I would also assume the tank deformed pretty good and absorbed much of the energy. Hard for me to envision the bullet still having enough velocity to kill.
“I would also assume the tank deformed pretty good and absorbed much of the energy.”
I was thinking that the tank in question might have acted like the head of a modern golf club (a driver) or an aluminum baseball bat. They deform on impact with the ball, but not beyond their elastic range. When they pop back into shape, they impart a lot of stored energy to the ball; and that’s why the ball goes further than it would have (if hit by a “wood” or a wooden bat). All this physics happens in a small fraction of a second.
If the tank were just a little less resilient, then your scenario would have played out.