33LIMA

Contact! Starting the campaign again, I was faced with the same general situation. This time the battle had progressed to 'Turn 2'. It appeared that this phase of the operation had generated some fighting over to the west, on the opposite side of the battlefield from my force. You can see the little flame symbols and flashing red rings indicating this, over on the left of the map. Note that the units over there appear as yellow markers, indicating that they are 'Allies' - friendly forces, but not under player control. Note also the breifing panel, top left, which has been keeping score. This includes Turn 2, which seems to have played out without generating a new mission for me. So the SABOW wargame engine is now moving us on to Turn 3. And Turn 3 has now generated me another mission! This is now spelt out in the briefing panel. In short, friendly forces to our left are withdrawing and we must take the enemy advance in the flank and stop it. I rather like the look of this! The wargame element is playing out a credible, larger battle and from this, it's generating missions for my force which fit into the wider scenario, as it develops. Good stuff! Another pic I should show you here is the 'Condition of units' screen, seen below. This, you can call up from the map. It 'does what it says on the tin', as you can see. Obviously, it helps when you understand what all the little symbols mean, under each column. Many are fairly self-explanatory, like the ammo and fuel supply status indicators; another one covers morale. There are repair & resupply facilities in SABOW but this early in the fight, I figured I would skip that and get down to some fighting. I decided that this time, I would try to get a co-ordinated attack going, involving all three tank platoons under my command (there should really also have been a separate ‘Company HQ’ command element, for such a force - maybe that's Mr Hassani, the battalion commander despite his two pips, in the screen above; and maybe that represents me, the bloke in charge, I dunno). Apart from noting the visible dispositions of friendly (Iraqi, red/white/black flags) and enemy (Iranian, green/white/red flags) forces, I took no action in the ‘Unit Deployment’ map, seen below fully zooned out... ...although I did briefly switch from there to the 3d deployment view, which is a recent addition to the re-released sim. Here it is. It seems quite popular and reminds me of Combat Mission; but I like my maps and after a quick look at the 3d option, I switched back. I quickly clicked through the deployment map to get to the ‘Initial Orders’ one, because it’s there that you get access to the icons which will get your platoons moving - specifically, the big block of icons on the bottom right in the screenshot below. Even without knowing for sure what they all do - and I'm still learning - they evidently give you quite a lot of control. My three T-62 tank platoons are the little groups of grey-ringed diamonds, bottom centre. The orange ones are the 'active' platoon, to which any orders I give will apply, and which I will command when I leave the map and enter the tanksim mode. I did a quick Combat Appreciation, from this map. I was tempted to go right-flanking, rolling up the marked enemy positions (Iranian flags) from right to left, one at a time. However, elbow room in that direction was very limited – I believe the usable size of SABOW maps is just 3 Km square. I could perhaps have attempted a smokescreen or an artillery or airstrike to cover a tight hook to the right but if I had such assets available for this operation, I still hadn’t mastered their use. So in the end, I decided to keep it simple. Using the platoon orders icons for the first time, I ordered two tank platoons to attack the marked Iranian positions to our direct front – what the enemy was or how to find out short of attacking them, I had no idea. I see now that my force included a scout platoon that I could have used - doh! And they say 'Time spent on reconnaisance is never wasted'! The third platoon I could have kept back behind the other two T-62 platoons, in reserve, but instead, I decided that it would be better employed covering the open left flank of our main advance. So I gave them the order to move off diagonally to the left, towards the second marked enemy position. Their destination was some shrubbery half-way there, just short of an irrigation ditch, from where they could either engage the enemy over there, or assault them if I decided it was the right move. I should have called down a smokescreen, artillery support or an airstrike to cover my move or soften up the enemy but as I've said, even if any were available on this mission, I didn't know how and was impatient to crack on. Ideally I’d have wanted to tell the left hand platoon to 'go firm' (defensive posture) and face north-west when they got to the point I had designated. But while orders exist for such things, I didn’t know how to combine them into a single order - as in ‘Go there – go firm when you get there – and face that way’. Instead, having got everybody moving, I decided I would take it from there, issuing further orders as I went. Bad idea. This would have been ok, if I had just one platoon to manage and provided the enemy didn’t interrupt proceedings. But I had three platoons to manage. And despite staying quiet and out of sight during my previous attempt, this time, the enemy were back doing what they do best, trying to make life difficult. I kicked off the simulation phase and from the commander’s internal view, switched to external and had a look around. It was still rather dark but at least my three T-62s were moving, as ordered. But which three T-62s? Caught out by the novelty of the SABOW approach, I realised I hadn’t kept track of the platoon that was ‘active’ on the ‘Initial Orders’ map, at the point I switched to the simulation. I didn’t have time to ponder the matter. First priority was to drop into the gunner view, get a HEAT round up the spout (I have learned to prefer these to the accurate but finicky sabot as a ‘battle carry’ round) and have a quick scan through the gunsight, to get a good look at what I might be driving into. I may or may not have remembered to make sure that platoon orders included ‘Fire at will’ – I do wish that this and other common commands were hotkeys, too many involve clicking icons, which I find more fiddly. At this point, my own tank's driver decided to turn the lights on, fortunately briefly and even more fortunately, without drawing any fire. I was in the process of checking that my platoon had appropriate orders and was in suitable formation when it all kicked off. My first indication of this was a fire order, indicating an enemy tank. There may be a 'crew voices in English' option but I hadn't enabled it, so I was glad there's a text display for such messages, visible provided you have enabled the 'HUD' on-screen visual aid. Luckily, my platoon's current orders included 'Fire at will', which they did, so getting the morning's proceedings off to a reasonable start, despite my rather hasty and ill-organised planning. Quickly scanning for targets from the gunner's sight, I was glad of the night vision. The display looks like thermal imaging or perhaps - and accurately for that earlier period - it's active IR illumination. Passive image intensification would also have been available then - I have only used the latter, in real life (anyone else remember 'Starlight Scopes'?). I saw no tanks and didn't understand what 'Right 2' meant - two o'clock, perhaps? Hardly two degress, let alone two mils! Traversing right anyway, I picked up the ghostly image of what looked like an M-113 Armoured Personnel Carrier, with some troops crouching around it. I did a quick double check in my mind – no, we would be using BTRs or BMPs, an M-113 must be Iranian, an enemy. They looked dangerously close! The T-62 having gun stabilisation – the SABOW M60A1 doesn’t have this, which I thought it did in real life - I didn’t stop to fire but cut loose while still moving. And missed, as in my haste I hadn’t allowed for the movement of my tank while engaging an enemy off to one side. A frustrating pause while the gun elevated and reloaded, locked in position, then I lined her up again and fired. Another fire order came, this time something about a rocket launcher! Traversing again as soon as the reloading sequence had finished, close to another M-113 I picked up a pair of figures in the night vision scope, one kneeling with a shoulder-fired weapon. I hosed them with the co-ax MG then blasted their APC. Reloading. Traversing again. More ghostly figures. Hitting them again with the co-ax. Meanwhile my tank’s still rolling on. Sounds of tank cannon and MG fire from all around. I hope the others are doing ok in this sudden little patch of hell I have led us all into. As for the other two platoons, who knows? Are they engaged themselves? If not, should I summon them to my assistance? I’m conscious that I have been reduced to fighting for my own virtual life and have lost control of my own platoon, let alone the other two. I know I need to regain control but that will have to wait. The firing suddenly dies down. I sweep my night sights over the arc ahead and either side. M-113s lie still or burning or both. A blazing crew member runs wildly from the rear of one enemy APC. Objects which I suspect are dead bodies lie strewn around. Crikey! ‘Hectic’ wasn’t the word! We seemed to run into the enemy very quickly and I regretted even more not having carefully scoped out the area before we moved off and found out what indirect fire support might be available. Next time I’ll do all of that, and if it’s dark, see if we can put up any illumination, first. At least, this time I didn’t drive into a ditch! Breathing more freely, I switched back to the external view and had a look around. Time to regain control, to re-organise and get a grip on my platoons, before renewing our advance. But what’s this? Suddenly, I’m out of the 3d world and staring at a results screen. It seems the SABOW wargame routine has decided the turn is over. A lot sooner than I expected, and in rather bland style. The screen tells me we've scored a 'draw', though the figures seem to tell a different story: we met a weaker force and hit it pretty hard, with few casualties in return. I don't think there were any tanks on the Iranian side - it looks like my tank commander mis-identified the M113 (or maybe the text, as displayed, lost something in the translation!). At this point, classic tanksims like Panzer Commander and M1 Tank Platoon II announced the end of the mission with a simulated radio message from your immediate superior. In M1TP2 for example, you would hear something like ‘All stations this is Eagle 6, FRAGO [‘fragmentary order’]. Stand down and await further orders.Out.’ Instead, SABOW dropped me straight from being on a high from an intense little firefight, to a results screen. This rather brutally dispelled the immersion generated. Yuk. Hopefully a future patch will add an appropriate radio message. Anyway, that was that. No option to play on for a bit, drive around, get into defensive positions against a possible counterattack or head back to refuel and replenish. All I could do was use the typical Graviteam ‘Statistics’ phase to move the camera around the battlefield and inspect the damage. Which in my surprise at the sudden end, I forgot to do.! Meanwhile, the SABOW wargame engine rolled the battle forward another turn, with the results you can see below. It looks like operations in our TAOR are hotting up. I've still a lot to learn about SABOW - how to better plan my operations, and better command and control my units - but I'm beginning to see now how the campaign mode plays out. It actually looks rather clever and quite convincing. Parting shots If you have previously played the Graviteam Tactics series and wished you could also drop into one of the tanks in your force, SABOW is likely a dream come true. If you come like me as a tanksimmer, you might feel that the wargame element rather gets in the way. It’s an extra layer of stuff you need to learn and master. When you are tank-simming, the need to manage the rest of your force can be a distraction. And there's that turn-based, results-oriented wargaming regime. However, if you have the patience and the desire to get past this and make the extra effort needed to get to grips with all this, the reward is a wide-ranging but also deep, involving and possibly rather addictive simulation of (reasonably) modern all-arms warfare. Some things could be better. Few tanksims make a decent job of simulating the operation of the unit’s radio net – Steel Beasts and Panzer Elite alone, do a good job, with oldies Panzer Commander, M1 Tank Platoon II and Armored Fist 2 & 3 at least making some effort. In WW2, with universal supply of transmitter-receivers only happening over time, Steel Fury can just about get away without it. But the tanksimming component of SABOW really needs to make some effort at simulating a company/platoon radio net. As a minimum, you should hear contact reports from other tanks and callsigns; sightings and reports of mishaps would be desirable, as would occasional traffic from HQ, perhaps mission-specific but including a ‘Battle over, go firm/stand down’ message at the end - and perhaps, a suitable exhortation at the start, to give at least the impression that you are part of a larger force, with the CO making his presence felt. As things stand you are left too reliant on dropping out of the 3-d world and calling up the map, to keep tabs on the situation. Edit - SABOW, I've discovered, is rather good at generating contact reports and other radio traffic - it's just that you don't hear it or see it displayed, in the 3-d game world. The screenshot below shows top right a 'message log' displaying the traffic on the company net, on the in-mission tactical map. The message log doesn't list callsigns but in this view, you can actually see who's transmitting, as you get a little 'radio mast' icon superimposed on the station that's currently sending. This is really pretty exceptional. In the 3-d world, I think you may get an audio cue, like somebody hitting a pressel switch, that somebody's transmitting. But it would be rather better if you also saw their message displayed as text, if not also hearing it spoken, in the 3-d world, so you are less reliant on the map. The underlying functionality, via the map, is pretty impressive, nevertheless. In the pic below - this time I have changed the colours to 'NATO style' so your side is blue and the enemy, red - my two leading tank platoons, in the area between the terrain marked blue and red have hit contact and have the little 'radio mast/ icon superimposed, to show they're the ones transmitting. Quite impressive, the stuff that's built into this sim. Another EDIT - evidently there ARE radio messages, like contact reports, from other units on the same radio net, displayed as text messages in the 3-d world, which is great. Not sure why I haven't noticed them. It may be that in the mission above, which was set up with the Battle Editor, the units generating the messages displayed in the 'message log' on the map screen were not considered to share a radio net with my platoon. Or maybe they were on the same net and I had just completely turned off the HUD, so missing the text! I’m fairly sure I have seen AI units deploy smoke - as seen below, possibly from a Chieftain - but this may not be implemented for the player’s tanks. The M60 model featured doesn’t have smoke dischargers but like many Soviet tanks, the real T-62 could generate a smoke screen by injecting diesel fuel into its exhaust. As with Destroyer Command, an inability to lay smoke - a common concealment tactic, for tanks as well as destroyers - is a significant gap. Yet another EDIT - from recent screenshots on the Graviteam SABOW forum, a new patch is coming which adds the ability to some tanks (M-60 and likely T-62, the playable tanks) to lay smoke screens by injecting diesel into their exhausts, a feature of many Soviet Cold War tanks later adopted by some Western ones. Hopefully, a patch will add player-generated smoke. The infantry appear rather ill-trained at times. When in field defences, they tend to sit with heads or shoulders clearly visible above the parapet. Under fire, they will duck but will soon pop up again - at the same spot, which makes them a bit too easy to pop off. Personally, I would like to see the Star Wars-like upper HUD element replaced with something more intuitive and conventional, like a turret position indicator/compass rose graphic. What's there now may be ok for a wargame but in a tanksim, even a modern one, it's not so good, to my eye. And as I’ve said a couple of times already, more tanksim commands available as hotkeys, as an alternative to clickable icons, would be convenient. Plus I like to keep my screen uncluttered, so I can admire the view. Another big step forward would be a few more playable vehicles, starting for convenience's sake with some of the AFVs already there like the Chieftain and the Olifant/Centurion; these would make good payware ‘DLC’, as would more maps/theatres, like the 1967 or 1973 Arab-Israeli Wars. A Steel Beasts-like mission editor would also be good, enabling users to generate and share missions and mini-campaigns. By scripting the friendlies as well as the enemies, we could be freed up from the wargame element, able to play as a single platoon commander, like a conventional tank sim. Perhaps victory conditions or other mission parameters could be specified which were not constrained by the turn-based regime of the present wargame campaigns. I’m not sure such a thing exists and if it did, SABOW doesn’t yet appear to have a facility to store and launch pre-made single missions. Serious modding efforts have been limited so far for whatever reasons, but might massively increase the content and appeal of SABOW, as they have done with many other sims. All that said, there’s an awful lot to like in SABOW, even if, like me, you come to it as a tank-simmer, initially disinterested with or even impatient of the wargame element. The relaunched version has improved documentation and new gameplay options which together, make it significantly easier to get straight to the tank-simming component. The tanks themselves are wonderful creations and look great inside, outside and in action, not least the animation of the crew and the T-62 throwing the empty cases out the back after each round. You only have two playable tanks (at present) but they’re modelled with an attention to detail not seen in a tank game, including sight reticles and functionality. And there’s a lot more 'under the hood' that I haven’t experienced yet, like indirect fire and close air support capabilities. If you enjoy computer wargaming, here it is, with the benefit of a built-in tanksim. Definitely recommended, even for tanksimmers – I'm beginning to appreciate the wargaming element, which appears thorough, well designed and engaging. Any decent simulation needs a certain investment in time, patience and perseverance. Being more than a sim, SABOW may need a little more of all three, but I'm finding it well worth the effort.

