SP Camo Workshop's

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SPWW2

Steel Panthers World War II ©

 

Game Guide

Version 4.0

Last Updated 25th January 2001

© 2001 SP Camo Workshop

Introduction

Just tell me how to Install It!!

What is Steel Panthers World War 2?

SPWW2 is a tactical level World War 2 historical wargame.

It is hexagon based, and the game is an alternating turn based (I go you go or IGOUGO) design.

One unit playing piece represents one vehicle or gun, or an infantry squad (section of up to 13 men) or a section of 1 to 4 support weapons (this is an important point some players miss - 1 machine gun 'piece' CAN represent 2 or 3 actual MG (for example, count the number of say 'MG34 MMG' lines reported in the encyclopaedia for the unit's weapons).

One game hexagon represents 50 metres of terrain.

One game move (player 1 turn plus player 2 turn) represents between one and 3 minutes of 'real time'.

It is an MSDOS program, but runs fine under most Windows 95 or 98 installations. The game also runs under Windows ME (just follow the Windows 98 Installation) and n OS/2 as well.

SPWW2 is an entirely freeware game! Please check out the Game Credits to see all the good people who have worked hard over the last 3 years to bring this game to you.

History

Steel Panthers : World War II © (SPWW2) is the successor to SP Camo Workshop's original 1998 conversion of the Strategic Simulations Inc (SSI) 1950 to 1999 modern game Steel Panthers 2 to a World War 2 time frame known as SP2WW2. SP2WW2 was a patched SP2 executable and a set of new data files, especially the unit icon artwork of Don Goodbrand.

SPWW2 was such an outstanding success that SSI made the source code for the original SP2 game available to SP Camo Workshop for further development in early 1999. Version 2.0 onwards are therefore complete games, not patches to SP2.

Version 2.0, based on the modified SSI SP2 source code was released for D-Day 1999. Over 50,000 downloads of the game were made.

Version 2.07 was released a few weeks later mainly to sort out some bugs with the Play By EMAIL security.

Version 2.2 was released at the end of 1999.

A version 2.2b was released a few weeks later to fix a couple of minor bugs.

Version 3.0 released in July of 2000 was the biggest change so far.

Version 4.0 is the current release. New functionality is flagged with the tag.

See What is New for a list of changes.

Please refer to the credits section at the end for those involved in the production of this game over the last couple of years.

The SP Camo group is an uncompensated, voluntary group of 12 hobbyists committed to improving the Steel Panthers game system for the benefit of other hobbyists to enjoy. It has now been 28 months since our original game SP2WW2 was conceived and developed. After releasing several upgrades and putting in several thousands of man-hours into this project, we still have many new ideas to implement and will continue to develop this game further.

We hope that you enjoy playing the game as much as we have enjoyed creating it.

On Behalf Of The SP Camo Group:

Don Goodbrand, Andy Gailey Producers/Programmers

Using the Game Guide

This Guide is designed to be used on 800 wide or wider monitor display settings. To use it in a 640 wide mode, it is best to open the guide up, then use the 'open in new window' trick mentioned below to view the right pane only, keeping the original 2 pane view for navigation. If you do not know how to set your monitor display - refer to your Microsoft Windows Help documentation.

Point at the heading bars in the left frame with the mouse, on clicking there the sub headings list will drop down - click a sub heading to go to that section. (IE 5 - right click on the subtopic, select 'open in new window' , should you want to open up a second window - e.g. to compare 2 sections of the guide).

To find a particular word in the main text - use your browser's search facility - with IE5 this is under 'Edit/Find on this Page' - but ensure you clicked on the right (this) pane first, or it will just search the left (Table Of Contents) pane.

Remember that your browser's 'Back' button will take you back to where you were previously - e.g. after jumping to a new section.

(Please note that to link to any external URL link in this guide - you will require to be online at that time, as this HTML cannot start up the Windows Dial Up Connection).


Game Installation

Game Requirements

In order to play the game video sequences, you should have one of the following SSI product CD ROM's in your first CD drive (if you have several - the game will only work from CD ROM No. 1 if >1 are present) when playing the game:
An original Steel Panthers 2 CD
An original Steel Panthers 3 CD (preferred option)
An SSI Arsenal CD with SP2 or SP3

Note that the preferred CD is one with SP3 on it, as the SP3 CD has World War 2 video footage.

This game is a complete stand-alone product. It is not a patch to be applied over any other SP series game.

- if you have installed TGN/Matrixgame's World War 2 product 'Steel Panthers World at War', you can utilise the video files provided as part of that game instead of an SP CD ROM. Go to www.matrixgames.com to see how to obtain this free download.

1) Go to the \data folder of the game, and find and open the zSpww2waw.ini file (where z is any character) with notepad or any other text editor (never a word processor!). This ini file has one line only - the path to wherever you installed the SPWAW video files. (To find these, open a DOS window, and navigate to the directory where the 'vidNNN.smk' files live under the main SPWAW directory - it must be a DOS window as the file names used must be MSDOS compliant 8 character format, not the windows format used in explorer - in other words, the 'greeked' versions of the path name with the ~1 type names).

Note that Windows help is wrong when it says to display the full MSDOS pathname just select the view/options/show full path - this is a full Windows path (filenames with spaces and > 8 characters long). For those of you who know nothing of MSDOS - you will need the DIR (directory) and CD (change directory) commands - note that typing /? after an MSDOS command gives basic help e.g. - dir /?

2) Edit the default path of 'C:\a\tmp' to the correct MSDOS format path to the SPWAW video files directory and save the ini file
3) Rename the file from zSpww2waw.ini to Spww2waw.ini using the normal Windows procedures, thus enabling the file - the 'z' character (where z is any character) in front of the filename is used to disable the ini file by altering its filename.
4) Should you desire to disable the ini file - just rename it with an inserted character at the start of its name.

- You can play the game without access to any video files (from an SSI CDROM or the SPWAW files) - in this case, a SSI advertisement splash screen is displayed occasionally - to do this, enable the Spww2waw.ini file as above, but in this case - make the directory point to a non existent folder, or at least one with no smacker (.smk) video files.

(The game will work fine with no video without doing this, but due to the way DOS tries to read the CD - if there is no actual CD (any CD will do) physically in the drive you will get an 'error reading' message (twice) - reply 'F' for fail if that happens in each case.)

You will in this case see only blank squares where the video cut screens would have played.

Installer program

Ensure that you have correctly downloaded the game installation program and that it is the correct size (see the readme.txt file). Should the executable not be the correct file size, see the Game Installation section of this guide for help. If running the installer produces some nonsense about a password - your download was incomplete or corrupted try again, perhaps using a download manager utility such as gozilla!, available from e.g. www.tucows.com.

You can place the installation program anywhere you like - once you have installed, you may wish to move it to somewhere you archive things, or given its size - move it onto a backup ZIP drive or similar, to save the need to download a second time should you need to reinstall the product.

Double click on the installation program - this is an Install Maker scripted installer.

READ the instructions presented to you by this program. Also - ensure that you read any late breaking news in the readme.txt file which will be presented to you as an option by the installer.

Now, read through the Game Installation section - this is not optional - it is compulsory!

IMPORTANT NOTE

This game is an MSDOS full screen application, and it will tend not to be happy with windows background tasks, or alt tabbing out to run other windows programs (although version 4 is a lot more stable, as some original legacy code was found to be writing to illegal addresses). See Game Installation.

This game is meant to on a 'clean' Windows session only, as the first and only program run after a fresh restart of Windows. Some PC set-ups will be able to run this game as a regular windows session, but should you have problems - stick to the above advice. All PC boxes differ - yours just may be a sensitive set up (However, version 4.0 seems stable enough that this especial care is less required - but if having problems, follow the advice given).

Unless you are running this game from a pure DOS environment (e.g. with a boot disk) then start the game with a windows shortcut as detailed in Game Installation. Do not simply double click on the .Exe file in Windows Explorer!

Installing Third Party Scenarios

I will put this right up front, as many folk seem to have problems with this process, and 'lose' existing scenarios. Each scenario set supplied should provide this basic information in its readme.txt file - but here is the process.

1) Get your scenario downloaded - these will usually be together in a zip file. If you do not know what a zip file is - you will likely need one go to www.winzip.com and download the utility - it is usable without registration, but nags you after a while. Learn how to use the utility.

2) Unzip the files to a scratch directory, not directly to the \scen sub directory of SPWW2! You do not want to unzip directly into the \scen directory as the supplied scenarios may overwrite your existing scenarios, if the designer has used the same slot numbers as somebody else.

3) Open up the scratch directory in Windows Explorer, and read any readme.txt file the scenario designer supplied. He should note in this how to change numbers but here is what you do:

3.1) Check the scenario files supplied against the ones already in your \scen files directory - if these use the same numbers, they will overwrite your existing files. If no clash - move them over using Windows explorer in the usual manner.

3.2) If any of the files use the same numbers - say you have a spscn019 set already - then you must manually edit the numbers used in the new scenarios to a disused number in the 000 to 999 range (with leading zeros). You may decide on slot number 42 say (and up, if it is a bundle of scenarios). Simply use the normal Windows file rename process, and change the numeric portion of the file name only entering 042 in the first (if a series) 042 in the second for each file in the set. So the set spscn019.txt (if provided), spscn019.dat and spscn019.cmt get renamed to spscn042.txt (if provided), spscn042.dat and spscn042.cmt. The supplied slot 19 scenario is now ready to be moved over into your \scen sub directory, where it will no longer overwrite the existing 019 set, and will be available in the game in the 43rd scenario slot (000 being the first index).

(If you do not know how to rename files, or use explorer - refer to your Microsoft Windows help files.)


Playing the game

This game is a variant on SSI's Steel Panthers II. You will have the original SSI game documentation with your copy of SP2, SP3, or SSI Arsenal, or any manual provided with SPWAW. If you do not have access to any of these - the basics of the game system are easy to figure out or ask or look at the messages archive at the SPWW2 egroup (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SPWW2) for help.

It is assumed that as you already have the SSI product, that you have played the game and are therefore familiar with the user interface. If not, then it is recommended that you read the SSI game documentation for your product at the very least, and try out the introductory scenarios as well.

This game is intended to be a challenging game for experienced SP players, rather than absolute beginners. Beginners may want to look at the 'how to' guides available on the net for SP1 and SP2 and other SP series games - try the Steel Panthers pages at The Wargamer for example..

The following sections are laid out on a screen by screen basis as a rule.

Main Screen

   
Saved Games Press this button to get a list of your saved games
Scenarios Press to see the scenario list (default view on start)
Campaigns This button will take you to the campaigns main screen
Battle Build and play a one off battle to your specifications (also displays version info on the screen when mouse is held over this button)
Editor This Button will take you to the scenario editor
Preferences This takes you to the preferences screen where you can adjust game parameters
Encyclopaedia Browse the equipment encyclopaedia
Help Provides some basic in-game help
Exit Terminates SPWW2
Start Start playing the selected Scenario, saved game etc.


Playing a one off battle

Select the 2 nationalities involved by clicking on the appropriate flag on either side of the dial (the green indicator will light to indicate which is current) and then click on the required nation's flag from the palette on the left-hand side.

Battle date - use to set the year and month of the battle. Note that some nation's flags will appear and disappear as time changes. The game restricts the time frame to the lesser period of the 2 nationalities selected, so if you go back to 1937 and choose the 2 Spains - you will not be able to go outside the Spanish Civil War until you choose one of the nations which is available right throughout the game time frame - say the UK . The game will select from over 150 historic battle locations based on the 2 sides involved and the month of the war and generate a random map based on that location, unless you choose a premade map to load.

Player 1 goes first, and is normally the human player when playing against the computer. Player is either human or computer (it is perfectly possible to play computer AI versus computer AI - if so, use the space bar to break into such a game at the next move end). A human versus human game assumes a Play By EMAIL (PBEM) game - but it is perfectly possible to play on the same PC versus a friend by this method. See PBEM games section.

The purchase button determines whether the computer selects the force, or the human player does. Usually left at human for human players.

Deploy - selects whether the computer or the human deploys your forces at game start - again it is recommended that the human deploys his own troops. Note that if you take computer deployment - you may find troops deployed outside the legal areas for a human deploy. The auto deploy uses the AI deploy, and it is allowed this. Note that in a human plays human game (PBEM or on the same PC) - setting human player 2 as 'computer purchase' does not work - player 2 will always be asked to manually buy his force.

Water Conditions - this selector becomes visible if you select an assault type battle, and allows you to select the water conditions (replaces the old water button)

The Battle Dial. This confuses some new players - click on the red increments to turn the dial icon. This is used to select the battle type. The default is the meeting engagement.

 
Battle Type
Description
Meeting Engagement

Both sides advance and try to take the various victory hexes on the map, dealing out casualties to the enemy whilst trying to reduce their own. Both sides get the same points to buy troops. Victory points per hex tend to be low, so destruction of units tends to be as equally important as taking objective hexes. 3 objectives deep in each sides own area are pointed relatively high, to reward a deep thrust into enemy territory.

Advance vs. Delay

One side (depending on the direction of the battle dial) is making a hasty attack against an enemy who is in a defensive posture, but has not yet had time to dig in and prepare static field defences.

The attacker gets more points than the delaying player, but the victory hexes are in the defenders part of the map, and the defender gets a larger area to deploy inside.

Victory hexes are more valuable than in the meeting engagement, so the attacker should focus on taking these whilst minimising his own casualties, destruction of enemy troops being regarded as a bonus. The delaying player wants to inflict maximum casualties on the attacker while remaining in possession of as many victory hexes as possible at game end, without losing too many troops in the process.

Assault vs. Defend

The attacker is making a formal assault on a prepared enemy position - the defender gets less points than in the delay, but is allowed to buy fortifications and field defences - mines and dragons teeth etc. All the defenders troops are dug in as well.

Objectives are far more valuable than in the advance/delay battle.

There are several assault sub-variations as set out below.

-Plain assault

This is played out on a normal battlefield. No special buttons have been pressed, but the water conditions setting for a random wide river can be used - this does NOT generate a river crossing (so no rafts are issued for example!), and is best left for a human versus human game only. The default assault battle type.

-River crossing assault

Use the water conditions button to select 'Wide river - North to South' and the assault becomes a river crossing.

A wide river extends down the map centre, and any bridges are usually blown. The attacker needs to cross the river to get to the objective, and the defender gets to sink lots of rubber rafts. Usually a turkey shoot when the human plays the AI, it can be moderately difficult for a human playing against the AI, and a tough game to play human versus human. All attacker infantry squads carry an rubber raft, but you will as the attacker require to buy barge carriers (carry a barge each) to get vehicles across.

Note: there is a limit to the number of attacker units at about 400. This is intended to leave a "pool" of free units to generate rafts from. If the attacker has 400 units, he can only have a maximum of 100 infantry in the water in rafts (minus any deployed barges) at any one time. For example, if he had only 300, then he could have 200 active rafts.

