I know the changing ammo key and the double tap.

Yet, the loading on the M1A1 being automatic there are some instances when the loading does not happen while there is still plenty of ammo.

Is there a key to force the crew to load?...

If the storage compartment is damaged, is there a way to make it a priority to be fixed first as in SHIII?

If the loader is killed, can he be replaced by the Driver?...Gunner?...While the TC replaces the driver or the gunner?...Those are situations that a crew is trained for in combat. The tank does not sit still in an engagement under the logic that since the driver died ie of a heart-attack, the TC has to get in touch with his "Union" to see if it is ok for someone else to drive the tank, etc...(please don't give me the answer that since the driver died, other mechanical damages immobilize the tank, ok!...There are some instances where snipers love sniping off heads peaking out of tanks, or some crew members are killed and the tank is still a viable contraption).

Not sure what you asking but if this is it... bring down the task menu from the top, under vehicle is the option to reload all, or reload certain ammo. I believe you have to be stopped for all this in the M1A1 and M2A2. When they run out, if you stop they usually reload on there own, but if you move they stop.

I know the key shortcuts for the ammo type, but what are you referring to when you say double tap? I don't remember anything requiring a double tap.

as for wounded or killed members, I'm a slacker, I usually leave and jump into another vehicle.

BTW GREAT resource for everything SB Pro PE:

http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbwiki/index.php/Main_Page

I just found this this AM.

Thanks for that ressource Mag, I did not know it . I will digest it by tomorrow.

The double tap on "insert" or "del" is when you have a certain type of ammo already loaded ie heat and want it unloaded to be replaced by a sabot, instead of asking for the next round shot to be a sabot.

The other question was pertaining a choice of priorities of broken equipment to be fixed first.

Then for a team member killed is there something where crew members can be shifted around so there is always someone loading rounds, ie the gunner get to load and I replace the gunner and move back and forth between gunner and TC.

I thought the rule was, if it is loaded in one end the only way it comes out is the other end.

I could be wrong but not sure intelligent crew management and repairs are modelled... once a driver is dead, your not going anywhere? No loader, no main gun...etc etc.

It is usually regarded as a risk to unload ~ the combustible case material is not as robust as the Brass cases of the 105mm, or the autocannons, so the base stub will sometimes tear from the case walls - this is undesirable as propellant grains will be spilt into the fighting compartment. If the crew is lucky, the stub can be reinserted into the breach and the round fired, but if it has come part-way out and the gun can't be loaded with the damaged stub correctly then the tank is essentially sidelined till the ordnance can be cleared from the muzzle end.

It is faster and safer to just fire the loaded round, then re-load the desired choice, so this is usually done. It would be possible to *not* battle carry a round, reducing the incidence of 'wrong type loaded', but this leaves the gun unloaded which has obvious downsides.

Unloading is a sensible option for the 105mm gun vehicles though - again I don't know how often this was done - I imagine it must be slower still - unload the gun, store the still live round, find the correct type, load... rather than find the correct type, load.

You will find that the ready rack is exhausted fairly fast - most Western tanks only have 11-15 rounds 'ready' and the tank needs to find a covered location to transfer rounds from stored rounds - the M1 has a slight advantage here ~ although the transfer is slower than the Leopards, it can do this with the turret forward, and the gunner still observing his POI - still better to pull the vehicle to a turret down position to reduce vulnerability. The Leopards must expose either the hull or turret flank/rear to move rounds from next to the driver to the turret bustle compartment.

Despite NATO propaganda to the contrary, the T72 actually has a comparable ammunition supply to the M1A1/Leopard 2, but has far more ready rounds ~ 28 vs 15 ish. It doesn't match in most other respects, but this could be an exploitable advantage.

That is what i believed too. Yet one of the many tutorial, they explained that it could be changed by double taping.

I immersed myself in it, to be up to the par and I realized that in some areas i.e crew management, the rules are rigid. No driver = Dead in the water. Ammo Storage damaged = Ammo storage destroyed = No main gun.

I was surprised because in some other area, this is a solid simulation!...I am gonna have to manage that baby with a lot more care!

You can change the ammunition ~ as of the last info I had, there was no failure (yet) associated with the unloading ('correct-ish' for the brass cased 100mm, 105mm, 115mm - not impossible but riskier (low level risk though) for the combustible cased types 120mm RMW, 120mm RO, 125mm).

