33LIMA

Applying some real-world tank tactics in 'Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942' Fire and manoeuvre; fire and movement; bounding overwatch - call it what you will. But this basic drill is the cornerstone of modern small unit tactics. To quote from one British Army training publication used in my day: 'The role of the infantry in battle is to close with and destroy the enemy. To do this they must move. It may be possible to move safely by using covered approaches but usually an enemy will select positions which, as far as possible present no covered approaches. He will also do his utmost to stop advances by obstacles and fire power. It follows therefore, that attacking infantry must use their fire to make the enemy keep his head down and so make their advance possible. This process of moving using fire is known as 'Fire and Manoeuvre.' RMAS tactical precis 14, 'Battlecraft', September 1976 This drill was equally important in World War 2 and it's as relevant to AFVs as it is to dismounted infantry. It applies at all levels. Within an infantry section (US squad) one part of the section ('fire team', 'rifle group' or 'gun group') goes firm and covers the advance of the other. Within a platoon, one section might provide cover, while the other two sections move. And so on, up the chain of command, or with tanks instead of infantry sub-units. The moving element then goes to ground, and the other element moves. Bounds will be kept short enough so that, in any given terrain, mutual support is maintained. Movement can be by 'caterpillaring' or 'leapfrogging'. When caterpillaring, the element left behind closes up with the lead element, like one of those caterpillars which loops then flattens out its body when moving. When leapfrogging, the element left behind, when it's his turn to move, will...well, leapfrog, and go beyond the other element, before halting. 'Bounding overwatch' is the US Army's term for all this. When caterpillaring, they say you're using 'successive bounds'; when leapfrogging, it's 'alternate bounds'. FM 17-15 describes both (see pages Chapter 3, Section 4). The bottom line is this: you need to close with the enemy, to destroy him. To get close without being destroyed yourself, you need somebody to be pinning him down, while you move. Sometimes the covering fire can be provided by your side's artillery. But at some point, certainly by the time you're 'danger close', you're going to need to organise it so that you can provide your own direct fire support. It's all about splitting your sub-unit into two parts, then one part moving, while the other part fires. Or is ready to fire. Because fire and movement's not just for the final stage of an attack. When you're making an advance to contact, fire and manoeuvre - without the actual firing! - is how you make sure that you won't be wiped out in the first volley and have a better chance of spotting and hitting the enemy than you would, if everyone was moving. With part of your force sitting in cover, watching out for those who are moving, when it hits the fan your casualties will be lower and your return fire, faster and more effective. From real world to tanksim Most tanksims cast the player in the role of the leader of a troop (US or German platoon) of tanks or other AFVs. Some players may be perfectly happy to play the mission's hero and pay little attention to their platoon-mates, or perhaps to rely on them as little more than 'extra lives' if their own tank gets knocked out (if the sim, unlike Steel Fury, allows you to replicate this practice, common in real life...if you survived!). If inclined to take your leadership responsibilities a little more seriously, you might make the effort to get your platoon into the best formation for the tactical situation - maybe column for a road march or close country, wedge for a move across open country, or line abreast for an assault. And then orient and lead them where you want them to go, relying on them maintaining formation on your own tank and helping you shoot up whatever it is, that needs shot up. But if you want to take your platoon tactics a step further, there will be times when fire and manoeuvre will be appropriate. For example, when advancing to contact, perhaps over fairly open country, you don't want to risk driving with your whole platoon into what may turn out to be an enemy's killing ground, laced with the fire of several anti-tank weapons, all zeroed in and ready to give you a nice hot reception. Different tanksims provide different ways of allowing you to do a spot of fire and manoeuvre It's been a while since I played Steel Beasts (original) which I recall did this pretty well but I still play Panzer Elite, which also does a good job here. You can split your 3 to 5 tank Panzer Elite platoon into two elements, and order each element, or any individual tank, to move to a point in the 3d game world by mouse-clicking on that spot. You could even designate targets or order fire at will or cease fire. But the purpose here is to describe how to carry out the drill in Steel Fury, whose platoon command and control facilities are rather more basic - for example, you have only two formations to choose from (if you exclude the 'blob' of the 'no formation' option) - column and line abreast. Steel Fury also has less hotkeys for the facilities it does provide, requiring some platoon commands to be issued from the map screen. It took a bit of experimentation to work out how to get my platoon to fire and manoeuvre, and having got passable results I thought I'd post them here. I'm going to describe two alternative methods you can use for Steel Fury. In both cases I have started with 'Always obey orders' selected, via the main game options menu. This may or may not be essential but I believe it reduces the possibility that your crew - and perhaps your other platoon-members - will ignore your commands (eg out of fear). When running drills which require obedience, this seems like a good thing! Method 1 - you move first OK, you've launched the mission. Many SF missions don't tell you before you start exactly what you'll be commanding, but let's say that - as is most often the case, and thus a fairly safe bet - you have seen, say, two other tank symbols near yours on the briefing map (your tank is the lightest blue, of the 'blue diamond' tank symbols on the map). And on kicking off the mission, you confirm that both of them answer to your commands. So you're in command of a platoon, three tanks in this case. Perfect! 1. With your own tank lined up on your chosen axis of advance - pointing the way you want to go - hit F8 to bring up the map screen. Then click the 'Line formation' icon, in the vertical stack to the right of the map: You might also want to: (a) minimise the briefing text panel, to get a better view of the map (click the 'book' icon, in the horizontal row at the top of the map); and/or (b) order closer formation, by clicking on the icon showing two closely-spaced dots, on the right; This gets everybody into line (abreast) formation, which is the best starting point for this drill. It may work from other formations but could get messy. After ordering line and returning to the mission, you might need to drive your tank forward a little, to start the other tanks moving into formation. 2. Wait until your tanks have lined up - usually, on either side of you. Then - and only then - back in the map screen, click on the 'Stop' icon (the bin or wastebasket symbol in the vertical stack over on the left of the map; if that stack isn't displaying, click on the 'Orders' icon - the 'shouting head' symbol - in the top row, to display them). Again, your tank is the lighter of the three blue diamonds on the map: 3. Move off in the desired direction, back in the 3d game world, with your own tank (W-A-S-D keys). Because you ordered 'Stop' at step 2, your platoon-mates will stay put when you move off, covering you from where they sit; 4. Complete your first bound and stop in a decent position, one which gives you a good field of view ahead and as much cover as you can get. You did choose this position visually, before you moved off, didn't you? Not too far - you need your platoon tanks, waiting behind you, to be able to spot and engage anything which tries to do you any harm. 5. Hit F8 to get back to the map screen and order 'Do as I do' by clicking the 'two heads' icon at the top of the left-hand stack. F8 will take you back from the map to the game world and if you look over your shoulder - quickly, because you should be watching your arcs, ahead - you will see your platoon-mates start moving again and drive forward until they are line abreast with you, once again. Rinse and repeat as often as necessary, from Step 2. To sum up: 1. order 'Line' formation (from map screen) 2. when in formation, order 'Halt' (from map screen) 3. move your tank ahead a 'tactical bound' and then stop 4. order 'Do as I do' (from map screen; the others will now rejoin formation) ...repeat as necessary, from Step 2: map order 'Halt' - move yourself - map order 'Do as I do'. That's it. Not difficult. Use when doing an advance to contact or in an assault, when you are closing with an enemy whose fire you need some of your tanks to return, accurately. Here it is, in action. Starting from line abreast, my Tiger moves forward, leaving the other two platoon tanks halted to my rear, covering my advance I have now halted and called the other two tanks forward; they advance to rejoin me The others have now halted on either side of my Tiger. I am ready to begin the next bound Method 2 - they move first I think I prefer this method. It can be done from the game world, without having to switch back and forward from the map screen. And because you can't take over a platoon-mate's tank if yours gets clobbered in Steel Fury, sending the others on ahead is less risky. A possible downside is that it works from the tank commander (unbuttoned) station so if like me, you play mostly from the gunsight and external views, there is an extra keystoke to get there. Here's how it works. 1. Same step 1 as the first method - get your platoon into line (abreast). 2. If not there already, get to the tank commander (unbuttoned) view (F3, with external view toggled off with F9). 3. Hit the F key, which activates target or destination selection, causing a little red crosshair symbol to appear in your view. Move this crosshair with the mouse over the spot you want your platoon-mates to move to, and RIGHT click with the mouse (left click selects a target, not a movement location). IMMEDIATELY after you right-click, hit the Q key - this stops your own tank from moving with the others. Hit it reasonably quickly and your tank won't have started to move. It's a good idea to hit the F key again at this point, to toggle off target mode, otherwise you won't be able to mouselook around. 4. Watch your arcs, while your platoon-mates drive forward and halt in the position you selected. 5. When they're set, move off yourself. You can either leapfrog and halt beyond them, which is riskier but makes for a faster advance. Or you can stop when level with them. Rinse and repeat, from step 2. That's it - easy, peasy. There is a variant of this. Go to the map screen (F8) and order a move (click the arrow icon in the left-hand stack, then click on a spot on the map, as the destination). Then quickly toggle the map off (F8 again) AND hit the Q key, to stop your own tank. Your platoon-mates will move to the designated spot while you provide 'overwatch'. I like this less that doing it from the TC unbuttoned view as I don't have to switch to the map, my own tank will often start moving before I get to the Q key and I have seen my platoon-mates collide when converging on the designated spot. To sum up: 1. order 'Line' formation (from map screen) 2. when in formation, from the TC view, mark the next fire position ahead, then quickly stop your own tank (F+RMB, followed quickly by Q) 3. when the others halt there, move off in your own tank (halt with them or leapfrog) ...then repeat, from step 2: mark next fire position+stop - when others halt, move off. And here's Method 2 in action. My platoon-mates move forward to the spot I selected, while I cover them from the halt Once my platoon-mates have halted, it's my turn to roll forward, while they cover my move Instead of stopping in line with them, I decide to leapfrog and drive on, while they remain halted, behind me Once across the ploughed field, I halt by a track and order the other two Tigers to leapfrog past me The Tigers roll on ahead, covered by my stationary tank. Naturally, you can mix these two methods. For example, after leapfrogging your platoon-mates using method 2, you can switch to method 1 - order 'Do as I do' from the map screen and call them forward to join your tank, instead of sending them out in front again. Limitations & bottom line Not unreasonably, when the steel starts flying, your AI platoon-mates may decide that they have better things to do. So your efforts to direct them may go awry. And hitting the wrong key - or forgetting to hit the correct one - could see your tanks moving when you don't want them to, or in the wrong direction. The second method - sending your other tanks forward, before you move - seems to me to be least vulnerable to an attack of 'sausage fingers', but it needs a careful choice of fire position with that right mouse-click, followed rapidly by a 'Q' command to stop your own driver from moving, when you want him to sit still, so you can cover your buddies' move. The mission you're playing may not cater very well to tactical subtlety - the rest of your force may rush the enemy, leaving you well behind and late for the party. Not ideal, as your Panzer Grenadiers - any who survive, that is - aren't going to be very happy that you weren't there, when needed. And that they're going to have to walk, as all their half-tracks will have been knocked out, deprived of your tank platoon's direct fire support. However, there's an old soldier's saying that no man rushes to a market where there's nothing to be bought but blows. And if nobody else in your force seems to have heard that one, I figure that's no reason against adopting better tactics and preserving your own men's lives. No doubt, though, that everybody hitting the objective at the same time is in everyone's best interests. Missions with enough time for more cautious tactics by everyone, player and AI alike, seem like a good idea, to me. Of course, if the mission designer has assigned you a single vehicle, or at the other extreme, has given you command of other troops or vehicles beyond a platoon of say, 2 to 5 vehicles, then a different approach will be needed. All the methods described above do, is enable you to use your own vehicle as one 'fire team' and any other vehicles you control as a second team. It's ideal with a platoon of three vehicles or even just two. If you have four or more then you really need the ability to split the platoon more evenly and command each half separately. Panzer Elite will let you do this but I'm fairly sure Steel Fury doesn't. Not a big issue, though, as most Steel Fury missions seem to give you three tanks (the usual strength of a Soviet and some British platoons, and fine for a slightly-understrength German or US one). So, there you have it. Fire and movement, or bounding overwatch, in Steel Fury. It won't suit every situation. It may go completely t*ts up when the shooting really starts. And it won't turn you into a virtual Michael Wittmann, overnight or ever. But it's another little trick you can add to your repertoire. Personally, I think the best sims are those which give you the additional tactical element of playing as a flight or platoon leader, with 'wingmen' who make a contribution which you can help direct and determine. You can't run the whole battle in Steel Fury (and don't need to, this isn't a 'real-time strategy' game) but you can make some tactical decisions for your platoon, as well as fight your own tank. The sim doesn't give you the level of control or the connection with your platoon's NCOs and soldiers that you get from 'old school' classics like M1 Tank Platoon 2 or Panzer Elite. But you can still play the role of a platoon leader in virtual battle, by making the best of those command and control tools that Steel Fury does provide. With modder Lockie's help I'm planning a training mission where you can practice this and perhaps also gunnery and some other basic drills in a 'field training area' where the targets don't shoot back - and in a Tiger tank as illustrated, for which you'll need the new STA mod. The screenies above were taken in a basic first version, cloned from an existing mission; if it works out, I'll report in!

