In this section I'll try and explain what i think the correct basic set up for a basic animtree is.
Ok first in the Anims section right click and select New Anim Tree
Ok we gave it a name and got this below, ntoice i've added a PreviewSkelMesh and a PreviewAnimSet
Here we right click on the AnimTree and add SkelControlChain
Just like this
Now to add a few controls to the AnimTree, right click on a free space to get the pop up menu, now scroll down till you get the UTSkelControl_TurretConstrained.
Select the control and edit the values to what you need, here i copied straight from the manta. After that we link each controller to the bone that it appleis to. If you scroll down to the controller section you can change the name of the controller 'ControllerName'
Here we have added a UTSkelControl_Damage, tick the bOnDamageActive box and the bOnDeathActive, here we also add the name of the staticmesh for our dead vehicle in DeathStaticMesh.
Hopefully thats all we need for now.
If you look at the other vehilces you'll see i've left out the MorphTargetSet and its AnimTree controllers, also i've left out the controllers DamageSping which control which damage mesh goes where. I'll come back to this later.