THE MAIN EVENT II! Lord Bane vs. Matteponk

[Der Kuenstler]

Eight minutes into the contest Lord Bane's T34s continue to dominate. Here in the North we see one of Matteponk's green Pz IVJs was focused on an approaching T34 in the Southeast. Just then a T34 to the Northeast appears - the slow turreted green crew takes 12 seconds to turn and face towards the new threat. They are too late - the panzer gets drilled before it can fire. Two more shells slam into it before the minute ends.



Near the now dead IVJ in the North, Matteponk's regular IV70 gets one shot off at the T34 on the left and misses, then begins backing up after he finds himself between two of them firing at different angles. The T34 on the right hits him - Gun damage!



In town center, as predicted, Matteponk's IV70 drills LB's vet T34 in the side at point blank range and kills it.



But before two seconds even pass, the IV70 is hit by a shell from the conscript T34 in the background (see yellow line) and also becomes gun damaged!



To the South, Matteponk's IVJ brings down the house where one of the 100 point flags is. All the dust will block the T34s' view from firing at the footsoldiers for a while, but nobody was in the house.



It is the close of minute eight, before all of the foot infantry have even arrived, and Matteponk is down to only three functioning AFVs. Lord Bane has two bogged T34s and one immobilized, but 13 more are in good shape and swarming around the perimeters of the town.

The battle is only 1/4 over and what can Matteponk do? will the artillery FOs save him? Don't think so - 75mm & 81mm are too small to do much. Will the infantry save him? Not if they can be spotted from 150+ meters and blasted at with 85mm tank HE (Blast=70). Even veterans can't hold up under that kind of fire.

All appears lost - yet the proud and bloodied Matteponk shows no signs of surrender. If this really were a boxing match, the ref would have to step in and end the senseless violence.

From the Allied commander:

"Ok, situation looks really bad. Will try to smoke the hills and charge with two companies from different directions simultaneously. Hopefully, I'll overrun the russian infantry. Even if that works, we're in for a tough fight facing some 3-4 platoons of T43s, which can comfortably sit out of range of my panzerfausts and lob 85mm HE rounds at my poor infantry. We'll see what happens." - Matteponk