A new mission for a new tank in Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942 This Ukrainian tanksim's small but prolific and talented band of modders certainly keeps the rest of us well supplied with new kit and other toys! The latest update to the New Tank Add-on's (NTA) most recent mission pack (3.62, at time of writing) includes the new operation, map and vehicles featured in this mission report. Details of what you need to get the latest and the best from Steel Fury and the NTA mod are, as always, kept up-to-date on the Graviteam forum's NTA thread, here. Edit, 27 July '14 - the NTA add-on has been discontinued, but a successor, the Steel Tank Add-on (STA) is now available: http://stasf2008.ephpbb.com/t6-steel-tank-add-on-steel-fury The mission 'Panther's Last Roar' by Lockie has a most interesting premise. The curtain has officially come down on World War 2, but your German unit is one of many who have been bypassed by the advancing Red Army and who are now desperately fighting their way back west, in an effort to reach territory occupied by the Western Allies, rather than surrendering to the vengeful Ivans. Even more interesting is the fact that your tank is a real novelty, one that didn't actually see operational service: the Panther F. This was a final Panther variant, a sort of simplified version of the originally-planned Panther II. Basically the Panther F had the hull of the Panther G (which did see service, 1944-45) fitted with a new schmallturm or 'small turret' of a type originally intended for the definitive but aborted Panther II. As you can see from the screenshot above, this turret replaced the typical Panther long, curved gun mantlet with a saukopf or 'pigs head' version, as fitted to the Henschel turret of the King Tiger. The schmallturm was also fitted for a stereoscopic rangefinder. The SF version has the armoured fairings each side of the upper turret for this device, but has only a conventional sight fitted. Fancy new optics were clearly in short supply in the last days of the 'Thousand Year Reich! The mission briefing largely consists of a 'pep talk' from the German force's commander, a certain Hauptman Schulze. In his little speech, he tells us we are officers in the renegade Russian 'Vlasov's Army', which doesn't seem to fit a scenario involving panzers. Schulze isn't telling his platoon commanders much about what they are to do, in this mission. But it seems that the operation is in three phases - we are to break through and secure safe passage to US positions in Halbe, on the way destroying some defensive positions and defeating any counter-attack. You don't find out until you start the mission that the player is in command of just the unit's two Panther F tanks. So you can't be Schulze, who will have made the plan for the mission, whatever it is, and who commands the whole force. Anyway, here's the start and the end of the briefing. Scrolling upwards with the briefing panel turned off, you can see Halbe, our intended destination. Below and right of that is marked the area of the defensive positions, which lie between our force and Halbe. In the absence of specific orders, I felt entitled to make my own plan. Looking at the lie of the land, I decided I would go left-flanking, swinging out first behind the cover of the bank which the contours showed ran right to left across our immediate front. Short of the next road that led to Hable, I would turn right, ascend to just below the top of the bank and halt in a hull-down position, well to the left of our main force. From there, I would support its advance by fire. I would then move up to the area of the enemy positions and go firm there, in anticipation of a counterattack. I marked out my route on the planning map using the Move command, and gave my unit - whatever it was - the order to close up in column formation and to conform to my movements and actions. Time to get cracking! When the mission loaded up, as I usually do, I first ordered an appropriate main gun round loaded (HE in this case) - there's no such thing as 'Battle carry - sabot loaded! in SF '42. And I popped the hatch open from the commander station (F3+P - operating unbuttoned is more realistic and the AI tank commander ducks down of his own accord when the metal starts to fly). Finally I switched to the gunner station (F2) and started swinging the turret. Zoomed out, I set the sights to 200 meters as a convenient 'battle sights' setting then zoomed them in (you can't see the range setting mark when zoomed in). For some reason my 'move' command was ignored - perhaps I had done something which had over-ridden it. No matter. 'Driver - left!' 'Left again!' Driver, advance!' - and off we went, leaving the others behind us, silent and still as we rattled noisily on our way. ...to be continued!

