33LIMA

Fighting a Cold War gone hot with Eugen Systems' classic PC wargame! Once upon a time, in a world before PCs... Although never a really serious player, back in the days before home PCs, I'd long been interested in wargames with miniatures - not the boardgame variety, as the model-making or collecting aspect was important to me, too. I still have the 1/300 scale metal WW2 AFVs and basic little rulebook I bought back in the 1970s. In the late 1980s I dabbled with the Cold War era and acquired a modest set of 1/300 and 1/285 miniatures from Davco, Heroics & Ross, Scotia and GHQ, basically a Soviet tank battalion with T-72s, a couple of Motor Rifle companies with BMPs, plus US and British tank/infantry company combat teams in sufficient strength to give them a fair fight, with a variety of Abrams, Bradleys, Chieftains and 432s etc. Even tiny 1/300 items like Ferret Scout Cars could look quite well when painted and were much more suitable for decent wargaming than larger models (I don't really see much attraction in skirmishes with quite large models, which seem to be having something of a resurgence of interest in the form of the 'Bolt Action' rules) For my own Cold War forays, I used an adapted version of the Wargame Research Group's 'Rules for All Arms Land Warfare from Platoon to Company Level' (June 1988) for 1925-1950 because they were the first I'd found which really tried to replicate the way armies actually operated, instead of providing (in effect) a chess game with different pieces and rules, usually underlaid with an obsessive attention to armour thickness and penetration and other theoretical weapon characteristics rather than real-world tactics and capabilities. It was like, suddenly, a set of rules had been written by real army officers, rather than by enthusiasts who can only get so much understanding of how armies really work by reading books. As I wanted to play solo, I adapted methods from the same publisher's solo wargames booklet, adding a system of drawing cards from a deck, as my force advanced, to generate realistic enemy units ahead of us. It worked quite while and while I never had enough space - and thus had to use too small a ground scale for my 1/300 units - the results could be quite pleasing, visually, played out on a grass-mat laid out with my home-made modular terrain system. In the pic below, a platoon of US Army M60A3s, sited to fire hull-down from a flank, burns as a Soviet T-72 platoon, backed up by a BMP-1, approaches a village defended now by mechanised infantry in M113 APCs and mortar carriers. In the different scenario below, a company of BMP-2s is closing in on a ridgeline objective, backed up by T-72s. BMP-1s and another pair of T-72s wait in a field in front of the village church. Below is what was likely an earlier pic in the same battle, with a T-72 platoon leading a company of BMP-2s which has yet to shake out from platoon columns into line formation for the assault. Ahead, MiG-27s flash low over smoke screens laid by supporting SO-122 SP guns, whose observation and support vehicles can be seen in the foreground. You'd think that I'd have jumped at the chance to play wargames on the PC. I have tried a few, notably the original Combat Mission and the more recent Theatre of War. But good though they could be in their way, to my mind they suffered from the same failing as some earlier paper wargame rules. They gave you a force equivalent to something like a company but allowed (or worse, effectively compelled) you the player to move around individual tanks, vehicles or soldiers. That's a chess game with different pieces and rules, not the way military operations work. If you're commanding a company-sized force, your 'pieces' are your platoons, be they tanks or infantry, certainly not individual soldiers, guns or vehicles. By and large, you deploy, move around and give your orders, not to individuals or individual vehicles, but to the commanders of each platoon. The latter carry them out, by and large using 'canned' tactics like battle drills and 'Standard Operating Procedures' or SOPs. If you're playing a wargame, in command of a force comprising maybe three or more platoons of one or more different troop types, it may be fun to pick out and send that high-morale, expert-rated fellow with the panzerfaust along that hedge to stalk that pesky Sherman. But while real-life company commanders do sometimes have to organise such things, it's not the approach a proper tactical simulation of platoon, company or battalion-level operations should take by default. Instead, your forces should come pre-organised into platoons. Barring rare exceptions, you should give your orders only to these platoons (in effect, to the platoon leaders). They should carry out your orders using standard tactics, with an absolute mimimum of player micro-management. This is the missing factor which those 1988 WRG WW2-era rules at last implemented. Having found this factor rather lacking in the PC wargames I had so far tried, and having meantime also found that simulations rather than wargames amply satisfied my interest in 'blowing [virtual] stuff up', I left it there. Until last week. On holiday in Spain's Costa del Sol, I wandered into a Game store in Malaga in search of a bargain and came across a copy of Wargame: European Escalation as a 'Super Oferta' for the princely sum of one Euro. Having an interest in both wargames and the Cold War era, I had been vaguely aware of Eugen Systems' sweet-looking 2012 PC wargame (and its 2014 development, Airland Battle), in part from watching videos like this one: For a price that wouldn't have bought me a platoon of 1/300 T-72s 25 years ago, you get hundreds of nicely-crafted AFVs and other units on a range of different maps (with a proper ground scale), set in the same era I had tried to wargame all those years ago. And with visuals aproaching that of a simulation. It was worth giving another PC wargame a try, I decided. That was a week ago. Safely back in the rather less sunny UK, this mission report describes how it worked out and what I've made of it, so far. And The Lord said, let there be pixels... Having decided to have a crack at Cold War wargaming in the computer age, I found that while my copy of W:EE came on a DVD, it was Steam-based. So installation involved downloads from that provider, which happily included some free DLC, in the form of several 'expansion pack' campaigns. The base sim provides four basic campaigns or 'operations' which constitute the main single player element. The nearest thing to a 'quick mission bulder' is a 'Skirmish' mode within single player, which enamles you to set up player -vs- AI battles. Excluding the expansion packs, the 4 campaigns comprise 22 missions, set during the period 1975 to 1985. The bad news is that if like me you thought the unlock system that came with a certain recent WW2 combat flight sim was not a good idea, W:EE will kind of put that into perspective. Yes, you can play as one of 8 different national armies, distributed between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Yes, you get a great selection of nicely-rendered playable units for each, from MBTs to IFVs to APCs and a range of support vehicles and helos. And yes, you get an impressive variety of moderately large and impressively-detailed maps, ranging over several parts of the potential World War Three European battlefield. But no, you can't actually play anything but a tiny segment of all this super content, until you have unlocked it, by playing and accumulating points. With my 1/300 miniatures, I could set up and fight a battle with any of the units I'd bought. But in creating a PC equivalent with vastly greater scope in about every respect conceivable, they decided to let you have access to almost none of this vast potential, a design decision which beggars belief...my belief, anyway. Perhaps it's somehow tied into anti-cheat measures for the W:EE muntiplayer component. But for now, all I can do is grit my teeth, swallow any sense I have of good and proper game design and begin the aptly-described 'grind' to unlock more of the things I really want to play with. Sensibly, it appears that Eugen Systems have dispensed with this concept for the follow-on wargame series - Wargame: Air Land Battle - which, as well as somewhat better graphics and fixed-wing air support, reportedly and thankfully bins the unlocks. If that's so, I would definitely consider investing in it, although the fixed-wing element can reportedly be a bit too lethal, when in a real WW3 the flyboys would on most days either have been grounded by the bad weather or attacking targets beyond the immediate battlefield...until their airfields were nuked, anyway. As for W:EE, I've tried to find some sort of cheat to unlock the content but no dice. Creating a 'private' multiplayer battle just for youself was said to enable you to get at unlocked units, possibly functioning much like a mission editor, but that didn't work for me. That would be some compensation; but at the minimum, what is really needed is for you to be able to begin any of the available SP campaigns from the get-go and to do so with a much less restricted set of available units. The alternative to playing campaigns and unlocking stuff is the aforementioned 'Skirmish' mode. This is ideal to practice, and lets you do so on any of the many maps available, like this one, for instance. These big, beautifully-rendered virtual environments are the sort of thing that would have massively exceeded my wildest dreams (not to mention my available space and my modelling abilities) as a dilletante 1/300 wargamer, back in the day. Maps galore and great warfighting terrain to boot, but as for the actual weaponry, even in this Skirmish mode, you still seem to be restricted to the kit you have unlocked at any point in time. So the darn unlock system is pretty pervasive. Anyhow, if you're now asking 'Apart from that Mrs Lincoln, did you enjoy the play?', well, that's coming next! ...to be continued!

Rather uncanny you should say that, because even from the first couple of missions, that is EXACTLY the feeling I have got from W:EE - an attachment to my virtual people, not least those magnificent men in their recce machines, who really seem to have some special skills, not to mention nine lives. It's perhaps unfortunate that despite being able to generate such immersive sentiments, the game mechanics seem heavily oriented to feeding you new units to replace losses, rather than enabling you to win with (mostly) the troops you start with...and maybe bring them through alive, too. I'd love to be able to start a W:EE campaign with a company group of three or four tank platoons, one or two of mech infantry, and a few sections of support troops like artillery, mortars, recce or ATGWs, and have a decent chance of winning my battles without throwing away my people like expendable pieces in a game, heavily reliant instead on being able to replace them. I'm not complaining, though, W:EE is a Cold War wargamer's dream come true. And if W:ALB (and W:RD, which I've yet to acquire) are in some ways better still, I'm very, very glad I have now made the series' acquaintance. I mean, what's not to love, about watching your MT-LB-mounted SA-13 launchers scanning the skies, as your T-72s dash over that bridge... ...or the sheer, explosive mayhem as your Grads MLRSs simply drench an unfortunate target with 122mm rockets... All good, clean fun!

