Glass Ceiling

The mood was mixed in the pit area before the battle began. A brand-new M1 Abrams arrived rom Chicago brought by Mark and his daughter April. The Abrams rolled off the truck and ... it worked. All systems operational, everything nice and new, Mark ready to rumble. A collection of veteran tanks and tankers also arrived each in a different state of functionality and repair. Most hadn't had much work done on them since last year, but all had at least passed their normal bench tests. Surprisingly, their weren't many tweaks to be made prior to the battle. Batteries were installed, CO2 bottles were filled, magazines were loaded and Windows was booted up on Doug's Tiger and control pack. The only downer was the fact that Steve Tyng couldn't attend because of a family medical problem. Nonetheless, the Cromwell was there and ready for action. All in all, it looked like a typical spring battle in the Mid-Atlantic region.

As the teams were being chosen and the scenario determined, Frank threw a monkey wrench into the works that shook up everything. Mark's daughter April and Doug's wife Tracy who came along for the ride were assigned to artillery duty ... each on the team opposite their partner. April reacted cautiously to the announced, but the gleem in Tracy's eye indicated that Doug might have a problem on his hands. Both were given quick tutorials on how to operate the artillery controls and both were taken out on the field by their respective team leaders and given basic instructions on what to shoot and what not to shoot. Since there were no supply vehicle operators, it was decided that the artillery operators would simply walk back to home base themselves when more ammo was needed. Furthermore, we allowed the artillery to be invincible (no guard soldiers) to "give the rookies a chance". That turned out to be an unnecessary allowance.

The scenario was designed to force maximum conflict in the smallest area. The two artillery pieces were placed on the outskirts of the town area (even though we didn't have buildings this day, it's still known as the town) along with 3 wide barricades. The General and his wife were placed inside the circle and a tower was placed at the center of the circle. The objective was to pick up the General and his wife using two different vechiles and get them to the centrol control tower at the same time to earn bonus points. Tanks on both sides could begin anywhere they wanted and both teams shared the same home base so that neither side had a logistic advantage.

The battle began with Team Tropic Thunder consisting of Frank (Tiger), Will (SU-100), Paul (Cromwell), Mark (M1A) and Tracy (Navarone) massing on the left side of town and Team Cliffhanger consisting of Joe (Hetzer), John (Comet), Doug (Tiger), Marty (Leopard) and April (88mm) on the right side of town. In the early minutes, both sides were cautious, trying to determine the best angles between the trees, bushes and barricades to keep away from paint and maintain shooting lines on the General and his wife. Despite the fact that Paul typically battles in a slow and methodical manner, the Cromwell forced him into a more hectic pace, racing around the town in what is now called "Tyng-style battling". Darting in and out, the Cromwell caused plenty of confusion on both sides.

At one point during the battle, Will's SU-100 had Marty's Leopard in his gun sights and was in the process of destroying the Leopard and sending it back to home base. As that was happening, Will realized that his SU-100 was being hit from somewhere and just as he determined the origin of the paint, the 4th paintball hit and the SU-100 was destroyed. At that moment, Mark swelled up with pride at his first battlefield kill ... no less a solo-kill in which he scored all four hits. His elation was short-lived, however, when Will told him that they were on the same team. Oh well, things happen.

It took Tracy and April a little while to determine (a) when to shoot, (b) where to shoot, (c) who to shoot and (d) how to shoot, but after a while paint started to flow regularly from the fixed artillery. With April and the 88mm opposing him, Frank kept pushing the limits to see how much she had learned. He started by darting out a little from the safety of the barricades or trees to see if her aim was sound. After getting hit in the thumb, arm and stomach in rapid succession, he determined that her trigger finger was working fine, but she was still learning how to use the elevate joystick. After the pain subsided, he learned to stand further off to the side of the Tiger when approaching April and the 88mm to pick up the General. A couple more fake runs to draw fire and April realized she had to reload. The Tiger raced to the General, Frank scrambled to throw him on the back of the Tiger and April quickly reloaded and repositioned the gun to shoot. But, before she could slay the Tiger, it was backing quickly out of town. With some un-intelligle cursing April declared she would take revenge. April successfully scored a hit on the SU-100, which is not an easy task either, apparently something that runs in her family.

While April was learning her trade on the 88mm, Tracy was quickly earning a reputation on the deadly Navarone Gun. Although tentative at first, she started throwing caution to the wind and lots of paintballs down-range before too long. Clearly, Tracy came into the battle with an agenda, because almost all of her shots were directed at Doug and his Tiger. While Doug was trying to attack the other tanks, Tracy would be targeting the Tiger wherever it went. Over the entire battle, Tracy not only hit the Tiger a total of 7 times, but she single-handedly destroyed the Tiger once ... her first solo-kill and the first solo-kill recorded by a woman in the history of the hobby. Although Doug mumbled something about her needing to get another ride home, he took it in stride and good fun was had by all over the matter.

Over the course of the battle, Team Tropic Thunder delivered the General and his wife to the central tower twice to earn a total of 5,000 mission points. Even without the bonus points, they scored enough hits on Team Cliffhanger to win the battle.