A Bridge Too Far

Background

With the central creek being such an important part of the terraina a "Gold Rush" scenario was chosen for the second battle. Nine deposits of gold bullion (represented by paintball containers) would be stashed at various places along the creek, accessible from the bridges and fording location. Teams would be awarded points for bringing the gold back to their home base. As an added bonus, teams would also be awarded points for herding all four cows onto their side of the battlefield by the end of the battle.

The "Dead Meat" team consisted of the following attendees:

     Steve Tyng (T040), Frank Pittelli (T001), Paul Pittelli (T077), Doug Conn (T058),
     Stu Cameron(FA007)

The "Aaaaarnhem" team consisted of the following attendees:

     Will Montgomery (T026), Joe Sommer (T010), John Pittelli (T079),
     Sean Mullin (FA003), Mike Lyons (RL001)

This battle would be the first time since the hobby was founded that a single-shoot rocket launcher would be deployed. The "Bazooka Joe" asset built and operated by Mike Lyons would be granted a "one-shot-one-kill" bonus in celebration of the event.

Gold Fever

Battle 2 involved gold capture, cattle round-up and finding the alien remains from Roswell. Well, the first two are correct. Unfortunately for Team Aaaaarnhem, we had only one tank in service due to the SU and Hetzer suffering unrepairable breakdowns. That left Team Aaaaaaarnhem with only the Abomination, the Navarone gun and Bazooka Joe. Oh yeah, yesterday was a first. A one-man operational single shot bazooka. Job well done Mike. Mike had just finished Bazooka Joe around 2 AM. For just this battle we allowed Mike a full kill for landing one hit. He scored one on Doug's Tiger. And from what I heard later scared Frank quite a few times. Luckily for Frank the shots were wide and high. I look forward to seeing Bazooka Joe at Gettysburg next month.

Near the end of battle 2 Steve switched sides and we decided to invade and recapture the cow herd. At that moment, deep in enemy territory my Abomination decided to teach me a lesson. The left front drive sprocket was not straight but had a 30 degree camber. I was able to drive off the field and back to the main staging area. There I found that the nylon nuts had backed away enough so that one bolt came out completely (it's somewhere in the field) and the others were so loose that the sprocket could pull away from its mount. LESSON LEARNED: You cannot reuse nylon lock nuts.

Swamp Gold or Bust

The second battle required that we collect "gold" containers from along the creek. Many of the containers were placed in areas you'd normally wear hip waders to get to and we had to drive our tanks into that to get the gold. The Cromwell ate the muck and cattails for lunch.

The second battle was one-sided as Joe and Will had broken down leaving a lone John to defend. After having taken most of the gold and cows, I did a Benedict Arnold and traded sides to help out John. By this time John had lost a drive wheel nut and time was just about out so that was the day.

Battle Score

Team Dead Meat took advantage of some reliability problems on the opposing team and gathered up most of the gold and all of the cattle during the battle. They also pursued and destroyed opposing vehicles in various 2-on-1 engagements.