On the campaign trail! Having semi-familiarised myself with the quick and instant battle options, it was time to try my hand at one of SABOW’s three campaigns. I don’t know about you but for me, the single player campaign is the immersive, beating heart of any sim and it’s where I like to spend most of my time. On campaign, I’m not much bothered about medals, promotions, crew management or other trimmings. They are nice to have but most important is some sort of context for the series of operations featured – just enough to pull you in, adding a sense of time and place – immersion, in a word. Hence, while I prefer the’ fully-equipped’ campaigns of M1 Tank Platoon II to the themed sets of scripted missions possible with Steel Beasts or Steel Fury, the latter approach I find quite acceptable. Steel Armor’s take on campaigns is different again. While you get three ready-made campaigns, one playable from either side, you aren’t cast in the role of a specific tank platoon commander, but as the boss of a larger force who, once battle has been joined, can jump into a platoon leader role – for any platoons that have user-playable tanks, that is. Furthermore, the SABOW manual says that campaign battles will proceed in distinct turns, each consisting of a player move, the enemy AI reacting, then combats being generated (at which points the player gets to do the actual tank-simming) and finally the outcomes and results being generated. I wasn’t at all sure just how this hybrid ‘tanksim within a wargame’ approach would actually work in practice, but it was time to find out! For my first campaign, I opted to play for the Iraqi side in a T-62, in the war with Iran. The terrain is a little bland, apart from those pesky irrigation ditches, but I decided I would rather fight a conventional tank battle in open country, than against Afghan insurgents or in the Angolan jungle. There are two ‘sub-campaigns’ or battles available for the Iran-Iraq War (named in SABOW for the Iranian attack wich kicked off the battles, 'Khuzestan Offensive') and I chose the second, having read a little of the featured action, the Battle of Sousangerd. Here, the ambitious Iranian offensive got literally bogged down in difficult ‘going’ and was heavily defeated by the less numerous but briskly-handled Iraqi forces. The 'tooltip' visible below shows how the operation's 'victory points' will be calculated). As is apparently standard in SABOW, and in line with real life, most points come from the occupation of important territory ('Point capture'). You start in wargame mode, called ‘Operational mode' in SABOW campaigns. Like this: The little briefing panel, top left, tells me it's 6 January 1981. It's the first 'turn of the battle ('phase' would have been a more military, less 'game-y' term) and I'm evidently responsible for the force described as 'the tank units of the 10th Detached Armor Brigade' (in fact my command will be approximately a tank company, far short of even a weak brigade). It seems the Iranians are advancing from the north and my command, for now, is to concentrate on the enemy's left flank First time out, I lost patience with the planning maps and their blocks of icons which follow - map nerds, feel ye not neglected, I'll show you these later. Ordered to take an enemy attack in the flank, I decided to leave two of my three T-62 platoons in place as a base of fire. Going straight into tank-simming mode, I would take my third platoon off to the west. I would cross the irrigation channel to the north at a ford, in between two marked enemy positions, which I would then attack, starting with the one on my right, nearest my supporting platoons. Not a very good plan but as they say, a bad plan is better than no plan at all. It was rather dark when the 3d world loaded but I had already plotted my route from the map, to take advantage of what cover there was. I got my platoon of three T-62s into column and off we went. Happily, we weren’t fired upon, despite our drivers repeatedly turning on their lights, which I struggled to keep extinguished. Fortunately, the enemy, still unseen in the dark to the north, remained inactive. Things still deteriorated fairly rapidly. First, crossing what looked like a thin stretch of undergrowth that ran across our route, my tank fell into what turned out to be a deep gully, filled with the vegetation which had also concealed it. In the screenshot below, you can probably see as little of that b****y gully as I could, before I drove smack into it, but if you look closely, there I am, in my T-62, stuck in a rather large rut. Mostly, the screen illustrates the platoon command menu that pops up, when you click on the relevant icon in the block that runs along the bottom of the screen. I can't remember what I was trying to do when I called this up, but getting out of that b****y hole probably had something to do with it. In fact, looking at the pic again, I think this was taken just after I had managed to crawl out of the gully and was trying to prevent my platoon-mates from following me into the thing. Lots of backing and filling eventually got me out. What my AI platoon-mates made of this performance is best left to the imagination. A little further along, nearing the point where I would turn right and north towards the enemy, I came across another, shallower, more open gully, running my way. I duly drove into this, as it provided excellent cover and the floor and sides were clear and the latter not as steep. Below is my night vision view of the new gully ahead, through the driver's scope if I recall right. By this time, it had started to rain; the wet stuff was coming down in sheets. Maybe, driving into this gully mightn't be such a good idea... Perhaps the rain didn't help but my tank bogged down trying to get out the other end of this new gully and this time there was no shifting her, whether I let the AI driver try, or had a go myself. In the end, I decided the mission was pretty well compromised to heck and gave up. Time to start over and try again! ...to be continued!

Nice one! sounds like something that a no-nonsense Soviet General would have said!

