Bis: age-old tank glitches everyone hates

[Ether Dragon 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Hardliner @ April 19 2002,10:54)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I know the M1A1 is a tough nut but would a direct hit to its engine ruin it? I mean I know the armor at the front is thickest and less on top and sides but at the rear wouldn't it be weak point? I'v heard people saying that if you hit an Abrams from behind thats it. All tanks would have weak behinds no?<span id='postcolor'>

It really depends on where you hit it. The M1 is cool. If it's engine gets hit, it might still go into "emergency mode," which means it operates at about 10% power - enough to crawl away from a battle.

However, I think that would be extremely lucky. More likely a direct shot from behind would incapacitate the tank. I saw this in action once during gunnery exercises when one tank confused another from it's platoon's as a target and fired around through the rear grate and straight into the engine. Luckily perhaps, it was a training round and not an actual SABOT. The round lodged in the engine, which caught on fire. The crew was initially confused by the loud "thud" they heard, until the tank commander looked back and saw what was going on. All the crewmen escaped without injury (despite MG fire from the clueless tank,) but the tank burned itself out over the course of the evening.

While I was a tanker I operated in safe mode on more than one occassion due to miscellaneous break downs. Despite it's capabilities, the M-1's can be finicky, fragile beasts. My favorite occurance was when a simple cotter pin broke. It took nearly two straight days and three engine switches before they finally found the problem.

[advocatexxx 0]

Spacealex, I don't get your signature. Is it supposed to be funny ? Sarcastic ?

I tend to think of Thermal imaging as the Commander's heads up display.. Tanks are the red dots, everything else is white. lol.

[Hardliner 0]

Yeah thought so. I shot M1s in the engine in FP and its taken at least 2 hits to it or more. I rekon it would be better if armor was more realistic, I presume in FP it would not be. It would be good to bypass the heavy frontal armor to hit it in the rear. It seems to make no difference here.

[nyles 11]

time to revive some of my comments i posted before. i'm sorry for posting some things that might have already been replied before in here, but it's just copy&paste from my old replies:

-Tank commanding is pretty easy in most tanks but when playing tank commander in the Bradley, I have huge difficulties to even get an small overview of whats happening around me withough switching to third person view. The main problem is that the bradley has no 360° cupola for commander like the t-80 for an example. I'm not suggestion to add an increased field of view for the commander as in real-life this limit might indeed be the case. Instead I'm for adding a completly new feature. When commanding a infantry squad you can command soldiers to watch a specific direction (the mouse cursor transforms when holding another key and you simply have to click to the position where you want them to look at), so why not allow tank commanders to do the same for the turret gunner. In the case of the bradley the commander could order the gunner to turn the turret and would therefore be able to look in the direction he wants.

In my oppinion this is a vital feature for all players that mostly play in first person. This should also be possible when the commander is "turned out".

-Another issue regarding the bradley is the fact that it originally is an amphibious apc. Currently it sinks like a stone, though. I would really like to see the bradley to be an amphibious unit.

-When moving around with an tank platoon there is often the case that one of your tanks gets shot down leaving a few of the crew injured but alive. In such cases the whole movement speed of the platoon is crippled as the infantry moves very slow and if injured mostly can only crawl. I would suggest to give all of the MBTs another spare seat inside. This seat could simply be the position of the loader which most tanks lack as a crew member anyways in op:fp. I'm not suggesting to give the tanks 4 crew members by default as this would most likely screw up a lot of missions where the max. squadlimit would be exceeded. Just allow personal to use this spare seats (1 per tank) as a "ride in back" option.

-The generel movement behaviour of all tanks/apcs seems more like a wheeled vehicle than a track unit. I would like to see more direct control about speed decrease and better behaviour when climbing hills (in terms of more horse power). A tank can come to an immediate stop in no-time and I don't really think that those huge speed decrease times in op:fp are needed.

What I would suggest is to add another bindable key to the game: breaking. This would let any sort of vehicle or tank come to a full stop asap. Currently the only real way to decrease speed is to hold the "back" key, which is very time consumming at a certain speed. I don't mean to replace the "back" key as the option to simply decrease speed should still be possible, but I would like to see a break key for immediate (at least faster) stops.

