Search the Community

Das Reich finally secures the Pavlovka bridgeheads! Well, I finally reached the end of my first campaign in Graviteam Tactics: Operation Star, having in the process just about secured and held my campaign objectives, though not earning a victory (in a typically arcane GT:OS reckoning!). The Pavlovka campaign had reached its final (eighth) operational-level turn, so although I might have several battles to fight at tactical level, I knew my time was running out. So to the east of Pavlovka, I pushed a combined force of StuG III assault guns and panzer pioneers northwards towards the River Mzha, intending to reinforce my battered units on the far bank and establish a bridgehead so strong that the Reds would be unable to kick me out of it, try as they might. That was the plan, anyway. It was quite a tense business, as my SPWs, advancing on the left, changed from line to column formation to ford the river in the snowy darkness. There was a certain amount of bunching up as they reached the near bank... ...but the half-tracks quickly shook themselves out and made the crossing without opposition, passing the frozen bodies of casualties from the earlier fighting. To their right, my two StuGs had moved up to a fire position on the southern bank, accompanied by an infantry platoon... ,,,but meeting no opposition, they then made their own crossing and swung north-east, to establish a blocking position against the Red tank brigade still expected to hit us from that direction. At this point, the GT:OS curtain came down. I don't recall there being any contact as I write this, so I'm not clear what caused the handful of wounded reported on each side (or why they aren't counted in the casualty total). I'd achieved what I'd set out to, and gained some ground at the enemy's expense, so I'm not especially bothered that GT:OS only awarded me a draw. Equally I'm not bothered about the lack of combat. For me, 75% of the fun is laying and carrying out your plans, with the excitement and uncertainty as to whether, how and when the other side may, or may not, make the effort to mess things up for you. I didn't know it at the time, but the next battle was going to be my last one of the campaign. And it was going to be an altogether more violent and bloody affair. ...to be continued!

The heavy stuff arrives at last! Pavlovka campaign, mission report #4 To relieve the pressure on my infantry and pioneers around Pavlovka, I have moved a platoon of StuG III self-propelled 7.5cm guns to the south of the village, and a heavy tank platoon to its west. The StuGs aren't yet close enough to relieve my battered eastern bridgehead. But the Tigers are well placed to enter the battle to the west. At the operational phase, I order two pioneer platoons to destroy the encircled enemy platoon to the south-east of Pavlovka, as a first step towards a concerted push with armour and infantry northwards, where what's left of my eastern bridgehead is still clinging grimly on. The Reds have light tanks up there and I'm not going to tackle them until the StuGs arrive. In the meantime, my people up there will have to hang on a little longer. Over to the west, I order a strong, concentric assault on Pavlovka, with three grenadier platoons and the platoon of Tigers. On the left, a grenadier platoon will cover the open flank by attacking eastwards along the banks of the Mzha. In the centre, another platoon, with my tanks in intimate support, will attack east into Pavlovka itself. On my right, my third grenadier platoon will attack northwards, into the centre of the village. In the Initial Orders screen below, the blue arrows are inherited from my operational-level orders, and don't reflect the actual axes of attack I have just described. My grenadiers begin to advance across the dark, snow-covered terrain. Yes, it's another night operation! Just behind them, my heavy tank platoon rattles and roars forward. In early 1943, it was not uncommon for heavy tank companies to have a mix of Tigers and Panzer IIIs, though the latter were normally the 'close support' version (Ausf. N) with a short 7.5cm gun; here, we have instead long-barrelled 5cm weapons. The tanks begin to catch up with the grenadiers as the hovels of Pavlovka loom through the darkness ahead. The tension mounts as we reach Pavlovka. I have ordered the tanks to advance only as far as the outskirts, as I don't want them running into hidden enemy infantry or A/T weapons in the dark. The grenadiers will press on, at least until contact is made. It's not long in coming, and it's my troops in the centre - the grenadiers with the tank support - who hit it first. There are enemy troops over there, near a cluster of isolated buildings, north of Pavlovka, and a fire-fight soon develops. The enemy there are soon wiped out but now, the grenadier platoon coming up from the south bumps enemy infantry between them and the village. I'm