How to steal enemy tanks?

[Anderson ABN]

Not much is more exciting than panning around a battlefield full of destroyed tanks and finding that random Panther or Tiger that you can re-crew and use yourself. I was wondering, though: is there a trick to getting an enemy tank abandoned rather than destroyed, so that I can take it?

I've tried hitting enemy tanks from different sides with different types of weaponry and usually get the same results: either 1) the hull gets destroyed and the tank is inoperable or 2) you hit the sweet spot and blow the tank to hell!

Any advice on increasing my chances of stealing an enemy's tank?

Thanks in advance!

[Vashyo]

theres no sure way to decrew tanks, just hope your shell penetrates it killing the crew inside.

You can also just get em to hull damaged state, then repair them to use them though

[JUSTIN JEW]

Aim for the tracks, try not to use the shells that can full pentrate into your engine and wowe all of ur peole
wow suche explosions

ya bro~!

different shells for different jobs, hit spacebar to change shell type
good thing to do is aim for their main gun they might leave the vehicle if they lose a track and a main gun yeah~!!
or get armor pentration shell aim for front half and kill the drivers

[Sabomoth]

To decrew enemy tanks you'll need to kill the crew by some mean. Either by killing them inside of it, by blasting it with shells, dunno if HE shells are more effective at this or not, but would make more sense. You can also destroy some part of the tanks, preferable the tracks since they are the fastest to repair(?), and stops the tank from moving, and wait around till the crew jumps out to repair, and then wait for another... and so on.

I think you are also missing one thing, are you going around trying to enter every tank, waiting for the 'Crew' icon to appear? There are far more tanks then that which you are able to recrew. Open up the Repair icon and try with that, if you can repair, you can recrew. You will have to wait till you have repaired the tank a bit before you can put people in it.

[DJSatane]

Another trick is to detrack a vehicle and if possible hide near the tank and wait for enemy to jump out to try and fix it, sometimes it may take few minutes and after while you can pick off every soldier, of course this doesnt work in heat of a battle.

[asureka]

You can detrrack it and penetrate the turret. This will make crew bail out. If tnaks is medium or light, throw AT grenade only to turret, you will have more chances not to destroy entire tank, if heavy, well, try to hit turreets roof or engine, it should blow it ant first go, just hull damage and bail out. Well, anything is possible to hapen, so do not expect easy capture. Others ways mentioned are good too

[Pezz]

As mentioned, damaging the turret/main gun is what you want, though unlike the original Men of War (not any of the Assault Squad titles) crews won't bail completely upon losing the turret. Doing this, the tank will often still drive on, getting close to where your units are stationed. At this point, you can track it to stop it dead, and providing your other units haven't opened up on it and killed it already, I found the best way to ensure your ability to recrew the tank is to get another tank of your own to point blank range. Once there, switch to APCR shells, and aim for the side, around the area of the front wheel. This will often pierce the hull, killing all crew members, and doing the least damage to the hull as a whole. This is especially true against German tanks.

Something to note though, in one particular incident, doing this to a British Cromwell will blow it sky-high, I'm not really sure why, so if it's a Cromwell you're after, do the above, but aim for the back wheel instead. A 75mm KwK will still penetrate, but it will also probably damage the hull too. Gotta love British engineering P:

[GraveDigger]

Can HE shells kill crew member?

[Pezz]

I think it depends on the size of the HE round. In real life, large HE shells would often cause spalling, which is where the inside of the tank's armour plates would shed material inwards at great speed, harming the crew, when it was subjected to significant explosive or kinetic trauma. From what I know, the 'Crew Injured' tag seen when making non penetrating hits on an enemy tank is because of this spalling, and it is possible for crew members to be killed because of this, but it would take several such shots to kill the whole crew.

Edit: This applies to fully-enclosed fighting vehicles, open-top TDs and such are extremely vulnerable to crew loss due to HE rounds.

[GraveDigger]

Originally posted by Pezzhippo:

I think it depends on the size of the HE round. In real life, large HE shells would often cause spalling, which is where the inside of the tank's armour plates would shed material inwards at great speed, harming the crew, when it was subjected to significant explosive or kinetic trauma. From what I know, the 'Crew Injured' tag seen when making non penetrating hits on an enemy tank is because of this spalling, and it is possible for crew members to be killed because of this, but it would take several such shots to kill the whole crew.

Edit: This applies to fully-enclosed fighting vehicles, open-top TDs and such are extremely vulnerable to crew loss due to HE rounds.

Yes thats what I meant. I'm currently playing a lot of Theatre of War (which has the same publisher I think and is quite similar to MoW just in a bigger scale and more realism) and there you can decrew tanks with explosives IIRC. So I was confused if it is possible here or if the "crew injured" just means "crew stunned".

[Pezz]

Probably both, I think if you were showered by bits of potentially molten metal, you'd be pretty stunned! (And it'd hurt like hell) xD

[Vashyo]

HE-shells wont kill crew inside, you see "crew injured" but it only just shocks them for a split second.

HE-shells though can kill enemy tanks if the shell is big enough and enemy armor thin enough. 75-76mm HE-shell should be about enough to take out most light tanks and armored vehicles

[Sabomoth]

An easy check would be to use the editor, create some tanks with only HE shells, have them blast at another tank and check if it gets decrewed or not. :P
But it would make proper sense if they would get hurt and not just stunned. But havent taken note to this when i have played as i said.

[Anderson ABN]

Ok, thanks everyone for your input! I'm about to try your suggestions.

[Talibaj]

Hope this getting bumped..... If enemy vehicle was left behind by their troops, how do I hijack it?

[kpx]

Old bump ftw. If it is in a non hull damaged condition, you can simply insert your own troops as the new crew and possibly drive away, otherwise, repair it and drive away. If you cannot repair it, it is likely the hull has been destroyed.