-Beach assault

Use the water conditions button to select 'Beach'. Half the map (the attacker's half!) will be ocean, and the attackers units will be deployed in amphibious transport. The attacker gets naval artillery support, not field artillery in this one. Note that there is a limit to the attacker's total number of units, as the transports require to be allocated from the total number of units available to him - about 350 units maximum.

The attacker has to cross the water in transport and then fight over the beach to the objectives, and the defenders task naturally enough is to stop this process as bloodily as he can. The defender should try to sink as many incoming transports while still in the water as he can, using say pillboxes with large guns, or driving tanks to the water edge. He may also lay mines and so onto make the attacker's task more interesting.

Similar to the water crossing in difficulty - the attacker should use smoke to mask his approach, the defender should plan to paste the unloading area of the beach with artillery. Again, against the AI, usually a shooting gallery for a human player, moderate difficulty for a human versus the AI, and perhaps quite challenging as a human versus human game.

 
Visibility This button selects the maximum visibility in hexes from 1 to 99. (In this game visibility covers both night and fog, rain etc.). Note low visibility (less than 40 hexes or so) means that air strikes are unlikely to be allocated, even if set to a positive number in the preferences screen, as visibility is too low at the airfields for flying that day.
Map Leave at random for a computer generated map, or load to use a map previously created in the game scenario editor and saved in a map save file (ensure that the map will be correct for the season etc. of the generated battle as this information (season) is not part of the map data, but comes from the scenario data - a 'white snow' map loaded into summer just means that you have white ordinary summer grass hexes, barring any special tiles like deep snow).
Map Size Use to select a map size from the list for the random map generator.
Preferences See the preferences section, but there you would set up things like aircraft availability, buy points etc. Understanding the game preferences is most helpful in generating battles.
Continue Go on and set up the battle with the selected parameters.
Exit Abandon this process, and go back to the game main screen


Purchase Screen

(Note that if you selected the computer to buy your units, naturally you will skip the purchase screens and go straight to deployment)
POINTS

The important bit, how much you have left to buy toys with. Player No 2's points depend on what player No 1 spent, and are multiplied or reduced depending on the battle type - if Player 1 is assaulting and spent 2000 points, then Player 2 will have rather less than 2000 buy points when it is his turn to purchase.

Note - even if player 1 selected max points, but only spent 2000 of that - then that 2000 will be the basis of player two's point allocation and not the max points.

Exception - if player 2's points are not set to XXX in the preferences screen he will get the value set for player 2 in the preferences screen regardless of player 1's buy.

View map Allows you to look at the map you are going to play over, and it is usually a good idea to look at the ground first before buying your troops. (A whole bucket load of expensive long range tank types who really want wide open fields of fire may be somewhat embarrassed if the battlefield is closed woodland and/or it is night time!)
Encyclopaedia Look at the stats for the game units, useful info when buying things.
Mission Tells you what you are going to do, and against whom just in case you forgot, or are player 2 in a PBEM game set up by somebody else.
Max Points Make the maximum points available to buy troops - if you want this use it before buying anything as it goes away immediately something is purchased.
Base Experience This tells you what your army's average experience level is - 70 is the basic level, more experienced troops will cost more and be more effective, less cost less, but perform less well. Set in Preferences - either user selected or based on a year by year national troop quality.
Force value The true cost of your troops bought so far (not the actual points spent) - as there is variance around the selected average base level when a formation is created (actually bought) - some of the bought troops will be much better than Base Experience and some rather less in the formations you have purchased. This indicates the true points value of your men, not the basic 'book' value you paid in points.
Unit List

The list of things you have bought so far, this grows as you buy things. To delete something you have bought - click on it in the Unit List and it goes away.

Note - it deletes by platoon, and the next unit bought will use that platoon slot. You can therefore buy a mixed combat team by buying say a tank company, click away the last platoon, then buy a mechanised infantry platoon and it then will replace the last tank platoon AND it will be considered part of that company for command and control purposes (e.g. rallying by the company HQ).

Note that the overall HQ unit (A0) cannot be deleted - this is you!

COST At the top of the Unit List - How many points you have spent on buying the listed troops. This will not necessarily agree with Force Value! You pay 'book' price based on BE (and any unit quality modifiers) - when the bought formation is created, some of the guys will be better experience, some lesser around the mean of the Base Experience.
ARMOUR View a list of the tank type units you can purchase - NB some armies might have say soft skin AT units here, as they are considered part of the tank forces (like USA towed Tank Destroyers). Some may have armoured SP guns and Flak units here - it depends on the OB designer.
ARTILLERY View a list of your artillery types - Off and on map artillery, forward observer teams, AAA, both towed and SPA, some SP AT units will be found here, AT guns and Naval Artillery etc.
INFANTRY See what you have available in the grunt category. Some light infantry support weapons types may be available also in this section.
MISC Oddments which do not fit elsewhere - APCs, trucks, some scouts, barge carriers, and most importantly - aircraft are found here when made available.
ALLIES

This takes you to a screen where you can change the troops nationality that you are buying to any other allowed nation at that point in time. From that point on, the troop choice is from that list, as and until you reset it back to your preferred main nationality.

SET ALLIED is the default - the troops bought will appear with their own national ID flag, and their leaders will be taken from that nation's leader table - not those of your main army.

You can elect to SET CAPTURED to use those troops as part of your force, but as captured items. They will display the same nationality flag as your main army, and their leaders and crews will be taken from your main army types and troop quality ratings - e.g. if you were German, and changed to Soviet, and bought some T34s after pressing SET CAPTURED - you will have T34 tanks, but with German ID tags crewed by Gefreiter Schmidt, rather than with Russian flags and crewed by Sterleit Romanov. As well as 'captured from the enemy' - this can be useful for utilising Allied kit not in your OB but with your own nation's crew (and ID flag), rather than the provider nation's.

There is no restriction as to whom you can have as allies, so use this facility sensibly :-).

In order to return to your main army, say after a purchase of some captures or allies - just go back to the allies screen, press the flag of your main army, and select 'SET ALLIED'.

DONE Finished all purchases, go on to the next stage and deploy.
Units Totals how many playing pieces you have bought.
Mines If you are defending, totals how many mine buy points you have bought to build obstacles with later on in the deployment phase.
Remaining Flights If you are allocated air support a total of the number of air formations (not individual aircraft!) you have available.
Formations The total number of formations (platoons) bought. Note that a company HQ is a formation - a company of HQ platoon and 4 platoons is 5 formations in total. Formation total is limited, so an army of 1 man sniper formations will tend to exhaust the maximum formation count long before it runs out of buy points.
Formation List In the middle of the screen is a list of formations of the type selected, Use the next and previous buttons if more than a page full of these are available. Pressing on one of these buttons brings up the Formation Purchase Screen. The current page and total number of pages is listed below the active button set.
EXIT Abandon purchases, and go back to game main screen.

Formation Purchase Sub-Screen

Select the available units from the list on the left - unit data will be shown only if there is room (some larger companies need much more room in the central column to list their items). The formation's title is shown at the top centre, and its cost in buy points, and how many pennies you have left - if it costs more than the remainder, then only as much as can be bought will be added to the unit list.

Note the 2 fields - Morale mod and Experience mod. Some formations (like SS units) will have positive values in these fields - better morale than average or better general experience, or both. These are elite formations, and naturally enough, will cost you more than the same equipment if bought for a line formation. Some formations will have negative values in these fields, such as reserve units. These will be poorer quality than average, and so will cost you less money. These numbers are applied as variations on the current army Base Experience.

Units actually purchased will vary both above and below this benchmark figure (see Force value above). So an army with BE of 70, and an elite unit of +10 experience will be about 80 experience level.

 
BUY Buys the selected formation. Repeated presses of this key will buy duplicates.
EXIT Returns you to the purchase screen.
Information If present, additional information provided by the OB designer can be referenced.

Remember the point I made earlier about mixed combat teams - here is an example

1) Bought an SS panzer company.
2) Exited to main purchase screen.
3) Clicked on platoon No2 to delete it.
4) Selected infantry, then SS panzer grenadier platoon, and bought it
5) The bought PzGr platoon becomes platoon 2 of the SS panzer company, replacing the deleted Plt #2.


Deployment Main Menu

 

Once you press done, you will see this screen (unless you chose computer deploy in the main battle generator screen!). The pretty pictures are randomly selected, just to make things more interesting.

Your nation is displayed (in case you save and come back later on) at the top of the screen.
Auto deploy The computer drops your pieces on the board. Not recommended for a human player. Not available in a user campaign, as the start line for the human player is variable at the designer's whim in these.
Human deploy This is the recommended deployment option for human players! - takes you to the pre game deployment screen.
Quit deploy Hit this when finished deploying (the pre game deploy process comes back to this screen once you are done deploying). Continue on to the actual battle.
Save game Save the game at this (deployment) point - this is usually a very good idea in case of mistakes, in fact it is a good idea to save the game before you deploy anything at all, just in case you make a complete hash of the set up, and need to start over. Also save (just after completing deployment) to a separate save, so you can then come back and replay from the start if you desire.


Deploying Your Forces

There are few real differences here from the standard SSI deployment - read your SSI game instructions for details. Here are a few minor points on SP Camo improvements:

Note that you can now unload barges and amphibious transports into the water in the deployment phase of an amphibious assault mission. This allows you to move your troops into the desired carriers pre-game, should you prefer to do this (cross-decking, in naval parlance). Remember to ensure that all are actually in a boat before you finish deployment - troops left in the ocean will eventually drown!

Also note the set range button - this can be useful in the deployment phase, especially if you are the second player and do not want your ambushes to give away their positions if defending or delaying.

You can now deploy units stacked in the same hex in the deploy phase, should you so desire. Select the unit to place, then shift-click the mouse pointer onto the hex containing another unit in which you wish to stack with.

Special note about User Campaigns and deployment - remember that a unit moved to the far right or far left rows will exit the map! User campaign maps are generated from scenario maps, which allow you to set up in the 2 exit rows (free deployment) - remember to move any troops you deploy there into the main map area on turn 1 or they will depart the battle!

We have made the game preferences button available in the deployment phase as this can be handy sometimes.

The Help (?) button is also new - this will list the deployment basic help, including hot keys.

Hot keys:
 
A Deploy all of the current formation close by the current unit.
B Go to the bombardment menu screen to plot artillery.
C Clear dark hexes and smoke (e.g. those created by a V action)
D Load all loadable units into the NEAREST available transport (not necessarily units own transport) - or unload all currently loaded units from transports (prompt).
E Entrench your units (Assault or Defence only - less types entrench for assaulter). NB - you cannot entrench in water type hexes - e.g. marshes.
F Find (go to) the current unit if on the map.
G Go to the next formation's HQ unit, i.e. cycle through formations.
H Go to the Unit Status list menu.
M and > Toggle Map Text on or off
L Load/Unload unit onto/from a transport.
N,P Select the Next or Previous on map unit. NB - N and P keys do not move the map to centre on the unit - use F to centre the map if the unit is off the current map section.
Q Quit deploying.
S Save the game to disk.
V Show the hexes visible to the current unit in the facing it is currently pointing at - turn the unit by right clicking on a clear hex, then use this key again, to look all round, if desired.
W Assign unit to a new formation. Note that support units can be assigned only to support formations, and campaign core units can only be assigned to other core formations. Support units cannot be assigned to core formations and vice versa. If you assign away all the troops of a formation, the HQ is still there but 'lost' - it will appear on the roster, and its leader will gain experience as a campaign continues, but you cannot add troops to him. Basically - it is not a good idea to transfer all the units out of a formation
X Allows the defender (in an assault/defence game) to deploy mines and dragons teeth, provided that he spent build points on mines in the purchase menu.
Y Set the maximum fire range for the unit. Useful mainly for defenders who do not wish their troops to fire at long ranges and hence give away their positions too soon.
? Call up help screen.
- and + Unzoom or zoom the map.
. (dot) Set game length in turns - (Player No 2 in a PBEM game, otherwise player No 1) - NB do NOT go over 90, as the code uses high 90's numbers to indicate end-of-game internally. 90+ any possible game extensions in length will work OK, but generally keep under about 70 turns
Space Bar Shows the current unit's information screen. (Adjust aircraft height here, rename leaders etc.).
< Toggle the victory hex display on or off (e.g. to see what the hex under the flag looks like)

Note: it is in the deploy screen where you set out your 10 pre planned artillery target hexes (gold spots), and also any artillery plotted now will fall in turn 0, i.e. as a pre-game bombardment. Any such artillery fires, when complete can of course be fired with minimal delays even if adjusted, later on - select the firing unit on the bombard menu in game, then hit the appropriate ammo button and the battery will aim at the last spot fired on. Therefore - any pre game bombardment is a prime candidate for say a creeping barrage, adjusting each mission minimally and avoiding long delays for impromptu fire requests later. Use the B key to go to the bombardments menu and set these up. Use the B key to plot your air drops here, if you have bought transport planes, once they have been loaded, and also you can now time your barrage or air drop missions -- see New Bombard Screens, and Air Unit handling changes.

Note on loading and unloading : Select the unit to be transported, hit L, and then click on the unit to load onto is the best method to use. You can select the transport and hit L, then point at the unit to load as a passenger but this only works for one (1) transported unit! (as if you hit L on a loaded transport, it will firstly unload all its passengers - L is also the unload key for transports, recall!). Therefore - select the unit to load, then L, then point at the intended transport, as this allows multiple passenger units on a single transport, assuming that the intended transport has the lift capacity. Also - in the deploy menu, there is no distance checking from the loader to the transport, unlike in the game itself. Thus - in the deploy phase only - you do not need to place the unit to be transported into the same hex as the transport (alongside for barges and rafts).

In-Game Play

Main Map Window - where the game action occurs, this can be zoomed. Move mouse to edges of the screen to scroll this window.

Status window - the black window at the bottom of the Main Map - shows the basic data for the selected unit (a Churchill here), shots left, maximum range setting, remaining move points, and how many enemy seen. Also printed here is the current game turn and length of the game (funnily enough - we get lots of queries as to 'how to find the game length' or 'what turn it is' - here is this information that many players seem to miss..). Game maximum visibility level is also displayed here in hexes.

Info Window - at the top, usually red backgrounded, is used to post informational messages. For example - the mouse is currently over hex (x)84,(y)14 which has a height of 25, it is impassable terrain for vehicles, and is a slope hex.

Mini Map Window - Bottom right, shows an overview of the map area. Click on this map to move the main map window focus. If the map size is greater than 80 hexes in X, then click on the top 1/4 of the mini map to move up, the bottom 1/4 to move it down.

Button Window - at the right hand side. Contains the game action buttons. Flag at the top tells you your nationality, and if an action replay is available from previous activity the LED beside the map turns green. If it is green - clicking it will run the replay. Not all game functions have buttons, and are provided or duplicated with hot keys.

Map Autotext in random battles - Note the objective hex above is now labelled with automatically generated text in a random battle map, provided that the 'load map' function was not used (In which case, any map text the map designer provided is used). Objective hexes are labelled from 'ALPHA' through the NATO phonetic alphabet, and the objective hex value in Victory Points is also noted alongside. (As this can be a bit confusing when the objective hexes are in clusters, use the map text on/off toggle as desired to show the text labels or not).

