Fred Schultz vs. The Tank

By Jim Bergles

It was a cold morning at Paintball Sams when the sound of the mighty 8hp Briggs and Stratton was first herd on the field. Players were skeptic. They thought it was another generator starting up to runs lights and heaters for the buildings. Once the operating temp was at its level I hopped in and rolled it out from behind the main building and came to a stop in the orientation area. Just the look on the players’ faces was enough for me. They were pretty much taken back by what I had built. I got the “hey that’s cool” to the “Hey what is it”. Then once a big enough crowd was their one person asked, “your not going to play with this are you?” I paused for a moment and Said “Hell Ya”. Then the crowd got restless and it set in. Does it shoot? How do you destroy it? Who drives it? Can we shoot the driver? Whose team is it on? These were all questions we would address at the Pre Game orientation.

All the question for the tank were answered in the orientation so everybody knew that they were not allowed to climb on it, roll it over, pull the driver out, shove logs between the tires and last they could not burn it. The game was now set. As for Fred Schultz I did the welcome to Paintball Sams and hope you have a good game bit and then showed him the tank. He was impressed with it and looked forward to playing with it. Little did he know that he would soon be on the receiving end of it, very soon.

The first big game started as usual with both teams at their starting positions. Each side knew the tank would be somewhere in the middle sitting neutral waiting for 3 players from one side to find it to make it active. The horns blew and I knew in about 3 minutes players who could run fast

would be out looking for the tank close to where I was hid. As the time ticked by I was playing some Scottish Highlander Music over the tanks sound system. To top off the tanks first performance the tape player just happened to be Amazing Grace. I was thinking what a fitting start to the end if this did not go right. Listening to the bag pipes play I lost track of time and no sooner had I remembered the horns to start the game somebody was pounding on the side yelling “white tank, white tank” I jumped up in my seat and stared out the netting at the white team, who were there. They now had control of the tank. My spotter gave me the thumbs up to move. I gave the players the best possible route for me to take the tank to make the best use of it. At that point there must have been 30 to 40 white players by now behind the tank. They wanted to see it go, and just what it could do.

We took the western most path to head to the far castle. This would lead us through the barrel field, which would be a great zone of fire for the tank. The point men started to receive fire from the opposing team, which just happens to be making their push into the other end of the barrel field. This was going to be a good battle. We could here the fire starting to pick up as more players came up to the skirmish line. I worked the tank up the twisty trail being careful not to rip the turret off on any low hanging branches. I could now see the back of our point players coming up. The sporadic fire from the long ballers was now hitting the tank. This was getting better, a lot better. As I made my way past the point men I was now in the open and becoming the biggest paint magnet on the field. It was getting hard to here as every enemy player who was in range of me opened up on the tank. It was just like being in a hale storm. Stopping the tank and scanning out the gun ports I found my first target. He was shooting from between 2 barrels about 30 feet away. I reached up for the trigger on my trusty Carbine, rigged with a special motor to pull the trigger when I squeezed the fire button. Seeing I could not really sight down the barrel I made a guess and let her rip. I covered the air about 6 feet above his head with the first volley. Making adjustments I fired again and found the top of the barrels he was behind. I made another adjustment and waited for him to pop out again. Sure enough there he was, squeezing the button I could here the carbine jump to life and the barrels soon turned yellow and a players hand shot up in the air with his gun sporting his barrel plug. He was out, my first confirmed kill. I was happy I hit somebody. This battle got more intense as players pushed forward. By this time I was chewing up the other sides point players pretty good. They stopped advancing on the tank for now and rethought their plan. Ii should be noted that it takes 3 players of the other team to surround the tank to capture it and then it would be theirs.

The Blue team came back hard on the tanks left side, which had more brush in it. The battle intensified again and this time my team was starting to drop. Someone called for the tank to push forward to the next set of barrels. Down went the gas pedal and forward went the tank. I reached the next set of barrels, which were about 5 in a pile. Stopping there, the battle continued on. At this point the tank has sent out about 1000 rounds and I was reloading. My first tank I had to reload by opening a hatch behind the turret and stick my arm out to dump paint into the hopper in the turret. I would get out of my seat, stand up the best I could and try and perform this feat without getting my arm shot up. I never did get hit as long as I had that style turret. Loading the hopper I could here people yelling that they are rushing the tank. I leaned forward from the back of the tank to see out the sight port and low and behold whom did I see charging the tank? It was Fred Schultz, and he was running hard to get up to it. His distance was about 30 feet when I first seen him. All I could do was reach up and grab the fire button to send out some rounds before he got to the tank. Without aiming I let loose a volley to catch any of the charging hoard. At the point the gun started to fire it hit Fred at about mid thigh. I fired about 6 to 7 rounds before I could here people yelling, “blue tank, blue tank”. I took another look out the port to see the damage. Well I only hit one player and that happened to be Fred. He got stitched starting from his thigh all the way up to his shoulder. It just happened that the gun was pointing in the perfect direction when I pulled the trigger. And the closer he got the high the hits got. He ran right into the line of fire and got all 6 hits. I found out later that the refs were giving the capture to him because at the point where he started to run up. My last white player that was with the tank got hit. This would have made me neutral right before his charge. The time frame of this was about 2 to 3 seconds when it all went down. But the average player would have been yelling about being shot up, but not Fred! He was more concerned that his team got the tank and that he got the capture.

His team turned the tank around and took it back to the white teams castle and over ran their fort and won the game with style. Fred was the only person to ever charge the tank in the last 3 years. Other players figured out you just have to shoot the players around it and then surround it and its yours. This is no longer the case now. The rules will be changed for our spring game 2002 where a tank can operate on its own. A satchel charge can take it out or the anti tank gun only. Hats go off to Fred for his great feat of bravery or until some kid with the satchel charge this spring does the Kamikaze attack and gets him self a tank.

The end