33LIMA

Get into them! It wasn't long before I spotted the bandits. I was still in my turn towards them when I spotted the first one - a fast, apparently twin-engined aeroplane low and left, on a reciprocal course. Suddenly he pulled up and around, reversing his course. At the same time I saw two more enemies, on the original course of the one I had spotted first. I gave my comrades the order to attack and started after my own target. I had begun to reverse my turn to chase the first enemy aircraft, but he was fast and would be hard to catch. Fortunately the second pair followed his course reversal and being closer, I was able to slip in behind one of these boys, instead. As the range began to wind down, I could see that he was, as I had suspected, a Mosquito. Not only that but he was now lined up for a run at the convoy, which I could now also see ahead. I could close with him only slowly. Too far away for accurate shooting and realising I was going to be too late to stop him bombing our ships, I snapped off a few short bursts from my cowling MGs in an effort to put him off his aim. Whether this worked or he'd dropped his bombs, the Mossie swung right and I cut across after him. ...to be continued!

Enemy inbound! Airborne at the head of my schwarm of four Bf109s, I cleaned her up, leveled off and throttled back so that the others could catch up. Once our formation was complete I climbed again but was soon at the low cloudbase, below which we would need to operate, to fulfill our assigned convoy escort role. We made a fine sight, all very businesslike in our kanonenvogel with our drop tanks and our 20mm cannon 'gondolas'. Whatever what might be out there, we had the endurance to be there when it arrived and the firepower to deal with it. Of that much, I felt confident. Heading out to sea on the last part of our leg to the north, I checked the map (which I had allowed to display other aircraft icons, which I think is not unreasonable when you're operating under ground radar direction...especially as the IL-2 ground controller's directions aren't quite as good as European Air War's). And there they were! A gaggle of red enemy aircraft markers was inbound from the west in two closely-spaced groups, which looked about to reach the position of the convoy we should be protecting! I banked around to the left and started scanning in the direction they must be. Whatever they were, they could not be very far away, now! ...to be continued!

Jasta 5 at Cambrai - a 'Wings Over Flanders Fields' Campaign The first mission - 20 November 1917 A little while back, CA member Captain McMuffin suggested I report on the progress of a campaign or two. Seems like a good idea to me, so here's the first installment of the first campaign. If there's interest, I expect I'll feature different sims; but first up, it's back to the new kid on the WW1 block, Wings Over Flanders Fields. My chosen unit for this campaign is Jagdstaffel 5, famous both for its Albatrosses' green-painted tails and as the unit of the 'Golden Triumvirate', the three famous NCO aces Rumey, Mai and Koennecke. It's also the unit of Leutnant Hans von Hippel, whose green-tailed Albatros DV with its prominent dragon marking (apparently borrowed from another pilot) was famously photographed after a lower wing broke off at altitude and the pilot was lucky to get down in one piece. It's late November 1917, the first day of a big British offensive, spearheaded by a large force of tanks. It looks like fate has picked an interesting time for me to arrive at the front! A rookie Leutnant on my first assignment to a combat unit, I'm glad to have been posted to a staffel with a decent reputation and some outstanding pilots - Jasta 5. We're based at Boistrancourt, near the town of Cambrai itself, right in the path of the new British offensive, although we pilots don't know this yet. Our aircraft is the Albatros D V, the latest version of this sleek fighting machine, but by now, we all know its abilities are falling behind those of the latest enemy aircraft. And the lower wing troubles which first appeared with the D III model in early 1917 appear to have resurfaced. But in the hands of a good pilot it can hold its own and until better aircraft arrive from German factories, we must make do with what we have, At least the flight I'll be with on my first mission is a good crowd, experienced pilots with a fine tally of victories between them. In fact the top scorer, Sikorski, has been detailed to fly on my wing, no doubt to keep a close eye on me and make sure I don't do anything silly...and also that I get home in one piece, I hope. The day of my first combat flight has arrived! It's early morning and six of us have been detailed to patrol near Cambrai at about two thousand metres. I'll be flying in the leading 'vic', on the left of our leader, Hauptmann Bonin. Fortunately, the weather is good. In my excitement I have neglected to check the intelligence reports but I know that we can expect to face the enemy's best and that both French and British aircraft could be operating in our sector. As they fly offensively, I know that we can expect to meet them from the moment we are airborne. On the grass at Boistrancourt in front of our canvas hangars, our lined-up aircraft make a fine sight, with their varnished plywood fuselages gleaming softly and our red-edged green tails proudly proclaiming our Jasta's identity. What will my first mission bring? It's time to find out! ...to be continued!

Jasta 5 - the second mission This was originally planned to be the second in a series of separate mission reports from my new Jasta 5 Battle of Cambrai campaign but for reasons that will soon become apparent, I decided to tag this one on here. First things first. Here's the mission briefing. Three of us, lead by Hauptman Bonin, are to make a late patrol - it's 20 November, so it gets dark early - on a short curcuit to the south-east. Not having set 'Always lead' in the WOFF 'Workshops' I'm not leading this patrol, which I was soon to regret. But never mind - here we are, on the grass at Boistrancourt, our green-tailed Albatros D Vs lined up and ready for the 'off'. The shadows are already lengthening and as soon as my leader took off, I sped after him. To relieve the tedium of formation keeping, I turned on the autopilot and was somewhat taken aback when, after a certain amount of wing-waggling, my machine took off on its own, away from the other two. Turning on the Tactical Display, which at this point would normally provide me with a nice little illustrated vector to get into my precise slot in the flight formation, confirmed that the AI pilot now flying my albatros had quite different plans. What these plans were, seemed to be confirmed when I noticed first a dark, German flak burst then the light tan undersides of a manoeuvring and unmistakably British aeroplane, up ahead of me. I quickly identified the enemy as a two-seat Bristol Fighter, a dangerous opponent, even though he was evidently on his own...as was I, for of my flight-mates, there was not a sign. I managed to get a decent burst at the Englishman, at which point he seemed to decide that enough was enough. Having gained a little height on me, he leveled off and sped westwards. Damaged he may have been but he was still fast and I was unable to catch him, so I resorted to snapping out some long-range bursts, hoping to nick him and provoke a turn. This worked fairly well. I either clipped him or near-missed sufficiently close to spook him, for around he came. I managed to cut inside him and get in a decent firing pass as his wings came level, possibly to give his observer a shot at me. Unwilling to be caught thus I broke hard right at the last minute and managed to escape without being hit myself. Impatient and sensing victory, I let the distance open out only a little then banked left and went for him again, sliding in close behind him, under his tail. And that is where my mission ended. There was the sound of gunfire and one or more rounds hit my machine. I didn't appear to be wounded but the Albatros ceased responding to any input I made. It just gently nosed down into an ever steeper dive, hitting the ground close below in a near vertical attitude. Goodnight, Vienna! I was a bit miffed that (i) the autopilot had led me away from the others (ii) the latter had left me in the lurch, perhaps unable to break their 'takeoff and climb' programming the way my autopilot had done and (iii) that I'd fallen victim to a 'magic bullet' which I could only conclude had been an instant pilot kill, hence no 'blood spatter' wound indication. Such an early end to a promising career! Better luck next time!