Making a start! I mentioned earlier that SABOW's interface and documentation, which I found difficult before, have been improved with the new release. This makes it easier to get straight to the tank-simming, mostly or completely by-passing the wargame element. The most visible manifestation of this is the main menu, which now boasts what is effectively an 'Instant Action' option. Note the icons of an M60A1 and a T-62, over on the right - seen? Click on one of these and you are plonked into the gunner's seat in the tank of your choice...in this case, the T-62. This isn't a detailed review so I'm not going to get into describing the on-screen aids you can see above, except to say that you can turn them off easily and that they comprise a rather Star Wars-like situational awareness header and at bottom, a set of icons for various functions. The latter is context sensitive - the icons displayed differ to an extent, according to the position you are occupying, in your tank. I will also say that I would prefer if more commands were available as hotkeys - for example, a hotkey will cycle you through the different platoon formations available, but to chose one directly, I think you need to click on icons. From any crew station a click or two will change your viewpoint, cycling between internal 'cockpit' view (seen above) to sights to viewports. Limited night vision aids are available, as we will see later. The screenshot below shows the view through the T-62 gunsight, with an authentic reticle. No laser rangefinder here - as well as the range scales for different ammo types and the aiming mark below those, you have marks for what's called 'stadiametric rangefinding' whereby the little 'ski jump' set of markings on the lower right can be used against the known height of typical targets, to estimate their range. I have been playing mostly the T-62, until I get the hang of the M60A1's more sophisticated fire control system, with its stereoscopic rangefinder. For now I have been simply guessing ranges using the 'appearance' method or 'bracketing' and correcting from the fall of shot as necessary - though the realistic levels of 'obscuration' when firing make the latter quite tricky. Still, gunnery in SABOW I'm enjoying a lot, thus far. The new 'Instant Action' feature is very welcome. At the moment it generates a fixed battle, with your platoon up against an unspecified (but perhaps slightly more numerous) enemy. Graviteam say that they plan to expand this to provide some sort of mission context or briefing and perhaps training elements. But even as it stands, 'Instant Action' is a good way to practice everything from gunnery to driving (or from the Tank Commander station, directing the movements of) your tank; and managing your own tank platoon. Here is my T-62 platoon lined up at the start of one such fight. I believe this is the terrain from the Iran-Iraq campaign, which comprises flat desert with some vegetation and stretches of live or dead woodland, interspersed with deep and sometimes impassable gullies or irrigation ditches. This seems to be the default terrain and what you get every time, unless you are 'on campaign'. EDIT - a quick re-check confirms that you can select a different battlefield via the 'Quick Battle Settings' screen described later - the second pic below shows the Cuito Cuanavale map from the Angola campaign. The 'Instant Action' option completely by-passes the wargame element of SABOW. The other (slightly less) direct route to the tank-simming is what in the new release is called the 'Battle Editor' - see the main menu screenshot above. This skips only some of the wargame or setup elements that you are faced with, in campaign mode. But it gives you a good deal of choice over the battle you will generate, unlike the 'Instant Action' alternative. Here's how it works. Having clicked on 'Battle Editor' (if you have saved your last such battle, this instead offers 'Continue Battle') you will be taken to the screen, below. This allows you to place units from your side, from your side's 'allies' or from the enemy, with just a few mouseclicks. Easy-peasy. The map below already shows units which I have deployed - green = user-playable, red = other friendly forces, blue = enemy forces. While placing units, you can click back and forth to the 'Quick Battle Settings' screen below. This enables you to chose various parameters, including which side is friendly and which, enemy. You can specify that your enemy will just be inert targets, which will not fire back - perfect to get in some practice while avoiding the frustration, so common with a new sim, of being rapidly killed off while still at the 'total newb' stage. Having set things up - and it's a quick and easy process, once you have done it once or twice - a couple more clicks will start the battle. And off you go. This time, however, unlike 'Instant Action', you have a couple more steps to go through, from the wargame side of SABOW, before you get to do the tank-simming bit. First, you are presented with the 'Unit Deployment' screen. Here it is and as you can see, it's a view of a segment of the main map, where the SABOW wargame sub-program has calculated that a contact/battle will take place, between the units you have just positioned. You can click through this screen or if you're not in a hurry and feel like a bit of wargaming, you can set up and orient your units' starting positions using the supplied icons. Your side's tanks are the little sets of red diamonds, with the green one, roughly in the centre of the next screenie, being the tank you will occupy when the fighting starts. You can change this so as to fight in any playable tank on your side, now or I think later, during the battle. Now you get to fight, yes? Well, no, actually. Click to proceed and you are presented with another, very similar map, this time titled 'Initial Orders'. Here you can...well, give orders to your forces. As in the 'Unit Deployment' map, these are organised and repesented as platoons and it is these to which you give your orders, primarily. When you get to do the tanksimming, you will be playing the role of a platoon leader. Here, though, you are playing the role of his boss, the overall commander of the (typically) company-sized force that is probably what you ended up with, when placing your units originally. A different set of icons lets you give movement, attack, defense and many other orders to all of your platoons. Quite powerful it seems and takes a bit of learning, unless you are used to this interface from playing tactical wargames, especially the Graviteam variety. If you don't fancy any of this you can just click through it and assume command of your chosen tank platoon, although this will leave the rest of your force sitting about, bereft of orders. Why Graviteam chose to have you step through two similar maps like this, rather than combining them into one, is hard to say. Perhaps the split is logical and/or it enables lots of functions to be included without icon overload. Anyway, and finally, the virtual tanking can begin. A couple more clicks and at last, you are good to start putting some steel onto targets. You start from the Tank Commander's station of your chosen side's playable Main Battle Tank - in this case, the M60A1. This - the Battle Editor, supplemented now that it's also available by the 'Instant Action' feature - is where I spent most of my first week or so playing SABOW, learning the ropes. And there's quite a lot of ropes to learn. Which is much as it has been with any tanksim after Panzer Commander, I suppose. A bit more so than Steel Fury to be sure, because of the more sophisticated tanks and the more sophisticated level of control the newer interface offers. My impressions so far are numerous, and include: - the visuals and effects are really very good, inside and out; - the two playable tanks are superbly modelled; - sounds are better than Steel Fury, with the speed of sound replicated, as in Steel Beasts; - there is very little radio traffic, leaving you reliant on pulling up the map view to see what other tanks or troops have spotted; - the infantry are neat but can appear pretty dumb at times, popping their heads up from cover like targets in a shooting gallery; - sabot rounds seem less effective than I was expecting, richochetting frequently; and - I wish there was a 'voices in English' option as I don't speak Farsi, Iraqi Arabic or Russian and prefer to leave the 'HUD' on-screen aids (which display spoken messages as text) turned off when I can. There are some frustrations, apart from the learning curve. When the T-62's 115mm main gun is reloading, it elevates and takes the gunner's sight with it, potentially breaking your line of sight to the target. Elevation and traverse is also locked out. Realistic no doubt but can be a pain. Drivers can be another pain. If faced with an obstacle like an irrigation ditch they will stop and ignore commands to advance, even if you have decided to chance it and risk having to 'abandon ship', like these guys. You can over-ride this behaviour by switching to the driver's seat. There also seem to be times when directional commands to the driver are ignored, for no apparent reason. The AI driver seems to have too much of a mind of his own, at such times. However, 'Instant Action' and the Battle Editor are great ways to get into SABOW's tanksimming component with little or none of the wargaming interface, getting in your way. The new documentation helps, with sections geared towards helping you do just this and understand and use your chosen tank's features and systems. This little video clip from 'Sim Deck' also helped: Finally, though, I decided it was time to get to grips with the beast, the whole beast, and nothing but the beast (with apologies to , featuring an Israeli T-55 capture representing a Soviet T-62 in Afghanistan). Time to go on campaign! ...to be continued!

In the last week or so, in no particular order: Panzer Commander: WW2 Battle Tanks - T-34 -vs- Tiger: Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942 (+STA mod): Il-2 '46 (+ CUP mod): First Eagles 2 (+Armchair Aces & other mods): Steel Armour - Blaze of War (re-launched version): Last but not least, Panzer Elite (+PP2x mod, with latest vehicle update):

No, WOFF is not an update to OFF and OFF cannot be updated to WOFF. WOFF is only an update, in the sense that it is a new, very much improved payware version of the original freeware CFS3 World War 1 mod Over Flanders Fields and its payware successor, OFF 'Phase 4'. My review on this site gives a reasonably comprehensive description of WOFF, comparing some OFF and WOFF features - first part is here: http://combatace.com/topic/82050-wings-over-flanders-fields-the-combatace-review/ Comparing OFF and WOFF screenshots will give you an idea of the extent of the improvement graphically but the whole WOFF package is much improved in many other ways, over OFF, including much better AI, better menus etc. OFF: WOFF: WOFF 2.0 is a package which includes new features and improvements to the original WOFF, as described on the WOFF website - for example Gothas and Zeppelins and the ability to play Home Defence (sort of 'Battle of Britian World War 1') campaigns. It is not a patch, it's more like the Aces Expansion Pack for Il-2 Forgotten Battles.

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!