Cool! Never fired any of those; closest I got was the HK33 that's mentioned as the progenitor of the 53, and the MP5. The latter was better than the Sterling SMG (provided the rollers didn't fall out of the bolt during cleaning) but the 33, though an elegant weapon, was a bit heavy for a 5.56 rifle. Neither came remotely close to the ergonomics of the SLR.

In conclusion... You may have gathered that there are a few things in Wargame: European Escalation that I think could be done better, which could enhance the combat simulator side of the wargame: a little more 'war' and a little less 'game', if you will. At the outset, I'd like to be presented with - or be able to choose - a more realistic, balanced force, instead of having this restricted, then expanded as the mission progresses and ground is gained. That's much the way the classic 'army lists' worked, that you used to get as supplements to 'hardcopy' wargame rules like those from Wargames Research Group and Tabletop Games. Typically there would be some 'compulsory troops' like a headquarters/command unit (in the real sense of 'unit', ie not a single vehicle) plus a tank or infantry company. This stopped you picking fantasy armies, like all Jagdtigers or the like. W:EE's follow-on, Wargame: AirLand Battle, seems more like this, with much more kit available from the outset. In a similar vein, I'd like there to be more of a focus on the role being played. The one which suits W:EE best is the company commander role. Commanding, say a company of tanks with 3-4 platoons; plus 1-2 platoons of attached infantry; with maybe recce and AA sections; and some indirect fire support. W:EE can can provide enough platoon-level AI so you don't have to micromanage individual vehicles. But it doesn't provide company-commander-level AI, able to receive and handle orders from a player acting as a battalion commander and direct platoons accordingly. For a battalion-sized force, there are far too many platoon-sized units for a player to command effectively. Even with a frantic click fest from well-zoomed out. Crafting missions so that the player acts as the boss of a reinforced company - tanks with some infantry, or infantry with some tanks - would work best. The present approach is better than other wargames I have played but the player's role, in military terms, is a little bit amorphous. The AI's Banzai charge tendencies badly need toned down, if not eliminated. Not only are they pretty wildly unrealistic, they require very rapid reactions, to the detriment of proper planning. The dreadful FOBs need replaced by something that looks more like what you might see in a combat zone - an impromptu supply dump. There is a pause function but it seems to bring you to the 'war room' view, unable to look around the battlefield. Not unrealistic and perhaps totally undesirable in multiplayer. But in single player, there are times when it would be ok to let the player to pause and take stock - or pause and take screenshots Or just admire the great graphics, closer-up than you often can, with firefights suddenly flaring up. It seems that in the recent Red Dragon iteration, developers Eugen have introduced a sort of slo-mo option, if not a pause. So as with W:ALB's binned (or reduced) unlocks, W:RD seems to indicate that Eugen are learning and applying lessons from W:EE. It would be nice, though, to see some of this fed back into W:EE, which is the 'daddy of them all' and the one which still fits best into the classic 'Cold War gone hot' scenario that used to hang over us all (and perhaps for that very reason, still I think holds the greatest appeal for the post-WW2 wargamer). More variability in SP campaign mission replays, would also be good. At present, there seems to be little, if any, such variability. in short, I'd like more of a sand-table approach to solo, single battles, with nothing locked down; and an approach to the SP campaign's missions that is less locked down in terms of units and game mechanics like FOBs and fixed zones - and more focussed on a company commander role. Make no mistake, though, what we have now in W:EE is one heck of a wargaming package. Even the features I'd prefer to have been handled somewhat differently, appear generally well-implemented and designed to deliver a great wargaming experience for both singleplayer and multiplayer sides. In this, they succeed pretty well. My frustrations so far have been mostly down to my not taking enough time to understand some W:EE conventions and procedures that are quite important to gameplay. I've thoroughly enjoyed playing out the two missions I have fought so far. As for W:ALB, I'll save that for later because I'm finding W:EE to be pretty fantastic, already. While some things have been improved and play differently, W:ALB s looking like an equally polished and immersive Cold War wargame of the kind I couldn't have dreamed I'd ever be playing, a quarter of a century ago, when the Cold War was very much a part of the world we lived in.

Revenge of the Banzai bruder...again They say that a war on two fronts has been the downfall of more than one 'enterprise of martial kind'. But this was the prospect I was now facing. Unidentified enemies had been spotted to my north-east at the very time that I was developing operations to scout and then secure the re-inforcement sector over on the west. ‘Selection and maintenance of the aim’ I was taught to be the master principle of war – contrary to John Keegan’s assertion in ‘The Face of Battle’ that such things were no longer taught at a certain military academy back in those days. In general this means deciding on a clear objective and then not being easily deflected therefrom. I had decided to open up the route for much-needed re-inforcements, starting with a recce and deploying stronger forces only if that became necessary. My main force – small as it was – would hold my pivot of manoeuvre, the key ground at the crossroads. If necessary my Chieftains and light units there would fight a defensive battle in the centre, while we brought in re-inforcements from the left flank. Then and only then, our numbers bolstered, would we pursue objectives further north. That’s what I had decided to do, and I was going to stick with that. For a while, I hope that the sector Foxtrot might be unoccupied, but the Hotchkiss has a contact with some enemy troops in a small wood. I make sure the command vehicle, coming up behind him, halts short of that location, hidden in some trees. The enemy seems just to be a squad and the Hotchkiss actually manages to suppress then destroy them. So I then bring up my M577 to take possession of the sector. Having done so, I lose no time in checking out what re-inforcements I can summon, within the 200-odd points I am being allowed. Basically, clicking top left brings up unit icons in the standard W:EE categories (infantry, tanks, recce, support, other vehicles). Only Bundeswehr units are available and in fumbling with the unfamiliar interface, I end up selecting three platoons of Lepoard 1s, a couple of single Leos (selected by accident!), two platoons of mech infantry in M113s and – fearful of another helo attack and conscious of their firepower against troops and light vehicles – another pair of M42 SP twin Bofors guns. By the time I realise that it might be a good idea to grab a third command unit, or perhaps get some artillery support, I don’t have enough points left. Each time you make a selection, you then indicate where on the map you want them to drive to; the units then appear from off-map, drive up the white arrow re-inforcement route into the sector, and head off to the location you selected for them. I am rather rushing this process - and failing to take screenshots in the process, you maye have deduced from their sudden scarcity - because by the time I have started, my crossroads position has come under attack. To the north, one or more BMPs are cutting loose on us with wire-guided AT missiles. To the north west, several small groups of tanks and light armour emerge from cover and rapidly advance on our right flank. In seconds it seems, a pair of T62s dashes down the plateau, smashes the light units I'd left in a wood on my right flank and from that wood, though both now damaged, turns right to threaten the rest of my force, downhill at the crossoads. I make some hasty adjustments to our positions down there to meet the new threat, then turn my attention back to summoning and directing the re-inforcements that will determine the success or failure of this mission. The Chieftains and surviving light units around the crossroads will just have to ‘circle wagons’ and hang on, until the cavalry arrives. Amidst the din of battle I complete selecting and deploying reinforcements, then turn my attention back to the Crossroads battle. I get there just in time to see the last Chieftain knocked out, the light armour having already gone under. My M577 command vehicle is the only surviving unit at the crossroads, but doesn’t last much longer. Some enemy infantry dismounts seem to be the only survivors from their attacking forces but, charging down the hill, they are enough to kill my command vehicle before I could order him back out of harm’s way. Now, I am going to have to re-take the crossroads all over again, then have a go at clearing the plateau at sector Charlie. Over on the left, I survey my hastily-assembled re-inforcements. They amount to a decent force, a large mixed-arms company with three Leo and two mech infantry platoons (plus two single tanks which could represent company HQ); a Hotchkis for recce; a pair of M42s for AA defence; and my sole surviving M577 command vehicle. With this force, my plan now is to attack east and re-take the crossroads. There we will re-organise and mount a hasty attack north-east, uphill and onto the plateau, destroying the enemy forces in and around sector Charlie. First task is to rush the crossroads before the single enemy infantry unit there is himself re-inforced. I have deployed my three Leo platoons in a rough inverted wedge with one mech infantry platoon on each flank and the M42s in the middle. I now begin moving my tank platoons forward in bounds, one at a time, till they can see and shoot up the enemy at the crossroads (which foe has temporarily disappeared, having been lost to sight after killing the M577). I’m careful not to get too close, for the enemy’s RPGs, fired in salvoes, can be quite deadly. The East Germans are soon spotted, put to flight then destroyed, as are the two battered T-62s. I quickly re-form my platoons into positions from which they can defend against a renewed enemy attack on the crossroads, while also being poised to step off on our next attack. Crossroads re-occupied; Phase 1 complete. The enemy seem to have gone quiet so I start leapfrogging my platoons up towards the crest of the plateau, onto which they will have no line of sight until they get there. This tension is considerable: with no artillery or recce vehicles chosen as re-inforcements, we are mostly going in blind and unsupported. My three Leo platoons race forward in short bounds, from cover to cover, one or two platoons moving while the others cover them. Just behind the leading tanks, the APC platoons do likewise. The first Leos reach the edge of the plateau and immediately get ‘eyes on’. The enemy is there and he’s coming the other way. towards us. He's mounting a new attack of his own, it seems. The first casualties are some East German mechanised infantry, pushing ahead of the rest, caught in a cornfield by my Loepards as the reach the edge of the plateau. One of my Leopards is hit hard by enemy fire, in return As you can see from the number at the top left of the last few screens, this has gone up, seemingly indicating that more friendly forces are available for deployment. But I'm fighting a fast-developing battle at the moment - most battles in W:EE seem to develop quite fast! - and that will have to wait. My priority now is to get at least another Leo platoon up onto the edge of the plateau, from where they can hit the enemy - from the flank, hopefully - as they come down from the north. As you can see in the pic below, they are already on their way, in the form of a typical Banzai Bruder operation - two UAZ 469s, basically Soviet jeeps - are making a beeline for us, undeterred by the burning vehicles of the last East German troops who tried that one. They may be jeeps but we do need to shoot them before they get too close; as you can see from their labels, they are carrying SPG-9s, which is a dangerous recoilless rifle, equivalent to the weapon carried on the famous BMP-1 Infantry Fighting Vehicle. What happens next is a bit of a burr. Hurried mouse-click orders get all my Leos up into fire positions, in a good old-fashioned firing line along the edge of the plateau. From there, our great British 105mm cannon sycthe through the ranks of our attackers, soft-skins and AFVs alike. It's soon over. Re-grouping again rapidly, I waste no time. New orders send two Leo platoons in a first bound towards the enemy Forward Operating Base at my final objective, sector Charlie. They're covered by the third platoon and the two 'spare' Leopards. More orders bring my mech infantry and SP AA guns forward, ready to follow up behind the tanks and either hold the ground they gain or lend their support by clearing closer country. There's a sudden panic when a couple of T-72s - a very dangerous foe and the newest tank the Nationale VolksArmee has - appear at the FOB. They cause a bit of damage but soon go down in another hail of 105mm APDS. Suddenly, it's all over. There were still some enemy units on the plateau, further north. I don't know if I could or should have had a crack at them but a victory is a victory, i'm not quibbling. Here's the results screen; you can scroll down to see individual results, unit by unit, friendly and enemy. I'm rather sad that I wasn't able to save any of my Chieftains, who did a grand job of holding the field alongside their Bundeswehr comrades for so long, against superior numbers and a (sometimes suicidally) determined foe.