As for 'damaged' components - if the main gun ammunition has cooked off the vehicle must (IRL) close down, traverse the turret to the side and will be virtually useless until repaired - the M1 will lose both ready and semi-ready racks - leaving only the 6 rounds in the hull storage in any case.
Extracting the driver from his position is not a trivial task in the confines of a tank, and within the context of the simulation this is only done by external assistance from an ambulance (or trigger/repair zone). If anything the death of a driver in game is benign - there is no acceleration/erratic steering/loss of braking/rolling the vehicle etc.. - the vehicle just neatly comes to a halt.

Main guns are apparently very easy to damage - Soviet artillery norms (confirmed by US testing) had virtually no difference between MBT and IFV/APC or infantry to mission kills (more k-kills for lighter vehicles, more f-kills or m-kills for heavy vehicles).

Thanks Lieste, for those perspectives, that is interesting.

Most of the initial questions seem to have been answered already, but let me throw in the one or other point:

Note that Silent Hunter is about missions that take weeks if not months at sea. The typical Steel Beasts scenario may last between an hour or three. That means, only few meaningful damages can actually be fixed in such a short time. You can swap out an engine pack in anything between 15 minutes (Leo 2 with a little cheating) and eight hours (T-72, if done by the book). You can repair the tracks in anything from half an hour in the best case ... and not at all in the worst case (like, in a waist deep watery mud hole on a new moon's night with sleet pouring at six beaufort and the important tow shackes and yor crow bar at the bottom of the pool of frozen slime where you can't feel around for the pieces simply because the entire crews' hands are completely numb already - I'm speaking from experience here (not MY experience fortunately, but a close friend's)).

When the ammo storage blows up, the crew will be very happy to still be alive. Imagine a raging fire for a minute or two, eventually combined with some serious detonations just inches from where you are, and then some fifteen additional minutes of smoldering before you can dare to leave the tank and start applying fire extinguishers. You then have a big hole in your turret with charred and twisted metal and a lot of fire extinguisher foam. How quickly do you think this can be repaired?



Typically it would be the commander to replace him as you can still perform most of your tank commander's duties from the loader's place (and that's what will happen in SB Pro; as you will see however, this is a serious simplification). But even then this begs the question of what kind of a war scenario you have in mind. Typically a crew member seriously injured you'd try to save him at least until the medics arrive, so the reality would be more like "the tank is out of combat action for at least half an hour, and will only tag along afterwards with the rest of the platoon until combat operations are over and some replacement loader has been transferred into that tank.
Another question is HOW the loader got injured/killed. Typically that would require some weapon to affect him behind the tank's armor, which means that there's probably more gone than just the loader.

I am happy to see my analogy to SHIII twisted.

In SHIII there are recovery of systems applied over minutes without cheats.

What I was referring to, was a Schematic of a tank with different department or list of systems as they appear on the top right of the monitor when the tank is damaged and the possibility to prioritize the recovery of an area or a system over another one, as the TC could decide to what to work on first with the entire crew, by clicking on it, as long of course it is fixable in the course of the scenario/mission.

Thank you for the description of German weather, I've got to enjoy German winters not from a ski resort perspective but by i.e. sleeping in snowy/icy fox holes and other situations. I was never as cold in my entire life as I was in that era. I get the point, yet trained, over-trained, motivated, frostbites on your hands you do it because no one else will do it for you and your life could depend on it, it might be much slower than on a spring sunny afternoon, but it gets done.

I did not talk about an exploded ammo storage but damage ones. I also have footage of poor guys removed from their machine having shrunk to the size of a doll, or poor fellows rolling out on the hull of their machines because their legs were still inside the smoky wreck. We are on the same wave length. A tank which armor has been exposed to certain stresses, or pierced is not a viable piece of equipment anymore, because the armor is weakened, and because the hole leads to damage systems and a shocked reduced crew and/or it's abilities. Yet again it certainly did not stop some individuals to keep fighting or as you mentioned to retreat to save what is salvageable to fight another day.

The question regarding the idea of scalable damage and fix is in relation to the projectiles used on a tank. If I was a tanker, I'd rather take a RPG any day than a 120 m/m shell or a missile in the turret, if only I had a choice. Now I might not be an aficionado of SBProPE to know whether RPG's shots by the enemy are modeled or not. A lot of different things are thrown at tanks as you know, hence questions regarding different type of damage and expedient field repairs modeled.

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy that software. Since 2007 I bought 3 dongles. Yet I am asking questions about areas I haven't thoroughly explored yet, to save time. There are a lot of areas about which I haven't asked questions because already covered in my experience or research of the game and I am satisfied at different degrees with their representations.