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Refighting the Second Battle of Kharkov in Graviteam's classic WW2 tanksim! Despite acquiring Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942 (SF) not long after release, I only started seriously playing the tanksim years later, when modders added more (especially later-war) AFVs and generally extended SF's scope beyond the Second Battle of Kharkov in early summer 1942. So I never got around to playing the stock SF campaigns…until recently, when I decided it was a shame not to give them a tryout, at least. So that's what I did, and here's how it went! The real battle The First Battle of Kharkov in the Ukraine was fought in autumn 1941 during Operation Barbarossa, when the German 6th Army (later destroyed at Stalingrad) captured the city. The Second Battle - the one featured in SF - came in early summer 1942. Having thown the Germans back from the gates of Moscow over the winter of 1941-2, the Red Army's next major offensive came further south, in May 1942, with ferocious (and initially successful) concentric attacks aimed at retaking Kharkov. However, the Wehrmacht - including once more 6th Army - had been planning an attack of their own, code-named Operation Fredericus. With these forces, the Germans soon stopped and then rolled back and utterly crushed the Soviets, who had, it seems, overestimated their capabilities and underestimated those of the still-formidable Wehrmacht. A more durable and decisive victory over the Germans would have to wait…for about six months, as it turned out. The Red Army had learnt its lesson and the next big offensive, when it came, would see the tables turned and 6th Army annihilated at Stalingrad. But as far as the Second Battle of Kharkov went, the laurels belonged to the Wehrmacht. While SF does support campaigns - and I believe you can create a player profile for each - there's nothing like M1 Tank Platoon II's crew management facility. You will see your crew members moving around inside, and sitting at open hatches of, your tank. But they and the crews of your other platoon tanks ('wingmen' if you like) are annonymous. You can review each tank's/crew's achievements at the end of each mission - but that's about it. Each campaign is basically a sequence of scripted missions which, reasonably enough, follow the course of the actual battle, which you cannot change. So if you're rooting for the RKKA - the Red Army of Peasants and Workers - well, you can destroy all the fascists you like, but it's still gonna end in tears before bedtime. Sorry, tovaritch. Better luck at Stalingrad. Unit affiliation isn't a big thing with Steel Fury. Whereas the campaigns in Ultimation's classic Panzer Commander placed you from the start in a famous tank division (complete with formation insignia in the campaign selection screen) in SF you learn which unit you're with, when you see the first mission briefing. So it's all a bit anonymous, with no real sense of role-playing. However, you do get a short introductory video, with historical newsreel footage and captions which set the scene. After that, you can pick the opening mission from the list of those available for the campaign - just one, to begin with. Complete one mission and the next one in the sequence is added to the list. I think I'm right in saying that this happens regardless of whether you won or not. In my book, it's fine that you can't alter significantly the course of history, and good that you aren't stuck with having to replay unsuccessful missions, before you can progress to the next one. The stock Steel Fury campaigns Out-of-the-box, I believe SF provides three campaigns based on the Second Battle of Kharkov, as follows: Friedericus 1 (Wehrmacht) Soviet Army, Group South Soviet Army, Group North To these, my modded install adds variants with different tanks. I opted to fight for the Wehrmacht. If I recall right, the stock Fredericus campaign starts you off in a Panzer IV with a short-barreled, low velocity 7.5 cm gun, only later getting the longer-barreled weapon with decent armour-piercing capability. If you're not 'well up' on your panzers, one grey panzer might look very much like another; but the Panzer IV below - an early Ausf. F model, with the short, stubby gun - exhibits the eight road wheels per side and the longer, boxier hull, which distinguish it from the 'six a side', more compact Panzer III, pictured below that again. And though the Panzer III's gun is a smaller calibre, in this case it has a much longer barrel and thus penetrates more armour. So...keen to start with a gun which would give me a fighting chance against the Red Army's finest, I opted to play the Panzer III version of the campaign, knowing I would get from the outset a long 5 cm gun - not as good as a long 7.5 but better than the short version of either weapon - better for dealing with tanks, at any rate. Especially big, bad tanks like these: Are you perhaps sitting there thinking 'What a wuss! Why doesn't he just man up and get on with it?' If so, I would suggest you might like to read this account of one of the Germans' most unsettling early encounters with the Klimenti Voroshilov heavy tank. Just one of them in this case, which for 24 hours single-handledly held up a German regimental combat team from 6th Panzer Division, meantime defying various attempts at its destruction. For all their poor ergonomics and comparatively crude finish, the Germans learned to show Soviet tanks like the KV and T-34 a healthy respect. Of