Unit Communications Status - On the unit information pane at the bottom of the screen, the unit's comms link status with its superior HQ is now noted. The selected unit shown is 'In Contact' and so will be able to be rallied by its HQ, however if it is out of contact (shown in red) then it can only be rallied by its own leader. Radio contact is OK, but the link is not 100% reliable!

Water Speed - Water speed in hexes is now shown in blue alongside normal movement points, as this avoids confusion when a unit with swim speed of say 4 hexes, and land speed of say 12 hexes 'stopped' in water - many users did not realise that swimming speed differs from normal.

Hot keys:  
A Select the 'All Formation' mode - not a very useful function, except when you want to set the range of an entire formation with one use of the 'Y' key. Remember to toggle this off after the Y operation, or the next time you try to move a unit, the entire formation will move simultaneously under AI control - and it does not tend to make a very good job of it! - plus you cannot undo a group move...
B Go to the bombardment menu screen to plot artillery and air strikes.
D Fire unit's smoke dischargers, if fitted and ammo left.
E Go to the Encyclopaedia.
G Go to the next formation's HQ unit, i.e. cycle through formations.
L Load/Unload unit onto/from a transport. (See note on this in deployment above).
H Go to the roster (clipboard) menu.
M and < Toggle map text strings on or off (If a scenario designer has provided map text info)
N,P Go to the Next or Previous on map unit.
Q End turn (current situation is autosaved to slot No. 6 if this is not a PBEM game)
R Rally the current unit, provided it is capable.
S Save the game to disk.
T Select targets from those available.
U Clear dark hexes and smoke. (Toggles - hit twice to get smoke back after clearing dark hexes)
W Select a single weapon to fire. (From submenu) - ignored for close assaults.
X Fire a smoke round at the target hex.
Y Set the maximum fire range for the unit. Useful mainly for defenders who do not wish their troops to fire at long ranges and hence give away their positions too soon.
Z Fire direct area fire at a hex - no requirement for a target to be located there (AKA suppressive fire).
? Call up help screen.
- or + Unzoom or zoom the map.
> Enable or disable the display of victory hexes.
@ For a vehicle or other crewed item, bail the crew out - mainly useful to rescue core crews in a campaign game.
[ And ] These keys slow down or speed up the scroll rate. Only useful for minor adjustments - the Game Installation section mo'slo.com for better ways should these not suffice
spacebar Show the unit's information screen. (Here is where you set aircraft altitude, and rename leaders (click on the leaders name) etc. Also - click on a weapon and it toggles to red, and will not fire until toggled back on once again
* Surrender the game, with a massive points penalty - to your opponent (mainly useful in PBEM).
right click On an enemy unit to see basic information about it.

Loading and unloading - now, you must be in the same hex as the transport, unless it is a barge or raft which allow alongside loading, as they are typically in water.

Users often ask how to move a unit into the same hex as another. The answer is to firstly select the unit to be moved, then shift-click onto the hex with unit(s) in it which you want to move into.

Users often ask how to turn a unit in place - select the unit and right click in the desired direction on a clear hex and the unit will turn and the visible hexes for that unit will also be highlighted. (Right clicking on an enemy unit will bring up the statistics for that unit - hence right click on an empty hex or one containing friends only to turn or inspect the visible hex region for a unit). Note that we have removed the old 'cheat' whereby if you right clicked on a hex containing an unspotted enemy unit, your unit 'refused to turn', thus giving you 'free' information you should not have had.

Note also that the end turn button is now highlighted in red - this is mainly to make its use more obvious, and for ease of questioning end users who email us for support, as some often get confused between the end turn and exit game buttons. Especially in a PBEM game where the 'exit game' button is actually a 'suspend my current move, I will finish it off later' button - a save in other words. Confused players would sometimes exit with the suspend (up arrow) button, and send this save off to their opponent, thinking they had completed their turn - nope, requires the RED end turn button to complete a move!

We have gone back to the SP1 method of reporting firing ranges as so many yards, (or indirect fire) rather than so many hexes, as a lot of users have asked for this feature to be restored. Also - many new users did not seem to realise that '20 hexes' is a kilometre in this game - 2 hexes are about the length of a football pitch, though the units seem to be alongside. The reporting in hexes, metres or yards is an ini file setting - see the Customising section..

New Bombard Screens, and Air Unit handling changes

There have been major changes in the way aircraft are handled in SPWW2 version 4, as opposed to the other SP series games treat them.

All air units, barring the reintroduced helicopter class are now off map units no longer moved as on map units one hex at a time by the player under 100% human control. Aircraft now belong to the Air Force or higher commands than yours, so are not available in campaign cores or as upgrades. Aircraft missions are therefore now requested from the expanded off map bombardment menu.

Note that transport parachute missions, bomber missions and gliders require a lot of pre battle planning, therefore if you do not plot these in the deployment phase you will find that the delays are rather long (though in no way as long as they should be in real terms!). So plot these before the game start!

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There is a new button which is used to cycle through the various pages of the bombardment menu - there is no longer a single artillery page!

Artillery Page

Same as before, for artillery air strikes and the new Level Bomber class to plot fire missions with.

Spotter Page

Used to plot air observation plane missions. Set the binocular icon on the spot where you want the spotter plane to circle round, after setting the air entry and exit directions as required. Spotter planes enter after a short delay, as they are 'on call' and fly their mission at the start of your move, therefore any enemy units they spot will remain so during your move. They will fly to nearby the binocular symbol, then circle twice and fly off (if not killed). Note that if part of the circle takes them off map, that ends the current pass, so take care when plotting spotter missions near the map edges. Spotter planes remain available until they are shot down, or are damaged, or in some cases if enough AAA fire is received, they will "Return To Base" prematurely. Spotters will not fly before turn 1 of a game.

Airborne Page

This page is where you plot any air transport paratroop drops or glider landings. Remember to set the air entry and exit directions to your requirements before plotting a Landing Zone marker, and to load the troops onto the planes as well, as unloaded transports are useless! Airborne missions are plotted from turn 1 onwards.

The Bombardment Delay Adjustment Buttons (+) and (-)

These 2 buttons will only appear on the pre game bombardment plot (Turn 0 of the game).

In every other Steel Panthers game, pre game bombardments are restricted to the opening turn 0 of the game. These buttons allow you to plot your artillery, air strikes, spotter planes, or airborne missions to come in on a turn other than turn 0 (1 for some air types).

For example, you may want to plot a large barrage of artillery onto a cross-roads that you think your enemy will reach on turn 3. To do this, hit the (+) key until delay is shown as turn 3 on the artillery page, then plot the appropriate batteries, which will now fall on that spot on turn 3, not turn 0 (with a small margin of error in timing e.g. for batteries with low experience).

Note: The delay modifier will apply to all missions of all types plotted after you increment it or decrement it. Therefore, for example, after plotting your turn 3 fire mission as outlined above - you now want to plot some batteries for turn 1. If so, remember to hit the (-) key to reduce the delay before plotting these missions.

This feature provides an important new tool for the scenario designer that allows for the creative use of fireplanning. One could, for example, reserve smoke screening until just the right moment before the attacking AI force needs it rather than firing on turn zero only.

Air Transports And Gliders

Transport aircraft and gliders are shown on map in turn 0 pre game deployment, so that you can load the passengers into them. After deployment is finished, they will be stripped off map, therefore remember to load up the appropriate troops, or you will not be able to in the game!

Note that we have provided some 'ready made' glider and Airborne units with the appropriate aircraft included - these will be shown on the purchase screen as say 'Para Co. [G]' or 'Para Co. [A]' where [G} stands for glider borne and [A] for Airborne.

Any infantry unit can be put into a transport plane and dropped by parachute - however unless the unit is a proper paratrooper class (class type, not unit name - like 'Para Inf-AT') - then expect horrible casualties on landing as these are not properly parachute trained troops.

When plotting Para drops, try to drop your men in clear open hexes, not in woods, on slopes, or in deep water for example or casualties will be bad. Gliders will also prefer to land in wide open spaces as well. Remember that gliders, transport planes (and level bombers) will drift 'off target' depending on troop quality (experience) and particularly in low visibility - less than 2 KM, 40 hexes, getting worse down to dark night or fog type conditions (2 or 3). gliders are more likely to have a rough landing in poor conditions, or to crash land, and also recall that smoke is treated as fog - landing gliders blind into smoke is not a bright idea! gliders do not like to land in minefields, and treat dragons teeth as anti glider obstacles, which are rather fatal to them.

Parachute dropper planes, and bombers make one pass and then "Return To Base", gliders are considered destroyed after landing. Transport planes which are shot down may manage to get some paratroops out the doors, and aborts due to damage may simply drop the troops as they exit. Transports with multiple Para squads will not always drop these all in one 'stick - there may be a 'hang up' and therefore a gap.

Note : Air transport formations do not reduce the number of available air strikes, but you will need at least 1 available air strike to buy them. Therefore if all your air transports 'disappear' it is likely because you bought all the air strikes you were allocated as fighter bomber, spotter or bomber missions - delete one of these, then your transport plane units should return, finally when done, re purchase that last air strike!.

Unit Information Screen

This is the screen that comes up when you select one of your units, and then hit the space bar.

At the top in green is the unit ID - formation letter (s) followed by the unit's number in that formation. Then the unit's actual name - you can click on this and change to whatever you want. (NB - the name is what is reported to the other player in PBEM games, e.g. when a hidden unit of yours fires - so creative use of this facility can provide misinformation!).

The '0' unit of a formation (platoon) is the commander - but in campaign cores, should the leader have been destroyed, a subordinate can take over - see the formation info screen and note the 'H' beside a unit for the HQ unit. A is the first formation, and A0 is the battle group commander - you!

Beside the name is a graphic representing his skill level - here a set of 'corporals stripes' indicates that he is an average experience unit - in fact with 60 experience points, he is at the low end of average - veterans start at 80.

In the columns below the unit name is some primary game information:
Status Here shown as 'ready' - can be retreating or routed or other nasties!
CHQ Link

Absolutely vital - so that superiors in the command chain can rally this unit, in addition to itself. Radio equipped units can operate anywhere - but the further from their leader unit they are (or if the leader has no radio - you need 2 to talk!) then there is a likelihood of not being in contact. Units without radios, (or whose radio is on the blink) which are over 5 hexes or so (250 yards) from a leader are usually out of contact - not good! In WW2 radius are not common, so keep non radio units within 3-4 hexes of the unit commander.

Units not in command contact lose morale, as well as losing the benefits of being rallied by higher formation leaders if required.

Suppression How badly suppressed this unit is. Suppression reduces morale, and also operating ability (e.g. a suppressed unit finds it harder to spot and to hit targets). Suppression comes from enemy fire, being out of command control, or having routing friends nearby, friendly tanks exploding around you, and so on. Rallying can reduce suppression.
Weapon info

The weapons this unit has (damaged weapons will get a '-') - and the ammunition status for each. Note that only weapon slot 1 can have special ammunition like sabot. Range is the maximum range this weapon can reach in 50 metre hexes.

The weapon names are green - pressing a weapon name with the mouse toggles disabling (the name goes red) or re-enabling a particular weapon - should you want to hold ammo, say.

Smoke Ammo Smoke ammo if available for the primary weapon - grenades for infantry types. If smoke dischargers are fitted - SD:NN is shown, with NN being the number of salvoes of smoke.
Experience This is one of the most vital variables in the entire game. It determines if you are 'green' cannon fodder, or an elite or veteran, who shoots more shots, and hits more often. At 60, this guy's experience is not much above green.
Morale Another key variable, this one affects rallying ability. This guy's 73 is good morale - he is keen.
Damage For squads and crewed weapons, each point is 1 crew or squad member gone, for vehicles it is less related to crew size. Damage affects morale and therefore rally ability, can remove weapons, and damaged units tend to fire more slowly. Damage is not good news.
Speed This is the unit's basic speed in hexes, with any swim capacity shown as the second figure.
Men Current crew size (after damage) or squad members left.
Radio Rare in non-vehicles in WW2 - 1 if you have one, 0 if not.
Fire Control How good your optics etc. are - bigger is better.
Size Larger is easier to hit and to spot.
Cost The value of this unit in game terms (buy and victory points)
Vision If non-zero, the amount of hexes you can see in poor visibility.
Range Finder This improves the units' chance to hit - bigger is better, but it is far more effective at the halt - i.e. you did not move in this turn or the last one.
Carry Cost An indication how heavy this thing is, how difficult to transport.
Carry Capacity An indication of how much this unit can carry - 12 men in this case.
Passenger List of any transported units - This is carrying P1, an MG section.
Turret Picture Lists the steel armour for the turret sides, top armour if this is a non turreted unit. If values are shown in red - this unit is open topped, hence quite vulnerable to artillery fires, and to close assaults by infantry. If a vehicle is open topped - even pistol shots can go through if a top hit is scored!
Hull Picture Armour diagram for the vehicle hull, lower hull for non-turreted designs.

The unit leader's name is shown under the picture - pressing on this with the mouse lets you rename the leader, if desired. Also shown is his statistics:
Rally An indicator as to how good this leader is at rallying unhappy subordinates, or himself. This number will reduce during a turn as rallies occur, and be set to zero for the rest of the turn if the rally attempt fails.
Inf Command

A reflection of how good this leader is at infantry related tasks.

If he is performing an infantry function, or is near a subordinate he can sometimes influence their or his actions depending on this value. If he successfully throws a 'skill roll' and has a higher value in some skill than the subordinate then the subordinate will use his higher value for that skill.

The other skills - armour, artillery etc - work in a similar fashion. Therefore, having skilled leaders very close by (within 3 to 5 hexes or so) is good in SP series games.

Low here - this guy is a tanker! (Note - in a mixed formation - if the leader is a tanker and the majority of the subordinates are infantry - he will not be able to help them much).

Art Command How good this leader is at artillery related tasks, such as directing fires from a remote battery. A key variable for calling fires - naturally better for proper artillery units, or for artillery OP units. Again low as he is a tanker by trade.
Arm Command This is high, as he is a armoured unit commander.
Kills A tally of this unit's total kills - deleting an enemy unit is a kill - i.e. an entire squad, not 1 or 2 individuals.

If this unit is in a campaign core - these variables will tend to increase over time, or if the leader was destroyed, a new leader will be generated, or one of the subordinates will take over the formation command. Kills help experience to rise in a campaign, so it is worth 'blooding' even those units which normally live in the rear, if you find the opportunity in a campaign for them maybe to go forwards and sweep up a few stray crews etc. NB - firing your weapons at a real enemy is a major help to experience increases, as is being shot at 'for real'. Campaign core units switched to a new speciality keep their old statistics - so a tank traded to an SPA 105mm indirect piece is less good at that job till it has tried it for some time.

Air unit height is shown for planes - you alter altitude for these items on this screen, for on map air units.

Press continue to exit this screen.

