Soviet tank crew survival.

[Siddhi]

i think words like moron are best avoided. this is a good forum, a little maturity and leadership should be able to keep it that way.

if survivabilily (and i have not played with OOB editor so i really do not know) is how mark presents it, then shouldn't M113 and BTRs have very high survivability, while the m1a1 etc. should have a very low one? spalling persumbally would be horrendous.

also, what is the rating for absorbing damage? i .e. penetrating hits that cause damage but are not MK or TK. how does that play with wierd and wonderfull tanks like the merkava/

finally to kevin's point, is there any thing in particular that contributes to crew survival? it is kind of handy in a campaign series after all.....

[kevineduguay1]

All that im saying is that during the 1991 Iraq War, no Iraqie tanker survived if they were hit by a US DU round and if they were still in the tank.

If the turret blowes off who is around to talk about it?

Crispy critters!

Remember its only a 3 man crew but , the tank has a survival # of 4.

Ammo explodes on impact and other bad design features of most Russian tanks leads me to the question, "Who would want to be in one of these things?"

[PlasmaKrab]

Remember its only a 3 man crew but , the tank has a survival # of 4.

AFAIK no relation, survivability is more the amount of damage (*) the tank can take before blowing up at all, as Don and Andy explained. There is also some link to crew survival apparently, but not that direct.

Ammo explodes on impact and other bad design features of most Russian tanks leads me to the question, "Who would want to be in one of these things?"

Guys who have no choice!
Besides, Russian tanks of the post-T64 generation arent lined with powder bags and jerrycans forasmuch. If you look at pictures from ODS you will see many destroyed T-72s that actually didn't blow up on the first shot. That gives the crew a chance to escape, whatever your field evidence says (remember that ODS was one succesful operation, particularly the parts talked about, and that you may not be that lucky in the game). F.e. a shot through the turret will likely kill both commander and gunner, leave the autoloader intact (small chance that the loaded breech is hit and explodes though), and the driver's top priority will be to open his hatch and run like hell.

[Alpha]

kevineduguay1 said:
Ammo explodes on impact and other bad design features of most Russian tanks leads me to the question, "Who would want to be in one of these things?"

well to be honest: i didn´t want to be in ANY tank. of course better leo2, merkawa or M1 than T55/62/72....

but even a leo 1 is very cramped inside, i could look into one in koblenz ( " wehrtechnische studiensammlung " ). also they have a T55AM you can look into, very bad place to be at all. i can say....i guess they need very small people to drive that tanks....

[kevineduguay1]

I tested this. With a crew survival of 1 it made almost no difference. The tanks did not get destroyed easier. But when they did a few less crews survived with all 3 crew men. Some had 3 but most had 1 or 2 if they survived at all. Out of 2 coy of Iraqi T-72G with a survival rating of 3, 18 of 22 vehicles were destroyed. 6 crews survived accounting for 10 crewmen.
When I adjusted the crew survival to 1, in most scenarios thr game ended after only 17 or 16 tanks killed but in almost every case 6 crews still survived. At least 2 of them were at full strength. This seems to almst be randomly handled by tha AI. I'll do more tests and post them here.

[DRG]

kevineduguay1 said:
I tested this. With a crew survival of 1 it made almost no difference. The tanks did not get destroyed easier.

Kevin, you are turning into my poster boy for " a little knowledge is
dangerous".

What were you shooting at them with ? Abrams I'll bet.

If you have a massive overpenetration of the gun vs the targets armour
you will not see the target tanks "get destroyed easier" if you reduce the
survival number lower. They'd die just as quick if the survival number was a bit
higher than what's there now because the penetrator's value ensures a kill
in most cases. What a lower survival number WILL affect is guns were the
penetration value is much closer to the armour of the target. This is where
the "survivability" number starts to have a far greater effect. That is when
the decisions made by the code as to whether the hit will cause full
destruction or just a report of * or ** or *** damage comes into play and
IF you lower that to get higher crew kills you totally screw up the chance
that a lesser gun will get the damaging hit that is SHOULD be getting part
of the time instead of a kill .
Crew survival is one of the last things calculated by the survivability
number. It's main function is to determine if marginal hits damage or kill.

Don

[Mobhack]

(Edited as It had been some time since I had looked at the code closely !

Survivability is a mix of both armoured vehicle damage absorbtion of a penetrating hit and crew bailout survivability if the vehicle gets destroyed.

It affects armoured vehicle penetrations, when the code determines what happens as the AP round bounces round the inside of the vehicle causing damage (dead men, * points and weapons deletions). The more overpenetration the more chances of killing crew and/or causing damage to weapons etc. The larger the warhead size that penetrated, the worse chance for the crew inside the vehicle.

The survivability number reduces each test a bit. Therefore it has a more noticeable effect if the penetration is not too severe, reducing that to a * or a few **'s instead of what may have been an outright kill had the survivability been a bit lower. It'll have more noticeable effect if the warhead size that penetrated was smaller, of course.

Damage points are not necessarily crewmen killed - the survivability number helps to ensure damage points (*'s) do not convert over into actual crew kills.

A massive overkill (larger warhead size and excess penetration) will of course have more chances to do damage points - the survivability will help here, mainly for men staying alive as there are just going to be so many more tests for damage that the vehicle is going to be doomed unless very lucky.

If all the crew get killed off before the vehicle reaches its max damage points, then it is a catastrophic kill. If the damage point limit for the vehicle is reached before all are dead, the vehicle is killed with a normal bail-out event.

On a total kill, with officially "no survivors", there is a low chance saving throw to see if a man survived the brew up, and that is based on the survivability value. The difference between 0 and 6 makes a difference here, as the basic chance is rather low.

The value is then used to determine success for any surviving crew and passengers bailing out of the vehicle (including the 1 man added back to the crew on a total kill, if he was really lucky).

The bailout code is the only bit that survivability would add effect to soft vehicles as they are destroyed on 100% crew killed, through the HE hit code, and not via the AP penetration code.

So - it is more than simply crew/pax bail-out, it also is a value for reducing the damage (to both the vehicle and the crew) taken inside of an armoured vehicle when penetrated.

Cheers
Andy

[Mobhack]

You need to recall, that in combat it is normal practice to shoot a target until it brews or blows, just "to be 100% sure". The first hit may have killed it, but the troops will put 3 or 4 more in till it is definately no longer a threat, because in real life they do not get a message saying "T-54 KO by 120mm".

Therefore, most of these combat photos taken after the action will be of targets that were deliberately "overkilled" or that a passing rifleman popped a grenade (thermite perhaps) in the lid to make sure that no enemy will re-occupy it and try for a shot in your bum after the main force has gone by. (In game terms - you left a unit in the same hex as an abandoned enemy vehicle for a full turn, it will now be burning and so the crew (if any) cannot come back and man the abandoned gun or tank later).


Cheers
Andy

[Bernard]

Come on guys..... it's only a game!
If kevin is so utterly obsessed with realism why not join the army and stop hassling the designers because the tanks in the game don't react just like ones you saw in some news footage?

[kevineduguay1]

Bernard,

I should have but now Im over age.

But it is just a fact that when a T-72 or any other Iraqi tank was hit by a DU round from a 120mm gun there were no survivors.
When a DU round starts moving through its target, everything gets lit up. This is not only due to the velocity of the round, but also because when the round penetrates an armored vehicle it has a thermal effect that tends to set off ammo and fuel.