Battlegroup42 1.6 - New Stationary Weapons news

Currently we are integrating some last minute content and would like to show you some new models that will be in version 1.6. This time the focus is on stationary weapons, their diversity being a speciality of BG42. Up to now there are more than 50 different stationary weapons, not counting the machine guns.

This diversity is still growing. We have got eight new AA and AT guns for you, some are already known from previous builds, but we have retired old models and replaced them with better, more detailed ones acquired from BGF´s legacy. But not everything is from BGF - some models are completely new and we would like to start with those.

The AT rifle Solothurn S18 was a weapon with 20mm calibre and it comes in three flavours: As main weapon for the Dutch AT soldier (with scope view), as vehicle mounted version for APCs and as a stationary version. This impressive weapon was modelled and skinned by RuppDee.

The Solothurn S18 was developed by the Swiss company Solothurn which was part of the German Rheinmetall company. The weapon, weighing almost 50 kilos, was capable of penetrating 27mm of armour at a distance of 500 meters and therefore was a threat to the lightly armoured vehicles and tanks at the beginning of WWII. It was hardly used by the German forces who preferred lighter weapons but saw widespread use in the Dutch, Italian and Hungarian forces.

The second new addition in our gun arsenal is the French Canon de 47 mm semi-automatique mle 1937, also designated as 47 mm APX anti-tank gun. It was kindly donated to us by Primergy who modelled and skinned the gun. It will come to use with our French forces in the future.

The APX was one of the best and most modern AT guns in the first half of WWII. Its high armour penetrating capability of 60mm at a distance of 500 meters as well as its firing range quickly made it a respected weapon among the German forces, since not one of the German tanks at that time was impervious to it. Only the fact that the APX wasn´t available in great numbers in 1940 kept the Germans from even greater losses of tanks. After the fall of France the APX was used by the Wehrmacht under the designation 4.7cm PaK 181(f).

The Soviet 45mm AT gun M1937 (53-K) is our third new addition. It was also used primarily during the first half of WWII. The Soviets combined a modified carriage of the Pak 36 with a 45mm gun. It had an armour penetrating ability of 43mm at 500 meters which soon proved to be inadequate after the fighting against Germany had started. The German Panzer III and IV could only be successfully defeated at very short ranges which was very dangerous for the gun crew. Starting in 1942 the M1937 was replaced by an improved version with a longer barrel. This model and the following Pak 36 have been modelled by Plutonius and skinned by Tha Godfather.

Just like the M1937 the German 37mm PaK 36 comes from BGF´s legacy. It was the standard AT gun of the German Wehrmacht at the beginning of the war. Although somewhat successful against the few Polish light tanks during the invasion of Poland in 1939, it showed significant weaknesses during the Battle of France. Its low armour penetrating ability of only 29mm at 500 meters made it almost useless against the well armoured French tanks, and was therefore dubbed as "Panzeranklopfgerät" ("tank door knocker") by the Germans. At the beginning of the war against Russia it proved to be completely obsolete and was soon replaced with more powerful guns like the 50mm PaK 38. The remaining guns were handed over to paratrooper and mountain infantry units or were mounted on APCs for infantry support.

There is no need to tell you much about the following weapons since they have been in BG42 for years now. And now they have been replaced with new improved, more detailed models, further improving the mod´s quality.

The first one is the German PaK 40 which has been modelled by Wyvern and skinned by Postman. Also new is the German 88mm FlaK 36, a very impressive model made by Badscull and Newton which was skinned by Tha Godfather. Additionally there are new models of the German 20mm FlaK 38 and 20mm Flakvierling. The FlaK 38 was made by Koricus, the Flakvierling was made by Badscull and textured by Postman. All guns were taken from BGF and coded by Sarge31FR.

That´s it for today. More updates are being prepared at the moment, there´s still a lot of stuff we want to show you. At the end of this news there´s the traditional call for modellers, skinners and creative coders. Also programmers with knowledge in C++ and C# for a future project are welcome.