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Nine out of nine.


wildbillkelsoe

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What a gratifying feeling after almost two hours of intense looking around in my M1A1 TC position and a few brushes with death in the mission "Tanks! again". After eliminating eight out of the nine tanks without artillery or UAV support, My APFSD-S went to zero both ready and stowed, so I humped it northeast along the snake tongue (safe zone, no penalty), and the eighth kill was in fact between me and the HANOMAG supply truck. Luckily I spotted him first and quickly dispatched him with one HEAT round. 

 

So I started off on the infamous START hill and kept it there, periodically scanning with binoculars for smoke signs, often confusing it with mist at a distance. A few customers came along and even one snagged a shot at my periscope although it was not damaged, yet my gunner quick instincts took over and he sent him to the grave with a swift blow to his undercarriage front. As I discovered, my gunner has an appetite for the "sides", and I can not blame him. He seems to know where each and everyone is most vulnerable. On a few occasions we had turrets pop off targets and billowing smoke and fire consume the unfortunate guys on the other beasts, only to cross our fingers in hopes that our luck would hold true and that we wont share their fate. 

 

Creeping very slowly around trees, my driver did an excellent job with turning about when a target was spotted by yours truly, putting always himself and the front of our armor dead ahead to enemies, thereby reducing our chance to get killed from the sides. Sometimes we were caught between two trees and the gun couldnt stay on target, thus I often stood up facing our back, and sometimes I couldnt tell where my hull was pointed. With a bit of practice down the training, I figured to keep my binoculars pointed at the target, while slowly backing up and turning about to clear the obstruction. Sometimes we had to march fukk speed and knock them woodlands soft branches down, that at one point we were attacked off guard if it was not for the quick sighting of the round impact, the shooter direction from his gun sound, we had to back up and frantically push two smoke canisters out, and while doing so hit our rear to a treeline. Fortunately, my gunner picked him up and the driver steered , again towards him, in a perfect hull down fashion. One quick round to his underbelly sent him exploding.

 

After sitting idle for a few minutes, I decide to descend in variable speeds from the northwest of the hill. By checking topography, we did go down in style to lower positions where only our turret or its top half would be exposed. This got me thinking that I should pop up the hatch and start scanning 360 degrees with binos, a tactic I learned the hard way. In the A1, if I use my unity sight, I take away the turret from my gunner, and I now trust him not to do so. There is also fear from my part on their lives, my artificial brethren in arms. And while the majority of losses incurred during training were due to mechanical damages to systems, the tanks heart is surely her crew. If one is down, the rest are as good as dead. As we started moving, the clearing sent some chills down my spine; "How can we be that exposed?". We should always seek hull down, always. Nevermind the Hollywood gimmicks, this is life and death. A single round can find its way to the ammo rack, quickly marshmallowing us with the rest of the tank. I decided to focus my worry on seeking lower topographic positions, defilades, according to Matsimus. We should never have our silhouette discernable. Nor should we be skylined. This also got me thinking that if I am stationary, I am an easier target to hit, whereas if I am moving about in random speeds, and periodically changing headings, periodically scanning hilltops, clearings, and establishing my bearings to safe directions and knowing where to look,we become a force to be reckoned with. 

 

So after ordering scout tactics, we continue about with our business. I then quickly notice in horror that the last APFSD-S round was sent off and now my gunner FCS is indexed to HEAT. A flashing APFSD-S 0 | 0 caught the corner of my eye. While HEAT does extensive firework material, we are up against Soviet built killing machines. A myriad of T-64s all the way to T-90Us. This can not be dealt with using HEAT. So I decided to cautiously hike it to our supply truck, and at creeping speed, we did move to outside AO Tango. If we were jumped on the route, we'd disengage and floor it around enemy positions. I did come across a loner who was moving about searching for us, and caught him in my binos before ordering the gun to bear. Upon reaching the truck, I order my driver off his butt and to kill the engine, for two reasons. If we had the engine running around that truck, the enemy could home in on us, why give them this advantage?. The other reason was to conserve our expensive fuel, as the AO was a five by five patch, that is roughly 25 square kilometers to cover, and this, coupled with the unsatiable engine we had, meant we'd need all the fuel we can get our hands on, which at this point was none. 

 

While the loader hatch was opened, my driver was spent moving 15 APFSD-S rounds from the truckers, handing them one by one to the loader. While this was underway, my gunner, like a hawk, kept scanning the front, while I on the topside, scanning right handed with the binos, and left handed on my mic, churning my loader butts to move it! I dont want to stay here static. The truck crews were very nice and professional, that on top of the supplied rounds, they also gave us four smoke charges for our countermeasures, which were in fact spent from the previous engagements. Not that it would matter with a TIS-equipped foe, but it does not hurt our chances of coming out alive from this mayhem.

