Introduction
After a hectic first day, the battlers went out for dinner at a local
pizza parlor to replenish their bodies, discuss the day's events and
generally just enjoy sitting down and relaxing. Feasting continued the
next morning at breakfast where everyone was well advised to forego ordering
a "bowl of oatmeal" (apparently in up-state New York, a "bowl" is just shy
of a "trough" ... as Frank learned the previous morning). With full bellies
and blue skies, everyone headed out to the battlefield again for the
third and final battle of the weekend.
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Brother, Can You Spare Some Pennies?
After preparing the vehicles for war, the host of the event, Bill Johns,
gave a demonstration of metal casting outside the Antique Center. He started
by filling the bottom half of a form with sand, packing it just right so
that it wasn't too tight or too loose. Then, he covered the plastic part to
be cast with some "magic powder" so that it would release properly from
the sand. The set-up process was completed by placing the part in the mold,
covering it completely with sand and digging some access ports to allow the
molten metal to flow in and the air to flow out. While all of the setup
was being done, a bowl (regular size) of pennies was heating over a hot-plate
to the point of melting.
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When all of the pennies had melted, Bill carefully
poured the molten metal into the hole in the sand mold, while
Billy, Frank and Will looked on at a safe distance.
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Click Photo For Enlargement (181 Kb) |
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Click Photo For Enlargement (121 Kb) |
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As the molten metal cools inside of the mold it contracts drawing
more metal down the spout. In larger castings, they continue to
apply heat to the spout so that it is the last part to cool, thereby
ensuring that metal can flow into the part as needed.
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After letting the casting cool for a few minutes, Bill broke apart
the two-part mold and released the new metal part, which was still
quite hot.
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Click Photo For Enlargement (89 Kb) |
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Click Photo For Enlargement (133 Kb) |
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The rough casting is displayed next to the original part.
After a little trimming and filing, it will look great. Just
a couple hundred more to go!!!
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It's A Good Day For War
A new scenario was chosen for the 3rd battle called "Around The World".
The game would consist of three teams, the Blue Team (consisting of Frank's
Tiger, John's Panzer IV and Steve's T-34 operated by Amir), the Red Team
(consisting of Will's SU-100, Joe's Hetzer and Paul's KV-1), and the
Neutral Team (consisting of the Pak 40 and Howitzer operated by Steve
and Billy). The game would begin with General Patton in the middle of
the field, defended by the field-artillery place alongside hay bales on
the southern side of the fields. Two other hay bales were placed approximately
30 feet away to the north, to form a "gate" between the two home bases.
The goal of the game was to pick up the General, drive him around the
opposing home base and back to your own home base. To make it more
difficult, however, whenever the General was on-board a vehicle, that
vehicle had to pass through the gate when running from one base to another.
The field artillery were again considered invincible and neutral, firing
at anything that moved into their firing range.
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It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad War
With a top end speed higher than any other vehicle, it was clear that the
Hetzer would make a dash with the General on-board whenever possible. As
such, the Blue Team decided to focus their efforts on securing the
hay bales on the northern side of the gate. With those hay bales secured,
they could generate a cross-fire with the artillery and keep the Red Team
from picking up the General.
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Unfortunately for the Blue Team, Steve Tyng had different plans regarding
the use of the field artillery. Basically, if anything moved within
range of his guns, he relentlessly fired on it. Red Team, Blue Team, it
didn't really matter. If you moved within 50 feet of the center of the
field, the Pak 40 would rain down paintballs on you. In fact, it wasn't
even safe to hide behind the hay bales, because Steve was scoring hits on
the tips of barrels that stuck just a little too far out. Although not
strictly allowed by the rules, Steve was sighting the gun by hand and
firing and loading as fast as possible. (We wanted to see the maximum
effectiveness of fixed, invincible artillery for future reference.)
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More than a couple times, Frank's Tiger was pinned down by Steve's
constant barrage while facing on-coming tanks from the Red Team.
Fortunately, John and Amir would bail (or was it bale) him out a number
of times, drawing fire from the artillery and keeping the Red Team at bay.
Amir initially thought that Steve would be slow to shoot at his own
tank, but Amir quickly learned that Steve will shoot his own father (and
has already) if given the opportunity. Once that lesson was learned,
Amir concentrated on steering clear of the "death zone" and started
to enjoy operating the Russian killing machine.
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Speed Kills
Joe's Hetzer did indeed have a speed advantage and after a couple
false starts he picked up the General and raced towards the Blue Team
home base. Plotting a large, sweeping course, he planned to simply out-run
the Blue Team defenders and race home to glory. For the most part his
plan worked well, with Frank in pursuit but unable to land the necessary hits.
