Maybe so, maybe not but the engines were far from being reliable. I.e., time after time in Blair's books there are accounts of engine trouble.
Player engagements/events tend to occur much quicker in the game vs. real life too, so perhaps the time frame before damage in the patch if thought of in that light isn't to far off ?
And of course, one can always try changing the patch parameters in the hsie.ini file.
It says very risky (whatever that means) to do so but has anyone tried ?
I've always used it and now wouldn't play the game without it to the point that I believe not using it gives the player an unfair advantage, which with the Sh3 ai is hardly needed in the first place.
I believe it was Leitender who also made a damage patch but it's only for the VIIb. I haven't looked at it enough to see if it could be made to apply to others.