A catastrophic kill, K-Kill or complete kill is damage inflicted on an

armored vehicle Military vehicles are commonly armoured (or armored; see spelling differences) to withstand the impact of shrapnel, bullets, shells, rockets, and missiles, protecting the personnel inside from enemy fire. Such vehicles include armoured fighti ...

that renders it permanently non-functional (most commonly via

fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition ...

and/or an

explosion An explosion is a rapid expansion in volume associated with an extreme outward release of energy, usually with the generation of high temperatures and release of high-pressure gases. Supersonic explosions created by high explosives are kno ...

). Among

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful e ...

crewmen it is also commonly known as a ''brew up'', coined from the British World War II term for lighting a fire in order to brew

tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and north ...

. The expression arose because British troops used an old petrol tin with holes punched in the side as a makeshift stove on which to brew their tea. The flames licking out of the holes in the side of the tin resembled a burning tank and thus the expression was coined. Typically a catastrophic kill results in the ignition of any

fuel A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chemical energy bu ...

the vehicle may be carrying as well as the

detonation Detonation () is a type of combustion involving a supersonic exothermic front accelerating through a medium that eventually drives a shock front propagating directly in front of it. Detonations propagate supersonically through shock waves with ...

(

cooking off Cooking off (or thermally induced firing) is unfired weapon ammunition exploding prematurely due to heat in the surrounding environment. The term is used both for detonation of ammunition not loaded into a weapon, and unintended firing of a load ...

, or sympathetic detonation) of its

ammunition Ammunition (informally ammo) is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. Ammunition is both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines) and the component parts of other weapo ...

. A catastrophic kill does not necessarily preclude the survival of the vehicle's crew, although most historical casualties in armored warfare were the result of K-kills. This type of kill is also associated with the jack-in-the-box effect, where a

's turret is blown skyward due to the

overpressure Overpressure (or blast overpressure) is the pressure caused by a shock wave over and above normal atmospheric pressure. The shock wave may be caused by sonic boom or by explosion, and the resulting overpressure receives particular attention when m ...

of an ammunition explosion. Some tank designs employ blow-off panels, channeling such explosions outside of the vehicle, turning an otherwise catastrophic kill into a firepower kill. By contrast, the term knocked out refers to a vehicle which has been damaged to the point of inoperability and abandoned by its crew, but is not obviously beyond the point of repair. A knocked-out vehicle may be later determined to be irreparable and written off.

References

Glossary of military terms
Armoured warfare Military terminology {{mil-stub

See also

References