St Charles Slaughter Battle Reports [TANKS]

[Frank Pittelli <frank-at-rctankcombat.com>]

To All Slaughter Attendees,

Another fun day of battling has concluded, with plenty of stories to
tell and lessons to be learned.  As you know, however, our normal field
reporter, Vern Dernberger, was unable to attend because of a "previous
engagement".  (Many insiders believe that the editors at the Tri-Pact
News Service (TNS), Vern's employer, are miffed over the fact that the 
hobby was featured on a cable channel that isn't owned by Tri-Pact 
Global Media, inc.)  Therefore, each attendee is responsible for 
submitting their own vignette to the mailing list, which will be pulled 
together along with the scores to form the official battle report.

I'll start the ball rolling with some background, a battle report and a
lesson learned:

Background
----------
A total of 13 assets were on hand for the battle, including 7 fully
operational tanks (Tiger, T34, Hetzer, PzIV, Panther, KV-1, SU100), two
artillery pieces (Navarone, 155mm Howitzer), three support vehicles (UN,
Goer, Stuart) and one Fred Simms Quadricycle (true to form, however,
Fred did not make a battlefield appearance, stating "I won't battle ... 
because of no news coverage).

The battlefield consisted of knee high grass with battling areas (aka.
crop circles) and narrow roads cut low with a lawn mower.  All roads led
to a large rectangular battling area directly in front of the parking 
area.  Much thanks for Steve Tyng for going out to the field the night 
before a huge rainstorm to single-handedly groom it for the battle.

A total of 16 participants attended and battled, making this the largest
battle held to take, including Frank, Will, Steve T, John P, Paul, Joe,
Chris, Nathan, Mike, Karl, Rick, Tony, Steve E, Scott, John R and John's
Dad (sorry, forgot his name).

Teams were decided by the flip of a coin, with the Navarone Gun going to
the team with only 3 tanks, as well as the home base closer to the
central battling area.    Team "Cougar" (yep, they chose that name)
consisted of John P. (Pz IV), Nathan (Panther), Chris (T34), Steve T
(Navarone) and Tony (Goer), while Team "Marauders" consisted of Frank
(Tiger), Will (SU100), Paul (KV1), Joe (Hetzer), Nathan & Karl (UN). 
(Halfway through the first battle, Joe turned traitor and switched sides 
for no real reason??)

Street Fight
------------
About 40 minutes into the first battle, Team Marauders was pushing hard
into the Cougar's side of the field, with relatively high casualty
counts for the Cougars. While the rest of the Marauders were occupying 
the middle of the field, John's Panzer IV and Joe's "Traitor Hetzer" 
were driving Will's SU-100 towards the parking area. The SU-100 took up 
a position next to Will's trailer and dug in for a fight.  Frank then 
realized what was happening and drove over to the dirt road outside the 
range of the Navarone Gun, which was ruthlessly operated by Tyng the 
Merciless.  In a movie like setting, the Tiger started driving straight 
down the road towards the smaller PzIV and Hetzer, which immediately 
moved to a more defensive position because of the orthogonal firing 
positions of the SU-100 and Tiger. At a range of 20 feet, the Tiger 
started shelling the Hetzer and Panzer in hopes of pinning them down so 
that Will could start flanking them.

With Will on one side of them, a stand of pine trees on the other side 
and a Tiger coming straight at them down the road, the Panzer and Hetzer 
  dug in as well.  At that point, Chris saw the situation and started 
bringing the T34 down the road directly behind the Tiger.  That caused 
Frank to quickly turn off the road into a spot between Will's trailer 
and another car.  Chris continued to barrel down the road towards his 
teammates, going right past the Tiger lurking down the alley.  The T34 
then turned around the trailer and I think the SU-100 finished him off.

The Tiger then took up a position in the road again.  At that time, 
unknown to John and Joe, Paul was coming across the field with his KV-1 
hidden from their view by the pine trees.  Frank saw the flanking move 
and knew that they would soon have the duo surrounded.  Just then, the 
Tiger fired a few more rounds to keep them pinned down and the worst of 
all sounds was heard ... the Tiger was out of CO2.  Within a split 
second of the sound, the Hetzer and Panzer started driving straight 
towards the Tiger, which was retreating quickly to reload.  As they 
cleared the trees, they saw the KV-1 coming at them and destroyed it 
before it could destroy them.  The Tiger took off towards the forward 
base for reloading and I'm not sure how Will's SU-100 did after that (I 
think it made it out alive).

Lessons Learned
---------------
After refilling the CO2 bottle for the Tiger, I put it back in the tank 
and fired a couple rounds to make sure everything worked. 
Unfortunately, it fired multiple rounds without recocking, with no 
apparent reason.  After a couple basic field checks (CO2 valve on, 
trigger working, etc) the battle ended and it was time for lunch and 
repairs.  Again, some more basic checks were made (CO2 bottle filled 
properly, barrel cleaned, breach cleaned) with the same results.  OK, 
time to check if the gun is firing too hard.  Nope, no change.  How 
about too soft.  Nope, no change.  After about 20 minutes of tweaking 
with no success, time to remove the gun from the turret so it could be 
worked on properly.

        Lesson 1: Always mount the gun so that it can be "easily"
        removed for repairs.

Since everyone else was done prepping their tanks for the afternoon, the 
Tiger started to attract a crowd as everyone offered suggestions. 
Perhaps the "sear" was worn.  Nope, not the problem.  There was a little 
piece of something in the trigger area, perhaps that was causing the 
problem.  Nope, not the problem.  Aha, someone says, it's the "hammer". 
  Nope, that looks good.  When's the last time it was oiled, someone 
said.  "Oil?" I said, what's that?  Yep, everyone said, that's the 
problem, throw some oil at it.  Nope, that wasn't the problem.

        Lesson 2: Too many doctors standing around doesn't necessarily
        mean you'll find the cure.

OK. There's only one thing left, pull the bolt out.  When the bolt was 
pulled a couple more little pieces of something were seen and then the 
problem was revealed ... the bolt O-ring was torn to pieces.  Yep, 
someone said, probably cause you never oiled it ... or maybe because it 
was old ... or maybe because things just break.

        Lesson 3: Disable every gun before each battle, clean
        everything, oil everything and replace every O-ring ...
        small prices to pay for reducing headaches on the battlefield.

        Lesson 4: Put all of your CO2 and marker spare parts in a
        compartmented box that is separate from all your other spare
        parts and tools.  Saves lots of time finding everything when
        working on the marker.

The lesson continued in the second battle, when I learned that I didn't 
quite have the gun re-mounted properly and it started moving around, 
thereby preventing paintballs from feeding properly.  Some field work 
fixed that final problem ... after some muttering under my breath.

        Lesson 5: See Lesson #1 above and make sure it can be accurately
        re-mounted just as easily.

Other than the gun problem, the aging Tiger ran well and I had lots of 
fun driving it around.

        Frank P.