So, I'm trawling through my eclectic airsoft gear collection and stuffing incomplete hair-brained loadout ideas into boxes ready to eBay.

I am still going to airsoft but have just had to accept that my enthusiam - which at it's height saw a few trips twice a month - has dwindled to a sort of 'be nice to go maybe three times a year'. That's no longer a hobby in my book, but a casual pastime.

Therefore, chief among my trimming down of gear is a rationalization of my airsoft guns. After pondering the subject for a while I have decided I just want four. Two for my OPFOR and two for my Flecktarn loadouts. Four because I have always liked my AEGs in matched pairs, both for security in the event of a breakage while playing and also because I like the idea of switching out from long to short (woodland to CQB).

So my svelt gun cupboard will be looking like this:

OPFOR loadout:

> VFC AKS74U
> CLASSIC ARMY SLR105 (steel version)

These are a very nice looking pair of AEGs, both stalemates from thee early AK74 era with lovely wooden furniture. Both steel and solid as they come!

FLECTERN loadout:

> JG G3A1
> SRC G36C (GEN III)

Obviously a bit of H&K/German theme going on here, the ultimate long range woodland and CQB combo? Well, we shall see. In any case these are at the other end of the scale from my steel Russian AEGs as they are both primarily plastic cheapsoft guns.

I am currently organizing a airsoft trip and will he trying out the Flecktarn loadout first. After that the next trip will be at the start of the summer with the light-weight OPFOR loadout.

Just finished this model, it's a simple little SU-85 tank destroyer. I'm think I'm starting to get somewhere with my modelling and painting and am quite pleased wit the effect I achived here. It's what I was after, a nice grimey and bashed up war horse!

You can check out how I made this model on my new model related blog if you are interested: Kit Noob - Armourfast 1/72 SU-85 quick build and weathering experiment

Anyroads,to today's computer game related topic...

I am at heart an unabashed Apple Mac user - I own a PC primarily for gaming with my PC lovin' friends. But thanks to Apples switch to Intel chip sets and a neat bit of software called Parallel Desktops I can now run Windows 7 on my PowerBook. This includes, World of Tanks...

This now means that I can do some grinding over office lunch times, which is useful as the higher you go up the tank tiers the more expensive (in XP and silver) the tanks become. It runs OK, with everything turned to low, which isn't a bad idea with our atrocious work network. I got the thing running today and actually won both the games I had in my spanking new American T20 Medium tank...

Now this little tank is a bit of an odd-ball, historically it comes between the Sherman and the Pershing but was only a prototype design. It has all the mobility of my 'Easy 8' Sherman but better armour, a lower profile and the option of a 90mm M3 gun.

However, I ran it stock with the rapid fire 76mm M1A2 gun and I have to say it's like my Easy 8 on steroids PLUS I can now store 68 rounds of the 76mm AP ammunition. I can literally hose down - at 16 rpm - enemy tanks without worrying about running out of rounds (as I did on several occasions in my Sherman).

This tactic REALLY annoys the big tanks. You may only be doing - at best - 128 penetration (compared to the 90mm's 160 pen) but you are doing that at twice the speed of the 90mm! You just don't give other tanks time to breath, even the big guys who you may not be able to knock out completely can be constantly kept tracked while your big boys do the business.

There are certain tanks in World of Tanks that just make you smile while you are playing them, the Type 59 is one of those tanks. Having played it for a while I can say that the Type 59 is the tank I had hoped my T-54 was going to be, it's reasonably fast, reasonably powerful, reasonably armoured - but best of all it's cheap to run (unlike the T-54)!

With the T-59 there is an inherent sense that you could start a game and be called away to answer the phone and then come back to find you have still made a bucket load of silver! (I have made upwards of 25,000 silver just by trundling around a bit) But of course that's not what playing the Type 59 is all about...

No, playing the Type 59 is all about being evil!

Playing in the Type 59 gives you all the delicious joy that Dick Dastardly must have felt before undertaking a dastardly deed. Not only can you play in a completely uninhibited way - because you don't have to worry about crippling repair costs - but you just know everyone else in the game hates you!

When things go to plan you can almost feel the sense of frustration and annoyance that your presence generates when you carousel around a much larger tank chipping away lumps of his hit points and generally mocking his great size.

The Three Amigos! Team BIG in their matching camo Type 59s.

Perhaps worst thing is that all Type 59 players feel this way and more than any other model of tank in the game you feel a kindredness that prompts you to stick together in packs to multiply other peoples' suffering! Better still, if like me you have a few mates who also have a Type 59 then you can share the mirth of your evil deeds over VoIP. 

No, I wouldn't say the Type 59 is the favourite tank in my garage, I do get a lot of pleasure playing tanks that make the game a challenge, but for sheer Schadenfreude this tank takes the biscuit!

But, as said before, I refuse to run a German tank instead resorting to the Motherland's finest - Soviet tanks. But then along came the Chinese Type 59, a derivative of the Soviet T-54, so I could have a money-maker guilt free!

I call it my Silver Mine, and this video shows why and how to get the most out of it...

