Overview:
Following is a series of memoirs written by participants in the Battle for Tuchola Forest between {BHC} and {MOB} on Saturday, April 29, 2006.  Instead of a look at the battle from a general point of view --- these memoirs will tell the story through the eyes of the men that fought there.  Enjoy!

{BHC}Pv2.fReAk
I was charged w/ the defense of Base 2 (Rus/Ger) while primarily functioning as a roamer on foot and handling the Flak gun. During our Russian campaign we suffered long-range attacks on two of our bases and they fell rather quickly leaving me to help on foot with spawn area defense and eventually being added to the scout/advance squad. Upon this charge I took a medium tank and with Lt. Joe we managed to lay fire on one of their bases. This took them by surprise and after a couple of kills and a few rounds on their base, we were taken out. While on the German defense we did a much better job of protecting our bases and afforded our advancing squads to attack much easier than in Round 1. I found that the flak above Ger 2 is very key in staving off tank assault. I think between the tank defender and the flak we took out 5 or so tanks before they could cause any serious damage to our bases.

{BHC}Cpl.DeathBringer
Well from my point of the battle, I usually seemed to run into a lot of infantry that was trying to sneak in behind us or maybe some tanks that were moving up. I had a lot of contact to Savage about incoming tanks/infantry to any of our bases. It seemed that {MOB} had a pretty spread out attack plan, because I could rarely get to far with out an encounter regardless of which way I went. During our time as Axis me and Twisted managed to get to their base 1 and i got of a plant before being stormed by like 5 people. Also, the previous run I made to the bomb SatansDragon got a plant off on the same base. Other than that I really didn't get into much of the main tank action as me and some of the other scouts were moving up in different directions as the tank force.

{BHC}Spc.Brass_Monkey
I was on the attacking team, with the tank crew. At the beginning of both rounds we all got in our appropriate tanks quickly and moved in in an organized tank column. I was specifically near the rear of the column each time, normally being one of the final survivors. Once the pack started to fall we kept respawning and pressing on in that same direction with the exception of a few people. I mainly stuck with Cpl. DeathBringer and together we ambushed many tanks, with each of us on either side of a trail or rough path and waiting for a tank to roll past and then we would both hit him with a rocket. Being one of the tankers at the back, when there was a threat to a base or someone had trouble and was announced over TS I tried to help out if I was close enough. When we were Russian I ended up halfway through holding the left side of the map on the first bridge denying entry to any attacking Germans. We all pushed in on the enemy hard and held our ground behind us hard. It was an honorable battle, although there were many casualties among our troops.

{BHC}Cpl.Choad
As far a report from me goes there really isn't much more that I can add to your overall report. Your telling of how of how R3 fell from long range arty is spot on. One thing I would add is that the Germans repeatedly tried to use the mortar position on the small hill just West of R3 but we were able to repeatedly silence the mortar when they tried to use it. R3 fell from the long range arty. G3 was a little different. Cotton and I didn't see too much action. Every now and then a Russian scout would snipe one of us on the PAK gun or get close enough to throw a satchel by staying concealed and moving in the trees at the far northern edge of the map. I did take out one Russian tank with the PAK gun but that was about it.

{BHC}Spc.Savage
With me and Sloth on defense (of R1/G1) I kept getting Intel from DeathBringer on how many tanks were coming to R1 but the funny thing is that I never really saw any action as a Russian. I think our ground troops heading up the south side and middle either took them out on foot with bazookas or with tanks. But once R1 was last base standing we had the 2 other defense teams helping out. They (MOB) tried coming straight down the middle on the north side of 2 but with 2's PAK guns there, it wasn't that big of a deal. I would fire the PAK then hop off and finish them with an AT weapon.  But the infantry would sit at the hill by that mortar position and wait for the tanks to move in. Instead of helping the tanks out and moving in with them. But I can say this if we are going to keep playing these guys I'm in serious need of rifle practice, so I'm going to be hitting the range shortly.  Now for the German side, infantry scouts kept sneaking their way up to me and shooting me in the back when I was on the PAK gun at G1. They would move up along the far south side then pop me. It was nice having you (Sgt. CrossTrain) float over to help on our base.

{BHC}Cpl.DeathBringer
Also a little cool story (at least to me). I was moving up the glacier pass as a German and heard some movement so I hid under a tree. 2 Russians then came out heading towards our base 3 away from me. The lead guy ran around the corner and disappeared, but the second guy suddenly stopped. I was prone with my scope pointed right at his head. The guy started to turn looking back toward his spawn, then must have seen me. To bad for him the second he saw me I pulled the trigger. One of those cool sort of movie like moments.

{MOB} ScrapyardBob
Best fun I had (that I can remember) was a scout vs. squad encounter in the South Forest. I was taking a turn at scouting the South Forest for the Germans. (This was at the start of the south flank advance by the Russians at the end of the first round.)

I had bellied up just northeast of the South Forest trench inside the treeline and was waiting for the Russians to show up. Sure enough, I hear rustling noise to the east coming towards me through the southside treeline after a minute or two. I typed out an "infantry contacted" report and prepared to ambush.