Normandy '44 with the latest version of the classic tank sim! The sim Fifteen years old it may be, but Wings Simulations' classic WW2 tanksim is still one of the best of its breed. By the time the Special Edition (a.k.a. PESE) arrived in 2001, it was the sim that had everything. Well, almost everything; it didn't have any time of flight for its projectiles, which arrived immediately after firing. And one of the things it did have was rather crude, cartoon-like graphics, even by the standards of the time. But PESE did have a marvelous combination of tanks and places to fight with them - full campaigns set in Tunisia, Italy and Normandy in the stock game, to which PESE added North Africa, the Eastern Front (and British tanks for Normandy) along with the appropriate range of extra tanks and other kit, and improved graphics and effects. The Wings PE forum was a hive of tank enthusiast activity, with lead developer Teut Weideman and the dedicated modding community ever present. Those days are gone but it didn't end there. In particular, modder 'Brit44' Aldo developed a new PE executable - 'PE-X' - which added proper ballistic trajectories and other goodies, while BobR of the 'Ostpak' team built around this a full package known as PE3, which features much of the best modder material combined into a single package. You can find out about PE-X here and PE3 here. While even the latest PE's graphics and animations are still not up to modern standards and the tanks sometimes teeter on the rather angular landscape as though made of cardboard rather than steel, the visuals are by no means unserviceable, with Geezer's tank textures a particular highlight. And its unrivalled scope isn't PE's only asset. It has decent briefings, combining voice recordings (not all the user-made missions have these) and animated maps; full control of your tank platoon, including the ability to take over another of your platoon's tanks, if yours is knocked out; and a good representation of intercom and radio communications, including decent target indications. It also implements the tank commander role well, with the ability to designate and hand off targets to your gunner. The Artificial Intelligence and path-finding are not stellar but are reasonably good. In many respects, the Old Girl is still the premier WW2 tanksim, in my experience, still well worth playing. The mission I wanted to play with the British Army in the fighting after D-Day for which the obvious choice would have been the Panzer Elite Development Group's Britpack '44 mod, released with other major mods on the bonus CD that came with PESE. However, I believe that this mod hasn't yet been adapted to work with the new PE-X .exe, so instead I opted for PE3. This mega mod rolls into one much of the latest mods, apparently including Britpack and the famed Ostpak campaign, and adds to the already good stock campaign set others which enable you to play from the first year of WW2 right to the end in eastern & western Europe, the USSR, Italy and north Africa. So having installed PE3 and the recommended mission packs and terrain enhancements - and enabled a couple of desirable mods which replace US with British infantry and US-accented with British-accented voices - I chose 'Villers Bocage' from the list of single missions (PE allows you to play any mission from any campaign, individually). Villers Bocage in Normandy is of course famous for the 13 June 1944 battle between the 22nd Armoured Brigade of the British 7th Armoured Division ('the Desert Rats') and the Panzer Lehr Division, re-inforced by the Tigers of SS Schwere Panzer Abteilung 101. It was in the early stages of the battle that Tiger 'ace' Michael Wittman famously surprised the British point troops, stretched out on the narrow road between point 213 to the east and Villers Bocage itself, with devastating results. If we met Tigers on this mission, would I be able to do any better? There was one way to find out! ...to be continued!

Hi Rusty I don't have PE Action as I'm put off by the cartoon-like gameplay I did have a 'tank action game' once, a download probably long lost, called 'Tiger Hunt' (I borrowed its name for this mission report!) and it had things like ammo boxes along your route and you played from the external view with a crosshair to aim. The graphics weren't too bad for the day: Not really my thing; similarly games like War Thunder or World of Tanks, with their artificlal 'tiers', endless variants and third person shooter gameplay, which for all the eye candy and 'fun', are no tanksims, which is what appeals to me. Each to their own of course. I confess to having enjoyed 'Crimson Skies'! By 'cartoon-like graphics' I had in mind the un-modded Panzer Elite: ...not modded versions like PE3, or PP2-x which looks better still: Being such a good tank combat simulator in the technical and tactical sense - second only to Steel Beasts, which in its current form is a professional military training tool with a civvy spin-off - is I think what makes (modded) PE still competitive, despite the dated graphics and animations.

Point 213 is ours! Suddenly, I saw the enemy again. Not much of him, but enough to identify the distinctive canvas hood of a VW field car, the famous Kubelwagen. I jumped back to the gunsight and opened up with the co-axial machine gun. Moving forward again, I began to emerge from the cover of the little hillock that had screened me from Point 213 itself. Sacrificing field of view for readiness, I stayed in the gunsight view and scanned left. I knew that my AI crew and platoon-mates could help me by spotting and announcing targets. At that juncture, this is exactly what started to happen. The radio net burst into life with reports of more Tiger sightings. I quickly turned on the text message panel, bottom centre of screen, as this gives you a more precise description of the target than the more generic radio messages. A Tiger 300 yards away at ten o'clock did not sound good, especially as I was the only one with a gun which had a decent chance of penetrating its frontal armour, and the others' seventy-fives would be hard pushed to get a penetration anywhere. I scanned desperately from the halt, seeing nothing but foliage and reluctant to edge forward since if he came into my line of sight, I'd be in his. I was tempted just to fire off some rounds in the general direction indicated, hoping for the best. But I needn't have worried. I don't know how they managed it but the others were soon reporting destroying both the Tiger and a self-propelled AA gun. If you look at the 'mousetank' graphic bottom left, my number two's and number four's indicators have turned blue, which tells me they are the ones who are engaged - another neat PE feature, which along with the great comms and full-featured platoon commands, helps cement the sim's already above par platoon command and control capabilities. Feeling a little more confident, I moved slowly forward again. At that point the Squadron commander came up on the 'net and congratulated us on completing the mission; this achievement being confirmed in the text message panel. We'd done it! Between the close country and Tigers silhouetting themselves, we'd somehow pulled it off! Our troop had done the Regiment proud! Even the under-gunned Cromwells had done their bit. You'll note that they have not yet bothered to ditch the deep wading hoods at the rear of their engine decks, but who's complaining. Of course it would have been a different matter without the Firefly's 17 Pounder, which had proved devastating against the Tigers at the ranges involved, fighting in close country. In better tank country, the results would likely have been very different. Here's the debriefing screens, confirming that we met all our objectives and showing our stats. My own gunnery has proved satisfyingly accurate, given I was aiming and firing rather fast, sometimes at fleeting targets. I assume the MG burst into the Kubelwagen counts as one of my 17 hits, given I only fired 16 main gun rounds, all solid AP shot. So while the actual Battle of Villers Bocage had seen the Desert Rats' spearhead smashed up by Michael Wittman's Tiger, my troop had managed to reverse the course of history. In so doing I had reminded myself what a really good tank sim Panzer Elite still is, thanks to thorough, clever design at the outset and skilled modding, subsequently. In every respect but graphics and animation, she's still an absolutely top-notch tank sim, in my book

On to the objective! I rolled right, gun laid parallel to the road, anxiously watching for any sign of the enemy vehicle I was sure I had seen, moving right off Point 213. Pausing at the edge of some bushes, I scanned left and right through the gunsight. To the bottom left you can see the PE 'mousetank' which is one of the ways you can do things like select 'wingmen' - when turned on, I use it mainly as a combined turret position indicator and compass rose. Nothing - no sign of anything. A combination of foliage and a low hillock to my front hid from sight whatever it was. The tension mounted. My next bound would take me up to the hillock, across a dangerous open space. Nothing for it! I made my move, accompanied by a Cromwell to my right rear, which was some comfort. Nearing the hillock, I swung out to the right, hoping to outflank any outflanker. As I did did so I traversed left, keeping my gun pointed towards the likely threat. I was now virtually at Point 213, where there was a small group of buildings, amongst which the smashed German armour lay. Still no more enemies! Where was the one I had seen? I turned left, parallel to the road, with my gun laid still to the left. This was getting distinctly scary! The right flank and directly ahead seemed fairly clear, but almost anything could have been lurking amongst or behind the more extensive cover to my left. I pressed slowly on, ready to shoot anything that moved. ...to be continued!