Game Play Notes

The original Steel Panthers series of games were somewhat over-oriented to being tank games. We have taken this over emphasis on armour and produced what we feel is a far better combined arms game than before. Special attention has been paid to the real arms of decision in WW2 - namely the infantry and artillery. We think the new models for these are far superior to the original offerings. (But we may be a little biased! :).

One main point to note is the game scale - which is 50 metres (yards) per hex. That is half the average football field, and just because a tank or squad looks 'very close' that is just the scale of the unit icon. 2 units even in the same hex can be well over 30 yards (metres) apart - nowhere near point blank! Look at 2 tanks in adjacent hexes in the game - they appear to be 'side by side' - however, place them about 10 hexes away from each other to see what the actual 1/1 scale of 2 vehicles 50 metres apart looks more like! 2 units in the same hex can be 50 yards apart, not necessarily at hand to hand combat ranges. Players often get confused since the vehicle scale and the ground scale differ.

In the SP series games, you are organised into units (called formations in this game) of platoon strength, or sub platoon sections of detached tanks or support weapons acting as a platoon for our purposes. The commander of this unit is the '0' unit of that formation (In campaign games if the original leader dies, this is not always the case - look for the 'H' telltale in the unit list screen). This leader provides rally opportunities for his subordinates but when 'command' is set to on in the preferences (and only absolute beginners turn this reality setting off!) then he must be in contact with his subordinate in order to command him. For units with a radio - this can be anywhere on the map. Provided the radio is working at that point in time. All radios have a chance not to be in contact, and these are WW2 radios, not modern radios, so nowhere as reliable a means of out of voice range contact.

Most WW2 units (especially infantry) have no radios and must keep voice contact - this is only reliable to 3 or 4 hexes (200 metres). A common fault many players have is to spread their units in a platoon formation kilometres apart, they are then out of command control, and if they get a reverse, they will then tend to run away a lot.

Frontage for a WW2 infantry platoon (or tank platoon without radios) when advancing would be 150 to 200 metres (3 to 4 hexes), a tank platoon (with radios!) might stretch to 400 to 500 metres (8 to 10 hexes). Keep to these sorts of frontages and you will be better off. Also - bar the Russians who tended to advance a complete company in a single line - platoons would tend to advance either '1 up' or '2 up' in UK parlance, though 2 up is normally kept for the assault.

With a typical UK platoon of 3 rifle sections (squads in USA-speak) and the platoon HQ group, '1 up' means that the point section is at the tip of a triangle pointing at the enemy (the axis of advance of the platoon runs through this unit), the other 2 at the base of the triangle - sides of the triangle about 300 to 400 metres long, platoon HQ in the centre of the triangle, behind the point section. This is a good formation for the phase of the battle known as the 'Advance to Contact', as if the lead section comes under fire, the platoon commander, who is following behind, but not too close as to become involved in the fire fight has 2 uncommitted sections in reserve to bring up to the firing line, or outflank the enemy with as he sees fit. Also, the front section might put a 2 man patrol scouting 150 metres or so ahead of itself - these guys could come from the point section, but most likely from one of the held back sections in order not to reduce the strength of the point unit. (In SP terms, buy a patrol or scout unit as we cannot split sections)

2 up is the reverse of this with 2 sections out front, the platoon HQ behind the centre of these, and one section behind the platoon HQ as the reserve. This formation is the normal assault formation used to fight through an enemy position - more firepower to the front, but the platoon HQ and rear section available as reserves. In the actual formal assault, as opposed to more open battle - the platoon frontage would be 100 metres or so (2 hexes) but the platoon HQ would hang back 100 to 200 (2 to 4 hexes) metres from the front sections, the reserve section a similar distance behind the platoon HQ section.

A UK tank troop (platoon) of 3 tanks would tend to operate similarly in a triangular formation, though one of the units would be the platoon commander - not the point one, usually! A later model 4 tank troop would either act as the rifle platoon, or it would act as 2 pairs, one pair advancing as the other halted to give overwatch cover, alternately bounding, or 1 of each pair halted, bounding with its partner. If contact with the enemy was really expected, then the troop would bound one vehicle at a time, the others halted to cover. (In a rifle section the LMG group would bound with the rifle group - and if really required, the rifle group would split into 2 supporting bounding groups - and if under real fire, often 1 man would advance covered by the entire section's fires, but that level of combat is not covered in this game - sections (squads) are 'atomic' game units in SP series games).

Platoons are put together under the command of a company. This is an HQ unit (which is itself a platoon formation in game terms), and the company commander, if in contact with platoon units - can also rally these if required. Organising yourself in companies, rather than buying lots of individual platoons, is therefore a very good thing.

Again - UK companies of 3 platoons tended to advance in a triangular formation of platoons '1 up' if advancing to contact, 2 up if fighting through a position. Distance between rifle platoons could be 300 to 500 metres (6 to 10 hexes). Company HQ again central to the triangle, any support weapons attached would be deployed as required where their weapons would give the best cover. Tank squadrons (companies) would tend to have more troops (platoons) and these tended to operate paired up - A troop would hold still to cover B troop advancing, then A troop would 'bound' through (or by) B troop's new position while B troop returned the favour by halting and providing covering fire (if required) but at least 'overwatch' (reaction fires in SP terms). Tank squadrons would therefore advance as a parallel set of moving paired troops, any spare troop(s) and the Squadron HQ following behind, at a distance close enough to provide support, but not get involved in the initial firefight when the front troops bounced the enemy.

Rifle sections in a rifle platoon would bound forward covered by the rest of the platoon at the halt as well.

This is what the military call 'fire and movement' - where one (or more) stationary subunit covers the movement of another subunit - either by being ready to fire, or in an engagement, by actual fire. If the formation adds something a bit more 'fancy' to this mix - like using the fire and movement together to aid the placement of an assault (or flanking fire) sub unit off to an enemy flank - you then have 'fire and manoeuvre', where the fire and movement is used to gain some form of positional advantage (usually to the flank and or rear) of the enemy, rather than merely closing straight at him.

This was the later war tactics for the British - early war tank (cavalry) units had a depressing tendency to 'tank charge' to close quarters with the enemy in their over enthusiasm - no lack of morale, just bad tactics. The Royal Tank Regiment (who ran the 'I' tanks, and were considered a 'technical' arm like the Engineers say - not dashing cavalrymen who played polo and hunted to hounds) were better at it, and developed useful tank/infantry tactics early on.

Back to game detail - still on command and control here. Your commander must be in a fit state to rally subordinates - if he is retreating or worse, then he has no command influence, so you may need to rally him first! Also - before you do rally subordinates, check the commander's status, as if he fails a rally on a subordinate, that is all his rally chances gone for this turn - it can be embarrassing to have rallied all your men back to 'ready' status, and be about to move forwards to find the platoon (or company!) commander is 'pinned' because you forgot to rally him a little in the process. Do not just select units and hit the 'R' key is the motto really - look at all the subunits of a formation, and their current state and plan your rallying. Also note that rallying comes from the top down - hitting the R key on a squad will use the Company Commander's rally attempts then the Platoon Commander's before trying the squad sergeant's. This may not be what you wanted - again, think a bit before poking that R key. When a unit fails to rally itself or its subordinate - its rally chance statistic is set to 0 until next turn - this confused some end users who thought the unit was a hopeless rally case - no, zero just means that it has failed a rally attempt, and so cannot rally again this turn. The number returns at the beginning of the next move.

The A0 unit represents you - it is the Battle Group Commander. A0 can rally any subordinates in the chain of command if in contact, just like a company commander. You may therefore want to keep your HQ close to the main action, without exposing him to too much danger to add heart to the key part of the fight. If you buy too many independent platoon sized units, apart from their own platoon HQ units, then A0 will be the only source of rally (if in contact) - and will soon run out of rallies, another good reason to buy companies as these have the company commander in the chain of command (and usually nearby) to provide rally opportunities.

I mentioned fire and movement up above, and the fact that the cover unit would be at the halt. This is WW2, with primitive fire control equipment compared to today, and no real stabilisation systems that were any benefit to moving tanks. SPWW2 severely penalises firer movement - if you want to hit, especially at long ranges (over 500 to 750 metres, 10 to 15 hexes) then you should fire from the short halt (having moved the move before, not this one), and if you really want to hit, fire from the full halt (having been stationary the entire previous move as well as being stationary in the current move). In SPWW2, you are considered fully stationary only if you neither moved this turn, nor the previous game turn (in technical terms - if you expend >= half your MP in a previous turn, a 'moving fast' flag is set - you need to spend a complete turn not having expended half or more MP to reset this flag). Movement will also break any fire control solution you have made on the target ('target lock') unless you have a US tank with a stabiliser (and that itself is being over generous to the piece of equipment concerned!). In WW2, firing at 1500 metres (30 hexes) and above is firing at extremely long range, unless you have very good fire control equipment when this may go up another 500 metres (10 hexes) if you have a German piece with FC of 5. When trying to hit things at this range, expect to engage from the halt for 2 or 3 turns. It also helps (if your target is not infantry!) if it co-operates by remaining entirely stationary through the engagement. Charging to point blank range (1 hex or 0 hexes) can help, but do not expect some sort of 'gun to the head' shot - your chance will be better, but you will have movement deductions, and if the target tank itself was moving fast then the speed of his travel is taken account as well (even if the target appears to you to be 'in the same hex' for your entire move - if he was trundling along at 30 MPH at the end of his turn, he is still considered to be doing 30 MPH. If you closed on him at 20 MPH, then the speed difference calculates at 50 MPH - a fast passing shot even if at 'point blank'). Also - since movement takes fire opportunities (and vice versa) - you could end up with but 1 or 2 shots at close range and end up stranded with no MP left, and your opponent can repeat the medicine on your tank.

However - if no enemy is expected, then you can operate a 'travelling overwatch' where the 2 units merely move relatively slowly, thus leaving some shots for opportunity fire if the enemy reveals himself. Leave full speed (half or more MP expended) travel for when out of contact with the enemy, as it severely reduces shots, and accuracy too and makes infantry more vulnerable to shell or direct fires. In combat, everybody slows down and becomes more cautious about movement.

This is especially true for your infantry, for -unlike vehicles - infantry travelling fast are more vulnerable than those at the halt (who are considered most protected, by taking use of the available cover, and going prone), or at least travelling prudently (1 hex or less). When needing to advance infantry under fire, or you expect at any point that hidden enemy will likely open up - do not move over 1 hex if you can possibly avoid this. Do not run around with your infantry at full speed when being indirectly shelled either - fast moving infantry is more vulnerable to HE fires. Slow down to 1 hex in shelling, if you must move at all. Moving 1 hex covers both a short quick dash, or a cautious creep, in game terms. In especial, note that troops who have just dismounted from a transport are considered to be bunched up, and moving fast - especially if the transport has moved a lot. An enemy burst which hits a squad dismounting in a hurry will tend to do a lot of damage, so it is best to dismount in a covered location from fire, and close in on foot with the APC providing close cover. Only do a charge and dismount into an area you can guarantee (as much as anyone can in warfare - brown stuff happens, in combat more so than in any other aspect of life) that there is no real enemy resistance! If your APC has smoke dischargers - consider using these before dismounting.

If you need to advance infantry under enemy fire - to close or to retire or whatever - then you should first use (hopefully) stationary squads (or better yet AFV in close support) to fire covering fire at all known enemy infantry and MG, in the hopes you will shut these down, before you move the squad. Even if you do not pin the enemy or worse, the added suppression all makes it more difficult for him to hit the squad(s) you later intend to move. Use the Z key to fire suppressive fires into hexes you suspect have unlocated enemy infantry in them, if you have shots to spare (it is not very effective). If you have MMG or HMG, then when advancing - wait till these are set up and ready, and try to keep them outside rifle range whilst using them to hose down any located enemy (or leave with some unexpended shots for opportunity fires on enemy firing in their turn).

Infantry do better at close quarters combat - 1 hex or hand grenade range, but the problem is getting them there when advancing, especially if the enemy infantry is dug in. Simply walking up to an enemy defence line tends not to work that well, as WW1 proved. To advance against an enemy line, you must gain fire superiority over him - 'winning the firefight' - or use a small force to pin him while some others approach by an indirect route round a covered flank, say. Or use smoke as a form of human made cover. If your opponent is a human - surprising him can be very good as it can demoralise him (your human opponent), the AI is not subject to emotions. (Human players can be fooled too - try dropping smoke and artillery on a spot you do NOT intend to attack a human opponent at, and maybe a 'feint' probe to back the deception up - then once he is focused on the wrong location, come in from elsewhere with the main strength).

The British army uses a rule of 3 when it considers what can advance on what, if all is equal (in other words before you throw in massive doses of supporting artillery, and factor in a supporting platoon of crocodiles, say). Thus a single enemy section (squad) is what a rifle platoon of 3 sections is expected to be able to take out, an enemy platoon therefore requires a company to remove, and an enemy company defending is a battalion level target.

So, to advance against 1 defending enemy squad, you will need roughly 3 of yours in the firing line pumping away at it (if this is a pure rifles versus rifles battle - 1 Sherman in the mix, if the enemy has no effective AT helps the attack marvellously, this is what tanks are for in reality). However, assuming no support or little - form a firing line at about 400 metres (8 hexes) and start shooting, and inch 1 squad 1 or 2 hexes forwards at a time as the enemy allows, and repeat till the firing line has advanced 1 hex. Repeat this process until you have closed with the enemy squad and then assault it, or it runs away, or your troops all get pinned down if the enemy had a good battle and not you. With an enemy platoon in the defence - you will need a rifle company. Consider a tank troop (platoon) about half a rifle company if it is acting in close support and there is no enemy AT defence, but only if the tanks keep their distance from the enemy - or they may get brewed up.

In real life, for a platoon to eject 1 enemy squad from its position can be expected to take 20 to 30 minutes (10 to 15 turns), and an hour if it does not go too well. In SPWW2, this will not take quite as long.

Tanks should take out enemy MG positions and bunkers first if they can. This is of course what the tank was invented for in the first world war, and it is the same in AD2000. The tank's part of the job is firstly to neutralise the infantry killing weapons, while staying clear of the AT guns. The infantry side of the bargain is to neutralise the AT guns (tanks should not duel with AT guns, as this is usually a losing proposition, bar popguns). They also provide close cover for the tanks against infantry assaults. In close country, infantry should move first, and keep a hex in front of the close support tanks.

Tanks tend to attract fire - if you ever see pictures of infantry huddling close behind an AFV for its cover, then these are likely to be inexperienced troops (or conversely the experienced sort who know exactly when a tank is useful to use as cover, and exactly when to not go to close to the thing!). On the battlefield, tanks are very visible things, and everyone pops off at them. They also tend to draw indirect fires, which is a very good reason for supporting infantry not to bunch up close to the things. In SP terms - 'collateral damage' gets handed out to units in the same hex as a target, both extra suppression, and also casualties. It is therefore not a good idea for a squad to try to cohabit the same hex as another unit, especially an AFV. (It is also not a good idea to stack squads on top of each other either). If a miss occurs, then there can be a near miss situation where the weapon 'sparkler' goes off in an adjacent hex to the intended target, and this causes collateral damage to any squad in that hex. Collateral damage is mostly on soft targets like trucks and squads - but the occasional hit may button up an AFV not directly targeted.

