Friar

Myself and FT are going to crew and Perf has agreed to start out as out Commander (we will see how long it takes for him to run screaming to the hills saying "never again with those two"!)

Muti-Crew for this event. If you are wanting to take part in this event as part of a multi-crew please could you let me know your crew please, or put yourself forward as a willing crew member and we can then make some crews up. There are up to 3 positions available for each tank, driver, gunner and commander. If you want to fight on your own, no problem.

Salute, Save the Date! After much work and excellent contributions from @Perfesser and @Sweper I am pleased to announce that I will be running the first mission in my "Battle Of The Bulge" series on Saturday 24th April. It would be great if we could get as many of the regular "Tankies" on parade as possible. Now, start time?. Usually I would have said that I would have started the mission around 20:15 to 20:30 uk time but as we have just put our clocks forward I appreciate that this may be causing folks who do not live in the centre of the universe (also known as the UK) some issues? Could you please give me some indication below as to what start time would suit you, I will then do my best to find the best solution. Battle Of The Bulge Operation Wacht am Rhein You are part of a section within "Panzer Lehr". This was formed from several elite training and demonstration units. The training and demonstration units were some of the most experienced and highly trained troops in the Panzerwaffe, with almost all having seen combat in the East, North Africa, Scilly or Italy. Panzer Lehr is made up of Panzer IV and Panther tank units. Wacht am Rhein opened on 16 December 1944, and Panzer Lehr moved out from the start positions in the centre of the German line. It's objectives were to push West as far as it could capturing the towns of Viaden, Dasberg, Wiltz and the lynch pin in the operation, the transport hub of Bastogne, thus contributing to the main objective of pushing right through to the bridges over the River Meuse and on to the port of Antwerp, thus severing the Allied supply lines. The attack has been planned with the utmost secrecy, with the details of the advance only released to the units on the front line at the very last minute. Mission 1 Your unit will arrive at the front line under cover of darkness on the night of the 15th December, having been transported via road trailers to what you believe to be a front line reinforcement camp. Mission 2 Takes place during the next day in camp, on the 15th, it is here that you are briefed that you are not here as reinforcements but as a spearhead to take the fight back to the Allied forces. You are to familiarize yourself with the layout of the camp and to locate the starting position in readiness for the advance in the early hours of tomorrow morning. Because of the secrecy about the mission only limited information on routes through the difficult terrain is available and you may find yourself picking a route through dense forest and traversing steep incline and descents. Supplies of ammunition, fuel and food will be important the further West you advance. Mission 3 The Attack begins. In the early hours of Saturday 16th December your unit will assemble waiting for the signal to advance. What events and missions come next, only time will tell...

I would assume so as it seems to be from an American manual. Someone posted a conversion (see below) Not sure on the ammo loadouts.

Just seen the below in the IL2 forums. Explains the pips in the Sherman gunsight. Just raise the barrel until your required piper is on the target

So all being well this Saturday, I propose to have a final run of the Agility Test (I have replaced the lorries with Panzer III L and have also off set the bridges so that you can not use the opposite one as a guide. After that I will re-run the "Town Siege" mission where we all start in open ground and make our way towards the town. I will also add some targets in the town as well this time. Anyone that wants to multi-crew can. We can also look at how to set up TeamSpeak with each tank in its own channel with just the Commanders talking to each other.

Thanks for the update Sid, adds to the knowledge base. Would be interesting to have a 3 man crew in a battlefield scenario, then no swapping required and see how that goes...

Was thinking about this last night and my original idea of a whisper channel for commanders will not work as the channel will be empty and you can not whisper to an empty channel. So for this to work we will have to think of another comms set up. We could all stay in the same channel but mute everyone except your own crew perhaps? Still need to think of a solution for tank to tank comms. For it to work at the moment, we would have crews in their own room and then the commanders will need to set up a whisper that broadcasts to all other tanks, which may be not too complicated to set up.

Salute, Following on from the "success" of the event we did on Saturday, how do you guys feel about taking it a stage further and actually setting up crews for the tanks, perhaps even split off each tank into their own room on TeamSpeak with Commanders having a central whisper channel to communicate tactics and stuff? The more I think about the idea, the more I would like to try it. I certainly think it would add to the experience. There could be swapping of positions at spawn points (if crews wanted to of course) Your thoughts..........

