tanks in Brothers in Arms

Being the typical PR material, this interview with John Antal at CVG would have usually gone into the "rehash of information released at E3" pile. Antal, a former U.S. Army Colonel and currently Gearbox's consultant for Brothers in Arms, brings up a great point about tanks in WWII shooters to date:

We've done some great things to make the armoured warfare very realistic and much more fun. When you look at tanks in some other games, it's really made me angry because they're horrible. They're just pill-boxes, they don't do anything, they're easy to destroy - they're just a joke. We've made our tanks lethal. In fact, we initially made them so lethal they always won...[You] can use bazookas and demolitions in some cases. It's not like some other games where you have to find the glowing bomb and put it on the glowing thing. That's too simple. Actually, you have to be really courageous to attack a moving tank with TNT - it can be done, but it's difficult. Getting your own tanks to help you is the best way. Infantry against tanks is a lop-sided affair. A tank is a scary thing. Have you ever seen a tank?

Obviously the last question was rhetorical - I doubt most players of WWII shooters that revel in their gritty realism have ever experienced combat first hand. This attitude confirms the reason I'm following the development of this game. If you think about past efforts like the Medal of Honor series and Call of Duty, there were sequences where you would pick up a Panzerfaust and cut loose on oncoming tanks. Predictably, after one or two placed shots the tanks would burst into flame and you could move onto the next target. Naturally, tank combat in Battlefield 1942/Vietnam isn't up for debate - realism wasn't what DICE was aiming for. Viewing the BIA gameplay preview from E3, you witness a sequence where a tank obliterates an entire section of building to eliminate a machine gun emplacement. Tanks - as well as infantry combat - is indeed a scary thing, and BIA will be doing its best to communicate these sentiments.

After the earlier announcement of the game's delay, the interview also confirms a February 2005 release.