• Please make sure you are familiar with the forum rules. You can find them here: https://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/index.php?threads/forum-rules.2334636/

Tank explosion

RiccardoTheBeAst

Grizzled Veteran
Sep 19, 2009
578
126
Italy
Can tanks explode in HOS? And for "explosion" i mean that the turret will jump out from the tank and that the hull will be totally destroyed, not the """"explosions"""" of OST that we can see everytime that a tank is destroyed.

I mean this:

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYAHzPqQ0r4]YouTube - WW2 /Armortek,Tiger tank explosion 2[/URL]

There is a better video, but i cant find it.....it's a video where an 88 hits a KV-2 and then the KV-2 explodes as an atomic bomb....
 
Just using common sense here, if the ammunition goes off, and it's not directed down a barrel, then it's likely to be a really sloppy and fizzly explosion since there's no pressure buildup in the barrel of the gun. I think the hatches and turrets would get blown off from the pressure, since the interior of the tank would basically act as a pressure chamber when the ammunition ignites.

This is Wittman's Tiger I after it was shot by a Firefly.

Wittmann_Tiger_007.jpg


I think what exploded there was the ammunition due to a fuel fire.

Could be wrong tho.

I'm not sure if you know this, but those tigers in the video are 1/6 scale models. They aren't real. Not even sure why the OP put that in the video since it's still fiction, I guess he's just illustrating a point.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
Imo, having regard to the particularities of the damage that we will be in the game, I think the tank will not always explode ...May very well take fire killing the crew without exploding ...I leave this example, a video of a battle between Pershing vs Panther ...

<A href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90vnW1UR5hY&feature=related" target=_blank>YouTube - Panther tank hit by shells from a Pershing and destroyed killing

Then the crew can remain stunned by a grenade or a shot of artillery fell nearby ...
It would be nice to see the floats that shows the signs of the impact of bullets ...
 
Upvote 0
Sad video.

But it does give you an example of how these things usually go out. In that case it looks like the ammo was slowly ignited and it just started a large fire, other times the ammo will all go off at once and cause an explosion inside the tank.

On the general note of tank combat, this time it would be nice to see impact marks on the tanks. In RO there's no decals applied for bullet impacts or shell impacts, it'd be nice to see some parallax effects for deep shell impacts.
 
Upvote 0
Wittmann's Tiger stood burning for several minutes after it was hit before its' ammunition finally brew up and it exploded, and according to research it was a shot to the left side directly to the engine bay. The shot was taken from some 200 yards away by tanks of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers. The other Tigers which followed Wittmann's own over open ground were knocked out from shots directly to their right, coming from Fireflies of the 1NY, some 700-800 yards away.

That having been said, tanks do explode immediately if a certain set of circumstances are met. For one if a tank is hit by an armour piercing shot containing a bursting charge, provided for greater post-penetration effects. If one of these went off inside a buttoned up tank the violent increase in pressure alone was enough to rupture the lungs of the crew, and it could easily set the entire ammunition storage off in one go as-well, causing an emmediate explosion.

Infact Tiger tank crews in the east observed that a great number of T-34's exploded almost emmidiately as they were hit by their AP rounds, attributing this to the enemy tanks often being completely buttoned up, allowing for the full effect of the bursting charge to be utilized.
 
Upvote 0
The more interesting variety of knocked out tanks aren't the catastrophically exploding ones but the ones that just stop moving. If this happens the firing tank has to try to decide whether or not the target is permanently knocked out. In North Africa German tank crews would sometimes play possum when under long-range fire, wait for fire to shift, then resume moving and shooting. Since RO2 kill messages wont be instantaneously displayed, perhaps there could be no kill messages at all for tanks to allow for this type of deception/uncertainty.
 
Upvote 0
The more interesting variety of knocked out tanks aren't the catastrophically exploding ones but the ones that just stop moving. If this happens the firing tank has to try to decide whether or not the target is permanently knocked out. In North Africa German tank crews would sometimes play possum when under long-range fire, wait for fire to shift, then resume moving and shooting. Since RO2 kill messages wont be instantaneously displayed, perhaps there could be no kill messages at all for tanks to allow for this type of deception/uncertainty.