still watching the battle from the positions of my troops in the centre of my attacking force, and the contact report on the radio is soon followed by tracer and illumination rounds over in that direction, marking the scene of the latest action. My tank crews, who have just unbuttoned, close up again, ready once more for combat. I waste no time in ordering my halted tank platoon to get moving again, and assault deeper into Pavlovka. This will help their accompanying troops to clear the village and threaten the rear of the new defenders. I try to call down some artillery into Pavlovka, ahead of my troops, but I don't have a dedicated forward observer, and none of my platoon command elements can raise either gunners or mortarmen on the radio net. My tanks press on into the village, but meet no further opposition there... ...so I order them to swing around slightly to the south, to get clear of the buildings, where they can have a less obstructed run at the Soviets who are resisting the advance of my right-flank grenadier platoon. The Panzer IIIs take the lead, with the Tigers backing them up. At this point, GT:OS announces that the Soviet 'key point' in Pavlovka has fallen! The enemy opposityion there certainly seems to have melted away. You can see from the message log that at one point, they asked for a cease fire; naturally, Das Reich is disinclined to parley with Bolshevists, so this went unanswered. While checking the map, I notice with some alarm that the battle timer has already gone into 'countdown' mode, indicating that the curtain will soon come down - in just over four minutes, at the point the picture below was captured. Why so soon, I have no idea. After taking Pavlovka, I had planned to exploit to the north and re-establish my western bridgehead over the Mzha. Not much time for that now! My lead panzers have by this time linked up with my right flank grenadier platoon just south of the village, lit up briedly by (presumably enemy) illuminating rounds. The idea was to swing both tank and infantry platoons north and attack along the same axis, clearing enemies reported between Pavloka and the Mzha. But if I have any hope now of gaining the far bank in this sector, I need to try something different, and quickly. The ilumination dies away again, not before I have noticed enemy trenches up ahead of my leading tanks. This comes as a bit of a surprise, so I let both tanks and troops continue, so as to make sure that these quite extensive field defences are definitely cleared of their former occupants. They haven't been! Some Soviets are still around out there. Tigers, Panzer IIIs and grenadiers crack off bursts of MG fire into the darkness. This finally seems to do the trick, but a difficulty of a different kind is about to take a hand. One of my Panzer IIIs runs into the defences, and just when I think he's got glear, his tail slips deeply into the last trench. He struggles to get out, but seems only to succeed in miring himself more deeply. One remedy in these situations is to intervene yourself, and give the unit an indididual 'Reverse!' order. This I quickly try, but to no effect. Instead, after a short struggle, two of the tank's crew get out and set about the right-hand track noisily with large hammers. Evidently, the panzer has shed a track. At this point, rather than risk further such misadventures, I order my tank platoon to break off and attack north-west. Up in that direction, my left-hand platoon has met no opposition and indeed, has established a small toe-hold over the Mzha. Nearby on the map, I can see there is a bridge or ford, which the panzers could help sieze. The bogged Panzer III's crew appear unworried at this turn of events. In fact, they turn on their lights as they continue to work. By this time, the rest of the tank platoon is on its way to the north-west, leaving the now self-illuminated panzer behind them. This leaves my right-hand grenadier platoon to assault north from Pavlovka to the river. Which they do, despite having taken some losses in their earlier battle south of the village. There are more entrenched Reds up here, but my grenadiers have a Marder SP gun for close fire support... ...and soon, the leading troops can see the dark band of the river, looming up ahead of them. Meanwhile, my two Tigers and the other Panzer III are now leading the dash towards the north-west of Pavlovka. But before they get there, my time runs out! I am awarded a draw... ...which is one of those nonsense results you sometimes get in GT:OS, as in SABOW. True, I have sustained some losses, despite having a comfortable superiority over the enemy. However, we have done considerably more damage to the Soviets, in a night attack against dug-in opposition. I had deliberately concentrated my forces, and I really don't expect to get 'marked down' for successfully massing strength against relative weakness. So I take this to be a