Tank knocked out picture in MBT and survivability

[Aeraaa]

OK first of all I want to say that although I have served in the army of my country, I have never seen an armored vehicle manned by real life soldiers get hit by an anti tank weapon. For that I'm very grateful of course as this is not something I'm dying to witness with my own eyes, but this raises a question from my part:

Is the burning tank wrecks in WinSP games a little bit off? I mean, there are 2 different pictures in this game. In the first one a tank is fully burning (and also generates extra permanent smoke in the adjacent hexes)and in the other just a few smoke rises from its steel carcass. While in the first one there are frequent surviving tank, APC whatever crews, in the latter there's exactly 0% chance of survival. However the first one seems definitely more catestrophic than the second one. Can somebody explain that to me?