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Steel Armor - Blaze of War
By 33LIMA,
No, sorry, not a review, just a link to my recent mission report, as it sort of developed into a more review-like thing. But rather than now move it here, I thought I should post a link. And it's an excuse to post some screenies and offer a few more observations.
The mission report/review thing is here.
This new release of SABOW has succeeded in getting me playing a sim that I had left in a drawer for over a year, deterred by the fact I wasn't massively a fan of either of the two playable tanks, the steeper-than-usual learning curve and the 'sim within a wargame' approach (which also reduced the appeal to me of Rowan's Battle of Britain/BoB2).
However - partly thanks to elements in the new release that make it easier to get to the tanksimming - see mission report for details! - I'm now a fan. Even to the extent that I'm beginning to see the wargame side less as something to be bypassed as far as I can, and more as a feature with a lot of potential and depth; one which I can actually enjoy as I choose, as well as the tanksimming side.
Even though everybody in SABOW seems to speak Russian - possibly an advantage, as I know nothing of Farsi or Arabic and am at least beginning to learn some of the Russian terms used on the intercom- I am really digging the animated crews and the fact that all my tank commanders have names as well as unit IDs. And now I'm getting the hang of it, I'm finding there's attention to realistic crew drills that are approaching the technical excellence of Steel Beasts, with the advantage of being able to see the guys alongside me.
Panzer Elite still has more hotkeys and an interface more optimised for a tanksim rather than a wargame. Steel Beasts better implements the team radio net and the use of callsigns on the map as well as on the air. But with the relaunch, SABOW has for me the mark of a really top-tier tanksim. And I believe we can expect further updates - there have been several already, since the relaunch, including those which added 'instant action' options and now also a firing range variant, complete with on-screen tips which play out as your M60 drives up to the firing point.
Using these tips, for the first time I tried out the drill for getting a range from the tank commander. Go to the gunsight that has the simple reticle. Hit Ctrl (this gets you into 'cursor mode') and with the mouse, put the little crosshairs which appear onto your chosen target. Click on the rangefinder icon - it's the one on the left of the third-from-the-left strip of icons, below seen from the gunner's station...
...and you will then see the icon grey out briefly, hear some clicking sounds and then see the icon light up again. This tells you that your TC has ranged the target with the stereoscopic rangefinder and keyed the result into the analog ballistic computer, setting up your sight for that range. Lay your gun and fire! And you can use a similar drill for the other, graduated sight in the M60 or T-62 and get a verbal range, estimated visually instead. All rather sophisticated, and the firing range mission with its tips is just one example of how the new release's features seem intended to improve the accessibility of the tanksim element. It certainly worked for me!
I've still a lot to learn about SABOW but I'm now hooked and would definitely recommend it as a tanksim, alone, whether or not you expect to appreciate the wargame element.
Gotta go - I'm due back on the range!
Steel Armor - Blaze of War
By 33LIMA,
On campaign with the new release of Graviteam’s Cold War wargame/tanksim!
These days, Ukrainian developers Graviteam are famous principally for their PC wargames. These started life on World War 2’s Eastern Front as Achtung Panzer - Kharkov 1943 and morphed into the Graviteam Tactics series, ranging into other theatres and periods in the process. However, as many of us will know, Graviteam have also developed tanksims, not least one of my current favourites, Steel Fury – Kharkov 1942. While the latter lacks some of the more sophisticated features of tanksim classic Panzer Elite, it has some nice touches of its own and with the support of a talented modding community, still provides a top-notch first or third person simulation of fighting WW2 tanks in an all-arms battle, at platoon-to-company level.
Combining the wargame and tanksim genres is Steel Armour – Blaze of War (SABOW), dating from 2011 and now re-released with the game engine of the Graviteam Tactics wargame. I recently updated my GamersGate SABOW to the latest version - patches are available on the Graviteam SABOW forums as well as via GG and now Steam - and decided to give it a go. I have had SABOW for some time, but confess that I had previously been put off by its rather complex-seeming interface and somewhat difficult documentation, both of which received some attention in the upgrade. This being a combination of a wargame and a tanksim - more about how this mix works for me, later - there's a lot to learn. And I'm still somewhere along the early part of that big learning curve. So while nominally a mission report, this piece is more of a tanksimmer's first impressions of SABOW, after playing it on and off over the last few weeks.
The setting
SABOW is set in the later stages of the Cold War. The action itself centres on three single-player campaigns, following the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88), the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan (1979-89) and the middle years of the long Angolan Civil War (MPLA & Cuba vs UNITA & South Africa, 1975-2002). There is also an easy-to-use ‘quick mission builder’ with which you can in a couple of minutes plonk tanks and other units from each side onto a map and kick off the fighting, largely by-passing the ‘wargame’ element. To this, the new version has now added an ‘instant action’ option – click a main menu icon of either a T-62 or an M60A1 and you are pitched straight into a pre-set battle; no setting up involved.