PS the next mission ended better - playing Lockie's 'Counterstrike' King Tiger mission again (as featured in a previous Mission Report), but this time without the winter weather mod. Nearly got caught out, moving across the open ground in front of the objective, by some Ivans coming in from the flanks. But it ended rather badly for some of them. Frinik's 'increased fire effect' setting did them absolutely no favours: It can get embarrassing, though, if you finally make it into the village at exactly the same time as a platoon of T-35-85s also decides to drop by, from the opposite direction. Not a good idea, to let them get this close: Managed to nail all three, though. Even if, out of AP rounds, I had to finish off the last T-34 with several HE shells at very close range: But all's well that ends well, even though we ended up getting wet when the rain came down.

Hi PCPilot Lockie talked me through a few moves on the ME via Skype a couple of weeks back. Since then I've used it just once, just to replace an early Tiger 1 with the later model, in the Otto Carius mission IIRC, and I was talked through that, tho it was quite easy to do. Some of the terminilogy, like 'contours' for lining up units, is a bit non-intuitive. Like anything else it'd take time to learn, and no doubt it has its limitations and quirks, but it doesn't look too hard to pick up.

Hi von Oben just had a look and the link Ataribaby sent me to that mod is no longer functional. He's a member here and at SimHQ so you may want to pm him - good luck! @Manitouguy - sorry I just saw your post only now. As you may have discovered since, there are two different sets of Peter01's FMs, one set for FE(1) and one set for FE2. Just install the complete set for your sim. It will likely create folders and install the modified files for some planes you may not have, but that won't do any harm. The only issue I have with this mod is that it also neuters AI gunners, by reducing the rates at which they can elevate/depress or traverse their guns; I had to hand-edit all the two-seater data files, to get them back to their more dangerous abilities, which I prefer (especially when I'm flying a two-seater, myself!).

The butcher's bill...and some meditations on tanksim mission design... A quick look at my own tank's stats showed that we had done quite well, as a crew. I neglected to check the same information for my second Panther, who lay nearby, hatches open. It would have been informative to have seen whether or not he had made a decent contribution, or had largely been along for the ride. To my mind, a good sim, tank or otherwise, is one in which it's not all down to the player and the AI can play its part, too. A review of the battlefield revealed all, ranging from rampant IS-3s to killed T-44s and other armour, including our solitary King Tiger, who had fallen victim to the T-44's swarm tactics. As usual, our light armour had also taken a good hammering. There were some knocked-out guns and MGs and a couple of Katyushas whose rocket-launching days were clearly over. Overall, this was a challenging and really exciting mission, with some good opportunities to practice both gunnery and tactical movement. The new tanks and the map are great! The Panther F is especially impressive, with a very convincing paint job, although she probably should not have the Zimmerit anti-magnetic mine paste, which stopped being applied in the autumn of 1944, I believe. I have just three minor quibbles. Firstly, the odds against us were quite steep. I realise you can vary this with the sim's global 'balance' option but would have preferred lower difficulty at the default setting. Secondly, the briefing - 'orders' are the correct term, here, giving a better impression of what they should convey - was very limited. A 'pep talk' from the boss is very nice but is no substitute for him explaining his plan for the mission - in particular, telling the player what his part in it should be. And thirdly, the plan itself, when seen to unfold in-game, looked to be just a straightforward 'charge' directly at the enemy - as a French general observed after a not-dissimilar enterprise during the Crimean War, 'C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre!'. This seems common in SF missions - no wonder the light armour often suffers so badly. Better plans or tactics could - I would say, should - aim to mimimise such casualties. It wasn't just my fault that we lost this battle with such heavy losses! The limited size of Steel Fury maps will inhibit wide flanking moves but as with a real-life force commander who is faced with tight unit boundaries, there will usually be some things that a mission designer can incorporate into the plan (ie the mission design and its briefing) to deal as effectively as possible with the tactical situation presented in the mission. Things like maximising direct or indirect fire support, to precede and then cover movement; use of covered approaches, avoiding movement over open ground as far and for as long as possible; light armour staying behind the heavy stuff, if advancing on the same axis; and invoking triggers or morale effects which reduce the tendency of the the light armour or dismounted troops, in particular, to rush ahead near-suicidally into heavy fire, until sufficient of the enemy's heavy weapons are knocked out or suppressed. Any or all of that good stuff. In this mission, if planning such an operation myself, I would probably have deployed the tanks into action first, shooting up all visible enemies from the embankment, and 'won the fire-fight' before any light armour or dismounted infantry made a move or exposed themselves, running up that exposed hillside. The player, in command of just a platoon of tanks or the like, can't organise much if any of this; that's the boss's job. A military-style mission brief, based on the sort of plan a real-life commander would have made for the operation in question, would be a good start, in all cases. Not just a more realistic experience for the player, but giving him a better picture of what's supposed to happen - what the boss's plan is. Sims like Steel Beasts and Steel Armour - Blaze of War (or even M1 Tank Platoon 2, on a small scale) all allow or expect you to plan and/or control the overall battle. Sims like Panzer Elite or Steel Fury put you purely in the platoon commander role, with no ability to plan or control the actions of other sub-units. Which is absolutely fine. But this means it's down to the mission designer - within the limits of the sim - to fulfill the role of the company commander. The man whose job it is, to plan, and then to run, the battle. Anyway, that's my philosophy of tanksim mission design, in a nutshell - that realistic simulation of AFVs, gunnery and so on is of course necessary in a tanksim, but so is a reasonable effort to simulate realistically other important elements of platoon-to-company level ground operations. Here endeth the sermon! Anyway, this was a terrific mission, intense and exiting, with an engaging back-story and great new tanks and map - a 'must play' for any serious WW2 tank sim fan. Highly recommended. If/when you have a go, why not report your own experiences, tactics and results here, on this thread?