Decisions, decisions... I dealt with the enemy tank attack from the north about the only way that I could. I leapfrogged my three Chieftains forward, into fire positions from which they could shoot the bad guys. We took some hits in return, while the flammpanzer T-55s seemed intent upon incinerating not only the surviving Fusiliers, but also large swathes of the West German countryside. After after an intense and exciting firefight, we got them all, with no serious losses. In W:EE you need to have a command unit in a sector, to be able to claim it as your own - no matter if you have completely cleansed it of the enemy or turned it into a parking lot for your tanks. So having cleared the immediate area of the Crossroads, the next step was to re-organise the Chieftains on the other side of the downed bridge, in an arc facing outward, with the surviving recce vehicles on the flanks. Ready for any counterattack. Then it's the job of one of the two M577 command vehicles to trundle up and declare possession of the zone. In W:EE, you can direct the camera quite widely, though in doing so you will not be able to reveal enemies that your own units haven't yet spotted. Below is the view of my positions as we 'go firm' around the bridge, seen from the enemy side. Bottom right is a knocked-out T-55; bottom centre, are killed Saracens. At this point, a new objective displayed reminds me of the need to hold the crossroads in sector Echo with command units. This wider view, again from the enemy side, shows my second M-577, which I have been keeping to the rear out of harm's way (short of an airstrike) now trundling forward to rejoin. This is where it starts picking up pace again. Evidently, HQ doesn't think I have enough to do, because he's now got two new jobs for me; in nearly opposite directions' to boot. Looking back from friendly territory again, to the right front, we must clear the plateau in sector Charlie. And to the left, we need to take control (=get a command vehicle into) a 're-inforcement sector', Foxtrot. It's at this point that the penny finally drops - get there, then call up re-inforcements! I even remember that this involves clicking top left, to summon new friends via that available points total. With my presently-limited forces, I decide I'll have to do this one step at a time. Sector Charlie can wait. My priority is holding the crossroads. So I send but a single recce vehicle - the trusty Hotchkiss - off to scout Sector Foxtrot. An M577 goes in his wake, ready to occupy the zone and thus open it up for reinforcements if all is clear, but also to sit tight in a convient forest, if it isn't. You can see the two, trundling off to the left in the pic below - the Hotchkiss being the one labelled as a Schutzenpanzer Kurz. And there he goes, seen closer up. As I've said before, reece units like this are a great asset in W:EE, with their ability to spot enemies you might otherwise just stumble into, often without being seen themselves. And with a 20mm autocannon, the Hotchkiss can look after itself quite well, like the British Scorpion. Incidentally, when you select and issue orders to units, you get short radio transmissions, which can be a bit un-military - for example, ordered forward, a Scorpion commander may respond rather breezily 'You'd be lost without us!' when 'Wilco, out' would have sufficed. But these transmissions do add a little flavour to the airwaves. What you may have noticed in the earlier pic above is that even as all this is happening, a white dashed line on a red rectangle, up in the direction of Sector Charlie, indicates that the enemy are not going to co-operate. Unidentified bad guys have decided not to wait for me to come after them. ...to be continued!

Well, after several replays, I finally won the second mission in the Bruder gegen Bruder campaign. The reason I won - which is probably also the reason I lost before, apart from intermittent Banzai charges - is that I finally realised that when the manual says 'you can use the white arrows into certain zones you occupy [which markings aren't visible unless you zoom waaay out] to bring in re-inforcements', it really means 'you really should...'. The other thing I learned was that it can be quite tricky, just diving in and playing quite challenging games or simulations without paying much attention to the manual and to critical game mechanics or concepts...which I suppose I already knew, but diving in is hard to resist, especially in W:EE, with its truly equisite wargaming maps and units. Anyway this, briefly, was the way of it... In mission #1, our newly-arrived Leo platoon, with a little help from a Hotchkiss carrier, managed to stomp the Banzai Bruder, despite several instances of their suicidally aggressive tendencies. In mission #2, Crossroads, still playing as Bundeswehr, we're going over onto the offensive. Specifically, the invading East Germans have been giving some British units a hard time and our first task is to link up with the beleagured 9th/10th Lancers, who have lost their CO. As usual in W:EE campaign missions, your tasks are fed to you one or two at a time ,over the course of a mission. Also as usual, they are introduced by a voiceover, providing an update on the tactical situation, accompanied by a map view which in stages zooms into a view of your actual battlefield. The immersive and professional presentation of the W:EE campaigns is a credit to the developers and harks back to the Golden Age of Sims, when sims were sims, men were men and no sheep was safe. This I believe is the crossroads of the mission's title, where a broken bridge carries an autobahn or other major road over another one. The attention to detail is lovely and worthy of a setting for an First Person Shooter. Note the ticker-tape 'news feed' display across the top of the screen, another nice little touch. Starting this mission and still not being sufficiently wise to the ways of W:EE, the first shock comes when you find out with what forces you are to link up with the British. You have a squad I would hesitate to take into a rowdy pub, let alone to a shooting war - a Hotchkiss recce vehicle, a couple of elderly M42 'Duster' twin 40mm AA guns, and two essentially unarmed M577 command vehicles (basically, M113 Armoured Personnel Carriers with a raised rear compartment). The zoomed-out view below shows the opening situation. My little party is the group of blue NATO tactical symbols (replaced with unit labels, when you zoom in) in zone Lima, bottom right. The white arrow into this zone indicated that I can use it to deploy re-inforcements...though this didn't register with me at that point, in my ignorance. The green tank symbols further north - their colour indicating they are friendly, but AI-controlled, unable to be given orders by the player - are what will turn out to be a troop (platoon) of three Chieftain tanks. Thank goodness that somebody decided to being some useful kit to this particular party. Further north again, are some mechanised infantry. These will turn out to be carried in Saracen 6-wheeled APCs, which really should not be in front line service with the British Army of the Rhine at this time (mid-1970s). There were also a couple of useful Scorpion light tanks. What I was to realise only later was that the number at the top left corner of the screen is the points value I have available, to deploy as re-inforcements. Apparently this value can increase, as you progress the mission and gain ground. For now, for want of anything better to do, I started leapfrogging my AFVs forward, keeping the vulnerable M577 command vehichles to the rear. One of the nice things about W:WE - nice, unless perhaps you are a farmer by trade - is that your vehicles actually flatten swathes of crops as they drive across fields, leaving a visible sign of their passage. When you get close enough to the nearest British units, there's bad news, then good news, and then some more bad news, roughly in that order. The bad news is that the Chieftains are noisly attacked - from the west rather than the east, in typically underhand Commie fashion - by two flights of attack helos, Mi-8s or maybe even Mi-24s. If your M-42 self-propelled AA guns are far enough forward at this point, you might succeed in shooting one down, or at least putting them off their stride. Hopefully, although your Chieftains may take some damage, they will still be in action, as the helos peel off to the north-east after making their passes. The good news is that whatever is left of the British force now comes under your command, indicated by its labels changing from green to blue. At the same time, message tells you you have completed the link-up objective and must now occupy the crossroads. Between you and this new objective is one of those rather theatrical 'Forward Operating Bases' which feature as excessively elaborate-looking supply dumps, in W:EE gameplay. The bad news is that even as you complete the link-up, the British light forces up near the crossroads are being driven back and taking losses. This is the least of your worries, for at about this time you are also being attacked - again, sneakily, from the west - by two platoons of enemy tanks. It could be worse, though, for the newcomers are T-34/85s, obsolete but not exactly harmless for they are charging your flank and are thoroughly imbued with the Banzai Bruder spirit, as they roll right at you ,over the open fields, shooting as they come. Even if you haven't got control of the Chieftains at this point, they will clobber the old T-34s, though as with your Leopards in mission #1, they can take a bit longer than you might expect, with a fairly high number of rounds off target. If unlucky, you may take some damage; but the end is never in much doubt. At about this point, the ticker-tape is telling you about developments at the UN, but you are unlikely to notice. The reason for this is that a more dangerous enemy is now mounting at attack from the direction of the crossroads itself, with roughly a company of T-55 tanks, including a couple of flame-thrower variants. If any of the Fusiliers or their Saracen APCs are still in the area at this point, this will be their cue to exit, stage left. Had I paid more attention before diving in, and had I understood properly how to do so, I think by this point I could probably have deployed substantial re-inforcements, perhaps even from the beginning of the mission. But instead, I was trying to fight a battle against waves of agressive tank-borne East Germans with three Chieftains and a few hangers-on who were barely able to protect themselves. Not a good start, really! ...to be continued!