The tanks
Two of the tanks featured in SABOW are playable, for the tanksim component of the game. First, there’s the Soviet T-62. This is used by the Iraqi Army in the (first) Gulf War campaign, by the Soviets in Afghanistan, and by the MPLA’s Cuban ‘advisors’ in the Angola campaign. Second, there’s the US M60A1, used by the Iranian Army in the Gulf War campaign. Yes that’s right – there are no playable units for the anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan or for the UNITA/South African side in the Angolan campaign – for those campaigns, you can only fight in the T-62. Which was quite a tank, in its day, despite famously taking a hiding from Israeli Centurions in the ‘Valley of Tears’ during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The T-62 introduced smoothbore guns firing fin-stabilised discarding sabot AP rounds to mainstream tank warfare and with decent armour and a low, ballistically-well-shaped profile, it was a tank to be reckoned with, in its day. The M60A1 needs little introduction to any tank enthusiast. The successor to the post-WW2 M47 and M48 Patton tanks and still in widespread service a half-century after the original version appeared, the tall but sleek M60A1 boasts the famous British L7 105mm rifled tank gun, a stereoscopic rangefinder and a good combat record...not least with the Iranian Army, as featured in this sim and seen in the screenshot at the top of this post, in one of the several paint schemes you can select. The playable SABOW tanks have excellent animated interiors, to which the new release has made some improvements (including more readable internal signage!) Below is the M60A1 turret interior, seen from the loader's position. Standing to the right is the Tank Commander. Seated to the left, ahead of him, is the gunner. You can just about see the driver, lower down, below and left of the breech of the 105mm main gun. All crew figures are nicely animated. Below is the first-person view of the Tank Commander, hands on the controls of his rotating, machine-gun-armed cupola. The sights and view ports you can see here are all usable, as are those for the other crew members. To the TC's right, you can see the back of the gunner and to the left, you can just about see the loader. To the far left are the tubes in the turret rear bussle which hold the ready-use main gun rounds. The T-62 is just as nicely done. Below is the TC's closed-up view, looking across at the loader (autoloaders in Soviet tanks didn't put this guy out of a job until the T-64 series appeared). In the pic below that, is the TC's view with both crew unbuttoned, the loader dutifully manning the formidable 'Dushka' 12.7mm machine gun. There's a goodly selection of AI-manned kit in the sim, in addition to the two playable tanks. AFV-wise, this includes the Olifant (South African Centurion) and the same army's Ratel wheeled Infantry Fighting Vehicle, both seen below somewhat the worse for wear... ..and as well as infantry, sundry APCs and IFVs and various crew-served weapons, there's my fave tank, the British Chieftain, here in Iranian service... Personally I would have preferred a ‘Cold War gone hot’, central European setting for all this nice kit and a couple or so more playable tanks, but SABOW's well-replicated tanks and three featured theatres are something of a novelty and the latter replicate real rather than imaginary conflicts, which is no bad thing. So, how does it all come together in practice? Let's find out how I got on!
...to be continued!
Combining the wargame and tanksim genres is Steel Armour – Blaze of War (SABOW), dating from 2011 and now re-released with the game engine of the Graviteam Tactics wargame. I recently updated my GamersGate SABOW to the latest version - patches are available on the Graviteam SABOW forums as well as via GG and now Steam - and decided to give it a go. I have had SABOW for some time, but confess that I had previously been put off by its rather complex-seeming interface and somewhat difficult documentation, both of which received some attention in the upgrade. This being a combination of a wargame and a tanksim - more about how this mix works for me, later - there's a lot to learn. And I'm still somewhere along the early part of that big learning curve. So while nominally a mission report, this piece is more of a tanksimmer's first impressions of SABOW, after playing it on and off over the last few weeks.
The setting
SABOW is set in the later stages of the Cold War. The action itself centres on three single-player campaigns, following the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88), the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan (1979-89) and the middle years of the long Angolan Civil War (MPLA & Cuba vs UNITA & South Africa, 1975-2002). There is also an easy-to-use ‘quick mission builder’ with which you can in a couple of minutes plonk tanks and other units from each side onto a map and kick off the fighting, largely by-passing the ‘wargame’ element. To this, the new version has now added an ‘instant action’ option – click a main menu icon of either a T-62 or an M60A1 and you are pitched straight into a pre-set battle; no setting up involved.
The tanks
Two of the tanks featured in SABOW are playable, for the tanksim component of the game. First, there’s the Soviet T-62. This is used by the Iraqi Army in the (first) Gulf War campaign, by the Soviets in Afghanistan, and by the MPLA’s Cuban ‘advisors’ in the Angola campaign. Second, there’s the US M60A1, used by the Iranian Army in the Gulf War campaign. Yes that’s right – there are no playable units for the anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan or for the UNITA/South African side in the Angolan campaign – for those campaigns, you can only fight in the T-62. Which was quite a tank, in its day, despite famously taking a hiding from Israeli Centurions in the ‘Valley of Tears’ during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The T-62 introduced smoothbore guns firing fin-stabilised discarding sabot AP rounds to mainstream tank warfare and with decent armour and a low, ballistically-well-shaped profile, it was a tank to be reckoned with, in its day. The M60A1 needs little introduction to any tank enthusiast. The successor to the post-WW2 M47 and M48 Patton tanks and still in widespread service a half-century after the original version appeared, the tall but sleek M60A1 boasts the famous British L7 105mm rifled tank gun, a stereoscopic rangefinder and a good combat record...not least with the Iranian Army, as featured in this sim and seen in the screenshot at the top of this post, in one of the several paint schemes you can select. The playable SABOW tanks have excellent animated interiors, to which the new release has made some improvements (including more readable internal signage!) Below is the M60A1 turret interior, seen from the loader's position. Standing to the right is the Tank Commander. Seated to the left, ahead of him, is the gunner. You can just about see the driver, lower down, below and left of the breech of the 105mm main gun. All crew figures are nicely animated. Below is the first-person view of the Tank Commander, hands on the controls of his rotating, machine-gun-armed cupola. The sights and view ports you can see here are all usable, as are those for the other crew members. To the TC's right, you can see the back of the gunner and to the left, you can just about see the loader. To the far left are the tubes in the turret rear bussle which hold the ready-use main gun rounds. The T-62 is just as nicely done. Below is the TC's closed-up view, looking across at the loader (autoloaders in Soviet tanks didn't put this guy out of a job until the T-64 series appeared). In the pic below that, is the TC's view with both crew unbuttoned, the loader dutifully manning the formidable 'Dushka' 12.7mm machine gun. There's a goodly selection of AI-manned kit in the sim, in addition to the two playable tanks. AFV-wise, this includes the Olifant (South African Centurion) and the same army's Ratel wheeled Infantry Fighting Vehicle, both seen below somewhat the worse for wear... ..and as well as infantry, sundry APCs and IFVs and various crew-served weapons, there's my fave tank, the British Chieftain, here in Iranian service... Personally I would have preferred a ‘Cold War gone hot’, central European setting for all this nice kit and a couple or so more playable tanks, but SABOW's well-replicated tanks and three featured theatres are something of a novelty and the latter replicate real rather than imaginary conflicts, which is no bad thing. So, how does it all come together in practice? Let's find out how I got on!
