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Preparing For War
It didn't start well, what with us discovering some of the controls were
backwards on my C6C, but there we go. I forgot to take the manual with
me, and hence couldn't flip them around!
Shortly afterwards, we were
startled by a rather nasty sounding "phut t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t
t t" sound coming from Pete's Valentine turret. This was due to a small
problem involving a solenoid overheating. Luckily, and I'm not entirely
sure how, but it got fixed and the Valentine was back to "working". I
say "working" as it's currently minus tracks, so was relegated to being
a piece of field artillery.
Phil, after suffering a broken motor a few weeks back, and having had
everything else working fine, suddenly found himself unable to fire,
thus putting a stop to his T057 doing anything but being a field
obstacle. This, while unfortunate, didn't stop the fun.
We also managed to scavenge cardboard boxes for village houses, so
that was good.
Team Selection
The teams were formed as follows:
- The North (Kings Own Regiment)
-
Neil Rochford (Leopard T051),
Pete Arundel (Valentine - artillery)
- The South (Loyalist Government Forces)
-
Chris Malton (Hetzer T027),
Tom Conlon (Locust T055)
- Neutral Supply
-
Jason Pompeus (Willy Jeep SV012)
with Phil Palmer serving as Contest Director (CD).
Battle #1 Summary
A mere 1 hour and 10 minutes late, we started with an
all-out-war scenario - and then things broke down.
T027, the Hetzer lost power
to the radio receiver. This resulted in Neil's Leopard coming over at
quite some speed and scoring 3 quick hits to allow me to return to our
home base under human power. Once back, a quick investigation revealed
why. The brand new C6C was flashing red, and so a quick bit of wire
jiggling, and a bit of electrical tape, and all was working again.
Thereafter, T027 performed wonderfully. T027 was definitely the most
reliable tank on the day, as it had loads of battery power left at the
end, as well as being perfectly able to fire paint for the whole battle
(and I'm sure it could have carried on).
Meanwhile, Neil was
systematically annihilating anything on the battlefield. Unfortunately,
due to some technical issues, everything stopped for about 30 minutes
for repairs. We'll call that the end of sortie 1.
Musical Chairs
During the break, a number of operators swapped places so that everyone could share
in the fun, resulting in the following teams for Battle #2.
- The North (Kings Own Regiment)
-
Neil Rochford (Leopard T051),
Pete Arundel (Valentine - artillery)
- The South (Loyalist Government Forces)
-
Phil Palmer (Hetzer T027),
Chris Malton (Locust T055 - artillery)
- Neutral Supply
-
Tom Conlon (Willy Jeep SV012)
with Jason Pompeus serving as Contest Director (CD).
Battle #2 Summary
Wait, who said that the batteries could only last an hour? After a lot
of repair work, mainly involving T055 and the drive system contained
within, we decided that T055 would have to turn into an artillery piece
for the second of the battles. This changed the dynamic completely, as
there were now 2 artillery pieces, separated only by a cardboard box.
Phil also decided that a change of scenario would be a good idea, so it
was a case of capturing Eric and bringing him back to your team's
artillery position. This was relatively straight forward after a quick
swap of contest directors from Phil to Tom, so that Phil could try
driving T027, with backwards controls. This battle was much of a
muchness, and not a huge amount happened, although Phil did manage to
capture Eric for a 1500 point bonus. War waged on for at least 10
minutes more, before finally I looked at my watch, which was showing
roughly quarter past four, and we decided to call it a day there.
Lessons Learned
- RC Tanks are, quite simply, plain awesome!
- RC Tanks can be very reliable (Looking at T027)
- New, untested stuff doesn't always work, but often it's fine.
- Carry spares of everything. From fuses to solenoids to motor
controllers, the one bit that goes wrong you won't have a spare of.
- The C6C controller is by far the cheapest way of controlling an
RC Tank, and it works very well (provided you have the instructions).
- While safety is important, and you do need the masks, in general
the safety takes care of itself. This allows you to have fun!
- Neil has run out of space to build new stuff.
- Neil has nicked my idea and wants to build a Challenger 2.
- Everyone does their bit for everyone else. Or in Pete's case,
you do everything for everyone else.
- Friendly rivalries are good and bad.
- Having one of these beasts puts you in a relatively exclusive
position, and that's probably a good thing.
- Everyone loved the location, and wants to use it again.
- I need to make some space in my room for a tank or two.
A Few Thanks
There's a number of people to thank for making the Chelmsford Conflict possible:
- Neil Rochford - I don't know what we'd do without your 3 tanks and a
supply vehicle. It really makes such a difference
- Phil Palmer and Pete Arundel - Sorry that Phil's tank didn't work on
the day, but having you there made everything run smoothly, and made
sure somebody was going to end up being CD!
- Dr. Mike Walker and Mr. David Crook at King Edward VI Grammar School,
Chelmsford - Without their support, I would not have been able to
provide a battlefield for Sunday.
- Mr. Patrick Hawkes - The field groundsman.
- Matthew Reeve - Thanks to him for writing a very good background.
- Frank Pittelli - Thanks to Frank, we had enough radio units for Sunday.
- Frank Pittelli and Steve Tyng - For having the idea of paintballing
tanks in the first place!
Scoring
The scoring for the battles were as follows. NOTE: The delivery contract between
Jason Pompeus and Pete Arundel stated that Jason would be paid 100 points for each
delivery made. That point exchange is recorded in the "Mission Pts" column for each battle.
In Battle #2, Phil Palmer earned 1,500 mission points for capturing Eric and apparently
decided to keep them for himself, instead of sharing them with his teammates.
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