Project Reality Forums

Hey,

Well first off, this isn't a thread to bash tankers, or try to nerf tanks, it's simply a suggestion that would make them more balanced, and keep them from being an infantry-raper. Enjoy?

First off, enough of this one-man tank BS. A real M1A2 Abrams carries a crew of four: A loader, gunner, driver, and tank commander. However, I know 4-person crews would be overkill, so I suggest a tank needs at least 2 people to operate: a driver and a gunner. Additionally, a tank commander could hop into the tank to give it increased abilities, such as giving the commander (not the gunner or driver) an advanced targeting system, so he could see enemy threats from much farther away, and alert his crew to the enemy threat's position.This system would help make tanks not so overpowered, make them realistic, and ensure that a tank can only succed and get kills if its crew is using superior tactics and teamwork.

Second, I think that for weapons such as the TOW, APC TOW, SRAW, ERYX and all other wire-guided or heat-seeking AT missles should not give the tank a warning signal. This will not only be more realistic, but also force tanks to stay back and engage enemy armor units from a reasonable range, rather than charge headfirst into an enemy base to see how many roadkills he can get. The only weapons that should give tanks a warning signal should be laser-guided munitions such as jet AGMs and helicopter AGMs.

Third and finally: make the turret spin slower! Anybody find it strange that you can spin a tank turret 360-degrees within half a second? Making the turret spin slower would, again, make sure tanks stay back, and only engage enemy targets form distance.

Comments welcome, however, keep it mature.

I agree with everything you just said.

Totally agree, but I think all this has been dicussed before, but over different threads.

Oh and I read somewhere the Abrams can do a full turret rotation in around 5 seconds, which is pretty fast still. Not quite BF2 fast, but then in it's defence it is an arcade game.

Hopefully "hit-zones" could be added, so getting hit in the *** will do more damage than being hit face on, like real tanks. An Abrams (more so than most other modern tanks) is quite vulnerable even from RPG's when hit anywhere but head on. This would force the crews to think of how they engage too, so they wouldn't try and take on enemy armour with their side (as in broadside) or backside facing the enemy, they'd make sure the front is facing it.

I heard about an M1A2 in Iraq taking dozens of RPG-7 hits and barely getting damaged at all

Mad Max wrote:Oh and I read somewhere the Abrams can do a full turret rotation in around 5 seconds, which is pretty fast still. Not quite BF2 fast, but then in it's defence it is an arcade game.

Wrong. BF2 is an arcade game, PRMM is a reality mod.

Mad Max wrote:Hopefully "hit-zones" could be added, so getting hit in the *** will do more damage than being hit face on, like real tanks. An Abrams (more so than most other modern tanks) is quite vulnerable even from RPG's when hit anywhere but head on. This would force the crews to think of how they engage too, so they wouldn't try and take on enemy armour with their side (as in broadside) or backside facing the enemy, they'd make sure the front is facing it.

There are hitpoints, you're telling me you never knew this?

I was on about regular BF2, and the hitpoints don't see to make much difference. It's still based on a health point system, hit it enough and it'll go boom.

Are you sure it wasn't a Challenger 2 that got RPG spammed? I've heard of several seperate instances of Challenger 2's taking such a beating but not an Abrams. Infact I hear the opposite with the Abrams. They must have been shooting it head on or using old poor quality warheads, or maybe they finally fitted extra armour onto the things in the form of ceramic plates (read somewhere they're using ERA now too, even on APC's, the latter of which is retarded).

Remember the poor driver view when turned in. Real drivers have a lot of aides these days and rely heavyly on the commander for situational awareness. If you want to have a realistic driver view then I'm guessing you'll have to use the 3rd person tank model and set it up how you'd set up a rifle or something. You'll see the hull and turret and not just have a nice clear field of view like now (well, it's not that clear, but it's not quite cramped and limited as a real view). I hope you know what I mean with the "rifle like view". So it's 3D in first person driving so you see the bits in front of you like you'd see your rifle as infantry.

I think one of the biggest problems in doing a crew operating vehicle is communication. There is a suggestion earlier about in-game VOIP ideas, and I really think if possible that communicating with friendlies inside the same vehicle will really help since alot of times a seperate squad member or player will hop onto your vehicle.

It could make tanking very frustrating if your gunner or driver become AFK for some reason. Or if both of you are looking in the complete opposite directions, since everyone has different "battlefield awareness" of sorts.

