Originally posted by Widewing
Well, the Panzer does have a “magnifying” sight. Hit the “Z” key, zoom in and out using the “[ ]” keys. Works well.
My regards,
Widewing
I gave that a try last night with dramatic results!
I was involved in the base-ownership-swap battles going on over V69 (a vehicle base that spawns to 4 surrounding air bases, like a wheel). The Knights owned one of the airbases and the Bishops owned the other 3 (with the Rooks briefly owning a base but losing it before they could launch an attack on V69). I drove the Panzer quite a bit - on an offensive strike against an airbase and on a defensive sweep of a spawn point. Magnifying the aiming scope was a tremendous help in spotting the enemy and in placing my shots. I was in a two-hour battle with Booyall and Kite777 of the Bishops as we traded salvos and tanks. After I lost my turret, I was using the scope for spotting the rounds for my fellow Knights as they took positions behind me.
The Bishops owned V69 first, along with the adjoining air bases. Then we Knights got an airbase and launched a combined air/ground assault on V69. Once we had V69 we launched combined air/ground attacks on A3 (I think that was the number) and another Bishop base. After the Bishops had beaten off our assault they re-captured V69 but we launched a ground assault from our air base's vehicle hangar and recaptured V69 by air. I ended the night trying to stop Kite777 and Booyall from taking V69 again by the ground. I found that if I was patient and stopped the tank, fired, killed my target, then moved a bit until I found the next tank, stopped, fired, killed it, then moved on, I could take out targets with better accuracy and fewer wasted shells. It was also useful to fire the smoke shells to mark the general direction of the attack so that I had a landmark to use when traversing the cannon and maneuvering. I also learned that its possible to land a smoke shell in a tree!
During the ground assault on the airbase, I was in a Panzer, spearheading the armoured column. As I made my way to the ridgeline overlooking the base, I took out a couple of Ostwinds and another Panzer by using the magnification settings on the scope to sweep the terrain ahead of me. I would spot the target, stop the tank, aim, fire the cannon, magnify, adjust, fire again, repeat until someone is beaten.
On the climb up the ridge, I took out 7 aircraft by simply pinging them with the pintle and then watching them faceplant on their attack run, except for the last 3, for which I got proximity kills on because they couldn't navigate the ridgeline properly. By then I had lost my turret, both tracks, and an engine and was smoking badly. Since I still had my hull machine gun, I managed to ping up a Bishop M-16 from the airbase that was making a run for the Knight armoured division. I ditched for a fresh vehicle before I could get any credit for an assist.
At one point I used an M-8 to cap V69 and got a couple hits on a Panzer's tail end before getting blown to pieces by the Panzer's cannon. How many hits does an M-8 need to score with the AP rounds to kill a Panzer? Because of the terrain around V69, I wasn't able to get the M-8 Greyhound to its maximum speed and only got behind a Panzer once. The M-8 is a novelty - it doesn't seem to have much luck against the Panzer and Osti in a close-in battle.
This sim could really benefit from having an Allied tank (maybe a Sherman or Mathilda or Soviet T-34) and a German half-track weapons platform of some sort. I think some armoured TODs or scenarios would be a lot of fun.
Maybe its just me, but I find it hard to believe that an Ostwind would be capable of killing a Panzer. At one point, I was able to get some kills at V69 by parking my Osti behind the spawn point for the Bishop Panzers that were trying to launch. Not very realistic, and probably a bit gamey, but that's what I had to do to help my country assault the base. I think a more realistic result of Osti firepower would be a lost track or smoking engine, but not an outright kill