-Another thing with the tanks that really annoyed me is the way to high viewport of the M113 driver. If you want to drive without the "sight" view (toggled by the same button that lets you aim through scope etc..) you can only see a few meters in front of you and have no superior field of view like in the m60 or abrams. Driving without being "sighted" in is very useful as you can look at the sides while driving but with this limited field of view its almost useless right now. Please lower the viewport so that you can look more horizontal and are not limited to the area directly in front of you. Same goes for the Hummer view port by the way, where looking through the side window is almost impossible.

-Staying with the M113s; In my oppinion the capacity of the troops that can "ride in back" is way to low. There is still some space that simply can't be used as a sit right now, but modifying this to allow a few more infantry men to mount the m113 would be great. You did something similar to the Hind in the last patch, if I recall correctly. Furthermore I want to point out that the vulcan still is off centre when swimming, meaning that one part is deeper in the water than the rest, making the vulcan look weird when amphibious.

-One thing, which is rather unlikely due to the engine I have to admit, but still an idea I want to bring up, is to give tank commanders an top mounted machine gun to shoot with. I know that there can't be more than one gunner right now, but I'm wondering if its really that difficult to implement a commander controlled, top-mounted weapon. I mean, commanders already control the rotation of the cupola. Adding an mg to that cupola could really be interesting. Tank commanders should only be able to use this machine gun when turned out though, kinda balancing this out. Only exceptions would be the M60 tank which normally has a machine gun mounted directly into the cupola which can be operated from the inside, and the bmp apcs, which should not get top mounted machine guns at all. Of course only tank with commanders will be given an extra machine gun.

-Speaking of radio commands, mentioned by gimbal I want to contribute my thoughts about this subject:

I would love to see some sort of priority hierachy for the radio.

Very often you are commanding a vehicle and want to order your gunner to open fire on a new target, but other incomming transmissions like info about newly spotted targets are delaying your radio command. In combat situations this can be fatal.

I suggest some sort of priority system that allows specific radio commands to interrupt running transmissions. For example should all transmissions from the "vehicle" frequency get priority in favour of lets say reports about killed teammates on the "squad" frequency. There should also be a tad more efficient radio operating. Currently there is only the option to name either all members of a squad or seperatly name the numbers of the members you want to perform the action. You can't say: "all except 6, 7, disembark". Let the radio code auto-choose this depending on which way will get the whole radio transmission being send faster. Another example for this could be following situation: 2 and 3 have already mounted a vehicle. Now you want to order the remaining 9 men to mount as well. Currently the radio code would name each squad member's number (4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12, board vehicle) which takes a lot of time. The new system would see that 2 men are already on board and would therefore order the rest of the men in the vehicle by using a faster method. (all except 2,3, board vehicle)

Get the idea?

-Seat management:

Currently the "ride in back" option does not differenciate between seats available. there is this pool of "ride in back" places. If you are mounting a truck from behind, you are still being placed as passenger in the driving cabine, beside the driver place. The same way, if this cabine is already full of other passengers, and you want to mount a vehicle from the side, you are being placed on one of the spare seats on the back.

Basically what I'm after is some sort of more realistic seat management. You should be able to only access the spare seats in the cabine from either the right front door, or from the driver door, but then only if there is no driver present (he would block the way to the passenger seat otherwise). Furthermore you should not be able to mount the vehicle from the back and then be transfered to a cabine seat. In this case you should only be placed somewhere on the back. This would differ from vehicle to vehicle, depending on weather a person could access the seats from different doors.

I doubt this would lead to much confussion, as you are seeing if a seat is taken by another person. So if you see the driver is sitting in the car already. you shouldn't be wondering why you can't access the passenger seat beside him from the driver side, as he is blocking the way. It would be more logical.

The only problem I see with this, is how to tell all this to the AI without getting AI controlled passengers to block the way to each other. I have no doubt however, that it could be done.

Taking the whole idea one step ahead, I would also look into options where people could take over the places of crew members. This change of positions should also be able while moving, as long as changing would not require to get out of the vehicle and re-enter somewhere else, like with the isolated driver seat of most tanks. Switching from gunner to commander should be possible though, because they are both in the same place. In the m-113 apc for example, you should also be able to change to the driver position from either the gunner or any of the "ride in back" seats. Of course this has to be defined for every vehicle in detail.

