Hey there everyone, I'm Denal Douglas, the creator of Operation Remembrance, the largest mod ever made for Battlefield Vietnam. Welcome to the first article previewing my new mod, Battlefield Vietnam One Point Three. For anyone who doesn't know, EA Games stopped development of Battlefield Vietnam at version 1.21, but there were still many features that were lacking in the game, notably in terms of AI support.
While developing Operation Remembrance, which is massive compared to the base game, I started wondering just how good I could make Battlefield Vietnam without adding any new features that the original develoment team didn't make themselves. That set the basic rule for developing One Point Three: I could only improve existing features, not add entirely new elements like vehicles and weapons that the EA team didn't create. I later expanded this rule slightly to allow me to import certain weapons and vehicles from Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield Vietnam's official WW2 mod, specifically weapons and vehicles that were really used in the Vietnam War.
Unlike Operation Remembrance, which completely overhauls many aspects of the game, One Point Three's objective is simply to improve the original game as much as possible while still making it feel distinctly like the original Battlefield Vietnam. Changes are present in the form of weapon tweaks, heavily-reorganized kits, modifications to all of the vehicles, maps with adjusted vehicle spawns and other balancing changes, and vastly improved AI support.
Within the rules I laid down for myself, there are a few new features available in the form of weapons and vehicles. From Battlefield 1942 come the M8 Greyhound, T-34/85, and BM-13 Katyusha. The Greyhound is available on certain maps featuring the ARVN, while the T-34/85 replaces the T-54 on early maps and the BM-13 Katyusha replaces the BM-21 Grad on early maps as well. From BfVietnam's WW2 mod, the M3A1 halftrack will be found on a couple of ARVN maps.
An M8 Greyhound now spawns by the ARVN helicopter tower on "Operation Flaming Dart" and can be airlifted into battle by the ACH-47A Chinook. Also note the ARVN engineer's M1 Garand, replacing the M14.
In terms of infantry weapons, a slightly modified version of the Bf1942 MP18 submachine gun known as the Type Be replaces the MP40 for the Japanese in the WW2 mod, the Bf1942 Colt has been added representing home-made Viet Cong clones of the M1911, and three new weapons are available from the official Bf1942 expansion pack "Secret Weapons of WW2". The Mk2S STEN suppressed submachine gun can now be found in one of the US Special Forces engineer kits, while the Browning Auto-5 shotgun from the same expansion pack can be found in the other USSF engineer kit. The Kar98k Schießbecher rifle grenade replaces the SA-7 on Viet Cong maps with few or no aircraft.
From the WW2 mod, the BAR M1918, M1A1 Thompson, M1 Bazooka, No. 4 sniper, and a new marksman version of the M1 Garand are now used by the ARVN on some early-war maps, while the basic M1 Garand can also be found in US Marine engineer kits on early maps and in ARVN engineer kits throughout the war. On the NVA/VC side, the Viet Cong have access to the Kar98k sniper and Type 99 LMG on early-war maps, and the MP40 and Walther P38 throughout the war. The VC also use the Kar98k in their engineer kits early in the war, and throughout the war in the grenadier kit that replaces the SA-7 kit on maps without aircraft.
A soldier of the ARVN 1st Division engages NVA troops at Quang Tri with an M1A1 Thompson submachine gun. Ahead of him, a second soldier wields a Thompson as well, while another soldier on the left can be seen charging forward with his own Thompson.
Also, one "new" vehicle and one "new" weapon have been added. The American "Zippo" armored flamethrower, which was developed for the game but cut at the last minute and only appears in some modded maps, has been added to One Point Three, more correctly named the "M132A1". The flaregun was another feature developed for Battlefield Vietnam but cut and left in the game files. It can be found in select NVA and VC kits. When fired at infantry, it does the same amount of damage as a regular handgun, and when the flare impacts any surface at all, it bursts into a cloud of smoke, effectively making it a ranged version of the US smoke grenades.
