1962 Tank Biathlon

[Markus Wilding]

OOC: Event thread for the 1962 Tank Biathlon. Cataphrak can fill in with fluff detail as he wants, but the basis of the competition is as follows: Players can send two crews and one tank to compete in a timed race combined with a shooting element. Targets will simulate enemy units as decided by Cataphrak. An obstacle course component will also be included, to be determined by Cataphrak. It is assumed that, even if at war with one another, nations will not shoot at the competition with their vehicles.

In your post, detail the following:

- What tank you are using
- Anything that could give your tank and crewmembers an avantage, such as recent combat experience, prior intensive training, higher maneuverability, etc.
- Name at least one crewmember and provide a short background

Once enough participants have joined, I will begin rolling. Use the time in between to interact with other nations and their tanks.

[Cataphrak]

The Armoured Training Course outside Kunming in Yunnan Province was a tank mechanic's nightmare, designed to chew up and spit out the most rugged and reliable vehicles in the National Revolutionary Army's inventory. It was a third dry and dusty sand, a third winding rocky passes, and a third old fashioned, completely unaltered jungle floor. Most of its ten kilometre length was made up of inclines of up to forty degrees. The course crossed three streams, one of which was more like a small river, with a depth of a metre and a bottom made up of soft, glutinous mud.

At the gate to the course were the turrets of vehicles which had been lost to the course, ones which had taken so much damage or broken down so spectacularly that recovery was impossible. There were six of them now, two of them added just this year.

Junior Sergeant Zheng was familiar with "Jungle Road Trip", as the old Burma hands of the NRA's armoured corps half-jokingly called it. He and his crew had run through it twice to qualify for the Type 48, the first time simply trying to pass the course as quickly as possible, the second as part of the advanced gunnery course, shooting at targets hung from trees with a single rope, so that even the turbulence from a near miss would be enough to set them twisting and singing wildly.

Now he and the crew of Long Dong were about to do them both at the same time.

• Tanks and crews are to race along one by one through a three-lap 10 km long unpaved course consisting of broken terrain, heavy inclines, and multiple geographical obstacles. There are to be no gunnery challenges on the first lap.
• On the second lap, tanks and crews will be required to engage targets simulating enemy armour at 2000, 1500, and 1000 metres with the main gun. These targets are arranged so that a miss on the first shot renders achieving a hit on the second considerably more difficult.
• On the third lap, tanks and crews will be required to detect and engage multiple concealed targets representing infantry anti-tank teams at ranges of 500, 300, and 150 metres with any weapon available.
• In the case of mechanical breakdown or crew exhaustion during a course, the crew must effect repairs without the assistance of support elements. If this is not possible, the tank and crew are disqualified.

[Markus Wilding]

Among other things, several nations sent armored vehicles to participate in the 1962 Tank Biathlon.

The Soviet Union, despite positively frosty relations between it and the Republic of China, sent two crews with the latest production model T-62, fresh out of the Moscow factory where it was built.

From just beyond the south came the Socialist Republic of Vietnam with the Hổ tank, which looked suspiciously like a Tiger I of WWII stock.

Japan dispatched its newest showing, the Type 61 main battle tank.

The Mexican Empire, after a confusing series of letters between it and the Chinese capital, sent two crews and what appeared to the casual observer a Mexican copy of an IS-3.

[Markus Wilding]

The SRA, after much consideration, eventually sent to China two crews alongside a relatively brand new M60 Patton tank, amusingly named Chinese Charlie by the crew. It had been a good year for the SRA's armored corps, all things considered - tank commander Lieutenant Johnny Blunt was fresh off of fighting in the Midwest Republics, wrought with open field fighting and brutal urban warfare that made anyone nervous. Still, it was time to see what the world offered and see if his crew could show the Chinese how real tankers fought.

But he did wonder who the hell would bring a Tiger I to a jungle fight.

[Niobium2]

Feeling that, with the war finished, it is now imperative to engage in international events with a spirit of amiability and camaraderie, Romania elects to send a tank. However, designs for the modern tanks called for by reconstruction are still in progress, leaving nothing but a collection of pre-war armor, almost entirely foreign. A fight ensues between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and certain officials in the Defense Department, but eventually the Ministry wins out. Feeling that it's more important to display an "original" Romanian design and "participate", even if their "tank" is completely untested in a desert or jungle environment, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs submits a TACAM T-60, despite protests that it may be immediately disqualified if judged to be a self-propelled AT gun.

Multiple modifications have been made to persuade the committee it is, indeed, a tank, including the addition of some peripheral armor, a mountable machine gun, a V-2 diesel engine, and a folding-tarpaulin roof.

Captain Daniel Ungureanu, a crack commander in the last war known for his bushy hazel mustache (and now grown rather fat as a result of his comfortable station), is given the humiliating task of leading the questionable team, along with four mechanical engineers and a backup commander. If allowed to compete, he'll be faced with the difficult prospect of preserving some Romanian dignity on the world armor scene.