I think you may have had this question answered already on another forum, but the Ostpak mod that came with Panzer Elite Special Edition will have most ot all of the above vehicles. What there are, will also be included in PE3, a newer mod which combines many of the PESE mods and their updates with a version of the modified .exe which introduced inter alia realistic ballistic trajectories: http://panzerelite.yuku.com/topic/482/-Panzer-Elite-three-mod-LINK-contains-Ostpak-MvR--BritPak-mo#.VYU7BEarEl8 Naturally, Steel Fury- Kharkov 1942 is a must-have for Soviet WW2 tanking. While the original release had a limited tankset in keeping with its limited scope, modders have vastly improved this, including a large increase in playable AFVs (tho many lack 3-d interiors, they all have good exteriors, gunsight/vision port views, and hatch open views). Though most only feature as playable in single missions rather than campaigns, the range of playable soviet (and indeed, German) AFVs is one of the outstanding features of modded SF. Just some of the Soviet vehicles available in the STA mod are illustrated here: http://stasf2008.ephpbb.com/t22-available-units-in-sta-mod ...plus, there's plenty of towed guns, some softskins and infantry, not playable though, including these and many other Soviet & German examples: SF also features artillery support and air support for both sides, tho it is scriped not player-controlled, both seen in action here from the German side: Longer term, SF's developers Graviteam plan downloadable content for their Cold War tanksim, Steel Armor - Blaze of War. I would be surprised if WW2 and Eastern Front content did not feature in their plans and the quality will be excellent, if their finely-modelled T-62 is anything to go by:

Ah thanks, I didn't realise the replays were recorded automatically, tho I was told that was the way to get screenshots clear of the on-screen stuff you can't turn off!

Flying a vanilla campaign in the classic WW2 sim's latest mod! You can say what you like about the newest addition to the Il-2 line, Battle of Stalingrad (BoS) - and many of us do just that! But one thing it has done for me, is stimulate my interest in its predecessor's original, Eastern Front campaigns. No mean achievement, that, for until relatively recently, I'd regarded Il-2 as mainly offering planes I didn't especially want to fly, in places I didn't especially want to fly them, to adapt another simmer's comment. At the moment, I have two installs of Il-2 1946 - one for Dark Blue World (DBW), the other for the new Community User Patch (CUP). Due to different files, units and other factors, it seems likely to take a while, before many campaigns that work in DBW or other versions of Il-2, also work in CUP, though some already do and the list is growing steadily. Both to check out the compatibility of some stock Il-2 campaigns with CUP and to indulge my new-found interest in the Eastern Front variety, over the last month or two I've been running, on and off, a standard Soviet fighter campaign, flying one of the aircraft available in BoS - the rather sleek but not especially high-performing LaGG-3. Like other aircraft before and after, this seems to have been a basically decent design which needed a more powerful engine to turn it into a competitive fighter - which it got, when its inline engine was replaced by a radial, creating the Lavochkin La-5. From this campaign's timeframe, though, the La-5 is about a year away. It's July 1941, just weeks into Operation Barbarossa, and I'm flying a LaGG-3, defending our dearly-beloved Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics against the fascist hordes of Nazi Germany. And an interesting challenge it's been, keeping my virtual neck intact, up against superior numbers of superior planes and - historically, anyway - superior aircrew. So far, courtesy it seems of some Soviet Socialistic miracle, I have not only survived, but knocked down some enemy aircraft. I'm on my fifth mission, no less...but wondering how much longer my good fortune can possibly continue. Here's the latest briefing. As you can see, it's a fairly straightforward escort job, with a hint that we might want to shoot up some stuff on the ground at some point, too. Maybe it's a difficulty setting I applied when I created the campaign, but the usual Il-2 red and blue front lines aren't shown on the map. But I'll be able to gauge the whereabouts of the enemy from the front-line target the bombers we're to escort will hit. Happily, the target's not too far off, so I can fly the mission in real time with no need to use 'warp'...which as just as well, as Il-2's never had that, relying on autopilot and time acceleration. The briefing doesn't tell me how many are in our flight, or the type and strength of the bombers. Nor do we get their or our altitudes. I put this down to a level of uncertainty, even confusion, in an air force with its back against the wall...or perhaps, against a Commisar with a small-calibre pistol and a willingness to employ it, in stiffening our resolve, should that become necessary. At the flight line, I find that there are in fact three of us on this hop. Having chosen a high enough rank to avoid the (to me) hateful chore of formation-flying - and to enjoy the extra challenge of flight leadership - I'm at the head of the queue. This being a stock mission, there's none of the newer formation takeoffs. Happily, the default Il-2 conga line is a short one, today. The current LaGG-3 I find is a nicely-rendered bird. More rounded contours in some places, inside and out, would be nice but I'm not complaining. Her authentic, subtly-weathered camouflage and national markings are convincingly-applied. There's no sign of the original opaque Il-2 markings, which looked like the over-thick waterslide transfers you used to get on plastic kits, guaranteed to blot out all but the crudest surface detail. And the cockpit, though clearly well behind the latest self-shadowed, finely-curved marvels, is still quite serviceable. One new feature the LaGG does enjoy are more rounded wheels, and very welcome they are, too. Soon, I was aloft and retracting the gear. After the crazily finnicky ground handling of BoS, takeoffs in '46 are...well, whether more realistic or not, more what I'm used to. Another, older improvement to Il-2 that the modders have wrought is the engine sounds. I absolutely loathed the dreadful external engine drone of the original sim. That's a distant memory now, so I can admire my bird in the external view without feeling that I need to turn down the sound. In fact, so much was I enjoying the external aspect of my LaGG sweeping over the Steppes, that I decided to let the autopilot fly, for a bit. There was now sign of the bombers and I thought, rightly as it turned out, that my alter ego would have a better idea than I, were they were and at what height we should be. My number three lagged (sic!) for a bit but my number two wasn't long in catching up. We perhaps tend to take for granted these days such Il-2 wonders as different planes having different individual numbers but even now, not all sims have this and it's still a fine thing to behold. Three of us had left our airfield. How many would return, and would I be amongst them? The answers would not be long in coming. ...to be continued!

