chopper.
Similarly, though you'll knock the doors and bumper off it, shooting soldier LMGs on down does no damage to a jeep (the people inside, yes, of course, if you hit them).
There appear to be two factors that affect armor's effectiveness vs. antitank weapons: shooter position, and then angle of the shot if you're attacking the sides or rear.
The major factor is the position of the shooter. The M1A2 Abrams tank and the M3A3 Bradley have the exact same armor: thick on the front, thin on the sides and rear. The side and rear armor is exactly the same, honestly, the rear is not weaker than the sides. The front armor seems to be consistently strong: you always get a minimum amount of damage, 50% of the maximum, regardless of angle.
Think of a tank's body from above as a clockface, with 12 at the front. About 10:30 to 1:30 always gives you minimum damage. The turret's direction does not seem to matter at all: if the turret is facing to 6 o'clock and you hit the back of the turret while aiming at the front of the tank from 12 o'clock, you're considered to be attacking the front of the tank. Conversely, with you aiming from the rear of the tank, 6 o'clock, if you shot at this reversed turret's front (now pointing at you), you are considered to be attacking from the rear itself and will do more damage.
The second factor is the angle the shot hits the surface. This matters only when you're not attacking from the front. You want to hit as straight on as possible to maximize damage. Damage seems to drop off as the cosine of the angle squared after that, or maybe even a faster dropoff: 45 degree angle or even less, 50%. I won't swear to this, but that's about how it looks from testing. However, you'll never score less than 50% of the maximum damage possible, no matter what the angle. You can see all sorts of screenshots confirming this theory here.
Long and short, straight on shots at the side or rear of the tank's body are most effective, and they're equally effective, side is as good as rear. So, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock are the best attack angles, hitting the body of the tank dead on. 4:30 and 7:30 are as bad as 11 through 1 o'clock, half damage, due to the sloping of the armor. Generally aim at the body, not the turret, because the turret is usually more sloped to your shots.
So what do the engineer's antitank weapons do? First, they have the same effect on the heavy and the light tank, and each type of tank takes the same amount of damage. No, seriously. All numbers below are "square on" numbers, where the shot hits the tank's armor dead-on:
· RPG-7: 28% damage when hitting the front (always, angle doesn't matter), 57% maximum (and 28% minimum) when hitting the side or rear, angle matters.
· M2 Carl Gustav: 22% damage when hitting the front, 44% maximum to side or rear.
· M136 AT-4: 33%/66%.
· Stationary BGM71 TOW antitank weapon: 57% to front, instant kill the maximum shot on side or rear (so call it 114%).
The EXPLMK2 specialization is said to increase damage of soldier antitank weapons by 25%. Vehicle Armor upgrade reduces damage by 25%. Generally, most of the specializations appear to be +25% or -25% in the right way.
Firing at the gap between the turret and body doesn't seem to increase damage (jury is still out). There's rumored to be a special spot on the back that gives a lot of damage, but I have not found such a place in testing so far (I can't disprove the existence of unicorns, either). Shooting the treads doesn't appear to do any extra damage, unlike in Battlefield 2.
Grenades: armor doesn't matter, just get it close to the tank. Fragmentation and the 40 mm do the same, 6% or less. Note that the 40mm "shot" grenade needs to go a minimum distance to blow up; too close and it doesn't, probably as an anti-suicide mechanism.
C4: position matters, armor is irrelevant. Put it in the center of the side of the tank and it takes only one charge to blow the tank. Put it on the front or the rear (!) of the tank and it does only 69% damage.
Mortar: if the mortar is called directly on the tank and the tank just sits there, the tank is always destroyed. The improved demolitions specialty does not increase mortar damage.
Mines: do 69% damage on a heavy tank, 97% on a Bradley. Engineers can deploy up to 6 mines total; if the 7th is deployed, the 1st disappears, etc. Mines apparently last forever while the player is playing, even if he switches teams. Mines can be blown up by shooting at them; the engineer has to be a safe distance away to do so, but anyone else can at any distance.
Tank on tank: 30% front, 52% sides and rear. The hardened steel warheads specialty raises this to 35% and 67%.
Bradley gun vs. tank: the six shots produce 14% total damage (2.3% damage each) to the front, 28% sides and rear. Note that the Bradley does use a clip of 6 shots, only when the last is fired does it reload.
I also measured some times of various actions and respawn delays on an empty map. Here goes:
According to this amazing page, after 6 seconds, you'll heal 3 points a second (you have 100), unless of course it's a hardcore game.
How long an engineer takes to fully use his wrench, which repairs 50%: 9 seconds. How long before the wrench is fully usable again: 4 seconds. Note you can also use the wrench to destroy enemy vehicles at the same rates. For jeeps (who repairs jeeps?) the repair rate is twice as fast.
How long it takes to focus the Recon binoculars: 3 seconds. In about 4 seconds the bombs start to land, and 8 bombs drop in 6 seconds. Recharge delay for the binoculars to use them again: 35 seconds after the last bomb falls. Another reason to hate snipers.
Heavy tank's reload speed: about 4.3 seconds. With the speedy reload specialization, 3.2 seconds. You can hold down the mouse, by the way, when shooting, vs. clicking feverishly.
Attack helicopter's delay for loading a new set of missiles: 6 seconds.
Vehicle and stationary machineguns overheat, e.g. you can fire for about 9 seconds and then there's a 4 second cooldown. Once cooled, you can again fire continuously for 9 seconds (unlike previous Battlefield games). Shoot less continuously to avoid overheating.
After dropping an ammunition kit or medkit, the soldier can drop another one after a 10 second delay. Note that if you drop a new kit, the old one disappears. A kit disappears: when it's used up, i.e. does 10 resupplies (10 clips, 10 grenades, or similar); when the soldier dies, it goes away in a little over a minute; or, when it's blown up. Either side can use the other side's kits, so be careful in placing them.
Abandon any vehicle (get say 20 feet away, and no one else around) after driving it away from its spawn point and it will start to destroy itself in 10 seconds, in 10 seconds more it will be at 0%, and 2 seconds later it will blow up.
Quad bike time to respawn after destroyed: 10 seconds. Tank: 15 seconds. Helicopter: 40, on Atacama Desert. The map matters: for example, on Arica Harbor's rush map, the US tanks take 20 seconds to respawn, the Russian 60 seconds.
To turn a flag from enemy to neutral or neutral to friendly with one person: 18 seconds.
To arm a charge at an M-COM station: 3 seconds. There is then 33 seconds before the charge blows up (though really more like 28, since starting to disarm it in the last 5 seconds is too late). You can also destroy a station with 12 C4, or by collapsing the stone building on it.
The recon sensor pokeball lasts for 20 seconds after it's thrown. Note that it's a total waste to throw two in a row, as there can be only one in play at a time (i.e., the first one thrown will disappear).
The tracer dart lasts 45 seconds. Once planted, you focus your AT weapon at the orange aim box until a distance appears. Fire (even briefly aiming in a different direction and the round homes in on the dart, if you're far enough away. See this video.
UAV time to respawn after destroyed: 2 minutes, on Isla Inocentes.
To kill a sniper with the Engineer's repair tool: timeless.
Let me know of any additions or corrections, this is definitely a work in progress. I mostly wanted to know whether it was worth shooting LMGs at the helicopters and it kinda snowballed from there...
My beginner's page has the basics on the game, as well as how to set up a joystick properly.