...to be continued!
Catch that Tiger!
By 33LIMA,
An unusual new mission for WW2 tank sim Steel Fury!
You may have seen the Royal Armoured Corps Tank Museum's superb Tiger, tactical number 131, in the recent movie 'Fury'. Here, the Tiger comes to grief after unwisely closing the range with a group of advancing US Shermans, one of which puts a 76mm round into its rear (after a rather silly-looking 'tank dance'). Rather more interesting than the tank-laden but melodramatic, macho Holywood hokum of 'Fury' is what is known of the real story of Tiger 131's last battle, which you can read about in this credible account, here. In short, the real tank came to grief during a shoot-out in Tunisia with British Churchill Infantry Tanks of 48 Royal Tank Regiment. The Tank Museum did a superb job restoring 131 but they deliberately left the scars from the battle, which you can see to this day, as I did when I visited the Museum in 2008 - note the strike under the gun tube onto the lower mantlet and one on the gun trunnion (carrying a fuel warning tag):
About a year ago, browsing the shelves, I saw a book about the tank's capture, called 'Catch that Tiger!' This would have been an automatic purchase but a quick scan showed that the book was written in a rather 'Boy's Own Adventure Story' fashion. And - despite being presented as fact - the story it told was fictional. The authors attributed the capture to a Major Douglas Lidderdale who was - supposedly - personally tasked by Winston Churchill. There really was a Major Lidderdale, but he simply helped recover the Tiger after the battle and was not involved in the capture. At least one UK national newspaper fell for this and reported the story as a wartime tale of derring-do. What any combat veteran of 48 RTR - or of Heeres Schwere Panzer Abteilung 504 for that matter - would make of this, can best be left to the imagination.
For we tanksimmers, however, something good has come of this. Elements of the story have been wrapped into a very unusual new mission for Steel Fury, made by prolific Ukrainian SF modder Lockie and dramatising Tiger 131's capture.
Of course, this isn't like Operation Flashpoint's 'Capture the car' mission; SF is a tanksim, not a first person shooter. So how on earth do you go about capturing an enemy tank, in Steel Fury? Well, Lockie found a way, like they did for real, back in April 1943!
The mission
The mission loading screen carries alternating excerpts from real accounts and from 'Catch that Tiger!' The latter adds a bit of fun, although military history nuts like me would have found sticking to the real events dramatic enough.
Here's the mission briefing. The text element comprises an opening narrative followed by a more military description of the mission; you can only see the end of it, below. To sum up - the player is no less than Major Lidderdale! For this mission, despite being a Royal Engineer officer, he's commanding a troop of three Churchill Mk IIIs, callsign 'Orca'. Ahead are another nine Churchills, callsign 'Whale', led by Lt Peter Gudgin, who really did fight in this battle and later wrote about it and tank warfare, more widely.
You can't see much of the map with the text briefing displayed. What you can see is our attacking force, marked in red unit symbols. My platoon is the three red diamonds at the bottom, amongst the other symbols which denote some soft-skinned or light-armoured vehicles. To the north (blue compass point, in SF) are the leading tanks, spread out and good to go, towards the objective, off the top of the screen. As the full briefing explains, the leading tanks will clear the way to the abandoned Tiger's reported position. Once they have located it and reported its position, the player is to move up to the Tiger and confirm that it is a runner (getting close to the Tiger will achieve this). A lorry-borne recovery crew - callsign 'Runner' - is waiting behind at our base or 'leaguer' location (callsign Bravo, with the soft-skinned vehicles). When Bravo gets word that the Tiger is driveable, they will send the recovery crew forward. The crew will de-bus, take over the abandoned enemy tank and then drive the Tiger back to British-held territory. Meanwhile, the player must protect the recovery operation.
It must be assumed that the Germans are also keen to recover their valuable heavy tank and are not just going to sit about watching, while the British attempt to do so instead!
The callsigns matter, not just because hearing them on the radio is realistic (and during WW2, the British used words or names like the ones used here, not the alphanumeric callsigns employed later). During the mission, you will hear radio appropriate messages (actually, appearing as text, so you'll see rather than hear them) which will help you understand what's happening and what you are supposed to do. 'Just Like the Real Thing', in the words of the old Airfix slogan!
I tend to break these things down into phases, as they do in real life. Broken thus into phases, the mission might look like this:
Phase 1 - advance to contact & locate the Tiger (player to the rear)
Phase 2 - secure the Tiger's location & protect the take-over (player closes with & covers Tiger)
Phase 3 - cover the withdrawal (all) Questions? None? All right, mount up chaps! Let's get cracking!
It's worth noting that there is a recommended balance for this mission, which you select in SF's options menus. anything below this setting, you get fewer or less powerful enemies; above it, the reverse. I neglected to alter this, leaving it at 5 if I recall right. This was to give me some scary moments, later on! ...to be continued!
For we tanksimmers, however, something good has come of this. Elements of the story have been wrapped into a very unusual new mission for Steel Fury, made by prolific Ukrainian SF modder Lockie and dramatising Tiger 131's capture.
Of course, this isn't like Operation Flashpoint's 'Capture the car' mission; SF is a tanksim, not a first person shooter. So how on earth do you go about capturing an enemy tank, in Steel Fury? Well, Lockie found a way, like they did for real, back in April 1943!
