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schmoe -> (6/13/2000 10:35:00 PM)
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Have you actually seen a documented case of a driver returning with a missing turret?
IMO, it is almost impossible to "blow a turret off" by hitting it with an antitank round. When you see pictures of a tank with it's turret missing it is because the ammunition cooked off and lifted it off from the internal pressure built up by the explosion. In such a case the tank is completely wrecked and it would be a miracle for the driver to survive, since there is no "door" between him and the turret compartment.
However, it wasn't terribly uncommon for the turret crew to become casualties with no catastrophic explosion and have the driver still able to move the tank.
Personally, it is really hard for me to imagine even a small antitank round penetrating a tank's armor and ricocheting around inside the crew compartment without causing any casualties or damaging important equipment. A truck or a halftrack, but not a tank. Too many large, important steel objects inside. This is one aspect of SP that bothers me a lot.
Until very recently, it WAS common for the opponent not to know he had scored a "kill". From a long ways away you usually can't see the hole. Tanks were often hit and put out of action only to be hit and penetrated several more times before they either burned/exploded or the firing crew(s) decided they were "dead". But the first penetrating hit probably caused an operational kill. Modern sabot ammunition is notorious for this, except for depleted uranium.
Depleted uranium projectiles shed some of their mass as they pass though, causing white hot metal to be sprayed around the interior of the target vehicle. This always causes a fire and normally cooks off the target's ammo, frequently "blowing off the turret". Survivors are not common.
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