The final official version of Battlefield Vietnam featured a total of eighteen maps, including four with no singleplayer support. One Point Three splits one of these maps, Defense of Con Thien, into two maps: "Defense of Con Thien", and "Across the DMZ", and adds one more map, Operation Lam Son 719 (the EA unofficial map "Valley Assault") to bring this number up to a full twenty maps. All maps have full AI support, although there are currently some problems with the AI on Operation Lam Son 719 that might not be fully resolved by the release date.
One Point Three also includes full support for the official WW2 mod, with similarly modified weapons, kits, vehicles, and maps. Two more maps have also been added: Guadalcanal by mapmaker "Edoardo Ammannati" on Gamefront, and Battle of Tarawa from the BfVietnam mod "Arsenal". More details on the WW2 mod will follow.
In the WW2 mod, the MP40 has been replaced by the Type Be, a Japanese descendent of the MP18 with a fifty-round magazine. Here, a Japanese medic engages US Marines with his Type Be during the Battle of Wake.
Lastly, One Point Three has a very special feature that was unfortunately impossible in Operation Remembrance: support for CUSTOM maps! That's right, One Point Three can be played with ANY custom map that was made for vanilla, unmodded Battlefield Vietnam! Just add the map file to the "Levels" folder in the One Point Three mod folder the same way you would install it in the base game, and you're good to go. One warning I will give is that because of changes I've made to the AI, certain custom maps with singleplayer support might have one or two minor odd occurances, like bots jumping out of certain vehicles in unusual places, but nothing that should seriously affect gameplay. Also, unless you know how to modify map files with WinRFA, only some of the new weapons will be available in certain kits, and the new vehicles won't be available at all.
One Point Three is set for release on March 15, 2024, the twentieth anniversary of Battlefield Vietnam's original release. Over the next two and a half months, I'll continue developing and fine-tuning the mod and its features, and will periodically update this page with news and specific features. Because One Point Three is much smaller than Operation Remembrance, I might even list out every detail I've altered for the mod so that my followers know exactly what they're getting. That's all for now, everyone. I hope you'll enjoy this celebration of Battlefield Vietnam's twentieth birthday.
Just here to let you know that this mod looks cool. Keep it up!
I congratulate you for the initiative! I think that thanks to you the bf:v mod community is still alive, without you surely the last mod would have been released and developed 2 years ago (Battlefield Balkan, the last update was released 2 years ago, although I have modified it For my convenience, I don't know whether to publish my modified file) well, something that also needs to be refined is that you have to remove all the T-72s, since the T-72s, despite being developed en masse starting in 1972, were never present in Vietnam. another would be about artillery, the BM-21 I don't know why but I would like it to be compatible with binoculars and not have that horrible recoil that prevents you from shooting, and also add at least one SKS to the Red team's anti-aircraft kit
Yes, I'm well aware of that with the T-72. I changed the files so that even if a map tries to spawn a T-72, it spawns a T-54 instead. This even works on custom maps. I did the same thing for the Ka-25 helicopter as well, because that wasn't used in Vietnam either. Trying to spawn that will instead spawn a Mi-8 gunship.
The BM-21 now works exactly like in Operation Remembrance, with no recoil, a high rate of fire, and rockets that arc like real artillery. I'll try adding the artillery view, but I don't think it will work. There are about five lines of code that make that camera mode work, and looking at them, I don't think they'll work properly with a weapon that can turn in a full circle. I think that's why the BM-21 doesn't already have that.
The SA-7 kit now has a MAT-49 for the NVA, and an MP40 for the Viet Cong. On maps with few or no aircraft, the NVA instead get a MAT-49 and time bombs, and the Viet Cong get a Kar98k with a rifle grenade launcher.
Well, by the way, how do I know if the North Vietnamese used MI-8 helicopters? I recommend that you look in the archives of the PoE rocket launchers, it works for them and if it worked for them it also works for you
There are records of the NVA using the Mi-8. They didn't have many and mostly used them in the last years of the war, but they definitely had them. One Point Three isn't intended to be absolutely historically accurate like Operation Remembrance. It's just supposed to be a fun expansion of the original game. And thanks for the advice about POE. I'll give that a look.
I think you'll be happy to know that I have the BM-21 working with the artillery spotting view thanks to your recommendation to look at the POE code.