The mission
The mission loading screen carries alternating excerpts from real accounts and from 'Catch that Tiger!' The latter adds a bit of fun, although military history nuts like me would have found sticking to the real events dramatic enough.
Here's the mission briefing. The text element comprises an opening narrative followed by a more military description of the mission; you can only see the end of it, below. To sum up - the player is no less than Major Lidderdale! For this mission, despite being a Royal Engineer officer, he's commanding a troop of three Churchill Mk IIIs, callsign 'Orca'. Ahead are another nine Churchills, callsign 'Whale', led by Lt Peter Gudgin, who really did fight in this battle and later wrote about it and tank warfare, more widely.
You can't see much of the map with the text briefing displayed. What you can see is our attacking force, marked in red unit symbols. My platoon is the three red diamonds at the bottom, amongst the other symbols which denote some soft-skinned or light-armoured vehicles. To the north (blue compass point, in SF) are the leading tanks, spread out and good to go, towards the objective, off the top of the screen. As the full briefing explains, the leading tanks will clear the way to the abandoned Tiger's reported position. Once they have located it and reported its position, the player is to move up to the Tiger and confirm that it is a runner (getting close to the Tiger will achieve this). A lorry-borne recovery crew - callsign 'Runner' - is waiting behind at our base or 'leaguer' location (callsign Bravo, with the soft-skinned vehicles). When Bravo gets word that the Tiger is driveable, they will send the recovery crew forward. The crew will de-bus, take over the abandoned enemy tank and then drive the Tiger back to British-held territory. Meanwhile, the player must protect the recovery operation.
It must be assumed that the Germans are also keen to recover their valuable heavy tank and are not just going to sit about watching, while the British attempt to do so instead!
The callsigns matter, not just because hearing them on the radio is realistic (and during WW2, the British used words or names like the ones used here, not the alphanumeric callsigns employed later). During the mission, you will hear radio appropriate messages (actually, appearing as text, so you'll see rather than hear them) which will help you understand what's happening and what you are supposed to do. 'Just Like the Real Thing', in the words of the old Airfix slogan!
I tend to break these things down into phases, as they do in real life. Broken thus into phases, the mission might look like this:
Phase 1 - advance to contact & locate the Tiger (player to the rear)
Phase 2 - secure the Tiger's location & protect the take-over (player closes with & covers Tiger)
Phase 3 - cover the withdrawal (all) Questions? None? All right, mount up chaps! Let's get cracking!
It's worth noting that there is a recommended balance for this mission, which you select in SF's options menus. anything below this setting, you get fewer or less powerful enemies; above it, the reverse. I neglected to alter this, leaving it at 5 if I recall right. This was to give me some scary moments, later on! ...to be continued!
Il-2 '46's new supermod!
By 33LIMA,
The Community User Patch (CUP) is now available, via SAS
There have been various flavours of mod for the venerable but still outstanding IL-2 1946. Now there's a new kid on the Il-2 block and you can read all about it on the Special Aircraft Service site, here.
This new mod brings together and builds on three of the best things to happen to Il-2 in recent years - the Dark Blue World mod (DBW), IMHO much the best Il-2 add-on for Single Player use; The Full Monty mod (TFM), which was another must-have but something of a headache to download and install; and the work of Team Daidalos, whose work has improved several core features of the sim, notably the Artificial Intelligence.
Now all three are brought togther in a new evolution, the Community User Patch. There's still quite a lot to download but (i) not as much (ii) there's a torrent option and (iii) installation is just a matter of unzipping stuff into a clean Il-2 install patched to 4.12. When done you have the ultimate set of planes and maps for IL-2 from WW1 through to the jet age, compatible with the latest, TD AI and features.
CUP also includes a great set of extra mods which you can enable at will, notably one which lets you choose many more maps in the Quick Mission Builder, whereas the stock sim's choices were quite limited. You can be over sunny Spain one mission, enjoying the breeze in your open cockpit, and shivering over the wintry Ardennes, the next.
And of course there's the Pacific Theatre, with many new ships, to which you can do various nasty things.
I'm not sure which existing campaigns - notably the many great ones available over at that great resource for things IL-2, Mission4Today - will work with this and which would need tweaked, but there are some good (presumably stock) campaigns which seem to work fine with CUP, including one of my favourites, 'Blinding Sun':
So...why are you still sitting there, reading this? Go get it!
Steel Fury - the stock campaign
By 33LIMA,
Refighting the Second Battle of Kharkov in Graviteam's classic WW2 tanksim!
Despite acquiring Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942 (SF) not long after release, I only started seriously playing the tanksim years later, when modders added more (especially later-war) AFVs and generally extended SF's scope beyond the Second Battle of Kharkov in early summer 1942. So I never got around to playing the stock SF campaigns…until recently, when I decided it was a shame not to give them a tryout, at least. So that's what I did, and here's how it went!