 

Upon finishing resupply, the roar of our engine startled some of the truck crew, that they couldnt hear eachother since we were so close. They bid us our good luck and we moved back to AO Tango, this time with a 1:1 odds of survival, as opposed to 1:9 odds at the exercise beginning. The hunt is on! I order creep speed on entering the snake tongue 50 meters wide lane, and as we were about to enter Tango, some smoke was visible about, so I order change of heading with guns forward to hull and normal speed to investigate. Four seconds later, and out of the treelines, comes the monster, giving us his right side fully exposed. GUNNER, SABOT, TANK! Gunners voice comes crackling through my headset in excitement "IDENTIFIED!". FIRE! The gun, now I am on top, made me feel like the tank was being pushed backwards by a large, giant variety of cue. As that first freshly loaded SABOT exited the barrel, less than a second later the other guy is on fire, apparently the round entered his ammo rack and the fires bilged through the venting holes. We quickly observe a moment of silence for the guys we just killed and head to our CO post with red flags after hearing that the exercise is over. Nine out of nine!

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9 minutes ago, wildbillkelsoe said:

...the eighth kill was in fact between me and the HANOMAG supply truck. 

 

Public Service Announcement:

I suppose you were referring to a Unimog (by Mercedes-Benz); Hanomag was a factory from Hannover ("Hannoversche Maschinenbau AG") that produced armored vehicles in WW2 (including a Pather production line), and construction equipment after the war (a subsidiary of Komatsu since the late 1980s). Unimog ("Universal-Motor-Gerät") is a utility truck line designed by Mercedes Benz in the late 1950s.

 

Uh... back to your regularly scheduled program.

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Nils, you are right how forgetful I am. It is Unimog not Hanomag. I suppose from the myriad of other games I played over my 25+ years of being an armchair general, I am developing an overlap of terminology and possibly forgetting names too. 

 

Thank you for your kind words. Its a habit of mine to extrapolate an after action report into a short story from my earlier naval simming days of Silent Hunter (Thank god its not Silent Günther ?, per my early-onset Alzheimer(no disrespect to these patients and wealth of support and props to them)). I was supposed to attach a few images too but I wouldnt know if its permissible for the forum (rules). 

 

Alas, there is a typo where I wrote "fukk speed ahead" it is "full speed ahead" (damn iPad mixing letters or my thumbs acting out or a combination of the above).

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Yes its a great mission. I yet to try using uav and artillery to make things more interesting, but surely I played like 17 times before, always getting killed. This, I hope, shall not be your last in scenarios. 

 

I just have one question in general. How do tankers say farewell to a retiring tank commander? I mean like in real life airplane pilots get the water cannon salute (I believe both airliners and military pilots). Its by no means my retirement (cracks his knuckles), but just was curious.

Edited by wildbillkelsoe
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16 hours ago, MDF said:

 

I made this one in (IIRC) 2014. Since then, I've made only multiplayer missions because that is my preferred mode of play.

I cetainly will dip my toe into multiplayer once I replay this another 10-15 times with consistent results. Looking forward to try your MP content.

 

I am also working Camp Hornfelt as I need to refine my tactics and get into grips with how to maximise a platoon use tactically.

Edited by wildbillkelsoe
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20 hours ago, wildbillkelsoe said:

I cetainly will dip my toe into multiplayer once I replay this another 10-15 times with consistent results. Looking forward to try your MP content.

 

I am also working Camp Hornfelt as I need to refine my tactics and get into grips with how to maximise a platoon use tactically.

 

I think that if you can consistently kill at least 1-2 enemy in Tanks! Again before dying, you're ready for multiplayer.  The weekly TGIF game is fairly casual in nature.  As long as you can operate the vehicle and are familiar with the map interface basics (plotting routes and BPs; creating and sending graphics), you're good to go.

 

As others have pointed out, the first Camp Hornfelt mission is by far the hardest.  I've actually multiplayered it several times and lost each one.  So the mission series is an odd progression.  You shouldn't feel that you need to master Hornfelt 1 and then finish that series before you're ready for online play.

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3 hours ago, MDF said:

 

I think that if you can consistently kill at least 1-2 enemy in Tanks! Again before dying, you're ready for multiplayer.  The weekly TGIF game is fairly casual in nature.  As long as you can operate the vehicle and are familiar with the map interface basics (plotting routes and BPs; creating and sending graphics), you're good to go.

 

As others have pointed out, the first Camp Hornfelt mission is by far the hardest.  I've actually multiplayered it several times and lost each one.  So the mission series is an odd progression.  You shouldn't feel that you need to master Hornfelt 1 and then finish that series before you're ready for online play.

 

Well I dont think I reached that stage yet (putting graphics, route plotting and enroute tactics). You see I finished some gunnery lessons and somehow know when to switch to FC manual and emergency, but certain things still need sharpening;

 

- tactics

- Plotting and using graphics and marking map

- TC orders and getting reload times at different regimes

- getting acquainted with ammo and different vehicle types and what they do

- using LOS sight tool

- reading map

- battle positions and effect on visibility and mobility (emplacements both tiers)

- gunnery (weak spots)

 

Yes I can kill tanks but not consistently. Some more time needed. I sure will check bganzac, tgif, and kanium but when I am good and ready.

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