Bud Backer

That looks very interesting! I'll be downloading this tomorrow. Thank you for making it.

I was at that museum in the late 90's. I really liked it, it had a good set of displays and at the time, the curator was an elderly gent who was delighted in the questions I was asking and took me outside the museum to show me where he was during the battle when he was a boy. It was a special experience.

Pity about the ricochet, Bil. But it does seem a long shot to penetrate a Panther frontally with what you have. If he were closer, perhaps the height you have would give you the edge you need but it seems unlikely he'd be so foolish as to do that. As I struggle to deal with Panthers in my "Skinning Cats" thread I feel strong affinity with your situation.

My jeep scramble ended with one back safely (though a bit shot up) and another destroyed. My opponent decided to move a Panther from cover and head west. My own tanks would catch glimpses but not have time to engage. I pull them back after sniping at infantry that they can see - my logic is if a tank can see an infantry unit, it's unlikely the infantry is no spotting my tank and my whole strategy is based on me knowing where he is but him not knowing where I am. The spotting rounds should end and a major barrage land in the woods where I've been seeing his men occasionally observing mine. A second barrage should land right in his stationary Panther in the small village in the east in another few minutes. I'm happy he is separating his two big cats. This will make it easier for me to concentrate two fireflies on one at a time and hopefully get rid of those pesky things. As the game passed mid point, my assessment that he would want to sit on his side of the river with his heavy armour proved correct. He's not aggressive enough considering what he has at his disposal. I am actually more worried about his ATGs on the far ridge and the fact I can't seem them than his Panthers. It's becoming easy to avoid them as he is afraid to lose them and I don't want to lose anything to a lucky ATG shot. They don't cover my positions well but see, to have the occasional spot where they can hit me and it's hard to guess exactly where that may be. The Panther in the village does have a good view of some of my side of the map, however. I've indicated it with a pair of pink lines. It means using different approaches to get to him. I'm actually wondering if I should concentrate all four of my tanks and creep down the Eastern edge and cross the river and hit him when he has that one tank there alone...

Don't tell me you're pining for the fjords?!?!

With the damaged Firefly back in my control, I order it to join a Sherman near the middle of the ridgeline. From there, I can see some withdrawal routes the Panthers might take and I want to be ready for him. I've noticed he never unbuttons, and that suits me, it gives me a spotting advantage. You can see the Firefly moving west and about to turn and go slowly to the ridge next to the Sherman. My two jeeps, empty and unused after delivering my PIAT and sniper teams, are about to engage in a distraction mission. They will run up the map toward my opponent, switch direction and disappear. I hope he will see the movement and get nervous and make a mistake. Can't hurt. Unless you drive the jeep, that is. I call this recon by drive, as there is no fire involved.

I received a text message while he was taking his turn: "I didn't know Fireflies could take out a Panther from the front!" Seeing as he was watching the replay before I saw it, I was pretty excited. You can see the penetration of his mantlet above. The tank was destroyed by this shot. Beyond that, you can see on west end the ridge line at his end of the map there is an ATG. He has another at the east end but it faded from view. The west ATG hit and penetrated my Firefly front hull, which made me almost panic, but in the end, killed a crewman and nothing else. The crew also panics and all I could do was order the nearby mortar, positioned for this purpose, to fire smoke in front of the tank to give it cover while it withdraws under AI control. Scary!! The damaged Firefly withdraws and stops AT THE CREST of the ridge! I'm going crazy thinking the thing is toast as I can get LOS to the position where the ATG is even though I can't make it out any more other than as a contact. I order full reverse to behind my ridge and it makes it unscathed. The crew is nervous, but I still have an intact tank. *phew* The other Firefly, which I ordered several minutes ago to move to the east end of the map, now is ready to s-l-o-w-l-y move forward and be ready to snipe his Panthers. Yes, Panthers, with an S...he has two left. One must have been hidden from my view by my own smoke. I've orderd arty to target his infantry that is on his side of the map between the objectives, likely trying to observe me just like I'm onserving him., and my second battery to target his Panther hideout. It will be a while before it lands on the tanks but I want to be waiting for his tanks to flee and hopefully expose themselves to both fireflies...

