Discussion of tank shells and damage

[Tank-Ace]

please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is how I understand our current GV damage system.

Each projectile has a "damage value", and an armor "penetration value". Damage goes down with range and the thickness of armor penetrated, and the pentration value goes down with range. The larger the shell, the better it maintains its penetration over distance, and the better it maintains its damage over both distance and armor penetrated. This is due to the larger mass of the shell being able to maintain higher amounts of kinetic energy as the velocity goes down (affected by both range and armor penetrated).

Each tank has a "damage threshold" that must be reached or exceeded to damage parts of the tank, or kill it. They can have light armor and a low damage threshold, good armor and a low damage threshold, or both good armor and a high damage threshold. When the damage threshold for a certain part of the tank is reached, the part becomes damaged and no longer functions. When the damage threshold for the entire tank is reached, the tank is destroyed.


If this IS the way its modeled, then its inherently flawed. Smaller shells can do as much damage as larger shells in real life, sometimes more depending on the situation. Where a larger high velocity round might simply pass through both sides of the turret without hidding the ammunition or a crew member, a smaller shell might penetrate one side and then bounce around inside of the fighting compartment. This would give the smaller shell a much better chance to set off ammunition or wound crew members.

[AAJagerX]

I don't think that there's a damage threshold for the "entire tank".  For instance, hitting a wirb in the turret will knock the turret out.  You could shoot the turret 5 more times and the wirb would still only be turreted, so it's never reaching a "total tank damage threshold" based on shooting an individual part of the tank multiple times.  That being said, hitting a regular tank in the turret multiple times may cause a different amount or type of damage with every shot, as the turret leads into the crew compartment. 

I'm not 100% sure, so it'd be interesting to hear what others have to say on this.

[SmokinLoon]

I'd like to think that the formula of how what round penetrates what armor is far beyond our reach.  Sometimes armor just works.

There was no mention of deflection or anything, angle of impact, etc.

[Tank-Ace]

I think it is as well. But what I'm wondering is if theres anyway to keep 37mm and the low velocity 75mm rounds effective without increasing the actual amount of damage they do. It seems that the M3 75mm gun is weaker than the KwK 40 past what a simple reduction in muzzle velocity would do. Even at 2200 yds, it feels like theres more the KwK 40's projectile than the M3 75mm at 0yds.

The way it is now, we can put multiple 37mm rounds into a panzer's turret, and have no effect, which is unrealistic.

I would love to have ammunition bins and the possition of the crew modeled. If you hit the loader, you only have the one round in the breach to shoot. If your driver is killed, all you can do is aim the gun and shoot, etc.

[shermanjr]

umm at close range 2 to three shots from a 37 mm will turret a panzer from both manned guns and m8s

[Tank-Ace]

Not the point. As long as the armor is penetrated with enough force so that it doesn't just hit the opposite side and fall to the ground, it should be more than "oh look, I penetrated the armor". Assigning damage values to shells is a flawed system, as I pointed out. Depending on the circumstances, a high velocity 37mm round can do much more damage than a high velocity 88mm round.