victory, albeit not a glorious one and at a higher cost than I'd have liked. Back at the operational level, the map shows we have developed a strong position on our left and cleared the Soviet salient around Pavlovka, in the centre. Leaving a single Soviet platoon (depleted in an early battle) masked well behind our centre, we are now well poised to fight my planned second battle, on my right. Two panzer pioneer platoons will attack and destroy the enemy platoon in a defensive position south-east of Pavlovka. Then, they will link up with the StuG III platoon that is now standing by on their left flank, and attack northwards, to relieve my battered bridgehead east of Pavlovka. For a while. the battle felt like it had slipped from my hands. Now, with my heavier armour finally in action, I feel once again in control. Time to wipe out the Reds on the right, then Das Reich will be well and truly back on the offensive in this sector! I wish I had discovered the tactical marvel that is Graviteam Tactics: Operation Star years ago, but it took learning the wargame ropes in Steel Armour: Blaze of War, and an incredible sale on Bundlestars, to get me started. Better late than never! In over fifteen years of PC gaming, GT:OS I have found to be one of the very best, if not the best, I have ever played, certainly second to none. And I am looking forward both to completing my first campaign and to kicking off the many others available, from Ukraine to Iran and from Angola to Afghanistan. Most highly recommended! This is likely to be the last mission report I file before the Festive Season, so I'll take this opportunity to wish the staff, members and readers at CombatAce a very happy Christmas!

Das Reich faces defeat as the Soviets counterattack! Pavlovka campaign, mission report #3 Despite having only limited forces at my disposal - a mixture of unmotorised and armoured (engineer) infantry - I was, I felt, doing quite well my in battle to clear Pavlovka and secure bridgeheads over the River Mzha. I had destroved some Soviet defenders, left some battered remnants surrounded in my wake, and secured a small bridgehead over a ford to the west of the town, with my 'foot' infantry. To the east, I decided that my panzer pioneers would by-pass the remaining Reds holding Pavlovka on the centre, and secure another crossing to the east. All this went well - until the Soviets decided to do something about it. In fact, they decided to wipe out both my bridgeheads, starting with the one on my left. Here, my force consisted of two unmotorised infantry platoons, one with a self-propelled AT gun for direct fire support - a Marder II, pictured at top. We still hadn't had time to dig in, but I'd deployed the platoons in depth facing roughly north-west, astride the expected axis of the enemy attack. There was no certaintly the Soviets would comply with our expectations, but I wanted to keep my platoons in decent visual cover in a compact, mutually-supporting grouping. No point in feeding Oxo cubes to the lion, as a British officer said of Arnhem. If the Reds went another way, fair enough, but if they came to get us, well, we'd be ready for them. Here's the commander of my left-hand platoon, anxiously scanning towards the western edge of the woods. The river is about 50 metres his left. And here are some of his troops. As it happens, they wouldn't have long to wait, because it was in this platoon's sector, that the Reds would first show their hand. As usual, I'm playing with labels turned off and avoding a 'God's eye' view of the battlefield. This makes combat look and feel much more realistic - and a lot more suspenseful. GT:OS likes to keep you waiting, rather than pitching you right into the fight - time acceleration is available for the suspense-haters or the time-deficient. The party begins when my left-hand platoon - the one with the Marder - spots the enemy, moving left to right across its front, towards the river. I have already enabled firing at will in Initial Orders and it's not long before the foremost sections have opened up. They are ably supported by the Marder, which uses its AA machinegun as well as the Pak. Some of the Reds are shooting back at us, but it's obvious that others are crossing the river up ahead, turning our left flank. This isn't good, but I have set up with a section back to the left rear, so as to provide us a degree of all-round defence, textbook style. I'm still under attack from the west and I'm not going to split my force to go chasing after the enemy. I have a second platoon to our north-east; but they are covering the right flank of our position and I'm not about to compromise it by redeploying them. I've made my plan and for now, I'll stick to it, rather than dancing to the Soviets' tune. I take the luxurtyof pushing the camera out to the west and south to the river -not too far, just far enough to get a better view of what my forward troops