Ok my turn now
OverviewNice picture and text
BriefingGood, the briefing is functional, and accurate, and summarises the situation nicely. There is a notes section. "I can't help feeling bad about this. The mg position is so exposed to gunfire". This will later prove to be true
IntroSince the title now reads 'Crushed', you might want to change the text in the intro to reflect this, unless you still mean to have 'crushed under our tracks' come up as titletext. Otherwise, a decent intro, nothing spectacular, but decent
The actionThe little pre-intro is probably unnecessary, but I suppose it gives a little situational placement.
We begin. So, this is what the addon is like! I can now gun, which is an improvement. Our tanks roll towards the first town, opening fire almost immediately and tearing apart a t72. My tank starts machinegunning some unseen infantry, and a moment later they pop into view. I add my gun to the tank's. A second piece of armour of some description is decimated, and by now all 6 of our machineguns are firing at once. Infantry units are snubbed out before they can unprone and flee for their lives. I almost feel I am unnecessary, but it's early days yet.
1st objective is completed without a scratch.
We move off to our left towards the next objective, Things take a turn for the worse as one of the turret gunners goes down in a hail of bullets. Our leader takes a couple of laws to the front and sides. I'm shoot at the culprits, and get some of them, but my gun keeps twitching - the main gunner accounts for most of the rest. I notice a rusky in the tower; he looks back down at me but seems disinclined to do anything. He quickly dies. One interesting consequence of the turreted mg is that the survivng enemy troops atempt to grenade us as we hurtle past. Nice effect; it makes 'em look desparate. Which they are; if this was meant to be an ambush, it was pretty ineffective. Perhaps have the ambushers start further back in the forest, where they are not immediately obvious? Either way, we clear this obsticle.
2nd objective completed, minor casualties.
We meet up with 'our infantry boys' and prepare to assault the last town. Our tank gets stuck behind some of the ground forces, which later turns out to be a blessing. The others move on up. After a short interval, fighting breaks out. Bullets flying past. Tanks firing up ahead. Our infantry clashes head on with the enemy forces. Several rpg soldiers appear on the road, but they're too busy with the infantry to bother with us. I gun them down. More battle noises coming from up front - but our tank seems to be determined to avoid even the chance of getting hit. I'm shooting at the occaisionaly soldier that pops up now and then, but am conscious that I'm not doing a hell of a lot. Further ahead, the others abrams have run into what seems to be the main body of the enemy forces, and are stopping a few rpgs. Our leader loses his main gun, and goes 'status red'. My tanks crushes a tree and suddeny the enemy is exposed to me. I'm firing non stop, don't know how much I'm hitting, but it seems that in conjunction with the main gunner, the firepower our tank can produce is quite fearsome. Unfortunately, I cannot keep up this rate of fire and, somewhere around 2 thirds of the way through the assault I run out of ammo. So I sit back and get a lovely view of my abrams going to work. Soon the heat dies down a bit, and I chance a walk outside my tank. I Manage to score a few kills on foot, as the russian soldiers are too preoccupied with the abramses and the remainder of our infantry. After a short while I judge it wise to return to my seat. A final squad hiding to the north? of lamentin is eviscerated by the M1 that's still in good repair. And the mission ends, abruptly. We've taken the town.
3rd and final objective completed, moderate casualties, one abrams disabled, 2 crew deaths. And a whole heap of our grunts, by the looks of things.
OutroA wide angle of the city. Some comments about the view and the carnage. Decent camera work. But there's definitely room to expand here.
Overall comments. Well, I want more! playing as a tailgunner as it were was a new experience, and surprisingly fun. But the mission was short! I think Lamentin should be the half-way point, with a rearm/repair, and some replacements, then we move on North east. I'd like to see the player have a wider variety of experiences if possible, perhaps some minefield clearing
a la facile ground, or fighting off an AT soldier ambush. Something that puts more emphasis on the player's gunning skills, as opposed to leaving the work up to the player's tank and/or supporting infantry. I never felt as though I was in any danger, sitting in my confy m1a1 (despite the other two tanks taking somewhat of a beating). I'd like to see the ambush (if it was that) between the first and second towns reworked. I think several people have mentioned this already. BUT: the mission has found a niche! Most, I would say the large majority of missions see you as a frontline soldier, tank commander, blackop or combat pilot, and suprisingly few see the player in support roles, ie engineer, medic, or in this case, tailgunner. Some of the most enjoyable missions (for me) involve this aspect to some degree, which is why I liked Crushed. Keep it up Greg!