A composite character. The record note is a real account.
Eastern Front · 12 July 1943
KURSKSteel & Thunder
Preparing the battlefield…
Headphones recommended. Mouse & keyboard or touch.
KURSKSteel & Thunder
Difficulty
Objective
Paused
Hold position
Settings
Field kit
How to play
Controls
T-34-85
WS throttle · AD steer
Mouse — aim turret · LMB fire
RMB/V gunner sight · wheel zoom
Space coaxial MG
1 AP · 2 HE · E smoke · R repair
Armour is angle-aware. Hit Tigers and Panthers in the side or rear; the gold circle shows where your shell will land.
IL-2 Shturmovik
Mouse — point where to fly
WS throttle · AD roll · QE rudder
LMB cannons · RMB rockets
Space drop · 1 FAB-100 · 2 PTAB
C look around · Z zoom
Fly level over armour and drop PTAB canisters on the red ring. Flak tracers are green.
Rifleman
WASD move · Shift sprint
C crouch · Z prone
LMB fire · RMB aim · R reload
X cycle stance · Q/H pick / throw selected grenade
G grenade · F Molotov · T AT grenade
Stay low under MG fire. Molotovs on a tank's engine deck set it ablaze.
Esc pauses the game.
Touch: the left thumb-stick moves (push it fully forward to sprint), drag anywhere on the right to look, aim or steer, and use the buttons for weapons. ❚❚ pauses.
Credits
Kursk: Steel & Thunder
An arcade interpretation of the Battle of Prokhorovka, 12 July 1943. Directed by Eric Rhea; built with three.js r185.
Vehicles & aircraft
Procedural WWII models from the Muster archive (MIT), cooked offline into LODs with meshoptimizer. The T-34-85 is a 1944 variant used here for arcade purposes.
Scenery
Village, railway and trench scenery modelled in Blender for this project. Scenery pipeline inspired by D. A. York's WW2 building models (MIT).
Sound & voice
Sound effects, narration, radio voices and score generated with ElevenLabs.
The soldiers
The tank crews, pilots and riflemen you play are composite characters written for the game. Each one carries a real account from Prokhorovka or the Kursk air battle: Skripkin's crew and the ramming of 12 July, Yevgeny Shkurdalov's recollections, Rotmistrov's order to close the range, E. F. Ivanovsky's count of rammings, Alexander Vitruk's first PTAB strikes, Georgy Beregovoy, Ivan Drachenko, Alexander Yefimov, Pavel Shpetny, the 9th Guards Airborne and 95th Guards Rifle Divisions, and the 109th Penal Company. Sources include Russia Beyond's eyewitness collection (2013), the 95th Guards Rifle Division and Ivan Drachenko entries on Wikipedia and the Gathering of Eagles profile of Beregovoy.
Tools & inspiration
Claude of Duty (effects, audio and AI reference); SR-71 Black Budget Bird (terrain and atmosphere). Briefing paintings in the Romantic Luminist Panorama style.