can already see. It's quickly obvious that some enemies have got over the river, but plenty of them have fallen in the attempt. My Marder has been shelling the enemy during their crossing, but now switches targets - engaging the enemy in the woods to the west. He fires several rounds, the loader steadily feeding the long 7.5cm rounds into the breech each time. But some of his shells splinter the trees just to his front, causing casualties to my own troops. I track the camera about a hundred meters to the west, and get a closer view of the enemy advance. There aren't too many of them, but they are coming on, somewhat hesitantly, using fire and manoeuvre. My Marder cuts into them with an HE round which bursts just in front of an enemy officer, who falls to his knees before keeling over. However, there are some casualties on my side, too, including those which I believe are down to wood splinters thrown out by the Marder's fire. At this point, the shooting dies away. The platoon to the north remains unengaged, but any thought of redeploying to sweep up such Soviet forces as have penetrated to our rear ends when GT:OS decides the battle is over, for now. Despite my boys having inflicted much heavier casualties, we are adjudged to have been defeated. Evidently this is because because the Reds have made substantial gains in territory. I'm not too worried about this. I'm more concerned about preserving both my own forces and the bridgehead, in both of which goals I have succeeded. I don't think the enemy behind us are in any great strength. I am happy to leave the job of mopping them up to other parts of the Division which I know from the briefing are coming up from the west and south - including some heavy tanks. We're still stretched fairly thinly up here, and the critical question is whether we can hold on until the heavy stuff arrives. ...to be continued!

I give myself a fright, in my second Ostfront campaign battle! Having gained ground on my first mission, in my effort to sieze bridgeheads over the river Mzha at Pavlovka, I'm keen to use my gains as a springboard to get over the river and give the Soviet 104th Motor Rifle Brigade another bloody nose. As a newly-arrived kampfgruppe commander in Das Reich, I'm also keen to prove myself, though anxious not to foul it up, either. And it looks like I am about to be given ample opportunity to make a mess. For some reason, the mission 'briefing' credits us with capturing a bridgehead - perhaps something is lost in translation here, as the best we have done in my sector is to reach the river on our side, not actually get across it. But my real problem now is that Ivan is reported to be throwing a tank brigade against us, from the north-east. I don't know what sort of tanks they have, but this really doesn't sound good. Nevertheless, if at all possible, I want to throw some troops over the river, before going over to the defensive to meet this counterattack. I'm hoping that my own heavier armour will have arrived on the scene by now. But my hopes are dashed when I find that they are still not deployable. All I have is the same re-inforced Grenadier (infantry) company to the west of Pavlovka, and the Panzer Pioneers who fought my first battle, now depleted by the loss of one of their SPWs. A look at the map shows there is a small pocket of Ivans to the south, but I'm more interested in pressing on than wiping them out. Nevertheless, in moving my Panzer Pioneere towards the river, I keep one platoon in reserve, to the east of the little pocket, where it can contain them...or perhaps destroy them, if the opportunity presents itself. On my left flank, I move my footsloggers west, heading for Pavlovka. In GT:OS, there are limits as to which squares (even within move distance) you can move a platoon onto, and in this case, my rear platoon, near the river bank, is left trailing behind the lead platoons. I can see that these fellows are going to be quite isolated until they can close up with the rest of the company, but I'm in a hurry, and accept the risk. Which I am about to be given cause to regret. These moves trigger two battles. To the east, a Soviet counterattack is coming in at the point where my Grenadiers and Pioneers have come together. This one doesn't worry me unduly, as it involves infantry only. But on the left, as luck would have it, more bad boys from the 104th Motor Rifles have decided to go for my isolated Grenadier platoon, which has reached a wood to the west of Pavlovka, close to the river. I took a chance, and now I'm going to have to pay the price. I have visions of the Ostfront equivalent of Custer's Last Stand, a platoon wiped out that I will surely miss later. I put such thoughts aside, and choose to fight this battle first. At least this time it's daylight, and I'll be able to see what I'm doing. Time for the Das Reich to show the Bolshevists what we're made of! ...to be continued!