Your round I think, tovaritch? Turning at bay after my pursuer, I got my second surprise of the mission when the aircraft that I'd turned into, turned out to be a LaGG like my own. Hastily looking around, I saw yet another aircraft swing past, which I realised was a second LaGG. My wingmen hadn't been to far away, evidently. Had they chased off the German who'd shot me? Could I have been hit by ground fire? I didn't think so, but I remembered top German ace Erich Hartmann's first combat. Flying as the wingman of an experienced NCO, he had abandoned his leader to make a wild and failed attack on an enemy, then got lost and turned for home. Called to order by his leader, he ended up fleeing from a fighter closing from behind...which turned out to be another 109, his leader in fact. I knew something had hit me - causing more alarm than damage, as it had turned out - but I had the sneaking suspicion that since then, I had been running away from one or more of my own flight-mates. I know the labels in Il-2 are comparatively inconspicuous. I know they disappear at longer range and are therefore arguably no more than due compensation for the limits of MonitorVision. I know you can set them to display range only, to minimise the AWACS effect. But I still like to make as little use as I can of Il-2's on-screen aids. Even if it sometimes results in certain difficulties with the gentle art of Identification Friend and Foe...not to mention occasional embarrassment. Once again, I ordered my men home, thinking that their leader needed a little time to himself, after all that excitement. I flew straight back, knowing that though not in formation, my flight-mates would not be too far away en route, should further difficult situations arise. One of the good things about Eastern Front operations is that they are often very front line stuff from start to finish, with short flights out and back. It wasn't long before I was scanning the terrain ahead, looking for my airfield. As usual, I was soon regretting that I had not taken more trouble to note local landmarks before I set off. No big deal though, for I have my path and own plane's icon set to display on the mini-map, to be called up if and when I really need it - or get lazy. Soon I was joining the circuit, watching what must have been my wingmen land ahead of me, which helped me orient myself as I lined up for my own approach. Before too much longer I was down. Grass landing strips in CUP seem to come pre-planted with a goodly supply of Cabbage Patch Kids (remember that fad?) neatly laid out either side of the runway. Even so, I prefer these grass strips to the super-conspicuous concrete runway airfields, which seem to be fewer in CUP than in stock Il-2, I am glad to say. It's been a while, so I can't recall if the four and a half kills credited in the results screen include anything for this mission. But I'm fairly sure I got that 109. This seems to be one of those campaigns (ngen rather than dgen? I'm still not really au fait with the respective characteristics of the different flavours of Il-2 campaigns) which doesn't tell you much about your flight before the mission, nor your results afterwards. If nothing else, the results screen now boasts the neat national flag background that comes with CUP...though this being World War 2 - sorry, I mean the Great Patriotic War - they should possibly be pure Soviet red, rather than Russian white blue and red. Anyway, methinks I have just about earned that drink in the Officers' Mess...or whatever the socialist equivalent may be.

Two can play at that game... Back admiring the view of my LaGG and its surroundings, I got a sudden and violent shock, when a burst of fire from somewhere astern crashed into my aircraft and sent it wobbling. I broke hard, too hard, succeeding only in inducing a power stall which quickly became a spin. For a second before flicking around and nose-down, my suddenly-unresponsive LaGG seemed to hang in the sky, a nice, big static target. I waited to be hit again, unable to do anything but hope my spin would surprise the enemy as much as it had me, go through the spin recovery drill, and hope for the best. Roughly in that order. Amazing to behold, that's about how it worked. I recovered not far off the ground and wasted no time in opening up the throttle again and trading for speed most of the height I had left. Yes, I admit it. I fled, unashamedly. Looking behind, I was relieved to see that my assailant - for I assumed it was he - had fallen well behind. Hoping my two wingmen hadn't got too far away on the route home, I countermanded my 'return to base' command and ordered 'Cover me!'. If this was just the one pesky Messerschmitt, it was time to gang up on him and give him a darn good Soviet thrashing. If he wasn't alone, well, I'd need all the help I could get. It's probably illusory but somehow, it feels safer hugging the earth, if you're being hunted, so that's what I did. The 109 was probably far enough away for me to have turned into him, but I wasn't going to do that until my wingmen had rejoined, whether the German was on his own or not. I had planned to follow the river valley below me but I realised it led away from home, so I pulled up and turned right, to cut across the side of the valley. Not a clever move. The 109 started to cut across my turn. No point delaying it any longer. I turned into him. Time to fight. As I came around, the 109 flashed across my nose. What was he up to? I pulled after him, wary that this was some sort of fascist trick to rope a Soviet dope. ...to be continued!

Soviet swings, Luftwaffe roundabouts... My plan to sneak up on somebody and give them the chop got off to a reasonably good start, despite some 'known technical issues'. Since the modders brought it to a whole new level, I’ve been an enthusiastic fan of Il-2, regarding it as still far and away the best WW2 air combat simulation, overall. But as a non-headtrack user, I don’t much like its padlock system. I’m ok that it breaks lock when other sims might maintain it but I find it a bit too choosy about when it will pick up a target, in the first place. Even at 1600x900 screen resolution, it’s hard to distinguish friend from foe, when in real life, with decent eyesight, you should be able to tell a 109 from a pointy-winged LaGG. Nevertheless, I identified what I thought was a 109; but with the padlock reluctant to pick it up at the range in question, I took my left hand off the fully-open throttle and tracked him with the mouse, as I closed in. He was a 109 all right and while I don’t think he saw me coming at first, he was sensibly refusing to fly in a straight line in a combat zone. It may be a placebo effect, but I fancy the 4.12 AI is no longer as able as it used to be, to break at exactly the point you are about to shoot, as you close in out of sight, from unten hinten. Nevertheless, though I closed the range, I didn’t get in a shot and he saw me eventually. In the merry dance which followed, the 109 used the vertical quite effectively to evade my clutches. But every time he circled around menacingly above me, I seemed to be fast and agile enough, on the level, to evade his attempts at passes, while cutting corners and othewise catching him up, as the opportunity presented itself. Finally I managed to get close enough for a decent shot - but missed, when he suddenly pulled up hard into a sustained full-power climb. Up he went, and up I went, after him. Not having dived first to pick up speed, I could sense rather than see that we were both steadily bleeding off speed; but he seemed to have the edge. As my momentum fell away, I was desperately using what control authority I had left to edge my gunsight over and onto him. Just before I stalled out, I finally got the correct sight picture and let him have it with all weapons. It was just the briefest of bursts, then my LaGG began to fall away. I knew I’d hit him squarely but apart from some pieces flying, he seemed to be still in business. Although my stalling out prevented me seeing him go down – and my lack of Russian meant I didn’t recognise the congratulations that would have been offered on the radio – I was nevertheless reasonably confident that he was at least out of the fight - and, very probably, doomed. Having recovered from my spin, somewhat lower down, I picked up speed again and cleared my tail with a climbing turn, looking around as I did so. A couple of single-engined aeroplanes where whirling around, well spaced out and apparently with no particular purpose in mind. I cut in after one of these, only to realise that I was chasing one of my wingmen. Labels back on, I picked up on a blue one and chased after him, instead. This time, having a modest height advantage, the 109 pulled the old Il-2 trick of simply levelling off and flying away at full throttle. One of my flight-mates was also chasing the Messerschmitt but was even lower than I was. Our tail chase was entirely unproductive. Once the 109 had opened out the range enough to reduce the risk of him simply turning the tables, I gradually turned away and let him go. The other LaGG I ordered to return to formation, after allowing him to chase the German a little further off. The sky around the target area now seemed completely clear so I oriented myself with the map and turned for home. I wasn’t sure where my number three had gone but my priority now was to get everybody home. I should have circled and regrouped, then headed home as a flight. But instead - perhaps because I didn't want to hang around the combat area - I just ordered everybody back to base, independently. This produced two apparent radio acknowledgements, re-assuring me that both my flight-mates were evidently still in the Land of the Living. Whatever was burning on the ground behind me, it wasn't my own guys. So far, so not-too-bad. Now it remained to get the heck out of Dodge-ski and back to base, there to celebrate our successes - and survival - over a suitable quantity of vodka. Hopefully somebody might stand us a few drinks, otherwise, what the heck, we'd just buy a round or two ourselves. Now, all we needed was the continued co-operation of the Luftwaffe, who had so far been kind enough to provide us with some nice targets and then make their exits, without overstaying their welcome. Who could ask for more? ...to be continued!

Sounds good! It's just a pity that it's not possible (if I understand right) to import W:EE or W:ALB maps into Red Dragon (which I understand has many ALB units) so that we could fight the classic NATO-WARPAC battles with the latest game engine.

