Battlegroup42 1.8 - New Maps #3 news

Most of the unfinished content is maps - we "de-cluttered" our FTP server and can now present you a whole bunch of new maps which you can play on soon. This time we're presenting the maps in chronological order.

We begin with a scenario from the Western Front in 1940: At the end of May the Allies started one last big offensive, trying to throw back the German invasion of France and Belgium. The plan of the French Supreme Commander, General Maxime Weygand, was to attack the corridor which the German tank spearheads had created from the Ardennes towards the Channel from both sides and thereby cutting them off from their supply. The attack created quite a panic within the German Command, but finally failed due to communication problems and the resulting lack of coordination. This map originally comes from the Bf1918 mod (Brusilov Offensive) and was re-worked for BG42 by Sarge Surfat.

Our next scenario also takes place at the Western Front in 1940, but is mostly forgotten nowadays. In June the Italian army, as an Ally of Germany, attacked France from the south. But the French had been awaiting such an attack for a long time and fortified the alpine border region between both countries with a well prepared line of bunkers and gun emplacements. The Italian attack finally came to a standstill, with both sides attacking each other for weeks with artillery, and the Italians failed to succeed in taking back the initiative. The battle finally ceased with the French surrender on June 25. Our mapper Yamamoto was inspired by the RtR map "Salerno" while creating it.

No, this map isn't a remake of the SW map "Raid on Agheila". Yamamoto, who created this map from scratch, recreated the first offensive of the Afrika Korps in Northern Africa in March 1941. It was supposed to support the allied Italian forces, which had been seriously harassed by the British in Libya. The attack was a big surprise to the British who didn't expect that the Germans would be battle ready so fast after their arrival in February. The first success for the Germans was the capturing of Agheila, which was retaken by the Allies in a second battle in 1943.

In January of 1942 the 2nd Russian Striking Army, a part of the Volkhov-front, started an attempt to break through the German encirclement of Leningrad. But the operation failed, the Germans in turn
were able to encircle the Soviet forces near the town of Myasnoy Bor. Until June of 1942 the Russians held up their resistance in thickly forested, swampy terrain although there were no supplies or medical equipment available to them. Sarge Surfat realized this scenario with an infantry focused map on which an enormous amount of vegetation creates a real "forest feeling". Because of that we highly recommend to play this map only on powerful PCs.

Our next map preview is about a scenario which had an important impact on the outcome of the Battle of Stalingrad. The Hungarian Army was given the task to protect the flank of the German 6th Army, supported by Italian troops. When the Germans tried to break up the encirclement around the 6th Army in December of 1942, the Soviets started a massive counter-attack exactly at the seam between the Hungarians and Italians. With that they not only threatened the German relief troops at the Donets river but also prepared the later annihilation of the weakened Hungarian and Italian forces. The map was originally created by Sarge Surfat for the "Hungarian Front" mod and now taken over for BG42.

The Allied landings at Anzio and Netturno in January 1944 were an attempt to get into the back of the German defenders in Italy, thereby enabling a quick advance towards Rome. But the Germans reacted very quickly and gathered every available unit to seal off the bridgehead and drive the
enemy back into the sea. Among those troops was the "Schweres Panzerbataillon 508" which was equipped with Tiger tanks and Elefant assault guns. During an attack of the Battalion the Z-company of the British Royal Fusiliers was exposed to heavy fire. But the Allied Command rejected a withdrawal request, resulting in the Z-company being completely wiped out. Among the dead was the father of British rock musician Roger Waters (Pink Floyd). The song "When the Tigers broke free" from the album "The Wall" was dedicated to him. The map was created by Yamamoto.

One of the bloodiest beach sections during the invasion in Normandy on June 6th 1944 was "Easy Red" in sector Omaha Beach - it delivered the draft for the opening scene of the movie "Saving Private Ryan". Since the BG42 team was unsatisfied with earlier map conversions of this scenario our mapper Sarge Surfat created a new interpretation. It will, and we can promise you that, deliver a movie like atmosphere and require the utmost efforts of the attackers.

That's it for today. By the way, all of the maps except "Easy Red" have Coop support, and we hope to further increase the excitement with these map previews. Today's news is not the last one before the release of 1.8 - next time we'll be able to show you some new models. And as usual we're looking out for modders who want to support our UDK project.