Tanks: Destroyed or Damaged?

[Sadist_Cain]

I've used search and found no specific thread relating to this but lotsa people instead in it so here we go...

This is an idea to make "destroying" a tank (or any armoured vehicle) more about the gradual destruction of onboard systems and eventual irrepairability (even a word?) on the vehicle.

It involves boosting hitpoints but only to give room for the effects of damage.

Destruction of a tank becomes about how effectively it can fight with its damaged systems on board instead of an amount of Hit Points. tanks will be able to reach a point where repairing them would just be daft (take too long)

*# Any hit numbers I specify are just my best guess suggestions! obviously... but still

First

Bring back the engineer repair truck and tweak repair times to make them longer (yes longer) and give the truck some real use to speed up fixing.
Also give a couple extra seats for crewman
Edit the repair truck only assists the engineer in repairing the vehicle. it isnt a fix-me-qik.

Second

Double or triple the amount of hits it take to completely destroy a tank.
Meaning that itll take about 6 or more hits from another tank to annihilate it.
Fiddle the damage so a hit from a LGB or LGM will still completely destroy the tank with one blow.

Real life, tanks dont make other tanks go pop... fizz and flame maybe but not pop.

Third

2 hits on the tank should start to injure the crew, 3 should make them bleed. 4/5 of course will be death... 3 will do.
To counter this give crewmen more dressings perhaps? after all theyll have a first aid kit in that tank surely.

Fourth

turn up the level at which the tank becomes disabled (e.g. loses a track turret ring locks etc.) to the level so when a tank used to be destroyed it is now rendered inoperable.

FifthEdit
Commander Asset. Repair post, spawns repair truck and aids the engineer in repairing vehicles (speeds up repair time more than a truck)

SixthEdit
Carrying this over to APCs: 1 hit kills/injures most of the crew and moderately disables the vehicle, 2 hits = dead crew + severly disabled APC that's on fire (that'll be enough itll explode soon) 3 hits = total destruction but why waste the ammo when 2 maybe even 1 will be enough to take it out of action

Seventh Edit
En masse respawning, I think this was tried before, with these new damage physics it may work better.
Tanks and APCs repspawn every hour or so. so those that are destroyed come back together in force...
The idea is though that more tanks will be damaged instead of totally destroyed, This is just a way so we dont have endless streams of single tanks driving to face isolation on the battlefield. Tanks will be more of a cohesive unit thatll be valued by the team as they get moving

I believe thisll make it so that in a tank vs tank battle you wont see the other tank spontaniously explode after XX amounts of hits. IRL most tanks knocked out of combat weren't totally destroyed instead they were rendered inoperable and the crew had to bail out.

Picture the scene youre fighting another tank he hits you turret ring and instead of popping with an instant kill your turret is bust, you fall back oh no RPG! argh we're stuck we can't move or shoot!
Engineer!!! several more hits, the crew is dead... carcass of a tank laying on the battlefield...

A good team will repair the tank and get it back in action.

A good fighting team will choose to disable tanks rather than destroy them thus creating an endless stream of respawns.

Choppers + jets will rely on ground troops more because airstrikes destroying tanks + AA only makes them come back again. Itd be more effective to work together to render them useless...

Imagine insurgency! molotovs and rpgs on the challenger instead of it going pop it loses the track, insurgents atop the turret firing AKs and such... scarey

I think I've reached my point I hope you get it and dont miss it lol. More damaged tanks and engineers driving to repair them :P

REFERENCES

Commander: Not many tanks harmed during war - Israel News, Ynetnews

Main Battle Tank - M1, M1A1, and M1A2 Abrams

Quoting the latter website...

Safety and Survavability

The hull and turret of the M1 are protected by advanced armour similar to the Chobham armour developed by the UK Ministry of Defence. The survivability of the M1/M1A1 main battle tank has been battlefield proven. The tanks survived without damage after sustaining direct hits by T-72 tank rounds. Of 1,955 Abrams M1A1 tanks in battle, no crew members were killed by enemy fire, four tanks were disabled and four tanks were damaged but were repairable

Didn't wanna have to start posting this sort of thing... Improvised bomb hits British tank - Times Online

Tank driver loses legs... Tank survives

I'll post more references as I find them

Techniques for the Field Repair of Armour Battle Damage

Guidance on how armour can be fixed in the field... It happens, you sustain damage, you need to keep fighting so you patch up what you've got, You're rarely going to war with a brand new coat of paint on your truck...


