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The following photos were taken by Amir Tahvildaran and Tom Tanner,
with commentary by Frank Pittelli.
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Karl's 21st Century Stuart looks great, sounds great and runs, well ...
not so great over the rough terrain. Karl had previously broken a
plastic track link during field tests on a groomed lawn, so everyone knew
that it wasn't ready for the tough battlefield conditions.
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During the lunch-time break (provided by Steve 'Grill-Master' Edwards)
the Stuart was used as a target for Joe Sommer's gun camera tests with
the Hetzer. Unfortunately, it threw a track and the tests had to be
concluded. See Bon Voyage Video
for some interesting gun camera footage made during the tests.
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This battle saw the largest number of participants ever, as can be
seen here looking at the Blue Team, which would operate 3 tanks, 1
support vehicle and 1 artillery piece. John, Karl and Tony would
be trading off operation of the Panzer and Goer, so that everyone could
get some stick time.
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The Pak-40 is hitched up and ready to go with the Goer. Hauling paintballs
and moving artillery around the battlefield are the primary responsibility
of the support vehicles, and all participants know the importance of
such logistics. Without paintballs stockpiled at the forward base or
artillery deployed to defend them, tanks must travel all the way back
to home base for reloading, keeping them out of the action for a much
longer period of time.
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The KV-1 spent a lot of time in the tall grass during the first
battle, as is evident by all of the natural camo that it is carrying.
The KV-1 is becoming one of the most reliable tanks on the battlefield,
with plenty of power and traction that allows it to go anywhere. The
distinctive clack-clack of it's tracks can be heard wherever it goes.
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It's just before the start of the battle and the Blue Team is ready
to go. The entire team must start at home base, but is quickly deployed
a few minutes into the battle. As can be seen here, the terrain is
quite rough, with only narrow highways and firing bases cut throughout the
field.
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The Red Team moves quickly out of home base when the battle
begins. With the T-34 and Hetzer pushing down the southern
highway, the U.N. Support Vehicle moves the Howitzer into
a strong firing position just outside home base.
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The Blue Team takes up positions on the southern side of the crossroads,
which connects the northern and southern highways. In the middle of
the crossroads is a large round-about which surrounds the video cameraman,
Will Montgomery.
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Steve Tyng drives the Hetzer along the northern highway so that he can
attack the Blue Team from the other side of the crossroads. In the
background, his teammates, Nathan and Chris, establish strong firing
positions with the 155mm Howitzer and the T-34 just outside the
Red Team base, while Mike keeps running supplies with his U.N. support
vehicle.
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The Tiger tries a few long range shots on the Hetzer as it retreats back to
home base for reloading under the protection of Nathan's Howitzer.
In this game scenario, artillery was declared "invincible" to see how such
a rule might work. Although that made them very formidable, since they
could only fire 10 rounds at a time before reloading, the tanks were still
able to move around the field with caution. In fact, at one point,
the Tiger-1 snuck into the Red Team's forward base within 20 feet of the
Howitzer while it was being reloaded and stole some of their supplies.
The Tiger quickly retreated when the reloading was done.
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With the Red Team keeping everything close to their home base,
the Blue Team decided it was time to move the Pak-40 into a stronger
position in the center of field. Accordingly, the Goer was brought
up the southern highway, under the protection of the Tiger and Panzer
to move the Pak-40 to the center of the field. Without such protection,
the Goer could be easily destroyed and forced to go back to home base
for re-incarnation.
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The Goer hauls the Pak-40 from its southern firing position to a
firing position in the center of the field for better coverage
of the battlefield.
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The view from the Pak-40's new firing position is expansive, allowing
it to hit Blue Team vehicles on both the southern and northern highways,
as long as it is provided with a steady supply of paintballs.
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Tony moves the Panzer IV into the thick grass on the Red Team's side
of the field to establish a strong firing position. Although the
thick grass makes turning more difficult, it also protects the lower
half of the Panzer from being hit with paintballs. Of course, this
doesn't mean that Tony's job is done, because if you sit still long enough
someone will start hitting you.
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Steve is known for driving his T-34 hard and he's no different with the
Hetzer. Unfortunately, the Hetzer can't take the abuse that Steve throws
at it and throws a track. Fortunately, Joe quickly remedies the problem
and the Hetzer is back in operation in a couple of minutes. Of course,
during this down-time, the Blue Team was aggressively pursuing the T-34
being operated by its new owner Chris.
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Nathan takes aim with the Howitzer, constantly pestering the Red Team
tanks and support vehicle in the middle of the field. The T-34 is
preparing to make another run at the Blue Team.
