The Phantoms of the Steppes exposed.
| Face to Face | ||
| Aberdeen, Maryland 2000 | ||
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The Phantoms of the Steppes exposed.
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The
Rogues Gallery is another way
to "see" who you're dealing with!
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| Have you ever wondered what your opponent in PBEM looks like? Are you always trying to put a face on the guy who moves his tanks around like a damn demon and always seems to be in your rear areas when you least expect him? I know I certainly have attempted to place faces on many opponents, only to be surprised at the results, either from an emailed picture, a web page photo or the best way I know yet, face to face. |
| Recently I had the pleasure of meeting some of the great CS, & CM warriors, and shaking their hands. Richard Siebert III (The great Hermann Balck) and Herb Fair (H) organized a meeting for a few members of The Blitz at Aberdeen, Maryland. The Proving Grounds were a most perfect meeting place, all kinds of Armor, guns, & equipment directly related to wars from WWI all the way to the 1990's. |
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Richard Siebert III (Herman Balck), Herb Fair ( H ), Mitch Trent ( Mitch), Harry Curley Jr (Panzercurl), George Buzby( Gbuzby), Tony Alexander (Tony), My son, Jacob & myself, Randy Plume (RedDevil) all met around 10am at the Jagdtiger..
Well... Mitch, Tony, Jacob, and I did... The others were late! :) |
| Looking at the tanks outside on a chilly November day was certainly priceless. Although it can be done anytime, this time was well worth the anticipation that had been generated through the organizing Emails over the previous weeks. Once the initial meeting was over, we walked around and started chatting like we'd been friends for ages. We talked about the tanks and equipment, and slowly our conversations turned to EF, tactics, games played, strategies and opponents. Once that happened, gosh! you would of thought we was at an East Front war gaming convention. No typing on ICQ, no message board type conversation's here.. it was LIVE, and it made a world of difference. Now we could laugh at each other and not type LOL or ROFLMAO, we could interrupt and be right in each other's faces, we could fart and it would be noticed... (Not that anyone did fart ..BTW) |
| The sights at Aberdeen are eerie, strangely fascinating. One could almost imagine the battle surrounding each tank and hear the sounds of destruction in the winds. Looking at the damage suffered by some of the beasts, you wonder how the crews lived, if they did... Imagining how they moved those guns by hand in such short time periods, thinking how the crews hid such big tanks in the fields. Thinking about the soldiers who watched these giants crawl towards them with fire belching from their guns, spraying death in every direction. |
Wondering how beautiful a target that JagdPanther
was to a P47 pilot on a clear day?
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Walking through the 25 acres at
Aberdeen certainly
wasn't as tiring as one would have thought it to be. We were like children,
trying to climb on top of everything, peeking in holes everywhere, touching
the cold steel, philosophizing about the effects and results of each piece
of equipment.
No doubt, it was one of the best of times for all of us I
think, even my 5 yr old son, Jacob was putting on a most incredible act of
mannerisms, and he listened and watched and even asked pretty good questions
about some of the tanks and guns. We got to look at gun barrels,
MG's, rocket launchers, AA guns, AT guns,
mortars, you name it, we saw it ! You can to, by going to the
Aberdeen
2000 page.
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After spending some 4 hours wandering around,
looking, talking, and enjoying the sights inside the Aberdeen Visitor
center, we decided it was chow time. We all gathered around a big damn bomb
outside and took this group picture, which of course isn't exactly top
quality, but it gets a good feel for the event.
(Left to right, Mitch, Tony, Randy, Jacob, Richard, Harry, George, Herb)
(Ok, so George looks like Yoda in the picture... I had to paste him in there, as he took the picture.) |
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Mitch decided it was time to leave us to our stomachs and he headed up the interstate, to be back at his PC no doubt! So the survivors headed out to find a spot to eat, my son picked McDonalds.. Go figure. A two hour lunch almost turned into an all niter, we never stopped talking about EF scenarios and opponents, and new ideas. One of which is another springtime meeting at Aberdeen in the future, hopefully we can gather the same crew again and even add a few more battle hardened generals to the list. Its well worth the trip, I got 3 PBEM games out of it and a ton of pictures. |
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