I know where I can source one and can supply for £475

@Toad ok I will have a look. It actually might be easier if I do that and then circulate the recording and then take questions, that way people can do it when it suits them, its an option. Also happy to do "live" sessions. The UK clocks go forward this weekend by the way.

Salute Last week or so a few guys mentioned that they would be interested in an introduction to the Mission Builder so that they could look at mission files and perhaps make some adjustments etc. I am happy to run a few sessions where I will take you through the basics. What I need to do now is find out who is interested and what would be a suitable time for all parties. If you are interested in finding out what goes on under the bonnet ("hood" for our colonial friends, and not 18th century ladies head wear) please post below and what sort of time slot. As a bench mark, if I said 16:00 on a Saturday, what time would that be for you? I could do a non GBS night during the week, lets say 20:00 how would that work for you?

Oh and @DD_Sheriff 1987 is not acceptable

Bumpty Bump Also how about adding your time difference from GMT. Lets use a line in the sand, So if it is 20:00 on Saturday evening in the uk, what time is it where YOU live (UK Dogz exempt from this bit, but if you have not added to the map, then please do)

If the PC did not come with windows and you need a fresh copy, have a look a sites like https://softwaregurus.co.uk/ you just buy the licence from them cost £17.99 for Home £19.99 for professional (all legit, I have used them a couple of times now with no issues). You then create a windows media device (i.e a usb stick with the msi files on (very simple to do) and install from that. A lot cheaper than buying a "boxed" version which I believe can be around the £100 mark.

@DD_Arthur - Welcome to my world...

err, this post was from 2013 but thanks anyway

The German forces are building, will YOU be amongst them?

Only you FT would come up with such a suggestion!

Salute, Apologies for posting this in the general GBS forum but I wanted to catch all of the Dogz that may not read the Tank Crew threads. I am now starting to think about building the mechanics and guts of the "Battle of The Bulge" missions and although the first mission is still a good number of weeks away, I wanted to get an idea of the numbers that may / could consider wanting to take part. Outside of the people listed below (who I am already including) who have been regular "Saturday Tankies", do YOU think you may want to take part? The missions will run on a Saturday evening UK time (start time approx 20:00 - 20:30hrs) and should run for a couple of hours. I am not sure for how many weeks yet but would think it will be at least 4 or 5. Even if you do not have Tank Crew, if I know you are wanting to take part and are willing to commit to leaning the controls BEFORE the actual event, (come and join us on a regular Saturday night, we will be glad to help you get set up, or message one of the guys below in your time zone, I am sure they would help) I am more than happy to plan in the free German Panzer Mk III-L for you to use. I am certainly hoping to do this tremendous moment in history justice so should be (fingers crossed) an event not to be missed (ok, I am biased, I am building it!) If you want more information or have questions to ask, check out the BOTB thread in the Tank Crew section. At the moment these are the regulars (this is not saying I EXPECT them to take part, but odds are they will be there); APHill, Sweeper, Sid, Friar, FunFlack, FT, Artie, Painless, Perfessor, Parts So if you think you are interested please post below and state if you will be wanting a free tank or have / are going to buy TANK CREW (you should by the way, it is a huge amount of fun) Regards DD_Friar

https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/72/a7174172.shtml This extract from the above recollections; "We travelled north towards San Vito and the River Moro, where Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry [P.P.C.L.I.] had just established a small bridgehead across the River Moro, the furthest point north the Eighth Army advance had reached at the time, and were in urgent need of our tank support, as it was clear the Germans would return with their tank support to force the Canadian infantry back, and regain the bridgehead. It was a very very steep and difficult climb by way of a track up from the small river to the Canadian position. Only 'C' squadron 44th Royal Tank Regiment took part, not all of which managed to "make it" to where the Canadians had established their position in the small village of Rualti."

Nice vid when you get past the shouty bloke!

What sort of mission is this? one of the scenarios in the single player area?

My pc has just done a windows update. When I checked the optional driver updates, saw this...