Tigers by the tail! As the 17 pdr traversed over the rear deck of my Sherman Firefly, I went to the gunner's sight. By some miracle, the Tiger appeared in the sight before he got off his first round. I fine-tuned my aim and fired all in one movement. Still the Tiger didn't shoot. 'Come on, come on!' I mentally urged the loader, letting rip as soon as he had another round in the breech. That did the trick; the Tiger's muzzle drooped and a wisp of white smoke appeared above his turret. Got him! Crikey! What a way to start a mission! I scanned left and right. Seeing nothing more, I quickly completed my tank's 180 degree turn and began to roll uphill towards the objective, ordering my troop into column formation. Every so often, the dirt road went up in a gentle step, where I paused in a semi hull-down position and scanned again through the sight, left and right. Behind me, my troop's Cromwells had begun to form up. I called them to a halt again while I probed cautiously forward; no sense in all of us sticking our heads into the noose. 'Bounding overwatch' it would be, for a while. Finally, halted in another dip in the road, I called the troop up to join me again. Soon, the Cromwells were back in a neat line just to my rear, and I rolled forward again. Platoon command and control was always a particular strength in PE and I was glad of that now. Halted again, I resumed scanning. Suddenly, some movement caught my eye. Something, a vehicle of some description, was moving slowly right to left, across the narrow stretch of skyline where the road passed across it into dead ground. I could only see a little of him but the profile was distinctive - another Tiger! He spun round to face us and edged towards the skyline, while I pumped 17 Pdr APCBC rounds at him as fast as my loader could chamber them. For the second time, a wisp of white smoke confirmed I'd got him! At that point things got hectic. First, a German armoured half-track emerged from the left, and I put a round into him, too. He stopped but didn't burn. It wasn't over yet. Another Tiger now appeared, like the half-track, moving from left to right. He nearly made it into the hedgerow on the other side of the road, before my first round crashed into him, evidently knocking him out. As if that wasn't enough yet another Tiger drove out from somewhere out of sight and plonked himself right in the middle of the road. Driving out onto a spot which, from the other knocked-out AFVs, was obviously covered by fire was a pretty silly move. I only had to make the smallest adjustment to my aim to make sure he paid the appropriate price. Another couple of rounds and it was all over, without our having received a single round in return, as far as I could tell. I could not believe my good fortune but it seemed much too good to last. I saw some movement amongst the foliage to the right of the wrecks. Staring at the spot, I had just about convinced myself that I was imagining things when I saw it again. There was something there, for certain. His disappearance to the right of the road worried me; likely, he was outflanking us to the right. I pulled off to that side of the road and ordered the troop into wedge formation. Whatever it was, we would meet it together! ...to be continued!

An early start! Before reading the briefing - 'orders' would be a more accurate term, in a military context - Panzer Elite allows the player to set numerous options, like supply, crew allocations and realism. One of these options is choice of tank - there are some limits on what's available but these are quite wide. I was allocated a troop of five Cromwell tanks, just the right type for this operation (although three or four would have been a more realistic troop strength). However, they are rather under-gunned, their 75mm main armament being no match for the heavier German tanks I might meet on this mission. I could have changed them for more heavily-armoured Churchill infantry tanks but for the sake of sticking to the types engaged on the day, I swapped just one of the Cromwells for a Sherman Firefly. By Normandy, it was common practice for British medium tank squadrons (companies) to be allocated some Fireflies, their superb 17 Pounder guns having a much better anti-tank performance than the 'seventy-five' mounted by Cromwells and standard Sherman gun tanks. While I believe the Fireflies were originally concentrated in one troop (platoon) it seems to have quickly become standard practice to allocate one to each tank troop. Rather than give the Firefly to a 'wingman' who could cover the rest of us from the rear, I took the tank myself. This was fairly close country, and I wanted our heaviest firepower up front on point, despite the greater risk of losing it. The PE3 Firefly is a nice replica, complete with that long gun and the turret rear armoured radio box, the set having to be moved out of the turret because of the bigger gun. As with all PE vehicles, the suspension is a bit two-dimensional but I believe it was modder Geezer who added a hatch-open tank commander figure, which is a big improvement from the stock PE tanks which all fight with the TC closed up. Having checked that we were fully 'bombed up' with a decent mix of ammo - PE lets you vary the load, if you want to have more AP or more HE rounds, depending on the mission - I kicked off the briefing. Here's the map - it's a rather long, narrow one. We are starting about a third of the way between Villers Bocage and Point 213 ('X' marks the spot) and our objective is to reach and secure the latter, destroying any enemy we encounter and protecting the rest of our lead troops, who are in a long straggling column stretching out from the town some way behind us. Many PE missions consist of some quite long drives in the country for which movement on roads - while you can - can be best. I knew that there are some physics issues with PE3, which slows cross-country movement to a crawl and can result in the player's tank getting immovably stuck on minor obstacles (the drill then is to switch to another tank briefly, let the AI unstick your original tank, then switch back). So I decided that I would simply roll up the little road to the objective, cautiously and ready for action, but without using fire & manoeuvre ('bounding overwatch' as the Americans call it) and only deploying out of column formation if we had a 'contact'. This would also be more in keeping with recreating the spirit of the Desert Rat's operation, on the day, for better...or for worse! I started the mission and saw that my Firefly was on the road facing the four Cromwells of my troop. It took me a little while to realise that they were facing the right way (uphill, towards Point 213) and I was looking back towards Villers Bocage, out of sight downhill. After faffing about for a bit (I'm a little out of practice with PE, whose excellent functionality comes at the price of rather a lot of keyboard commands) I ordered my troop to sit tight while I turned my tank around. I didn't want to crunch through the hedgerows and risk getting stuck and realistically, PE would not let me do a neutral gear turn in a Sherman, one track running forward and one back. So I had to start a multi-point turn within the confines of the little road, backing and filling. I had only just started this when a call was made over the radio, indicating a target just a couple of hundred yards off, direction six o'clock -right behind me! Looking quickly around, I was horrified to see a Tiger tank rumbling out of the right-hand hedgerow and onto the road. I swung the turret around to the rear just as fast as she would go. Meanwhile, the Tiger, with its slow turret traverse but ability to neutral turn, was spinning around to face us and bring its mighty 'eighty-eight' to bear. It looked like this mission was about to come to a sudden and early end! ...to be continued!

Finis! I rolled over and dived after the SPAD, being careful not to over-stress my aircraft, for fear of losing my lower wings. But I wasn't fast enough. Another Albatross was after him - it was my companion Sikorski, in fact. As he had likely been one of those who has chased the Frenchman off my tail and saved my neck, I was content to hang back while Sikorski attacked, ready to nip in for a shot should the opportunity arise. It didn't. Sikorski sat on the Frenchman's tail and fired. The enemy took no evasive action, having obviously suffered at least some damage from my own hits. This time it was the end. The SPAD seemed to pull up briefly, then his nose dropped and he dived for the ground, trailing dark smoke. This time, he did not pull out. I checked my map and the time, just in case I was offered the opportunity to claim the victory; it was 8.42 am and I was a little south-east of Vitry. Looking around, the only other machine I could see now was Sikorski's. Of the rest of our formation, there was no sign. No friendly anti-aircraft bursts dotted the sky. All very mysterious! I contemplated flying on and picking up the patrol route but I had lost a lot of altitude, taken some hits in the Frenchman's first pass, and had only about half my ammunition left. So home I went, accompanied by Sikorski. Back at Boistrancourt, I wasn't surprised not to be considered for the victory claim, nor that my Albatros needed a bit of fixing. A small price to pay, that was, for the fact that we had knocked down a Frenchman who must surely have been an ace, so bravely and skilfully had he handled his machine. I was disappointed that I hadn't finished the SPAD while I had him under my guns but the damage I inflicted certainly set him up for Sikorski. For a first mission, I hadn't done too badly. I wondered what the next flight would bring.