The real battle
The First Battle of Kharkov in the Ukraine was fought in autumn 1941 during Operation Barbarossa, when the German 6th Army (later destroyed at Stalingrad) captured the city. The Second Battle - the one featured in SF - came in early summer 1942. Having thown the Germans back from the gates of Moscow over the winter of 1941-2, the Red Army's next major offensive came further south, in May 1942, with ferocious (and initially successful) concentric attacks aimed at retaking Kharkov. However, the Wehrmacht - including once more 6th Army - had been planning an attack of their own, code-named Operation Fredericus. With these forces, the Germans soon stopped and then rolled back and utterly crushed the Soviets, who had, it seems, overestimated their capabilities and underestimated those of the still-formidable Wehrmacht. A more durable and decisive victory over the Germans would have to wait…for about six months, as it turned out. The Red Army had learnt its lesson and the next big offensive, when it came, would see the tables turned and 6th Army annihilated at Stalingrad. But as far as the Second Battle of Kharkov went, the laurels belonged to the Wehrmacht. While SF does support campaigns - and I believe you can create a player profile for each - there's nothing like M1 Tank Platoon II's crew management facility. You will see your crew members moving around inside, and sitting at open hatches of, your tank. But they and the crews of your other platoon tanks ('wingmen' if you like) are annonymous. You can review each tank's/crew's achievements at the end of each mission - but that's about it. Each campaign is basically a sequence of scripted missions which, reasonably enough, follow the course of the actual battle, which you cannot change. So if you're rooting for the RKKA - the Red Army of Peasants and Workers - well, you can destroy all the fascists you like, but it's still gonna end in tears before bedtime. Sorry, tovaritch. Better luck at Stalingrad. Unit affiliation isn't a big thing with Steel Fury. Whereas the campaigns in Ultimation's classic Panzer Commander placed you from the start in a famous tank division (complete with formation insignia in the campaign selection screen) in SF you learn which unit you're with, when you see the first mission briefing. So it's all a bit anonymous, with no real sense of role-playing. However, you do get a short introductory video, with historical newsreel footage and captions which set the scene. After that, you can pick the opening mission from the list of those available for the campaign - just one, to begin with. Complete one mission and the next one in the sequence is added to the list. I think I'm right in saying that this happens regardless of whether you won or not. In my book, it's fine that you can't alter significantly the course of history, and good that you aren't stuck with having to replay unsuccessful missions, before you can progress to the next one.
The stock Steel Fury campaigns
Out-of-the-box, I believe SF provides three campaigns based on the Second Battle of Kharkov, as follows:
Friedericus 1 (Wehrmacht)
Soviet Army, Group South
Soviet Army, Group North To these, my modded install adds variants with different tanks. I opted to fight for the Wehrmacht. If I recall right, the stock Fredericus campaign starts you off in a Panzer IV with a short-barreled, low velocity 7.5 cm gun, only later getting the longer-barreled weapon with decent armour-piercing capability. If you're not 'well up' on your panzers, one grey panzer might look very much like another; but the Panzer IV below - an early Ausf. F model, with the short, stubby gun - exhibits the eight road wheels per side and the longer, boxier hull, which distinguish it from the 'six a side', more compact Panzer III, pictured below that again. And though the Panzer III's gun is a smaller calibre, in this case it has a much longer barrel and thus penetrates more armour. So...keen to start with a gun which would give me a fighting chance against the Red Army's finest, I opted to play the Panzer III version of the campaign, knowing I would get from the outset a long 5 cm gun - not as good as a long 7.5 but better than the short version of either weapon - better for dealing with tanks, at any rate. Especially big, bad tanks like these: Are you perhaps sitting there thinking 'What a wuss! Why doesn't he just man up and get on with it?' If so, I would suggest you might like to read this account of one of the Germans' most unsettling early encounters with the Klimenti Voroshilov heavy tank. Just one of them in this case, which for 24 hours single-handledly held up a German regimental combat team from 6th Panzer Division, meantime defying various attempts at its destruction. For all their poor ergonomics and comparatively crude finish, the Germans learned to show Soviet tanks like the KV and T-34 a healthy respect. Of course, the Soviets also still had lots of less formidable tanks, like different light tanks and the BT-5 'fast tank' below, with its US-style Christie suspension, speedy but lightly-armoured and with the ability to run on its road wheels instead of tracks, perhaps useful to save wear on approach marches but mechanically a wasteful concept. There might also be some British 'lend lease' tanks, I knew. The Soviet 45mm anti-tank guns were dangerous enough and their 76.2mm field guns had a good A/T capability. Weapons like this would be dug in and hard to spot, but a priority target for my tanks, in any attack. This was going to be no sinecure! The first mission!
I neglected to take a screenshot of the mission brief but the screens below show the ground and the disposition of our forces, soon after I loaded up the mission. Tanks - my platoon's Panzer IIIs - are the blue diamonds on the upper screenshot. The infantry's SPWs (Schutzenpanzerwagen, SdKfz 250 and 251 armoured half-track APCs) are the blue pointy-nosed rectangles, over to my left. In short, it's late May 1942 and my unit, Panzer Regiment 201 of 23 Panzer Division, is to support panzer grenadiers in a two-phase operation. First, we are to assist the grenadiers in destroying enemy defensive positions - marked in red on the lower map - on the nearer edge of a wood. Then in Phase 2, we are to sieze and hold the nearby village of Nepokrytoe, which is just off the top left of the map in the lower pic, a few hundred metres beyond the left-hand side of that big wood. .
As usual in SF missions and campaigns - though it's rarely made clear in briefings - you are in command of a platoon of tanks, usually three. The missions themselves tend to be for a company-level operation, a sort of self-contained or scaled down representation of a larger battle. This mission's briefing gave me a reasonably clear idea of our tasks and indicated that artillery and the Luftwaffe (which latter I saw no sign of) would be supporting us. As usual the mission briefing - 'orders' would be a better title - is in a structured format, perhaps Soviet as it's not British or US (which closely resembled and evolved into the standard NATO format, namely Ground-Situation-Mission-Execution-Service/Support-Command & Signals) and possibly not WW2 German either. I find the SF 'orders' a bit repetitive yet short on some of the detail a company commander would put into even a quickly-made plan and set out in his verbal orders to the participating platoon commanders, in the company Orders Group.
