Monthly Archives: November 2017
TANKSgiving Gaming Nostalgia – France ’44
#TBT at GrogHeads for #TANKSgiving
What better #TBT ad for #TANKSgiving than a game with Patton’s Panzers chasing across France during WWII?
click images to enlarge
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Classic Reviews – World War II: Panzer Claws
“…by the start of the day, eight Panzers thundered mightily over the dusty tracks that passed for a road, with several squads of Panzergrenadiers in attendance. By the end of that day, resistance was so fierce that merely two Panzer III’s remained, both damaged, and nary an infantryman was to be seen…”
-From the author’s own After Action report
Michael Eckenfels, 22 November 2017
Developed by Zuxxez and Published by EIDOS Interactive
Panzer 101
Using World War II as its canvas, Panzer Claws paints an RTS strategy game in vivid appearance, clustered with frantic game-play that fits perfectly in the chaotic battles it portrays. Although not realistic – Panzer Claws has a resource-gathering and unit-building system similar to other RTS’s, such as StarCraft – the game is still fun to play.
Soviet heavy armor lined up in the dirty, smoky snow, awaiting orders.
Tuesday “Interview”: The Grogs’ Favorite Tank Games
We asked the Grogs to give us their favorite tank-heavy game ~
The GrogHeads Team, 21 November 2017
Cyrano
This one’s not even close: Combat Mission in its various iterations.
These are games played with a merciless physics engine that feel every bit as gritty and grand now as they did nearly two decades ago.
I remember getting hooked on the WEGO gameplay and the ability the 3D environment gave you to peek over the shoulders of your digi-troopers and guess at what war must have been like for them. Multi-player randomized battles to the wee hours of the morning were pretty great too. What made both x1 and x2 really special, though, was the incredible variety of, yep, AFVs. I’m not an WWII rivet-counter — I save my O.C.D. for Napoleonic games — but the fellows who designed Combat Mission are and it shows every time you pan around their products; not to mention the remarkable array of modifications available on-line. There are no CRTs or bog charts here. These are games played with a merciless physics engine that feel every bit as gritty and grand now as they did nearly two decades ago. They’ve let me play with some of the most famous tanks of the war and some I never even knew existed.
Others have come for her throne, but CMx1 and x2 are still queen of the battlefield for me when it comes to tank warfare.
TANKSgiving – Tanks and Armored Cars 1919-1939
Another gallery from a visit to Bovington ~
Avery Abernethy, 20 November 2017
The tanks used in World War 1 were monstrous beasts that stood well over the ground. Most carried machine guns or at best very light cannons. After 1918 the industrial powers realized that anti-tank guns (and even anti-tank rifles) could easily knock out a WW1 era tank because of its thin armor, weak engine, slow speed and very high gun profile.
Much of the interwar period saw the development of Armored Cars and light tanks. Armored cars were much faster than the WW1 era tanks (especially on roads) and carried either similar or heavier guns than WW1 tanks. Thus the armored cars were faster, lower to the ground, less expensive to build, easier to maintain, and had more firepower than a WW1 tank.
Many armored cars were developed immediately after World War 1 through the early 1930s. As they developed, they became lower to the ground.
The development split into three directions.
In one direction the gun was removed and it became a scout car. An example is the Dingo Mark 3.
TANKSgiving – Steel Beasts, an AAR
What better way to kick off TANKSgiving than a look at a mission with the leading commercial digital tank simulator ~
James Sterrett, 18 November 2017
Scenario: Platoon Attack in Winter by Zipuli, download here – requires a free account
The outcome of Steel Beasts missions varies. Sometimes you saw through the opposition:
