Leave it to the Hanna Barberra episode, huh?

 

You mean AKOM. Which is actually even shittier than HB.

 

Animated had some similar instances as well, they could still assume alt mode without needing all their parts to be there in alt mode.

 

Depending on the show. They were never great, but they did OK on Spiral Zone, X-Men, and Exo-Squad. Their work on TransFormers looks like crap next to Toei though.

 

...

hyperbole - Dictionary Definition

 

Early in season one, before T-cogs got mentioned, characters would complain about their transform circuits being damaged in battle sometimes preventing transformation.

Omega Supreme could leave half his body behind, travel to another solar system and transform just fine, his components would be there on another world waiting for him though.

I think Beast Wars is worth mentioning here because the toys had a lot of weapons integrated into their beast modes but in the show disarming a character like Waspinator, whose gun formed his stinger on the toy, didn't prevent him from converting into a complete wasp as their transformation worked with or without those parts on the show.

In the Sunbow cartoon there's an example I recall of First Aid taking a hiatus from the war and Defensor was seen fighting without one of his arms. I'm also pretty sure I've seen Devestator temporarily detach one of the Constructicons to perform quick tasks.

 

Depends on the limb and alt-mode. I recollect BW Megatron had his rex-head arm cut off at one point. He never transformed, but if he'd tried, he'd only be a headless dinosaur. Similarly, TFP Soundwave would be missing a wing in his UAV mode if he lost an arm and then transformed.

TFP Megs could turn into his jet mode whilst he was missing an arm, but given that arm was mainly about putting the cannon on top and didn't form the wings or engines, he could reasonably function in alt mode without it. If he'd lost a leg, where his wing folds down into, then he'd have more trouble.