In the case of the truck, only passengers in the cabine should be allowed to switch to driver position, while in a standard 4 seat car, only the passengers beside the driver should be able to switch over. In the uh-60, ch-47 and mi-17, the co-pilot should be able to change to the driver position even while in-flight, making it possible to quickly take the rudder in case of the pilot being shot. It still would be hard enough to reinitiate the rotor thrust and get the helicopter back under control, but it would still be a possibility. In the cobra this would not be possible, due to the seats being isolated. (I know that in most aircraft you should be able to pilot from either seat, but for the start, the above mentioned way should do)

[SpaceAlex 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (advocatexxx @ April 19 2002,18:40)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Spacealex, I don't get your signature.  Is it supposed to be funny ? Sarcastic ?<span id='postcolor'>

It's just a signature. Is it really important. I just wrote something. It's kinda funny for me.

[advocatexxx 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Another issue regarding the bradley is the fact that it originally is an amphibious apc. Currently it sinks like a stone, though. I would really like to see the bradley to be an amphibious unit.<span id='postcolor'>

M2/M3 Bradley needs 20-30 minutes to prepare itself for amphibious activity.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The generel movement behaviour of all tanks/apcs seems more like a wheeled vehicle than a track unit. I would like to see more direct control about speed decrease and better behaviour when climbing hills (in terms of more horse power). A tank can come to an immediate stop in no-time and I don't really think that those huge speed decrease times in op:fp are needed.

What I would suggest is to add another bindable key to the game: breaking. This would let any sort of vehicle or tank come to a full stop asap. Currently the only real way to decrease speed is to hold the "back" key, which is very time consumming at a certain speed. I don't mean to replace the "back" key as the option to simply decrease speed should still be possible, but I would like to see a break key for immediate (at least faster) stops.<span id='postcolor'>

I agree, it takes a while to bring the Abrams to a halt when it starts rushing downhill. I saw a show on TLC the other day, they were showing how they test each and every M1 tank on proving grounds. They had it drive at 40mph on a leveled asphalt road, and the baby came to a halt in less than 15 feet. The tracks totally froze and you could see the rubber smoke and iron sparks. Brake button is a good idea.

But I think that sideway sliding is also a problem. When any tracked vehicle rides on a tilted surface it is very easy for it so slide sideways. This in itself isn't the problem. The problem is that if you drive on the side of a hill, and come around where the polygons bend then the tracked vehicle start to slide sideways a lot. I mean slide as if it were on snow.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Staying with the M113s; In my oppinion the capacity of the troops that can "ride in back" is way to low. <span id='postcolor'>

Real life M113 can carry 11 passengers in addition to the driver and the gunner.

[Blake 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (SpaceAlex @ April 19 2002,18:07)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Tank mines are just fine. Two mines are enough to destroy a T80 and disable Abrams. Tracks become red when hit by mine and i think tank crews are disembarking because the tank is about to explode.

You're not right here. All tanks take more damage when hit from behind.    

I actually heard that Bradley tank commander really can't turn his turret.  <span id='postcolor'>

1. No tank mines are not fine. 11-kilogram AT-mine will at least

blow off a track from ANY tank in the world. Including M1A1, Leopard, any. They're tracks will simply break, transmissions might also get damaged, crew gets knocked off etc.

It's ridiculous when tank hits mine with it's tracks and just keeps going the same speed, just with a little darker color.

AT-mines are just about best weapons to stop these modern era super tanks.

2. No. Just test it, was it T-80 tank that takes 4 hits to destroy from behind while it takes 3 from front. Hitting rear armor of M1A1 even with LAW can penetrate, it doesnt have Chombham/Depleted uranium armor rear, just less than 100mm of steel.

3. Well he can certainly look at other directions than just front!

[advocatexxx 0]

I agree. Tank armor should have different hotspots on different locations. This would certainly add a good tactical element.

[SpaceAlex 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Blake @ April 19 2002,19:37)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">1. No tank mines are not fine. 11-kilogram AT-mine will at least

blow off a track from ANY tank in the world. Including M1A1, Leopard, any. They're tracks will simply break, transmissions might also get damaged, crew gets knocked off etc.

It's ridiculous  when tank hits mine with it's tracks and just keeps going the same speed, just with a little darker color.

AT-mines are just about best weapons to stop these modern era super tanks.

2. No. Just test it, was it T-80 tank that takes 4 hits to destroy from behind while it takes 3 from front. Hitting rear armor of M1A1 even with LAW can penetrate, it doesnt have Chombham/Depleted uranium armor rear, just less than 100mm of steel.<span id='postcolor'>

1.) Tank mines are fine. And tanks can't move when hit my mine. Tracks don't work if they are damaged (black). In case like this crew disembarks. It takes only one mine to disable T80's tracks. If the mine hits the right place. If not, only one track is disabled and tank can't turn anymore. You can still drive, but the tank is very slow and it's hard to turn. T80 is completley disabled or destroyed when hit by two mines. Same goes for Abrams. Two mines disable it or even destroy it. You need more testing.