course, the Soviets also still had lots of less formidable tanks, like different light tanks and the BT-5 'fast tank' below, with its US-style Christie suspension, speedy but lightly-armoured and with the ability to run on its road wheels instead of tracks, perhaps useful to save wear on approach marches but mechanically a wasteful concept. There might also be some British 'lend lease' tanks, I knew. The Soviet 45mm anti-tank guns were dangerous enough and their 76.2mm field guns had a good A/T capability. Weapons like this would be dug in and hard to spot, but a priority target for my tanks, in any attack. This was going to be no sinecure! The first mission! I neglected to take a screenshot of the mission brief but the screens below show the ground and the disposition of our forces, soon after I loaded up the mission. Tanks - my platoon's Panzer IIIs - are the blue diamonds on the upper screenshot. The infantry's SPWs (Schutzenpanzerwagen, SdKfz 250 and 251 armoured half-track APCs) are the blue pointy-nosed rectangles, over to my left. In short, it's late May 1942 and my unit, Panzer Regiment 201 of 23 Panzer Division, is to support panzer grenadiers in a two-phase operation. First, we are to assist the grenadiers in destroying enemy defensive positions - marked in red on the lower map - on the nearer edge of a wood. Then in Phase 2, we are to sieze and hold the nearby village of Nepokrytoe, which is just off the top left of the map in the lower pic, a few hundred metres beyond the left-hand side of that big wood. . As usual in SF missions and campaigns - though it's rarely made clear in briefings - you are in command of a platoon of tanks, usually three. The missions themselves tend to be for a company-level operation, a sort of self-contained or scaled down representation of a larger battle. This mission's briefing gave me a reasonably clear idea of our tasks and indicated that artillery and the Luftwaffe (which latter I saw no sign of) would be supporting us. As usual the mission briefing - 'orders' would be a better title - is in a structured format, perhaps Soviet as it's not British or US (which closely resembled and evolved into the standard NATO format, namely Ground-Situation-Mission-Execution-Service/Support-Command & Signals) and possibly not WW2 German either. I find the SF 'orders' a bit repetitive yet short on some of the detail a company commander would put into even a quickly-made plan and set out in his verbal orders to the participating platoon commanders, in the company Orders Group. Nevertheless, having seen the briefing, it's always best to do a 'combat appreciation' before you start this sort of mission and so make a plan of how you intend to proceed. Aim - Enemy - Ground - Plan is an abbreviated format I was taught long ago (by an RM Commando officer, as it happened) and found quite useful. Should I go left, centre or right, was what it boiled down to, for Phase 1. The centre looked too devoid of cover and likely exposed to direct fire from all three marked enemy positions - a slow uphill run into the centre of a storm of enemy fire, targets on a two-way range. Looking at the lie of the land, I decided to risk taking the time to switch flanks and go left. Over there, I'd be able to make use of the dead ground the contours suggested should lie next to a road running towards the wood's left-hand edge; which road would also help me to maintain direction. Once over there, I could push up in comparative safety and from the flank, support the infantry by rolling up the enemy positions from left to right, concentrating on one at a time, instead of taking them all on at once. I could do much the same by going right flanking instead, but to get up onto the enemy's flank from a covered approach, I'd have to open up much too wide a gap with the panzer grenadiers. So left flanking it would be. Unfortunately, in SF there's no way of discussing and co-ordinating plans with the commander of the infantry you're often supporting, or with other friendly forces. For example, you cannot temporarily assume command of the whole force and make a plan designed to integrate the fire and movement of tanks, infantry and supporting fire. Instead, your options usually are - either make and execute your own plan, or just conform to the infantry's movements, supporting them more closely and directly - tanks and infantry attacking on the same axis, if you will. I knew from past SF missions that the infantry tend just to rush straight at the objective. But I decided that this time, tanks and infantry would attack on separate axes. I accepted the risk that the infantry, motoring up to the Effective Fire Line in their nippy armoured 'battle taxis', would get ahead of me and maybe suffer serious losses before I was in position. But I like to play a more cautious, tactical game; if the grenadiers want instead to re-stage the Charge of the Light Brigade, well, on their own heads be it. C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre. ...to be continued!

The new Steel Tank Add-on (STA) mod is based on the previous NTA mod, which at time of posting is no longer available. The new mod is available here. So far, three mission packs and compatible versions of the main terrain mods are available. More content is reported under development.

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

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

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!

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!

