perhaps Explosions cause turrets to pop off in CM2? (please :) )

[aka_tom_w]

OK

I know we have been over this before, so please forgive me.

BUT, in my never ending quest for MORE eye candy, I must admit I play this game to

see stuff blow up!

What is the most fun?

Flame throwing tanks are fun

Big Arty is fun

Blowing up houses is fun

And the MOST fun is the catastrophic tank explosion.

SO...

In CM2 I would suggest that perhaps in a very small percentage of tank explosions

(.05 % - 1.0 %) that explosion could brew up the tank and we could see the turret

pop off?

OK that may sound silly and juvenile, but it would look GOOD!

I would suggest a quick little AMMO check could be run to determine the turret pop

off.

If the tank was full of ammo (ammo load equal to or greater than 80% of max load)

then there might be a small chance of a catastrophic explosion that would blow the

turret off.

This topic could be linked to other suggestions that proposed that a hit deadon the

turret ring should be modeled. In CMBO now there is no hit location on a tank that

identifies the turret ring as the point of impact of the round. So can we see the turret ring as a

hit location? It has been mentioned the the weak sopt penetration could be

interpretted as the turret ring I suppose. BUT a hit on the turret ring might increase

the chance of a turret pop off explosion if we can get that level gratuitous eye candy

into CM2 .

Mostly this is just eye candy, but I thouhgt I would ask again anyway.

We all went over this once with CM1,but what the heck I thought I would ask again.

-tom w

[This message has been edited by aka_tom_w (edited 03-20-2001).]

[This message has been edited by aka_tom_w (edited 03-20-2001).]

[aka_tom_w]

Doh!

Double post!

carry on

[This message has been edited by aka_tom_w (edited 03-20-2001).]

[Guest Heinz 25th PzReg]

Yes, yes!!!

Destruction!!!

*slaps himself trying to regain controll*

Heinz

[Panzer Leader]

In my uninformed opinion, I would think that the turret pop-off would be even greater, say in the 3 - 5 percent range. Looking at pictures of the motherland, those destroyed tanks are ALWAYS missing their turrets.

[Guest ciks]

Another quick idea:

The turret once blown off, could squash some enemy troops in the place of impact.

I know this could lead to some gamey behavior of players who blow up own tanks to get turret fly off and thus hitting enemy troops.

What do you think?

[tss]

ciks wrote:

The turret once blown off, could squash some enemy troops in the place of impact.

That would be a very very very very very rare occurrence in a real combat. I haven't come across in any battle desription where that has happened. However, at Ihantala there was one near miss when a faustman destroyed a T-34 from ~10 meter range. (He didn't go that near Soviet tanks afterwards).

- Tommi

[Guest Germanboy]

Sorry but I have to say that...

Coding blown-off turrets, 5 hours of Charles' time.

Coding AT rifles - 5 hours of Charles' time.

Charles' time - priceless.

I know what I would rather see.

Fluff or content? Give me content anytime. Then again, I read grog books.

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Andreas

Der Kessel

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Germanboy:

Sorry but I have to say that...

Coding blown-off turrets, 5 hours of Charles' time.

Coding AT rifles - 5 hours of Charles' time.

Charles' time - priceless.

I know what I would rather see.

Fluff or content? Give me content anytime. Then again, I read grog books.

Hi Andreas

I don't think there is a problem with asking for both.

5 hours of coding

or 5 days of coding

It just means waiting longer

I would rather wait longer, they don't have to do the fancy mods for the explosions, there are lots of mod artists that enjoy that, just give us the underliying 3D model and animation to mod and we'll be set.

I sincerly think the Motto of CM2 should be:

"some assembly required"

Do all the vehicles have to be painted and modded for release of CM2?

(why bother when they are sure to be modded and painted by free volunteer efforts later anyway?)