Nevertheless, having seen the briefing, it's always best to do a 'combat appreciation' before you start this sort of mission and so make a plan of how you intend to proceed. Aim - Enemy - Ground - Plan is an abbreviated format I was taught long ago (by an RM Commando officer, as it happened) and found quite useful. Should I go left, centre or right, was what it boiled down to, for Phase 1. The centre looked too devoid of cover and likely exposed to direct fire from all three marked enemy positions - a slow uphill run into the centre of a storm of enemy fire, targets on a two-way range. Looking at the lie of the land, I decided to risk taking the time to switch flanks and go left. Over there, I'd be able to make use of the dead ground the contours suggested should lie next to a road running towards the wood's left-hand edge; which road would also help me to maintain direction. Once over there, I could push up in comparative safety and from the flank, support the infantry by rolling up the enemy positions from left to right, concentrating on one at a time, instead of taking them all on at once. I could do much the same by going right flanking instead, but to get up onto the enemy's flank from a covered approach, I'd have to open up much too wide a gap with the panzer grenadiers. So left flanking it would be.
Unfortunately, in SF there's no way of discussing and co-ordinating plans with the commander of the infantry you're often supporting, or with other friendly forces. For example, you cannot temporarily assume command of the whole force and make a plan designed to integrate the fire and movement of tanks, infantry and supporting fire. Instead, your options usually are - either make and execute your own plan, or just conform to the infantry's movements, supporting them more closely and directly - tanks and infantry attacking on the same axis, if you will. I knew from past SF missions that the infantry tend just to rush straight at the objective. But I decided that this time, tanks and infantry would attack on separate axes. I accepted the risk that the infantry, motoring up to the Effective Fire Line in their nippy armoured 'battle taxis', would get ahead of me and maybe suffer serious losses before I was in position. But I like to play a more cautious, tactical game; if the grenadiers want instead to re-stage the Charge of the Light Brigade, well, on their own heads be it. C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre. ...to be continued!
The real battle
The First Battle of Kharkov in the Ukraine was fought in autumn 1941 during Operation Barbarossa, when the German 6th Army (later destroyed at Stalingrad) captured the city. The Second Battle - the one featured in SF - came in early summer 1942. Having thown the Germans back from the gates of Moscow over the winter of 1941-2, the Red Army's next major offensive came further south, in May 1942, with ferocious (and initially successful) concentric attacks aimed at retaking Kharkov. However, the Wehrmacht - including once more 6th Army - had been planning an attack of their own, code-named Operation Fredericus. With these forces, the Germans soon stopped and then rolled back and utterly crushed the Soviets, who had, it seems, overestimated their capabilities and underestimated those of the still-formidable Wehrmacht. A more durable and decisive victory over the Germans would have to wait…for about six months, as it turned out. The Red Army had learnt its lesson and the next big offensive, when it came, would see the tables turned and 6th Army annihilated at Stalingrad. But as far as the Second Battle of Kharkov went, the laurels belonged to the Wehrmacht. While SF does support campaigns - and I believe you can create a player profile for each - there's nothing like M1 Tank Platoon II's crew management facility. You will see your crew members moving around inside, and sitting at open hatches of, your tank. But they and the crews of your other platoon tanks ('wingmen' if you like) are annonymous. You can review each tank's/crew's achievements at the end of each mission - but that's about it. Each campaign is basically a sequence of scripted missions which, reasonably enough, follow the course of the actual battle, which you cannot change. So if you're rooting for the RKKA - the Red Army of Peasants and Workers - well, you can destroy all the fascists you like, but it's still gonna end in tears before bedtime. Sorry, tovaritch. Better luck at Stalingrad. Unit affiliation isn't a big thing with Steel Fury. Whereas the campaigns in Ultimation's classic Panzer Commander placed you from the start in a famous tank division (complete with formation insignia in the campaign selection screen) in SF you learn which unit you're with, when you see the first mission briefing. So it's all a bit anonymous, with no real sense of role-playing. However, you do get a short introductory video, with historical newsreel footage and captions which set the scene. After that, you can pick the opening mission from the list of those available for the campaign - just one, to begin with. Complete one mission and the next one in the sequence is added to the list. I think I'm right in saying that this happens regardless of whether you won or not. In my book, it's fine that you can't alter significantly the course of history, and good that you aren't stuck with having to replay unsuccessful missions, before you can progress to the next one.
The stock Steel Fury campaigns
Out-of-the-box, I believe SF provides three campaigns based on the Second Battle of Kharkov, as follows:
Friedericus 1 (Wehrmacht)
Soviet Army, Group South
Soviet Army, Group North To these, my modded install adds variants with different tanks. I opted to fight for the Wehrmacht. If I recall right, the stock Fredericus campaign starts you off in a Panzer IV with a short-barreled, low velocity 7.5 cm gun, only later getting the longer-barreled weapon with decent armour-piercing capability. If you're not 'well up' on your panzers, one grey panzer might look very much like another; but the Panzer IV below - an early Ausf. F model, with the short, stubby gun - exhibits the eight road wheels per side and the longer, boxier hull, which distinguish it from the 'six a side', more compact Panzer III, pictured below that again. And though the Panzer III's gun is a smaller calibre, in this case it has a much longer barrel and thus penetrates more armour. So...keen to start with a gun which would give me a fighting chance against the Red Army's finest, I opted to play the Panzer III version of the campaign, knowing I would get from the outset a long 5 cm gun - not as good as a long 7.5 but better than the short version of either weapon - better for dealing with tanks, at any rate. Especially big, bad tanks like these: Are you perhaps sitting there thinking 'What a wuss! Why doesn't he just man up and get on with it?' If so, I would suggest you might like to read this account of one of the Germans' most unsettling early encounters with the Klimenti Voroshilov heavy tank. Just one of them in this case, which for 24 hours single-handledly held up a German regimental combat team from 6th Panzer Division, meantime defying various attempts at its destruction. For all their poor ergonomics and comparatively crude finish, the Germans learned to show Soviet tanks like the KV and T-34 a healthy respect. Of course, the Soviets also still had lots of less formidable tanks, like different light tanks and the BT-5 'fast tank' below, with its US-style Christie suspension, speedy but lightly-armoured and with the ability to run on its road wheels instead of tracks, perhaps useful to save wear on approach marches but mechanically a wasteful concept. There might also be some British 'lend lease' tanks, I knew. The Soviet 45mm anti-tank guns were dangerous enough and their 76.2mm field guns had a good A/T capability. Weapons like this would be dug in and hard to spot, but a priority target for my tanks, in any attack. This was going to be no sinecure! The first mission!