Steel Fury joins the Deutsches Afrika Korps! Graviteam's tanksim Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942, as its name indicates, started out limited to the Eastern front, about a year into 'The Great Patriotic War' between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. However, thanks to the efforts of modders you can now travel a bit further afield in time and space! This mission report is set in the sim's original time frame. But for a battlefield, we're bidding adieu to the Steppes and are off instead to the desert of North Africa. Here were fought some of the war's classic tank battles, between the Germans and Italians on the one side and the British Commonwealth and later the USA, on the other. By mid-1942, the war in the desert had developed into a see-saw battle as first one side then the other enjoyed the advantage. In 1940, Operation Compass saw the British fling back westwards a much larger invading Italian force. The following year the British 'Desert Rats', robbed of troops to prop up the war in Greece, were in their turn flung back east towards Egypt by the Axis forces, now re-inforced by Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps. At the end of 1941, the British Operation Crusader, after some fierce battles, threw the Germans back again. In mid-1942, after a lull, the Afrika Korps was one more on the offensive; once again the British were pushed back well to the west. The mission The mission I'm playing here is 'Gazala', which signs me up with the famous 21st Panzer Division, justly famous for its combat record with the Afrika Korps. As usual, I'm using the latest NTA mod and the current Mission Pack. I also enabled the Africa mod, which I'm assuming is needed to replace the stock SF terrain with something appropriate for (in the words of that RAF song) '...a very pleasant land, where miles and miles of sweet eff-all are covered up with sand.' Full details of all the necessary items you need to get NTA installed with all the bells and whistles are over at the Graviteam Steel Fury forum, here. Edit, August 2014 - the NTA mod has been discontinued but its successor, the STA Mod, is now available: http://stasf2008.eph...d-on-steel-fury This mission starts off with an excellent German newsreel compilation from the theatre, some of it in colour or colourised. The briefing itself is in the stock SF style. This has rather a lot on the regimental/divisional battle picture which is fine, but not much on the company-level operation that you're involved with. The map gives you some idea what's going on but it's no substitute for something in the format of proper 'oral orders' given to you, and the other platoon commanders in your Combat Team, by your own company commander. Despite the 'Gazala' title, the mission is set on 26 June 1942, after the battle of that name. By this time, the victorious Germans and Italians were pressing on east towards the Egyptian frontier, and the date is more appropriate for the fighting that took place around Mersa Matruh. Here's the map for the mission. Basically I am part of a roughly company-strength tank/armoured infantry team, with no air or artillery support. We've to carry out an attack on British defensive positions either side and behind a long minefield of the sort that so often protected the infantry in this sort of warfare. While in the map screen, I called up the orders panel and selected line abreast formation and 'Do as I do', which I interpret as 'Conform to my movements and actions' and should really be default behaviour - Standard Operating Procedure or 'SOP', as it's called. My mount was billed as a Panzer IVF1. This has the short-barrelled 75mm gun more suited to infantry support, its low muzzle velocity limiting its effectiveness in the anti-tank role. For some reason I ended up instead with what the British called the 'Mark 4 Special', the Panzer IV F2 (later renamed as the G subtype). Part of the German response to the T-34 and KV-1, this had a much longer 75mm gun and was a potent tank-killer. Needless to say I had absolutely no objection to being up-gunned in this fashion! I switched to the gunner role (F2) and then toggled on the internal view (F9) and to the gunsight view (Insert). I selected and loaded an armour-piercing round. Then I toggled back to the external view (F9 again) for better situational awareness and to have a better look around at our force. It comprised a mix of Panzer IVs like my own, lighter Panzer IIIs with the short 50mm gun, and some Sturmgeschutze (assault guns) with short seventy-fives. Amongst us were panzergrenadiers in light and medium half-tracked Schutzenpanzerwagens (SPWs). There was even a soft-skinned Opel Blitz truck, living rather dangerously! It was quite an impressive phalanx, each vehicle raising a dark plume of dust as it rolled north towards the enemy. I ordered the driver to advance and joined the throng. As we moved off, orders came over the radio. These were in German and it was helpful to have them spelt out in a text panel atop the screen. The others set a fairly fast pace but I could not keep up. My driver ignored commands to go faster, and I gradually fell behind. Perhaps it was just as well, but my platoon - which I took to be the pair of long-barrelled Panzer IVs which I could see nearby - didn't wait for me. I have no idea why. There is a game setting ''Always obey orders' which i had turned off as recommended for a previous mission; perhaps that was why. Either way, I felt like the Duke of Plaza-Toro in that Gilbert and Sullivan song: In enterprise of martial kind When there was any fighting He led his regiment from behind He found it less exciting. I ended up watching the first phase of our assault through the gunsight. And this is what I saw. In the centre, enemy mortar or artillery fire whacked into our leading elements. Slightly right, some troops debussed from a light SPW which then then rattled on ahead. To my front, some more Panzergrenadiers had also debussed and were crawling ahead. I wondered whether it would have been safer for them to have stayed in their armoured carriers. Other dismounted infantry were being helped forward by other Panzers, like these Panzer IIIs. Feeling rather left out and seeing no sign of the enemy tanks reported on the right, I stopped and rattled off some rounds from the co-axial MG at what might have been an enemy heavy weapon which I could see as a rectangular-looking blob which came into sight above dip in the ground. I walked my tracers onto him until I saw the ricochets sail skywards. My target might just as well have been a rock but the shooting made me feel a little better, if nothing else. What this Panzer IV was doing sitting in the middle of a battle with all hatches open, I didn't know - immobilized and abandoned already, perhaps. The enemy position seemed to be in dead ground ahead of me; I rolled forwards again but I could see nothing of them, apart from the odd tracer whipping past on either side. That the defenders could clearly see at least some of us was obvious from the burning vehicles which began to appear around me as I slowly ground forward, accompanied for a while by another Panzer IV which may have been one of my platoon who had decided to stay with me, after all, By now, I'd begun to catch up with some of my comrades, as they paused to fire at targets which I could not yet see, like this Panzer III ahead and left of me. As that Panzer moved off and swung right, I noticed his turret spin around, as if he were tracking a target. Then I saw it too! A single enemy tank, some way off, was moving quite rapidly from right to left. He looked like a Valentine, a small but heavily-armoured British infantry tank, successor to the famous Maltida that reigned as 'Queen of the Battlefield' until our eighty-eights tore them apart at Halfaya Pass in '41. I knew that the Valentine would be a tough target for the Panzer III's short-barrelled 50mm gun. This one would be up to me! I set the range on my sight and lined him up with the lower right corner of the middle triangle. A little adjustment for his movement and my first round would be on its way. ...to be continued!