Pure tank units can do reasonably well in wide open desert or plains country, especially if enemy infantry obliges by moving around so they can be more easily spotted. However, tanks charging around where the infantry is waiting for them will tend to suffer - even a squad with hand grenades can manage to get on top of a Tiger and drop some where it hurts! Late war infantry with realistic AT weapons like Panzerfausts can mince pure armoured units up for breakfast, especially in close terrain like cities and woods. Even if you are a 'tankie' you will need some infantry about to help you out in the close stuff, and to help find infantry ambushes. A tank with an infantry squad spots better with the extra eyes provided by the riders, and if it does blunder into an ambush then the riders may be able to defuse the close assault, by acting as a form of 'reactive armour', but usually at a severe price to the riders, who are an easy target bunched together on top of an AFV. Any hit on the AFV - especially an artillery or aircraft strafing attack - is very unhealthy for the infantry dangling off it. Infantry are only given protection by proper APC type classes of vehicle - riding a tank or SP gun, they are outside waiting to be turned into 'people pate' by any stray HE round or MG burst.

Infantry is your main arm of decision, and artillery is the second. Armour is just self propelled close support or AT artillery, after all. In WW2, your tanks are there primarily to help the infantry take and hold their objectives. Armour however comes into its own as a weapon of exploitation. Tanks real targets are the soft and juicy rear echelon troops found deep in the rear of the enemy lines, after the armour has exploited a breach in the enemy defence to run riot as much as possible. Tank versus tank action was a very rare thing indeed in WW2, very much an exception rather than the rule. The AT gun, regular artillery fire, and bazooka type weapons later in the war, accounted for far more AFV than tanks did. The chief things that tanks therefore bring are mobility, and security from infantry killing weapons - mainly MG fires.

If your enemy operates tanks which are significantly better than yours in the tank killing area then you should not plan to fight his tanks head to head with yours. Use other means, such as dropping large quantities of indirect fire on his armoured formations, both to get some effect on his tanks, but mainly to drive away the important pieces - his supporting infantry. Once his infantry has been separated from his tanks, they become vulnerable to close infantry assault from yours.. Cover him with smoke, and close with engineers or AT equipped infantry - even squads with no decent AT capability can make tanks unhappy (retreat) with unsuccessful close assaults.

Meanwhile your lesser armour can utilise the indirect approach - most tanks have weak side armour, so manoeuvre or tempt him into defensive 'fire sacks' where you can engage him in the flank or rear, preferably at close quarters. A Stuart is perfectly capable of killing a Panther with a close range side shot at say 250 yards or less (5 hexes). If your infantry assaults cause enemy tanks to flee - you will often find this opens his rear arcs to parting shots from your overwatching armour. If all else fails - pour lots of non penetrating shots onto him, this can cause his tank to run away, and if you get a disabling track hit, a crew with bad morale will often bail out when the tracks are shot away (how to deal with a KV or Char B with (several) Pz38(t)..).

When planning a breakthrough assault, the Soviets used one tube per metre of frontage as their 'norm' for an effective level of artillery neutralisation of the enemy defences, and this would be over a front of 4 to 10 kilometres. That is 50 howitzers or mortars per SPWW2 hex! However - these 50 tubes would not all fire on 1 target hex, as there would be a mix of fire blows on enemy positions and suspected positions or forming up areas, as well as a barrage on the front itself.

The British would consider a defending enemy rifle platoon a battery level target, that is 2 troops (platoons) each of 4 25 pounders, and would plan on at least 5 minutes, but more like 10 of fire before considering the target neutralised. Therefore - assuming the platoon is all inside the artillery battery's fire zone (say a 200 metre circle - 4 or 5 hexes) plan on 1 UK battery of 8 guns, firing for effect (ie on target!) for 3 to 6 turns or so to neutralise (not destroy - just neutralise - reduce in combat efficiency by 50-75%) the enemy before sending the infantry in to sweep the mess up. Of course - the assaulting infantry has to be able to get in within a move or so, so needs to be close to the falling shells. In war, safety distances are less than in peacetime - be prepared to take some 'friendly fire'. Naturally - mechanised infantry or tank riders can attack from further out, but will suffer if not all the enemy in the target area are neutralised (in game terms, pinned or worse). If the enemy is dug in, budget in a factor of 3 - either 3 times as many guns (i.e. a British Artillery Regiment (battalion to other armies) of 3 batteries of 8 25 pounders), or 3 times the time of fire preparation for the same result.

In other words, where artillery is concerned, quantity is what counts. Artillery is a brutal, club like weapon, and if you have it, lay it on thick if you want a useful effect. Dropping one SP howitzer on one spot and another on another spot 300 yards away, and so on, through an entire Priest battery of 6, is only going to provide harassing levels of fire. If the target is worth shooting at - drop all 6 Priests on the same target hex. Mortar sections of 2 or 3 tubes are not therefore killing weapons - but can be useful especially if the fire is observed - to pin an individual squad.

In SPWW2, observed fire will drift less off target - Observed means the directing officer can see the impact hex, so try to have observers in the correct position to overwatch the fall of shot.

You should think of aircraft primarily as giving value from the reconnaissance information they bring in, with any effects on the target as a bonus. However, if you have plenty of planes equipped with cannons especially, and your opponent has not thought to buy much AAA then you can cause much grief, especially on his lighter armour - when out of rockets, any MG equipped planes and especially those with 0.50 MG are very good killers of open topped half-tracks. Open topped vehicles are very vulnerable to air strafing - hose down his M10s etc if you can! Just remember that planes are flying artillery - quantity is a big factor here as with tube artillery. Having a flight of 2 planes will not tend to tip the balance much, but 12 flights can be dangerous, especially if you bring them in in large wave style attacks to reduce AAA factors - do not use planes in penny packets except to annoy another human player, or to gain recon information from the pass. Aircraft with cluster bomblet ammunition can be extremely devastating, provided you select the right sort of bunched up group target. Hold these in reserve till you identify a bunched target array - try not to waste them on individual targets surrounded by open space..

However - your most effective weapon is always your battle plan. Any player with no plan, who just dumps things on the board and pushes them about is merely reacting to events. A player who has a plan can impose his shaping of the battle onto anyone without one - a human opponent with no plan is rather like the AI! You need a plan,even a simple one like 'I will go around the left flank, then down the objective line', or you are at a severe disadvantage.

Always keep a reserve of about 1/4 to 1/3 of your force held back and uncommitted - hopefully a reserve of mobile hard hitting stuff, this is a good tasking for tanks, especially fast 'cavalry' tanks like the T34 or Cromwell. Use the reserve to exploit any gap your front line forces create, as a counter stroke to any unforeseen enemy action, to counter attack, or to flank around the main battle and come in from an undefended direction. Try not to commit the reserve too early in the battle, wait till the enemy is fully engaged and cannot easily move to counter it. If you do use the reserve - try to pull another formation back to create a new one.


Game Ending

The game ends at about the number of turns given for a game or scenario. Consider the number of game turns an indicator only, except for PBEM games. The game will end early if one side is thoroughly routed, or completely destroyed, and the other side has gained all the victory hexes. The game (apart from PBEM games) will if the number of turns has been met, check the objectives held and grant victory, but it first makes an 'engagement check' to see if healthy forces of the enemy are reasonably close to any disputed hexes. If it decides the objective is in dispute, it can add extra turns onto the notional game length. This is an added feature that SSI put into later builds of SP2 - please do not write in reporting this as a bug, it is not, it is a design feature, and is mentioned in the SP2 readme files.

End Game Map Review

We have added an additional button to allow you to view the map as it stands at the end game, viewing both players' units.

(This information is withheld if you surrender (not PBEM) as otherwise it would have provided a wonderful 'cheat' - save game, 'surrender' and review the enemy, then reopen with this intelligence of his forces and deployment).

"REVIEW' is shown at the top of the map - your opponent's units, minefields are all now displayed (note the mass of red symbols on the right of the mini map). You can select enemy units and view their stats - the next and previous keys will cycle you through the side you have chosen, so if the Canadian player here selects a German unit, it will cycle through the Germans as and until he reselects another Canadian unit.

If you open up a 'finished' save game you will be able to see the end game display - however if this is a PBEM game, please remember to zip up the game files and send to your opponent before reopening the save game to gloat over it <G!> - as otherwise the game can 'forget' who was playing who for the purposes of the end game messages and video sequence play.


Playing a Scenario

A scenario is a pre made game, ready to play authored by someone else (it could be you!) in the Game Editor.

(If you have not yet read how to play a normal game - refer to In-Game Play above for how to play, and read all sections between there and here.)

When you select the scenario page on the main menu (this is the default game entry) you will see a list of the available scenarios - there can be up to 999 of these, so use the next and previous buttons on the screen to scroll through them.

When a designer creates a scenario, he can produce an explanatory text for this - if so, it will be displayed in the centre of the screen, and if long again you will be able to scroll through the scenario description. Read this, as the scenario designer may have important information in there - for example he may have set the scenario up only to be played by one side as the human, the other always as the computer. Or he may have designed this scenario to be played between two humans - in this case the balance of the game will likely be poor if played with one side as the computer, as it has insufficient advantage over the human in terms of points, say. Or - he may have some suggestions as to which reality settings to use for this game - using different ones may destroy the scenario balance. (See the preferences screen for how to set preferences).

He may also note which version of the SPOB files should be used - for example he may have designed using a custom set. Important note - using different SPOB files from those the designer used can have unpredictable effects!

The designer may also give you some hints as to how to achieve victory conditions - as the maker of a scenario can alter the victory points achieved for taking objectives, or even the game pieces themselves. For example in a convoy scenario, do not be surprised if the designer has made your trucks worth say 300 victory points each, and not the regular 3 or 4 points, for these items will in this case be items to keep preserved from loss.

The designer of the scenario makes all the decisions about forces available for all sides, their placement, reinforcements and so forth. He can edit individual game pieces as well. Do not be surprised if the game starts with a pre game bombardment that he has programmed in - both artillery and air strikes.

Note also that the scenario designer decides the type of battle - just because your mission in a scenario is an 'advance' - the scenario designer may have deployed the AI forces dug in.

Your input here is to choose sides, unless the designer has stated for the human not to play one particular side, and then play through the situation the designer has made for you.

Scenarios are available in many places on the net, such as at the Wargamer www.wargamer.com , or at the many other Steel Panthers and wargames sites available on the net - do a web search on 'Steel AND Panthers AND scenario' (read your search engine help to see how to do an AND search, otherwise you will get lots of sites on metallurgy!). In addition - the new SPWW2 discussion forum at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SPWW2 is a place to find scenarios as well as discuss the game.


Playing a Campaign

In a campaign, you select a starting core force of units, and command these, with the help of support forces, through a series of battles. As you progress, your core troops will gain experience, and you may be able to purchase better equipment for them as time progresses, and success brings you purchase points to repair or upgrade your veteran troops.

In SPWW2 there are now 3 campaign types.

The campaign generator - which is the old SP2 style campaign. Here - you chose your nationality, up to 3 opponent nations, start time and number of battles, and terrain category. Although seemingly limited - this engine is good for a short campaign on a particular theme (say 10-15 battles on the Don Front), or for 'what if' campaigns like a hypothetical American Civil War starting in say, 1940.

New in version 3 is the SP1 style World War 2 Long Campaign. Here you fight the war, with the enemy forces determined historically by front and date.

Also new in version 3 - user designed linked scenario campaigns. Here a scenario designer links a series of scenario games to cover a specific campaign - Monte Cassino, or perhaps France 1940 from the point of view of one side. In this game we provide a campaign editor - but unlike the one in SP3 (and hence SPW@W), which was restricted to a dozen or so battles in a linear sequence - ours allows multiple campaign threads depending on the result of the last battle. Unlike in SP1 and SP2 - where campaigns were written into the code - you can design campaigns of your own.

When you choose the campaigns button on the main screen the display changes to one as shown above.

Saved games and scenarios buttons will take you back to the main screen at those sub screens, in other words exit you from campaigns mode, same as the cancel button.

Encyclopaedia will take you temporarily to the encyclopaedia screen.

Help will bring up the in game help text.

Preferences will take you to the preferences screen.

Cancel will return you to the main screen.

Generate will take you to the campaign generator screen

Long campaign will take you to the WW2 long campaign menu

Edit Campaign will take you to the user campaign editor.

Start will run the selected user linked scenario campaign on the campaign list shown here. There can be up to 999 user campaigns in the list - these are linked scenario situations created by scenario designers, or yourself, via the campaign editor. Use the next and previous buttons to scroll the list. Explanatory text comes up in the centre of the screen.

Generate Campaign

This screen generates a SP2/SP3 type random campaign where you select the nation you wish to play, time frame, approximate number of battles and up to 3 historical opponents. Select default to use the SP Camo generated battle locations for the appropriate opponent pairs, or one of the 'generic' terrain types if you wish say always to fight on the plains or in forests. Be careful not to use an enemy or friendly force beyond or before it historically appears. This generator does not perform much of a 'sanity check' as it is for what ifs or for fighting in a specific small sub section of the war, really - or to play 'what if' campaigns - say Finland vs Japan.

National flags will turn on and off as you change the date however, as a hint. For example if you decided to take UK versus Japan, Italy and Germany - your battles would tend to ping pong from Europe to the Pacific if 'default' terrain was chosen, so stick to a set of opponents in the same general area. But - this is up to you, feel free to experiment!

- Campaign Difficulty Level setting. This toggles between various difficulty settings to allow you to set the campaign more to your liking - here it is set to 'harder', with a reduction in 10% to the amount of buy/repair points you will be allocated after a successful battle. (Does not apply to user campaigns as these are set by the designer of each such campaign)

World War II Long Campaigns

This is an entirely new campaign option in this release.

Here, you select one particular WW2 participant nation, and take a force of soldiers through to the end of the war for that nation. You can advance the start date but not the war end date. The number of battles is a hint to the computer - if you use a large number the campaign clock will advance by smaller increments, for example as a German player, you would see more battles in France and the Low Countries in 1940 if you selected say 250 battles over 50.

You do not get to select the opposition in a long campaign, but you can select the battle front as the war progresses, for example if you wanted to participate in a more interesting area. The front selected determines the likely opponents.

- WW2 campaigns for Japan, India (British Imperial Forces SE Asia), USMC, ANZAC and Poland have been added for Version 4.0. The Pacific Front is now covered - and some nations are allowed to change between European Theatre and Pacific Theatre. Amphibious assaults are now implemented in the WW2 long campaign as are river crossings and also city maps - Be prepared to Beach assault at Tarawa if USMC, cross the Meuse in France 1940 if German, or fight through Caen in Normandy if Canadian..

Pressing continue will then provide the front selection screen: as you can see, at this time in the war, the USA campaign options are somewhat limited! Obviously some folks get wider choices of front:

After this, you will see the normal campaign menus, and at game end you will come back to this screen once more to choose for the next battle.