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Chris Wacker purchased the T-34 from Steve Tyng and was quickly learning
how everything worked. With the Hetzer down for repairs, Chris found
himself the center of attention and was very busy defending himself.
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While the T-34 was in home base being re-incarnated, Frank drove his
Tiger behind the Red Team home base into the very thick brush, hiding both
him and his tank. He was hoping to spring a surprise attack on the T-34,
but Chris noticed Tom taking this picture and the surprise was no more.
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The Tiger digs into the tall grass along the southern frontier of the
battlefield to protect itself from the Howitzer and to establish
a strong firing position on the area around the Red Team's base.
A few minutes later, the KV-1 would turn traitor and join forces
with its Russian comrade on the Red Team to hunt down the Tiger in the
grass. With John driving his Panzer into the grass as well, four tanks
churned through the brush until both the Panzer and Tiger were destroyed.
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Near the end of the battle, John positions the Panzer IV to cut off
the retreat of the Hetzer which is currently tangling with the Tiger
just outside "The Bunker".
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The boys return home after the conclusion of the battle. No ticker
tape parades would greet them, just lots of paper towels to clean off
the colorful results of the battle.
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The Hetzer is not very large, so everything needs to be mounted
cleanly inside, as can be seen here.
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The T-34's novel turret design allows it to be removed from the
tank for easy maintenance and cleaning. Although it had some
rotate problems during this battle, it didn't prevent Chris from
getting in a lot of battling time.
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For some reason, Amir thinks that people want to see the inside of
the Tiger showing the door-lock actuator that is now being used to
fire the gun. The actuator worked flawlessly in the Tiger all day, with
similar results for the Pak-40 in this battle and in Coxsackie. On the
left side of the turret can also be seen the compressed gas cylinders
used to stabilize the gun. The black
object strapped to the back of the gun is a lead counter-weight that
balances the gun to reduce strain on the elevate servo.
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John apparently has a little too much time on his hands, because he's
always finding stuff like this sign on the Internet. Nonetheless, it
spruces up the pit area and makes everything look official.
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Joe presents Frank with an "award" which is the remains of the Tiger's
cardboard muzzle that fell off of the Tiger in the spring and was
unceremoniously run over (repeatedly) by Will's SU-100. Will finds
the joke quite funny, as did all of the other battlers.
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Offical Scores for BonVoyage Battle #2
| Team |
Asset |
Operator |
Hits
Taken |
Hits
Made |
Runs
Made |
Moves
Made |
Steals
Made |
Mission
Pts |
Points
Given |
Points
Earned |
Points
Pct |
| Blue |
T001 |
Frank Pittelli |
8 |
19 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2,000 |
4,750 |
0.704 |
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T012 |
John Pittelli |
4 |
6 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1,000 |
1,500 |
0.600 |
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T012 |
Karl Klusewitz |
4 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1,000 |
500 |
0.333 |
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T018 |
Paul Pittelli |
8 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2,000 |
500 |
0.200 |
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SV005 |
John Pittelli |
0 |
0 |
3 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1,000 |
1.000 |
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SV005 |
Karl Klusewitz |
0 |
0 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
750 |
1.000 |
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SV005 |
Tony Tyree |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
250 |
1.000 |
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FA002 |
Marty Hayes |
0 |
5 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1,250 |
1.000 |
| TOTAL |
24 |
34 |
6 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
6,000 |
10,500 |
0.636 |
| Red |
T005 |
Chris Wacker |
12 |
8 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
3,000 |
2,000 |
0.400 |
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T010 |
Joe Sommer |
3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
750 |
0 |
0.000 |
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T010 |
Steve Tyng |
15 |
13 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
3,750 |
3,250 |
0.464 |
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T018 |
Paul Pittelli |
4 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1,000 |
250 |
0.200 |
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SV004 |
Mike Blattau |
0 |
0 |
10 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
3,250 |
1.000 |
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FA001 |
Nathan Blattau |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
500 |
1.000 |
| TOTAL |
34 |
24 |
10 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
8,500 |
9,250 |
0.521 |
| Asset |
Type |
Net Points |
| SV004 |
U.N. Peacekeeper |
3,250 |
| T001 |
PzKpfw VI-I Tiger |
2,750 |
| SV005 |
M520 Goer |
2,000 |
| FA002 |
PAK40/L46 75mm Anti-Tank Gun |
1,250 |
| FA001 |
155mm Howitzer |
500 |
| T012 |
Panzer IV |
0 |
| T005 |
T-34-85 |
-1,000 |
| T010 |
JgPz 38(t) Hetzer |
-1,250 |
| T018 |
KV-1 |
-2,250 |
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