did you manage to get a usb key ?
No it says they arent delivering to the UK because of brexit and i couldnt work out if that meant they would just do it digitally, so i bought a single year timed subscription for Ā£41
I forgot how bloody complicated and finicky it is though. Still having a fun time getting my Challenger 2 shot out from under me
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As tempted as I am to get back into SB, I still have my original Pro PE CD and Codemeter USB/Dongle and Iām sure that I still also have all the downloads to get me to Ver 2.something (have to find them, but I know I have them backed up somewhere).
However V4 is a bit pricy for what it is - Especially if they wonāt ship to Aus either.
I think I will stick with GHPC. It is much easier than SB in single player and when MP comes along I reckon it will be a hoot.
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Yep. Same here.
Iām gonna use SB when i want to learn to operate a particular Tank. Iām going to play GHPC when i want to kill things on the Fulda gap
I am rather enjoying the leopardo 2e though.
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Thereās a Leo 1A1 on the tank range map 
Just not playable yet.
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Xmas flight finished.
Downloadingā¦ā¦. (I hate you guys) 
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I bet once you start playing it youāre going to 
us.
Suggest you get the feel for it on the free roam map and Grafenwƶhr gunnery rangeā¦ or just dive in, the learning curve isnāt that steep.
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All this GHPC talk has me waxing nostalgic about my time as a ātankieā. About to fire GHPC up for a quick mission. But first, another āwarā story:
One of the funny stories.
When we took the tanks to the Adelaide F1 GP in 1989, we had the them on display and and were allowing the public inside one of them. At any given time there were two crew members on duty to answer questions and make sure that they didnāt touch anything that they werenāt supposed to.
I was on duty up on the turret while the driver was on the ground when an elderly gentleman (he would have been 70 if he was day) climbed up. It is worth noting at this point that at the end of WWII there was an influx of European immigrants to Australia and a lot of Germans settled in the Adelaide region - it is them we have to thank for all the very fine wines produced in the Barossa Valley.
Anyway, before I knew it he had removed the MG3 from the mount on the loaders cupola and had field stripped it and laid it out on the turret roof (perfectly I might add). As I stared at him open mouthed (WTF was going through my head at the time), he turned to me and in a very thick German accent said āyou know, zeese haf not changed since my timeāā¦
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Hahaha! Thatās hilarious and perfectly believable.
We have some wonderful lakes kindly dug by German POWs during the war. Many of them liked it enough they returned here after the war was over.
https://www.swt.usace.army.mil/Locations/Tulsa-District-Lakes/Oklahoma/Lake-Texoma/History/
I also didnāt realize that the MG3 made it to service in Australia. I would have assumed some kind of GPMG/MAG58 variant, but now that I think of it, Iāve never seen a Leopard that didnāt have an MG3 on the top of it. Were German tank factories just like Mercedes: āIf it needed that, we would have made it that way in the first place!ā? 
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Yeah, I have a love/hate relationship with that particular MGā¦ Mainly hate.
We only had the fast bolt (1100-1300 rpm) so I loved the rate of fire. MAG58 was only just coming into service back then, so only Infantry Battalions had them.
But the high ROF is why I also hated it, for two reasons:
- It was prone to jamming (mainly double feeds), and I mean constantly. Especially if the loader couldnāt keep the belt moving.
- Dismounted training. Gunner gets to carry the MG3 and enough ammo to feed it (at least 300 rounds of link)ā¦ At least the loader got to carry the spare barrels and another 200-300 rounds
We actually did a fair bit of this, basically because it was a much cheaper way to keep soldiers occupied than actually doing what we were trained forā¦ Like operating a tank for crissake.
So we would be driven 5km out onto the range and the scenario becomes āyour tank has been disabled, you have to push forward to the objective on footāā¦ At least it was better than painting rocks, or ābashing trackā or mess duty, or a ton of other mindless tasks.
The third reason I hated it was that it was a PITA to clean. The amount of carbon and gunk that would build up around the recoil booster and barrel bush would take (literally) hours to clean before it was good enough for the Q Store staff to accept back into the armoury.
