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I caught up with 15 year veteran Michael Copeland, he’s the retired commander from the 21st Panzer Division,
and member of the Legacy Board. This
year Mike is here commanding his tank
and crew known over the field as Daz
Buzzard. Mike stated win lose or draw
we’ve always had fun here. Mike said
this year there should be 11 or 12 Red
team tanks. Mike in real life is a high
school band director. He takes his band
members, team name “Bandaid”, and
they play paintball in the Clarksville,
AK area. “Gears of War” was also on
hand and they were also ready to have
a literal blast of a paintball game.
The “Daz Buzzard” built on a 1984 Ford
Bronco with 4-wheel drive has a top
rotating turret with an MG42 capable
of 30 BPS as its main gun. They also
have a flame (paint) thrower system
on board with a wand at both the front
and rear of the vehicle, powered by
a scuba tank. On board you’ll find 62
mounted paint pods for the gunners,
4 mounted scuba tanks powering the
markers. In the rear there’s a seat for
a rear gunner who protects their 7” kill
plate. The rear gunner runs a Bob Long
Bias, front gunner will be using a Freestyle 8 with a Predator 5.0 board. Their
AT gun is based on an Auto-cocker.
They also carry extra guns in the event
of a malfunction.
Friday began with deuce-N-half’s transporting players to their designated
insertion points at 0900hrs. A mini
scenario staged at Omaha Beach was a
scored, spectator friendly, battle between the German red and Allied blue
armies. The battle began at 1000 hrs.
And lasted until 1200 hrs.
The battle began with the red army in
place. The blue army was staged on
the roadway and in the landing craft.
Allied armor was staged waiting for
the blues to take the field up to the
first sea wall. German Armor had free
July 2014
February 2014
roaming access to the battle at game
on. All tanks have a preset route that
we must follow.
Our tank known on the field as “Disney” built on a 1994 Chevy Blazer has
a 4 person team, this year though we
were at three. “Cookie” drove, I ran
the front gunner position and radio,