A tough nut to crack As it turned out, our foe was a Frenchman in a SPAD, and he was alone. Above us, he could most likely have avoided us, but that seemed to be the last thing on his mind. As we spiraled up towards him, he banked around dropped upon us like a hawk. Our friend in the SPAD seemed to have an unerring nose for who was the rookie, for he decided I was the one. In no time he was behind me. I leveled off from my climb and steepened my turn, but this SPAD seemed to be flown by an expert for he seemed to be entirely unimpressed by the common consensus that my machine was - at least on paper - more manoeuvrable than his. It was fortunate indeed that I was not on my own! Soon my flight mates counterattacked, and drove off the intrepid Frenchman who turned away with two Albatrosses hot on his heels. Anxious not to miss out on the opportunity to show the enemy flier that even a rookie pilot of Jasta 5 does not take kindly to having his tail chased, I swung around and headed after the others. By great good fortune, the Frenchman's efforts to escape took him right across my path and I duly latched onto him. After several bursts, he flipped over and went down! My excitement at a victory on my first mission was short-lived. Not far above the ground, I saw the SPAD pull out and fly off. Whether his dive had been a ruse or genuine, the fight was clearly still not over! ...to be continued!

A surprise encounter! We took off together and headed first to the west. Our straggling group of aircraft slowly formed up on our leader, who stayed low until we were all with him. Checking my map which was marked with our patrol's intended course, I saw that we were still heading west, towards the front, which was not too far off, at this point. Finally our leader began a series of gentle, climbing turns which I expected would bring us onto our assigned track. With much adjusting of throttle, I managed to keep my position, more or less. Watching out for enemies while I was thus occupied was more or less out of the question. Without any warning, our formation broke up. At first, I thought it was just another course correction, but the turn tightened up and the other Albatrosses began ascending in a tight upward spiral. I knew this could only mean one thing - someone had seen the enemy! ...to be continued!

The T-34-85 goes to war in 'Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942'! Ok, so we've put the late-war version of this iconic Soviet tank through its paces in 'T-34 -vs- Tiger'. Now, it's the turn of 'Steel Fury'. The T-34-85 is one of many vehicles which SF '42's small but talented, active and dedicated modding community has given us, extending the sim beyond its focal year into 1944 and beyond. The tank itself doesn't have 3D interiors but no matter, it can be played just as well from the external, open hatch and gunsight/binoculars views. And here's the mission. It's one of many single missions that come with the packs available for use in the NTA mod, download links and installation instructions being available over at the Graviteam forum, here. Edit, August 2014 - 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 For this mission I'm also using a simple game file edit that increases fire effects, suggested by long-time tanksimmer Frinik. The mission is part of Mission Pack 1.1 and its full name is 'v.Chrenogostie, 26th June 1944y. 13:30 (T-34-85)' My orders are rather short and doubtless lose something in the translation. But it's not hard to understand that it's June 1944 and my task is to prevent a breakout by encircled German forces. Specifically, I am to provide tank support for the defenders of a blocking position, around the village of Chernogostie. With the briefing panel removed, you can see more clearly the lie of the land and the disposition of the defenders (red). Our Red Army forces appear fairly well sited for all-round defence, though concentrating on arcs facing east, from two low hills on the eastern side of the village. Chernogostie itself seems to lie in a dip at a crossroads, surrounded by these low hills. The enemy is evidently expected to launch concentric attacks on our positions (blue arrows to the right; not sure what the arrow pointing north indicates - perhaps the German's next move?). There appear to be four tanks in my platoon (red diamonds), though when the mission started, only three seemed to accompany me; perhaps the fourth was just in the area by accident, or he fell away early on for some reason I didn't see. Anyway as usual while in the map screen, I selected the order to conform with my movements ('Do as I do') and chose line (abreast) formation. Still looking at the map, I made a quick Combat Appreciation, using an abbreviated format I was taught long ago. Aim - to destroy enemy forces attacking Chernogostie. Enemy - likely armour and infantry, headed from Chernogostie from points east, if our 'int' was to be believed. Ground - wooded and slightly undulating, with slightly higher ground in the centre-left at Chernogostie, and lower ground on the near left and the far right. Plan - right flank is rather too far away and likely facing stronger enemy attacks, so stay left and use cover - of the trees to my front, that little finger of higher ground I can see, and any folds in the ground - to move the platoon, by bounds, to fire positions on the left (north) of Chernogostie. From there, destroy enemy forces crossing the open ground to attack Chernogostie, starting with their right flank and working my way around in a clockwise direction. Take the German 'arrows' in the flank, one at a time, or even come in behind them. Would my plan work? I'd soon find out. I launched the mission, loaded AP and settled down in the gunner's station, while surveying my surroundings in the external view, relating them to what I could see on the map. Here we go! ...to be continued!

Dasvidanya, Tovarich Commissar! I guessed that since MG fire was all I could now hear, then there was likely no heavy armour about. This sounded like it was now an infantry versus infantry affair! So, I would just mosey on up there, see who was shooting whom, and join in with my big, bad tank, quickly settling matters in favour of the Red Army of Peasants and Workers. I turned right and diagonally climbed the hill. I hoped that I'd be able to see what the score was, before rolling up onto the top of the hill and possibly skylining myself. But it was an unusual shape, with low but fairly steep sides which quite sharply levelled off, onto a sort of plateau. Nothing else for it, but to go 'over the top'. Which is what I did. There wasn't much to see. But I did locate the source of the firing. It was a single machine gun, a Soviet one, it must have been. He was firing out across the open country beyond the little ring of hills around Chernogostie. A quick look around showed that there were no intact enemies lurking nearby. So all I had to do now was locate the gun's target and knock it out for him. Then off to see the CO and the Commissar; perhaps this time I'd get that nomination for the Order of Lenin, or better still, a ration of some decent vodka for me and the boys to celebrate our success. At least, that was the plan. Alas, as the great Scots poet Robbie Burns put it - or would have put it, had he been a tankie - the best laid plans of mice, men and tank commanders gang aft awry. My own plan's rapid demise was signaled by a noisy hit on the front of my tank, followed by a second one, at which my poor T-34 brewed up. All I had noticed was that the rounds that hit me seemed to have come from some distance away, across the low ground, possibly from whence I came, as if a crafty fascist had been stalking us, while we staked his comrades. Consoling myself with the thought that we had won the battle, I used the SF '42 battlefield review facility to find out who had laid us low, and generally 'have a nosey' around the battlefield. This was the culprit. A Tiger, no less. The Soviet MG had been rattling off some long-range bursts at him, it seemed, but he had disdained to fire back until he had something better to shoot at...me. Tabbing around, our defending forces had taken casualties, but many were still in place. Evidently, the enemy onslaught had been stoutly resisted. The Germans had definitely come off worst, though. The terrain around Chernogostie was littered with knocked out armour. It was quite a mixture; Panthers, two types of Jagdpanzer (Marder II and Hetzer) and at least one Sturmgeschutz. There was also a small convoy of Opel Blitz trucks, who had paid the ultimate price for trying to break out in the middle of a serious armour/infantry firefight. As for my own platoon, T-34 275 had survived, evidently in dead ground to the Tiger, who seemed to be the only surviving German vehicle and either unable or unwilling to close with the surviving defenders. Tank 274 - the one that had fallen behind, before we had turned in towards Chernogostie - had been burned. The position of his turret suggested that he had been caught from behind. Had he perhaps been stalked by the Tiger, and died defending our rear? It seemed possible. There were some other T-34s on the battlefield, 76mm-gunned versions. They, too, had not fared well. So it had been a rather bloody affair, all round. As a mission, I had found it quite realistic, tense and fun, with lots of activity, even if I didn't see much of some of it. SF '42 missions often get off to a fast start but having presented me with the scope to make a nice little tactical appreciation at the outset, I would have preferred if this one had delayed the German attacks a little, to give me more time to play out the battle tactically. Make a more active contribution without having to cast caution to the winds. As in that other old Scots saying, no man hastens to a market where there is nothing to be bought but blows. Great stuff, though, even if I escaped my reckoning with the Commissar the hard way!

