Good catch. I'd love to see a proper damage model that would make the vehicles look like a wreck without explosion the if the collision damage was remarkable.

The severity is too high though, it should be minor because it doesn't break/crash the game.

Should all be relevant by size and speed. I think they may blow up a little too easy right now as well. It really is a tricky fine line to warrant an vehicle exploding. I can see if you hit the gas tank and that set it off. but a direct front blow should cripple the car without it blowing up. Side hits are more prone to fuel tanks blowing up and rear end car accidents.

Direct impact to fuel tank does not result in explosion.
Reference: http://youtu.be/x8GLcSmlXm0?t=21s

In general, vehicle damage model is "Hollywoody." Individual parts should get damaged, not vehicle as a whole. In reality, a lot of time goes into making sure that vehicles are safe and do not catch fire or EXPLODE at a slightest jolt.

Of course, only catalyst of fire is the fuel, but it's the vapor that burns. In case of diesel (most of military transport is powered by it), a fairly high temperature is required to set it off.

Explosions are completely unreasonable with civilian or unarmed vehicles.

Other helicopter reference:
http://youtu.be/v5aMT9MBfZI
http://youtu.be/6EsoWpTO2qg?t=1m

Maybe the vehicles in arma 3 are supposed to be hybrid electric vehicles with large lithium-ion batteries or hydrogen fuel cells and those are what are exploding, probably not.

Agreed. Up-voted.

I agree that there this should be fixed for all vehicles, upcoming too
more proof that things don't just explode in collisions, if required:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDu0jYiz-v8
Warning: It has blood in it, but no fatalities!

Either way this shows that things don't just explode on collisions and thus helicopters/planes in the future shouldn't just explode on contact with trees.

upvoted. also see mythbusters for the results of various car mistreatments.

Yeah I agree with this... Its pretty stupid that the vehicles explode upon contact, and especially in such a dramatic way. Half the time it is funny to watch when a vehicle tries to spawn on top of another one and the resulting catastrophic explosion takes out a bunch of people, it just isn't really that great to play with.

The second one live vehicle contacts another, its pretty much lights out for both.

We are very sorry, this issue was closed as no-bug.