Here they come! A Soviet tank was about to burst over the skyline maybe a hundred metres away, moving fast and coming my way. I had an HE round 'up the spout' - that would have to do. I lined up my sights and as more of the enemy's turret came into view, I let him have it. Immediately I ordered an AP round loaded, firing as soon as the loader began to announce he had finished. At that range, even with a crossing target, it would have been hard to miss, but I was still mightily relieved to see the enemy tank stop and begin to burn. Phew! Looking at the Soviet machine, I could see that it was a T-44 which I think, like the Panther F, did not see combat in WW2. It's basically the hull of what would later become the T54/T55 series, but with a T-34-85 style turret. A sleek and dangerous opponent at close range or from the side, where a Panther's armour is relatively thin. This train of thought was interrupted by an outbreak of firing over on my right, where the ground dipped away. I was horrified to see more T-44s advancing rapidly, evidently 'swarming' the solitary King Tiger. I began to back up frantically, at the same time swinging my tank's more heavily-armoured front towards the new threat and hoping this move would trigger my second Panther also to face the enemy. One of the T-44s was already aiming in our direction, but firing on the move, his round fell short. My first round in return struck the ground just below his front return roller, but my second and third were hits. He ground to a stop, one of his tracks unrolling behind him. I switched targets and engaged the other T-44s. Their return fire resulted in my engine being reported damaged. And at some point, one of them knocked out my second Panther; the first I saw of this, later on, was an escaping panzer crewman crawling through the grass, which told me all I needed to know. In the frantic and exciting gunnery duel which had developed, I succeeded in clobbering two more T-44s. But it had been a close-run thing and by the end of it, the King Tiger was finished, too, guns silent, hatches open and obviously abandoned. There was another bang and another spout of earth on the crest just ahead of me. Yet another impact confirmed my belief that something I could not see, on the other side of that crest, knew that I was there and was trying to kill me. I backed up frantically, resisting the temptation to edge forward so that I could spot him, knowing that would likely result in the next round hitting me the moment I presented a better target. Displacing to one side, I approached the crest so as to re-appear in a different spot. I quickly saw the shooter, and a scary sight it was. A Iosef Stalin 3 heavy tank, head on and hot off the assembly line, with a slow-firing but powerful 122mm gun and heavy, well-shaped frontal armour to match. Sensing that I was probably making a terrible mistake, I took a gut decision to take him on. Unfortunately, on engaging the first T-44, I had selected a Panzergranate 40 round and not changed that selection during the subsequent firefight. This Armour Piercing Composite Rigid, tungsten-cored ammunition has higher penetration at short range. But now, all I had left was conventional AP (Panzergranate 39). Firing as fast as the loader could chamber them, I put two or three rounds into the IS-3 before he could get off another shot. I was relieved and delighted when the fearsome Soviet monster began to spill smoke and a crewman bailed out and ran off. I'd nailed the Soviet super-tank!!! But all was not well. it was at this point that I saw a panzer crewman crawling in the grass in front of me. Evidently, and un-noticed by me, something very bad had befallen the second Panther, from whence he had come. At that point, things started happening fast, once again. More bad things. Something unseen but clearly dangerous hit my tank, silencing my damaged engine. The counterattack wasn't over. In fact, the worst was yet to come. It appeared in the form of two more IS-3s, rolling along in the wake of the T-44s I'd just knocked out. I could practically feel my skin crawling, just like the two Soviet heavies, which seemed to crawl into view, beetle-like and menacing, just a few hundred meters away. Unable to move, all I could do was shoot, but I had hardly spotted the IS-3s when another 122mm round slammed into my battered Panther. For me, the war was over. No comparatively pleasant US PoW camp for me; at best some Soviet medical treatment then captivity, at worst….! ...to be continued!

The fight continues... Accompanied by the second Panther, I halted behind a slight fold in the ground about half-way up the hill and scanned again for targets. I still could not see what the others had been shooting at over there; I think it turned out to be the Katyusha rocket launchers, which the King Tiger evidently destroyed. My radio operator cut loose with his MG for a while at another target on the left, which seemed to be occasional Soviet soldiers popping up their heads at intervals. I rolled forward a bit to give him a clearer shot, and perhaps get a crack myself. But when I halted again a little further up the hill towards the crest, all I could see was grass, wrecked guns, and more grass. Firing died away, and the King Tiger moved across our front (again!) and back over to our right. It seemed that we had achieved the first phase of the mission, the destruction of the enemy defensive positions. So far, so good! But there was more to be done. Already, we were being warned to be ready for a counterattack. Nervously, my other Panther loosed off a round at a target I could not see. More pesky Soviet survivors, ducking and diving? Or something else...? Cautiously, I rolled on again, up towards the skyline, scanning anxiously left and right along it, as we approached. I could see that going straight across, or even halting there hull down, would be dangerous, as I would skyline myself the instant I came to the crest, to any enemies on the other side. I wanted a lower route over the crest, one that would provide some cover...perhaps those trees over to my left? I was still considering this issue when events took matters out of my hands. A shell threw up a column of dirt, just up ahead of me. As I scanned through the gunsight, I suddenly saw an obviously man-made dark green object appear on the skyline, which was just a hundred meters or so away and looked closer in the magnified sight picture. I quickly saw that the object was the top of a tank turret and that it was close, moving fast from right to left, and at the same getting closer. I had about two seconds before it came up over the crest to my immediate front. ...to be continued!