Into Chernogostie! No sooner had we put a few rounds into the Panther, than I noticed through the gunsight the grey shape of a Panzer IV, driving into a hull-down position to the left. I quickly laid my gun onto him and started shooting. After a couple of rounds, there was no reaction. At that range, I was confident of the ability of my 85mm AP rounds to have inflicted the damage the Panzer's inaction suggested that he'd suffered. I ceased fire, scanned left and right, then moved on. T-34 275 had edged slightly ahead of me, looking most businesslike when he loomed in my gunsight as I scanned. Soviet tankers generally seem to have fought buttoned up so like me, his tank commander had left his hatches firmly shut. I pressed on with my circuit to the right, hoping now to catch the attacking Germans in the rear. Nearing the Panther, I put another round into him, just to be sure. This time, the results left no room for doubt. There was still some shooting going on and also above the noise of my tank, I now heard the drone of aero engines. I was relieved to see that the source was a pair of aircraft which I quickly identified as friendly, IL-2 Sturmoviks no less. As I watched, they made firing passes in shallow dives, aiming at targets somewhere over to my right. It was beginning to look like the German attacks had all gone in very quickly, taking them right up to Chernogostie while I was busy carrying out my planned wheeling movement, around the low ground on its outskirts. I had evidently caught some of the stragglers. If I didn't get cracking, the flyboys would catch the rest of them, it seemed. Pressing on, I next came upon a hull-down enemy half-track, the other side of the same big ploughed field as the Panther. I lobbed an AP round onto him but he was almost certainly already dead. By this time the Panther was blazing merrily. More dead fascist troops littered the fields. Together with the knocked-out vehicles and the lack of any other targets, this tended to confirm that my arrival had been a tad late. Apart from a few hangars-on, the party seemed to be over. Moving on, I edged nearer to Chernogostie, where several fires were burning brightly. Were they friendlies? Or enemies who had penetrated the defences? Hard to say. If our positions had been over-run while I'd been moving into position...not good! At last, as per my original plan, I finally came upon the rear of one of the German attacking formations…or rather, what was left of it. The Panzer IV sitting perched just short of the crest, next to a battered pillbox, seemed to be immobilised but looked undamaged, so I put a round into him, aiming at the top of his turret. At this range I reckoned one such well-placed shot would be enough; if he wasn't already dead, he would be, after that. Incidentally, while German vehicles and suchlike kit switched from 'panzer grey' to dark yellow in early 1942, and the NTA mod replaces many grey schemes with 'transitional' ones so they suit both mid- and late-war periods, this tank is still grey. I think that's because I have forgotten to turn off a further mod ('Return of Panzergrau' does what it says on the tin). As for the tank itself, by this stage in the war Panzer IVs should have 'schurtzen' skirt armour, at least around their turrets. Likely, this one doesn't because the mission was made before SF '42 acquired a late-war Panzer IV, like this one: You can't be too careful with these Fritzes, though. Whatever the Commissar says about their nefarious ways, we all know that they didn't get to be masters of large swathes of Europe and Mother Russia by being bad soldiers. On we rolled. Carefully. Apart from the dead infantry, the open ground in front of Chernogostie was clear. So I tightened up my wheeling movement and headed up a little gully which ran between two of the low hills which ringed Chernogostie. 'Drive as the water flows' is an old tanker's motto, apparently. Stay low; keep off the high ground, and in particular, avoid skylining yourself. Makes sense, no? By this time I had lost track of the T-34 on my right, number 274. One moment he was there; a little while later, no sign. The remaining tank, trusty old 275, was still on my left. I should perhaps have ordered him into line astern before heading up the gully. But he was just below the crest so I left it at that. We were roughly in echelon left and that would give us a decent arc of fire to the front, better than if he'd been right behind me and I was masking his frontal arc. On we went, with the rattle of MG fire and the occasional tank or anti-tank round being the only remaining signs of battle. The Sturmoviks were still droning around but no longer attacking and the Germans seemed to have come and gone, too. This seemed confirmed, when I got the 'Mission completed!' message. We'd won! I opted to play on, feeling that our ever-watchful Commissar might have something to say about my socialist credentials, if not also my military ardour, in view of the rather limited part I had played in this, our glorious victory. To my complete surprise an SdKfz 250 light armoured half-track suddenly rattled right past me, coming from somewhere behind us. By the time I had picked him up in the gunsight, he had turned sharp right up the bank, as if to escape over the crest, only to be clobbered by my other T-34. Recovering my composure, I rattled on. Slowing down, I rolled into the village of Chernogostie, halted, and scanned cautiously left and right. Some German armour was burning on either side but the place seemed deserted. I moved on a little further, then stopped and scanned again. There were still some ragged, intermittent bursts of MG fire from somewhere up on the high ground to my right, but that was it. I knew from the map that most of our defensive positions were up there, on top of the little hillock to my right, from where the firing came, with some more on two other similar hillocks. Now what? ...to be continued!

Into action! Edging forward and scanning ahead through my gunsight, all I could see at first were some dead Germans - sorry, I mean, dead fascists. The unit's Commissar doesn't like it unless we refer to the hated aggressors in terms more appropriate for any true son of our glorious proletarian revolution. More slowly now, I trundled forward, watching out for whatever might come into view as I circled around Chernogistie Hill. Shooting was still going on and I was getting increasingly anxious that I could still see nothing of the battle. But I didn't have to wait much longer! Into view came a Panther, no less, out in the open, at close range and side-on to us. This was exactly what I had in mind, when I'd made my little plan! Of course, I let him have it, right in his thin side armour, with the AP round I had 'up the spout'. I even took the trouble to aim at the side of his turret, intending to kill the turret crew and score a quick victory. A cloud of muck rose and a shower of sparks flew, as my round whacked into him. In fact I put a couple of rounds into him, joined by one of my other tanks. The Panther took no action so I judged that we had got him; realistically, in SF '42, there are no Hollywood fireballs to let you know a tank is dead. So far, so good! ...to be continued!