With his Panthers sitting on each objective, I decided to move up a Firefly and a Sherman forward while I still have cover from the smokescreen I laid across the middle of the map. They will cross over the ridge in the east, and descend behind a small copse of trees to watch and wait for him to advance, or to move across his own lines into my sights. I hope. It's nail biting tense here at my end as I watch those two precious tanks advance. The firefly makes it comfortably to the trees and faces to toward the German lines. The Sherman, however, is slightly higher on the slope and his Panther on the western objective destroys it moments after this screenshot. He is also clearly concerned about infantry in the woods on my side of the river, and a fairly substantial artillery barrage begins to drop on the woods, killing several infantry. My PIAT teams remain largely intact, but I lose several half squads and recon teams. My second firefly is moved east to be able to backup the first one, if the opportunity presents itself.

After three minutes, my infantry has moved forward to preliminary positions. I will be splitting them up so that I have scouts spread out with core fire teams ready in case he tries to cross the river. I expect he won't really push things. He likes me to get impatient and do something reckless. I sent two jeeps, each with sniper and PIAT team, to the woods on either end of my side if the river to observe and ambush any armour or scouts he might send. I doubt he will. It didn't take long to observe two Panthers near the objectives. As I have expected, he's not going to charge across and use his heavy armour to take me on; he's going to see if I make a mistake. The big thing here is going to be knowing where those tanks are at all times. I also doubt he limited himself to only two.

So this game was delayed for a while - my friend had stuff come up, then I did. But it's on now and it's been...interesting. My deployment is below. I'm firing smoke across the line between myself and my opponent. You can see, if you look closely, my unit movement orders. My tanks all are remaining behind the ridge and not moving until I have some idea where his tanks are and be able to position mine to hit them when he doesn't expect it.

Nice shooting. Only the UKR gun comes with AT ammo; the RUS one is used solely as artillery, isn't that right?

The first game I played with IanL he gave me a good pounding with his artillery - it was if not decisive then significant in its impact on the outcome of the game. I struggle with artillery and am still learning to be effective with it, but when I played against others who used it well, it was near-devastating. Give yourself some time and practice.

Hopefully Robin's minstrel is still alive

Great news! Welcome back, Michael!

You're most welcome. If you can, drop by when you've finished and tell me what you thought, good or ill

Lol same here! Great stuff comes out of these threads!

Heh. And all I have is Squad Leader and the three add-ons. Did anyone every try Up Front? It was a card-based game, before those things every and popular. It was interesting to play down surprisingly deep, I felt.

Thanks, Ian, that's really helpful!

Glad to help. Welcome to the forums, and have fun.

The forum and web site do not share logins. Each is unique, so if you made a login for the forums, that will not give you one for the web site itself where you buy stuff. But... It's easier than you think. This is the fine print at the bottom of the Red Thunder purchase page: Purchase your game (no need to login for first time customers) A Customer Account is created for you during the Checkout and you are automatically logged in Download immediately after purchase (do not wait for emails) Look up your License key inside your Customer account immediately (do not wait for emails). The same key is used for download and license activation. Change your Username and Password for your account so you can log in later even if your anti-spam filter block the email with your generated password Install, launch, activate and start playing! NEED HELP? www.battlefront.com/helpdesk

Haha you know I wrestled with that question myself, because of course it can happen. In fact, (I'll try not to give anything away as you have not finished yet) the first battle in Somebody's Hero went NOTHING like I anticipated, and I had to adapt quickly to still have a story to tell.

I had no idea! This is true uniquely for missiles, or other ammo as well? RPGs?

I'm a little confused. Are you saying that one doesn't need to use the Acquire command to retrieve missiles from the BMP?

You're right that came out backwards at the beginning. What I'm saying is if I have to defend against the Germans, I hope my opponent will buy Panthers as they are to be less difficult to deal with than Tigers. I assume the worst and figure they will buy tigers, but hope they will buy panthers as that would be more favourable to me. The cost difference is not so significant to be a deterrent to buying Tigers. The rarity, however, is, potentially.

But won't that slow down overall movement as they pause at each waypoint?