Hmmm... 'tank sim' and doing everything from the external view, that's a bit of a contradiction in terms. Actually in PE and SF you can play mostly if not entirely from the external view...but no external gunsight, you let the AI man and fire the guns. Less fun though, unless you play the commander and mark targets for your gunner, as well as telling your driver where to go and your platoon what to do. As with flightsims, I tend to play external for better peripheral vision until I want to shoot something, then a single keystroke takes me to the gunsight. So you have the best of both worlds - a gunsight being more effective and less gamey-looking than a sight reticle floating in space ahead of your tank. It's really no big deal to hit a single key to get from an external view to the gunsight and vice versa. Nearly all tanksims I've ever player seem designed to facilitate this style of play, in fact. I reckon if you want a tanksim that lets you play from the external view complete with an external floating gunsight, you don't want a tanksim, but a tank game, like Panzer Elite Action, which you have already tried I think. I'm not sure what if any single player action is possible with the multiplayer games like World of Tanks. You might want to check out mods for Arma2. There's also Iron Front Liberation 1944,, a WW2 mod for Arma2 which includes tanks. Graphics are good and because it's not a pure tanksim, it might do what you want: Still, I'll take Steel Fury (and Panzer Elite) over any of 'em, where else can you be attacking a village full of German paras in your M8 armored car at the head of a platoon of GIs, one day... ...and next time, charging into dusty battle with the armoured phalanx of the Deutsches Afrika Korps... ...then hunting down the fascist war-mongers in your KV-1, the next?

Thanks Stephen - got it already! Edit - works fine in FE2 if I drop it into my [username]/Saved Games/ThirdWire/FirstEagles2/Terrains/ww1Cambrai folder. I don't have that terrain's files extracted so the sim just reads the new file as it would with an extracted file. Didn't need to back up anything. The Farman F40 is now fine from flight-line onwards... ...and smaller planes also look and take off just fine, spaced out...

Well Rusty, if you want to find out for yourself, there's one sim I know (and I mean 'sim', not 'mulitplayer tank game') that will let you try it out... ...namely, Panzer Commander, which has a Comet, seen here in the user-made mission 'Harz Werewolves I'; ...as well as a Tiger I of course, seen here in the mission 'Wittman's Stand': Being one of the first tanksims I played - along with Armored Fist 2 and M1 Tank Platoon II - I still have a soft spot for 'PzC' as its fans called it. I'm not sure if it had a mission which pitted Tigers against Comets but the missions could be hand-edited with a text editor like Wordpad so it would be easy enough to place a Tiger in 'Harz Werewolves', which were two British missions featuring 'alternate universe' actions in June 1945, mopping up fanatical hold-outs making a final stand. Basic, but STILL fun, and the historical careers were rather well presented, in some ways as good or better than Panzer Elite's, with British, German US and Soviet forces, from North Africa to the Western and Eastern Fronts in Europe. It looks and sounds better in motion, than in the screenshots: ...and it had a great musical theme and intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEuDDZOR8B0 In case anyone is interested, I think these are the settings in the Dxtory background program which, launched before playing PzC, made it playable for me, including eliminating both image judder and the 'turret floating behind the hull in external view' issues. Dxtory doesn't fix PzC for all but is absolutely fine for me (Vista 64, GTS 250) apart from a little flicker (affecting some read-outs) in the sim's status bar along the bottom of the screen.

I have some divisional histories which partly cover the Comet period but they're in the loft and I haven't read them for a long time! During the time I was interested in warganing with 1/300 miniatures, the best WW2-era rules I ever came across were the Wargames Research Group's 1925-50 set, dating from June 1988. I tended to value such things not only for what they were, but also because they represented a lot of research and distilled the results in such a way that it gave you a relatively decent comparison of various tanks, in terms of their firepower, protection and mobility. The rated the Tiger 1 and the Comet as follows: Gun* Front armour Side armour Mobility Tiger 1 } 5 4 Medium Comet } same 5 3 Fast * firing non-tungsten-cored AP So it looks like a close match, on paper! You might find this link of interest; the 1960s-1970s AFV Profiles there can be downloaded and include one on the Cromwell and Comet: http://ciar.org/ttk/mbt/afv_weapons_profile_pack/

So would I! But if I had to go to war in a British WW2 tank it would be the Churchill, preferably the very heavily-armoured VII (or an uparmoured IV or VI). The only book I ever read by a Crusader tankie was 'From Alamein to Zem Zem' by Keith Douglas. I don't think he mentions meeting a Tiger or a 'Crusader Charge'. Perhaps the phrase was a wry description of the experience of the way Eighth Army tankies would find themselves running, at Cruiser tank speed, onto the AT gun screens typically deployed by the DAK, while trying to get at the Panzers. By the time the Tigers appeared, Eighth Army tactics had progressed beyond such tactics in the face of superior firepower. For example, Shermans would deal with 88s not by charging them but by employing 'semi-indirect fire', firing from a turret-down dip in the ground and lobbing HE from long range and basically out of sight. Another decent North Africa tankie book I'd recommend is 'Take These Men' by Cyril Jolly. Though supposedly 'written as fiction' - likely to avoid controversy or lawsuits - it's probably an accurate description of his experiences in Cruisers, Honeys and Grants from Operation Compass till the end.

Hi Sixstrings! By the look of it, we have very similar tastes as far as combat flight sims go! Acronyms: CUP - Combined User Patch - the new mod for Il-3 1946. Includes 3 separate modules, which are activated or enabled one at a time, as alternatives: WAW - World At War, the WW2 module of CUP DOF - Dawn of Flight, the WW1 module TJA - The Jet Age - the post-WW2 module Modact - Mod Activator, used by large-scale mods like CUP to 'do what it says on the tin' TD - Team Daedalos, the group who have produced a succession of updates to the basic sim, the current one being numbered 4.12.2, which improve the Artificial Intelligence. DBW - Dark Blue World, a major mod for pre-TD versions of IL-2 '46 (up to patch number 4.10). CUP uses the TD patch, DBW doesn't. DBW 1916 - the WW1 module for Dark Blue World (activated as an alternative to the post-WW1 main mod) HSFX - a major mod for IL-2, with less content that DBW or CUP I think, but more geared to providing a solid basis for Multi-Player Until more campaigns are made for CUP - or until existing campaigns are converted - DBW is possibly still the premier mod for IL-2 single player action. I have separate installs for each. having installed IL-2 '46 and patched it to 4.10 you just copy and paste the complete IL-2 installation to a new folder of its own. You can then apply DBW to one, and CUP to the other. The non-WW2 mods for IL2 are interesting but in many respects will not be a match for dedicated WW1 or jet sims like FE2 or SF2. The SAS ('Special Aircraft Service') website is the best place for info and queries on anything IL-2, tho the many real IL-2 grongards who hang out over there tend to speak sometimes in a language the rest of us can struggle with! My advice would be to make a copy of a clean IL-2 '46, patched to 4.10. Then install DBW first, in one of these, using the guide here: http://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,21514.0.html ...then into the other clean IL-2 '46 (4.10) install, install CUP, as described here: http://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,45222.0.html

I would highly recommend Steel Fury! Panzer Elite is better at campaigning, platoon command and communications. And SF's AI, unless closely monitored by the player with the limited tools he has, can be over-enthusiastic, if I can put it that way. But in many other respects it's really a great experience. with the modders having added a huge range of 'playables', maps and missions. My next mission was the last one in a T-34 mission-set campaign, and it was incredible - a compact mass of T-34s, IS-2s and dismounted infantry in a night attack on German hiltop positions followed by an assault on a village. Illumination rounds falling from the sky, turning night into day; red and green tracers flying; finally a tense prowl round the village to locate and destroy the enemy hold-outs with the lurking threat of sudden death around every corner. Crazy, exhillarating stuff!