A first campaign in Graviteam's classic wargame Picture it for yourself. It's late winter 1942-43, just after the German disaster at Stalingrad. You've been recalled to the Eastern Front from your cosy staff job in Berlin, and assigned to the command of a battalion-sized battlegroup in your former division, 2nd SS Panzer Grenadier Das Reich. No sooner have you arrived, than you're pitched into the deep end, as your kampfgruppe is already fully committed. Your first mission is to throw the Reds out of a small riverside town and sieze some crossings. So get a grip of your command, study your maps, and make a plan with your staff. And make it fast - there's a war on out here, you know! That's about how I felt, taking on my first campaign in GT:OS. In fact, my first mission, apart from a couple of quick battles, mainly to try out the modern AFVs in the WW2 battlefields. True, playing Steel Armor - Blaze of War (SABOW) has taught me some basics, but that just scratched the surface of the sophisticated command interface of Graviteam's magnum opus. So it was with a mixture of excitement and trepidation that I approached my first campaign battle. I confess that I am rather more interested in western front action, preferably including Normandy, or North Africa at a pinch; though I've read my Guderian and my von Mellenthin, Craig's Enemy at the Gates, even Plevier's novel Moscow. And I know well enough my BTs from my KVs. But GT:OS's WW2 experience has remained firmly rooted on the Ostfront. So having picked up the base game and no less than 8 DLCs in an epic BundleStars sale, I knew the time would come when I went east. And this is that time. The campaign and the mission I know enough about the Eastern Front to be well aware that T-26s and BT-5s or 7s aren't too much of a problem for 1941-era German tanks and A/T guns. But if the Red Army of Peasants and Workers brings along some T-34s or KV-1s, it's not quite so much fun, playing Wehrmacht. So I decided to run with a later campaign, settling on what's described as the 'Kharkov Defence Operation, 2-15 March 1943'. I think this one comes with the base game. The missions ('operations') in this campaign swap between playing for each side, and I opted to start, not at the Soviet beginning, but at the third one - Pavlovka. Its entry featured a picture of Tiger tank, which I took to indicate that I might actually get to play with some of these beasts. I know that 8.Kompanie, SS Panzer Regiment 2 had some Tigers as early as February, some months before the formation was elevated from a Panzer Grenadier to a Panzer Division. One of 8.Kompanie's Tigers is quite well known from photographs - 812, delivered in 'panzer grey', given a temporary white winter paint job on arrival, and later treated to what's interpreted as dark yellow stripes over the grey. And at some point christned 'Tiki', as seen below. According to the excellent Mig Jimenez colour profile book Waffen SS Colors, 'Tiki' is a contraction of 'Tiger kind' (tiger child) and was inspired when the Kompaniefuhrer said to the new Tiger's crew, 'That is now your child, take care of it!' As usual, a GT:OS (or SABOW) mission kicks off with the sort of 'operational' level screen shown below. I've chosen to use NATO unit symbols and to colour-code friendlies as blue, enemies as red (the latter all shown as question marks at this stage, as the enemy strengths and dispositions are so far unknown). While at this map, you can, within limits, elect to move any deployable friendly forces - which excludes those in the grey margins of the map, which are 'arriving' but not yet deployable. the screenshot was actually taken after I had made my moves (indicated by the blue arrows). The 'briefing' is top left. In armies, commanders are given orders, not briefings, and these typically contain a lot more information than you get in any GT:OS (or SABOW) briefing I've ever seen. It's more of a general directive, which may be adequate in some situations but lacks much of the info I should have as a commander in this situation, like who I am, what forces I have, what artillery and air support is available, what's known about the enemy and so on - Ground, Situation, Mission, Execution, Service/Support, Command & Signals in NATO format. You are left to glean as much as you can of this by studying the map. Which is quite a lot, and thus ok up to a point. And it may be hard to script more formal orders for the dynamic GT:OS campaign. But this rather lacks the sense of person and place which you get from a more role-playing approach to a commander's...well, role. That being as it may, I was about to discover how, from this so-so start, GT:OS grabs you by the proverbial short and curlies and immerses you neck-deep in an authentic-feeling and beautifully-rendered battlefield, in the role of a company-to-battalion-level