Playing User Campaigns

Select the desired user campaign from the list on the left (somewhat restricted in this development example!) - then press start, just like playing a scenario battle. You have no input as to force or nation selection - just in buying your core. Note that the designer can write a 'locked' user campaign, where the upgrade and support and core points are not able to be overwritten by the user preferences you have set - he should make you aware of this fact in the campaign intro text that appears in the centre of the screen on selecting the campaign list item.

If the points are locked, this helps the designer to ensure that if he designed for say a 400 point core at the start - then users cannot ruin the campaign by deliberately starting with say a 2000 point core to have a 'cake walk' i.e. To deliberately wreck the campaign balance. (Since the scenario forces are fixed, unlike in the generated campaign games where the force is chosen per battle as a ratio of your core plus support troop points).

Note that the designer can write the messages on each exit condition for each battle - and introductory text for each scenario. Pay attention to these messages as they could convey useful information.

Campaign Games - General Points

Here we will really only describe changes and enhancements to the normal SSI campaign engine, the details of which you can read in your SSI game manual and readme text files. Main change - the repair and upgrade screen:

Now, in SP Camo campaigns, you do not repair and upgrade your core forces at the end of the last battle - you upgrade and repair as part of the start process of the new battle. Thus, unlike before, you are buying kit which is in date for the battle, and not possibly having bought old stuff being transported forward in time with outdated stuff. (WW2 long campaigns can jump over long inactive periods, e.g. Germany from France 40 to N Africa 41).

The repair screen has been upgraded. Your true force value is shown - remember that a veteran core force tiger 1 at say 110 experience will be worth much more than the book value of a tiger just bought at 70 experience points. The encyclopaedia points values are only valid for 70 experience crews!

The time line is shown on screen to give you an idea of when you are at in the war.

Fix all - fixes all units, as before, should you have enough repair points.

Change - as before, but with enhancements. The upgrade paths for campaigns have been changed, and some troop types are allowed to 'cross over' the boundaries, unlike before. For example, a howitzer can become a SP gun, and an SP gun, being an armoured type, can be transformed to a tank. So a tank can become a SP gun, then an anti tank gun, should you so desire. Aircraft types are not allowed in cores. At a later release we will allow new units to be added to your core.

Review - new - this allows you to bring up the in game statistics screen for a unit so you can look at its data, and also change its leader's name and so on.

Encyclopaedia - new - to let you refer to this in this phase.

One point that needs explaining - when you change a unit it tends to lose several valuable experience points as this equipment is considered new to it. If you change a unit several times in one session, you have sent it away on far too many conversion courses, and it will be dazed and confused by all those instructors, so lose experience several times! Moral : only change a unit once in this screen, do not run around changing your mind - you will also lose the buy points as well. Remember that experience gain is not linear in campaigns - low experience goes up relatively quickly, but higher experience is hard won. It can therefore be a very bad thing to upgrade your best troops after each and every battle, as they may not have regained the points lost in upgrading for several battles to come.

Special campaign battles - at the end of the game, you may be ordered to counterattack, and sometimes you are allowed to decline, sometimes you are not. Also, the enemy may counterattack you, and again you may not be given the option to avoid this. In a special battle, you do not get the opportunity to repair and upgrade, nor will you get as much support points. The gain in winning such a battle is that you get a larger handout of experience points and also build points at the successful conclusion of the special battle. The extra chance of experience can be vital if your core is mainly very high (100+) experience veterans, as these will usually progress upwards at a slower rate. But remember that you will have damaged units in play - you may wish to leave these 'cripples' on your base line perhaps so that they do not get wiped out - for example any rifle squads depleted down to 2 or 3 men, especially veterans.

Experience is hard won - protect your experienced men.


Playing By EMAIL, or Against Another Human

You can play another human player, either remotely (via EMAIL) or on the same PC ('head to head' or 'hot seat' play).

There are 2 versions of PBEM - secure and unsecure. The difference is that for a secure game - you enter a security password, and for an unsecure game - you do not enter a password. That is it, but a secure game has a few extra implications which we will touch upon later.

A secure game is used to play another person, usually remotely via an exchange of EMAIL, or is useful in a head to head game on the same PC if your friend and yourself need a 'no peek' game as the game is to be played over several visits to your place by your opponent. By using a password, the owner of the PC cannot sneak a look when his opponent has left.

An unsecured game - without a password, remember - is useful mainly for a local head to head session where the 2 players will be together through the entire session, e.g. a game done in one evening. Unsecured games can be sent via EMAIL as well, should you trust your opponent not to sneak a peek! An unsecured game can be saved in any of the regular game save slots. An unsecured game can be saved in several slots, should you so wish, just like a normal game against the AI.

Transmission of Files to Your Opponent (Remote Games)

Games are saved in the \save folder, funnily enough! :)

Each game consists of 3 files - spsvNNN.dat, spsvNNN.cmt and spsvNNN.aux. These 3 files MUST be transmitted to your opponent as a group!

It is best to open a windows explorer session and to navigate to the \save directory - ensure that you use 'view/arrange icons/by name' - this will keep the files grouped together by filename, thus making your task of selecting the correct set of 3 easier.. Here we select game number 13 but - since the files are indexed from 0 (zero) - this is the 14th save game slot in the actual game - remember to deduct 1 from the number used by SPWW2.

Of course - it can be difficult to decide which game is the correct one - note that I have associated the cmt files with notepad using the normal windows procedure to do so. You can then simply open the cmt file by double clicking on it as it will contain the game title - never edit this, just look at it! Also - note that I have set explorer to show all extensions, not to hide these - again, normal windows stuff, see your windows help file if unsure.

These 3 files are what we transfer to the other player - however, these can be rather large, and so it is best to zip (compress!) these up using winzip - ensure that both of you use the same file compression utility, whichever you choose (negotiate this between yourselves as part of your battle setup emails). Winzip comes on the front cover CD ROMS of most decent computer magazines usually under the utilities section. It is the premier zip package - also at www.winzip.com. With winzip installed, there is a right mouse click extension to zip the files - select the 3, right click with mouse, select zip and enter a file name.

In case of crashes, it is a very good idea to keep all your zipped up moves for the entire game until it is completed, in case you find you require to retransmit a move to an opponent who has corrupted his move. Therefore - for each game it is useful to use a standardised zip file naming convention. I tend to use gamenameNNN.zip, where NNN is the move number - so DonUSAGE194400.zip would be my setup initial move, DonUSAGE194401.zip would be move number 1 after deployment and setup (the 0 move, remember!). I tend to put who I am playing, the 2 nations (player 1 on the left) and date in the name bit, to help tell the zips apart. I keep all the moves sent to me by my opponent as well to aid in any disaster recovery, as if I keep his then should he make a mistake (say he deleted one on his PC) - I have the backup on mine. Once you have finished the game - then delete the zips.

PBEM (or Head to Head) Procedure

Set up a generated battle the following way:

Hey - this looks just like a normal battle versus a computer - but note that ALL the settings buttons are set to human player. (It is possible to set up with computer purchase etc, but in most human versus human play - both will want to buy and deploy without the computer's help). In any case - in a human plays human game, the setting for 'computer purchase' is ignored by the game for player #2.

For a scenario which one wants to play human versus human - just start the scenario and set both players as human, then continue as for a normal battle generator game - but there will be no purchase or deployment as this is already taken care of in the scenario design. You just exchange files for password (if secure) or start (if unsecure).

Player number 1 is responsible for setting the pre game settings - battle type, map size, date and visibility and so on. In especial - he is responsible for setting up the preferences screen to what the 2 players have mutually agreed before the game.

Player 1 now hits the continue button when he is satisfied with the set up parameters and continues to the normal buy screen where he now buys his toys. Once he has done this - he hits the done button in the purchase menu, just like for a game against the AI. However unlike a game against the computer - he now sees the password entry screen:

 

OK - this is where a secure and an unsecure game diverge.
A)- For a secure game - you enter a password here. Press the password button, then type in your desired game password and press 'enter'. Press continue once you have entered your game password. (The password will be shown in the box at the base of the screen, it may be a good idea to write this down in case you later forget it!)

or B) - For an unsecure game - just press the continue button at this point and go on without a password having been entered.

It is this action by player 1 which determines if the game will be secure or unsecure - if secure (player 1 entered a password) then player 2 will be presented with the password entry screen - if not, player 2 will not see the password entry screen.

Now - player 1 will see the save game screen.

If this is an unsecure game (you never entered a password, recall!) - then you can use any of the save game slots from 7 onwards, like a regular game. (Slot 6 is the auto save game slot, including non secured games). as an unsecure game - you can save later saves to any legal slot, just like regular games. Or even into another copy of SPWW2 on the same or a different computer.

However - if this is a secure game (password was entered) - then you must select one of the first 5 save slots, as these are for secured PBEM games only. Secured games encrypt the save game data, so your opponent cannot open this up in a hex editor and peek at things. In addition - secured games will autosave at the end of the game turn to that slot only (you have no choice to move a saved copy elsewhere), and also - the save game notes the path to the game as well - so you cannot move a copy to another install of SPWW2 to try to 'break' it - it just will not play. Secure games are saved in the \email sub directory as well, not in the regular \save sub directory..

One thing that confuses some folks with secured PBEM - when playing a secured PBEM game, the normal 'exit game' button (the black one that points upwards) is now used to save your secured PBEM game at that point, in order to come back and complete it later. Recall that you must use the same save slot - this will store your game at the current point in play. It is not, repeat not an 'end game' button, just a pause and save my turn button! But - we have found that some users are confused by this and used this button to as they thought - finish the turn off, then bundled the files and sent these to their opponent, whereby his game choked on the files - naturally enough, as they are a save of the first player's current point in the game, uncompleted, and he is still the active player - not the opponent he sent the partially completed move to. You use the end turn button to end your turn. I will repeat this - you use the end turn button to end a PBEM game move. Also - this button used to be black, but to help PBEM users who got confused - the end turn button is now coloured red. Please press the red button at the bottom of the buttons to complete your turn. Don't send your part move save off (black upwards pointed button) to the other player - he cannot play it!

In a remote game, player 1 now sends the 3 zipped up files to player 2, who places the zip file somewhere safe (remember to keep all the zips in case of need to reload) and unzips the files contained in this to his \save or \email (if secure) directory under windows.

He then starts the game, and goes to the 'saved games' screen. There he loads the appropriate save game, and continues with play. In the setup - player 2 buys his forces, is presented with the password screen (if a secure game), and then he deploys his forces. On hitting the end turn button (red button!) at the end of the deployment, the following happens:

If this is a secure game, the game is automatically saved in the appropriate slot in the first 5, no user action required to select a save slot as this is already known. Player 2 now exits to windows, and zips up the 3 files for this game and transmits to player 1. REMEMBER ALSO - the 5 secure encrypted game saves live in the \email directory, and not, repeat not in the \save directory with all other game saves!

If this is an unsecure game - player 2 will see the normal save game menu screen, and can select any legal save slot. Player 2 now zips up the appropriate 3 files (as he can change the slot, he should remember which he used!) and transmits to player 1. In unsecure games - you must remember to save manually, unlike in secure games. When presented with your opponent's start screen - save and exit.

Note that in an EMAIL game - player 2 is the one that deploys first, so he is the one who can set the game length using the '.' key, unlike a game against the AI where the first to deploy is the human player, player 1.

Player 1 now receives the zip file from player 2, unzips to his save (or email for secure games) directory and saves the zip file for backup purposes. He then starts the game, goes to the save games screen and selects the appropriate slot and starts the game. If a secure game - you get prompted for a password, if not, no password is asked for.

Player 1 now deploys and plays his first turn - on finishing his first turn (end turn - red - button!) he then zips the appropriate 3 files and transmits to player 2. This is now move 1, so he should name his zip file <name>001.zip. Remember to save all the zips in case you need to come back for disaster recovery!

Player 2 and player 1 now repeat the process of receiving, unzipping, playing, zipping and transmitting until the end of the game. (Though in PBEM games, often the 2 players decide at some point what the victory will be, and mutually end the game early with an agreed win or lose).

Important point for secured games - part of the anti cheat method is that both spob files are checked to see if they have changed so your opponent cannot place an improved one in place with say wonder weapons. This is for your protection against cheats - but what it means is that on both player's PCs the 2 spob files must not ever change during the lifetime of the game. Any changed spob file will result in a complaint about a corrupt OB file from the security code. If you are playing a set of PBEM games - say for a competitive ladder - that use a set of modified OB files, perhaps provided by the organiser - then it is best to install the entire game into a second directory and use this second copy of SPWW2 (with the appropriately changed OB files) for the competition games. This is the best way to handle games with user OB files - rather than say, trying to remember to load spob000 (original) to play 2 games, spob000 (competition) for 2 others, and spob000 (Fred's version) for the PBEM with Fred, who insists on his particular changed OB set. It is also a way to play more than 5 games concurrently - disk space is cheap these days - just install a second, third or fourth SPWW2 game in their own directories. And remember that secure games are saved into the \email directory, not the regular \save sub directory!

Head to Head - is exactly as outlined above, but no file transfer is obviously needed as the same PC is being used. Player 2 just goes to the save game screen when required, as does player 1. But - after the initial deployment process, an unsecure head to head game on the same PC will not autosave, and will present the other player's start screen between moves - that is when you swap players. Save in unsecure is up to the current player. (Remember - player 2 goes to the save game list to open his first turn when playing on the same PC - some folks playing a scenario head to head were somewhat confused -as player 1 set up, then player 2 set up and saw player 1's start - because player 2 was trying to play the scenario, not the saved game generated by player 1 - the game thought this was a brand new attempt to start this scenario!)

PBEM Security Info

During turn execution in secured PBEM games, press the 1 key to see statistics on how many loads and saves of the game were done by both sides. (If you have a crash, and have to load the game turn again from the received zip - let your opponent know you had this problem, as the load counter will be increased). If the loads and saves are not equal - perhaps your opponent is having severe technical difficulties? - ask him about this.

PBEM Misc

NOTE: If you find that you cannot complete a move in one sitting in secure (passworded) games you can save off the game with the " Auto Save the game and Exit " button ( this is above the " Auto save and quit the Orders Phase " button and is the black one). You will be asked " Do you want to exit and finish your turn later Y/N? " Press " Y " and you will be able to complete your turn at a more convenient time, starting where you have left off. Remember that this is not a game completed turn button, that is the red button! - do not send a part completed move to your opponent, it will cause security violations. This button is to save for you to come back and complete your turn later when convenient, is all!

Should both players want to see the action replay of the artillery - both sides must have set fast artillery to 'off' in their preferences screens - or no artillery replay info will be saved for a PBEM game. Both players - not just one or the other - both must have this setting set to off to see the guns fire in replay. If one of you has it off, then both remember to set it on - it can sometimes take a move or so to get in synch, so ensure this setting is set before the game on both player's PCs. Also, if the "fast artillery" control is ON you will NOT see any of the graphic animations OR sound effects when you attack a hex with the " Z " key. ( This is also true in any kind of game or scenario - Z key is area (artillery) fire). (In very large PBEM games, you may wish to set fast artillery on, as the artillery 'packets' compete with normal in game replay 'packets' - you may go over the maximum limit, also - even if you do not overrun the replay buffer, switching fast artillery on can reduce the size of the data files you exchange, should you have problems with large files - e.g. if you use a European teleco which charges by the minute for connect time and/or you are on a slow dialup connection).

