Early British Tanks: A Rivetting Question:

[AbsntMndedProf]

As I understand it, one of the problems with the earliest British tanks, such as the Stuart and Lee/Grant tanks, were their rivetted hulls. Even if an enemy round failed to penetrate the tank's armor, it could often cause one or more of the rivets' heads to break off and become a dangerous projectile inside the tank. Was this taken into account in determining whether an early British tank is damaged by a hit, or am I just being picky? Thanks!

[Waylander]

Having no Idea how the programming was done, I cant say.
But I can say that Yes, rivetted Hulls did create another hazard for the tankers and as AT projectiles became larger and faster then this was the main reason for discarding this type of construction.
One must also remember that this form of construction was used for ease and simplicity and, as tank producing nations advanced and increased there knowledge then it was phased out.

[TotenkopfZZ]

These factors may be represented in the "Survive" rating of the tanks. The Stuart has a miserable 2 Survive rating while the Grant has an average 3. What this means is that they are rather easily destroyed by penetrating hits with a lower survivability of the crew. You can, of course, edit these to your desire. You will generate errors for your opponent in email games though unless you send them the modified OoB.

[Grumble]

True, but the "survive" ratings may be of similar design to those of ASL. If that's the case, the rating is an abstraction of how likely the "crew" is likely to escape and form a significant unit in game terms. The Grant's number may in fact be higher just because it had a crew of 6.
Japanese, and Italian tanks also had rivetted hulls and turrets.

[Alexei]

I have read that the Pz38(t) suffered the same problem...

[Arralen]

Originally posted by Grumble:
True, but the "survive" ratings may be of similar design to those of ASL. If that's the case, the rating is an abstraction of how likely the "crew" is likely to escape and form a significant unit in game terms. The Grant's number may in fact be higher just because it had a crew of 6.

---

AFAIK it's 'surv. rating' vs. 'warhead size' when it comes to penetrating hits.

with 'surv.' >> 'warhead' it's really hard to damage or even kill a vehicle.(e.g.: AT rifle against normal tank)

with s = w it's a fair chance of crew members surviving

with s < w it's instant BOOOMM mostly

so one has to abstract a lot of factors into one number (surv.):
- vehicles size
- how likely it is to brew up (fuel type etc)
- special construction characteristics that make it more/less prone to 'special damage'

So the Grants higher value is most likely just because of the bigger size, which makes it harder to achieve a 100% killing hit with small guns.

.. just my 0,02 EUR, though ..

A.

[ August 13, 2001: Message edited by: Arralen ]</p>