commander in a desperate fight against a determined, unpredictable and at time invisible enemy. They told me GT:OS was this good, and I was about to find out that they did not lie. My mission is to kick the retreating Soviet 104 Rifle Brigade out of Pavlovka and grab some river crossings, which is clear enough. For this task, while the greyed-out oval-in-blue-rectangle symbols to the left in the map above indicate that tanks may be available to me later, for now, my forces are limited. And rather un-concentrated, to boot. On the left, I have five Grenadier platoons (unarmoured), roughly a reinforced company. In my centre, to the south east, I have have three Panzer Grenadier platoons (I have already moved them north-east, and the Grenadiers west, in the pic below, which I'll explain in a moment) . Actually these troops are Panzer Pioneers, assault engineers. If I'd not been in my customary rush, I could have checked out their detailed organisation, but I decided to see for myself, at the deployment phase. Suffice to say that they were, as expected, equipped with SdKfz 251 half-tracked SPWs (Schutzenpanzerwagen=APC), though not of the specialised 251/7 variety usually issued to engineer units, with their little side-mounted bridging sections. So, to a plan. Sensing that Division is unlikely to be happy if I wait out this turn till the tanks and other forces come up, I decide to launch concentric attacks from east and west, with the forces I do have. On the west, the Grenadiers will advance directly into the Soviet salient south of Pavlovka, with their left flank protected by the river Mzha, while the Panzer Pioneere, starting in my centre, will move north-east then north, from where they can either catch the Soviet salient in a pincer, or drive north towards the nearest Mzha crossings. Yes I know - I'm opening up the gap in my forces, but not by a lot, and I think this is preferable to butting up everything directly against the salient, where the main enemy strength might well lie. The player having made his initial moves, GT:OS then determines if a battle has taken place, which the player then fights. That is what has happened here - the large, unfriendly red arrow spearing into my freshly-positioned Panzer Pioneere from the Soviet salient indicates a counterattack is expected, and the flame symbol calls me to fight the resulting battle. Here we go! ...to be continued!

New tanks on an old battlefield! Ukrainian developer Graviteam's widely-acclaimed wargames have entered their third generation with the arrival of Mius Front, but my introduction has come only lately, and with their second-generation series - Graviteam Tactics - Operation Star (GT:OS). Why the wait? Well, I've tried a few PC wargames over the years, namely the original versions of Combat Mission and Theatre of War, and I haven't been massively impressed. Which may seem strange, given that I've been dabbling in wargames for many years - I still have my 1/300 models and terrain for NATO -v- WARPAC, last seen in action circa 1990. Below, Scotia Micro Models T-72As lead BMP-2s as they move up behind smokescreens, before shaking out into line for an attack on an enemy-held ridgeline. Overhead, home-made MiG-27s help keep NATO heads down. I played solo, using concepts aired in the Wargames Research Group's Programmed Wargames Scenarios, but with my own method of drawing playing cards to determine the presence and types of enemy units as my force advanced. Rules were WRG's 1950-1985 set, but adapted to use the more realistic concepts in their 1988 rules for the 1925-50 period (preferred over the 'rival' Challenger rules, with their rather complex move sequence). I also dabbled in a game based on home-made rules for 1/76 scale models - which again, I still have. I much referred the larger battles possible in 1/300 scale, though it's interesting to see that, even in the computer age, wargaming with miniatures, and fairly big ones at that, is enjoying something of a revival with the Bolt Action system from Warlord Games. When PCs arrived, my preference was very much for tanksims over wargames, starting with SSI's Panzer Commander... ...then moving on to Novalogic's Armored Fist 2 and Microprose's M1 Tank Platoon II... I didn't much like Combat Mission Beyond Overlord or, more recently, Theatre of War because to me, they simulated wargaming rather than war. Let me explain myself, here: tactical-level wargames - I have no interest in the strategic variety - cast you in the role of your side's commander. But they seem usually to make you play like a miniature wargamer, with far too much ability - or worse, need - to micromanage, to control individual vehicles or even soldiers. If - as is normally the case, in a post WW1 tactical scenario - you are wargaming the role of a company commander, your 'pieces' should be you platoons, not your individual tanks; if a battalion commander, your pieces are your companies, not your platoons. PC-based wargames seemed to me to lack suitable AI to play the role of your subordinate commanders, and therefore, as I said, simulated wargaming, rather than war, by encouraging - or requiring - micromanagement. To me, this was also true, in their own way, of many rules for miniature wargames. The set which broke this mold in my eyes was the aforementioned WRG WW2-era set. These made your platoons, not individual vehicles, the pieces whose moves and tactics you, the player, directed. I make no apology for quoting some telling lines from Phil Barker's introduction. 