Even before it got APDS ammo in 1944, the 6 Pdr was an excellent weapon, with better AP capability than the US/British 75mm if I recall right. If like me you ever had the old Airfix 1/76 Tiger kit, you may remember that the bagged version's potted history on the reverse of the header explained that the first Tigers met by the British in Tunisia were knocked out (from a flank, which is ideally how you want to tackle any target, ie from defilade) by towed 6-Pounders - at Pont du Fahs, I remember well - which I believe is correct. And Tiger 131 is where I saw it last, as pictured above - Bovington Camp, Dorset - because a 6-Pounder-armed Churchill got him. Not every kill is a brew-up or even a penetration, but every one counts! This is a closer view of the last Tiger I engaged. I had fired at least one round at his hull above the tracks - this failed to penetrate as you can see from the gouge. Before driving past him I put another round into the same area and this penetrated, as you can see from the clean hole to the right of the gouge. I think Lockie may have tinkered with the SF 6-Pounder's AP capabilities during testing this mission - but bear in mind of the 12 Churchills which started, Tigers got most of them. There's a bit of testing going on amongst the modders, checking the sim-vs-actual reported power of various weapons. But from the right aspect and with a bit of luck, 6-Pounders have killed Tigers in real life. I meant to reduce the force balance setting before playing this mission, which I think means you don't meet Tigers, except the abandoned one! All sims have their particular points or oddities. In 'WW2 Battle Tanks - T34 -vs- Tiger', to my mind, the Soviet tanks seem frustratingly resistant to 88mm AP rounds...although they will die eventually.

Hear, hear! In what other sim do you get not only great WW1 air-to-air combat but thanks to the modders, can experience it in such a variety of aircraft in so many campaigns in so many different theatres?

The butcher's bill Having completed the mission and brought two of my three Chruchill tanks back to base, it was time to review the 'Statistics'. My own tank had done quite well, despite the commander having to take over as gunner quite early on. We were credited with two Panzer IVs destroyed. Unfortunately I don't believe there's a way of causing SF to use the same vehicle names you see in the 'Statistics' phase, as a mission designer may use in the mission itself. So here, instead of a Killer Whale (callsign 'Orca') I am a mere squid. At least the aquatic theme had been preserved! The other surviving Churchill in my own troop had got very similar results. It was some compensation that my knocked-out troop mate had also done well, in fact being credited with one of the Tigers. It was some consolation that the Churchill hadn't burned and looked readily recoverable, apart from the reported engine damage. Better still, although the open hatches showed they had been obliged to bail out, none of the crew were reported to be casualties. Excellent! In any sim, I always want to bring my boys back alive, not just win at all costs. Unfortunately, many other Churchills, from Peter Gudgin's leading wave, had borne the brunt of the fighting and had come off badly, in consequence. This tank had evidently got into a serious, close-range fight with a palm tree. Neither party seemed to have done terribly well out of the affair, but at least the Churchill looked easily recoverable. The crew would have a harder time, though, living that one down. I mean, what can you say? 'The bl**dy tree pulled out right in front of us!' doesn't really carry much conviction, does it? The Afrika Korps had taken a bit of a battering, too. Their losses included both 50mm and 75mm anti-tank guns. Our numbers and our 6-pounders had proved too much for the counterattacking Panzer IVs. Their carcasses were scattered across the battlefield, some on fire. Although not seen here, you can of course both call up their own statistics (to see what got them, as well as their own results) and using the 'Hits' tab, see what rounds hit them and which one did them in. The Tigers had also been well tamed, but the cost had been high. This particular Tiger had racked up a long list of victims. However, their intervention had not prevented us in recovering one of their number. And if the German recovery crews were not a bit quicker off the mark next time, there was at least one other immobilised and largely intact Tiger now lying out there, a prize for whoever got there first! This was one of the most interesting and enjoyable tank sim missions I have played in a long time - a credit to Lockie (and the others involved in its content) and highly recommended! 'Capture the Tiger', to give the mission its correct name, is part of the current version of 'Game Mission Pack' (GMP) 3, designed for the Steel Tank Add-on (STA) mod, which you can find out about and get download links for, here.

'It ain't over till the fat lady sings!' We hadn't gone very far on our way back when the order came through to go firm and defend against an incoming counterattack. Evidently, the Germans were not terribly pleased that we had pinched their big tank and wanted it back! So I spun around and rolled back towards the enemy, moving far enough to ensure my other two Churchills would do likewise. Looking back at them, it was hard to tell the living from the dead, as the area was littered with knocked-out infantry tanks. At this point I had a look at the map, to see what could be seen of the enemy's reported movements. I gather that there is a 'show all units' option somewhere. I may have had this turned on, or perhaps there were other 'friendlies' doing the spotting. But there they were - two big blue enemy arrows on the map, coming our way. Near them were two blue diamonds, enemy tanks, on the move. It wasn't long before I spotted the first Panzer, a 'Mark Four Special' as the British called the Panzer IV with the long-barreled 75mm gun. I over-estimated the range and my first shot went over the top of him, just as he slipped into a hull-down position. In fact he seemed to go turret down, so that all I could see was the commander's cupola. Relying on the slight dip in the trajectory of my 6-Pounder at that range, I tried lobbing a couple of rounds onto him. Happily, this had the desired effect. For the second time in this battle, my troop-mates seemed to be able to see or hear something I had missed. They had turned left and faced a knocked-out 75 mm anti-tank gun. What was the problem? It couldn't be the killed Panzer IV on the skyline to the left; he'd been there long before. The threat was in fact another Panzer IV which hove into view, coming at us head on, beyond the furthest Churchill. Fortunately the enemy tank drove pretty well right into the centre of my gunsight. The only problem was that one of my own troop was in my line of fire. Oh, what the heck! I let rip. My round zipped right over the left rear of the other Churchill and smacked into the Panzer. A second round followed. I'm not sure if my troop-mates joined in, but the German tank was soon blazing merrily. The ensuing silence didn't last long. The Churchill just to my left suddenly cut loose with his 6-Pounder. Traversing left I saw that he had destroyed another Mark Four who was also alight, as was one of the unfortunate crewmen, who blazed as he ran. As if prompted by this rather nasty sight, enough to put the wind up any tankie, God-fearing or otherwise, the boss came up on the air, with some words of encouragement. At this point I got the 'Mission complete' screen, doubtless indicating that the stolen Tiger had reached safety. I opted to play on and turned the troop around to make our own way back. As I did so, I gave myself a bit of a fright when I suddenly spotted another Panzer, on the same skyline. I quickly realised he was dead but for scaring me quite needlessly, I decided he must burn. Unfortunately, the previous exchange of fire had resulted in one of my troop being knocked out, which I realised only when he didn't conform to my turn for home. My elation tinged with sadness at this loss so late in the day, I led my surviving troop mate back to our lines, with my gun once again laid over my rear deck. It wasn't far, but it seemed to take longer coming back, than it did, going out. Lockie tells me the SF Churchill - which isn't a stock tank made playable, as I had thought, but came with an early version of the NTA mod - is rather faster than it should be but I didn't much notice. Finally, we were back where we'd started. The recovery crew had parked up their prize and seemed rather happy with themselves, standing in the captured Tiger's turret. All that remained was to use SF's neat post-mission 'Statistics' facility to have a little 'nosey' around the battlefield. ...to be continued!