"Errr...anybody here speak English?" As I admired the view in autopilot, while looking out for our charges and waiting for my number three to catch up, I realised I'd already made my first mistake on this mission. Specifically, I had ensured that of all that radio chatter I was now beginning to hear, some of it possibly rather important, I understood precisely nothing. This was because, obsessed as I am with turning off (at least until I really needed them) all on screen aids, I had disabled the text display of radio messages. Flying for the VVS, the radio traffic was of course conducted in Russian. I know that by hand-editing Il-2's config.ini you can control the number of lines of such radio messages displayed so that your monitor isn't turned into a Kindle. But I had turned it off completely. And unlike the 'speedbar' display of heading, altitude and speed, you can't toggle radio traffic text on and off, in-game. I can get by with Luftwaffe missions, but flying VVS, my radio message repertiore is sadly and very severely limited. Say again, Tovaritch? This mission was evidently going to be somewhat more tricky than it otherwise might have been. Before long, my AI alter ego - the autopilot - had made the RV point with the bombers, which could be made out as three pairs of specks, up ahead of us. They turned out to be Pe-2s, all in a rather fetching pea green upper surface finish and bombed up like they meant business. RV completed successfully, I decided it was time to take over from the autopilot. There was still some way to go to the target, though, so I reckoned I had a little longer to admire the external view. Nothing to do with the fact that it's also a good way to scan the skies, especially in a LaGG, where that deep rear fuselage rather hinders the view rearward. Finally, I heard some Soviet R/T chatter that I recognised from my last foray in a VVS campaign (the exceptionally good 'Blinding Sun', must try that again soon in CUP). It was our bombers, announcing their attack runs. Sure enough, ahead and below, I could now see the bridgehead that must be our target area. Before long, the first bomb-burst appeared, a near miss on a bridge which, if nothing else, hopefully sent some of the fascist invaders off in search of a change of trousers. Soon after, a further explosion was to be seen further west. A miss, a hit on an unseen target...or one of our bombers biting the dust? I had no idea. There was plenty of R/T chatter but untranslated, I had no particular notion what it portended. What I did know, though, was that if something bad was going to happen - or indeed, had already started to happen - anytime about now would be about right. At this point in the proceedings, I decided that I needed a bit of extra help, bereft as I was of comprehensible radio comms. So I turned on labels. As I half-expected, some of them were blue. The Luftwaffe had arrived. I rolled over and joined the party, at the same time cutting my wingmen loose with an order to attack. By this time, tracer fire was flashing back and forward up ahead, so perhaps they were already engaged; or maybe it was the Pe-2s. Knowing Soviet tracer is green and German, orange, helped me spot the bad guys, so I killed the labels and started looking for somebody I could creep up on and shoot down. No need to make this any more complicated than it has to be, is my motto. ...to be continued!

Now THAT is what I'd call a Wargame:EE/ALB mod - a W:EE/ALB Realism mod in fact! So, so many wargames pay scant attention to such organisational realities, thereby also not doing a very good job at military role-playing - if you are a front line major, you command either an infantry company or a tank company/squadron, equipped as per your army's ToE; not just any old hotch-potch of kit you choose to 'buy'. Even tho years back, hardcopy 'army lists' like the one I have in front of me now - Tabletop Games WW2 set, which things I bought mainly for the unit orbats ToEs - made some efforts to force the player to oeprate a realistic 'army', with for example 'compulsory troops' you had to use up some of your points on. I'm still struggling with basic concepts like cards and decks. Let's say that in line with typical British Army doctrine - don't think I heard it called that at the time, but anyway - of the W:EE period, you are cast in the role, for a given mission, as a major. A squadron [company] commander, say in the 19/21 Royal Lancers (Prince of Wales's), as featured in the above mission. Based on the Nov. '75 org chart I now have in front of me, I have by default: Squadron HQ with 3 x MBT (one with dozer blade), 1 x FSC [Ferret Scout Car] - planned to replace the Ferret with 1 x FV432, with the intro of the CVR(T) series 4 x Tank Troops (platoons), each with 3 x MBT 1 x Admin troop, with 1xFV432 (Ambulance) - planned to replace the FV432 with 1 x Samaritan, with the CVR(T) intro 1 x Light Aid Detachment, with 1xARV, 1 x FV434, 1x FV432 - after CVR(T), FV432 replaced with 1 x Sampson Granted W:EE may need to employ stand-ins but this or something like it is going to be what I take onto the battlefield...or the mech infantry equivalent, if I'm an infanteer not a tankie. Now, my point is, that by about this time - as you may already know - the fashion in the British and other armies was to 'cross-attach' as I believe the US Army calls it, creating in effect MIXED companies. In the above example, I might find that the Brigade or Battlegroup Commander in his wisdom has ''swapped' one of my four tank troops for a mech infantry platoon with 4 x FV432, possibly one with a Rarden turret. I'm not sure we have a 'plain' 432 in W:EE so we might need a Spartan instead (Saracens, sadly no, not by this stage). So what I'm saying, by all means offer companies as the basic building block for tanks and infantry, but if possible allow the player to exchange tank for infantry platoons or vice-versa, so that he can create a tank-heavy 'mixed company', a balanced one, or an infantry-heavy one, according to his mission. In the British Army these 'mixed companies' were called Combat Teams; a force based on an Inf Bn or a Tk Regt was called a Battlegroup, where the same principle applies. If that's not possible, then fixed companies - either tank or infantry - would make a much better basic building block. He can then make attachments without the detachments, if you see what I mean, and at least create tank-heavy or infantry heavy 're-inforced companies'. In the Bruder gegen Bruder missions I have played so far, fun though they can be, the forces you're starting with are just silly little penny-packets that no commander who wanted anything other than a bloody nose, would commit to a fight on its own, unless he was utterly desperate. Even the two-platoon combo featured here is a bit light, to my mind something based on a company HQ is about the minumum in the sort of battles and battlefields featured in W:EE, unless you're doing something specialised like a patrol or a recce: Anyway sorry about the long semi-rant - more power to your modding elbows, this is very much of what W:EE/ALB needs, to notch it up to a whole new level as a realistic combat simulator! Better still if I can also pick a stronger force, if I want less of a click-fest challenge and more time to think tactics and deal with the Banzai Bruder! Edit - just realised there IS a 'plain' FV432 APC, in W:ALB if not also in W:EE; it's with the infantry, rather than a separate vehicle:

Thanks Gunrunner, tho I do like and intend to play campaigns, that is EXACTLY the sort of thing that I think I'd like to see. The Warpac -v- NATO side is what I'm really interested in but with some ship action, Red Dragon might be a good alternative. In W:EE so far, things often happen a bit too fast. This might be fair enough to an extent...except that I'm still seeing enemy light units especially - who should really be much more circumspect - simply appear and instantly charge you, regardless of losses. In the second mission of Bruder Gegen Bruder, for example, some crazies in 2-3 BRDMs or something similar rushed us (heading, as if by magic, for the M577 command unit whose presense in sector Echo enabled me to claim it!), dashing straight across the fields of fire of two M42 SP twin 40mm guns whom I'd positioned in a hedge to overwatch the HQ. The 'Dusters' should have shredded the light armour but they only got some and the survivor(s) got my M577. The other factor is that, as you say, the AI does its battle drills (from Combat Appreciation by the commander(s) on the spot, to issuing even quick orders, to action) VERY fast...and can do that for multiple platoons simultaneously. Evidently, since they've built a 'brake' into Red Dragon, Eugen are learning and adapting, as they develop the series. It'd be good if they patched W:EE to bypass the unlocks and add the brake, and W:ALB to add the brake. In the meantime, I'll try adapting to the situation in W:EE and W:ALB, for example by keeping moves short and staying concentrated, maximising mutual support and interlocking fields of fire. And if that's possible now, pausing the action, if I want to admire the vehicles, take screenshots or just catch my breath! Regardless of such issues I'm still finding W:EE is a Cold War wargamer's delight! What I'd have given for something as good as this, 20 years ago!