John's Panzer stayed more or less in the middle of the field and took aim
at the Hetzer, landing at least one hit. But, the Blue Team was unable
to destroy the Hetzer on their side of the field and Joe need only
pass through the gate again to reach the safety of his own side of the
field. Of course, Steve had different plans and when the Hetzer came within
range, he unleashed a barrage of accurate paintballs, scoring two
hits on the Hetzer to end the run. The General dismounted and stood
in the middle of the field awaiting another attempted run.
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The Hetzer threw a track at one point for some unknown reason,
but was quickly repaired by Joe in the field.
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Student Body Right
Around the midway point of the battle, both sides were licking their wounds
and trying to figure out how to get through the gate twice without being
destroyed. Frank's Tiger was again hiding behind the hay bales in the
middle of the field when he noticed that Steve needed to reload, leaving
the General un-defended. He quickly snatched the General and started moving
towards the Red Team home base. Fortunately, the SU-100 and Hetzer were
being worked on or reloaded as well, leaving just the KV-1 to stop the end
run. The Tiger pushed around the Red home base and stood toe-to-toe with
the KV-1. The first vehicle to move would probably get hit, so both
waited for re-inforcements. Blue Team members arrived first, covering
the Tiger as it backed away from the KV-1. When it neared the hay bales
the Tiger swung around to face Billy's Howitzer, which was throwing paintballs
in all directions. Fortunately, Billy soon ran out of ammo and while
he was reloading, the Blue Team made their move. The Panzer IV and
T-34 formed a rolling wall, shielding the Tiger from the Pak 40's paintballs.
The Pak 40 quickly killed both the Panzer and the T-34, but with only
10 paintballs in the magazine, it didn't have enough to finish the Tiger
(not to mention the fact that the destroyed tanks were still sitting
in front of the Pak 40). The Tiger raced through the gate and on to
it's home base to complete the only run of the game.
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The Panzer IV makes it's way slowly towards the Forest, where the Tiger
and KV-1 are once again skirmishing. John ran his tank hard during the
whole battle and was paying the price as it slowed down near the end
of the battle. (Perhaps he didn't charge the batteries overnight properly.)
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The KV-1 shows some scars from the weekend of battling. The front
of the turret was made from wood that couldn't quite hold up to the
force of some paintballs shot at close range.
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Offical Scores for Coxsackie Battle #3
| 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 |
4 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2,000 |
2,000 |
0.500 |
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T005 |
Amir Tahvildaran |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
500 |
1.000 |
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T012 |
John Pittelli |
12 |
5 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
3,000 |
1,250 |
0.294 |
| TOTAL |
20 |
11 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
5,000 |
3,750 |
0.429 |
| Neutral |
FA001 |
Billy Johns |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
250 |
1.000 |
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FA002 |
Steve Tyng |
0 |
24 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
6,000 |
1.000 |
| TOTAL |
0 |
25 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
6,250 |
1.000 |
| Red |
T010 |
Joe Sommer |
15 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
3,750 |
750 |
0.167 |
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T018 |
Paul Pittelli |
0 |
6 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1,500 |
1.000 |
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T026 |
Will Montgomery |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
500 |
1.000 |
| TOTAL |
15 |
11 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
3,750 |
2,750 |
0.423 |
| Asset |
Type |
Net Points |
| FA002 |
PAK40/L46 75mm Anti-Tank Gun |
6,000 |
| T018 |
KV-1 |
1,500 |
| T005 |
T-34-85 |
500 |
| T026 |
SU-100 |
500 |
| FA001 |
155mm Howitzer |
250 |
| T001 |
PzKpfw VI-I Tiger |
0 |
| T012 |
Panzer IV |
-1,750 |
| T010 |
JgPz 38(t) Hetzer |
-3,000 |
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The battle scores clearly reflected the rules of the game that required
both teams to drive through the center of the field, which was well
covered by invincible artillery pieces. Steve's relentless firing
on all vehicles paid big dividends for the Neutral Team, beating
the score of the other two teams.
Interestingly, since the Hetzer had the best speed and was therefore constantly
trying to move the General around the field, it was clearly the center
of attention. It was killed five times during the battle, which were the
only kills for the Red Team (either Will and Paul didn't participate
much or they forgot to record their scores).
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Not all the excitement was on the battlefield. On the way
home this car was spotted on fire by the side of the road,
causing the backup seen in the rear-view mirror.
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