Za rodinu! Za Stalina! ('For the Motherland! For Stalin' - Red Army battle-cry, seen painted on tanks) Accompanied by two other T-34s, one either side, I rolled towards the copse of trees I'd seen on the map. I had planned to make that copse the limit of my first bound. In 'real life' the group of trees looked a bit sparse and the ground beyond seemed still clear of the enemy, so I kept on going, with Chernogostie hidden from me, apart from a few rooftops, by the low hill to our right. Listen in, now. I'm going to give you a reference point, to assist orientation as we move out on the next bound. 'Reference point - three hundred - right - low, sparsely-wooded hill - will be known as Chernogostie Hill - seen?' Beyond the copse, I halted the platoon. Behind me, an SU-85 self-propelled gun trundled across our path, on a little mission of his own. I was covered to my right by Chernogostie Hill itself and half-right, by the spur of ground that sat out from this hill, where I'd planned to take up our second fire position. At this point, battle was joined, but not by us. Firing broke out on my right, with friendly forces in the area of the village exchanging direct fire with enemies who were still out of sight, around the other side of the rising ground to our right front. Skirting the trees on the edge of Chernogostie Hill, I moved off again, nervously. My plan was still to circle clockwise around the open ground surrounding Chernogostie, catching attacking enemy forces in the flank. With said enemy forces apaprently engaged with the village's defenders, this seemed to be a good time to catch them out. ...to be continued!

From Kharkov to Kursk - a change of scenery for Steel Fury! The battle The fighting at Prokhorovka has gone down in history as one of the biggest and most desperate tank battles ever seen. It was a battle within a battle, fought on the southern front of Operation Citadel, the German offensive against the Kursk salient in July 1943. This was an ill-starred effort to regain some of the initiative lost after the Stalingrad disaster. At Kursk, the Soviets knew the Germans were coming and the offensive soon bogged down amidst well-sited defences, storms of artillery fire and fierce armoured counterattacks. The fiercest was at Prokhorovka on 12 July, when hundreds of T-34s from the 5th Guards Tank Army swept forward in massed waves and ran headlong into II SS Panzerkorps. As its full name indicates, Ukrainian tanksim Steel Fury is centred on the 1942 battles around Kharkov. However, thanks to the modders and mission makers, its scope has been extended well beyond those battlefields and that year. Sure enough, if you install the NTA mod and the associated mission packs you will find that you now have a short series of missions based on the Battle of Kursk - specifically, inspired by the fighting at Prokhorovka. From these, I chose a mission featuring the Panther tank, which the Germans had rushed into service for Kursk, only to find that mechanical teething troubles and limited crew training added up to a very disappointing debut. Would I do any better? There was one way to find out! Edit, August 2014 - the NTA mod has been discontinued but its successor, the STA Mod, is now available: http://stasf2008.ephpbb.com/t6-steel-tank-add-on-steel-fury The mission and the tank Here's the mission briefing. I think it's fair to say that its intention is to recreate the general pattern of the German operations at Kursk on a smaller scale and - as I found out - give the player a taste of the kind of fighting at Prokhorovka, where the Germans were on the offensive but were faced with having to fight off waves of oncoming Soviet tanks. With the briefing panel minimised, you can get a better look at the map, including the disposition of the units, the lie of the land, and the route to your objective. I've got a platoon of three Panthers - the blue diamonds, bottom centre in the map below - and we are in the middle of the attack, with other tank platoons either side of us. Rather than keep us with our parent tank company - which would have been fully equipped with Panthers (those that had not broken down, anyway!) for the sake of variety we have a mix, including the stalwart Panzer IV but also some Tiger tanks and Elephant tank destroyers/assault guns. There's no mention of infantry or fire support in the briefing but as it turned out we had dismounted Grenadiers with us. It's probably no bad thing that they were on foot; there wasn't much hostile artillery or mortar fire and when the German SPWs (half-tracked APCs) do feature in an SF '42 mission, they seem always to suffer especially heavily! Basically, the operation is in two phases. First, we attack and destroy the enemy defensive positions. Then, we pass through and re-group on the other side, presumably in anticipation of a counterattack. Before leaving the map screen, I selected line abreast formation and 'Do as I do! for platoon orders. I didn't fiddle with the default game settings, which would have allowed me to change relative skills for each side and increase or reduce the balance (=the size of the enemy force, relative to mine). I kicked off the mission then as I usually do, in the external view, went to the commander's station and popped open the hatch (F3, P key) then moved to the gunner's station (F2) and loaded an AP round. From this station you can control turret traverse/elevation and do most of what the tank commander can, too, giving orders to driver and loader; so this is how I usually play. And here are our three Panthers, lined up and good to go. Nice to see that they are the correct model for Kursk - the Ausf. D, with the original 'dustbin' commander's cupola and vertical flap on the right of the glacis plate for the hull machine gun, instead of the later ball mounting. Another early feature is the set of three smoke dischargers either side of the turret (non-functional, as I believe SF doesn't simulate tanks popping smoke) Edit - Steel Fury mission-maker and modder Lockie tells me 'SF has smoke grenades. To use them u need sit down on loader place and press "space" on keyboard to fire' . The other units either side of us didn't hang about, but soon shook out into formation and roared off towards the enemy defensive lines, which were more or less in plain sight and not too far off, either. It didn't stay quiet for long, as the air was soon filled with the din of combat. Already, tall columns of smoke arose from the battle's first victims, friend or foe. Everyone else might have been in a hurry but not me. I drove forward a little way into a small fold in the ground, where I halted and started scanning the ground ahead for signs of the enemy. ...to be continued!

The T-34 in Steel Fury and T-34-vs-Tiger Having gone up against T-34s in recently-reported missions in both SF '42 and T-v-T, I thought it was time to see how things looked through the other end of the telescope....through the gunsight of the famous Soviet tank, to be precise. This report is the result, featuring the same tank in both sims, for comparison. T-34-vs-Tiger is set during the period of the Soviet 1944 summer offensive, and the T-34-85 is the playable version. It's a fine replica, evidently an earlier production model with the prominent inverted 'U' turret lifting lugs and the two-piece commander's hatch. This sim also has the previous production version, commonly called both the Model 1943 and the Model 1942; but this isn't playable.This 76mm-gunned model's presence both adds variety and ensures that when playing the Tiger, you aren't always up against the top Soviet medium tank. SF '42 comes with an earlier T-34. To this, the modders have added two later versions: the Model 1942/43 and the T-34-85. All three versions are pictured below. I believe only the stock version (top) has 3-D interiors (second pic). These are certainly nice to have, but non-essential. All the Steel Fury T34s have superior animation to the T-v-T models, with working suspension and crew who open or close hatches as the tactical situation may dictate. The T-34-85 went into action in early 1944, replacing the original 76mm gun with a more potent 85mm weapon in a larger turret, which at last had a 3-man crew, so the commander no longer had to act as gunner, as well. My appetite for the T-34 was recently well whetted after watching 'White Tiger', a modern Russian film to which CA member Snailman had recently posted this link. It's a rather strange and spooky film and the Tiger in question is apparently an IS-2 conversion (seems they built a realistic Tiger replica but ended up using the Stalin tank conversion, which if nothing else certainly emphasises the point that this was no ordinary Tiger). Despite the strange plot and some overly fuel-filled special effects, the visuals are great, the performances strong and the tank action is not to be missed. Anyway, back in sim-land, the missions I chose to play are 'Liberating Krinovichi' from T-v-T's stock single-player 6-mission Soviet campaign and Steel Fury's 'Chernogostie', which is in one of the mission packs which go with the NTA mod. The T-v-T mission, as its name suggests, is offensive in nature; the SF '42 one is defensive. First up, it's T-v-T. Knowing that this sim's main antagonist is no less than the Tiger tank itself, I was expecting trouble, but glad that I'd be meeting it in the latest T-34. I reckoned that woud give me a fighting chance of avoiding ending up like this: ...to be continued!

Come out, come out, wherever you are! Skirting the woods around Krinovichi and making the occasional faster dash across open stretches, I sought out any Germans lurking in the vicinity. All I came across was a second Pak 40 anti-tank gun, which seemed as deserted as the first one. This time I decided to make sure of him with a round of 85mm HE. Moving on, I rolled past some knocked-out T-34s and coming around a corner in the woods, found myself behind a second and equally knocked-out Tiger. Eventually, I had made a complete circuit of the objective without encountering any opposition...likewise, without encountering any friendly forces, either. Live ones, that is. There were plenty of dead ones. Still I hadn't seen the 'Mission accomplished!' message...or the 'Mission failed!' one, for that matter. Last time this happened in a T-v-T mission, I had broken the stalemate by putting another round into an enemy AFV which looked like it had been knocked out but might have had some life in it. Perhaps, in this mission, one of the dead Tigers wasn't quite dead. Perhaps there were some live enemies lurking silent in one of the pillboxes. But I'd already made one tour of the battlefield and didn't feel inclined to make another, just for the sake of killing (apparently) dead things. So I called it quits. Fortunately, I had applied the mod (a registry edit IIRC) which unlocks all the T-v-T single player missions so I didn't have to complete this mission to play others in the little 6-mission Soviet SP campaign. Personally, I Ioathe this sort of restriction. Anyhow, as tanksim missions go, this one had its moments, mainly soaking up the sights and sounds of tank gunnery, conveying the impression of which I'd say is TvT's strength. However the mission also highlighted one of T-v-T's weaknesses - its missions. Not only are there too few of them, and not only is your tank on its own amongst a bunch of AI stuff doing its own thing with no platoon command and control for the player, but mission goals are too artificial. Often, you must kill everything on a target list. Miss one and it's no go. In this mission, three goals were listed, as you can see in the mission briefing in the first post: 1. Advance to Krinovichi; 2. Supress the MG nests [pillboxes?]; 3. Occupy the village. Which had I missed and how? I had no idea. Setting decent mission objectives and tying this into how the mission ends seems to present tanksims a challenge that not all mission designs meet very well. Sometimes, they impose silly and artificial time limits - yes I know timing is important in military operations but not like that; we want our tanksims to simulate war not a bl***y video game. Other times, they impose specific things you must destroy. And however they resolve objectives, while some will be sensible and tell you the result but still let you play on, others will tell you you've failed and then end the mission for you with no option to play on, again, video game style. Likely, part of the problem is that unlike a combat flight sim, you don't have the nice 'RTB and land' end point of the typical flying mission. Military operations are typically centred on taking or holding ground so that's the obvious type of victory condition we should have in a tanksim. But I daresay that can be hard to boil down to a victory condition. In real life it wasn't necessarily clear-cut, either. I recall that concerning Normandy 1944, one British tank unit's War Diary was quoted as criticising another unit's claim to have occupied a certain enemy position, when it was said that all they had really done was to 'superimpose themselves on a heavily-defended locality'. I quite liked how M1Tank Platoon II handled things - if I recall right it, you were told whether you had won or lost when the moment came but had the option of playing on. Your results were in some fashion then factored into the next campaign mission you faced. Panzer Elite is a bit like that, except the visible mission goals tended to include the destruction of units whose names you could not possibly have known and of whose presence on the battlefield you might have been otherwise completely unaware, in real life. This T-v-T mission's ending was at the more unsatisfactory end of the scale, but at least it didn't time me out. Anyway, in the second part of 'Red Storm - T-34 twosome' we'll see how I got on with the same tank in a different sim - Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942.

Tiger hunt! Having used the woods to creep up on a Tiger while my less cautious comrades were being savaged by fascist gunfire, I now needed to destroy my close-range foe before he woke up and destroyed me. 'Keep firing till it changes shape' I've heard that US tankers say, recognising that it's only in the movies that knocked-out tanks announce their demise with a petrol-laden fireball, every time. I was conscious that the Tiger was sitting at an angle to my line of fire, thereby increasing the thickness of armour my 85mm gun had to penetrate. I concentrated on his front, thicker than the side armour but at less of an angle. At that range I could hardly miss but I still had to pump several of my remaining AP rounds into him before his shape changed - finally, his gun drooped and his hatches popped slightly open. Phew! At this point I should repeat the point made in an earlier mision report - T-v-T gunnery is top-notch, in my book. The visuals are good, the gun firing and loading sounds are excellent, and likewise the crew voices. In this mission, failing to familiarise myself with the Soviet ammo types had led me in the heat of action to neglect proper round selection but that wasn't T-v-T's fault. For the rest of this mission, I just hoped that my zealous Red Army comrades had dealt with any other Tigers. Elated but nervously, I edged forward from the trees, scanning left and right for any sign of further enemies. But all I could see was my victim, now gently smoking in the open. As I came out of cover, I got a shock when I suddenly spotted a Pak 40 AT gun in a defensive position, roughly between me and the Tiger. The gun itself looked undamaged but its crew was nowhere in sight. Had it been active, I'd probably have been dead by now. So I pushed on, speeding up and making straight for the gun emplacement. I intended to make that my next fire position; if the Germans sprang to life suddenly...well, I would just roll right over them, gun and crew. I managed to cover the short stretch of open ground to the AT gun position without mishap. Halting in front of it, I could see that although the gun itself appeared undamaged, the unfortunate gun crew did not. Still no sign of the enemy! Where were they? I decided my next bound would be into the village itself, where I would use the cover of the buildings to do a bit more creeping up on the Nemetski. I backed up a little, swung left, then dashed across the short stretch of open ground, slowing again as I got amongst the buildings. They were hardly much protection from AP rounds but they say that cover from view is better than cover from fire...even though both is likely best. The only hostile indications I could see were some menacing but silent pillboxes, likely to house those MGs we had been briefed to knock out. There was no sign of our infantry but in case they showed up later, I did my duty and duly blasted the pillboxes. The HE rounds I had left seemed to crumble rather than obliterate them but after reducing a couple of these things to a fairly knocked-about condition, I decided it was time to move on. Looking around, there seemed to be plenty of T-34s about...dead ones. The view below is through the tank commander's binoculars, which give a somewhat better view than the gunsight. Looking at the turret position indicator, you can see that this shows me I'm looking left, while my gunner is looking slightly left. You can activate an AI gunner while in the commander's station and he is quite decent at picking up and engaging targets on his own. The battle seemed to have died off, too, and I got the impression that I was the only one still in the Land of the Living...apart from any devious fascists who might, even now, be lying in wait, ready to put a violent and sudden end to my heroic endeavours on behalf of the Motherland and Comrade Stalin. Plotting my position on the map - which I had previously set not to display other vehicles besides my own, so as to avoid the AWACS, eye-in-the-sky effect, however convenient it is - I decided that I would have to make a little circuit around the village, rushing from fire position to fire position, pausing to have a good look from each, before moving on. This promised to be a tense affair...and so it proved. ...to be continued!

