Currently, when switching ammunition types in battle, the game forces the tank to fire a round to clear the breach. This reveals the player’s position and wastes ammunition.
I suggest allowing players to switch to another shell type without firing, by simulating the crew removing the shell and loading the new one. To keep it balanced, a reload penalty (for example, the full reload time or slightly longer) could be applied when switching shells.
This would improve gameplay realism (tank crews could unload shells without firing) and give players more tactical control, especially in situations where firing a shot just to switch ammo exposes their position.
It also lets enemies know that they’re on a reload and thus vulnerable.
Say, for example, you’re contesting a corner against an open top tank, and you have APHE loaded. You could defeat your opponent with HE, but if you fire the APHE to load the HE your opponent will know you’re reloading and take the advantage. With round switching your could prepare the HE without alerting them.
Instead, manual reload or reload on command option could help this situation, which is more realistic, there are multiple situations where I don’t need to load a shell right after I shot and on top of that, when is loaded, there’s moments that’s not the type of ammunition needed for the situation, I think a Quality-of-life suggestion on this concept could recieve great support from the community.
This is the single reason i dont bring multiple round types instead ive learned how to kill every tank with a single shell type since bringing multiple just puts me at a disadvantage when switching
all my mates call me insane for only bringing APDS but i can consistently two shot with it and have rareley found a situation where HE, HESH or HEAT would have been better to shoot
It would be double the reload time, and that fact alone is why Gaijin is not interested in adding it.
Why reload for 14 seconds when you can just fire a round and reload in 7?
Real crews were also trained to fire to swap ammo over safety concerns.
Yeah I could see this easily being something like a mechanic found in Tarkov, where you have to option to disable auto bolting of rifles. For example, you shoot with LMB, then instead of it automatically bolting (to give you time to look through the scope, see where your shot lands, etc etc), you have to press LMB again to bolt and be ready to fire.
They could do that here, you shoot your canon, the reload is paused giving you time to switch rounds if you need, then when you’re ready to reload you press LMB again and it loads. They can put it on a toggle that switches between auto and manual command of reload. Very good idea.
Longer reloading time, but your enemy won’t know you wre reloading. Just saying it has valuable tactical use, game-play speaking, not concerning reality.
First off, I am not sure if even “normal” shell casings can be removed from modern tanks.
Second, I am 99.99% sure that you can NOT just pull out a two piece load for tanks that utilize a separate shell + powder charge. Not without a VERY long maintenance routine, which would be VERY dangerous. First, you cannot just push a shell up/through/out a rifled barrel by pushing it. The ring at the base of the shell gets formed to the rifling explosively, it will NOT just push through the barrel from behind/inside. And then, trying to push it back INTO the tank would be absurdly dangerous as you would be pushing/tapping/hammering/slamming on the side with the fuse.
So, I am not against this possible mechanic, but it would have to be applied to tanks on a case by case basis, and would “for sure” not be possible on any tank with a two part ammo load.
Even some/many/most modern tanks (like the Abrams for instance) use combustible shell casings (basically cardboard) except for the very bottom/primer section which is quite small. SO, I would think that this would be very difficult to near impossible to pull the shell out. I am not sure on the logistics of this issue for modern tanks, if there is any UNCLASSIFIED information and/or manuals regarding the removal of shells before firing please do share.
EDIT:
AHHH ok, if this is possible I would be very interested in seeing UNCLASSIFIED documents, if available! I am especially curious if it requires waiting a specific amount of time/extended instructions to disable the firing mechanics etc. So, like you said, would it it be 2x as long? Or possibly even longer to unload the shell?
THEN however, for the game, this would be probably “unbalanced” if NATO tanks could unload, but the RU/T-XX tanks could not. Very interesting topic though!
Because its not done IRL. Tanks in combat don’t unload the gun (other than by firing it), and tanks always “battle carry” a round by SOP. Its always faster to fire the round and load the right one.
If you wanted a mechanic for manual un/reload, it would take TWICE as long because you have to extract the loaded round, restow it, and then load the new round.
T-XX tanks simply can’t be unloaded at all without breaking out the cleaning staff and pushing it out of the breech from the muzzle.
NATO 120mm can be manually unloaded, but see above.
It would be in the operators manual that can be had on ebay etc. IIRC it was some thing like having to wait x number of minutes after y number of rounds were fired.