Open Up Control

[pkjsmith]

Hi i never use this button but was wondering if other players do ? it says in manual that it increases awareness. So does it increase spotting time and more importantly increase fire responce time ? So if i am in a ambush position with a tank would it be better to open up the vehicle ?

Hope someone can help.

Thanks

Paul

[hcrof]

Open up allows the commander to see all around the vehicle without having to rely on vision blocks which can be very restrictive. When playing with modern western tanks the systems they use for situational awareness are very good and while tanks have worse spotting than an infantry squad at short/medium range it really isn't bad. Where the tank gets better is at long range due to stabilised, highly magnified IR vision systems. What this boils down to is that it is rarely worth unbuttoning a US tank bacause they already see pretty well.

When playing with older Syrian equipment opening up the tank can give you a crucial advantage in tank duels. The commander with his binoculars is in a higher position and has a wider field of view than when in the turret and can contribute greatly to spotting when unbuttoned. Usually that means that in a 1 on 1 tank duel with older Soviet tanks the unbuttoned one will usually spot the other first. It has to be said that although the hatch gives the commander some protection it is probably not worth going close (4/500m?) to enemy machene guns while unbuttoned and that artillery is almost certain death.

Another advantage with opening up a tank it that you can use the pintle mounted machene gun. Although they are designed for anti helicopter work a 12.7mm or .50cal packs a heavy punch and are great for making holes in buildings when you dont want to use the limited number of HE shells or want to preserve the structure for later use. A couple of minutes of that and most squads will decide descretion is the best part of valour and run out the back.

To answer your question, yes opening up your tank will give you an advantage in an ambush situation and I use it all the time as Red but almost never as Blue

[zwobot]

Oh, you mean opened tanks will use only the commander MG when you give light fire order? I did not know that.

[hcrof]

They will also use it when using a normal fire order IIRC but it is often a little overkill. Also I think the loader fires the MG in T-55/62s so obviously it doesnt work with the very old tanks. I'm not sure about US tanks as i never usually open them up

[Flanker15]

Allot of the blue armor and some red tanks can fire their AA machine gun buttoned, the main one that can't on the US is the M1A2 (except the TUSK varient).

Another thing about the AA machine gun: almost all vehicles have to unbutton to reload it and it won't happen automatically as far as I know. ATGM reload will unbutton automatically though (mainly a problem on BMPs) so watch out as it puts a crew member in danger and stops the vehicle firing.

Unbuttoning is very important for BMP1/2s as they have terrible vision buttoned, they should be unbuttoned most of the time. You could button them up when in danger of close infantry attack but those infantry probably have an AT weapon aswell so the added awareness might be a better regardless.