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Question about Molotow Cocktails


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Hmmm. . . I hadn't noticed this. Every time my guys have tried to use Molotovs, they've missed the tank entirely. :(

I have gotten several nice displays of the new "spreading" fire feature, tho. . .

I suppose very occasionally the bottle might glance off of the tank in such a way that it would not break, or the 'fuse' could go out on the way to the target, but most of the time you should have at least some smoke and flame from a Molotov hit.

The tricky thing is that you would need 2 different animations for a burning tank: One for a 'brew up' where the molotov has ingnited ammo or fuel in the tank and caused a big fire, and and another for just the molotov fuel burning on the deck of the tank (which could still be a KO in the case of a crew panic bailout).

Ideally, molotovs should be capable of a 'delayed' KO where the bottle hits and ignites on the deck of the deck, but it takes a while for the burning fuel to drip down into the crew or engine compartment and acutally cause damage or force crew bailout. In fact it seems to me that a delayed KO would actually be more common with a Molotov than an instantaneous one.

Has anybody seen this/know it it's modeled??

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An interesting concept. What usually kills a tank when a Molotov cocktail hits it? Does the vehicle usually burn-out or does it simply make the interior temporarily unliveable for the crew? And there's also the difference in effect between Diesel-fueled Russian tanks and the more dangerous Petrol-fueled German tanks (especially the Panther). Something to ponder. I'd bet Molotov's are hell on open-topped vehicles in the game. I bet THESE will burn-out properly!

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I beleive molotovs have to get some buring fuel onto "sensitive" parts of the tank to have any effect.

Eg through open hatches, pistol ports or vision slits, or, more likely, through engine grills and onto the engine. Of coure the top of an open topped vehicle fits the bill quite nicely!!

They don't contain nearly enough fuel to make living condigions inside teh vehicle unbearable by burning on the outside, nor do they contain enough fuel to use up all the oxygen inside a vehicle and suffocate the crew.

Even today we occasinoally see news reports of people throwing molotovs at houses and cars, etc. Most of the time there's no damage.

they really were a last ditch improvistion adn not a super weapon!!

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What I have observed in Citadel:

1-The tanks do NOT always brew up. I have seen a couple back up rapidly and the flames go out shortly or there is simply a grass fire.

2-2 out of 2 times that the tank killers were sucessful there was a combo of Molotov with the #2 (?) guy tossing a sticky (?) grenade. That, I guess, blew a hole to let the Molotov brew in.Or as another speculated, the gasoline fumes from the tank ignited/exploded. Not sure, even after looking at the incidents at grunt level and re-playing.

[ September 05, 2002, 07:11 PM: Message edited by: pathfinder ]

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AFAIK, the Molotov Cocktail had only effect when thrown on the engine grill, so the engine starts to burn. (Don't ask me about differences between Soviet and German tanks here). The vision slits were another possible target, but more to hinder the tank then to knock it out.

Open vehicels are obviously something completly different.

[ September 06, 2002, 01:48 AM: Message edited by: Scipio ]

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I've read from somewhere that early war tanks were more vulnerable of Molotov's as the burning liquid could easily enter the engine compartment. The best result would obviously be obtained by dropping it through commander's hatch.

The late models of tanks had air intakes and exhausts modeled so that any burning liquid couldn't get directly to the engine compartment.

So therefore hitting anything than the crew or engine compartment would just give a nice short fire show with no real effect on the tank - it wouldn't even get a bit warmer inside. Looks like this is modeled to CMBB.

BTW: I think the first time Molotov's coctails were used widely was Winter War. I guess tanks in woods in extreme cold conditions and decisive men with petrol bottles don't mix very well :D

/kuma

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Molotov cocktails are most effective against tanks if the burning liquid is able to get inside, either through an open hatch or engine grill, and also you would have to be fairly close to throw one.

Most WWII tank designs (especially German and Soviet) had horizontal grills mounted on the back deck for engine cooling, and the engine exhaust mounted vertically on the rear. If you have seen any newsreels of the Hungarian uprising, molotov cocktails were used quite effectively against older T-34s, as well as against the newer T-55s.

In the CMBB Demo, these battles are taking place in fairly open terrain, you would have to be practically on top of a tank to use Molotovs in those circumstances, how effective would you expect them to be? I would think that in an Urban scenario Molotovs will have a much greater effect, especially from upper floors on narrow streets. Anyone agree?,disagree?

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Originally posted by Nidan1:

Molotov cocktails are most effective against tanks if the burning liquid is able to get inside, either through an open hatch or engine grill, and also you would have to be fairly close to throw one.

Most WWII tank designs (especially German and Soviet) had horizontal grills mounted on the back deck for engine cooling, and the engine exhaust mounted vertically on the rear. If you have seen any newsreels of the Hungarian uprising, molotov cocktails were used quite effectively against older T-34s, as well as against the newer T-55s.

In the CMBB Demo, these battles are taking place in fairly open terrain, you would have to be practically on top of a tank to use Molotovs in those circumstances, how effective would you expect them to be? I would think that in an Urban scenario Molotovs will have a much greater effect, especially from upper floors on narrow streets. Anyone agree?,disagree?

Well, I managed twice to take out a PzIII with Molotow Cocktails. In both cases the tank was shown as knocked out, but the tanks wasn't burning.

Maybe I caused a missunderstanding - the effect was correct, but just for a realistic touch the tank should start to burn.

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It has always been my understanding that the molotov coctail effects the engine because, if the molotov hits on the engine deck, the air intake will suck in the hot air/fire. This to me seems to be a pretty bad thing to have going into your internal combustion engine.

If the molotov hit, say, the turret top, it really wouldn't do any damage that would render the tank immoble.

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Anyone here ever BEEN in a real tank?

(Of course, I know many have, I'm not trolling.)

Recall all the grease and oil splattered around the turret, deck and the engine compartments? That's the real target that the Molotov seeks.

We could be talking about almost any internal-combustion engine driven vehicle that depends upon oil for lubrication. Diesel or gasoline powered, it doesn't matter, it's all that oil and grease and gunk that will catch fire if the Molotov gets to it. After that, the fuel lines and tanks could be next, depending upon luck and gosh knows what other factors.

True, some may try to keep their tanks pristine, but I'll bet that once the war really starts, preventative maintenance will suffer to some extent and vehicles won't get washed down and cleaned as much as they did in the depot or kaserne.

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