Project Reality Forums

Has anyone seen the (old) footage from Iraq, of the US M1 Abrams crew bailing out of their vehicle after pulling up next to a video crew, while some of the crew were injured and bleeding (and I believe one had to be carried out, his wounds were so bad). Does anyone know what did that?

I ask, because it doesn't seem to have been a homemade bomb.. if the tank had been attacked by a bomb of sufficient strength to injure the crew, you would think it would have done sufficient damage to the tanks' tracks to immobilize it, but from the footage, the tank seemed to be operational.. IMO it seems like damage from an RPG..

Anyway, the point is.. I've always had a problem with vehicle "exploding" in BF42.. AFAIK, atleast in WW2, the majority of instances of tanks being knocked out didn't actually make the tank explode; rather, it damaged the tanks internal systems, immobilized it or killed the crew. There were instances of tanks utterly blowing up, but they were more rare; more often, the engine would catch fire, and the tank would explode later on, after the fire spread to the fuel tanks or ammunition. To solidify this point, think of the Israeli Merkava tank; its engine is placed in the front of the tank.. this is to add further protection for the crew. A penetrating shot to the front will disable the vehicle by destroying the engine but it will not blow the tank up; the crew can escape their wrecked tank.

Anyway, I bring this up because I think it would be realistic if there were other ways to "kill" a vehicle other than it completely exploding into a fireball once its damage bar reaches 0 (or -10). For instance, shots that (can) penetrate the armour of the target vehicle should also chance injuring, or killing, the crew, or some of the crew, rather than simply blowing the tank sky-high; or damaging the engine and immobilizing it, or the turret or weapons, if it is possible. DC slightly addressed this issue by giving tanks a very long "waiting death time", or whatever it is called, when the tank's healthbar reaches 0; it slowly declines to -10, which is the point, I believe, where the tank explodes. So crew have an added time gap to bail out of the tank if it is knocked out BEFORE it explodes.

If it turns out to be possible I think penetrating shots should injure the crew inside the tank rather than make the tank explode. Another example would be an RPG-7 striking a lighter armoured vehicle such as a Bradley, Stryker, or even a Hummer. Those vehicles shouldnt necessarily explode into a fireball, but rather, it should damage the soldiers inside the vehicles. Subsequent shots should destroy the vehicle completely, but.. yeah, you get the idea, I hope!

EDIT: Of course there would be exceptions, IE, a penetrating round directly hitting a fuel tank or ammunition storage. But this shouldn't happen EVERY time..

cnda like halo except the vheaical won't blow up

I was kinda talking about this earlier. To have the crew be hurt, you have to give the tank an actual interior, no vanilla bf game does this.

if there is an actaul interior, and players are in that interior, then you can have stuff like this happen (becuase of material penetration, i hope to god it will work with tank shells and not just bullets):

heap shell hits at weak point - makes graphic effect of lots of smoke, fire, what a heap shell hitting a tank looks like, (not what harms crew, it hurts the tank's health though)

shell (which made an explsion passing through, but is still existent) continues untill it hits the inside of the tank on the other side (side opposite from where it entered) and doesn't pass through, makes another explosion (smaller graphics), this one kills the crew, as they are actually inside, and are actually killed

we are left with a tankthat is on fire, unusable (all the equipment is fried/melted, health is 0) with a large scorch mark on it (if possible) and a bunch of dead bodies inside.

Also, it could be coded so tanks work like this (again thanks to new material penetration and richochets and such):

Rounds do penetrate, or they dont, tank's health is 0, or 100. IRL a tank shell doesnt 'kind of hurt the tank' it either penetrates, or it doesnt.

so, with new engine, make it so the shell penetrates only if if impacts the correct part of the tank, at the corrret angle, at the correct speed.

that's more realistic.

you could also code in things like the ammo cache, a special little box inside the tank. if shell passing throug the tank hits that: BAM, we don't have to wait for the explsion as with the fire slowly getting to the fuel and ammo with a regular shot, the tank blows up, right on the spot.

and the tank's wreckage should stay for as long a moddibly (sp?) possible. I hate when the 40 ton chunk of steel im using for cover desides to vaporize.

also, to differentiate between heap and sabot shells, they can work as such:

heap shells penetrate only at more perfect angles, and only the weaker points in the armor, but they kill the whole crew along with the tank every time.

sabot shells (or adfps or whatever it is) penetrate at more angles and more areas, but only kill the crew members that are unfortunately litteraly caught in the path of the shell through the tank (or if it hits the ammo cache)

phew. my thoughts on tanks for the day.

Not bad ideas at all.