Tanki and real History

[sabot4855 9]

OBSERVATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

 

ARE YOU RED OR BLUE
After thousands of battles I have noticed players who chose red teams tend to be more aggressive than blue team choosers.  Occasionally a blue team will step up to the pump. But aggression has a lot to do with color temperature, red is intimidating, blue is calming.  
 

This occurs most prevalently when a choice based on location is evident.  A majority of the time this is true in Silence where the blue team has the high ground with a view advantage on the “south ramp” .  They play defensive blocker or what I call Tanki-poo.

 

TANKI-POO
Is when a blue team member is just sitting on the ramp with their tank usually an Isida, Firebird or Freeze flag game playing defender.  BUT while they are popping, burning or electrocuting someone, they are accomplishing little for their team.    Meanwhile their teammates are staring at each other. The aggressive one acted and they have nothing to do. They may get  lucky,  get a  tank or two on the ramp (noting not for the team) but themselves.   Great break for the red team as they are building a mass attack, clobbers the blocker and they get to the top and clean the deck.

 

Happens every game.  A lot more times than less, and it breaks the back of the Blue team.  A hot red aggressive team will cream them.

 

On the other hand the red team has to climb to get gun position.  Aggression is the key to winning in real war as in Tanki.   But part two is whether you are using smart or dumb aggression… and working together.  No sense getting to the top, yelling follow me, and no one does, no teamwork. Those that have teamwork win.  

 

HISTORY:  The brilliant Russian General Zhukov the real brains of the soviet tank force once said and obviously Stalin claimed it... You fight a battle on the other mans land.  Not on your own, you win nothing in defense. And he who sits in a foxhole waiting for the enemy might end up to his neck in his own sh*t.

 

 

HISTORY: Ask Rommel how important this was at the second battle of El Alamein.  The coordination of firepower and deployment gained an allied victory after being defeated by Rommel in round one.

 

They came back with a plan of smart aggression and won. They had learned a key point in winning. No gas, dead tank.  Patton had read Rommel’s book on tank warfare. He knew what Rommel was going to do just like patterns you see in Tanki. He also cut off Rommel’s gas. He also out flanked him in ares thought to be safe and the Sherman’s worked well from the sides not having to go head to head with the German Tanks.

HINT:   On the Mammoths , kill the Isida’s they are the fuel trucks and you’ll see how fast you and your teammates can bring down the Mammoth with no gas....

.

 

HISTORY:
Stalin was a tyrant but a smart one and if you read his words you understand ruthless power is corrupted but works.  He said, “ His power exists strictly measured by how far his tanks can travel in a day”.  

Hint:  A lesson here, no sense showing up with the power level on your tank at dark blue, no fuel in the flamethrower, low on freeze, drugs all gone and taking on a Titan or M3 Mammoth head on.
 

 

YIKES that’s a M3 Twin coming at me…
Most important trick or tip is get a team mate to “sink the tanker”, kill the Isida carrying the fuel for the monster Mammoth M3 which eats gas like crazy.  Soon it looses its drugs.

 

My first shot with the shaft I take out the fuel supply, the Isida, or two for Titan.  Then we work on the M3 monster.  You need distance and coordination. An M3 on drugs may need four or more hits.

 

You are on the wrong team, if you join a team late and see seven of the ten players on the other side are Generalissimos running Mammoth M3’s with Thunder, Twins, Smokey’s and Freeze M3’s, and your players are Wasps and rail guns...please follow the forthcoming suggestions:

 

Quit, because you are in for a very noisy long day, and have become “Canon Fodder” for their sport. No harm intended but history is history even in a game.  That’s why the other guy left and opened a slot for you.  Lots of quitting lately.  Team gets down four points and the rest drop off like flies.  

 

Rarely have I seen some fight on and live. On occasion the defenders really needed someone to pull them together and show how to take these guys out. After we did with my partner, some of the noobs developed courage when led not knowing what to do…two of us charged right in, the noobs picked up on it, we went on to win, but we had good followers who learned fast.

 

RUSSIAN AGGRESSION
I am far back Russian in heritage, my family coming from a place called Vishnoa near Odessa back after WWI. So Im not picking on my Russian friends.   In the service I learned more about Russia, lots more than my grandparents taught me, as it was my job to.   I have fond memories of peering out a portal and looking at a Mig-21, that close, and smiling at the pilot.   I saw the first version of the Atoll missiles under the wings.  He held up a finger, I held up the centerfold of Playboy magazine.   He changed fingers, thumbs up.

 

The Tanki Russians love big, powerful tanks like the Mammoth M3 and drugs and take pleasure in blasting you with M3 Thunder or for no skill shooting, the spray turrets, M3 Ricochet, M3 Twins and M3 Freeze who really aim by follow the stream.  They can easily bulldoze over the smaller ranks trying to defend a position. Two or three can take out an entire side in a minute. Since Silence and Silence II are ramped up trials, bulldozing is popular, but the trick is getting them before they can turn. They are more vulnerable from the side and rear than the front.  Head to head and you lose.

