I brought this up in another thread, and have no idea the extent of workload it would be to change / develop relating to audio, or even if it would be deemed worthy of looking at. But, I think it would add in the immersion.
Basically, the issue revolves around having different "external"
sounds than the ones you hear while you are "in" a vehicle.
relating to the tank gun issue - While you are in the tank that's firing, you hear the reload at the end.
If there was an external tank firing sound. you could modify this file to sound more "appropriate" to hearing a gun fired from distance. Also, this sound wouldn't have the reload on it.
AH uses mono sounds to determine the direction of sound source.
So, in theory, you could have a stereo sound of a 109 or a b17 engine which is edited and processed to sound like you're "in the cockpit".
Then for the external sound, you'd have a mono sound edited which would have more prop "cut" and exhaust sounds as compared to the internal sound. You could also add some enviromental touches such as reverb, slight delays, which are present in everyday listening. Please note, I'm not talking about the gaudy type EFX people think about when they hear the words reverb and delay.
Let me get back on track - stereo internal sounds and mono external sounds. I guess the only hitch would be that you would have to "trigger" two different audio files/sounds for each instance. Could be a whole nother can of worms