2.)Yes. It only takes one or two sabot if u hit a T80 from the back. Same goes for any other tank. It always takes 4 LAw's to destroy a T80. It can take three if you're targeting into its turret. Same goes for T72. It takes two LAW's to destroy it or three if u hit it from the back.

[SpaceAlex 0]

T80 hit by one mine.

Impossible to turn, very slow.

Two mines would destroy it. t72 would already be destroyed.

Abrams is a little stronger. There's not munch difference in speed when hit by one mine, but it is slower and u can't turn normally.

[Blake 0]

Yes, they suffer damage. But I still would like to see just track(s) turn red disabling moving while retaining turning to just one direction. Rest of the tank could even remain rather intact and crew would stay in.

The thing that t-72 is totally destroyed by single mine while other tanks are just damaged is strange too. IFVs and APCs should get knocked out but perhaps not the heavier armor.

[Ether Dragon 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Blake @ April 19 2002,14:11)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Yes, they suffer damage. But I still would like to see just track(s) turn red disabling moving while retaining turning to just one direction. Rest of the tank could even remain rather intact and crew would stay in.<span id='postcolor'>

Actually, if a tank just loses one track, their only options are straight forward or straight back.  They need both tracks in order to create turning ability.  One track slows down while the other speeds up, or one goes in reverse while the other goes forward (pivot.)  The moment the track pops off, you have one track providing forward/reverse, while the wheels on the other side just roll along.

Here's a neat little trivia question:  The top portion of a track (above the wheels) is longer than the lower portion (under the wheels.)  You can use the picture in one of the replies above me for reference. If a tank is going 30mph, how fast is each portion moving?

Hint: The speeds are standard on every tank ever made.

[uzabit 38]

The portions wich are on the ground are not moving forward, the tanks rolls on the tracks. I think that those on top move with double speed.

[S_Z 0]

I just want to add my name to the list…please BIS...fix these things (or most of them at least). I’m a tank fan(playing SB a lot) and I would really like to use tanks in OFP but as they are right now I don’t (unless I have to)…

I downloaded the realistic tank mod and made a tank battle on the new island, the realistic mod made it a bit more fun but not enough. One thing that a really miss is that(like someone here said before) you cant fire from a hull down position.

I really hope that resistance will improve the Tanks in OFP

[Ether Dragon 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Uzabit @ April 19 2002,14:46)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The portions wich are on the ground are not moving forward, the tanks rolls on the tracks. I think that those on top move with double speed.<span id='postcolor'>

You got it. It's a bit of a trick question. The bottom portion isn't moving at all - it's laying flat on the ground and the tank is rolling over it (at 30 mph.) As for the top portion, it's only moving 30 mph. The fact that it's rolling forward at the same time the tank is rolling forward might make it appear to be going faster, however. =)

[Ether Dragon 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (S_Z @ April 19 2002,15:02)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">One thing that a really miss is that(like someone here said before) you cant fire from a hull down position. <span id='postcolor'>

Sure you can - just get on the back side of a hill. No, it's not an engineer-created tank dug-out, but it does the job.

[S_Z 0]

What I meant was that it is very hard to find a good hull down position…as Aaron Kane and Blake said the gun depression is not right. When you get on a back side of a hill you most of the time aim over the enemy tank.

Another thing that makes this hard is that the terrain isn’t detailed enough(its not smooth enough)… so either you aim over the tank or if you go to a position were you can aim at the tank your own tank is totally visible to the enemy tank. I guess they cant do anything about this problem…if they not change the whole engine…

[Markov 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">-One thing, which is rather unlikely due to the engine I have to admit, but still an idea I want to bring up, is to give tank commanders an top mounted machine gun to shoot with. I know that there can't be more than one gunner right now, but I'm wondering if its really that difficult to implement a commander controlled, top-mounted weapon. I mean, commanders already control the rotation of the cupola. Adding an mg to that cupola could really be interesting. Tank commanders should only be able to use this machine gun when turned out though, kinda balancing this out. Only exceptions would be the M60 tank which normally has a machine gun mounted directly into the cupola which can be operated from the inside, and the bmp apcs, which should not get top mounted machine guns at all. Of course only tank with commanders will be given an extra machine gun.<span id='postcolor'>

"MACHINE GUN"

"COM MACHINE GUN"

Is the problem more that only the gunner can switch weapons?  Even if you add it, the gunner will still control the cupola gun.  It will look strange that's for sure.