[Alucard Tobor]

A seasoned lead crew and familiar backup crew were sent to the biathlon, with a 2M48A2 Tiger - freshly painted (to remove the UNDF markings it received before being re-tasked for the event) and an equally-new 105mm gun.

Chief Warrant Officer Kyung-tae Kuan was fairly pleased with his promotion. He was pleased considerably more with the new F2 105mm gun on the tank.

He was not, however, pleased with the performance of the primary crew.

Admittedly, they had been, like the other candidate crews, run through a variety of courses. They'd done well enough to get selected. They'd even lead the scoreboard for trials with the new guns. And yet, he couldn't help but feel somewhat despondent about their chances. Maybe he was just getting cynical.

Mud was simple enough to deal with; slow, but simple. Fording rivers? They could almost do it asleep. Engaging hanging targets? That one was new, but they had good gunnery scores. Concealed targets? Tougher, but still doable (he hoped). The 2M48 lacked somewhat in speed, but not in torque - inclines weren't much of a challenge.

Sand, however? Was the one thing the tank hadn't really seen any testing in.

Sighing, he stubbed out his long-dead cigarette and reached for a new one, watching Warrant Officer Sahng's crew go over their vehicle with a proverbial fine-tooth comb. At least if they lost, he'd only be out a tenner.

[Cataphrak]

Junior Sergeant Zheng was worried about the weather most of all.

Sure, he and his crew had run the Advanced Training Course twice before, but that had been in early March, during the brief respite of dry weather that came after the end of the period of pea soup fog that blanketed most of Southern China during the winter months.

Now, it was monsoon season, when it was less raining "cats and dogs" (to use a rather outlandish American phrase he'd picked up) but more like "jaguars and wolves", and the air resembled some sort of strange soup than anything breathable.

Not that Long Dong couldn't handle it. The Type 48 was designed for this sort of climate - it would have hardly been accepted for production if it hadn't. Its engine and gearbox ran as smoothly in the wet air as in dry, and its tracks had been purpose-built to handle the sort of "steam-house bullshite" which had proved the ruin of so many Shermans, Matildas, and Stuarts before it. His crew had done plenty of driving during last year's monsoon season too. The problem was, they hadn't done any of it on the Jungle Road Trip. Now, the streams they had effortlessly splashed through last year were raging torrents, the inclines were riven with deep flows of running rainwater.

Zheng didn't want to think about how bad the sand sections were.

At least his crew were spared the worst of it. The Type 46 Hat, Wet Weather (Conical) had a rubberised cover and a low-visibility nylon lining, but was otherwise almost identical to the conical straw hats which had been used in this part of China for centuries. Wearing it made Zheng and his crew look like some kind of racist stereotypes from a pre-war film, but it shed water completely and at this moment, Zheng would have been happy to dress up like War Criminal No. 1 Emperor Hirohito himself if it kept him and his crew dry.

Most of the other crews were not so lucky. The Vietnamese, at least, had brought their own wet-weather gear - understandable seeing as they too, understood the monsoon. As for the others? The Japanese team looked like they were seriously questioning the sanity of their forefathers for choosing to actively want to invade such a waterlogged place. The Romanians had, for some reason, brought an open-topped tank, and now seemed to be deeply regretting the fucking brilliant engineering which led to that idea. As for the others...

Zheng thanked whoever had designed the parade ground's drainage system as he made his way towards the Korean team. If it weren't for that, he'd probably had to have put on flood boots just to get anywhere.

"Why hello there!" he called out. "Enjoying our fine Yunnan weather?"

[Alucard Tobor]

Kuan gave the Chinese non-com an aggressively flat look from under the brim of his cap. Which, for its part, was doing only moderately well at keeping the rain off.

"Immensely." he deadpanned, sweeping his gaze across the en-dampened parade ground. "Though probably not as much as Team Romania, there." A smirk crossed his face briefly.

Directing a look at the Type 48 of the Chinese team, he hoisted an eyebrow at the younger man. "Care to put some money on the outcome of this whole thing? You'll be happy to know the bookies are giving you guys pretty decent odds."

[Cataphrak]

Zheng gave his Korean counterpart a dubious look. "I'm not sure about that, sir," he replied (if he read his rank insignia right, the Korean was a Warrant of some kind, and in the NRA at least, Warrant Officers definitely rated a "sir"). He nudged his chin at the Vietnamese team, sending a substantial stream of water trickling off the back of his hat. "Anyone who's brave enough to bring that monstrosity into weather like this has to have something up their sleeve."

[Alucard Tobor]

Kuan let a smirk form and stay in place, this time. "Bookies are torn between listing them as a wildcard or listing them as utter morons." he returned, shaking his head. I say option two, personally, but I guess we'll see. Not, 'sir', by the way - Chief Warrant Officer. 'Warrant' will do... Sergeant, if I have that right?"