I'm not sure if Ripptide is still around, but here goes anyway. I was looking over some of the units that I downloaded. I noticed that the death animation for the M1A2 wasn't quite right. I wanted to know if Ripptide or someone with his permission could correct that animation. The current M1 death has the explosion coming out from the turret ring. The M1 has two armor panels on top of and to the rear of the turret that blow out, this is to protect the crew from the ammo explosion in the event of a catastrophic kill. The explosion will be channeled up through where the panels blow off. The current death animation is awesome, and if no one wants to change it that's fine. I'm not trying to be picky, but being in the military you tend to notice things like that and it tends to urk you a little bit. Great unit though.

pretty much not gonna happen.
1. Ripptide is off making Simcity junk these days.
2. the death is basically good enough.

The general rule on units is the unit creators try to make the deaths believable and moderately realistic. So far as I know, the only vehicle death which is based on real world unit deaths is my stryker. And the extra pain in the butt vs. the nominal payoff would not be worth it to 99.99% of the unit creators. Modeling the death is amongst the most complex part of the unit creation. So the general goal is plausible not perfect. To add the complexity of having the exact panels blow off would mean you would have to add those panels to the model. You would have to animate them blowing open, flames rushing out just at those spots (much more complex) and then add some generalized damage and/or burning to the tank itself.
Most of the tools are or have been recently free. Experiment a little and you'll see.
Although on the whole permission thing, no body asks for permission to fix a problem. They just do it. This particular problem might be easier to fix in photoshop than in a 3d app, if you've a mindset to do it. Also, there is no other way to "fix" someone elses unit. You have to do it pixel by pixel or just make your own version. Make your own version happens alot more.

On the unit itself,
The death anim, flawed though it be, is one of the best animations Ripptide made for this unit. The run & attack need fixing far more.

And, finally the unit is 2yrs old. No one has seen enough of a problem with it to bother with it. And, plenty of us, including me, served in the US military.

That's cool. Like I said above, the death animation is great. I love everything about the M1 even though I am a scout. If I ever learn to do some of this stuff then maybe I will try it, but the death animation is not that important to me. Thanks, and I appreciate the feedback.

just dont get it killed and you wont have to see the death anim ;)