Caught the first of the Russian squad flatfooted as he came around the corner. He winged me slightly, but after the kill I immediately dropped back to the first rock SW of the infantry trench to see what if he had friends. (I know that BHC travels in squads... there's always more than one.)

Holed up on the top of the boulder closest to the trench and waited to see if anyone was around to come investigate. Sure enough, I see a 2nd Russian moving through the trench coming towards my new position. He's moving slow, but I'm stationary and he's not so I see him but he doesn't see me. Opened fire again and cut him down.

Nasty surprise... he's got another squad mate who I didn't see who starts returning fire. Things get a bit hectic now. I dump the rest of my mp44 clip in his general direction to force his head down while I withdraw a bit to the next boulder. (Gain time, force him to come to me.) We also toss some grenades back and forth somewhere in here, I don't remember if it was before or after the 2nd squad member died.

While we're both getting ourselves together, I get time to type out a 2nd contact report, then I start checking left/right to see which way he's going to approach me. I'm pretty badly wounded at this point, but it's a mp44 vs. a Mosin, so I'm thinking I might get him but it's not a sure thing (hence the contact report).

I see him coming around the north side, somewhat in the open (to avoid making noise?), so I skirt back around to the right then clamber on top of the rock. If I had bellied down up there, I might've evaded or gotten a back shot on him (probably the fatal mistake). Instead, I opened fire for the kill and ended up getting shot and killed.

What I didn't notice during all of this was that those 3 were the advance scouts for a multi-tank offensive aimed at G1. Oops! Germans thought it was just an infantry or two coming through the South Forest so we got caught a little off-balance.

{BHC}Sgt.CrossTrain
I guess for me the most memorable moments came late in the first round when BHC was fighting for it's life and trying to defend our honor and our last base --- R1.  Spc. Savage had done an extraordinary job in the defense of R1 the entire round.  I was in charge of overall defense and we had positioned two men at each of the bases (Spc Savage & Spc. Sloth @ R1; myself & Pv2 fReAk @ R2; and Cpl. Choad & Rec. Cotton @R3).  As I recall, the long-range bombardment of our three bases commenced before I even cleared our initial spawn.  I think my base --- R2 --- took the first shell.  Anyway, it threw us into a bit of disarray as the bases were quickly reduced to rubble.  Then it was just a matter of MOB massing enough infantry in the trails and trees to mount a massive foot attack on those bases.  The match wasn't even 6-7 minutes old before we had lost both those bases.  I then called all of our defenses into a tight cordon around R1.  This is where it got fun!  MOB pushed hard through our abandoned works at R2 and R3.  They rolled several tanks into our spawn area and through the field at R2 trying to gain our spawn and limit our ultimate ability to fight back effectively.  I remember at one point, Pv2 fReAk was sitting in his T34 up in the very SE corner of the map as I was on the road leading to R1 firing in the same direction at the numerous armor targets we had roaming into our spawn and through the opening from R2.  All this time, Spc. Savage did an extraordinary job scouting on foot for us and calling out what was coming to us.  He was manning the PAK gun behind R2 and dodging and weaving --- all the time giving us valuable intelligence on the enemy movement.  Pv2 fReAk and I (and I think Cpl. Choad rolled over during the hottest moments as well) had a field day blowing the German tanks (and stolen Russian ones too) away as they tried to maneuver towards us.  At one point we had about 4-5 enemy tanks burning on the spawn road and in the field at one time.  It was sweet!  They had tank fire coming at them from several different directions.  After the worst of these pushes (with about 5:00 left in the round), I released Pv2 fReAk to go join the attack in an effort to at least crack open one of their bases.  It didn't happen but we also had beaten back the heaviest pressure they could mount on our R1.  I know I personally took down 4-5 tanks with my KV1 sitting on the spawn road as it bends around to the R1.  The defense was stellar at this point as we had great communication and support and movement.

{BHC}Spc.Sloth
I was a last minute replacement, thinking until that morning that I might be deployed for action in the south. However I heard the call and rose to action.  I reported to Sergeant CrossTrain and he sent me to guard (R1/G1) under Spc. Savage, another Chicagoan. Things remained mostly quiet --- a foot soldier here and there and only one short lived tank tried to advance on us. Then I heard the howl of German shells flying overhead. At first I had no clue what was happening until the first shell struck the base. We had let a foot soldier slip through and he was spotting for their long range bombardment of our base. Spc. Savage went to hunt for the German while I discovered where the shells were coming from and put any unused vehicle in their path hoping to stall the destruction until one of our courageous attack squads could silence their guns. Alas the German attacks were mainly focused on the other bases and as they fell one by one, Sergeant CrossTrain ordered reinforcements to our last remaining base. With all the Germans might they came at us, but they could not penetrate our defences. Then the battle fell silent, we had not won the battle but this one base like all of was battered and bruised, but remained intact, proud, and ready to do battle some other day.