- All vehicles abandon on destruction every time. But they're in a special state where they have almost no armor and only 80 HP.
- After 3 seconds, the engine catches fire, the vehicle self destructs, and it becomes a wreck.
- If an engineer squad reaches the vehicle within three seconds, they stop the auto destruct timer, and can "capture" the vehicle. This takes around 20 seconds. The vehicle then disappears from the map and can be called in as an off map by the player who captured it.
So this way, abandon is more like an ambush mechanic where you keep an engineer squad in waiting and then have them try to seize the vehicle. It doesn't net you the resources of the vehicle (so you can't abuse it on your own vehicles) but it let's you get a vehicle you wouldn't normally have. So think USF trying to get an Elefant, or Ost getting a Comet from the Brits.