Somewhere on the Ostfront, spring 1945.

My two Panther Gs are tasked with re-inforcing dug-in infantry supported by some Paks and a pair of Panzer IVs against a Soviet all-arms attack.

Panzer, marsch! Our grenadiers are a couple of hundred metres to our front, clustered around a small rise in the ground. I order AP loaded, anticipating enemy armour in the forefront.



I steer to the right, to avoid cresting the slightly rising terrain.



Enemy artillery fire is falling on our positions which are in dead ground, ahead and half left.



I halt turret down and see nothing. Tank fire has broken up ahead so I edge forward cautiously a few more metres, skirting the edge of the rising ground, and halt again. I see and shoot an advancing T34-85 which backs up into a hull down position but grinds to a halt when hit again by myself and one of the Panzer IVs or Paks. I start hosing advancing Red infantry with the co-ax, but suddenly, another T34 breaks cover and charges for our positions.



He draws plenty of fire including my own and doesn't last long. Brave but foolhardy!



The enemy attack seems to have petered out. But there's still a lot of small arms fire, and the occasional high velocity shot, coming from the dead ground to my left front. So I back up about a hundred meters then swing left, switching flanks and keeping turret down behind the rising ground. In position on the opposite flank, I edge cautiously forward, turret swung half right to face the enemy. I halt in a roadside ditch.



There's nothing to be seen, so I break cover and charge across the road as fast as we can go. Then we turn to face the enemy.



The tank commander spots an enemy SP that I can't see from the gunner's sight. I stalk the SP slowly, until I can see just enough to get a couple of AP rounds into him from the front, while one of the Panzer IVs is flanking him on my right. I take the Ivan at first for an SU 122. But when I can see more of him, I get a shock when I realise he was something much more dangerous - a repainted, captured Jagdpanther!



The Panzer IV advances past the knocked-out SP. All there is to shoot at now is some distant enemy infantrymen who are running away in the direction of Moscow. We hasten them on their way farewell with our co-ax MGs, the tracers arcing high into the air and burning out before reaching our targets, who get away.



We are now masters of all we survey.



There's a tank scrape nearby on my left so I drive forward, then reverse into it.



The day is ours, but still, there's no point in taking avoidable chances!

Those are incredible shots Sir. I have to take the plunge soon and purchase this sim and start collecting the upgrades. If this plays half as spectacular as it looks it must be an excellent tank sim. Nice report also.

S!Blade<><

Hi Blade

To get an idea of gameplay, there are many good videos by Geoweb35 on Youtube, including this new one, which shows off many of the views available not just the gunner's sight, and has the on-screen aids turned off nearly all the time too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e02_JgN1xYg

Most missions are more chaotic than this one, especially if you are defending. Sound doesn't attenuate much with distance and doesn't account for the speed of sound, and your control over your platoon-mates is limited compared to SABOW.

The STA mod is the one to get. The latest version, 3.4, is donation ware and available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e02_JgN1xYg

I have 3.x but play mainly a previous version as 3.X removed the facility to read your briefing before the mission started and AFAIK you can't pause while you do so. So missions can play out differently to what was intended, unless the mission designer allows for this - which some do, by putting the text of the briefing into the pre-mission intro screen, as done for this mission:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RqFotZUMGg

Those screenshots almost look real. They did a really nice job modelling those tanks.


Wheels