Into battle! Our two Panthers rumbled on, off to the left, where I planned to adopt hull-down fire positions just below the top of the embankment to our right. From there, we would shoot the main force onto the first objective - the enemy defensive positions on the high ground between us and Halbe, where supposedly lay safety from Soviet incarceration. We hadn't got very far before the rest of the force moved off, directly towards the enemy. The mission briefing hadn't explained what the plan was but in Steel Fury, attacking force tactics often look to be a simple advance straight towards the objective, more or less en masse. So I sort of expected they would all just 'up sticks' and basically charge. And they did. Off went the dismounted grenadiers, with the single King Tiger in the lead and the light armour - half-tracked SPWs and some Puma armoured cars - all moving off, up and over the bank and directly at the enemy, each at their own best speed. It was rather reminiscent of infantry 'going over the top' in WW1. I could have simply started the mission, observed what the others did, then moved my own two-tank sub-unit to conform with and directly support their movements. But the boss hadn't given me any specific instructions and I had decided instead to go left flanking, rather than simply move with the AI herd. Before much longer, the herd had disappeared over the embankment. All I could see of them now was the occasional shellburst and a few tracers from 'overs', which zipped past, over where they had formed up, now behind me. I had planned to go well wide but evidently, the party had started and my attendance was now required, as a matter of some urgency. So I turned right up the bank, ordering line abreast formation. Slowing down as my big Panther neared the crest, I depressed my gun slightly in readiness and then stopped, hull down. From there, I began scanning anxiously for targets. With the ground sloping up gently ahead of me, the Ivans weren't hard to see. On the upper reaches of the slope was a series of field pieces in rough defensive positions, with some machine guns further back. Some of the Ivans were nicely skylined, right up on the crest. If they had been deployed to face an attack from the opposite direction, many would have been on a reverse slope, able to catch us by surprise and at close range as we came over the crest. But instead, here they were. laid out on a forward slope, like targets in a shooting gallery. Except, these targets could shoot back. With my long-barrelled 75mm tank gun's flat trajectory, my initial 'battle sights' setting of 200 meters seemed like it would be fine. So at full magnification, I laid my gun onto the first target and let her rip, correcting for range with subsequent rounds. With no serious armoured opposition as yet, these enemy guns were my priority targets, posing the biggest threat, both to myself and to our advancing light armour which - as seems common in SF missions - was rushing ahead, bravely but regardless of danger. The enemy MGs would have to wait. Soviet artillery doctrine, like German, maintained that all weapons should have an anti-tank capability. And head-on, an dug-in 122mm howitzer isn't easy to distinguish from a 76mm field gun or a 57mm AT gun. So I just shot one target then went looking for the next one. At one point I was distracted by an odd, moaning, whooshing sound. Up on the skyline, I saw dark smoke trails appear. Evidently, some Soviet Katyusha-type rocket launchers were in action up there, although we must surely be safely well inside the minimum engagement range of these indirect-fire weapons. I returned to my appointed task of silencing the enemy direct fire weapons which were the greatest visible threat to our advance. One of the problems with tanksims is that it's relatively easy to get you own tank into a good fire position, but less easy to do the same for your platoon-mates. You can't say to them on the radio - 'Go hull down on my right - engage enemy guns to your front!'. Not a big problem if your platoon already has a direct line of sight to the enemy. But definitely an issue in a situation like this, where I want my other Panther to move up into a covered fire position next to me, from where he, too, could see and engage the enemy. SF has a map screen command to 'adopt defensive positions' but having tried it once or twice, it seems to order everyone, including your own tank's driver, to find and drive into cover. Not wanting to have my own Panther move and unable to work out quickly how best to get my other tank into a decent fire position, I forgot about him and got on with the job in hand, on my own. My gunnery in SF seems to have improved with practice and I had soon knocked out all the guns I could see, using one or two rounds apiece and generally getting first round hits - not a big thing I admit, at a range of just a few hundred meters. Next, I moved on to the skylined MGs, whose muzzle flashes showed they were making good shooting at our dismounted troops. One or two of my rounds disappeared over the horizon but most were on target. By this time, the charging SPWs had just about reached the nearest enemy positions, which included some infantry in trenches. At least some of our half-tracks had survived; no doubt, the guns I had silenced, helped here. The grenadiers, on the other hand, seemed to have suffered badly, as only the occasional German infantryman could be seen moving forward. Knowing that the Soviet infantry had big anti-tank rifles and other close-combat AT weapons which were rather dangerous for our light armour, I sprayed the visible trenches with MG fire, adding the occasional HE round for good measure. I could see the SPWs were shooting at targets off to the left. They were soon joined by the King Tiger, which rolled uphill to join in the fun, right across our front. Don't mind us, big boy, I thought to myself. With the main threat to my tanks now destroyed, I moved off again, intent on closing with and then finishing off any Ivans remaining in the trenches. The King Tiger was now on the extreme left so I left him to it there. I steered more or less straight up the slope, in between the King Tiger and the main force's axis of advance, over on my right. ...to be continued!

Here's that listing of the main keyboard controls:

Hi PCpilot - the full game's manual has a full listing but it's (a) long and (b) hard to fathom in places. I made a Wordpad file with a shortened list I used for quick reference and will post this here when I get home from work. Hi Cap'n - at the start of a mission in Steel Beasts (I only have the original, but old or current version - SB Pro PE - it's still the most technically accurate tanksim) you hear a crew member - the loader presumably - report on your tank's intercom that there is an Armour Piercing Fin-Stabilised Discarding Sabot round - APFSDS or 'sabot' for short - loaded in the main gun. Hence that message. So you know you're starting off the mission with a round of that type 'up the spout'. In SF '42 you start with an unloaded main gun and have to remedy that at once, or risk subsequent embarrassment. I chose a High Explosive (HE) round as I anticipated from the mission briefing that we would most likely first encounter un-armoured targets.

The heavies are back! Here's the briefing for the next mission in my Reich Defence career, flown as per previous missions in IL-2 '46 + Dark Blue World and the same campaign from FlatSpinMan. I say 'briefing' but it's actually a conversational piece between the campaign pilot Willi Redemann and his boss, followed by what has the appearance of a piece of extended radio traffic, from the local Ground Controller to fighters outbound for an interception mission. 'Furniture Vans' - 'Moebelwagen' in German - is a Luftwaffe radio nickname for heavy bombers, so it's pretty clear that we're up against the USAAF's Eighth Air Force. And from the reference to 'butcher birds' - a little-used name for the Focke-Wulf 190 - it's evident that our Bf109Gs from I Gruppe, Jagdgeschwader 1, won't be on our own. Just as well, methinks, even if, at this stage of the war, we're not facing opposition from escort fighters. Big formations of Ami four-engined bombers bristling with heavy machine-guns are no easy meat, even unescorted. The briefing map's a bit confusing as it shows two tracks, one leading out from the coast and the other (ours, as it turned out) running north-north-east. Neither appeared to originate or terminate at an airbase, which was a strong hint that this was an air-start mission...and so it proved to be. As usual for an intercept mission, I've chosen 20mm gunpods and a droptank for my formation, which as before is a schwarm of four Bf109G2s. The mission started with us in echelon right at the designated mission height, which saved us the takeoff and a long-ish climb to height, though I generally prefer to start on the ground. I throttled back slightly, gave the order to change to 'finger four' formation, then opened up again as my comdades slipped into position. As expected, there were at least two other flights on the same mission, which I could see from their contrails, above us. Who were they? Using the IL-2 view system to 'have a nosey', I could see that our companions consisted of another flight or two of 109s and a couple of flights of 190s. If I remember my Luftwaffe markings right, the checkered-nose 190s are from 1/JG1 and the ones with the 'tatzelwurm' (which is on the opposite side of the cowling of the other 190s, with the cross-hatched fuselage side camouflage) are from IV/JG1. Orders from the Ground Controller reminded us to turn right onto heading 090 when we reached the next waypoint, in which direction we'd been briefed to expect to encounter the American bombers heading home from their raid. Up ahead, the other two flights started their turn and rather than wait till I had reached the waypoint, above the lake just ahead, I cut the corner and turned in early. I didn't gain much ground; the others must have been at full throttle! Whatever might lie up ahead, it looked like they would run into it first. Fair enough, I thought to myself as I rolled out onto my new course, I tried. So be it! ...to be continued!

