I’m not terribly happy with killing all of the crewmembers of a tank but then not getting credit for the kill. Then someone else comes along and drops a satchel charge on the empty, useless tank, and gets credit for a kill when the tank isn’t even occupied.
I include bombers in two of my squads that I play, and I go tank hunting with the Panzerbuechse a lot. I’ve “killed” tanks so many times now by killing the crew, then the last guy jumps out and I kill him too, but then someone else actually blows up the useless, empty tank, and I get credit only for three player kills, and no tank.
At the very least, bombers should get more credit for killing a tank crewmember in a tank than he’d get by just sniping one rifleman. That way, the bomber (and its squad) gets more credit for all of these cases like this. A similar case is where I shoot a tank in the side of the turret and kill the gunner, and while reloading or taking another shot someone else kills the tank somehow, and the bomber gets almost no credit since it’s just one player kill.
Also, I’m not sure if bombers get credit for damage done to a tank. Do they? It would at least help if they did. I’ve hunted tanks where I killed the engine, lit it on fire, killed a couple crew members, killed its main gun, etc. then someone else finishes it off and I get very little credit for what I did. It makes progressing my bombers much slower than it should be.
Crippling a tank should definitely credit you with a kill, this isn’t War Thunder where a successful repair is likely.
If the crew does bring the tank back up, whoever puts it back down should also be credited with a kill even if it’s the same tank. Same goes with blowing up an empty tank for good measure- demolition is teamwork that should be rewarded.
What should count as a tank kill:
Throwing a track
Making the turret inoperable
Destroying the engine or transmission
Killing the second-to-last crew member
Killing the last crew member if they’re in the gunner seat
If any of those conditions are met, the tank is functionally inoperable.
Ok, I’m not sure I’d go as far as you on assign kills for conditions that still involve the tank being occupied and used. I guess it’s because I also run tanks a lot (I have the Pz. III E) and I stay in my tank and fire it with thrown tracks, broken engines, etc. I drive out of the line of fire if my turret ring gets jammed, etc. and repair the tank, then get back in the fight. I’ve repaired and fought in with tanks where the last crewmember had to drive it off, repair it, then drive it back to the fight, swapping between drivers seat and gunner’s seat as necessary.
So to me, dead is dead, with the exception of a tank whose last crewmember has been killed. Since the only players who can operate a tank are tank crewmen, and since they only spawn with a tank, then in theory I suppose one could abandon one’s own damaged tank and jump into someone else’s abandoned damaged tank and continue to operate it, though I’ve never done it nor seen anyone else do it. A tank whose crew has been killed off is effectively dead.
I guess what I’m asking for is for bombers to get credit for more than just killing individual crewmembers or killing the tank itself. Right now it seems tank kill credit is all or nothing. Even if I absolutely wrecked a tank and killed off its entire crew, if I didn’t actually “kill” it then I still have no credit for the tank other than for the crewmembers, and then someone else comes along and drops a satchel charge on it and takes the kill.
What I’d like to see:
Bombers (or tankers, too) get credit for causing damage to a vehicle. Assign some value to each component in the tank, and if that component is damaged or destroyed, whoever shot it and did that damage gets some credit for that.
Killing tank crewmembers inside a tank counts for more points than just killing a rifleman out in a field. Especially with those vehicles that only have like 2 dudes in them, killing one of them with a Panzerbuechse shot is a big deal, and should be worth something. Killing the other crewmember when he jumps out of the tank to repair it, leaving the tank unoccupied and useless, should also be worth more than just sniping a rifleman. That effectively eliminates an entire squad.
Any random can jump in a tank with an open seat, just the owner probably won’t be happy and you won’t coordinate for shit. It may or may not be limited to occupied tanks only for non-tankera, however.
My idea for kills is that it’s something that makes a tank ineffective. The owner can slap a bandaid on it, but it’s still going to work like shit and ultimately be worse off than just letting the tank crew die and be replaced by a functional tank.
I’ve been in a position too where I just stayed in the gunner seat letting people get killed by an immobile tank, but those kinds of players get killed by anything.
I’m saying if you cripple a tank, you get kill credit. If the tank gets repaired and you reduce the crew to a driver, you get kill credit again on the same tank. If that driver moves to the gunner seat and you kill them again, you get a 3rd kill on it, and if you drop TNT under the empty hull for good measure, it’s a 4th.
I just found this thread while about to create a new one over the same topic. Wow 3 years later and things haven’t changed ?! Surely the armor kill credit calculation is lacking. I myself made several tanks unusable with some AT gun before one random teammate detonates the empty tank and gets the kill credit.
What’s weird is that when killing infantry it works the other way around : if a wounded enemy is killed by a second hit, the first gunner will be credited a kill whereas the final killer will get assistance XP