Photo source: The Firearm BlogThis item pushes all the right buttons for me, both as a gun enthusiast and a fan of the Steampunk genre, quite what it is about a hand-cranked lump of gleaming brass which spits hot lead in large amounts quite escapes me. But in any case, every Englishman - and even some Scotsman like myself - should have one of these contraptions in the library of his stately home!

Here's a video of the weapon, made by U.S. Armament Corps - bear with the photo montage to get to the actual operation...It's well worth it!

Big thank you to The Firearm Blog for bringing this to our attention

Monday night gaming with the lads raked me in the upgrades for my AMX M4 - plus a nice camo scheme (courtesy of my Type 59 silver mine)! This isn't quite fully upgraded, however, though it now does have the quite decent 90mm DCA 45 - a gun which is superior to the dreaded German 88mm of the upgraded Panther.

The following stats tables show the comparative characteristics of the stock German Panther v the stock French AMX M4 (1945)...

As you can see they are pretty close, but the Panther has the advantage in turret armour and horsepower. However, once you have the upgraded gun in the AMX you do then have the better hitting power. You must remember to use this advantage in long range sharpshooting and not in close-in brawling as the AMX's armour makes it vunerable to even modest medium tanks.

You can dress the AMX up in some very colourful camo patterns, including the tiger stripe scheme shown above. My goal now is to aquire the better engine as this tank is painfully slow at the moment and then work on brining the crew up to 100% efficiency. And then I will have La panthère française!

WoT targets for today - there are a couple of things I would like to achieve in World of Tanks. First of all I am grinding very hard so I can acquire a decent French heavy tank, I have my eye on the tier 7 AMX M4 (1945). This is the first really modem looking and decent French heavy and in appearance obviously owes much to WW2 German tank designs - it's an odd mix of features which remind you of the Panther and King Tiger but also of the late model 76mm Shermans like the 'Easy 8'.

Now I always secretly fancied getting the German Panther II as my WoT team mates rave about it, but I do have this instinctive aversion to playing Jerry tanks! It just doesn't feel right to me - so the AMX M4 will give me the chance to play something similar guilt free!

Oh, and the second thing I want to try and work out (plan B) is to get my M4A3E8 'Easy Eight' up to the T-20 Medium tank. But that's probably asking too much, even with a full days dedicated grinding...

8am Good morning Malinovka! - I've calculated that I need to grind 63,190 XP today to get a AMX M4, so the day begins with the daily doubles!

Above: Rather ironically my first game ends ignominiously (and mockingly) with this duel to the death with the very French tank I'm trying to earn! My team mates put those lovely big holes in it, but not before his mate - an e100 - blew my T-54 to tattered pieces! Still, a team win and 2,253 XP to me!

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9.30am - A pleasant surprise WoT Monte Casino Battle promo!
Well, if I needed XP (and I do) today is a good day for it - World of Tanks is doing a special promo where you get 3x XP for first win of the day AND 20% discount on gold to XP conversion! I can fairly taste the garlic as my AMX M4 dream seems to be closer than I thought!

The Monte Casio promo mean that even my non-premium tanks - like my 'Slugger' (pictured above) will earn me a nice triple bonus on XP! Sadly, being non-premium it won't really contribute to my French quest BUT it bangs on a good haul of XP towards the next tier of American tank destroyers! Whoo hoo!

AND THERE's MORE...

My mate Magnus is also having a day off - so I will have company today too. OH what a great day!

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1pm And I'm so easily swayed! After some brutal peer pressure I succumbed to the allure of the Chinese Type 59 tank! Although similar to my T-54 this 'paid for' tank (the first one I have bought in WoT!) is a terrific little earner of silver...

After just a few games it had earned back the amount I spent adding extra modules to it and now my hoard of silver is starting to look very healthy!

Another new tank in my garage is the diminuative Mk. VII Tetrarch. This was a very light tank designed by the British for Airborne troops, but in WoT is given a Soviet colours...

This tank eased my guilt about paying for the Type 59 as it's a freebee from WoT! It's fun to play with as it gets you into the lower tier games without too much fuss. It has a handy little gun which has good penetration - given it's lowly tier - and is reasonably fast.

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5pm, a hard day at the office!

Well, that's a bout it for now, going to take a much earned break. But I guess you will be wondering if the 12,500 gold for the T-59 was worth it?

Today I have made over one million silver! And to understand why, just take a look at this score card from a T-95 game...

Oh, I'm a happy chappy! And incedently, it's been chalking up XP quite nicely too - I am now a third of my way to my goal of the AMX M4.

POSTCRIPT - oh, and it get's better, LMAO...

Having written the above I couldn't resist one more game, I nearly wet myself when I read the score (check out the credits):

Click on image to enlarge in new window

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MIDNIGHT - Yawn, mission accomplished!

Well, I managed it - just! I got the French AMX M4 (1945), it's stock and only a 75% trained crew but at least I did it...

And with that I say - GOODNIGHT!

Classic French design features in this Char B1 'heavy' tank - though with a pitiful 45mm gun it's not going to be able to compete with some of the other true heavies out there (you will have to be lucky with the matchmaking).

I decided to investigate the French heavy tank tech tree as I wanted to try out some of the late war/post war prototypes, in particular the AMX heavies.

Link: Wikipedia entry for the French Char B1