I neglected to take a screenshot of the mission brief but the screens below show the ground and the disposition of our forces, soon after I loaded up the mission. Tanks - my platoon's Panzer IIIs - are the blue diamonds on the upper screenshot. The infantry's SPWs (Schutzenpanzerwagen, SdKfz 250 and 251 armoured half-track APCs) are the blue pointy-nosed rectangles, over to my left. In short, it's late May 1942 and my unit, Panzer Regiment 201 of 23 Panzer Division, is to support panzer grenadiers in a two-phase operation. First, we are to assist the grenadiers in destroying enemy defensive positions - marked in red on the lower map - on the nearer edge of a wood. Then in Phase 2, we are to sieze and hold the nearby village of Nepokrytoe, which is just off the top left of the map in the lower pic, a few hundred metres beyond the left-hand side of that big wood. .
As usual in SF missions and campaigns - though it's rarely made clear in briefings - you are in command of a platoon of tanks, usually three. The missions themselves tend to be for a company-level operation, a sort of self-contained or scaled down representation of a larger battle. This mission's briefing gave me a reasonably clear idea of our tasks and indicated that artillery and the Luftwaffe (which latter I saw no sign of) would be supporting us. As usual the mission briefing - 'orders' would be a better title - is in a structured format, perhaps Soviet as it's not British or US (which closely resembled and evolved into the standard NATO format, namely Ground-Situation-Mission-Execution-Service/Support-Command & Signals) and possibly not WW2 German either. I find the SF 'orders' a bit repetitive yet short on some of the detail a company commander would put into even a quickly-made plan and set out in his verbal orders to the participating platoon commanders, in the company Orders Group.
Nevertheless, having seen the briefing, it's always best to do a 'combat appreciation' before you start this sort of mission and so make a plan of how you intend to proceed. Aim - Enemy - Ground - Plan is an abbreviated format I was taught long ago (by an RM Commando officer, as it happened) and found quite useful. Should I go left, centre or right, was what it boiled down to, for Phase 1. The centre looked too devoid of cover and likely exposed to direct fire from all three marked enemy positions - a slow uphill run into the centre of a storm of enemy fire, targets on a two-way range. Looking at the lie of the land, I decided to risk taking the time to switch flanks and go left. Over there, I'd be able to make use of the dead ground the contours suggested should lie next to a road running towards the wood's left-hand edge; which road would also help me to maintain direction. Once over there, I could push up in comparative safety and from the flank, support the infantry by rolling up the enemy positions from left to right, concentrating on one at a time, instead of taking them all on at once. I could do much the same by going right flanking instead, but to get up onto the enemy's flank from a covered approach, I'd have to open up much too wide a gap with the panzer grenadiers. So left flanking it would be.
Unfortunately, in SF there's no way of discussing and co-ordinating plans with the commander of the infantry you're often supporting, or with other friendly forces. For example, you cannot temporarily assume command of the whole force and make a plan designed to integrate the fire and movement of tanks, infantry and supporting fire. Instead, your options usually are - either make and execute your own plan, or just conform to the infantry's movements, supporting them more closely and directly - tanks and infantry attacking on the same axis, if you will. I knew from past SF missions that the infantry tend just to rush straight at the objective. But I decided that this time, tanks and infantry would attack on separate axes. I accepted the risk that the infantry, motoring up to the Effective Fire Line in their nippy armoured 'battle taxis', would get ahead of me and maybe suffer serious losses before I was in position. But I like to play a more cautious, tactical game; if the grenadiers want instead to re-stage the Charge of the Light Brigade, well, on their own heads be it. C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre. ...to be continued!
Luftwaffe in Afrika - another day, another mission...
By 33LIMA,
Flying the next mission in FlatSpinMan's 'Afrika jaeger' campaign
It's been an eventful few days since campaign pilot Willi Jedermann arrived in North Africa! No sooner is he back at base after intercepting a Desert Air Force raid, than he's being sent aloft again, this time to catch an unidentified aircraft reported by shipping offshore. Here's the mission briefing, showing most but not all of the nicely-crafted text.
These briefings are one of the high points of FlatSpinMan's campaigns, often linking one mission with the next as only a scripted mission set can do. My only gripe is that militarily significant detail sometimes takes second place to dramatic effect - in this case, I'm not told I have a wingman! I also have a fresh aircraft, with a new 'skin' - these are I think by CannonUK and are another of the campaign's high points.
Launching the mission, I found myself at the front of the queue for take-off, ahead of a second 109 (who turns out to be flying the mission with me) and a couple of Ju 52 tri-motor transports. I checked my controls, held on the brakes and started up. I don't use 'Complex Engine Management' so I don't worry about warm-ups, prop pitch or radiator settings (though now that I'm getting more into Il-2, I might just make a start with 'CEM'). 1
I was in a bit of a hurry so didn't bother with flaps. Some right rudder, gradual opening of the throttle and locking the tailwheel as soon as I started to roll, kept me pretty straight and I was soon climbing away to the east.