To war in the China-Burma-India theatre with the American Volunteer Group! There can be few more famous flying units in the Second World War than the group of volunteer fighter pilots recruited in 1941 by retired US Army Captain Claire L. Chennault to help China turn the tables in the beleagured country's air war against the Japanese. Flying Curtiss P-40B Tomahawks diverted from planned deliveries to the RAF, the three squadrons of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) soon found themselves pitched alongside RAF and Dutch comrades into a desperate, losing battle against the post-Pearl Harbour Japanese flood tide, notably in Burma. The AVG and RAF initially mounted a spirited air defence of the capital Rangoon. But as enemy ground forces swept towards them, capturing airfields closer and closer to the city, their task became increasingly hopeless and in the end, abortive. Nicknamed 'Flying Tigers' from the insignia devised from them by Disney, the unit was of course famous for a different marking - the gaudy 'Sharkmouth' on the noses of their P-40s, inspired it is said by a similar marking seen on a photo of a 112 Squadron RAF Tomahawk, itself supposedly inspired in turn by the 'Haifisch' marking carried by Bf 110 heavy fighters of ZG 76. Fame came early to the Flying Tigers, not least thanks to the 1942 film starring John Wayne, no less, that many of us will remember from later screenings on TV. The characterisations appear but crude stereotypes today, but at the time, the desperate and destructive war in the Far East was at its height. Thanks to Chennault's experience in theatre, the Flying Tigers were early pioneers of the sort of 'hit and run', 'boom and zoom' tactics that soon became widely adopted, for combating the more nimble but less powerful Japanese fighters. The AVG fought shoulder to shoulder with British and Commonwealth comrades in Burma and after the latter's fall, to defend China's vital lifeline of supplies flown over the 'hump' from India. But those battles and others against Japanese offensives in China, were fought mainly by the AVG's USAAF successors, who inherited the nickname and the fighting reputation of the original group, which was disbanded in July 1942. The campaign There have been several AVG campaigns for IL-2 over the years but the one I'm flying here is SAS_Monty's, which was designed for the modified 4.12 version of the sim, which is what I'm mostly flying at the moment, since the arrival of the Combined User Patch (CUP) mod. You can find the download link, a campaign video and some more info, here. Another attraction for me is that the campaign features the defence of Burma, which I had read about in the detailed and generally excellent first volume of Grub Street's aptly-named South-East Asia air war history, 'Bloody Shambles'. Fans of Kipling will relish the opportunity to fight (altogether now) 'On the road to Mandalay/Where the flying fishes play/And the sun comes up like thunder/Out'a China, cross the bay'. It ain't half hot, mum! But enough of references to now politically-incorrect writer-poets and BBC TV comedies about the vital role of Concert Parties in the war in the Far East. If you are expecting to be pitched straight into desperate dogfights against Nates, Oscars and Sallys - to use the Allied reporting names for the Imperial Japanese Army's Ki-27 and Ki-43 fighters and Ki-21 bombers - well, steady there, (flying) tiger. Battleship Row at Pearl still lies undisturbed and the war in the Pacific, unstarted. Your first job - after watching the neat black & white opening video 'track' which accompanies a narrative intro to the AVG - is a ferry flight in a C-47, from Rangoon up to the AVG's real-life training base further north, at Toungoo. This starts well enough, with time to admire the plentiful scenery at busy Mingaladon airfield, just north of capital Rangoon. Like the P-40s you'll be flying later, the two C-47s on this flight - we should probably call them DC-3s, in keeping with the secrecy necessarily surrounding this surrogate US intervention - may be ex-USAAF; but for now, they're the property of the Government of nationalist Chiang Kai Shek's Republic of China. And marked accordingly. The USA isn't in this war, officially...not just yet, anyway. I'm not a big fan of civvy flight sims but I must admit I got a certain amount of fun out of flying my Dakota, as the C-47 is generally better known in the UK. It took a lot of key tapping - no fancy HOTAS setups here - but in the end I was able to trim her nicely to climb 'hands off', although what I expect was a bit of a crosswind, or maybe a bit of aileron trim she needed, made occasional corrections necessary to keep wings level. The flight up north in a heavily-laden transport was actually like one of those civilian flying challenges in FSX. The tricky bit was...well, not my pet hate, formation flying, since you don't especialy have to fly in close company with the other aircraft on this trip, though he will tell you off on the radio if you become too independent. It's first, (slowly) climbing through the clouds - a good idea, to avoid colliding with the Pegu Yomas which rise across your fligth path. You get radio becaon fixes displayed every so often but if like me, you generally 'cheat' by leaving switched on the minimap path and your aircraft's icon, such things aren't really needed. Having got above the darkening clouds, all was well, for a while. I tried to listen in to radio stations duing the flight, as the mission brief recommends, but though I tuned into both BBC World Service and Radio Honolulu, reception seemed basically non-exstent. So much for listening to Vera Lynn's latest number, to while away the dull bit of the flight. The next fun comes when it's time to descend through the cloudbase. At first all looked well, with the tree-covered foothills falling away beneath usand paddy fields appearing ahead. There's a great new Burma map included with CUP and I'm assuming this is it. The cloud ceiling was quite low and when I got to that level, the weather was suddenly awful, with visibility to match and lightning flashing, in and below the clouds, as the rain lashed down all the while. Then, in the deteriorating weather, there's the challenge of finding my destination. Finally, I actually had to land there, which was going to be tricky enough in the pouring rain, not least because the layout of Toungoo airfield was unknown to me and was going to be invisible in the murk, until i was pretty well on top of it. in the circumstances, I decided to let the autopilot handle the last leg and I'm glad that I did, because two interesting things happened, that I might otherwise have missed. First, during a spell of slightly clearer weather, we suddenly did a supply drop, which I hadnt been expecting. Next, I had a great view of Toungoo itself, the town not the airfield. At first, I thought this was Fort Dufferin, famous for a 14th Army battle to evict the Japanese in 1945. But that's in a different part of Burma. It was quite a sight, nevertheless, worth seeing, if not worth going to see, as the famous diarist Dr Johnston once said of the Giant's Causeway (sorry, to anyone from the Burmese or Northern Ireland tourist boards, who might happen to be reading this). Happily, the AI co-pilot to whom I had turned over our aeroplane seemed to know the area well enough, for despite the murk he made a faultless, if somewhat unorthodox, partial, circuit, followed by a fine landing which I would have struggled to match, at the best of times. His ground handling was pretty good, too, and we were soon stopped next to the other C-47/DC-3/Dakota. Now, perhaps, we could get down to business! But, as in real life, Claire Chennault had other plans for his newly-arrived tiger cubs. ...to be continued!

I know I said I'd likely wait till I'd played some more W:EE and that I wasn't that interested in the more northern theatre, but Wargame:AirLand Battle is in a Steam sale for £2.99 so I'm installing it now! http://store.steampowered.com/app/222750/ No patience, some people, but another bargain is another bargain! PS installation of W:ALB completed, just spending some time in the visual armoury, admiring all the kit. As with W:EE the Chieftain turret is a bit crude, possibly a compromise to cover early and later, Stillbrew versions... ...the Canadian Leopard C1 looks good but doesn't have the angular, welded turret... ...and the Saladin armoured car has a Saracen radator in front! But such quibbles aside, the variety, as with W:EE, is most impressive and the rendering generally very good. The Soviet kit is a veritable recognition manual-full of classic Red Army hardware, from tanks to IFVs and everything in between. ...and now in W:ALB I can see them, and hopefully employ them, without having to do all the unlocking. Sweet!

Given that air combat didn't seriously start until around mid-1915, I don't think we much miss Bleriot monoplanes, Rumpler Tauben, Albatros B-types etc. I'd vote for LVG C VI (or other later-war German general-purpose 2-seater), Halberstand Cl II, AW FK8, Dorand AR and one other French multi-seater, like the Caudron R 11. Much the three biggest planeset gaps in FE/FE2 are a late-war German 2-seater, the FK 8 and a circa mid-1917 French 2-seater. Ground objects, there seem to be plenty of already. A greater variety of buildings for larger towns and cities would help, plus a better building for the isolated barn or farmhouse; those are the non-aircraft items where there would be the biggest benefit.

PS I just experienced the 'blank briefings' problem with another TFM campaign I have just installed - JG53 Ace of Spades. And deleting '_ru' from the filenames of all the .properties files solved it. These files are in the folder Il-2 Sturmovik 1946/Missions/Campaign/[country]/[campaign name]. The campaign which will probably feature in the next mission report, seems to be playing ok so far, despite my leaving the Mission Pro Combo that came with CUP, enabled. ...though I should have installed this additional skin, before flying the first, training mission in an He 51, rather than use the default Spanish Civil War skin... Edit: well, bang goes that idea...'bang' times six, in fact. The third mission of 'Ace of Spades' failed to load due to a missing He 111P, obviously because that Heinkel variant is included in the TFM mod the campaign's designed for, but isn't in CUP. I have no experience of the IL-2 Full Mission Builder but I opened the mission with the FMB and after a bit if fiddling around, replaced the P version with the H2 verion. The FMB also reported a missing Somua tank and two missing vehicles. I fixed the Somua easily as the tank was there in CUP, just under a slightly different file name. I also replaced the missing Fiat and fire trucks with suitable look-alikes. The good news was, the mission now loaded...it's twelve days in to the 1940 Blitzkreig in the West and we draw a long patrol, out to the tip of the German advance. The bad news is that all but one of my AI flight-mates - six in all - suddenly nosed down suddenly after take-off, and just went straight down, into the scenery. They all piled into virtually the same spot, in fact. Maybe it's the 4.12 AI doing something odd in a mission designed for a non-TD version of IL-2. Anyway, it looks like I'll have to wait till the author updates the campaign. Pity, not least as the 109s and the landscapes have never looked better.

I had a similar problem, but in the Spitfire Scramble campaign. the fix that worked for me is here: http://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,45262.48.html Don't recall having to do that for Flying Tigers but maybe one of the other solutions in that thread will help. Despite the Flying Tigers readme saying 'unload [=disable?] Pals Mission Pro (using JSGME)' when I look at the JSGME window, I see that I have it enabled, in the form #CUP_MissionProCombo-V4122. That and true color HD skins are the only JSGME mods I have enabled. Good luck!

