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Old 10-30-2009, 07:07 PM
leonpoi leonpoi is offline
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Ok I'm not a tank enthusiast and not a military man, so my (and my gaming groups) knowledge of military stuff is pretty small; and thus it follows that I've only come to realise that those huge box things sticking out on the turret front of tanks are the gunner's, or if there are 2, and commander's sight. Does anyone know how vulnerable these are to small-arms fire?

Also, if say my PC's tank got hit in the turret front with a rpg that failed to penetrate, would there be any chance or a good chance that the blast/concussion could damage the sight. It's sticking out there like dog's balls, so I would have said yes.

[edit]: I have some house rules which run something like this (don't have my book in front of me). Exploding rounds (or anything with a concussion value) have a Pen value even if they miss the target but are in the same 10m square (think radius 5m, same as the 1st blast region of explosives). The Pen value is C/3 rounded down - this means that the 61mm mortar would have Pen 1, and not even be able to get through soft skinned vehicles, 81mm mortar would have pen 2 and would inflict a minor damage (in addition to any shrapnel) on a soft-skinned vehicle.

If I say that the external tank sights are AP 1 or maybe 2 this means I don't have to worry about most small arms fire vs tanks gun sights, except .50 cals etc. It also means that most rpgs I would not have to worry about either. Most HEAT tank rounds would do nothing if < 120mm, otherwise they would inflict minor damage. This means that a HESH round with a high C could damage the sights without penetrating the tank armour.

Q. should this "splash damage" be applied only to frontal turret hits? I'm thinking yes.
Q. I'm thinking of making a 1 in 20 or perhaps 1 in 10 chance of frontal turret hits hitting the gun sight which would be resolved as normal except that the sight is damaged even if the penetration fails (and damage could pen from explosive or KE rounds). I think I remember reading that tanks (UK?) in Iraq were taken off the front line for repairs a few times because their sights had been damaged from non-penetrating turret hits. By the way the 1 in 10 chance would be used because that's the same chance a person has of being hit from a ricochet when their head is out of a hatch - I thought it would be good to use the same value for convenience.

Another thing, a lot of the Russian tanks and vehicles have exhaust generators which generate smoke by injecting diesel into the engine I guess. In the tw2000 context, would these smoke generators work when on alcohol fuel? I'd say no, but what would I know.

Last edited by leonpoi; 10-30-2009 at 07:25 PM.
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