McIvan's View - Clash at Pavlograd - McIvan v [hirr]Leto

[McIvan]

After three weeks Pete is still shaking his head over the two no effect penetrations of my PIII by the unlucky T70. Colonel T knows what Leto's like when he starts bemoaning the fates conspiring against him...he's always highly amusing :)

Personally I don't think you can expect too much off small calibre solid shot rounds. It's like having 2pdr armed tanks....you've really got to pump quite a bit of AP into the German tanks to get results.

First order of business.....the Stuart that wandered behind Hill 161 seeking to blindside the armoured cars and 251/9 but ended in the sights of my quad 20mm AA gun, taking a penetrating hit right at the end of last turn.



Instantly the turn starts, the Stuart slews sideways a little and comes to a halt. This is good and bad. Good because that kind of slew tends to indicate a tank knocked out. Tends to mind. Ain't certain. Bad, however, because it places the Stuart at a very handy angle for bouncing 20mm AP rounds.

The Quad happily fills the Stuart full of 20mm AP, but they're just bouncing harmlessly off....no, there's a partial penetration. Chewing through its entire remaining stock of eight AP salvoes, the crew score two partial penetrations and one full penetration through the lower hull. They then switch to HE and deliver another seven salvoes of that...hitting every time but scoring absolutely no external result that I can see....15 salvos of 20mm AP and HE and no immobilisation and no gun damage. Even though it didn't move, it might still actually be alive, just shocked. I think it's dead. But......is it?!?

Bah :/

Troops move up slowly and steadily in the background, out of sight at the time that screenshot was taken. The armoured cars and 251/9 turn themselves around with the inevitable dodgems confusion.

Meanwhile an adventurous T34 comes slowly down the main road....



For a little while there one of my advancing PIIIs and the T34 catch sight of each other, but the T34 isn't on hunt orders, and before anything can fire it moves out of sight behind the burning building, where there is a short pause as it re-orientes its waypoints from getting hung too close to the fire.

Carrying on, it ends up next to the Church, getting a burst of MG fire for its trouble, but fortunately (for the T34) not attracting a close assault.

I suspect Pete was pushing it through with the intention of helping out the Stuart, or at least avenging it. I'm going to have to shift stuff pretty smartly if it gets into the rear.



Dunno if the fire from the half squad killed the tank commander. It was pretty close range......but I went in close and listened for a sound of pain.....nothing. Oh well.

On the Right

Pete's hapless T70 is being targeted by no less than 3 Panzer IIIs....er, only two of which can see him as he keeps reversing back behind the wheatfield fire...



Happily for Pete's tankers, the PIIIs continue to shoot with all the elegance of a blind man kicked off balance in the middle of a china shop. The T70 goes back out of sight completely unharmed, while one of the PIIIs is momentarily distracted by a T34 as mentioned earlier....never gets a shot off tho.

Going behind the haystack, it gets picks up in a crossfire by the PIII sitting on top of the railway embankment which fires and misses. After a few secs the T70 crew realises there are some drunk Krauts shooting at them and may one day hit, so it scoots backward again, heading toward a shack. The embankment PIII shoots again and, yes, misses again. Orders kick in and it heads down the embankment with the intention of flanking the T70 next turn in a crossfire. Meanwhile, the two PIIIs in the wheatfield are cruising forward on hunt orders. One of them acquires the retreating T70 and finally hits it, but with sad predictability the 50mm round simply bounces off.....



Will that bloody tank never die?!? :)

On the other hand, the second PIII acquires the T70 that a minute or two before had retreated back under a hail of (missing, naturally) fire from the Sd251/9 by the side of the Small Arms factory.



Oh yeah, baby! One shot, one hit and.....after a few seconds wait....one kill. That's how it's done in the Wermacht.

From the look of the T70's turret and lack of response, it seems to me that the turret penetration of that T70 a long time earlier in the game had resulted in gun damage....was a sitting duck. No sympathy for the untermensch round here!

Back goes the turn to Pete for him to have a look at the replay. Hope that blimmin Stuart is dead.