Hi Rusty If your boy's already got Panzer Elite and likes it then he'll have no difficulties with SF '42 (or T-v-T)...except he may miss not being able to do some stuff he could do in PE, like play campaigns all the way through from North Africa to Normandy. If he hasn't already done so he could try the PE-x mod or PE3, which extend features and scope still further: http://pedg.yuku.com/topic/2141/PEX-Realsed-Version#.U4TT6ygo0vE http://panzerelite.yuku.com/topic/482/Panzer-Elite-three-mod-LINK-contains-Ostpak-MvR-BritPa?page=1#.U4TTMSgo0vE

Hi Rusty 1. I don't think there is much to choose, in terms of being easy to play. T-v-T I find slightly easier because (i) its manual is better translated than SF '42's and (ii) T-v-T has less functionality and therefore fewer keystrokes - a bit of a back-handed compliment! 2. You can play in the external view in both but AFAIK there is no crosshair, you have to switch to the gunsight view to shoot OR play as a tank commander and point out targets for your AI gunner to shoot. I would hate a crosshair in the external view so i don't miss that. I play in the external view and go to the gunsight either when a target is spotted or when I want to scan for targets from the gunsight. It's not complicated to play like this. If you're playing as gunner, both sims have an artificial intelligence tank commander who spots and indicates targets for you, just as in real life. In both sims you can hear the commander's fire order (German or Russian) and see it displayed as text; each sim also has different on-screen aids to help, like the turret position indicator in the screenies above. In both sims I believe that you can just drive the tank and your AI gunner will do the shooting. 3. I think SF '42 is less demanding on a system. On my system anyway, T-v-T can chug a bit with lots of vehicles in view, while SF '42 does not. Maybe not an issue with newer PCs/GPUs. 4. I would not say that either sim is particlarly easy to get into - it takes practice and some patience. SF '42's manual's translation can be difficult to understand. All tank simulations (as opposed to tank arcade games) can take a while to pick up, and it can be very frustrating when your first few missions result in sudden death from an enemy you never even saw (still happens to me). You need to select the right ammo for the right target, and if playing as gunner, to know how to set your gun sight for the target's range. Rushing ahead will often get you killed; you learn to move from cover to cover, pausing to watch for enemies. Learning and managing these things is part of what you get from a tank sim, as opposed to a tank game. The only tanksim that I really found easy to get into was Panzer Commander (which had a simplified targeting mode and generally simple controls). At the other extreme is Panzer Elite, dated graphically but, with the latest mods, still the best WW2 tanksim in many departments - it had a very complex (but very capable) control setup with more keyboard controls than a thing with a lot of keyboard controls, including many multi-key combinations. SF '42 does have some options to make gameplay simpler but I've not tried these. SF '42 also has training missions, which T-v-T doesn't. 5. In T-v-T you can drive only the Tiger or the T-34-85 (although there is a payware mod by ZeeWolf which adds some additional playable vehicles). In SF '42, if you download the NTA mod, you can also drive dozens of tanks and other AFVs. I think the mission packs even include one for a BMW motorcycle & sidecar! My mission reports here feature just a very small selection of the drivable vehicles. Others include these: 6. SF '42 has been extensively modded - the NTA mod is the latest and you can get up to speed with all the extra missions and vehicles by following the installation guide on the Graviteam forum, here: http://graviteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=10944.0 As to which is best, each is better in some respects but overall, I agree with most people that SF '42 is significantly better, overall, especially with the mods installed. SF '42 has dozens of playable vehicles and many missions and campaigns; T-v-T (unless you go for the payware mod) has two vehicles and two campaigns with just six missions each. If you just want a simple tank game that is suitable for some single-player fun, others will be able to give better advice but something like Panzer Elite Action (not to be confused with the original Panzer Elite which was a real tank sim) might do the trick, if you can still get it: But if your lad has the interest and the patience to learn the aspects of tanking that a proper tanksim will teach him, they don't come much better than SF '42 with the NTA mod. With dozens of AFVs and many missions, it has the replay value I don't expect you'll get from an arcade game. ,

'Liberating Krinovichi' Here's my orders for the T34-vs-Tiger mission. This is the first Soviet mission, there being a not-very-grand total of six for each side, in the stock sim. The 'briefing' itself is not terribly helpful. As you can see, about half of it is given over to a short history lesson, concluding with a rather strange description of the plight of the panzers at this stage in the war. The actual mission description is slightly truncated in the screenie below but it tells me very little. What is the composition of our attacking force? Do we have any artillery support? What do we know of the enemy, apart from roughly where they are? The briefing implies nothing more than MG nests! What sub-unit am I with, and which of the three axes of advance (red arrows) is my sub-unit supposed to take? You don't get to make up your own mind about such things in real life. But this is T-v-T and I decided to go left-flanking. Not that it seemed likely to make much difference, as all three axes looked to channel us into a likely killing ground more or less in front of the enemy position. I suppose I could have crunched off through the extensive woodland and gone wide, but commanding officers tend not to approve of that sort of thing, never mind Red Army Commisars. Besides, if I went swanning off on my own into the Wide Blue Yonder, I'd lose whatever support I'd get from the others in my force. Whoever they were. There was one way to find out. I started the mission. Having 'moved' to the gunner's station, I activated the AI driver and commander, checked that I had an AP round chambered, then turned on the turret position indicator and map displays. Checking the latter, I ordered the driver to turn hard left and we crunched through a short stretch of woodland. Once on the other side, I turned right into the clearing that would lead us towards the objective. As you have no way of interacting with the AI (other than your movements sometimes triggering their activity) it seems not to matter who you link up with. When I turned left to enter the woods, I had left behind a group of 76mm- and 85mm-gunned T-34s who had promptly rushed off without me. Instead, I found myself approaching a group of five T-34-85s, with whom I could join up, instead. That was the good news. The bad news was, they were all facing the wrong way. Either that, or I had missed the order to withdraw. But no, I was going the right way; the war hadn't been cancelled. As I neared the T-34s, they sprang into life and turned with me as I passed. Soon, I was at the head of quite an impressive phalanx of Soviet steel. I say 'at the head off' rather than 'leading', because - while my arrival may have triggered the AI into action - in no sense were the other T-34s under my control. Evidently keen to be at the fascists and impress the Commisar with their ardour, they roared off towards the objective. In no time, they were in the large clearing in front of Krinovichi, where they rapidly began to take casualties, firing back at an enemy I could not yet see. Of the infantry we were supposed to be supporting, I could see no sign. But the opposition evidently consisted of something a good deal more formidable than a few machine guns. I could see nothing definite but cracked off several rounds at what I took to be bunkered enemy positions, without much result that I could see. To make matters worse I forgot to switch to HE after the first shot so I used up AP rounds needlessly - doh! Time for a change of plan! I suddenly felt disinclined to continue ahead, into an open space which was evidently well covered by enemy fire. Instead, I swung right, across the rear of the group of tanks which I had originally left behind. I felt more than a little exposed, but I was relying on presenting the Germans with a crossing target, harder to hit - and, shamelessly, on the leading T-34s drawing the enemy fire. Across the open ground I went, urging more speed on the driver, aiming for a stretch of woodland which extended out towards the objective, on the right. It was a tense few seconds but finally I made it into the woods. Once inside I slowed right down, picking my way between the trees. I edged cautiously towards the furthest extremity of the woods, scanning left and right between the leaves. Suddenly, my commander called out a tank target. Using the turret position indicator, I swung my gun around onto his line of sight...and there it was! Just visible between a gap in the foliage, sitting in the open - unmistakably, a Tiger! My relief that he wasn't aiming in my direction was tempered by the knowledge that if I didn't get him quickly, he soon would be! I lined him up and cracked off my first round. ...to be continued!