The BF2 Tank Testing Yard

Since I have plenty of time on my hands and I spend it waiting for people to join Kevin’s server, I’ve been checking out some stats on tanks. Some of them are pretty obvious but I was wondering if someone else could verify my findings.

  1. I thought that tanks worked on a 4:3:2 model of damage. i.e. It takes 4 rounds to kill a tank from the front, 3 from the side and 2 from the rear. Until I found that I could consistently destroy the M1A2 with three rounds in the front with its Chinese and MEC counterparts. Tip #1: grab Chinese and MEC tanks when you can. Tip#2: American tanks don’t have to be paranoid about facing; you’re gonna die anyway.
    The 4:3:2 model also works on turrets. If you are fortunate enough to run into a tank with its turret facing away from you, go for that.
  2. Tank treads are the vulnerable spot on tanks. 2 hits from the front will destroy any tank. This flies in the face of all my grognardy wisdom but so it goes. The treads aren’t vulnerable from the side and it takes two hits to kill from the rear, so it’s pointless going for them in those facings.
    Tip #3: The extra time taken to aim will be worth it if you go for the tracks.
  3. The fixed emplacements work on a 2:2:1 damage model against tanks. The side shot is actually more powerful so if you are an AT guy you could also immediately jump out of your emplacement and take him out with a portable round. (Or let another class man the emplacement and take the kill from his damage.)
  4. One round from a tank will damage a Humvee or truck enough to make it burn and die. Facing doesn’t matter. Hitting the wheels will only half kill it. The quickest way to kill it is to simultaneously spray it with machine gun fire.
    It takes a full burst from a .50 cal machine gun (up to overheating) to destroy a truck. The fixed machine gun seems to operate with the same damage efficiency as a SAW and takes much longer.
  5. The hellfires on the choppers are the uberweapons. They will take out anything in one hit, regardless of facing. The trick is being able to use the bloody things. They are not guided in the way that the AT missiles are. They basically go wherever you click, rather than be guided by the mouse movement. I spent a while practicing in the oilfields map. Sit the chopper on a roof because you can’t fire them whilst sitting on the ground. I found that if you sit on an oil tank in the middle, you can camp the main base and deny the Chinese their tank and chopper from beyond visual range. Yeah, camping sucks and I probably wouldn’t do it, but I had to amuse myself waiting for people to join. C’mon guys…

Thank you for the info, I’ll definately put some of that into practice next time I’m running around in Battle Field 2.

But… One thing I noticed a couple times when I am a tank, going up against other tanks… Is there any special attention given to hitting a tank on it’s TOP? A few times when fighting a tank in a tank, I’ve shot out a round, my first shot at my target, and it hit the top of the turrent. I can’t say if it was damaged or not, but it causes immediate destruction. This has happened a few times.

Now that I think about it, this also warrents trying to get on top of things when in the city maps where tanks are around and being anti armor… Aiming for the top of the turrent. Hmm

Nevermind on that. I went ahead and started up a little personal server and tested the idea.

Took 3 shots onto the TOP of China’s tank (Very obvious, as each hit was causing the tank to bounce downwards on it’s treads) from the M1A2 to destory it.

2 shots from my anti armor rockets ontop of the M1A2 to make it smoke and burn, then explode.

Must have just been a few extremely lucky chances that my ‘one hit kills’ on the top of the turrents happened.

Shame for the lack of realism on that. My understanding of real life tanks is that armor is weakest at the top. Hence why they got those infantry launched missles that go upwards and then come down onto the top of it’s target’s armor.

Thank you for the further tests, I quite forgot about the top armour.
What I think is wierd is that the M1A2 is the weakest of all the tanks. Since when did Chinese armour become superior?

I did further further tests!

My results on my own lil private server was a bit more interesting…

I was hoping that the M1A2 had perhaps a stronger damage potential than the China tank. Yanno, it’s a game right? Usually balance is saying ‘OKay, their tank is gonna take damage, the other tank is gonna deal it.’ Blah blah…

Tank to Tank, China vs USA tank. Front armor, aiming for the front hull itself and not the turrent… Both required 4 hits to destroy. I didn’t bother with doing each side, since waiting for the tank to respawn was a tad boring. Maybe tomorrow if no one beats me to the punch.