What's needed is the ability to allow other units than the gunner in vehicles to use the vehicles weapon systems.  "Manual Fire" mode is a good example, why not add another switch, "Crew Select Fire", to choose which crew member has control.  Then this could be refined to code which made the "Crew Select Fire" switch part of the "COM MACHINE GUN" which will result in the commander having the cupola cannon/mg ...and now the external/internal COMG is added!

One other thing, this new COMG should also switch the tank crew to Turn Out. Thus when the commander has access to his coaxil/cupolaMG the main turret block is locked. This might be temporary but it is how this could work right now, with the current set of code.

[Blake 0]

If bis doesnt fix these these bugs, it's surprisingly easy to fix some of them yourself with the dePBO tools/text editor. I just made M1 tank always immobilize when it's hit by mine.

I also fixed the gun depression bug, now M1 tank can shoot to -10 degrees 'till +20 like in real life.

I also weakened the rear armor, so 2 LAWs in the rear will now knock out M1A1 instead of 6.

Maybe this will turn out to be realism addon that my squad might use someday.

[WKK Gimbal 0]

I tried the Steal Beast demo just to see what every one was talking about. While the graphics where alarmingly ugly, the tank movement was spot on. I kept going to full speed and block the brakes again and again, as it was simply amazing - this sound it makes and the instand stop. Really feels like it has monster tracktion. I hope BIS will take a look at this game, regarding movement... it's really spot on...

controlling your AI driver is also much simpler and intuitive. When you tell him to go forward, he goes forward, even over a cliff.

I think the damage model in OFP is pretty okay. It's mainly the movement physics and that annoying target calling that bugs me.

[SpaceAlex 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Blake @ April 20 2002,03:54)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I also weakened the rear armor, so 2 LAWs in the rear will now knock out M1A1 instead of 6.

Maybe this will turn out to be realism addon that my squad might use someday.<span id='postcolor'>

There is no realism in that. LAW is weak and can't destroy an abrams with two rockets. It can damage it, but not destroy.

I think that damage is pretty good in OFP. You're easily disabled or destroyed if there are two RPG soldier around even in abrams. You're not safe in abrams. Far from that. One sabot can disable its main gun and you can't do nothing. A few RPG soldiers around can destroy you without problems.

[Blake 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (SpaceAlex @ April 20 2002,08:53)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">There is no realism in that. LAW is weak and can't destroy an abrams with two rockets. It can damage it, but not destroy.

I think that damage is pretty good in OFP. You're easily disabled or destroyed if there are two RPG soldier around even in abrams. You're not safe in abrams. Far from that. One sabot can disable its main gun and you can't do nothing. A few RPG soldiers around can destroy you without problems.<span id='postcolor'>

M1 Abrams has less that 100mm of flat steel armor in the rear,

there's no depleted uranium armor/chombah all over the place you know.

LAW can penetrate approximately 300mm of flat steel armor with it's 66mm warhead, RPG Nh-75 can do perhaps even more. Location of the shot makes all the difference, no tank is evenly armored from all around it would simply weight too much. Don't believe the hype that Abrams is invincible.

Just tested OFP default M1A1 - 6 shots, no matter rear, sides, front were required to knock it out. Dont tell me ofp damage model is realistc.

And by the way, making rear of the tank vulnerable brings out and interesting tactical aspect - you have to maneuvre for good position to have a chance.

[WKK Gimbal 0]

I think the mines are fine too. I've often knocked out a T80 completely with just 1 mine.

[SpaceAlex 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">M1 Abrams has less that 100mm of flat steel armor in the rear, there's no depleted uranium armor/chombah all over the place you know.<span id='postcolor'>

But abrams still can't be destroyed by 2 LAWs. Just damaged, but not destroyed.

Don't forget that u can reload LAW launcher in OFp. You can't do that in real life. I think they made MBT's armor more powerfull because of that. It's easy to destroy or at least disable its main gun with sabot.

[Txema 0]

Please, BIS, fix the tank glitches. They can really ruin the tank-warfare experience ....