'Off went the band, with me ol' man in it...' As I drove up to the abandoned Tiger whose capture was our mission's aim, I got another radio message. This time, it was from me, the player, callsign 'Orca', reporting that I had confirmed the Tiger was a runner! Next second, our rear party, callsign Bravo, acknowledged my message and reminded me that I should now protect the recovery crew, whose lorry was reported to be already en route. Reaching the Tiger, I halted, then spun my tank around so as to face the direction from which I thought any attack would most likely come. At this point, the recovery crew, callsign Runner, also came on the air and informed me that they were headed my way. There were several stationary Churchills nearby, but they seemed dead. Behind me, my two troop mates were very much alive and were closing up. I gave the order to assume defensive positions, telling my own driver to stay where he was. There was really no cover worth the name in the vicinity. All we could do was face outwards and watch our arcs. It wasn't long before the recovery crew's 3-tonner appeared. It drove up and halted about 50 yards away. The recovery boys bailed out the back of the vehicle and ran across to the Tiger. As they did so, a pop-up message reminded me that my job now was to cover the Tiger's return. The recovery crew was soon aboard the Tiger and 'off went the band', as the song goes. By what mission-making magic Lockie had been able to create this little drama I have no idea, but it was a joy to behold! I spun around and set off after the captured Tiger. As I did so, I traversed my turret and laid my gun over the rear deck towards the enemy, in the approved fashion for a withdrawing tank. So far, so good! ...to be continued!

'Tyger, tyger, burning bright...' There was I, and there was the Tiger. Not the Tiger, the abandoned one we were suppsed to steal. But another Tiger, very much in action, driving over the crest to my front and exchanging fire with our leading Churchills, over to the right. By now I had swapped the tank commander into the seat of the dead gunner. I banged off AP rounds into the Tiger, as fast as the loader could chamber them. One of my first rounds severed a track and the Tiger rumbled to a halt as his right-hand tracks came off the sprocket and rolled out flat behind him. He was largely front-on, presenting his thickest armour, but he was now tilted down towards us and I aimed at his exposed turret ring. Rounds from other Churchills crashed into him and beside him. Suddenly, miraculously, it was over. The Tiger lay still. Nobody bailed out but he stopped shooting and his turret moved no more. Somehow, we had got him! Fearing he might spring back into life, I turned left and closed the range right down, steering so as to put myself on his more vulnerable flank. In my gunsight, he looked every bit as huge and dangerous a tank as he really was. I could see some of his scars, a couple of rounds having penetrated the track links stowed on his turret side and a non-penetrating hit on the lower hull above the tracks. At point-blank range, I put another round into him, just above the tracks, which left a neat round hole. No doubt about that one.Much relieved I steered left, past the front of the Tiger and on course for where I judged the abandoned one must lie. As I came up to him, our victim began to burn. As you can see, these Tigers are fantastic models, much improved on the original one made for SF. As the crouching tiger marking on the front plate shows, the ones in this mission are from Sch. Pz. Abt. 501, not Tiger 131's batallion, Sch. Pz. Abt. 504, although both units did service in Tunisia. By now I was in a hurry, if not also slightly punch drunk, so instead of 'contouring' I just drove straight ahead and over the side of the crest. I was quickly rewarded with the sight of our prey, at last. Looking through the gunsight, there could be no doubt - the right location and the right tank, a single, solitary, stationary Tiger, amongst the killed Churchills. Leaving the other, now-well-alight Tiger behind us, our troop clattered over the crest and down the other side, towards our objective. We had got this far, much to my surprise. Now, it looked like there was a fighting chance that we would actually succeed! ...to be continued!

No, not that Tiger...this one! Right, so the lead tanks had reported locating the abandoned Tiger tank. My task now was to get over there ASAP and confirm it was a runner. Then, the recovery crew would come forward and off we would go, with our prize secure. And every chance of being stood a good few drinks in the mess, at least until people started to tire of our re-telling of the day's exploits. I looked up the map and realised that the gridlines in SF maps are not anotated with Eastings or Northings. And I didn't check if mouseclicking (or whatever) would show a given spot's co-ordinates. I didn't need to. 'X' marked the spot...or rather a nice big red flag did. This had appeared on the map, just north of Point 153, over to my left. What else could this indicate, but the location of our prey? I turned left and moved off, conscious that we might be driving back into the field of fire of that other Tiger...the one who, very much un-abandoned, had very nearly killed me, minutes earlier. But the coast seemed clear. I moved on, prodded by another message from callsign 'Whale', urging me to get on with the job. As I received yet another reminder, I noticed that my troop mates were still halted behind me and had turned half left. Why might they do that, I wondered. Didn't they know we had to get to that static Tiger, that the success of the whole mission now lay in our hands? Looking left to see what it could be that had attracted their attention, I saw a sudden blaze of light erupt on a tank on a crest over there. Oh-oh.... I halted and jump to the gunsight. As I watched, the top of a tank's turret began to appear. It was close enough for me to see quite a bit of detail. 'Dustbin' cupola, turret top sloping away gently to triple smoke dischargers...yes, it was a Tiger, possibly the one who'd nearly settled my hash a short time ago. The only good news was that his turret was turned well to my right. Evidently, he was stalking the leading tanks, further north. Maybe, just maybe, I might get away with this... ...to be continued!

'Here, kitty, kitty...' I checked my position against the map again. SF keeps your map marked with the position of all spotted units in real time. I have never bothered finding out if I can turn this off (as in Panzer Elite) - map reading and navigation can be a fun challenge but many SF missions leave little time for it. I decided I had best continue edging back to the left. Back in the gunsight and scanning again, I suddenly saw a tank foolishly skyline itself, driving onto a crest towards our force, just right of the knocked-out anti-tank gun. Not just a tank - but a Tiger! Our target was evidently not the only big cat in the neighbourhood! I halted and started shooting, hoping my other two tanks, close behind, would do the same. Controlling your platoon's fire isn't something SF enables you to do, though perhaps ordering 'Do as I do' would have helped in this situation. If I had turned to face the threat, they might in turning with me have been more likely to engage. But I knew that my frontal armour gave little more protection than my sides, to an 88, so stayed put and concentrated on putting as many rounds into him as I could, before he blew me to eternity. Perhaps, lying at an oblique angle to him might actually protect me. The Tiger stopped on the forward slope and started shooting…sensibly, not at me, taking other, closer Churchills first. He came under a good old hail of return fire, not least my own. He was maybe 400 yards off and I tried to place my shots, aiming for the turret ring, the lower hull sides just above the track run and the commander's 'dustbin' cupola. A miracle happened. The Tiger sat still. His turret stopped turning and his gun stopped belching fire. We'd got him! How many of us he had taken with him, I was to find out later. I checked my position against the map again. SF keeps your map marked with the position of all spotted units in real time. I have never bothered finding out if I can turn this off (as in Panzer Elite) - map reading and navigation can be a fun challenge but many SF missions leave little time for it. I decided I had gone far enough to the right and started edging back to the left. Off we went again, my two troop-mates tagging close behind me, as if they had just received a good fright - which might very well have been the case. Happily, both were still in the land of the Living. But it wasn't long before another Tiger appeared on the skyline, maybe 500 yards away. This time, sensibly, he stayed hull down, exposing only his turret. I knew I was done for - no chance of two miracles in a row. At top speed - which in a Churchill, even on the level and in good going, isn't terribly 'top' - I just bored on, heading for some dead ground about a hundred yards off. I was a crossing target and had been reduced to relying on that, to keep me alive long enough to get into cover. That, and the fact he might choose to kill somebody else, first! Despair set in as I watched the Tiger's turret swing slowly around, till it was pointing right at me. The tracer from his first round flashed out and arced towards me, slipping past just ahead. Another 50 yards was all I needed, to get to that dead ground! But I didn't get it. Another 88mm round crashed into my tank, killing the gunner. Somehow, she kept on going. Twenty-five yards! Another tracer zipped towards us and hit us noisily, somewhere. But still we kept on going! Then we we in hard cover, with a low hill - no more than a slight fold in the ground really, just high enough to conceal our tanks - between us and the Tiger. Preoccupied with me, he didn't get my other two Churchills, either. The icing on this particular cake was that 'Whale' now announced that the leading tanks - those still left! - had located the abandoned Tiger! Inspecting my tank, there was a neat shot hole in the middle of the left-hand track sponson, evidently the one which had got my gunner. I could see from a silver spash of bare metal where the second shot had struck - a glancing blow across the top of the right-hand track guard, with no real damage done. I'd got my second miracle, after all! A reward not earned by my poor tactics. I should have turned us into the Tiger instantly, returning fire while popping smoke (assuming you can do that in an SF Churchill) and making a plan…but I had been lucky, for doing 'the right thing' would likely have ended up worse for us. As it happened, my requirement for an extra dose of sheer good fortune had not quite reached its limit...as I was soon to find out. ...to be continued!