Technically with this your not encouraging teamwork, but your forcing it. Teamwork in a sense is chemistry at work, and its not something thats just easily performed. Overall though when playing PR I'm never using tanks or apcs, so it won't really effect the way on how I play.

If you could, simply use the commander VOIP for the vehicles when he is in them and use it for the commander when he is out of the vehicle, squad leader or not. Have to agree with what Azn said and I would also like to make another suggestion.

Have the crew of two and one of them be the machinegunner on top, but that same man would also have to switch seats in order to load another round into the tank after the first is fired and than he can pop up and use the MG again. And if the tank gets kills, he automatically gets the kill assist. I think this would be a good oway of increasing teamwork if you made it so the tank needs to depend on another person in order to survive and this may eventually lead to tanks helping out squads in some way.

as far as communicating goes inside of a tank, i think if they just formed an "Armour" Squad it should be fine, i think this the most realistic way to go about it. but this leads to why id like to see the commander mode brought back and more useful.

you could have armour, ground pounder, and air support squads, and if Bravo squad needed armour assistance the commander calls in the armour.

I think the DC Realism variant of Desert Combat made the tanks require seperate positions for driver, gunner, ect...

The thing is though, is if there is just a single armour squad, it would be frustrating to join an armour squad, but the SL or commander kicks you off because they would rather have their friend or clanmate with them in there. In a sense, that takes away the fact that all players have an equal chance of doing something. Since this is a game, we can't implement unit structure and organization.

I think with tanks we should keep it simple by having a driver, gunner and commander postions. I think with in-vehicle speech tools it helps out a bit with communication, and perhaps some specialized radio commands. I think thats how far we should take that aspect of creating a crew-operated vehicle.

Also if we're going to take away the missile lock alarm, then I think the wire-guided AT weapons should be replaced by dumbfire AT weapons. Other than that I like the other suggestions given.

The commander can drive the vehicle. Gunner should then have a fully stabilized turret in both traverse and elevation.

Cerberus wrote:I heard about an M1A2 in Iraq taking dozens of RPG-7 hits and barely getting damaged at all

No you heard a Challenger 2 takeing dozens of RPG hits and an ATG round, if just one RPG hit an abrams it would look like thies http://community.webshots.com/album/111681583Mvsdlz

I agree 100% with the guy with the perverted sig.

Uh, Pence? Those mostly look like IED's and mobility kills they torched later on. There are a few bustle incidents though. Strangely enough, most had the turret cranked around 180 degrees, indicating the crew survived whatever impact to properly abandon the vehicles.

I would like to see some documentation on the subject.

"Enemy has developed the TTP (Tactic, Technique, Procedure - AEB) of putting an AA Gun in the back of a pickup and shooting into the rear of a tank (Engine compartment) The CAV lost one tank initially to this tactic and then a second after the tank went into a ditch. NOTE: This happened during a sand/dust storm that reduced visibility to less the 5 meters at times.
On the good news front, the tank that got hit second also took RPG rounds and a Mortar round to the blowout panels. Good news because the ammunition cooked off with the driver trapped in the engine compartment and the blast doors worked as advertised. Driver was later extricated with no injuries."

Still the safest tank around.

do note, a good number of the defensive system installed on MBTs can detect hostile missile in the vicinity, without relying on laser detection.

i do not have a full figure on how the system works, i do know that they combine infra red sensors for detecting missile trail and other spectrum sensors, and they were used in many defensive systems such as the russian active anti missile defense system installed on some of their latest tanks. The american's as far as i know do not posses active anti missile defense system on their tanks yet, but i am fairly certain that their defensive system CAN detect the presence of hostile missiles within certain range.

please note that a modern MBT is a tough nut to crack, with phosphorus smoke to blind visual and IR sights, and their own radar and infra red sensors, taking on an MBT directly as an infantry is in general suicide. The main reason that these RPG-7 get the chance to hit at all and damage some of the abrams is of course due to the urban occupational settings where the abrams can expect to be shot from just about any direction.

also note that the only abrams i know of that was destroyed so bad that it lost it's crew in iraq was blown by an IED so heavy that there's no way u can survive it in any vehicle active right now as far as i know.

Agreed 100% ALB

Pence wrote:No you heard a Challenger 2 takeing dozens of RPG hits and an ATG round, if just one RPG hit an abrams it would look like thies http://community.webshots.com/album/111681583Mvsdlz

I agree 100% with the guy with the perverted sig.

I'm pretty sure that an RPG is not capable of destroying a tank. These pictures look more like IED or AT damage.