Search the Community

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!