All,
Please bear with me as I post this picture purely in jest:
But if we're saying "There is no way to know that it is no longer a threat," we're clearly having some sort of miscommunication.
Can we agree that:
-Sometimes you shoot at a tank and you can't tell if it's out of action.
-Sometimes you shoot at a tank and you can tell it's out of action.
With regards to rules mechanism, delayed results of firing (player A shoots at player B's unit, but player B doesn't roll to determine the effects of said firing until it's time to activate the target at some point in the future) is cool for throwing some stuff in the game, but it's not altogether realistic.
It's realistic with regards to Troopwo's example above (you hit a Ferdinand with a 6-pounder and there is no visible change, it just sits there*) in that the firer doesn't know the damage his round did or didn't cause, but it's not realistic with regards to the a scenario in which a Tiger blasts a Sherman and the damn turret pops off and lands 50m from the chassis. I would imagine the Tiger would not continue to pour five more 88mm rounds into the Sherman, which could actually be the player's decision if you're playing a set of rules with delayed fire results. Wouldn't it seem pretty silly for the Tiger to fire five more rounds into the Sherman, particularly if there are five more Shermans closing in on his position?
*Though I would question how long the firer would allow it to just sit there and still consider it a threat; I hit an advancing Ferdinand with a 6-pounder and it stops and just sits there. My guys reload and I'm about to fire again, but then it occurs to me it's been ten seconds and the Ferdinand has neither moved nor fired. I wait another ten seconds, still nothing. A minute goes by, then thirty. The next thing you know I've been staring at a Ferdinand for a full two hours, and it hasn't done a thing. Is it a threat or not? Should my toy soldiers have been forced to keep firing or not? What are the chances that my 6-pounder fires off its entire load of ammo and the situation remains entirely unchanged?
My point here is that I don't think you should make player's do things. What would you have done in real life? If I found myself in the surreal position of having fired at a target that my weapon had almost zero chance of knocking out, but the target stopped and just sat there for a minute with not signs of 'life,' I'd either engage other targets, or send someone up on foot to check out the target, depending on the tactical situation. But I wouldn't have continued pouring rounds into it…
I suppose in that scenario you could set an arbitrary number of rounds the crew must fire at the target after the first hit, but 1) you could still end up staring at a Ferdinand and not knowing if it's knocked out or not, and 2) the number is exactly that, arbitrary and thereby not realistic as I'm not aware of any military having regulation or SOPs that state 'if you're not sure of the status of an enemy tank, fire three more rounds into it.'
EDIT: Sgt Yuengling beat me to it…
With regards to the whole situation and wanting to be realistic about it, you'd have to have an umpire roll fire results for the players, and not share them with either player unless the results were immediately visibly apparent (and that player had someone present to view said results), such as the turret popping off, or 2) the player took steps to ascertain the status (the opposing player sending a foot patrol to go check it out, the owning player trying to raise them on the radio and/or sending a foot patrol up to check it out).
Just my two cents.
V/R,
Jack