IRL it cuts the tail rotor drive shaft on a heli or the tail plane hydrolics and the aircraft crashes. There is SO MUCH in a plane that isn’t modeled and is just empty space. Planes/helis are FAR more durable in game than irl.
not how apfsds works. it placticises the metal. the damage is done by thickness and hardness of the material being impacted. with 4mm of aluminum skin and some copper wire. you will not be blown into a ball of gas. at most you will lose some control. but secondary controls on aircraft would counter that as well.
your right they dont. thats not how apfsds works. it would leave a tiny hole in the aluminum skin. maybe cut some wires/cables. it would not sheer the tail of an aircraft off. if you hit the engine, maybe.
you really are confused af. ‘some control’ as in your tail rotor not functioning. or tail planes not functioning. It doesn’t need to do much damage when the controlling components aren’t durable at all. Your complaint is that the tail sheers off. sure, that wouldn’t happen as often. But you would die just as much from a tail hit. You can pass a apfsds through the cockpit of a heli atm and it doesn’t do shit. Despite the complete loss of a control pannel being absolutely fatal to a heli.
You’re*
Anyway. I never said anything about the tail sheering off, but you can most definitely deliver a kill shot with a sabot to a heli’s tail - there’s plenty of components inside that don’t take well to being pincushioned by a dart - considering for all tail rotored heli’s the drive shaft most definitely isn’t 4mm aluminium and will most likely shatter. And that’s a kill right there.
Or you hit an oil line and it takes a bit longer. Heck, you hit the tail rotor and even so much as clip a blade? That’s a heli down. If you’re particularly unlucky the sheer forces of a bunch of unbalanced crap spinning around at high speed will rip the transfer case right out of the tail.
For a non-tailrotor helicopter, perhaps your point is valid, but even an empty 4mm aluminium tail will have a bad time when a sabot hits it. It’s not just the penetration damage, it’s the shockwave that follows that dart around, thin sheeting generally doesn’t do well with things like that.