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M1 Tank Platoon (series)
- Nathan Wailes
M1 Tank Platoon
How to get into playing
Start up the game, pick any random platoon, and start the gunnery range to move around and shoot some stuff.
Controls:
To view the manual: Right-click the game in Steam → Manage → Browse local files, open the
M1_Tank_Platoon_TS.pdf(Technical Supplement), go to page 7.F1-F4 are the different crew views.
F1 - Commander unbuttoned
F2 - Commander in the tank
F3 - Gunner
F4 - Driver
F9 - exterior view
F5 to switch to the map view, then press F6 to view your controls.
Movement:
“r” and “l” keys - Turn the body of the tank (and the platoon formation) 30 degrees right / left.
h - halt
s - slow
a - advance fast
b - back up (reverse)
9 - driver, turn to where I (the commander) am looking
Commander controls:
1 - load sabot
2 - load HEAT
f - fire at will
c - cease fire
7 - zoom in
= / - smoke generator on / off
Gunner controls:
7 - zoom
8 - thermals
spacebar - lase the target
Enter - fire your weapon
Map view:
You can use the arrow keys to move a pointer around the map and then press ‘Enter’ to order your platoon to move to that position.
F6 - Jump to your tank (the cursor will jump to your tank)
space - Lock onto an enemy unit if your cursor is over that unit (I think this is maybe used for issuing orders with respect to the locked-on unit)
z - zoom in
x - zoom out
shift+z - max zoom in
shift+x - max zoom out
Game speed controls:
Alt+p - pause
30-minute sessions:
“Static Gunnery” scenario:
Recommended learning sessions:
Session 1: Drive
When you start the scenario you’re looking at the map. There’s a big road circuit. Your goal is to drive the circuit around the map, ending up where you started.
Press F4 to enter the driver’s seat.
Press 'f' to tell your platoon to fire at will.
Press Shift + C to tell your platoon to enter a column formation.
Use the arrow keys to drive.
Use F5 to look at the map again if you need to.
What I actually did to get familiar with the game:
Session 1: Just started up the game, start the gunnery range, move the tank around a bit.
Session 2: I moved the tank around a bit, continued looking at the manual, and destroyed two of the three(?) targets on the map.
Session 3: Got a bit better at controlling the tank
Session 4+: Started reading the manual description for how to beat this scenario.
How to beat this scenario efficiently:
When you start the scenario you’re looking at the map.
Note the green square icon representing your platoon towards the bottom of the map.
Note the orange icons of enemy targets.
Note that the unit/tank icons on the map indicate the direction the unit is facing. You’re facing east at the start of the scenario.
Note that the enemy icon closest to you is to your east. We’ll destroy that one first.
Destroy the first target.
Press F1 to go to the commander’s turned-out position.
Use the arrow keys to turn the commander’s view to the right a bit to aim towards the closest target.
Press 7 to magnify your view, then line up your sight with the target and press Enter a bunch of times to shoot .50 cal rounds at the enemy truck until it blows up.
Destroy the next-closest enemy unit.
Look at the map and note that the next closest enemy vehicle is to the NNE of you.
Turn the commanders view to the north and find the enemy vehicle with your zoomed-in view.
Press 9 to order your tank to face towards the enemy vehicle.
Press 'f' to order your gunner to fire at will. The gunner should start shooting at the enemy vehicle.
Summary of the walkthrough in the manual starting on page 15:
Press alt+p to pause when you want to read the manual.
Map:
You start looking at the mapboard. Press F6 to have the crosshairs jump to your tank.
Press z repeatedly to zoom in, then x repeatedly to zoom out all the way.
Use the arrow keys to move the crosshairs on top of the target to the east (right) of your tank, then press Enter to open an information window about the target (a Ural truck).
If you don’t have the crosshairs over a unit, pressing Enter will issue an order to move to that point. Press H to issue a Halt command if that happens.
Commander (“TC”, “Tank Commander”):
Press F1 to go to the commander-unbuttoned view. Note the facing diagrams show the direction of facing of the commander, the gunner, and the hull.
Press 7 to use your binoculars (it’s a 7x magnification).
Use the arrow keys to scan around to find the Ural truck to the east, then scan left to find the BMP-1 on the hill to the north, then back to the Ural truck.
Press Enter to fire your .50 cal machine gun until the truck explodes.
Gunnery:
Press F3 to enter the gunner’s seat.
Press 7 to magnify the gunsight (it toggles between 3x and 10x).
Use the arrows to move the gun/gunsight around.
Press backspace to launch a smoke grenade salvo, see how it looks from the gunner’s perspective, then press F9 to view the exterior view.
Press 8 to use your thermal viewer, which will let you see through the smoke.
Note that the laser rangefinder doesn’t work through the smoke.
Press Enter to toggle between the main gun and the 7.62mm coax machinegun to see how that works.
Press 1 to select sabot (meant to be used against main battle tanks), 2 to select HEAT (meant to be primarily used against non-MBT armor like BMPs, BTRs, MT-LBs).
The round-loaded light is on whenever the main gun is loaded.
The ammo switch shows which ammo is loaded. The HEP and WP ammo types are leftovers from the 105mm M1 that the 120mm M1A1 can’t use.
Press spacebar to lase the target.
If it flashes zero, you’re either too close (within 200m) or aiming at the sky.
Battlesight range is the range within which you can aim straight at the target using the backup sight (without needing to elevate the gun). For Sabot it’s 1500m, for HEAT it’s 800m
Press 5 to set the computer to the battlesight range for your selected ammo type (I guess useful if the laser/computer stops working?)
To manually enter the range, hold shift while typing out the numbers. Enter zeroes to clear.
Press 4 to toggle between using the computer to set the elevation of the gun (“Norm”) and manual elevation with the battlesight (“BAT”).
This is useful if the computer is broken. A broken computer shows 8888 in the range readout.
Note that there’s variation in the trajectory of even the main gun rounds.
The dark patch near the BMP is the position of dismounted infantry. Use the coax machinegun or HEAT against them.
“Moving Gunnery” scenario:
“Single Engagement” scenario:
“Start Campaign” scenario:
M1 Tank Platoon 2
He says he likes M1TP2’s campaign system more than what Steel Beasts has to offer.
He hates how unrealistically quickly artillery arrives.
He says gunning at long range can be unrealistically(?) difficult because the mouse isn’t responsive or something.
He also criticizes how ridiculous the missions can be in terms of the number of enemy forces you face. For example, he has a single tank platoon taking on lots of enemy vehicles and even enemy Hinds while having artillery raining down on him. He says it’s a mix of realism and arcade-y action.
He says when playing good ArmA and Combat Mission scenarios, every enemy unit has thought into what its mission is, how it should behave if things aren’t going well for it, etc. As opposed to missions where you just have enemy units thrown at you unrealistically. He says that’s happening in M1TP2.