Up came the landing gear then at about 1000 meters, I throttled back and waited till the other 109 had caught up...thereby confirming he was actually flying as my wingman. I was glad of the company; you never know what might be waiting out there. Opening up again, I turned to the north-east and resumed my climb, towards my patrol 'box', just out to sea to the north of my airbase. As you can see, my aircraft is still in basically European camouflage and markings; but as well as the white Mediterranean theatre rear fuselage band, she's had some attempt made at the application of desert camouflage - brown blotches on the nose and rudder and brown 'tiger stripes' on the fuselage sides; also perhaps some brown light overspray, to blend in the two-tone grey uppersurfaces. I'm fairly sure this and the other included 'skins' are based on photos of actual aircraft, many of which show just this sort of appearance, before proper local camouflage schemes were devised and applied to the Luftwaffe's aircraft in Africa. Looking out over the sea, I tried not to be distracted by the sight of the animated waves breaking on those long, alluring beaches and the crystal-clear water beyond, deepining into a typical, rich Mediterranean blue in the deeper water. Truly, on the highest settings, Il-2 '46's graphics can still be rather beautiful. And the stars of the show, the aircraft themselves, may have rather fewer polygons than the latest sims and no dynamic shadows, but inside and out, they still look great, especially clad in top-notch 'skins' of the sort that come with FlatspinMan's campaigns. Not far from the coastline I could see a pair of medium-sized ships, possibly the ones who had complained of the attentions of the suspect aircraft which I'd been sent up to investigate and if nececsary, despatch. A short disatnce behind them, to the east, was another, smaller vessel; evidently a warship, from her more slender beam. As we flew out to sea, I suddenly saw a cluster of grey puffs appear in the sky beside and behind us. Somebody down there was shooting at us! Doubting that poor target recognition was involved, I looked down for the culprit. It was the warship, and looking again, I could see that it was a submarine. She didn't look like a U-Boat or any Italian sub that I'd ever seen. From her stepped conning tower she looked rather like a US Gato class, but could equally have been British. Crash-diving while she could would have been a better tactic for dealing with aircraft, but perhaps she was keen to catch those two ships ahead, which she could not have done submerged and running on her electric motors. Perhaps the British sailors thought to scare us off, not realising that the Luftwaffe was now open for business in this theatre.
I circled around while considering my options. I didn't much fancy exchanging rounds with resolute and alert naval gunners. And there was still the business of that mystery aircraft, the main object of our mission and which might appear again at any moment. But some of the very shipping we depended on for our sustenance in Africa was clearly under direct and pretty immediate threat, about to be attacked by this submarine. Nothing else for it. I ordered the other 109 to attack shipping - padlocking the sub and ordering 'Attack my target' would have been more precise - and rolled in to attack. ...to be continued!
These briefings are one of the high points of FlatSpinMan's campaigns, often linking one mission with the next as only a scripted mission set can do. My only gripe is that militarily significant detail sometimes takes second place to dramatic effect - in this case, I'm not told I have a wingman! I also have a fresh aircraft, with a new 'skin' - these are I think by CannonUK and are another of the campaign's high points.
Launching the mission, I found myself at the front of the queue for take-off, ahead of a second 109 (who turns out to be flying the mission with me) and a couple of Ju 52 tri-motor transports. I checked my controls, held on the brakes and started up. I don't use 'Complex Engine Management' so I don't worry about warm-ups, prop pitch or radiator settings (though now that I'm getting more into Il-2, I might just make a start with 'CEM'). 1
I was in a bit of a hurry so didn't bother with flaps. Some right rudder, gradual opening of the throttle and locking the tailwheel as soon as I started to roll, kept me pretty straight and I was soon climbing away to the east.
Up came the landing gear then at about 1000 meters, I throttled back and waited till the other 109 had caught up...thereby confirming he was actually flying as my wingman. I was glad of the company; you never know what might be waiting out there. Opening up again, I turned to the north-east and resumed my climb, towards my patrol 'box', just out to sea to the north of my airbase. As you can see, my aircraft is still in basically European camouflage and markings; but as well as the white Mediterranean theatre rear fuselage band, she's had some attempt made at the application of desert camouflage - brown blotches on the nose and rudder and brown 'tiger stripes' on the fuselage sides; also perhaps some brown light overspray, to blend in the two-tone grey uppersurfaces. I'm fairly sure this and the other included 'skins' are based on photos of actual aircraft, many of which show just this sort of appearance, before proper local camouflage schemes were devised and applied to the Luftwaffe's aircraft in Africa. Looking out over the sea, I tried not to be distracted by the sight of the animated waves breaking on those long, alluring beaches and the crystal-clear water beyond, deepining into a typical, rich Mediterranean blue in the deeper water. Truly, on the highest settings, Il-2 '46's graphics can still be rather beautiful. And the stars of the show, the aircraft themselves, may have rather fewer polygons than the latest sims and no dynamic shadows, but inside and out, they still look great, especially clad in top-notch 'skins' of the sort that come with FlatspinMan's campaigns. Not far from the coastline I could see a pair of medium-sized ships, possibly the ones who had complained of the attentions of the suspect aircraft which I'd been sent up to investigate and if nececsary, despatch. A short disatnce behind them, to the east, was another, smaller vessel; evidently a warship, from her more slender beam. As we flew out to sea, I suddenly saw a cluster of grey puffs appear in the sky beside and behind us. Somebody down there was shooting at us! Doubting that poor target recognition was involved, I looked down for the culprit. It was the warship, and looking again, I could see that it was a submarine. She didn't look like a U-Boat or any Italian sub that I'd ever seen. From her stepped conning tower she looked rather like a US Gato class, but could equally have been British. Crash-diving while she could would have been a better tactic for dealing with aircraft, but perhaps she was keen to catch those two ships ahead, which she could not have done submerged and running on her electric motors. Perhaps the British sailors thought to scare us off, not realising that the Luftwaffe was now open for business in this theatre.
I circled around while considering my options. I didn't much fancy exchanging rounds with resolute and alert naval gunners. And there was still the business of that mystery aircraft, the main object of our mission and which might appear again at any moment. But some of the very shipping we depended on for our sustenance in Africa was clearly under direct and pretty immediate threat, about to be attacked by this submarine. Nothing else for it. I ordered the other 109 to attack shipping - padlocking the sub and ordering 'Attack my target' would have been more precise - and rolled in to attack. ...to be continued!
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