'In the hope that players are tired of the traditional fascination with minor and often irrelevant differences in tank armour and penetration, we emphasise tactics, terrain and control. This does not mean that the technical content is inaccurate, but that differences in performance not substantiated by careful research or that are insignificant compared with random factors have been given only the attention they deserve...We pay much attention to troop psychology, to what is possible to and with the men who control the weapons, and how these men can be effectively commanded. Real battles are not fought by nicely-painted model tanks, but by men who are tired, frightened, dirty and often cold and hungry. These rules are set in the real world of rain and mud, dust and mirage.' That's the way to do it! For me, the Graviteam wargames seem to stand out in the genre much as did these WRG rules in their day, and for much the same underlying reason - that they aim to simulate war, rather than simulate wargaming. This is a recent discovery, and was made, not with GT:OS, but with SABOW, Steel Armor - Blaze of War. I tried the GT:OS demo a year or more ago, but it featured a little skirmish in near darkness, which, I decided, made it hardly worth making the effort to get to grips with the complex interface. It was SABOW that helped me learn this interface, because its rather excellent tanksim element is embedded in the same sort of wargame. So when BundleStars very recently renewed its amazing deal for GT:OS - £4.45 Sterling for the original game plus 8 DLCs - I decided it was time to take the plunge. Or should that be, 'pull the trigger'? The mission This being a mission report rather than a review, there should be a mission, right? So here it comes. It's nothing elaborate, or even terribly challenging but it is somewhat unusual, because it mixes and matches different GT:OS elements. This is possible because the game developed from its WW2 Eastern Front roots - sadly not towards the Western Front, but post-war. So my GT:OS bundle includes the following, on top of the basic game and a pack of high-resolution textures: - Krasnaya Polyana 1943 - Shilovo 1942 - Volokonovka 1942 - Sokolovo 1943 ...and post-war... - Shield of the Prophet (Iran-v-USSR in Afghanistan, complete with Chieftains, yay!) - Op Hooper (Angola) - Zhalanashkol (USSR-v-China) While each of these has one or more 'operations' or small campaigns, which are excellent in their own right if SABOW's are anything to go by, the GT:OS Battle Editor allows you to generate fights on any of the included maps, using any of the included side's weapons. You can't have KV-1s on the same side as M60s, but you can take one of the Soviet maps and set up a fight between post-war Soviet and Western troops and tanks. Which is what this mission is about. I really wanted to fight with Chieftains, which are on Iran's side in the Shield of the Prophet DLC, and despite the Iranian markings, look great outside of the Afghan setting... ...but either I'm missing something important, or there's a bug, as I can't for the life of me get Chieftains to respond to orders. So they just sit there, looking and sounding great, but quite immobile. So instead, I set up a fight for the Iranian M60A1s. These have no such qualms! Here's the setup screen, after a few clicks have plonked my chosen friends and foes onto the Eastern Front Sokolovo (winter) map. I have opted to use NATO-style unit symbols, as you can see. In the blue corner, on the left, we have two tank-heavy Combat Teams (in British Army parlance), each with two platoons of M60s and a platoon of mechanised infantry in M113 APCs. There's also a separate company HQ element (which I forgot to add also to the northernmost team); this includes a mortar section, perhaps it is based on Iranian Army ToE's. In the red corner, to the right, we have Chinese forces from the People's Liberation Army (from the Zalanashkol DLC), not using NATO symbols as I now see. This is a practice mission so the enemy is just an infantry company, with no heavy weapons, nothing more dangerous to my tanks than RPGs. The enemy is a company defended