Going to war with the ultimate predator - the Koenigstiger heavy tank! For this mission reports, it's back to terra firma - speficically, to the snowy wastes of the Russian Front in World War Two. Our hosts are Graviteam, in the form of their excellent tank simulator Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942. The 'Kharkov 1942' bit of the title is now pretty well redundant, as modders have greatly extended the scope of the sim, not least into North Africa and with many later-war AFVs...including the tank which is the star of this particular show. The tank The mighty Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausfuehrung B - better known as the Tiger II or the King Tiger - needs little introduction. Combining the sloped armour that the Soviet T-34 taught the Germans to apply to tanks with the other design concepts of the original Tiger I, the King Tiger was one of the outstanding tank designs of World War 2; perhaps the most effective tank on the battlefield from the summer of 1944 till the end of the war. Its early transmission problems were dealt with and its reliability was soon adequate. With very thick armour all around and especially frontally, and a powerful gun that combimed deadly armour-piercing capability with extreme accuracy, the King Tiger was a formidable enemy, if you were unlucky enough to meet one in the field. They were not invincible, of course. In Normandy in July 1944, Lt John Gorman of the 2nd Battalion, Irish Guards, Guards Armoured Division, surpised a King Tiger but was perhaps himself surprised when his gunner's first round - they had a 75mm HE 'up the spout' - had little effect. The Sherman's gun then got a stoppage and Gorman ordered his driver to ram, which caused the startled German crew to bail out. Gorman's crew did likewise, one of them briefly sharing a ditch with the German tankers. A 'borrowed' Sherman Firefly's 17 pounder gun enabled the intrepid Gorman to settle the matter permanently. The mission One of these days I will go to virtual war in Steel Fury in a Panzer 38(t) or even a Panzer III. But for now, the prospect of fighting in, rather than against, heavily-armed and heavily-armoured tanks retains, for me, a certain irresistible appeal. So I was glad to find that the modders have not only provided SF with a King Tiger, but some missions for the beast as well. Here's the one I elected to play for this mission report - 'Counterstrike' by Deviator, with adjustments by Lockie and input also from Woofiedog and Tanker. I'm using the latest NTA mod, Lockie's latest mission pack, and the winter weather mod, all enabled via the indispensable Jonesoft Generic Mod Enabler (JSGME). The weather mod by Maleshkin transforms the standard SF environment into a winter wonderland which nicely captures the essence of the Eastern Front at its chilliest. Details of all of these are available over on the Graviteam Steel Fury 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 ] It's worth mentioning that the this mission has a long video intro consisting of some excellent clips of German armour and other troops in action, including some combat camera footage I had not seen before - from the Deutsche Wochenschau newsreels by the look of it. And here's the mission. The screenie below was taken a little way into the mission itself, by which time my platoon of King Tigers (blue trapezoids) had driven out in front of the dismounted infantry we were supporting. It was early 1945 and the mission itself was a counterattack, by elements of the 3rd SS Panzer Division 'Totenkopf', on the village of Pettend in Hungary, a German ally which was then feeling the full weight of the Soviet steamroller as the red tide swept westwards towards the Reich. I have the orders panel turned off for clarity; incidentally, in-game, I also turned off the 'head up display (ammo load, turret orientation etc) using Ctrl+backspace and could also have turned off the orange diamond/arrowheads (Ctrl+|) that act as target indicators, which you can see in some of the screenshots which follow. The orders in the panel I have turned off tell us simply that our the aim is to seize and hold the village, destroying enemy forces in the area. From the markings on the map, these can be seen to consist of infantry defensive positions in an arc on the outskirts of the village, likely with tank support; I'm not ruling out the possibility that they may also have antitank guns. Our own force consists of our brave grenadiers in what appears to be weak company strength, with just my under-strength platoon of three King Tigers for fire support. Looking at the map, the terrain was fairly open and I contemplated going either left- or right-flanking. From either flank, I could have supported the advancing grenadiers by fire at roughly right-angles to their axis of advance, in the approved manner, perhaps finishing with an assault on Pettend timed to arrive on the objective at the same time as the troops, for maximum shock effect. But after milling about a bit the grenadiers seemed to be in a hurry to get at the Ivans rather than give me time for any fancy manoeuvres. So I formed us up in line formation and decided we would just roll on into the objective, ahead of the infantry, to shield them, and basically shooting anything that looked likely to hold them up. Plan made - time to get busy! I lined myself up and waited for my two other King Tigers to get into position, either side of my own tank. ...to be continued!