The most interesting thing was when I decided to see how infantry carried anti-tank launchers did on the back armor. Again, aiming for the hull and not the turrent, the results was more interesting. From the back on the china tank… It took three whole rounds to destroy it. On the USA tank, it took 2 each time to get it into ‘burning’ mode. The main difference I can see is that with the USA tank, you’ll probably realize the burning quickly and get out after that second shot. But with the china tank, while the second shot doesn’t make it burn, the third shot will destroy it utterly.

Using my eye, I also considered the reloads. Parking two next to each other and just hopping out and switching. They appeared to reload at the same time. I honostly don’t see why they made the USA tank so weak, reguardless of their RL counterparts, balance-wise… It’s silly to have one side’s tank weaker than the others.

But I digress, BattleField 2 appears to be more about the infantry than about the vehicles, as it was with BF1942 (I never played Vietnam).

Maybe a oversight? I don’t know. Tank to tank, the sides seem to have them fairly balanced. Now that I think of it, it’s quite possible that the M1A2 abrams DOES do more damage, since it takes the same 4 shots at the same area as it takes China’s.

Distance plays a major factor. If you are close enough, you can destroy a tank from the front with one shot if you hit the barrel head on. There seems to be some calculations regarding velocity of the shell. This may be true of all weapons in the game, but I tested the tanks out and you can roll right up at point blank range and shoot a shell down the barrel and blow it to pieces.

Another good tactic is if you have one of the larger ATV’s or whatever that have the 20mm gun on them, if you run into a tank, try and close the gap so you are sitting right on top of them. The barrel can’t swing around and hit you, but your barrel is short enough to continually hit them. It works better in the city where the tanks have less freedom of movement. The Americans use to do this to the Germans in the forest during WWII.

Also, this is just an obervation, but the MEC/Chinese tanks in BF2 appear to have Explosive Reactive Armor, while the U.S. tanks do not. This is probably just a graphical oversignt since we do put ERA armor on our tanks, but if it isn’t an oversight, than the MEC/Chinese tanks would have a serious advantage over their U.S. counterparts.

K

I never thought of distance. I naturally assumed damage was the same, the only change at range was the arc of the shot itself. When I shot the two tanks at the front to see how much it’d take, I parked them like 10-15 feet apart.

Since you tested that, what’s the result on the damage YOU take in your tank if you were to run up and point-blank shoot? If the damage is barely enough to hurt, be one heck of a tactic for tank to tank battles in the cities.

Since they invaded the Middle East obviously (or maybe Swedes are just extra super scared of the chinese - being so close and all… ;-)

Don’t forget the TOW’s on the Cobra. They’re cameraguided and one hit killers against armor - it takes a good pilot to let you use them properly, But when pointed in the right direction you can destroy stuff from beyond your enemies visual range.

I wish I had ever gotton the chance to grab the gunner spot in a helicopter and learn to use it. But it’s always the same story. Pilot wannabe runs to attack helicopter, flies off before I can grab the seat, while I’m going ‘Need a pickup!’…

This being on Tactical Gamer too.

Kevin, I, again, tested tanks again. (Geeze, I must be bored, huh?) And tried two things this time around. Using only the M1A2 against the China tank, I did a couple close up, point blank, shots. None of them where one hit destroys. I even continued driving into the other tank and was shooting at it’s BOTTOM armor! It took the same amount of shots. 3 to 4. Some damage dealt by rubbing the tank up against the other tank.

Moved both tanks back, and as far apart as I could, so the tank was barely visible through the fog. Fired at the front. 4 shots to destroy.

Out of further curiousity, I actually moved close again, took careful aim… and fired a shot INTO the other barrel of the tank. 3 shots to destroy. Heck, I even amused myself by hopping out and firing anti-tank rockets into the barrel, even gunshots! No change in damage.

What exactly are you doing to get the one hit kills on tanks by being really close? I must be missing something?


Since no replies yet, I’ll edit this post. Don’t wanna seem like someone who likes to have any excuse to up their post count.

But anyway, it seems at least on all the USA vehicles, and I have no reason to assume differently for any other tank, that the special op’s C4 charges require only 2 of these on any vehicle to destroy them utterly. (1 for buggies/humvees). Closer examination revealed some delightful spots to put them on too. YOu can climb on top of a tank and toss the C4 charges down into the gunner seat. Ensuring that they will have NO idea what-so-ever that they are even there unless they themselves hop on up and look there themselves.

Hum-Vees, you can prone and crawl under them. Toss a few C4 at their underside… Just need one. This gives up delightful thoughts of sneaking into the base, hiding under the Hum-vee, leaving your explosive little present, then waiting for it to drive off… Kaboom!

