No its not, you can shoot a 5kg+ HE shell next to a barrel and it does nothing to it
I think the solution already described above is the best solution:
I’ll agree that shooting barrels is a bit of a one dimensional answer to any tank you come up against, but it shouldn’t nessesarily be harder. Too many tanks require it as the one option you have if they’re playing competently. Removing the single counter to these vehicles just hands a massive buff to a lot of tanks that just got a large buff in terms of compression.
I’d propose a compromise. Barreling shouldn’t be harder, but it should be less effective. Firstly, I’d delink the breach and the barrel, meaning a destroyed barrel wouldn’t stop you from firing or reloading. Then I’d reduce the penalty in accuracy for firing from a destroyed barrel from crippling to simply major. Enough to render the tank incapable of long range shooting or hitting weakspots with any reliability, but not enough to prevent them from hitting a tank at close range.
What this means is barreling would cease to be a tactic that guarantees you a kill at close range regardless of what the two tanks are. If his gun is strong enough to lolpen you anywhere, you cannot just freely push him. But tank with decent armor (IE the Jumbo, which currently utterly relies on this tactic) could still do it with some consistency. If a tank is locking down a long range sightline, an accurate hit on the barrel would still enable you to move through his field of fire with some safety. And there would still be options at close range, even if his gun remains a threat. You could bait a shot around a corner, banking on the round being too inaccurate to hit a small portion of your tank. You could capitalize on him needing to be immobile to repair, and smoke the entrance to rush him.
Basically, it gives both players more options. And I believe that’s preferable to the current system.
In my own experience, 99% of barrel hits in whatever I’m playing are at close range, where this above idea would help most. If I’m farther out than that, it’s just a bit of bad luck that can be repaired before the guy closes in most of the time.
If you cannot pen the armor of something, the barrel would no longer be a cheesy means to ignore it any longer, which would be a huge boon to the game.
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