Another bio site on the Abrams
Quoting the above site...

During the Gulf War only 18 Abrams tanks were taken out of service due to battle damage: nine were permanent losses, and another nine suffered repairable damage, mostly from mines. Not a single Abrams crewman was lost in the conflict. There were few reports of mechanical failure. US armor commanders maintained an unprecedented 90% operational readiness for their Abrams Main Battle Tanks.

EDIT: Teamwork? either we keep giving soloers their 20 min respawn when they trash a tank OR they can drive out, get killed inside it and the REAL teamplayers can take over.
After all it needs teamwork to get crewman back out to the tank and get it repaired

[Clypp]

It would be nice to have a larger margin between disabled and destroyed so we get more disabled tanks. As for increasing their strength I have to disagree. That is not realistic or good for gameplay. A careful tank team already dominates as it is.

Returning the repair truck will be nice, as is the idea of adding a repair station at the HQ.

[Losus_Deliosus]

This thread initial post appears to be a duplicate of THIS one. Suggest to R-MOD(s) to merge the differences and discard of one of the threads.

[Rudd]

This sounds pretty good to me, only problem I can envisage is that eventually the crew may need a real medic after a couple of engagements (e.g. run out of dressings) Difficult to get one to them.

But I like how it gives a new task to the team, kinda like that bog mission in COD4 lol

[Sadist_Cain]

I see your point, thats why I say extra dressings. Plus (if youre any good lol) you should have time to grab dressing and such when you rearm at a firebase.
Reason there for the crew to actually have to get out and sort themselves out as such after battle before re engaging

Good point though :P

I just wanna see things being damaged more, nothing is more fun than the last moments as things start falling off and breaking, plus I'm sure we'll hear plenty of legendary storys of tanks hitting targets while the turret's locked etc.

Get those engineers engineering!!

(sorry for the instant reply :P )

[[R-DEV]OkitaMakoto]

Great. Duplicate threads merged and should be good to go. Sorry about the accidental delete[if anyone noticed]. Didn't realize deleting the "first" opening post would delete the thread, so I just deleted the "second" OP from after the merge.

<3
Okita

[Sadist_Cain]

oh christ the internet is spinning, what's happening?

Anyhow here's my reply

As for increasing their strength I have to disagree. That is not realistic or good for gameplay.

Realism sir?

"Only a small number of tanks were seriously damaged, most of them have already been returned to units after the recovery," said a senior IDF officer.

You'll notice also that those tanks were hit with AT missles, I'm proposing LGMs and LGBs are the only thing that can completely destroy a tank in one hit, I think that's fair

Tankers will have to choose to annhilate the vehicle or leave its flaming carcass for the team to have to repair, I wouldn't waste the ammo, If anything call in an air strike.

You would see that when a tank normally would be destroyed by a hit from a tank, instead it'll be rendered immobile/useless.
The crew will die after a few more shots and instead of a fresh tank popping up at base in 20 mins instead you have a badly damaged empty tank in the field which will require the team to work together to get it repaired and back into battle.

I like the idea of a repair station full stop, deployable lil thingy to aid in repairs of all vehicles.
There's something that could add to the whole "creating an outpost" feel to being an SL, whether you choose to have a repair post.

[Rudd]

If you mean an automatic repair station, i don't like the idea. Just have an engineer on the 50 or a dedicated repair team with a jeep. That sounds realistic to me, and promotes more teamplay.

[Sadist_Cain]

I mean a place that'd spawn an engineer truck like the firebase spawns a vehicle, and thatd help engineers to repair vehicles faster.

Not an unmanned fix-me-qik post

When you check the rates of damaged vs destroyed in battle its obvious we should have more disabled flaming wrecks of tanks and such lying in the battlefield.

Imagine being the pilot, seeing the plume of smoke, then watching the repair team gather... now that's a juicy target...

Imagine being the ground crew! quick repair the thing asap and get back into battle!!!

Or the non teamplaying smacktard.... "uhhh I have to rely on other ppl wtf?!? I want a tank to spawn here, i can justify soloing it realllly"


EDIT: Is there a way we can reduce the total amount of repairs that can be done to a vehicle? So that eventually if the tank is under constant fire and always being repaired (the scenario I think clypp is imagining) then soon enough the tank wont be able to withstand anymore structurally, and will be destroyed.

It is unrealistic to think you can repair a tank 5 times and expect it to be fully battleworthey on the 6th, something's gotta give

[Rudd]

Ah ok, i misunderstood- my bad.

Sounds great now lol