But in the city, it definately seems that special ops are certainly the most effective at getting rid of those pesky tanks. Once two are placed anywhere on a tank, it’s gonna be gone. Front armor, top turrent, back armor, treads, sides, doesn’t matter. 2 will do the job.

I just went online and tried it again. It’s hard to get the shot, you may think you are lined up perfectly but watch where the shell goes. Once the shell goes right down the barrel… BOOM! If you are online when I am and nobody else is trying to shoot me, I will demonstrate. The one shot is really difficult, it’s pretty much luck, but I can blow a tank up with two shots at the front barrel every time. Trying to line up the one shot is hard. But I’ve been killed by it in live games…

Another fun trick is to play Special Forces, throw all your C4 on the front of a jeep, and ram into the enemy. When he blows up the jeep, so goes the tank. It’s a suicide mission, but fun as hell. I wonder if you can throw C4 on a person?

K

No, but you can place 2 charges in a buggy and let it drive the last few metres into an enemy vehicle by itself and blow it up, manually - just take care you´re 10 metres away.

Back to the tank topic: Could it be that you kill it with 1 single shot if you hit the space between turret and body?

Also, this is just an obervation, but the MEC/Chinese tanks in BF2 appear to have Explosive Reactive Armor, while the U.S. tanks do not. This is probably just a graphical oversignt since we do put ERA armor on our tanks, but if it isn’t an oversight, than the MEC/Chinese tanks would have a serious advantage over their U.S. counterparts.

We have ERA on older M60 models that the Marines use, mostly; the M1 series has composite armor and little need for ERA. Indeed, the latest M1A2s are virtually impervious to “normal” (non-double) HEAT munitions as fielded in most AT missiles, at least from the front. ERA does nothing to stop kinetic rounds (penetrators like the DU rods in our APFSDS rounds), but only has value against HEAT weapons.

But it’s all irrelevant in a Battlefield game, naturally. No problem with that here–there’s always America’s Army or something for the more realistic crowd.

I’ve likewise tried to replicate your one-shot barrell kill, Kevin. No success with this either. I think there is something that modifies the damage in the front armour though- on another test the M1A2 was able to take out a Chinese tank with three rounds. Maybe there is some gun mantle hit box or something?
Up close I verified that it takes two shots to kill a tank- front, rear or back. By close, I mean about 1-2 metres away. I’ll maintain that aiming for the tracks at range is still the best way to go.

I wish I had ever gotton the chance to grab the gunner spot in a helicopter and learn to use it. But it’s always the same story. Pilot wannabe runs to attack helicopter, flies off before I can grab the seat, while I’m going ‘Need a pickup!’…

Best practice I ever had was on the Dragon River map in single player on easy. Jump in the gunner seat and tell a bot to jump in as pilot. The bots actually take care to line you up for a decent shot with the TOW. It’s tricky and I think I tried even the bot’s patience with my aiming errors but it’s a lot better than human pilots who fling the choper around like a fighter.

… or bails out first chance because the really feel like playing fucking paratroopers instead!

Wait. Has anyone tried a shot on the ground under the tank? One would assume that the splash damage would hit multiple parts of the tank. I don’t think there are one hit kills, though I think underside takes two. I wish there was some damage calculation.

Same here – I was in the M1A2, blew up the chinese tank on the first shot. Confirmed :)

Yes. Kinda… In a way. When I was trying the point blank shot thing, I had actually pushed the china tank upwards and was shooting at it’s underside. Took a standard 3 shots.

I tried again to do this one shot barrel kill. I was totally unable to do this, at all.

I took a couple potshots from 5 feet at the barrel, and my aim was good, I coud tell it was ‘exploding’ into the barrel because the explosion was being cut off at one point by the barrel. But no one hit kill.

I put both tanks closer, hopped into each, and actually lined the barrels up on the outside model. Again, no one hit kill. I’ll getcha on Qt3’s server sometime and see if you can show me!

Like I said, the one shot is really difficult. Best thing to do is just drive the one tank over to the parked tank and keep trying it, so every time it appears you don’t have to line up two tanks. Even if I’m online, it can take awhile to get the perfect one shot kill. But without a doubt, by hitting the barrel with two shots, I can blow up a tank from the front easy. If I hit any other part of the tank, it can take 3-4 shots from the front before it goes. But the barrel at close range is 1-2.

It’s the 4th, so I may not be on, but I’ll keep checking the admin screen and if I see you online I’ll hop on and show ya.
K