So after having an opportunity to mess around with the Tank Desant PR for a bit, I’ve noticed that the tank doesn’t really have a good way to talk to the marines around it.
The existing options (phone/comms) are generally unreliable, especially since the group that ends up escorting the tank in most cases is usually scattered bits of the various active squads. The horn can be used to rally marines, but it isn’t much use beyond being a giant whistle or “get out of the way” button. Getting out of the tank to talk isn’t generally viable in combat for a multitude of reasons.
My suggestion for this would be to allow the driver to stick their head out of the top and yell out the hatch or to give the tank some sort of megaphone/speaker to broadcast to marines around it.
Depending on how HRP realistic we want it to be, we could add a direct two-way-line tank phone(as in, only the two phones can call each other) for infantry-to-tank communications!
Its a pretty cool piece of technology dating back (For the American military, at least) to ~1943, with the M4 Sherman!
The problem with that is it has the same issue as the current phone where you need to completely stop what you’re doing and get out of the tank’s seat. The thing about getting out of the seat is it resets your view (potentially causing lag or other view-based weirdness), resets any monitoring windows you’re using for the tank, and potentially tosses you if the driver rams something at the same time. That increases the time commitment you’ll need to actually do things inside and regularly leads to instances I’ve seen where a gunner misses a potential kill opportunity or a driver lets a xeno get up to the tank.
IRL modern tanks use a headset-based intercom system for the tank crew, so that might be something to explore (e.g. what aurora405 mentioned).