I got the game back from Panther's yesterday (thanks Dave, it was a very generous gift
) and installed it without a hitch.
The first thing I did was work my way through the Leo A5 tutorials. Aye carumba!
After forgetting most of the controls I managed to retain enough to get a tank moving and fire it's gun with reasonable accuracy (gunner rating of 77), though "gawd help me when the systems go down" I was thinking.
I then worked out how to fire up a scenario and picked one at random. Shortly followed by getting into it and wondering why my FPS had dropped to an average of around 14FPS. I later discovered there were scores of vehicles in this battle. But it was no show-stopper, on account of SB handling choppy frames rather smoothly, if that makes any sense?
So, I found myself to the far south-east with a battle-group, looking north-west as an enemy assault made it's way north-east towards a vital bridge. Orders were to help prevent an enemy break-through via our lines which were south-west of the bridge.
I immediately gave my unit (me and three other Leopards) the order to move out towards the enemy's right flank and off we went. At this point I hadn't given any consideration to use of roads, and after a while of travelling through truly beautiful bush & scrub we encountered a forest. The tanks moved in and we got seriously delayed, navigating between countless trees. My tank sustained minor damage (suspension and a wheel) but we made it through eventually. Then a road came up and I ordered a halt whilst I cuffed my navigator around the head and told him to make use of it.
We moved off again and I ordered column formation, making good speed at last. We were getting frequent radio reports during the move, losses of friendly tanks mostly. Then we began encountering burned-out vehicles...clearly the enemy had been this way and we were catching them up from behind.
The road (more of a muddy track) meandered through trees, but suddenly it opened out onto a snowy plain. Then the gunner started reporting possible targets, so I ordered line formation and we moved onto the open ground. Seconds later I heard the hissing sound of rounds passing over us, and saw the muzzle-flash and tracers coming from the tree-line on the other side of the plain. Soviet BMPs, what looked to be the scattered remnants of a unit that had already been in combat, were taking us on. I ordered return fire and after a few minutes of controlled bedlam all the enemy units were knocked out or had retreated.
Moving forward again, we finally noticed the incredible number of burning and knocked out armor surrounding us for kilometers ahead. We could see our positions, friendly units knocked out in them and the enemy in front and amongst them who had succumbed while breaking through.
We entered the treeline ahead via the road and proceeded in column again, occasionally taking MG fire from small pockets of isolated enemy infantry hiding deep in the woods.
We then recieved a warning over the radio that a certain village was under heavy assault by enemy tanks in platoon strength. I checked the map but couldn't work out where the village was. Happens it was a couple of kilometers ahead on the very road we were travelling, and I led the column right up next to it. The first I knew of it was when my tank recieved a direct hit from the left. Spinning to the left in my hatch I was confronted by a dire sight...a church, surrounded by what looked like half the Soviet mechanized corp. BMPs, PCs, and worst of all a mass of T80s. We had nowhere to go...forward or back gave the enemy a duck-shoot, and to either side of the road we were hemmed by trees. All we could do was face the enemy and return fire.
My tank was knocked out before we could return a single shot, and we bailed into a ditch on the opposite side of the road. The other three Leos did somewhat better, and managed to get a few kills before being knocked out in return. We completely failed in our task however, which was to help prevent the breakthrough of this very force.
Never mind, I'm going back to the classroom to learn how to make use of scouts.
I played five hours straight yesterday afternoon and evening and I'm gagging to play some more. The breadth and scope of the environment, the smoothness of play even when the CPU is being hammered down as low as 9FPS, the AI, the scenery, the sounds, the
excitement, they all combined to give me a rush I've seldom experienced in years. And this whilst not having a clue what I was doing.
Today I shall be mostly ensuring I don't pick a scenario with hundreds of vehicles.
This game is the dog's nads. The most important feature, in my opinion, is the huge size of the maps, followed by them being populated by faithfully rendered objects in incredibly beautiful terrain, controlled by superb AI. What a package.