The fun begins! Steel Fury missions generally launch with you as the tank commander, 'buttoned up' inside the turret. The SF Churchill is I believe a stock tank, made playable. While you do get gunsight and visor views - perfectly adequate for all gameplay purposes - there's no 3D interior. So after ordering the main gun loaded - being a 6-Pounder, I have AP rounds only, no HE - I exited the blank interior view by opening the virtual hatch. And I had a good look around. Close to to me, were the other two tanks of my own troop, getting into the line abreast formation I had ordered, before leaving the map view. A little further away, were our base units - a Universal (aka 'Bren') Carrier and a couple of lorries, two Bedford 'three tonners' and a US lend-lease 'deuce and a half' (one of which I knew will be 'Runner', the recovery crew), covered by some dispersed infantry. Ahead of me, the other Churchills were already advancing across the gently-undulating desert terrain (perhaps a little too 'desert' for Tunisia in the spring, but never mind). Some of the other tanks had already disappeared out of sight, hidden in folds in the ground. Being Infantry Tanks, Churchills are well-protected but slow, so I wasted no time and set off after the others. Studying the map, I decided to go wide, out to the right, rather than just rattle along behind the rest. Ahead and slightly right was a low hill. I wanted us all to stay well off the crest of this so I called my troop into column formation, intending that I would lead them around the left-hand extremity of this hill. Perhaps because I had not enabled 'Always obey orders' in the SF options menus, my boys seemed not to understand and though they adopted the close formation I had also ordered, they stayed resolutely either side of me. Meanwhile, the other Churchills rattled on ahead. I was beginning to feel like Gilbert and Sullivan's Duke of Plaza-Toro: 'In enterprise of martial kind, When there was any fighting, He led his regiment from behind - He found it less exciting.' Oh, to heck with it! If my troop mates wanted to drive over that crest, it was their funeral! Off I went again, steering around the hill, 'driving as the water flows' like they say tanks should. Eventually my mates got the idea and fell in behind me. Meanwhile, battle had been joined, indicated by the sound of cannon fire from somewhere up ahead. The undulations in the ground limited my line of sight in all directions. I could still see some other Churchills, but others were still out of sight and evidently engaged with unseen assailants. What these might be, I didn't know. The briefing had given us little idea of what enemy forces were in the area; useful intelligence was evidently in short supply (by the way, in the British Army, the spoken abbrevaited form of 'intelligence' is 'int', NOT 'intel'). On we rattled. I keep saying 'rattled' but it's actually a good description for this tank in particular, with its long track runs and centiplede-like rows of little road wheels. The SF Churchill looks good (apart from a rather thick barrel) and the Mark III we have now is just right for 1943 Tunisia, complete with an appropriate camouflage scheme and tactical markings. The latter include the names the British generally gave their tanks, using the squadron (US company) letter - for example, all the tanks in 'A' Squadron would have names beginning in - you guessed it - 'A'. Unfortunately for now, all the tanks seem to have the same tactical markings. Here's a real Churchill III, said to be in just the right time and place for this mission - Medjez al Bab, April 1943. I changed from commander's to gunner's station and traversed the turret half-left - I always try to make a habit of keeping my main gun towards where the main threat might be, instead of just motoring about with the turret straight ahead. I halted breifly for observation, went to the gunsight, zoomed in, and started scanning for targets, left to right. It wasn't long before I found one, though he wasn't easy to spot. Just a very small, dark blob against a low hillside, maybe 500 yards off. The only thing that caught my eye was that the blob looked quite angular, even at that range. What did I know, I asked myself, that was very small and angular? Realising quickly that the answer was 'The gunshield of a German 50mm or 75mm anti-tank gun', I laid my sights onto him, adjusted for the estimated range and started hosing him with tracer from the co-ax. Nothing much seemed to happen. No return fire was a good sign, to be sure. But was he dead, or alive and just keeping his head down and his powder dry? Taking no chances and cursing the lack of an HE round, I dropped my aim slightly to allow for the main gun's flatter trajectory and let him have an AP round from the 6-Pounder. Another round from somebody else whacked into the hillside to his left. Encouraged that I was not alone in thinking him worth shooting, I fired again. This time, there was a gout of earth and dirt that looked to be pretty well on target. Still no return fire. That would do, I decided and moved on, though I kept a wary eye on him...just in case. Where are the screenshots of all this, you may ask? In the excitement, I didn't take any. Getting caught in the open by a virtual anti-tank gun does that sort of thing to you. Moving on again, I checked the map and decided I had gone far enough to the right. I nosed back in towards the axis of our advance, over to the left. ...to be continued!

Thanks guys! I had tried lifting the tail once, but it didn't work. Tried it again just now and crashed again the first time - but with a bit more practice, I can now get airborne that way, with no fuss. I think if I wait too long to raise the tail, I get the pirouette, so pushing the stick forward as soon as she starts to roll seems to be a safe bet! Thanks for another great WW1 plane, which fills one of the few remaining gaps in the FE 1915-18 planeset!

Anyone else having troubles with this bird in FE2? First issue I hit is that if there is more than one F.40 lined up for takeoff, our wings seem to clash instantly, with this result (I'm the one sitting static nearest the 'camera'): IIRC there is a mod intended for big aircraft like Gothas, which spaces things out a bit, but I have had no such problems with planes like the Voisin or FE2b. Second, if I take off with just one plane, I can't - take off, that is. As the plane approaches flying speed, she yaws wildly left (controls central). Attempts to correct just reverse the yaw. Feeding in rudder during the takeoff roll doesn't seem to help. After some wild zig-zags I can sometimes get airborne, but by then I am well off the airfield and 'ghosting' through trees, so I don't count that as a successful takeoff. Joystick calibration seems fine. Third, wing breaks are very clean. The screenie below was after getting airborne after one such run through the trees. But before running off the airfield I had clipped a parked plane. The latter fireballed but I didn't, - which was good. But I then managed to lift off, with the loss of a large section of my lower wing not making things any harder - plus there was that very clean break, complete with wires still running out to the now-missing (?) wingtip, which actually seems to have become squared off where before, it was swept back. Is there a technique for getting these birds off the gound, within the airfield boundaries and without zig-zagging more than a thing that zig-zags a lot?