Seriously! Although Gunslinger is no longer interested in CM his first and only major effort to mod and tone down virutally EVERY single mod-able graphics file in the game is a testment to the level of enthusiasm and volunteer participation this game inspires,

(the list of truly inspired active Artist is long and distinguished and I'm afriad to start to list them for fear of leaving out any one MAJOR contributor, so I mentioned Gunslinger because it did the first MAJOR mod overall of the entire game , for free and then moved on to other things)

I would happily wait 10 extra coding days for both.

I say yes to BOTH the fluff and the content

-tom w

[This message has been edited by aka_tom_w (edited 03-20-2001).]

[Maximus]

I agree with both you Tom and that waskily wabbit Andreas.

Decapitating turrets would be a very cool addition to the CM2 engine and would serve greatly into the immersion of the game. However to code such a thing into the 3D mesh of each vehicle would be a major undertaking because look at what it would require. First of all it would include allowing several polys leaving the model and landing elsewhere on the the field. But once you think about it, we already have turrets in CMBO that get upheaved from their mounts with certain hits. I was doing a test last night with an Elite British 17 pounder AT-Gun against a Panther G and a KT. Within 40 seconds both tanks were knocked out, the Panther exploded catastrophically with the first shot and the KT was knocked out after two shots (first one missed). Result: KT turret got knocked off its mount.

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[Bullethead]

I think some of you may have the wrong idea about tank turrets getting blown off. In most cases, this does NOT happen immediately upon vehicle destruction. Usually, it happens after the knocked-out tank has been burning for some time.

To blow a multi-ton turret off, you require a HUGE instantaneous force inside the fighting compartment acting on the bottom of the turret. In a tank, the only possible source for this force is the HE shells. AP rounds had 0 or very little HE content and the propellant for all rounds doesn't explode, it just burns very intensely. Plus a fuel tank explosion isn't sufficiently powerful and usually isn't in the fighting compartment anyway.

So, HE... HE in shells is very insensitive to shock--otherwise, it could not be fired from guns. Thus, it's usually not going to explode just from the impact of a penetrating round. However, some types of HE are sensitive to prolonged exposure to high temperatures (Russian more than others, apparently). Thus, the HE usually only goes off after the tank has been burning for some time. Plus, such big, long-duration fires heat up all the HE more or less equally, so it all goes off at once. This generates sufficient force to blow the turret clean off, or fracture the hull and/or turret seams. But just 1 or 2 shells going off inside usually won't do this, unless you're talking about an SP gun or assault howitzer with really big shells.

So, the usual process of explosive tank destruction goes like this:

1. The tank is set afire by some means, usually by hits in propellant cartridges or fuel tanks. If the former case, the propellant usually all burns at once in something resembling the catastrophic explosion in CM. This intensive flash of fire usually ignites everything else flammable in the tank, leading to a sustained fire heating up the whole mess over time. It also usually creates enough overpressure inside to lift the turret a few inches but no more. Then the turret often falls back onto the hull but slightly askew, just as is usually seen in CM.

2. After several minutes of general stem-to-stern burning of the wrecked tank, the temperature inside has built up a lot. While this is going on, MG ammo, smoke grenades, etc., will be cooking off, and the fuel tanks will usually go if they haven't already. Sometimes, depending on the type of HE in the shells, how they are stored, and the type of fire involved, the temperature will build up enough to cook off the HE. All shells usually get near their cook-off temperature about the same time, and are often more shock-sensitive in this state, so the detonation of 1 shell usually causes all of them to go off together.

3. When the HE goes, one of several things can happen. This depends on the amount of HE in each shell, the number of shells exploding simultaneously, how they are positioned in the tank, how the tank is built, and how its structure has been effected by the fire and whatever started it. Thus, final effects can vary considerably. At the low end, the internal HE explosion leaves the vehicle essentially intact externally, but drives all internal fittings and bulkheads into the ends, leaving an empty room except for the engine. Often, hatches blow off as well. In the middle, the turret can pop off, or both it and/or the hull can fail on seams, thus blowing off just chunks of tank plating. At the top end, the entire vehicle can fragment, leaving only the engine and the bottom sections of track to mark its grave.