Vielen dank, Johan, I just hope you like them! I just played a few minutes of W:EE mission #2 and wow, it's a whole new ball game. First I realised that I could unlock a really decent amount of stuff with my small tally of Command Stars from mission #1 - so maybe unlocking is not as much of a grind as I had feared (not to mention the 'grinding' is actually fun). The unlockable content included some BAOR stuff so naturally I grabbed Chieftain, Spartan and Scimitar. plus some more Bundeswehr stuff including infantry. And having kicked off the mission, I realised that clicking top left, I can order up and deploy many of these units, up to the points total displayed up there. It's a bit like the printed 'Army Lists' you could get for hardcopy wargame rules - within the units available to you, you can choose a force up to the total points allowed for the mission. Stuff is beginning to make sense, now. But having greedily maxed out my points, suddenly I realised I had a lot more platoons to control - from two to about eight. When our initially German force won our first objective, I suddenly found that the three Chieftains of the 9/12th Royal Lancers that I had to link up with, are now under my command - I can fight with Chieftains, already!!!! Woah, yeah! Of course, I went completely mad and acted like a little kid let loose in the proverbial chocolate factory, just throwing all this new kit about the map - Chieftains, Leopards, Scorpions, M113s, even a couple of M42 SP AA guns and more besides. Organised confusion, but somehow we crushed the enemy T-34s and T-55s and beat up their FOB - which looks somewhat better, blackened by a goodly dose of death and destruction, a NATO special delivery. Managing more than a couple of units at once is whole different ballgame...well, not different, but bigger. I'm going to need to calm down, organise my force and then push it forward in an organised manner. Maintain my balance, as Monty might have put it. Same drill as the previous mission, just scaled up a bit. Oooh, I think I'm gonna have some real old fun with W:EE! This is how I feel right now; having a Deutsche Wochenschau Moment, volume turned up, player set to loop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkCUvbkXGL0

Good to see the interest is there...well, here, as many others already seem to be fans of this series. I probably need to replay the first battle as the win cost be dearly...assuming lost tanks aren't recovered unless burned out (at least one was, though). Difficult missions plus losses being cumulative sounds a bit too steep a hill to climb. Unless you thrive on climbing steep hills. I don't like missions with 'excessive' challenge, where it becomes a CoD-style replay fest to find a way to get the unit which blocked you last time. Even if I win, I want a campaign which doesn't generate a loss rate that would have brought a real army to its knees...and end up like Pyrrhus, observing ruefully that another victory like the last one will be the end of us all. I like to bring my boys home....most of them anyway, even if they have to walk because their AFVs are all wrecks :) We'll see how this goes. If there's a difficulty setting or 'cheat' which dumbs down the (enemy) AI or reduces his numbers, I may try that. A mod to replace the dreadful FOB model would be great. Even painting those towers with transparent textures, and replacing the walls with barbed wire coils, would be good. Must Google 'W:EE' and 'mods'. I may try Airland Battle after this. I can live without the fast jets and don't really fancy the Scandanavian theatre, but 'most/all units unlocked from the get/go' is a big plus. In the meantime W:EE looks like it ticks most of my Cold War wargame boxes...provided I can progress. those who have played W:EE before, am I correct in thinking that even in the 'Solo/Skirmish' mode, you are restricted to the units you have unlocked? You'd think they'd let you have free rein there. If not, it's a pity if no-one has found a Skirmish mode unlock 'work-around'....

Alle menschen werden bruder...not As planned, I couninued a cautious advance, swinging my axis from north to east as we came around the far side of the industrial zone. My intention was to hook around to the river, staying north of the small town. The aim was the same - to locate and destroy enemy forces, by fire and movement. Initially, this went much as planned, the first victims being a cuuple of T-55s we caught and smashed in a treeline. Wasting no time, I resumed my methodical advance. Moving up and around the northern edge of the industrial zone, we were soon skirting the edge of the town of Grafhorst, with tension rising steadily. Where where they? As you can see in the screenshot below, W:EE's urban areas are small but beatifully formed. As with the equally-luscious rural areas, the level of detail and the quality of the textures really are top notch; they would not be out of place in a modern tanksim. Naturally, I had better things to do, than admire all of this visual bounty. Alternately moving the Hotchkiss and my three Leos - another one of which had been damaged in the last shoot-out, incidentally - I continued to work my way around the northern environs of the town. The 'click unit-click fire position' sequence makes tactical movement - bounding overwatch, call it what you will - a pleasure to execute in W:EE. It really is a rather good way of practicing this drill, so important in real life. Real armies used to employ little models and so-called sand tables for this sort of thing. W:EE's fantastic landscapes and simple mechanics make a great substitute, whether you play from a bird's eye view or for a greater challenge, get down into the weeds to get a tank's-eye view. Marvellous stuff and the experience of practicing this drill in (virtual) action, with such excellent units and terrain, is on its own enough to make W:EE a big winner, in my books. The area just north of the town turned out to be clear of enemies, but the ground to its south was to prove swarming with the beggars. The first indication of this was a T-34-85, spotted briefly between the buildings. I moved my Leopards into the town, to come up upon his left flank. We temporarily lost sight of the T-34 but on emerging from the town's southern buildings, the first thing my Leopards saw were some dismounted enemy infantry in a cornfield. These we duly engaged, with satisfactory results. At that point, our fortunes rapidly took another nose-dive. There were two, not one, T-34s in the treeline and nosing further out, we got into a close-range fire-fight with them. We killed them both but during the engagement, were caught in a crossfire from other enemy units - a T-55, if I recall right - hidden at the other end of the treeline. That engagement cost me another Leo knocked out and another, damaged. I pulled back my surviving tank, whom I was determined not to lose in a shoot-out with enemy firing from good cover. Instead, I pulled back and swung around towards the river. From there, I went south then turned north-west, to come at the enemy in the treeline from roughly the opposite direction. Once in position for an assault, I rather incautiously pushed in with my Hotchkiss and my last Leo at the same time, but on widely-spaced axes. I was relying on 'swarming' him from behind...even if two AFVs make a rather small swarm. At one point, I thought this was going to cost me at least the Hotchkiss, for he very quickly started taking tank fire! However, my Leo got the last bruder while he was thus preoccupied. It was a close run thing, but my last primary objective had now been achieved. I decided to call it quits there, rather than risk my last two AFVs mopping up the enemy HQ, which was a purely secondary, 'bonus' objective. No need to be greedy. The victory I had won would be sweet enough. ...and in conclusion... So...overall, what did I make of Wargame: European Escalation, then? Well, I absolutely loathe the unlocks; the fact that, of all that lovely kit, you can play with practically diddly squat, until you fight your way to it (which I believe you can do, by earning these Command Star thingies, via either single or multi-player). Yuk, yuk, yuk. They binned this with the follow-on Wargame:Airland Battle, thank goodness; but they really ought to patch W:EE similarly, putting consideration to customers over purely commercial considerations. The on-screen aids are in general, too numerous, too informative and too inflexible, in that it seems you can neither reduce nor toggle off/remove them. The AI has some rough edges, notably the occasional Banzai charges. Can AFVs or troops use smoke dischargers or grenades? Haven't seen that, yet. One of the worst aspects is the Forward Operating Bases. I haven't seen much of these so far. But they constitute forward supply bases which can help keep your units POL'ed (fuelled), 'bombed up' and therefore, fighting. Whether they should be so close to the Forward Edge of the Battle Area as to appear on W:EE's maps, is another matter. Worst of all, their appearance is ridiculous. This isn't Afghanistan or Vietnam. But the W:EE FOBs are walled, permanent-looking encampments. They're reminiscent of the permanent bases in Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis, with the addition of prominent towers at each corner, which look like a combination of a minaret from a mosque and a mobile phone mast. They are truly awful. If we must have such supply bases, they should be rendered as irregular, camouflaged supply dumps; stacks of oil drums and crates, all under camo nets, with some suitable field defences and maybe a few trucks visible. Some tents and an inconspicuous rod-style radio antenna or two, maybe. I'm not going to disgrace this mission report with a screenshot of a W:EE Forward Operating Base. In the context of this game, set where and when it is, they are beyond awful. From all of this, you might think I am, after all, rather lukewarm about W:EE. Not at all. I love it. I think it's great. I haven't played many PC wargames but thanks to its refusal to offer the player a chess game variant with every single unit able to be (or needing) micro-managed, I find W:EE much the best of any I've tried. My negatives are dwarfed by the things I love. The battlefields are a wargamer's wet dream. Likewise, the units, both in their extent and in their rendition. I wish there were fewer 'gamey' elements but what these features do, they do well, in terms of aiding playability. Above all, W:EE provides a great 'sandbox' to practice and carry out military-style exercises in miniature. The limited control over individual units is largely compensated for by appropriate AI and the resultant ability to play without micro-management is a not a curse, but a very considerable blessing. The other plus is that W:EE unit management is very easy to pick up - simplified, rather than simplistic. It helps, if you already have a smattering of small-unit tactics and some prior knowledge of Cold War weapon characteristics. Much as would help with any wargame, in any era. It's early days yet but on my experience so far, my verdict is simple. For the past, present or would-be future Cold War virtual warrior, Wargame: European Escalation is, in my modest but honest opinion, a dream come true.