Roaring into battle with the famous Tiger tank in 'Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942'! 'Tyger, tyger burning bright In the forest of the night What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?' William Blake, 'The Tyger', 1794 And now, for something completely different. No, not a Monty Python sketch, but a change of pace and scenery: from the clear blue skies and snarling aero-engines of combat flightsims to the solid earth and thundering heavy weapons of perhaps the best available tanksim, from Ukrainian developers Graviteam - 'Steel Fury Kharkov 1942'. The sim My first tank sim was back in the early 1980s, believe it or not. It was played on my younger brother's Sinclair Spectrum and compared to 'Pong', 'Rommel's Revenge' was a revelation, albeit the wire-frame graphics were perhaps not quite what we're used to these days. Fun, though; I was pleased to see that it's been preserved for posterity on Youtube: Turn the clock forward about 15 years, and my first modern tanksim was Ultimation's 'Panzer Commander'. Graphics had come a long way and despite simplified (but very usable) targeting, odd bunker-based anti-tank guns and no infantry at all, this was a great product, with a dramatic musical theme and varied and engaging single-player campaigns covering US, British, Soviet and German tanks and AFVs. It was soon joined on my hard drive by another classic, Microprose's 'M1 Tank Platoon 2', showcasing the US Army's formidable M1A2 Abrams. This also had its vicissitudes, like near-instant deluges of lethal artillery fire which usually killed off any attached APCs early on and a tendency to over-rely for successful gameplay on the simulated IVIS real-time tactical display, where, as one reviewer put it, you could spend the whole battle watching little blue and red squares firing pixels at each other. Still, with high production values (including newsreel-style video intros from 'MPS News' to each of the campaigns) it was a great sim, a classic that, with a bit of fiddling, can be played on modern PCs and is still great fun: Tanksim fans were rather spoiled back in those days. There were other less capable but still fun modern tanksims like Novalogic's 'Armoured Fist 2' and 3 and Interactive Magic's 'Spearhead', soon joined by the original 'Steel Beasts' from eSim, which simulated the mechanics of tanking with unpredecented accuracy. For World War 2 fans, as well as 'Panzer Commander', there was Interactive Magic's 'iPanzer 1944', but the best of all came with Wings Simulation's 'Panzer Elite'. Modders soon appeared who tweaked the original rather cartoonish graphics and by the time the Special Edition arrived, this was clearly the premier WW2 tanksim, and I think still is, in many respects. This is not least due to the continued work of the mod community, notably Aldo and other members of the PE Development Group and BobR and the Ostpak team. PE is still playable on modern systems and well worth it, too, as seen in this 'playthrough' of the Beresov mission from Ostpak: And so to modern times. 'Steel Beasts' is now a grapically-improved professional military training tool with a spun-off version for simmers, and if you want something simpler and cheaper there's IDDK/Crazy House's 'T-72 Iron Warriors/Balkans on Fire'. Although you're often just a single tank driving around and clobbering stuff with little opportunity to co-operate with fellow AI, this looks good, has plenty of detail and plays well: http://store.steampowered.com/app/1670/ For World War 2, there was 'T-34 -vs- Tiger'. Like the same developer's 'T-72', this is a pretty good simulation of the operation of the featured vehicles. Again, you're essentially on your own in missions, with the other AI, friendly and enemy, acting out their scripted functions. Looks and sounds great though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmyM-WLyd8U Which brings us to Ukranian developer Graviteam's 'Steel Fury Kharkov 1942', which at last puts you in the role of the leader of a platoon/troop of tanks and pitches you right into company-sized combined arms operations on the Eastern Front. While the original release featured a decent set of German and Russian tanks (including the Lend-Lease British Matilda infantry tank, of all things!) it was limited, as the title suggests, to the mid-1942 era. While the sim's mostly still Eastern Front only, the modders have been at work, making AI AFVs playable and adding new missions and vehicles. And unlike other Graviteam titles like the 'Achtung Panzer/Graviteam Tactics' series which are essentially wargames, or 'Steel Armour - Blaze of War' which is an unusual sort of tanksim within a 'strategy' game, SF'42 is a proper tanksim, through and through SF'42 was hard to come by for a while but is now available at GamersGate: http://www.gamersgate.co.uk/DD-SFURY/steel-fury-kharkov-1942 The mods are now de rigeur for anyone wanting to get the best of this sim and the best place to start is I think over on Tanksim.com: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=178218 Edit - since writing this I've discovered that the best place for SF mods is Gaviteam's on forum for the sim: http://graviteam.com/forum/index.php?board=1.0 Use of Jonesoft's Gerneric Mod Enabler is essential and many mods seem set up to use it. Install order is important and as with most sims there are some aspects of modding with which you need to have a bit of patience. But most or all of what you need to know is there on Tanksim.com. And most of the stuff you'll want seems to be on Mediafire, here, courtesy of Godzilla1985: http://www.mediafire.com/?q38nkzaginphq Edit, August 2014 - the SPM mod was used for this mission; the later NTA mod has been discontinued, but its successor, the STA Mod, is now available and I think it's fair to say STA is the latest and most comprehensive mod for Steel Fury: http://stasf2008.eph...d-on-steel-fury Fancying a slice of tank action for a change, I dusted off my old modded install of SF '42 and knowing that it is better to give than to receive - especially if the 'present' is a solid round of 'Armour-Piercing Capped, Ballistic Capped' travelling at over 2,000 feet per second - I decided to start with my favourite tank - the German Tiger. Which by all accounts, is pretty good at both giving and receiving. The tank The Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger I needs little introduction. Its unsloped armour reflects the fact it was designed more for superiority over the likes of the British Matilda and French Somua than the T-34 or KV-1 which so shocked the Germans on meeting them in the summer of 1941. But the Tiger proved an excellent antidote to the superb Soviet tanks and indeed, to the Shermans, Cromwells and Churchills it would meet in the Mediterranean and North-West European Theatres. 'Nuff said, except that I count myself privileged to have met the mighty Tiger 131, now restored to running order and authentic appearance by the Royal Armoured Corps Tank Museum at Bovington Camp, Dorset, having been captured, abandoned, from Schwere Panzer Abteilung 504 at Medjez el Bab, Tunisia in April 1943 after being damaged by Churchills of 48 RTR: The mission Here's the mission briefing; the tail end of it, anyway. It's preceded with other sections which help set the scene, telling me that my platoon of three Tigers is part of a Kampfgruppe of Panzer Regiment 201, 23rd Panzer Division, tasked with following up a successful counterattack. Our Kampfgruppe appears to be a combined arms force of reinforced company size, with artillery and air support. Our mission is in two phases - first to destroy enemy defensive positions along a low crest then to swing left and clear the village of Nepokrytoe. While the briefing has the semblance of military orders it could still be rather better presented. The current NATO format for 'orders' like these - Ground (technically a preliminary to the orders), Situation, Mission, Execution, Service/Support and Command and Signal - would be better. Not unrealistic either, as it is essentially the same as the British WW2 format (with detail differences, eg 'Situation' was 'Information') adopted also by the Americans. Convergent evolution being what it is, the German WW2 format wasn't much different. The SF'42 format doesn't give me as much info as I'd like on the operation, eg the composition of the other subunits my platoon's operating with. And the attack itself could have been better described, more clearly broken down into its two constituent and distinct phases, with the detailed tasks given for each subunit for each phase stated, including my own. As it was, while the narrative didn't provide a clear picture of the composition of our force this was apparent from the map, which showed unit type symbols - diamonds are tanks, the 'pointy rectangles' are infantry in APCs. In our case the APCs are SPWs (Schutzenpanzerwagen) as the Germans called their Hanomag half-tracked armoured personnel carriers. The map itself isn't bad but despite the presence of contours and the occasional spot height, it doesn't make the lie of the land very clear (a vital consideration in ground ops) and it doesn't zoom out enough, so you have to pan around to try to orient yourself properly. The map screen is also were you can issue orders to your platoon, which you can do 'in game' only by calling up and clicking on this map - there are no hotkeys to order (eg) a formation change. The scope for giving orders is pretty low, perhaps better suiting Soviet tanks where radios were limited and hand or flag signals were the norm. The most useful orders are 'do as I do! and basic formation commands, options being line (abreast), column/single file, a sort of 'blob' (as near as you'll get to the common arrowhead or wedge formation) and the ability to order 'spread out!' or 'close in!' I probably need to spend a bit more time on this map/briefing screen to better appreciate its facilities. One other issue is that the map is from the original sim which is for operations in the Kharkov area in mid-1942. While this wasn't the only period when there was fighting around this town, even my mission's date is in May 1942, some months before the Tiger first appeared in action, in the Leningrad sector in September 1942. But this is a modder-made tank in a modder-made single mission which makes the best use of what's available, and I for one am most grateful for the opportunity to fight in a Tiger in a modern sim. From the map, I could see that my platoon was sited to the centre rear of the mission's Start Line, which was a track running across our front. You can see this more clearly below, with the briefing panel minimised. We are the three blue diamonds, roughly bottom centre. To our right are some Panzergrenadiers in their SPWs. To our left are some more SPWs with more tanks, all still in column formation until they reach the Start Line clear of the woods. The latter will evidently be our Kampfgruppe's left-hand boundary. So I will be in the centre, as ordered, with a Panzer Grenadier platoon each side, with some other tanks for a bit of extra firepower. Enough of the preliminaries! Time to get the show on the road. I started the mission, the loading screen helpfully giving me a snippet from a German tanker's manual, this one a warning that stopping after spotting an AT gun close by was suicidal and that only a fast-moving attack with all weapons would do. I'd try to remember that! Soon, I found my virtual self standing tall, hatch open, in the commander's cupola of my Tiger, looking up at the Start Line, which I could make out in the form of a line of trees interspersed with telegraph poles, maybe a hundred meters ahead. Here we go! ...to be continued!

