Now the commander’s chair is perhaps the most frustrating part of the game. Nobody has ever really done a good job simulating the function and behavior of the CITV before (although Spearhead may do well in this area). M1TP2 shows the most potential of all the released tank sims to do a proper job of modeling the tank commander’s station, but instead of actually commanding the tank here, it seems more like you’re just along for the ride.

The controls and general use of the CITV are pretty good. The display quality is decent, despite the fact that it is only a few inches across on your screen. The controls seem to be a good simulation of CITV functions. You can set the sight to automatically pan back and forth 45 degrees. You can slave the CITV to the GPS, hunt for new targets while the gunner is working on his current target, or even override the gunner’s controls and service the target yourself. The drawback with shooting from here is that the joystick response for the CITV panning is such that it’s very hard to accurately line up with a target without constantly overcontrolling, and basically impossible to track a moving target accurately enough to give the right lead data to the computer.

The "turret clock" in the CITV (the device used for giving you a reference as to what direction the CITV and main gun are pointing with relation to the hull) is also difficult to read. As far as the IVIS goes, even using the largest non-fullscreen view (the 4km setting) hardly lets you appraise 1300 meters of the battlefield to the north and south of you. In practice, it means that by the time you see a target in the IVIS in the commander’s chair, you probably are too close to do much planning. Better to just switch to the fullscreen view as often as possible, (or maybe fight on the east-west axis more) but it isn’t the ideal solution.

The whole voice communications in this section could use a little more refinement. It’s not that the voice acting is bad – it’s actually quite good. But there are some problems. First off, much like the issue with the flickering thermal vision (in the gunner’s sight) pulling the trigger to designate a target finds you announcing "Gunner, Tank. Designate." about 10 times a second – it sounds like echoing in a tunnel. Fortunately using the keyboard designation key doesn’t cause this problem.

However, the plot thickens. Every time you command a designation, the TC’s voice says the same thing over and over again, in the same intonation – "Gunner, Tank. Designate." He’ll say it if you designate a tank. He’ll say it if you designate an APC. He’ll even say it if you designate troops, helicopters, buildings, shrubs, hillsides, or empty sky. What would be better is if he would change inflection a little every so often and perhaps include a larger vocabulary. Things like "Gunner, Bimp. Designate", or "Gunner, Helo. Designate" and so on - perhaps even not saying a thing if you just designate empty space. As it currently stands, it feels rather contrived.

The smoke grenade controls are a bit off of spec as well. The manual says that you need to hit SHIFT-BACKSPACE to arm the grenades before firing. No problem, but the grenades are pre-armed at the start of every mission! Furthermore, it doesn’t seem possible to safety the grenade launchers either. This isn’t exactly a "gameplay-killer" kind of problem, but it does illustrate the kind of various little problems and inconsistencies that can prove to be annoyances in the game.

Click to continue . . .

Some of the frustration of the commander’s position is in the "TC’s vision blocks" screen. This is a pretty good idea to help simulate the poor situational awareness that real TC’s suffer. The problem is the same as the TC’s open-hatch view. You have no point of reference to know which direction you’re looking with respect to the hull. However, the panning is thankfully much more controllable than with the chase view – you can control the vision blocks view with either the mouse or the joystick – it’s your choice. The thing with the "chase view" is that if your mouse isn’t quite "centered" when you select it, you’re suddenly whirling around and around like a top. Who says an M1 isn’t like a piñata party?

The gunner and loader aren’t particularly fond of following orders when you’re commanding, either. The manual says that if you designate a target, the gunner will service your target right after he eliminates his. Unfortunately, in my various testing, the gunner seems to pick whatever targets he feels like and only gets around to yours when he’s feeling good and ready. It makes you wonder what’s the point of having such a nice CITV display. The loader usually ignores whatever ammo you tell him to put in for the gunner, as well. Seems like you’ve got an insubordinate crew on board.

A couple things would go further to help improve the crew coordination, both between the crew of the same tank, and the crews of the platoon. Having the gunner yell, "IDENTIFIED!" when he lays the gun on your designated target would be a nice touch. Being able to order your platoon to engage the designated targets with things like a "Engage Left Target First" or "Engage Outside Targets First" verbal command would enhance the degree of control you have over the platoon. It would also help expand the in-game vocabulary to something better approaching the real thing.

As mentioned before, these issues are getting the attention of the folks at MPS, and a patch to help straighten out the situation is being worked on. The loader and gunner are being sternly reprimanded and we expect them to follow your orders faithfully after the patch. The "spinning views" problem will be addressed by allowing you to choose between mouse and joystick panning. Several possible solutions are being worked on to improve direction references in the vision blocks.

The CITV turret clock will be adjusted for easier visibility. We’ve even heard that some work on the joystick responsiveness has happened. So while it hasn’t been exactly smooth sailing so far, we can look forward to a much more useful commander’s station soon. Keep an eye on our Armor forum here for details, and we’ll be sure to post an update after the patch arrives.

Download Saitek configuration files for M1TP2 compliments of Eric Tripke.

Download Thrustmaster configuration files for M1TP2 compliments of Cowboy.

Go to Part IV