If your replay goes over the buffer size - that part onwards is lost. Replay is only of firing events, remember.

NB - for remote games, it is probably better to stick to a reasonable points value, say 3000 a side - remember that as games get bigger, the size of the save game data will expand in proportion - as the game replay is also stored, with up to 9 shots per piece, this gets big, quickly. It is the number of actual pieces that determines save game data size, not the points - 200 infantry squads will generate a much larger save game file than say 15 tiger 1!

One last thing about PBEM: When the game ends, it will be with player 2. However, the result is phrased for player 1 so if player 2 did very well, he may be upset to find he has been "totally defeated". That is player ONE that has been totally defeated! Also, the videos that play are for player 1 so you may see German Video footage etc. If you were playing as the USSR. Player 2 gets the score, and can view the 2 force lists as per a normal game. The game ends THERE, the move is no use to player 1 if returned. Player 2 MUST write the scores down to report to player 1, and the result etc., this is the ONLY way player 1 finds out the result, as a written report from player 2. (or, if the player is running with the spcap screen capture utility - save off the end game key with spcap (available for download at most SP2 web sites as shareware) and send the bitmap (better yet, open the bitmap with a viewer like say irfanview and convert it to a much smaller GIF file before sending that!)

- PBEM End Game Review

When the game ends, you will be able to review the map, as normal - however, for PBEM games now immediately after you exit the game, zip up your files as normal and send to your opponent - who can now review the end game data as well, unlike before. Once you exit the game, you can reopen its save game slot to review the end game - but before you do this, zip up the game files to send to your opponent for his end game review, or the end game video sequence can be put out of synch..


Preferences Screen

 

This game cannot be all things to all people. There are far too many differing opinions on what is 'realistic' and what makes a fun playable game. Satisfying one segment of gamers is sure to alienate another. Also - please define 'realistic' - that is one of those 'how long is a piece of string' debates. To some folk, realism is micro details of millimetres of armour and exact slope angles, or how much extra water an Italian division needs to boil pasta (as factored in one actual cardboard wargame!), or the exact model of bolt action rifle carried. Generally - those who worry about micro details like armour angles and exact thickness in millimetres tend to be from the civilian 'armchair general' side of the fence. Those with real military experience tend to define realism in terms of command and control, and how much intelligence is given away for free - 'fog of war' factors. Military-experienced folk worry less about exact rifle type, and more about morale, training and leadership of their men. Armchair types worry about exact TO&E charts, and declare a game 'unrealistic' if the supplied formation is not to the exact field regs, and not at 100% strength. Military folk would be amazed to find a unit anywhere near 'paper' strength, and with all its vehicles present on the battlefield as 'runners' rather than being in the repair shop, broken down in a ditch on the approach march, or just plain lost!

During playtesting we encountered this on more than one occasion where some would say a game feature was too little, some would say too much and some would say it's just right. (We knew we had finally reached middle ground when 'angels on pin heads' type debates started).

When SSI originally released Steel Panthers 2 they included a Preferences Screen to allow the end user the ability to modify various elements of the game to suit individual tastes and abilities. We have noticed from our e-mails that many people quite simply do not understand the functions of this screen or how it can change the game to suit your particular style of play - or even that it exists, in some cases. We have had a multitude of 'suggestions' for code changes that can actually be made simply by adjusting a control in Player preferences.

We have made the preferences screen available from more points in the game now - this is both because it can be handy to turn some things - say individual unit ID tags - on or off, but also, some end users may just notice the new buttons :-> !

Reality settings are your call - not another person's. Tweak these settings until you get the game performing the way you like it, should you find the default settings unrealistic, or too easy or too hard. Of course - in a PBEM game, you may find you may need to discuss these matters with your prospective opponent!

General Preferences
MUSIC ON/OFF

This button allows you to turn the music on or off. If you do not want to listen to the music set this control to OFF.

Note: If you encounter a situation were the Music continues to play but this button is set to OFF you have a corrupted Steel.prf file in your \SAVE directory. The solution is to shut down the game, go to the \SAVE directory, delete the file named Steel.prf and restart the game. Reset your desired Preferences once again. When you exit the game again a new Steel.prf file will be created that will save all of your new Preference settings.

SOUND FX Click the button ON to select the game sound effects, OFF to play in silence.
HEX GRID Click the button to switch the Hex Grid overlay ON or OFF
ANIMATION Click this button to turn ON or OFF animations like tracers, explosions or smoke. There is no real reason to change this from the maximum - it was only useful to reduce the strain on old 386 class processors, long ago.
OBJECTIVE FLAGS Click this button ON or OFF to display the Victory Objectives flags. Usually you want this on all the time, but it can be useful to take the flags off to see the hexes terrain more clearly, then switch the flags back on.
AI TANK HEAVY If set ON, the AI opponent will buy more tanks than normal.
UNIT ID TAGS

Click this button ON or OFF to display the small national flags beside each unit. This helps you identify who's who at higher zoom levels, and to spot which tanks are abandoned.

Those more interested in realism often consider the ID flags to give away too much 'free' information - such as which tank is abandoned, or the flags may make you notice some riflemen hidden in smoke or dense terrain that you may not have noticed otherwise, and, therefore, play with this setting OFF. Your call, as with all reality stuff.

MOVE RADIUS Click this button ON or OFF to display (or not) the number of hexes a unit can move. The movement radius is shown in lighter hexes.
FAST ARTILLERY Clicking this button ON shows any indirect fire as one explosion per unit/battery. Click this OFF to show each shot arriving one at a time. And remember, when playing PBEM that BOTH sides need this setting to OFF to see the fall of artillery shots between moves on the action replay.
SOUND VOLUME Click on the right side to increase the volume or click on the left side to decrease the volume.
ANIMATION LEVEL Click on the right side to increase the amount of animation displayed in the game and on the left side to decrease the amount of animation. Best left at max if your processor is better than a 486.
MESSAGE DELAY This controls how long messages are displayed on the screen. Click on the right side to increase the length of the time and on the left side to decrease the amount of time messages are shown for.
HIDDEN FIRE This one is very important. When this control is ON and a unit that has not previously been spotted fires, its actual position is rarely revealed after it's first shot. This makes ambushes more effective and realistic. We have also changed the way a pinned or retreating unit actually spots. If you are fired at and become pinned there is now a chance that a previously spotted unit will disappear unless another of your units has also spotted the enemy unit - it's difficult to spot someone when you are face down in the dirt. If you set this control to OFF then once a unit fires its position will immediately be revealed. Recommended Setting: ON, except for absolute beginners.
AUTO-RALLY When this button is ON the computer will attempt to rally any of your troops that are suppressed at the end of your turn and can do so. If you have this set to OFF then all rallying is your responsibility. Recommended Setting: ON

Player Preferences

NOTE: These controls seem to be the most misunderstood and underused controls in the game. This is where you dial in what you feel suits your concept of game play and 'reality'. These controls allow you to alter settings and achieve the balance that suits you. Many people would like to leave these alone but these are the controls you need to use if the game 'feels' wrong to you. Right now our recommended setting for player preferences are the default settings but really, it is your decision to decide what works best for you. In addition, these are useful settings to use to adjust how the games AI plays - if you are new, then try lowering some of these values for the AI so as to have an easier time of it. If you are experienced, then try setting some values higher to get a 'tougher' computer opponent. The prime one to try for the AI opponent is the TROOP QUALITY setting. Set this 10 or more points above yours to give the AI better experienced troops which will spot better, shoot better, rally more often etc.
SEARCHING This control's function has been misunderstood due to erroneous information in both the Steel Panthers 2 manual (where the control is called Spotting) and the Steel Panthers 3 manual. Both of these manuals state that this control adjusts the spotting accuracy for calling down artillery and air strikes. No, it does not. The primary effect on the game is to increase or decrease the range by which you spot other units on the map. In a series of tests involving advancing infantry in the desert with SEARCHING set to the default of 100% the advancing infantry was not spotted until turn 6 when it was 12 hexes away. With SEARCHING set to 250% the advancing infantry was first spotted on turn 4 and was 23 hexes away. With SEARCHING set to 30% the first unit was spotted advancing on turn 10 when it was only 4 hexes away. So, if you feel the units are being spotted too soon then turn this control DOWN. IF you feel the units are too difficult to spot then turn the control UP.
HITTING This controls the direct fire accuracy. The default is 100%. If you feel that there are too few hits being scored then turn this up. If you feel that there are too many hits being made turn this down.
ROUT/RALLY This controls how likely a unit is going to suffer morale loss and break and how easily they will rally. Once again the default is 100%. If you feel that the game causes units to break and run too easily then turn this up. If you feel that they stand and fight too long before retreating turn this down. To get a tougher AI opponent, try this setting at 10 or more points above yours.
TROOP QUALITY

This is used to override the default "Country Training" values we have built into the code. For this button to work you MUST have the COUNTRY TRAINING button in the REALISM PREFERENCE box OFF. When you see XXX in TROOP QUALITY that means you will get what we have determined best suits that particular country for that particular year. If you feel these are too high or too low then turn COUNTRY TRAINING OFF and pick a number you think works better.

This is one of the most important controls in the game. Whenever you set this to a value, as you purchase troops their experience level is set to a number nearby the value you specify (a range spread around the value, but mainly below it). If you set it above the default 70, then your troops will cost you more buy points, and naturally if set under 70, you get cheaper units.

Experience level is what determines whether the unit is anything from 'green' to 'veteran'. The troop quality level is shown when you select a unit on map (you don't get to see in the purchase menu - now you do, and your army base level). It is shown as a number, and also as the 'rank graphic'. Green troops have less experience, lower morale, lower rally numbers and other deleterious things apply - troops with low experience get less shots per move for one thing. Veterans naturally get better abilities to hit things, better morale values, better rally numbers, and at the very high levels, more shots per move. In a single battle this is important, but in a campaign game its vital - as your troops go through the campaign their experience gets better, so the survival of your 'core' troops is important for they will progress in experience. (They also will be 'pointed' more - losing a 120 experience veteran tank to the AI will give it more 'kill' victory points than a similar tank of 70 experience points. Also, the AI will get more buy points as you gain experience during the campaign - as your troops get more experience, their points value increases, and you will likely have upgraded the tanks as well, so double increase in value - more expensive tank with better crewmen).

Remember that the points costs shown in the Encyclopaedia are based on the default 70 experience point level.

TANK TOUGHNESS This controls how resilient a tank is to damage once a hit is scored. The default is 100%. At 100% the numbers we have assigned to the armour of the tanks are used. If you feel that tanks are being knocked out too easily then turn this up. If you feel there are too few kills being scored then turn this down.
INFANTRY TOUGHNESS This controls how resilient your infantry is. If you feel the infantry in the game is too easily killed then turn this up. If you feel they are too tough then turn this down.
BATTLE POINTS

This is a very important control! It controls the number of battle points issued in a game for the purposes of purchasing men and equipment. If you leave both sides to XXX the number of points is chosen randomly by the computer for Player 1 and player 2's points will become a ratio of Player 1's expended points. If you set Player 1's points to something other than XXX then Player 2's points will become a ratio of that number. Or you can set both sides to a specific number. If you do this and play the computer it will take all of the points you give it (one way to 'handicap' yourself as the human player). Also, when starting a campaign game, this value is what you get to buy your core with, if not set to XXX (unless the user campaign is a 'locked points' campaign where you cannot choose these factors). If you want to play PBEM with agreed points per side, this is the control to do so.

If you set both sides to a specific number - then if player 1 does not use all his points, player 2 is not given a ratio depending on battle posture and the amount player 1 spent - he can happily spend right up to the given player 2 points, whatever player 1 did.

AIR SORTIES

This overrides the numbers we have placed in the code for the likelihood of airstrikes and the number of airstrikes assigned. If you do not want any airstrikes for one or both sides then set this to ZERO. If you want to specify how many airstrikes will be available to both sides then pick a number and enter it. If you want to take your chances then leave this set to XXX. An airstrike as far as this is concerned is one (1) air formation - a single spotter plane formation deducts one from this, as does a two plane strike element formation, or a multiple glider formation. It is not a total of the number of planes allowed. It counts formations.

Important AI note - the SP series games were designed on the premise that only one side would have air strikes. (This was before this button was implemented in a later version of SP2). The AI buy code is set up to buy planes if it has air units, and flak if it does not. Therefore, if you give the AI planes, it will have little flak to counter your air. Unless playing against a human, ensure that the AI has the correct setting (if you want say 4 strikes guaranteed, set the AI to 0, not to XXX). This is also why air units are no longer made available as upgrades in campaign cores. Air units are only meant to be support troops, provided to the one side or the other, not both, unless in a scenario, or when 2 humans play each other.

ARTY EFFECTIVENESS This new preference item controls how hard artillery hits targets - if you feel indirect fire is too wimpy, turn it up, and if you feel the default value is far too effective, turn it down from the default 100%.

Realism Preferences
BREAKDOWNS With this set to OFF you will be able to drive through buildings with tanks and APCs without the possibility of damage to the vehicle. You will be able to ford streams, mud, hedgerows, soft sand, snow drifts, trenches, and marshes without becoming stuck. If you set this to ON then there is a chance the vehicle will become trapped. (It is really a vehicle sticking button, not as the title may suggest, a possibility of mechanical breakdowns due to poor maintenance). Recommended Setting: ON.
AMMO LIMIT ON sets the ammo loadout we have assigned to various units and vehicles. OFF gives you unlimited ammo. Recommended Setting: ON, except for beginners.
COMMAND When this button is ON the normal command and control rules are in place, this effects things like rallying your troops. When OFF you are automatically given a permanent link to higher HQ and there are no penalties for not being in contact. Recommended Setting: ON, except for beginners.
MORALE When this is ON the normal rules for unit and formation morale are in effect. If you set this to OFF the morale penalties are eliminated. Recommended Setting: ON.
SPOTTERS When this button is ON only the formation HQ units (the "0" units) with a radio are capable of calling and spotting for indirect fire, and the specialist artillery observers. If you turn this control OFF then any unit can call and spot artillery. Recommended Setting: ON.
MOVE AND SHOOT If you have this set to ON then movement will lower accuracy and target acquisition as well as the new changes we have made that reduces movement points available after each shot will be in effect. If you set this to OFF then there are no penalties for moving and shooting. Recommended Setting: ON.
MINES If this is set to OFF then mines will be disabled. If set to ON then Mines will behave normally. Recommended Setting: ON.
COUNTRY TRAINING When this is ON the values we have in the code for troop quality will be in effect. If you wish to change this in the Player Preferences section then set this button to OFF. Recommended Setting: ON. However this one is a major personal preferences item. If you do not like the troop quality you get for a given nation and year - set it to OFF, or if you want to boost the AI's quality above yours, also set it OFF, then use the TROOP QUALITY selector(s), which are disabled if this is set ON.