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Wow, thatās very insightful regarding the MG3. Iāve honestly never read anything negative about it before (except for ammo consumption with the high ROF versions), but all makes sense. I know how dirty a rifle gets after a basic load or two goes through it, and can imagine how cruddy an MG would be after three or four times thatā¦
Question, since Iāve never given any thought to it: Is that scenario you described something that would ever actually happen in a wartime scenario?
An infantry platoon calls for armor support, tanks break down/hit mines/get stuck enroute, and so 4x dismounted (probably very surly) machinegun teams show up instead?
( I can picture it in my mind, angry tankers showing up lugging their MGs āthis is the best we could do!ā)
Or would the reality be focusing on securing/recovering/repairing the armor and letting another element take up the slack?
A fighter pilot isnāt expected to continue on foot and commando raid his strike target after ejection, and every book Iāve read (Chieftans comes to mind) depicts the crews E&Eing back to friendly lines, but obviously fiction is fiction. Whatās the reality?
ETA- Bonus ? Did you have a tripod on board for dismounted usage? I assume not, but hadnāt given it any thought.
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The thing to remember is that it was all very contrived and purely designed to make us practice our dismounted skills. Call me cynical but that was primarily because 24hr ration packs, a bit of boot leather and a few hundred rounds of 7.62 ball/tracer are a shedload cheaper than fuel at 6L per Km and 105mm ammo.
The ārealityā is that if the tank is disabled then so are are you!
The ātraining aimā was, basically, getting back to friendly forces ASAP, most often that was pushing on to the objective because that was where the rest of the SQN was heading and you could catch up with the logistics tail. And generally it was us calling for Infantry support rather than the other way around.
Our doctrine was that if the tank couldnāt be recovered, then the crew would destroy it (generally dropping a thermite grenade down the hatch and running away really fast) and continue on foot - One thing that is drummed into all recruits from day 1 is that you are all basic infantrymen, even if in reality you are a Catering Corps Steward.
No tripod, just the bipod.
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I second that, we had like 2 Mgs for our training Signal Corps platoon back in ā 89 and for whatever (unfair) reason I ended up cleaning one of them more often than not. The G3s were dirty, but the Mgs were a complete mess, especially with the fake bullets.
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Please dont ever stop telling tank stories @Harry_Bumcrack
They are awesome and interesting.
Iām relatively new to a heavy armour obsession but Iām in deep now and to talk to people who have done the job is brilliant.
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Can we just take a minute to celebrate my 100% gunnery score in the M1A2 on Steel beasts.
I finally did it just now
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I wholeheartedly second this! 
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Well done, that is no mean feat. From memory the best I ever achieved was 93% or 94% with the Leo 2A5
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So while we are talking about gunneryā¦
We would work up on an annual basis, Stage 1 gunnery (static firing position and static targets) through to Stage 4 (complex Battle Runs). The annual training cycle culminated with the Paratus Cup, which was held over two weeks and assessed crews in all aspects of operating a tank. The Troop with the highest aggregate score was awarded the āBest Tank Troopā title for that year - And got to take the tanks to the Grand Prix.
I think it must have been when we were doing Stage 2 gunnery (static targets but āon the moveā) Apart from the crew there was a SGT from Gunnery Wing at the School of Armour as an assessor - a temporary seat was placed in the storage bin behind the CC and that is where they sat.
We have pulled up in a hull down position with a shallow valley between us and the next ridgeline when we spotted a group of BRDMs (plywood sheets cut and painted to resemble the real thing). The order to fire was givenā¦ HESH, BRDM, On. Unfortunately I neglected to select HESH (the TFCS defaulted to SABOT) so my first round rather than following a nice graceful arc towards the BRDMs about 3 klicks away probably impacted about 300m in front of us,
Fast forward to the debrief:
Gunnery Wing SGT: Crew Commander what didnāt you do during the first serial?
CC: I didnāt double check that the gunner had selected the current ammo.
Gunnery Wing SGT: Gunner, what didnāt you do?
Me: Select the correct ammo.
Gunnery Wing SGT: Correct. And the proper response when you canāt see your fall of shot is āNot observedā not āWhere the Fck did that goā
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How did you not laugh when he said
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With great difficultyā¦ but I reckon that one of the reasons we got a pass (the rest of the run was clean and by the book) was that he was having trouble keeping a straight face as well
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