Battlegroup42 1.8: Tanks and Torpedoes news

In the last version we stepped onto a new theatre of war, closing a gap in the WWII chronology. The battles in the Balkans, or the be more precise Greece. Now we're able to fill it with a new army: The Greeks themselves now defend their homeland, including Greek bot names and Greek radio commands. Their equipment could easily be taken from the existing pool of weapons and vehicles of BG42, and thanks to Bf 1918 we could even add a Mannlicher-Schoenauer M 1903/14 rifle. There'll be even more new battlefields, but that's something for another news.

Battlegroup42 started as a tank mod for Bf1942 about eight years ago, and therefore it's a pleasure for us to present you a new tank model which closes one the last remaining great gaps in our immense model pool: The Valentine. This tank, with a production number of more than 8000 units was the mostly build British tank of World War II and was used from 1940 to 1945 on almost every battlefield in a variety of versions. Although it was quite slow, the crews appreciated it's reliability, the low silhouette and the good armour protection. It also proved itself on the Eastern Front: Almost half of the production went to the Red Army as part of the Lend-and-Lease act. The Red Army used this tank at the battle for Moscow and Kursk for example.

In BG42 there'll be two versions of the Valentine: As infantry tank MKIII, armed with a 2pdr (40mm) gun and a coaxial machine gun as well as infantry tank MKIX, armed with a 6pdr (57mm) and a 30cal Browning machine gun on the turret. Various textures allow its usage in the Russian winter of 41/42, as well as the African desert, the Italian highlands and the Ukrainian lowlands. Skins and model come from RuppDee's workshop.

The next model we're presenting expands our pool of American Sherman tanks with an important variant: The M4A2 Sherman was the only version with a diesel engine. While the Army mostly used the M4, M4A1 and M4A3 the US Marine Corps chose that type because it was believed that the diesel engine was less likely to catch fire, improving survivability of the tank and crew during landing operations. As part of the Lend-Lease Act large numbers of the M4A2 were delivered to the Red Army too.

Model and texture of the M4A2 were done by Waxbutter. It represents a tank of the early production phase (experts recognize it from the 60 degree bow plate and the turret with only one hatch) which was armed with a 75mm gun. Waxbutter added a lot of details like equipment and additional armour plates, like they were quite typical for the pacific theatre. And that's were this tank can be found.
The next two models helped us to throw some remains of the original game overboard: After the Germans had got a completely new modelled and textured aerial torpedo in the last build, two other nations now got their own models. The first one is the American Bliss-Leavitt Mark 13 torpedo with its typical compact form. It was the most used torpedo of the US Navy and proved to be much more
reliable and insensitive to magnetic influence than other types. The Mark 13 replaces the torpedo from the original game on all allied ships and planes. The Japanese too got a new torpedo, the Type-93 which also replaces the original torpedo. The Type 93 was also called "Long Lance" by the Allies and had the biggest range and warhead used in World War II. A lot of allied ships fell prey to that excellent weapon. Both models were created and textured by Kraetzer.

There is also an important news for our online gamers. The game server address has been changed to

• 85.214.45.225:14568 for Battlegroup42 Conquest
• 85.214.45.225:14569 for Battlegroup42 Coop

The old server will shut down in a few days. With this we're closing the news for today, but not without some announcements for the close future. The question which most of you will ask: When will BG42 1.8 be released ? We can't tell you a date yet, but it'll be definitely this year ! So stay tuned and visit us regularly on www.battlegroup42.de..