Well in the case of the German tanks in North Africa, they usually came under fire from 6 pdr's or smaller, guns which usually did nothing more than punch holes. 6 pdr & 2 pdr projectiles contained no bursting charges, and as such they'd have to hit ammunition storages or fuel tanks to cause a fire. Usually however all they did was a punch a hole and kill parts of the crew.

The tank guns in RO:HOS however are 75mm guns firing AP projectiles with bursting charges, and as such their chance of causing fires or explosions was very high.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
IIRC only the Germans got bursting charges to work consistently, and even then problems with the fusing was still common.

Nope. German reports lamented the inability to get the things to work properly. "Most" of the time, they are quoted as failing. Probably the round starting to break up on penetration.

The other Tigers which followed Wittmann's own over open ground were knocked out from shots directly to their right, coming from Fireflies of the 1NY, some 700-800 yards away.
Actually it was one Firefly - troop commander's, with Joe Ekins as the gunner. Unbelievably, it was his first day in the hot seat. It was also his last. He destroyed 3 Tigers that day - and was then put back into the reserves for some daft reason. Nice old guy - I met him at Bovington a few years back.

On to the original topic... as shown in that Panther brewing up, plus other film, there are a number of ways for WWII-era tanks to go "catastrophic":

1. Fuel fire - in diesel tanks, hard to ignite the diesel and it burns slowly. Gas/petrol tanks will burn more easily, may leading to an explosion if there is a good fuel-air mix in the fuel tanks.

2. Internal fire cooking off ammo 1: that Panther shows the jets of flame related to the propellant in AP rounds cooking off. While there is plenty of it, propellant burns - it doesn't explode. It is designed to burn the whole period of time that the projectile is travelling up the gun barrel, to provide roughly constant acceleration during the interior ballistics section. One round may burn, igniting others around it - burns very hot and very lethal, may generate enough sudden pressure to pop hatches but not much more.

3. Internal fire cooking off ammo 2: MG ammo ignites and starts to cook off - "firing" MG rounds all over the place, both internally and externally.

4. Internal fire cooking off ammo 3: HE projectiles cook off. This is the HE in the warheads, not the propellant. Called "high explosive" as it goes off as near-instantly as possible, for maximum instant damage. When this happens you see the tank erupt, turret fly, etc. I've seen film of the turret flying off the tank, the turret roof separating and flying etc. The most catastrophic destruction.

None of these things are "instant". In some cases they can be pretty damn quick - high-velocity projectile melting and punching super-heated metal directly into contact with live rounds, or a HEAT plasma jet doing the same. Mostly it requires a fire to start in the wrong place - in an ammo bin or in very close proximity. Many ammo bins were at least partly protected from fire as a safey measure.

And will these explosions be modelled? Yup.
 
Upvote 0
[TW]Wilsonam said:
Nope. German reports lamented the inability to get the things to work properly. "Most" of the time, they are quoted as failing. Probably the round starting to break up on penetration

Really, I have been reading about the BdZ fuzes used on German armour piercing rounds and in 1941 a new design was said to solve the issue often found in some of the old fuze designs, but even before then it was mostly the Kriegmarine who were complaining.

Where have you read they had issues with the fuzes, and are you sure it wasn't before 1941 and concerning Kriegsmarine ammunition?

All I have read suggests Bluey is correct.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
From memory (i.e. without churning through), the key ones are:

Bird, Lorrin Rexford & Livingston, Robert D, World War II Ballistics: Armor and Gunnery [Second Edition, with Errata], Overmatch Press, 2001

The above is based on a pile of other works, but is the single most outstanding work on WWII armor penetration for gamers.

German Steel Armour Piercing Projectiles and Theory of Penetration, British Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee (BIOS), Final Report No. 1343, September 1945, Classified
 
Upvote 0
Always nice to get a dev answering, and with references too :eek:

You wouldn't happen to know what page or chapter in World War II Ballistics it is discussed on?
And do the tank ballistics in game take into account to size of the bursting charge? Probably not is my guess but it would be interesting if they did.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0