locality, with two platoons up (in front) and a third one in depth (behind), with company HQ nearby - a fairly standard deployment, giving both depth and a degree of all-round defense. It has taken just a minute or so's clicking to get this set up. Next step, just as per SABOW, is another click to start the 'Unit Deployment' phase. This takes a little longer, because I take the time to adjust the initial settings to bring each platoon into close formation. Below, you can see the result. In each Combat Team, a four-tank platoon (blue diamonds) is either side of a mech inf platoon (blue 'pointy rectangles'), all facing east. The enemy is indicated only by the red PLA flags north and south of Animal Farm (somebody who built this map was maybe a fan of George Orwell, because the Soviets certainly were not). The conventional symbols on the map indicate things like the cover available at each spot you can place a unit. There is also a 3-D 'real world' view for this purpose, which is handy if you want to place units with more care (eg hull down or in cover, for defensive operations) but I'm not hanging around and am usually happy to use the map view, if I'm attacking. The next step, when happy with deployment, is to click forward to the Unit Orders phase. The main difference is that from the same map, you get access to the full in-game set of command icons. This being a try-out rather than a deadly serious battle, I keep my orders simple. Each infantry platoon is ordered to attack frontally the nearest enemy position. On either flank of the attacking APCs, a tank platoon is to advance to a fire position short of the enemy positions (hopefully at no closer than extreme RPG range) from which they can shoot the infantry onto the objective. Wider angles between covering fire and assaulting troops would have been better but otherwise, it's all fairly conventional. The blue lines show the lines of advance for each platoon; you can set up dog-leg routes. This pic was taken just after I started the battle, hence the clock at the top is ticking. I haven't yet worked out how to control indirect fire support, but I try to set the company HQ mortar section to hit the enemy localities, though I am not sure if it will work. I'm even more clueless as to whether I could have opted to have off-map artillery in a quick mission. But until I can control my organic supporting weapons, there's not much point. This will be mostly or wholly a direct fire job. Below is the bird's eye view - drone's eye, these days - as my troops begin to move off. I hadn't ordered my troops to mount up - I wasn't sure if they would debus to make the final assault, and don't yet know how to make them do that. There's a choice of icons, but I just turn them off. From Youtube videos, a lot of people play with these turned on - or maybe it's just for their videos. I hate markers with a passion; I would simply not play a game that wouldn't let me turn them off. The currently-selected (M60) platoon is on the left, with the M113s and dismounts bottom centre and right. Another thing people seem to do (again, maybe only for videos, but I have my doubts) is play GT:OS from an airborne, God's Eye view. Again, to me this is unrealistic and anathema, even if it is a convenient way of monitoring the battlefield. The pic below shows the view with the hated icons turned off and the camera lowered. Much better! Again, this is the southern company group; the right-flank M60 platoon can be seen moving up to support the mech infantry in the foreground. At this point, I drop the camera to ground level and track over to the right-flank tank platoon. One day, I may have a go at making a little mod without Iranian markings (they are more conspicuous on the 113s) as I plan on doing a lot of simulated NATO -v- WARPAC stuff in GT:OS. A single keystroke will, for as long as I need it, bring up the command interface or (as below) the location markers, which are useful for orientation. For now, as my AFVs grind forward noisily through the snow, I'm content to use what time I have to watch my southern Combat Team advance. I've made my plan, given my orders, and now it's time to see how it pans out. Like real life, GT:OS plays out in real time - you can pause, speed up or slow down the action, but the only turns are in the operational level in GT:OS campaigns. This is a big plus for me. I don't have too long to wait before the balloon goes up. Automatic weapons fire breaks out somewhere up ahead and left. I see red and green tracers cutting back and forth. A beeping sound, familiar from SABOW, tells me there's a message 'on the air', and I know that it must be a contact report. Which is exactly what it is. Lt. Kashani, on the left of the southern company group with his four M60s, is reporting in, confirming that the party has begun! ...to be continued!