Thanks, Cap'n. I'm on 4.10.1 which I think is the latest compatible with DBW. Haven't tried additional 'The Full Monty' (TFM) mod for DBW yet; the drill seemed a bit convoluted and/or tedious tho it looks quite worthwhile taking the plunge. Apparently a 4.12-compatible version of DBW is in the works: http://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,38549.0.html

Back for more! I know B-17s are a tough opponent but it was thanks mainly to very indifferent shooting that - after a head-on attack followed by two passes from astern - my target was still airborne. However, he was on his own and in a bad way. My second pass had removed his right elevator and he now had a hole in his fin that - to borrow one B-17 crewman's pithy description of similar airframe damage - you could shove a sheep through. Not that such creatures could often be found at this altitude and in the middle of a desperate air fight, but you know what he means. My next attack simply repeated the pattern. I closed as fast as I could to minimise my exposure to return fire and jinked between firing, but again, I got only a few hits. In the condifion he was in, I think I was expecting that one or two more strikes would tip him over the edge. But no, he still wouldn't go down! On the 'plus side', return fire was still sporadic and inaccurate. Deciding the next one would settle the matter, I made a more determined pass, holding my course without any evasive action and firing longer bursts. This had two effects. First, I expended my remaining cannon rounds and second, of course, this time I finally I got hit. Oil splattered my windscreen. Bound to happen, really. Nevertheless I had another go with my two 7.92mm nose MGs. Once again I was thinking, maybe a few more hits is all it'll take, for the cumulative damage to send him down. But no such luck! He was losing height but still under control and on my last pass, my MGs fell silent, too. Snaking around above my doughty opponent, I now reconsidered calling my flight-mates over to finish him off. Seeing them closing up on me, I gave the order, but they were unable to comply. Perhaps they were out of rounds or could not identify the B-17. I had some difficulties tracking the bomber myself, as he was still losing height and beginning to drift in and out of sight between the many little cloudlets at lower level. All that remained now was to watch and wait for him to crash...I hoped. But I was denied even that. A wingman reported the victory but I saw nothing, the clouds blotting out the B-17's crash site. As the recorded 'track' showed afterwards, the Fortress had finally slipped into a long, shallow spiral earthwards which had ended badly for the big bomber and its crew, none of whom had bailed out. By this time, my increasingly oil-starved engine was starting to complain, audibly, in the form of the usual grinding, clanking sound. I ordered my flight to break off and return to base - thankfully, all three were still airborne - and consulted my map. The nearest airfield was still some way off but I turned in that direction, gradually losing height as my engine's power faded. Before long the prop spun to a stop and down I went. The extensively-forrested terrain was a bit of a worry but there were also decent tracts of clearer countryside, in between. I steered for some open ground near a village; hopefully I could catch a lift home from there, without a long hike across the fields. Not needing to get very far, I held my nose down to keep my speed up and avoid a stall. Turning in to land wheels-up, I was nearly caught out by a little hill that I hadn't noticed earlier but I managed to avoid it. In doing so I ended up coming in faster than planned as well as having to make a late change of forced landing site. In holding her off the ground till the airspeed bled away, I nearly ended up running into some trees I noticed rather late and was lucky my untra-low-level avoiding action didn't cause a stall. But my trusty Messerschmitt behaved impeccably and I smacked down fairly gently. Climbing out, I set off for the village at a steady trot. This was an enjoyable mission which would have been more fun still if I'd taken more care taking shots and less care taking snaps. Another issue was that I did something wrong before starting the mission - perhaps it was kicking off a different campaign, between this one's missions - that caused me to be presented with repeating the previous mission to this one, though I am quite sure that I 'accepted' its results.. I re-started that one then immediately quit, rather than completely re-flying it; then I moved on to this mission. But in so doing, I lost my kills and medals from mission #3! Unfortunately, head-on attacks in flight formation in IL-2 seem difficult or impossible to set up; while you can make one yourself, your flight does its own thing, in my experience anyway. Still, it was a pretty good show in more than one sense; to my eye anyway, the latest IL-2 visuals still look rather lovely, even without modded effects. As for missions like this one, USAAF bomber formations, while lacking the tightness, precision or intensity of defensive fire of, say, European Air War, make most impressive and exciting foes and I'm certainly looking forward to the next mission with JG1 in defence of the Reich. Watch this space to see if I can do any better, next time!

The luck is pushed...and pushed... Having damaged my chosen B-17 in my first, head-on pass and hit but failed to finish him in my second, from astern, it was time to have another go. I reversed my turn and dropped back behind and below the damaged Fortress, clearing my tail and generally sizing things up before making another attack. There was plenty going on. No Ami fighters, but to my right, a couple of our own aircraft had ganged up on another lone B-17, which was already trailing dark smoke and seemed unlikely to be able to hold out much longer. Lower down, another lone bomber was struggling, and I was tempted to go after him. But I saw tracers from his tail gunner and realised that somebody had beaten me to that one, too. So! Evidently, it was time to renew my acquaintance with the fellows in 'my' B-17. He was now well out on his own but appeared to be maintaining altitude. I straightened up and went for him. Impatiently, I foreswore any attempts at tactical subtlelty. No messing about - up and at 'em! As I closed, the bomber began a series of gentle turns. I started firing first with my nose-mounted rifle calibre MGs and opened up with my cannon as he got closer, jinking between bursts to put off his gunners, who returned only a few inaccurate rounds. Once again, somewhat distracted by taking screenshots and still aiming rather too casually, I failed to clobber him hard enough. Again, I broke away. And again, I got away with it! This was becoming embarassing. But I wasn't about to give up now. Nor was I going to recall my flight from their own attacks - now, hopefully well under way - just to help kill off this stubborn enemy. I'd knocked him out of formation and now I was going to knock him down, whatever it took. I banked around for yet another pass. ...to be continued!

I saved the track of the mission after completing it. Often, tracks seem to play back differently from the actual mission but this one played fine. It provided some interesting pics of my initial attack, which was from head-on... ...but it also seemed to confirm that my schwarm broke off before reaching the bombers and did not follow me through, even though I definitely ordered them to attack bombers only after my first pass. If there is a way of making my flight engage during a proper formation attack from the front, I don't know what it is! There really isn't enough return fire from the bombers in (I have bomberskill=0 set in conf.ini) but as far as I'm concerned, 'not especially lethal' is better than 'deadly', if that is the choice...lots of scary return fire but not especially accurate (unless you park behind a bomber) would be a good compromise IMHO. Anyhow, mission report to be concluded tomorrow or Friday, when I have more time!

Into action! Settling down onto a course of due east at the head of my four Messerschmitts, I stared into the sky ahead. It wasn't long before I saw them - a cluster of faint specks in the sky ahead, like a swarn of static midges. I waggled my wings as I lined up on them, trying to judge their course. This looked like a great opportunity for a classic head-on attack, from where the US bombers were least protected and most vulnerable. The very high closing speed gave little time to aim but all I needed was enough hits to knock a bomber out of formation, to be finished off at leasure. The specks seemed to be growing in size without drifting left or right - perfect! As the range rapidly wound down, I gave the order to drop tanks. Unfortunately there is no way in IL-2 (that I know off anyway) to order a frontal attack so rather than risk my men breaking off and offering good targets to the Ami gunners, I decided I would lead them straight through with me. If they engaged, fine, if not I'd cut them loose after we were through. The last few hundred metres seemed to drain away the fastest. As they did so I hesitated over my target. I had selected the lower left-hand side of the oncoming horde, rather than driving straight into its centre. The nearest vic of bombers was slightly to my right so rather than hit them, I decided upon another pair of bombers which was trailing slightly behind them, more or less straight ahead. Picking the left-hand bomber - which I could see as he came on was a B-17 - I let him have it with all guns. Just before he flashed past, I saw the orange flashes of hits on a wing, between wing-tip and the inner engine. Next second he was gone, behind me. I nosed down and banked around, glad not to have taken any hits in return. As planned, I gave the order for a free-for-all attack on the bombers and looked around for my own target. I was excited to see that he was now lagging behind the other B-17 and trailing a thin but distinct line of smoke. I was soon pulling up behind him again, cutting across his trail then rolling in for a second attack, this time from astern. Once again my guns rattled. This time I started with my nose-mounted MGs and cut loose with the cannon when I started to get strikes on him. Taking screenshots and accurate gunnery don't mix too well and in my anxiety to capture the moment, my marksmanship was sadly lacking. I got some hits, for sure, but still the Fortress refused to go down. I broke hard at the last minute, nosing down to increase my speed and escape. Again, I was lucky to escape any hits myself, but it looked like I would have to push my luck a third time. ...to be continued!

