33LIMA

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!

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!

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!

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!

Campaigning in the Balkans - in a tanksim with a storyline! For my first tanksim campaign to get its own set of mission reports, as a ground-based counterpoint to the concurrent IL-2 campaign reports, I thought I'd start with something slightly different - one of the few tanksims that will let you fight in Cold War era Soviet tanks. It's none other than IDDK's 2005 release, Iron Warrior - T72 Tank Command, also sold as T72 - Balkans on Fire. I've had this for a while but never really got to grips with it. Now I've made a start and I'm glad I did. You won't get big all-arms battles between NATO and the Warsaw Pact on the North German Plain. But what you do get is an impressive simulator of the T34, T55 and T72 with an unusual and engaging backstory, which reminded me of Operation Flashpoint - Cold War Crisis - or perhaps more appropriately, the Red Hammer expansion. For Iron Warriors casts you in the role of a former Soviet Army tanker and Afghanistan veteran who's volunteered to fight with the Serbs in the Yugoslavian Civil War of the 1990s. You'll fight vicious little battles in rolling countryside, with both sides making the best of whatever kit they can get hold off. As well as playing the Russian volunteer's campaign, there are some training missions; plus you can play some of the campaign missions singly, from the other side. Furthermore, there's a good selection of user-made single missions still available online, here. At the time of writing, the sim itself is still available; for example from Steam, and at a very good price. Iron Warriors is highly configurable and my DVD-cased version came with a small but decent manual. Like any good tanksim, it takes practice to pick up on all the controls and become reasonably proficient at fighting your tank. In many respects the sim is reminiscent of Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942 (I believe some of the dev team moved on to work on the latter sim) with a map interface which allows you an element of control over any units attached to yours and the ability to cycle through and inspect the units after a battle. The first mission In keeping with the Russian volunteer backstory, when you kick off the campaign, you are presented with your diary, in a military-style notebook. This is nicely crafted and it certainly helped me get 'in character' for the campaign. Turning the pages, my sim persona has added a little more detail, reminding me who I am, where I am and what I'm doing here. And now we also have the basis for the first mission - basically, my crew and I must get some war booty - in the form of an abandoned but functional T34 tank - back to our local base. Starting the mission itself, here's the actual briefing and map. Information is a little sketcky, notably on the strengths, dispositions and equipment of both sides, but the job is clear enough. Looking at the map (which you can expand) it's good that the contours show the lie of the land, as well as the location of an enemy oupost or ambush, apparently covering the road that would take me back to base. I quickly decide that I will not follow the road. Instead, I will attempt to by-pass the enemy, to my right. I can see from the countours and spot heights that if I keep far enough right I will be in dead ground, with the enemy the other side of a hill. If the Croats are mobile and have someone watching their backs I might still have to fight my way through. But as in that old Scots saying, no wise man rushes to a market where there's nothing to be bought but blows. My orders are to get my trusty old tank to our base, not go looking for trouble when I can avoid it. Plan made - time to get busy! ...to be continued!

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

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!

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 - 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!

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!

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!

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!