Quick question about destructible vehicles

Hey just had a quick question; pretty new to Unity, but just wondering if there's any resources/advice about how to create a naval ship that is destructible. Currently I have a base mesh of a ship that will have a texture and/or deformation to indicate damage taken. In the case of critical damage in game though I wanted to use a set of a couple preset animations of the ship breaking up from explosions and I'm wondering about the best way to do this and showing interior floors and structures within the ship?

Would I need to create another model created as chunks of the ship with the interior sections modelled? If so what's the best way to do this while keeping the exterior surface "clean" and what's the best way to substitute these pieces/animation in place of the playable ship in game when suffering catastrophic damage resulting in sinking?

Thanks a lot!

 

That's not a quick question. It's a massive question. Big as a battleship.

pluralsight has a video tutorial about creating destructable buildings. Not exactly the same but should give a good starting point.

 

Not really a game design question..

Quill18 also has one, quite old but still relevent and good.

 

Normal strategy is to replace the live model with the dead model at the appropriate time. Then let the dead model do its thing.