Angles Matter

I have recently been recruited to the Kill on Sight squad and during a practice involving tanks and engineers something came up.

Awhile ago, before I first quit playing BFBC2 many months ago my running partner told me that he stumbled onto a chart showing that angles of RPGs hitting a tank matter. While playing with Kill on Sight and testing out the damage the different RPGs do we noticed there was a bit of discrepancy with the same rockets. I told them what I had heard about the angles and we gave it a go. It was drastic. Sharp angled hits on the side of the tank will do only a small bit more than hitting the tank directly in the front while standing perfectly perpendicular with the tank hitting it with no angle will yield about 15 or so more points of damage. I believe with no armor on the tank and with explosive upgrades using the RPG it went like this. Front hit the tank went down to 72 health. Sharp angled hit on the side it went down to 66-67 and a direct perfect perpendicular hit it went down to 51-52. Also the sides and the back of the tank yield the same amount of damage, there is no difference in the hits.

I understand it can potentially take the same amount of hits if you hit it perfectly or at a angle. Also the AT4 takes it down to below half, I believe it went down to 46 with a perfect shot.

I understand this information is rarely viable seeing as you are going to hit the tank where you can, I just thought you'd all like to know if you didn't.

This is all roughly tested, but tested nonetheless, so if anybody has any contrary statements let me know.

Thanks for that. Useful.

See, now I've hit a fully healed tank once in the back and it has blown up. the thing that makes the difference is aiming for the crack between the body and the swiveling cannon. as long as you hit that from anywhere besides the front, your going to do descent amounts of damage, or more likely scare the driver into jumping out making an easy target.

I am assuming that is with the UAV as I have done the same. It is possible to one hit the tank with the UAV without improved warheads. At least I believe it to be. On Harvest day, before any action started I blew up a tank with one shot. That is the exact place you have to hit it. Between the turret and the back and it will blow up. I'm not sure why, maybe the UAV doesn't go by the same guide lines as the rockets with angles or maybe the angle, since it's coming down, is reduced so it does more damage if you hit it on the top back. Again, I'm not really sure why.

Don't have time right now, but you could always check what this data might tell you.

Well I can most definitly save you a perk by saying I've gotten plenty of 1 hit kills on the tank using the UAV without advanced warheads. I use alternate

See Ya L8r H8r wrote:Well I can most definitly save you a perk by saying I've gotten plenty of 1 hit kills on the tank using the UAV without advanced warheads. I use alternate

Same. I said it is possible without improved warheads.

Oh haha sorry I read that wrong

true, you dont need warhead to one hit tanks. that night we tested UAV damage too arc. idk if you were on or not yet though. angles with the UAV also matter but considering the severe amount of damage it does to tanks its not to noticeable. it's either a 1-h/k or not.

riafomh wrote:Don't have time right now, but you could always check what this data might tell you.

Thanks Ria, I have gone over that a few times but not at length and never noticed what it has to say about angles and tanks. The graph with the damage done to tanks shows it all. At a bad angle hitting it on the side the damage drops from x2 to x1.2. On the big tanks the worst angle is no different from hitting the front apparently.

I'll explain it briefly, all angles being relative to the plane of the tank's armor.

If your rocket hits perpendicular to the armor, i.e. at 90 degrees, it will do 100% damage (of the maximum damage dealt by the rocket).
As the angle decreases, so does the damage dealt linearly. At 45 degrees to the plane of the armor, your rocket will do 50% of its maximum damage.

Hitting the tank at the rear or back doubles the damage dealt by the rocket, but it is still affected by the angle of incidence.

For instance: hitting the tank to the front at 90 degrees to the armor deals 100 percentage points of damage. Likewise, hitting the tank at the rear armor at an angle of 45 degrees will do (100x2)/2 = 100 percentage points of damage.