A mystery...and a result Reaching the bottom of the hill without mishap, I looked around for the BRDM...but there was no sign of him. Guessing that he made it back onto the road while I was occupied negotiating that slope, I headed over that way, swinging my T-34's turret left and right, looking for threats... ...but it was a case of 'nothing doing'. I was soon on a deserted road. Eerie. Not only the road seemed deserted, but the whole landscape was still and empty, as far as the eye could see..our eyes, at any rate. I halted and had a good look around, just to be sure. Nyet. Not a Croat in sight. Nor a Serb, for that matter. Perhaps there was a big World Cup soccer match on the TV? If so, the sooner we delivered this tank to our base up the road, the better. Hopefully we would at least be in time for the penalty shoot-out, a near-inevitability if it was England playing. 'Go!' I told the driver. Off we went. 'Faster!' Getting there in one piece was more important than the 'footie', though. Coming to a big dip in the road, we stopped again, then crept forward. A wrecked vehicle lay by the roadside, propped up against the rising ground on the right, like a dozing drunk on a bar. A casualty lay on the road, nearby. At first I thought it was the BRDM but I quickly realised it was a tank, on its side, with its long gun pointing in the air, like an oversize marker on a field grave. The tank was a Sherman. The intelligence people had told us that Israeli Super Shermans were in use here, though to my eye, this one looked more like a WW2-vintage British firefly 17 pounder-armed model. Whatever he was, for him, the war was clearly over. I crept cautiously down and past him and a second casualty who lay a short distance uphill. Once past the wreck and not having drawn any fire, I speeded up again. I knew from the map that our base was just beyond the next crest...that is, if it hadn't vanished, like the BRDM, or been mysteriously trashed, like the Sherman. I crossed the crest carefully, not sure what to expect. It looked like I needn't have worried. The base was there and all was quiet, apart from a BTK tracked digger which seemed to be busy preparing some field defences. Nevertheless, I approached cautiously, scanning left and right, not wanting to come a cropper at this late stage. The Serbs in the base must have thought I was a bit of a lemon, but I didn't care. As I rolled to halt at the entrance to the camp, my first mission's success was confirmed. Using the post-mission review facility, I tabbed around the other units in the mission. The ambush was still in place, manned by these three desperadoes and their recoilless rifle. I'm not too disappointed that I didn't make their acquaintance. The vanishing BRDM appeared to have gone over the edge of the road and into a gully. Calling up his 'vital statistics' (labelled 'Markings' in the screenie below) I saw that he had done some shooting but not been hit; so it looked like an accident. I can't recall what got the Sherman but he too was very dead. I daresay all would have been revealed, if I had followed my instructions to the letter and driven up the road. But in my book you tell your subordinates what you want done, and let them work out the best way to do it, within reason. If it works, don't knock it. Apparently the missions in the Iron Warriors campaign increase in difficulty, as you go on. Myself, I'm hoping to find that my success in getting the T-34 safely to base is not rewarded by making me her permanent commander. If not the T-72, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my next ride will at least be a T-55. Fingers crossed! ...to be continued in a following Campaign Mission Report!

The scenic route? Our 'rescued' T34 is evidently ex-Yugoslav Army reserve, and has a US .50 calibre MG mounted on the turret as well as an improved (zooming) gunsight. One or both might come in handy, soon! I pop the hatches open and roll off down Main Street - or at least, what passes for it in this neck of the woods. Some of the houses in the little village are burned out and the only sign of life besides ourselves are a couple of armed men in camouflaged clothing, standing by the roadside and watching us go. But I know there's believed to be a Croat ambush overlooking the road, where it winds past some hills up ahead, and I've already decided I'm not going there. I pause briefly and scan the terrain ahead through the gunsight, before turning off the road to the right and speeding up across open country. I will bypass the enemy position, keeping to the opposite side of that hill. I rattle on for a bit, telling the driver to keep up his speed. So far, so good. I keep to lower ground, coming around behind the suspected enemy position and keeping the hill to my left between us. Coming level with the ambush site, I order hatches closed but keep up my speed. I can see that the country is very open; the areas of vegetation shown on the map are little more than patches of scrubland and stands of widely-spaced, spindly trees. It's pretty desolate, but there are enough dips and folds in the terrain to provide cover, should I need it. Suddenly I see a tracer round zip past, well off to my left. I can't hear anything, nor can I see the shooter or the target. I'm tempted to investigate but my orders are to get this tank to our base and I'm not going to screw up on my first day. I carry on. A smoke trail, likely from an RPG at extreme range, flashes past over my tank, from behind, seemingly coming from that hill and very possibly aimed at me. Stopping to spot the shooter seems likely to result in me being shot, so I keep going, as fast as my old T34 will carry us. The firing stops. Well past the ambush point, the high ground to my left drops away and I halt and traverse in that direction, scanning towards the road, a stretch of which I can now see again, several hundred meters away. And this is what I see. As I watch, a vehicle emerges to the right, on the road. I identify it immediately - it's a BRDM2 armoured car. But is he friend or foe? Problem is, nearly everybody in this war zone is using ex-Yugoslav Army or Soviet kit. He's coming from the direction of our base so I turn my frontal armour towards him but give him the benefit of the doubt and watch, widening my scan at intervals so as not to be caught by surprise. As I watch, the BRDM turns off the road and goes cross-country, heading roughly towards me. However, from the direction his turret is turned, I can see that he's concerned about something over to my left, back in the direction of the Croat ambush. Finally the BRDM swings around and heads back over towards the road, dipping out of sight over a low crest. I make a decision: I'll drop down and go after him. He seems to be on his own. If he's a friendly I can perhaps help him. But if he's one of the bad guys, I can put him out of business, without seriously risking my own mission. Unfortunately I am a bit too quick to move off without checking what lies immediately the other side of the convex slope in front of me. Too late I realise it's a scree slope with a rather sharp incline. Too late to call a halt, I turn slightly right to make sure we go straight down the slope, as anything else will certainly cause us to roll...and keep on rolling. ...to be continued!