 

Also they are great chess players and a good player knows the balance, posture, power and control each piece has. Thus applying technique from chess to Tanki brings the thinking aggression into the forefront.  And they rely on teammates more so than the John Wayne approach from the West. You’ll see them working in pairs and very efficient.

 

HISTORY
Initially this contradicts part of their dogma in WWII when their saving grace was their best medium tank, the T-34.  Weighing 58,000 lbs, the T-34 was a simple design, combined with a 500 Hp Diesel capable of open country 35 miles an hour sporting a very basic fast 76mm gun.  A current Abrams almost makes 70 tons and a new Russian prototype even more.

 

On the T-34 A domed casted turret rather than welded deflected many killing shots and was faster and cheaper to build. It was also a better-powered winter tank than the Germans had. 
The T-34 was a good tank that could be cheaply and quickly made. No, it was not the most advanced tank but it did the job. The German tanks were better but were complicated and hard to maintain.
 

It’s worst enemy was the Panzer Faust a cheap, single shot, recoilless German anti-tank weapon of World War II. It consisted of a small, disposable preloaded launch tube firing a high explosive anti-tank warhead, and was operated by a single soldier. The Panzer Faust was in service from 1942 until the end of the war.

 

By the end of the war, leapfrogging, begat survival.  To fight the numbers and very fast T-34’s the Germans unleashed the Tiger and King Tiger tanks.  They were up-gunned and the heavier Tigers were formidable against Sherman’s and T-34’.   But soon numbers and tactics of the allies  (hitting their side and rear) and the Tigers poor mechanization left them dead and dying on the battlefield.  They ran out of gas and parts. In the tank game that’s called being a fixed target or target of opportunity.

The Russian KV-I and the latter “Josef Stalin” IS-1, 2, 3 were the formidable successors and they led the march into Berlin.  The monster IS-3 was a powerful tank with a huge 122mm gun for that day.  
But it’s Achilles’ heel was  speed, it is slow, rarely better than 20 miles an hour.  But for knocking down buildings with one shot, excellent.  For ten years it was the most powerful tank in the world.  And the only opponent it had was a heavy western tank and the Sabot Uranium round and…thats how I got my name. The helicopter and A-10’s changed all that. It proved it in Iraq.

 

They Russians like the red side, no harm, national pride in their country. And when you are the only blue tank at the top of Silence and everything is red around you…”bye-bye”.  This is verified also by the score of 14-2 and you are on the 2 side.

 

It is also verified by the fact you will be blown up constantly as soon as you come out of morph, and you never see the entire field.

 

When the other team has ten players and your team has four it’s not the time for the Mighty Mouse theme, “Here he comes to save the day” and you are Mighty Mouse. You will become the  “Mighty Chicken Parts” and thrown in the chicken noodle stock pot.

 

SHAFT (GIVING and GETTING)

 

If you join a team late and see seven shafts out of ten parked in defensive positions, waiting for a kill, you are in for a long day and low scores.  Simple 70% are not involved in getting Flags, just points.  We call this a bad mix.

 

A) The other teams know where the shafts hang or camp and can make canon fodder out of them, even if they are good.

 

B) They know they are focused on something else and easy to clobber from the side or back with almost anything. FZ/RC/FR/S/T The snap shot feature is weak.

 

C) They are usually mounted on some of the heavier hulls and slow to move. Since they never move and don’t become high scorers for your team, they are content to “mult” or camp out and again nothing for your winning game, since they rarely are found on enemy turf...

 

D) On the other hand a good sniper Shaft player (which takes time to learn) can be sheer devastation when used properly in an assault…especially when a flag is grabbed and he has good position.

 

E) They can however rack score if playing on Silence by hiding in the upper tunnel, the tunnel concealing them and playing soft players having no prepared or coordinated aggression or plan. 

 

F) Rarely will they bail you out of a fight, it’s the other way around, you saving them.

 

G) The mentality of the sniper has to be and is defined as “ME”.  It is a question of being introverted.  IT has to be, its a lonely part of the game but important. Their personal comfort, speed, or lack thereof and selfishness is apparent in their player mode. Outsmart, be safe, small risk and pick them off.   You rarely see them in a close quarter combat role. When you get that close you have the advantage.

 

H) In one game this Mammoth just sat where the crystals fell, blocked everybody and just grabbed everything that came out of the sky but was actually blocking for the other guys and nearly cost us the game.  One of the other players got mad at him and they got into it.  Three of us quit blue went to red clobbered him, finally  pushed him over the side, now you can vote them off.

 

 

Tanki is an interesting game,  and it has been fun...

[TheLonelyEpic 212]

Interesting... and very cool, nice work!