Fighting in the M4 Sherman in Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942! Until recently, I didn't realise that Graviteam's Eastern Front WW2 tanksim lets you sign up as a US Army tanker and fight in the famous M4 Sherman tank. It doesn't of course...at least, not out-of-the-box. But SF '42 is one of those sims which has been much enhanced by the work of that intrepid and talented group of people we call 'modders'. And the 'New Tank Add-on' (NTA) mod - current version, NTA 1.8 - includes a Sherman and missions for it. Keen to go to virtual war in an M4 - and to fight some battles in places whose names I could actually pronounce - this was one tank I had to try out. The mod Jonesoft Generic Mod Enabler is a must for SF '42 and I have it set up so I can play with either the Steel Panzer Mod (SPM) version 2.0 or NTA 1.8. Each has its own install order for the main mod and some recommended or essential extra components. It's not-at-all complicated to get set up; main thing is, use JSGME and enable or disable the mods, after installing them into JSGME's 'Mods' folder, in the right sequence. It's all here: http://graviteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=10944.0 (NTA) ...and here: http://graviteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=11026.0 (SPM). NTA 1.8 is apparently the most recent and complete mod and that's what I'm using for this mission, along with the associated sound mod, mission packs and update. Edit, August 2014 - the NTA mod has been discontinued but its successor, the STA Mod, is now available: http://stasf2008.eph...d-on-steel-fury The tank Like the Tiger featured in my last SF '42 mission report, the M4 General Sherman needs little introduction. Nicknamed rather derisively the 'Tommy Cooker' or the 'Ronson' (after the cigarette lighter's slogan, 'lights first time'), the M4 may have earned an unenviable reputation for burning when penetrated and it mighn't have been a match for some of the later German tanks in a straight fight. But when it appeared in action with the British Eighth Army in North Africa in 1942, it was one of the best tanks in the world. Even in 1944-45, it could do many of the things a tank had to do, as well or better than its opponents. Strong points included a decent dual-purpose gun, reliability and fast turret traverse The NTA Sherman is a late WW2 model M4A3, with the 47 degree, single piece upper hull front with larger driver and radio operator hatches; the T23-type turret with 'vision' cupola for the commander; 76mm gun; and internally, wet ammo stowage to reduce the fire risk. The 76 is of course a better AT weapon than the earlier 75mm, comparable to the German long-barrelled 7.5cm KwK 40 tank and Pak 40 anti-tank guns and able to fire APCR tungsten-cored rounds. The latter gave the Sherman 76 a better chance against the later German tanks at shorter ranges but was reportedly in short supply in tank units, being reserved mainly for the Tank Destroyer force, whose towed and self-propelled 76mm guns were supposed to be the main counter to enemy tanks, in US doctrine. The SF '42 M4A3(76) is a really nice rendition, with a just a hint of the 'gypsy caravan' look from external stowage and extra track sections on the hull front for extra protection. There are no interiors; these are of limited use anyway, as you can play just fine from the third person external view or (in the first-person view) from either the hatch-open view or the gunsight/periscope/vision port view. The mission From the list of available single missions, I chose 'Everything, but the Bridge!' by prolific Ukranian mission-maker Lockie. This is part of mission pack 2.1, which I think is designed for the NTA mod. Like Lockie's other missions, this comes with a neat loading screen, which includes a tantalising excerpt from a report of an engagement during the Battle of the Bulge, the historical setting for this mission. The German Ardennes Offensive in December 1944 is probably familiar to most of us, if only from the well-known Hollywood movie which featured grey-painted Spanish Army M47s acting as King Tigers, M24 Chaffees acting as Shermans, and that famous rendition of the Panzerlied with Robert Shaw. As that French General said on observing the charge of the Light Brigade, 'C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre!' I haven't played much SF '42 until dusting it off recently but in my experience, the typical mission is a deliberate but rather chaotic attack by a combined arms company-based combat team. This one was clearly going to be very different, as I could see from the briefing. Here it is; the mission map anyway. I have minimised the text briefing as it hides a lot of the map and in this case, it told me nothing much, except to defend the bridge: My little outfit is the trio of red diamonds, bottom centre-left. The bridge is in the middle. From the tactical symbols, the defenders - on the left bank apart from one AT gun - comprise some dismounted infantry, some soft-skimmed vehicles, a single tank, and a handful of anti-tank guns, likely the 57mm ones derived from the British 6-pounder, used by US Infantry Divisions. I believe the map is a re-labelled version of one of the Ukranian ones that come with the sim. The terrain itself is fairly level, not what you'd expect for the Ardennes. It might have been a good idea if I had enabled the winter weather mod to