I like the idea of modules because MBTs are extremely complex war machines filled with hardware, not just crew, ammo and an engine floating on an otherwise hollow box; so I am glad that they are modelling them as such, getting the game closer to being a proper digital interactive encyclopedia and avoiding situations where shells did nothing just because they didn’t directly hit the ammo or the crew.
However, I do have a MAJOR problem with the implementation of these modules… which is that they are not bothering at all to actually and likewise model these MBTs’ armor and survivability features properly.
They are modelling these tanks’ internal weak points without modelling the external strong points meant to protect them; therefore, the net result is an artificial nerf instead of the more nuanced and realistic survivability I would have hoped for when I welcomed the addition of these modules.
Examples of mismodelled, nerfed survivability:
-Merkava Mk.4’s whole miserable existence (armor’s KE barely as effective as rubber-fabric).
-Leclerc’s UFP (whole center of mass less effective than T-64A’s somehow).
-Challenger 2’s missing hull spall liners.
-Abrams’ miserable turret neck (modelled as a 50mm flat plate instead of the 300+mm LOS volumetric piece it should be) and SEP/SEPv2’s missing turret improvements.
-ZTZ-99A’s missing spall liners.
-Leopard 2PL’s missing spall liners.
-Leopard 2PSO’s missing spall liners.
-Type 10’s armor holes.
Ideally, they would BOTH model these modules AND proper armor. That way, penetrating shots are rewarded while non-penetrating shots are punished. Instead, now, practically every shot is rewarded because half the tanks are missing chunks of their armor.
TLDR: give MBTs their modules… but also give them the armor they actually have to protect them.
