![]() ![]() F model, with the short, stubby gun - exhibits the eight road wheels per side and the longer, boxier hull, which distinguish it from the 'six a side', more compact Panzer III, pictured below that again. If you're not 'well up' on your panzers, one grey panzer might look very much like another but the Panzer IV below - an early Ausf. If I recall right, the stock Fredericus campaign starts you off in a Panzer IV with a short-barreled, low velocity 7.5 cm gun, only later getting the longer-barreled weapon with decent armour-piercing capability. To these, my modded install adds variants with different tanks. Out-of-the-box, I believe SF provides three campaigns based on the Second Battle of Kharkov, as follows: In my book, it's fine that you can't alter significantly the course of history, and good that you aren't stuck with having to replay unsuccessful missions, before you can progress to the next one. I think I'm right in saying that this happens regardless of whether you won or not. Complete one mission and the next one in the sequence is added to the list. After that, you can pick the opening mission from the list of those available for the campaign - just one, to begin with. However, you do get a short introductory video, with historical newsreel footage and captions which set the scene. So it's all a bit anonymous, with no real sense of role-playing. Whereas the campaigns in Ultimation's classic Panzer Commander placed you from the start in a famous tank division (complete with formation insignia in the campaign selection screen) in SF you learn which unit you're with, when you see the first mission briefing. Unit affiliation isn't a big thing with Steel Fury. So if you're rooting for the RKKA - the Red Army of Peasants and Workers - well, you can destroy all the fascists you like, but it's still gonna end in tears before bedtime. Each campaign is basically a sequence of scripted missions which, reasonably enough, follow the course of the actual battle, which you cannot change. You can review each tank's/crew's achievements at the end of each mission - but that's about it. ![]() But they and the crews of your other platoon tanks ('wingmen' if you like) are annonymous. You will see your crew members moving around inside, and sitting at open hatches of, your tank. While SF does support campaigns - and I believe you can create a player profile for each - there's nothing like M1 Tank Platoon II's crew management facility. But as far as the Second Battle of Kharkov went, the laurels belonged to the Wehrmacht. The Red Army had learnt its lesson and the next big offensive, when it came, would see the tables turned and 6th Army annihilated at Stalingrad. A more durable and decisive victory over the Germans would have to wait…for about six months, as it turned out. With these forces, the Germans soon stopped and then rolled back and utterly crushed the Soviets, who had, it seems, overestimated their capabilities and underestimated those of the still-formidable Wehrmacht. However, the Wehrmacht - including once more 6th Army - had been planning an attack of their own, code-named Operation Fredericus. Having thown the Germans back from the gates of Moscow over the winter of 1941-2, the Red Army's next major offensive came further south, in May 1942, with ferocious (and initially successful) concentric attacks aimed at retaking Kharkov. The Second Battle - the one featured in SF - came in early summer 1942. The First Battle of Kharkov in the Ukraine was fought in autumn 1941 during Operation Barbarossa, when the German 6th Army (later destroyed at Stalingrad) captured the city. So that's what I did, and here's how it went! So I never got around to playing the stock SF campaigns…until recently, when I decided it was a shame not to give them a tryout, at least. Refighting the Second Battle of Kharkov in Graviteam's classic WW2 tanksim!ĭespite acquiring Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942 (SF) not long after release, I only started seriously playing the tanksim years later, when modders added more (especially later-war) AFVs and generally extended SF's scope beyond the Second Battle of Kharkov in early summer 1942. ![]()
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