'But war's a game which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at'

Mission # 3 in Flatspinman's campaign My first campaign featured as a set of mission reports - with Jasta 5 in Wings Over Flanders Fields - having come to an early and inauspicious ending, I thought I'd wind the clock forward to World War 2 and pick up on a campaign first reported here last year. This is none other than Flatspinman's IL-2 campaign covering the Luftwaffe's attempts to defend 'The Thousand Year Reich' from those who rather thought that Nazi hegemony over large swathes of eastern & western Europe for the aforementioned period was, perhaps, not entirely a good idea. In case you're wondering where missions 1 & 2 got to, they're here and here, respectively. To recap, my pilot was operating in Scandanavian skies flying the Messerschmitt 109G with Jagdgeschwader 5 'Eismeer'. But I've been transferred south to JG1 'Oesau', operating in the Reichsverteidigung (Defence of the Reich) role. My first mission had been a transfer flight south which had ended with an unplanned but successful interception of an RAF Mosquito shipping strike. The second sortie was my first mission with JG1, intercepting an unescorted raid by USAAF B-24 heavy bombers over the North Sea. As for this third mission, here's the briefing. As you can see, my virtual alter ego is bitching about various things, not least being sent on a shipping protection mission in poor weather. But orders are orders! As you can also see, an IL-2 map covering the eastern Baltic is doubling up for the German Bight, the area between the German North Sea coast and Denmark. With the map scrolled fully north and the briefing text scrolled fully down, you can see our flightpath and the tail end of the nicely-written briefing. Basically, we are to fly north along the coastline below the clouds then turn west and fly a rectangular patrol pattern, presumably in the vicinity of the shipping we are supposed to protect. Enemy airstrikes are going to be the threat, as the risk from U-boats, minefields and the Luftwaffe makes Allied naval incursions too risky. Before kicking off the mission I checked that I had the recommended 'skin' selected. I also chose to take a droptank and two underwing 20mm cannon gunpods. Rightly or wrongly, at this stage in the war - early-to-mid-1943, if I recall right - I wasn't expecting to meet enemy escort fighters so far from England and the extra firepower might come in handy. There are four of us in the mission and I'm the Schwarmfuehrer. My aircraft has been renumbered, had its JG5 unit badge replaced with the JG1 'winged one' equivalent (not actually carried till early 1944 I think) but is otherwise mostly in the same markings carried previously. From my rudder markings I'm something of an ace already and from the black disc with the white diagonal cross on the rear fusealge, I have evidently been in Spain with the Legion Condor. Wasting no time I checked my controls, locked the tailwheel and started up. With flaps set I opened her up gradually, ruddering to control the swing as the power built up. Off we went, past the parked aircraft and other paraphenalia of a busy operational airfield. Regardless of the weather and the mission, it felt good to be back behind the controls of a virtual 'Gustav', the most-built if not most successful version of the Luftwaffe's classic fighter. 'Bring them on!' I thought to myself, as we climbed away from our airfield. ...to be continued!

Yes! For the B-24 mission I knew the heavies usually flew at about 20,000 feet in real life so that worked out. In this mission the briefing warned us to stay below the low cloudbase if we wanted so see anything and that's what I did. IIRC in good old European Air War, 'Loki bodencontrole' gives you the bearing, height and course of the enemy but in IL-2 it's only the bearing which is less than helpful, so it's doubly unfortunate if the briefing doesn't give you a height to fly the mission.

Many have got Microprose's classic modern tank sim M1TP2 working on recent versions of Windows and in Glide mode's better graphics thanks to Zeus's nGlide wrapper. However, some like me still get a Crash To Desktop when they end a mission. This seriously inhibits playing M1TP2's excellent campaigns, in particular. This fix has been working for me...so far...! Posting here as I haven't seen this one elsewhere. I'm using NGlide - Zeus's 'experimental' patch (http://www.zeus-software.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=259&hilit=m1tp2&start=30#p2431), untested with other versions, Vista 64. Here's what I did that made the difference. In the Compatibility tab of M1TP2.exe, as well as setting Compatibility Mode to 'Windows XP SP2', in the same tab (Compatibility) I checked both 'Disable visual themes' and 'Disable desktop composition'. Not sure if one or both are needed but no matter. Before that, I got a CTD after every mission. Now, the missions end normally (just the training ones tried so far) with the debriefing and video clips. Here's how my Compatibility tab looks now: I'm not using the starter.bat file recommended by some. There's no menu corruption (GTS 250 with recent drivers); my only minor issue now is there's no 'exit' button on main screen so I need Alt+F4 to exit the game, when I'm done. HTH!

Last battle! To avoid the Mosquito behind me I rolled rapidly into a right turn then reversed, in an effort to force him out in front. Even as I did so, the remains of the Mossie I had just shot down splashed into the sea, a reminder of the fate that awaited whoever lost this next bout. But the enemy had lost interest in me and the reason wasn't hard to see. The flight-mate whose tail I had recently cleared - my mumber three, as it turned out - was returning the favour! The Mosquito dropped away, with the 109 after him. I completed my scissors manoeuvre and ended up in a good position above and behind the Mosquito. The enemy pulled up but in doing so, put himself in front of my flight-mate, who wasted neither time nor ammunition! As often seems to be the case after an air fight, the skies suddenly seemed to have cleared, except for myself and the second Messerschmitt. I radioed a recall, but that was it. Between us I reckoned we had clobbered four Mosquitos, but the cost had been high - two of our number, including, unforgiveably, my own wingman. The excitement wearing off, I led my number three back south and when close to our base, let him off the leash again to make his own landing. Soon I was turning into my approach and flaps and gear down, settling down for a landing on our wide grass runway. Once down I let the speed bleed off and swung in towards the apron, past the parked aircraft, and rolled to a halt. Flaps up, I cut the motor and let the tension drain away as I reflected on the day's work. From the experience of my first mission, I had formed the mistaken conclusion that the Mossies would have little apppetite for air combat and that the over-riding consideration was to get at them quickly, before they had done too much damage to the convoy and then escaped at speed. Despite my own victories, I had allowed two of my pilots to fall victim to the enemy's counterattacks. The confirmation of my kills and the award of a second medal to were but limited consolation for the loss over the cold North Sea of two precious pilots. I would have to do better, next time!

First blood! The Mosquito I had singled out seemed more interested in making another run at the ships than evading me, and this was his undoing. 'Selection and maintenance of the aim' may be the master principle in war but it can be taken too far! I got into a good position behind the Mossie and let rip with both cannon and MGs, with entirely satisfactory results. By this time my wingman and I were over the convoy itself. One of the ships had taken a hit but the escort was busy defending their charges with vigorous flak fire. At this point I spotted a loose gaggle of aircraft ahead. They were heading away from the convoy but suspecting they might, like before, turn around for another run, I kept after them, closing slowly. As I gained ground I realised that one of them was another 109, on his own and also in pursuit. Keen to break up this party and even up the odds, I jettisoned my drop tank, singled out the nearest Mosquito and went for him, while cutting my wingman loose to make an attack of his own. I was soon behind my chosen target and let fly with all weapons on the 'wooden wonder'. Once again, the results were pretty dramatic. My three cannon and two MGs made short work of the enemy aircraft. Looking around, I saw that another 109 was chasing a Mosquito, which was evading vigorously. The battle drifted downwards but I kept my altitude, covering my comrade's tail while he did the needful. It was as well that I resisted any temptation to get sucked into the fight. Looking around, I saw another Mosquito, high and slightly left. I swung around after him but the Mossie had plans of his own. In a flash, he was behind the other 109 and shooting! This wouldn't do! I slipped in behind the Britischer and opened fire. He pulled up and away. Boy, was he fast! But not fast enough... Another Mosquito down! That was the good news. There were two bits of bad news. The first was a desperate radio call from one of my schwarm, announcing that he had been shot down, confirming also that these particular Mossie figther-bombers were quite able to sting us, too. The second bit of bad news was that I had troubles of my own. Looking back, a Mosquito was close behind and rolling in after me. With his four MGs and the same number of 20mm cannon just yards from my tail, this was clearly not a good place to be! ...to be continued!