To do all this in CM, the existing system of fires and catastrophic explosions should be left alone as far as initial results go (although the graphics of the catastrophic explosion should be tweaked as mentioned in another thread). Assuming the vehicle is burning as a result, then several minutes later there'd be a chance (higher for Russians) of an HE explosion within the wreck, which is where new stuff would come in. This would result in a range of different final vehicle conditions, depending on the magnitude of the explosion.

Check out the pictures here:

http://people.delphi.com/jtweller/gulfwar.htm

All destroyed vehicles on this page were of the same type: Iraqi 2S1 SP guns. Every one of them suffered an internal HE explosion of a varying number of 122mm arty shells (much larger than the shells carried by most WW2 MBTs). As you can see, the results varied on the scale I mentioned above.

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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

[Guy w/gun]

Ok...no one's mentioned physics either. If done improperly, it's going to look REALLY stupid. A turret flying off will be hard to make look realistic.

I'm sad to say that very few games get everyday physics such as objects being hurled across open space, doors opening and closing, and human movement properly done in 3D.

In a side note however, in Steel Beasts turrets pop off so often it's actually questionable. It looks quite good as well! Too bad that game is 2D...

[This message has been edited by Guy w/gun (edited 03-20-2001).]

[PawBroon]

You mean you NEVER actually saw it happen in the game?!!

Dunno who did that PTOD way back at CMHQ but the would give you the idea...

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You are not Obsessive-CMpulsive, you are Allied-Retentive.

Mark IV

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by PawBroon:

You mean you NEVER actually saw it happen in the game?!!

Dunno who did that PTOD way back at CMHQ but the would give you the idea...

Thanks Pawbroon !

I thought of that EXACT image when I opened this thread, but did not know where to find it. I admit I did not look all that hard for it.

Great image

Maybe I should get off my lazy butt and make it into an animated GIF as an example of what it "might" look like in the game

(I won't, but I should)

-tom w

[LuckyStrike]

IIRC, Michael Wittman and his crew were killed when an internal explosion blew their turret off, to land some distance behind the vehicle.

[LimShady]

Originally posted by LuckyStrike:

IIRC, Michael Wittman and his crew were killed when an internal explosion blew their turret off, to land some distance behind the vehicle.

Of course, who bagged Wittmann is subject to onerous debate. Personally I think the Typhoons did...

LimShady

[GriffinCheng+]

"T-34 always hats off to Mr. Tiger!"

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Come to my Combat Missing Command Post (CMCP) at http://www.angelfire.com/games3/CMCP/

[Sgt. Steiner]

I tend to agree with LimShady on the probable cause of Wittman's demise. Wittman's Tiger still exists BTW, and is kept in some farmer's barn in France. Recent analysis of the wreck points to air to ground rockets being the culprit, not a Firefly's 17-pounder..

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So wollen wir uns wiedersehn, bei der Laterne woll'n wir stehn,

wie einst Lili-Marleen,

wie einst Lili-Marleen.

[Guest Michael emrys]

You guys would have loved the A-10 flight sims. Every time a tank got hit, the turret would fly off. It always looked kind of funny to me though, the way it would roll around like a soup bowl on a table when it struck the ground.

Michael

[Dan Weaver]

Analysis schmanalysis.

1. Typhoon rockets wouldn't have caused the catastrophic damage suffered by Wittmann's Tiger. Maybe it got rocketed later but there's no way those firecracker rockets are going to knock a tank's turret off.

2. No Typhoons or fighter-bombers, period, were operating in the area at the time of Wittmann's demise.

3. Wittmann's last orders show him about to stumble right into a Firefly ambush.

I get tired of people trying to paint Wittmann as some kind of Tank God who could not be killed by mortal tankers. He ran into an ambush, and anybody can do that.