A catastrophic kill, K-Kill or complete kill refers to damage inflicted on a vehicle

Vehicle

A vehicle is a device that is designed or used to transport people or cargo. Most often vehicles are manufactured, such as bicycles, cars, motorcycles, trains, ships, boats, and aircraft....

 by a weapon

Weapon

A weapon, arm, or armament is a tool or instrument used with the aim of causing damage or harm to living beings or artificial structures or systems...

 that renders it both unusable and unrepairable whereas a "knocked out" vehicle is completely inoperable but not beyond repair. Typically a catastrophic kill results in the ignition

Combustion

Combustion or burning is the sequence of exothermic chemical reactions between a fuel and an oxidant accompanied by the production of heat and conversion of chemical species. The release of heat can result in the production of light in the form of either glowing or a flame...

 of any fuel

Fuel

Fuel is any material that stores energy that can later be extracted to perform mechanical work in a controlled manner. Most fuels used by humans undergo combustion, a redox reaction in which a combustible substance releases energy after it ignites and reacts with the oxygen in the air...

 the vehicle may be carrying as well as the detonation

Detonation

Detonation involves a supersonic exothermic front accelerating through a medium that eventually drives a shock front propagating directly in front of it. Detonations are observed in both conventional solid and liquid explosives, as well as in reactive gases...

 (cooking off

Cooking off

Cooking off refers to ammunition exploding prematurely due to heat in the surrounding environment. It can also refer to a technique used when throwing grenades to achieve a controlled, predictable explosion....

, or sympathetic detonation

Sympathetic detonation

A sympathetic detonation , also called flash over, is a detonation, usually unintended, of an explosive charge by a nearby explosion. Sympathetic detonation is caused by a shock wave, or impact of primary or secondary blast fragments.The initiating explosive is called donor explosive, the initiated...

) of its ammunition

Ammunition

Ammunition is a generic term derived from the French language la munition which embraced all material used for war , but which in time came to refer specifically to gunpowder and artillery. The collective term for all types of ammunition is munitions...

 resulting in an explosion

Explosion

An explosion is a rapid increase in volume and release of energy in an extreme manner, usually with the generation of high temperatures and the release of gases. An explosion creates a shock wave. If the shock wave is a supersonic detonation, then the source of the blast is called a "high explosive"...

. A catastrophic kill does not preclude the survival of the vehicle's crew. For example, the crew of an aircraft

Aircraft

An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines.Although...

 might bail out

Parachute

A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag, or in the case of ram-air parachutes, aerodynamic lift. Parachutes are usually made out of light, strong cloth, originally silk, now most commonly nylon...

 or eject

Ejector seat

In aircraft, an ejection seat is a system designed to rescue the pilot or other crew of an aircraft in an emergency. In most designs, the seat is propelled out of the aircraft by an explosive charge or rocket motor, carrying the pilot with it. The concept of an eject-able escape capsule has also...

.

This type of kill is associated with the jack-in-the-box effect

Jack-in-the-Box Effect

The Jack-in-the-box effect refers to a specific effect of a catastrophic kill on a tank or other turreted armored vehicle in which an ammunition explosion causes the tank's turret to be violently blown off the chassis and into the air...

, where a tank

Tank

A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...

's turret

Gun turret

A gun turret is a weapon mount that protects the crew or mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon and at the same time lets the weapon be aimed and fired in many directions.The turret is also a rotating weapon platform...

 is blown skyward due to the overpressure

Overpressure

The term Overpressure is applied to a pressure difference, relative to a "normal" or "ambient" pressure, in various circumstances:* In engineering: the pressure difference over the wall thickness of a pressure vessel...

 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.