produce snowscapes appropriate for at least the later stages of the Battle of the Bulge but I don't know if it's compatible and I stuck with the original. Even though this mission is evidently an ad hoc operation, I'd have preferred a fuller, more immersive 'battle picture' and more scene-setting, in the mission briefing. Here’s how I ended up picturing the briefing, in my own mind: You're a lieutenant in the US Army commanding a platoon of three 76mm-armed M4 tanks from the 66th Tank Regiment, Second Armoured Division, the famous 'Hell on Wheels'. In the confusion following the Division's sudden redeployment to deal with the German Ardennes Offensive, your platoon has become separated from your unit. As you motor uncertainly along a track beside a river, an infantry major and his radio operator step out of the trees to your left and wave you down. The major looks tired but business-like, waving his '45 like he means to use it. 'I'm the Officer Commanding, Company B, First Battalion, 145th Infantry. I don't care who you are or where you're going, but starting right now, you're working for me. Look at this map. There's a bridge over the Roer River here. It's on your right, just a few hundred yards ahead of you. See it? There's also a whole bunch of Kraut tanks and infantry heading straight for it, coming from way over there, on your far left - see those blue arrows on the map? Company B - what's left of us - is in a defensive perimeter, on the near side of the bridge, with a few 57mm AT guns. The Krauts musn't get that bridge. We've to hold it, at all costs. No more bug-outs. Take your three M4s up there and keep the Krauts away from the bridge. Their tanks are your priority targets. Your choice, where you set up. But do it quick. Move out NOW!' They say 'Time spent in reconnaisance is never wasted'. For this mission, as usual in sims and often in real life, my recce would have to be a map one. First job before starting the mission was to take the map and my orders and make a quick Combat Appreciation. For this sort of thing, I used an abbreviated format we were taught by a captain in the RM Commandos - good enough for the booties, good enough for me. It's 'Aim - Enemy - Ground - Plan' and here goes my quick effort for this mission. Aim - the easy bit, to destroy any Germans making for the bridge. Enemy - tanks and infantry in unknown, but possibly company group, strength, shortly likely to cross my front from left to right, headed for the bridge. Ground - looking towards the enemy from the bridge: on the left, a treeline with good cover and some room to manoeuvre; in the centre, a large open space with little cover, which the enemy will likely have to cross, a good killing ground; to the right, a narrow treeline backed by a bend in the river which severely limits mobility that way. Contour lines are few and gentle so the terrain looks rather flat, apart from the rather shallow river banks and a very low hillock to my immediate left. Basically, I'm looking for covered, preferably hull-down firing positions on the enemy's lighter-armoured flanks. Plan - move to positions in the tree line to the left of Company B's defended locality. Fire into the flanks of the enemy as he crosses my front from left to right, heading for the bridge. My tanks to be in a line, set back from the treeline, sacrificing wider arcs of fire for better concealment. Change firing positions every few rounds, as one does. Cover from fire would be nice but accept cover from view if that's all I can get up there, as seems likely. Plan made, I loaded the mission and roared off down the track towards the bridge, trying hard not to veer off and fall into the river, conventional Sherman gun tanks not being noted for being amphibious, notwithstanding the abilities of DD versions. Looking behind me only to see my other two tanks immobile, I realised I'd forgotten to brief them. The F8 key brought up the map again and from its command and control icons, I ordered single file/column formation and 'do as I do'. As they caught up, I pressed on. About 50 meters before the trees on my left petered out, I turned 90 degrees left and rumbled through the woods, some distance inside and parallel to the treeline from which I intended to catch the enemy with flanking fire. As I motored on, the trees thinned out but I was still screened from the killing ground to my right by a decent line of smaller trees. From that direction, the cacophony of sound I could hear above my engine noise indicated that the battle was already in full swing. I'm using the recommended NTA sound mod, which I assume was responsible for the US tanker voices I could hear on the intercom. This mod changes many of the other sound effects too; hard to say from one usage whether or not I prefer it to stock, which is pretty good too. Anyway, I pressed on, more cautiously now. The woods thickened up around me and I swung 90 degrees right, to face the edge of the treeline. Beyond, the enemy seemed already to be advancing, heard but not yet seen through the screen of foliage in front of my tank. I began to edge slowly forward, to the point where I would acquire a narrow line of sight out into the killing ground. As I did so, I ordered my tanks into line abreast, anxiously looking around to see how well my AI Tank Commanders would cope with my series of manoeuvres. The answer, alas, was 'none too well!' ...to be continued!