Encyclopaedia Screen

This screen is used to inspect game unit data, rather important stuff!

Select a nation from those active at this date by pressing on the appropriate flag, and a list of the available units is displayed in the screen centre. Hovering the mouse over each button will show the short data on the right hand panel. Pressing the unit's button will show the full page data view for that unit.

The Exit button will take you back out of this mode.

The Next button and previous buttons will cycle through the units available - up to 599 in version 3.

The line at the bottom of the page shows the version information string for the OB file loaded - this is very useful if you are in the habit of loading user edited OB data files, to ensure you have the correct one loaded, for example for a PBEM game or a scenario which requires a specific OB file set to be loaded.

The red backlit section at the top shows the unit name, and if as here the INI file debug setting is shown - the OB slot number for the unit (very handy for debug purposes!). Refer to the section on the INI file if you are a OB designer and need this info. Regular users can ignore as the debug flag will be off.

Data items on this page, shown when the mouse is hovered over the unit's button are:
Unit name ('VC Firefly' here)
Unit Type ('Gun Tank' here) Refer to Appendix D for a list of classes
Weapon List The 4 weapon slots contents, or '-' if none fitted in that slot
Speed Shown as (Normal : Swim) in hexes
Men Vehicle's crew or squad size
Fire Control Refer to next page.
Size 0 is smallest (Snipers etc.) upwards. Bigger size equals easier to spot and to hit.
Vision Night and poor visibility vision enhancement sights (hexes)
Cost The book price for one of these, with average experience (70)
Availability First month and year to last month and year available
Armour Icons Top is turret (upper hull for non turreted), lower is hull armour versus normal AP shot, in CM (approximate) adjusted for slope.
Sym The individual icon # - debug info that has always been there..

 

The second page shows more unit data -
Weapon:
Name What this weapon is called
ACC Accuracy - larger is better
Kill HE kill factor:AP kill factor - effect on soft targets. Bigger is better.
PEN Basic penetration of steel armour at HE shell (any range):AP shell (point blank range) in CM
HEAT Basic penetration of the High Explosive Anti Tank round at any range in CM
APCR Basic AP penetration of the APCR ('sabot') round at the muzzle in CM. See note below.
Range maximum fire range in hexes for all shells bar sabot: sabot ammo (NB - sabot range can also be used for minimum range e.g. for ATGM)
Warhead The size of the shot. Larger HE shells inflict more damage to soft targets, larger AP ammo hits harder than a gun with same penetration, but smaller warhead, and larger shot size is more effective at longer ranges as it loses less energy than smaller shot. Larger HEAT ammo also can penetrate better than a weapon with the same basic HEAT penetration but smaller Warhead size.
Ammo Loadout

Number of rounds (bursts for smaller weapons) carried by this unit. Note that only the slot 1 weapon may be issued HEAT or sabot ammo. However - some weapons which appear further down the list with AP ammo, actually have HEAT ammo such as bazookas, but this is a special AP code only visible in Mobhack (222 penetration code).

This display is brand new for version 3 at user request - previously this information was only available in the game.

Armour listing
(A)rmour Basic steel armour value listed in CM adjusted for slope (and extra can be added by the designer to represent say face hardened steel), Hull and turret Front, Side, Rear and Top
(H)EAT Armour If the unit has spaced armour to defeat HEAT ammo - the increased values used when struck by HEAT plasma jets are listed here.
Smoke Discharger If fitted, this is noted here - the number of salvos is listed after the smoke main gun ammo in the in-game info display in the form SD:N
Survivability A number which if greater than zero, indicates a vehicle whose crew are more likely to survive penetrating catastrophic hits than the average vehicle of this type - and successfully bail out, or bail with less crew killed. Larger is better. No effect on things without bailing crew (squads, planes etc.)
Rate of fire Maximum number of shots the unit can fire from main weapons (MG are automatically calculated if not in slot #1), for a unit with maximum experience. Less experienced crews mean less shots available before moving, i.e. If a unit has ROF of 9 - an experience 70 crew will typically get 6 shots allocated. Damage received reduces ROF, and small crews like on the French 2 man tanks, or the early T34 with only 2 turret crew receive reduced shots. Tanks should have 4 or more crew men, if you can get this! Movement and current suppression state can reduce shots.
Fire Control This variable acts a little like range finder, below - but not so much, in allowing the unit to engage with better to-hit percentages at longer ranges. High FC values will add to the crew experience - so can generate 1 more shot sometimes than if it were not there. Primary use of this variable is in engaging moving targets - but if you move, the effect is drastically reduced.
Range Finder

This variable represents better fire control optics, sights, and proper range finding gear such as optical range finders, or post WW2, ranging HMG, lasers, and ballistic computing equipment. Naturally enough a unit with RF can engage targets at longer ranges with better success than a unit with the same weapon, but less RF. As with Fire Control - the WW2 range finder capacity effect is reduced should the firer move.

New field added for V3 - again this info was only available in the actual game before.

EW An obsolete (unused) field for WW2. Post WW2 ECM, ECCM in AAA fires.
Vision If fitted - enhanced night vision equipment, in WW2 chiefly the German Infra Red kit fitted to late AFV. If game visibility is say 3 hexes, and you have a vision capacity of 12, you can see 9 hexes further than unaided units, which can be vital and devastating.
Stabiliser If non zero, a stabiliser is fitted. In WW2, some US vehicles had a primitive elevation only stabiliser fitted. It was really only useful to keep gun barrels from digging into the dirt when travelling cross country, and being 1940 mechanics, was a severe maintenance burden on units, and so not very reliable. The British removed all such equipment as not worth the maintenance hassles, for next to nil real benefits. However - in the game we allow stabiliser equipped units to keep target lock (fire solution achieved) should they move, provided the target stays in LOS.
Lift capacity Roughly, one man equals one lift point. However - some guns, mortar teams and so on cost more to lift (guns will have a '*' or '**' to indicate heavy weight). Vehicles with lift of 1XX can carry heavy units, 2XX really heavy units (look at say barges, which carry MBT etc.).
Load cost

This is the bit that says something is heavier than average - 0 for squads means only the men are factored, but say a .50 MMG section with Load cost of 1 - will cost roughly 12 lift points, and tanks with load cost in the 24 ton class, need barges to carry. A 57mm AT gun with load Cost of 2 requires a vehicle with a 1XX Lift Capacity, and a 3 inch AT gun with Load Cost 3 needs a fair sized truck to tow it.

(The best way to find out what caries what is by experience - set out a test game buy a full set of various transports and loads, and then experiment in the deploy phase to see what is allowed by loading and unloading the combinations, then exit the test game.)

Size An indication of how easy the thing is to spot, and to hit. Smaller is sneakier, larger is more easily seen.
Cost Buy cost, if experience is average 70, if less experienced crews then the unit costs less, and more experienced crews and hence more effective units naturally cost more. Destroying say, Wittman's Tiger I (say 140 experience crew) is worth more kill Victory Points than killing recruit Schultz and his experience 60 Tiger I crew of greenhorns.

NB - the 'sabot' round in SPWW2 is normally Armour Piercing Composite Rigid (APCR) (AKA HVAP - High Velocity Armour Piercing), but can also represent true sabot rounds - APDS (Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot) where the sabot (=shoe) surrounding the sub calibre penetrator is dropped after exit from the muzzle, which improves drag coefficient no end - only Britain used true sabot (APDS) ammo in WW2. We also use this ammo for some special cases such as an enhanced AP shot such as the 122mm APCBC in some IS series tanks later on, or to provide a short range AP round for the French 37mm L21.

APCR rounds have a very high AP at the muzzle, but due to the fact they retain the light alloy shoe throughout their flight, they soon drop below the AP capacity of the normal AP round due to high drag coefficient. Thus the sabot max range field will be rather shorter than the normal AP round's maximum. Some later German and USA (e.g. 76mm) APCR had better shapes to their retained sabot - so do better, their sabot range will be a better fraction of the main gun's AP range.

Where the sabot round represents true APDS - as with the British guns - sabot range can exceed main gun AP range as with the 17 pdr in the firefly illustrated above. True APDS drops the drag inducing shoe liner, and the sub calibre projectile is therefore subject only to normal drag ratios for its own length and diameter. This is the same where the 'sabot' round is used for an improved APCBC (Armour Piercing Capped, Ballistic Capped) round.

The French 37mm L21 has a very short APCR range - do not expect much beyond 3 hexes (150 metres) or so - it is only there because the game code decided an AP of 2 was worthless, so it fired HE instead!

If the OB designer has produced descriptive text for a unit, this is displayed under the unit picture.


 

Game Installation Reference

Version 3.0 to 4.0 upgrade patch - this is intended to upgrade an existing full SPWW2 version 3.0 installation to version 4.0. If you have downloaded this patch, but do not already have version 3.0 on your PC - you will require to download the complete version 4.0 installation file. If you have version 3.0 - point the install at the directory you installed your version 3.0 to, if the default path is not the same.

Full Version 4.0 game installation - this will install the entire SPWW2 version 4.0 game, a copy of version 3.0 is therefore not necessary.

With both installation programs - please take care to read any text presented, and also to read any late breaking news in any readme.txt or similar file if mentioned during the process. File names and sizes are in separate the readme.txt file.

 

After running the installer Programme

This game is an MSDOS game. It is based on source code originally written in the early 1990s, so it only recognises certain older sound cards. However any decent windows sound card has a DOS SoundBlaster emulator available for it. It will run happily under Windows 95 or 98 in most circumstances, so long as the appropriate steps are taken.

Here, we will consider only well behaved Windows machines, such as my Dell PII 450 W98 Dimension, and not the awkward squad, like my Watford Aries PI 200 W95 laptop with its ESS integrated sound chip. Modern 3D accelerator video cards can be a problem with DOS games as well - see further below for sound card and video card problems. The Dell came with an STB nVIDA graphics card - DOS friendly, and Dell had pre installed a DOS SoundBlaster emulator driver for the TBS Montego sound board at the factory.

1] Set up your Windows shortcut

In the simple case all you need do first is create a Windows shortcut for the game.
1) Find the game executable (SPWW2.exe) in the root directory where you installed to with windows explorer.
2) Right click on this and drag it to the desktop, and let go of the right mouse button
3) When the pop up dialogue comes into view select 'create shortcut(s) here', and windows will create a shortcut to the game executable
4) Still not finished! - now right click on your new shortcut and select properties from the menu presented. You will see something like this

Beside the icon is the name field - type what you want here

Cmd Line will be from where you dragged the exe from (here I am working in a development directory C:\SPWW2V30 - use whatever you set your path to)

IF the working directory is blank fill it in with the path to the executable (C:\SPWW2V30 in this case - use your path, obviously!).

Run - My video card is quite happy with 'normal window', however some video cards will not auto switch to a full screen MSDOS window and will leave a set of squishy lines at the top of the screen. Often, all these cards need is for this line to be set to 'maximised' in order to work properly.

Close on exit - I leave this unchecked, so that I can see game error messages such as complaints about no CD in the drive before windows nukes the screen! However some cards will not hold the DOS screen on exit - always auto terminating it, so if you are getting errors, try running the game from a DOS prompt (open a DOS window, navigate to wherever SPWW2 is installed then type SPWW2 - some folk like to write their own DOS batch file to do this).

Now hit the 'Advanced' button

This is all my PC - and most - will need as Dell set up a decent set of config and autoexec files at the factory, including DOS mode CDROM stuff. However - you may need to check the MS-DOS mode item, to use custom Autoexec.bat and Config.sys statements (e.g. If your DOS mode MSCDEX is NOT loaded by the default autoexec supplied with your PC). See the DOS and Windows help files as to how to set up these files, or contact your PC support.

The old DOS help is on my win 98 CD under tools/oldmsdos. On my Win 95 CD, its in other/oldmsdos. You will need to know what you are doing to use these - the help file is not a Windows help file, so you cannot read it off the CD using Windows. You need to copy help.com, help.hlp, qbasic.exe and qbasic.hlp into a directory on your path. However, typing 'help' at a DOS prompt will give a file mode error (probably as this disk is FAT32 - FAT16 may be OK?). But double clicking on help.com from windows will run the (MS-DOS) help, once you have installed the Qbasic etc. supporting files..

Now select the Memory tab:

Ensure that Uses HMA is selected !

Now the Screen tab:

Just ensure full screen is set here (stops some video cards problems detecting it)

Finally - the misc tab - lots of stuff here:

Ensure that Allow screen saver is NOT repeat NOT checked! - otherwise Windows will assume after a while of playing that you are idle, as it does not detect DOS key or mouse activity, and fire up your screen saver behind the game, and performance will suffer all of a sudden! Background - set to always suspend so that if you alt-tab out to windows, this halts the game Termination - I remove warn if still active, so I can terminate the thing easier if minimised in Windows. Idle sensitivity - ram this down so that the game gets 100% of the CPU - we do not want windows tasks occurring much behind the game.

5) now we have created the shortcut for the game. It is on the desktop - however this was for ease of creation, and feel free to move this somewhere else that you prefer, drag it to the start menu and drop there for example, or use Taskbar properties/advanced to put it in a program group of your choice. a shortcut is a windows file. Drag and drop onto say your start button - there it is. Or drag it and drop it on the Windows 98 cool bar beside the Internet explorer icons etc. - use the tab on the bars to resize, and you have the instant launch icon.

2] Set up your Sound card

Before you play the game for the first time, you MUST run setsound.exe to initialise your sound card or the game will be unstable. (The installation program runs this - but you may need to return here and try other options) Setsound.exe lives in your game root directory - double click to run. You will see a screen like this

Setting 'No Digital Audio' will remove all sound drivers - note that turning sound OFF on the in game preferences screen will not remove sound drivers, if you are having difficulties and require to turn sound off and remove the drivers - select no digital audio in this program and turn sound off in preferences in the game.

Select the configure item and you will be presented with a selection of choices

All these cards are DOS mode cards from the early 1990s - modern Windows sound cards should be able to emulate a baseline SoundBlaster, as it is the commonest emulation around. Some can do it with native code - others require a separate emulation driver to be installed. (An easy way to see if you have one - check if there is a line for a SoundBlaster emulation driver in your device properties - see below for how)

After hitting select - you will see the above. Try out the first option to see if you are lucky today! If you see this, then you had a problem

Try the following remedies: Firstly - you may have selected the right card, but your PC emulation does not use the default IRQ and DMA settings. Go back and try configuring your sound card manually, run through the screens and note the settings. NOW (Windows 98 - 95 differs) go to your desktop and right click on 'My Computer' and select properties. When the properties dialogue comes up - select device manager

Open up the sound driver section:

Lucky me - as you can see, my Dell came with a Sound Blaster Emulator driver factory installed ! (Selected line - if you have something similar, your sound card has the driver in place)

If yours does not have this - select the regular sound device and press properties In the resources section you will be able to check over the resources assigned to the device - note these down and compare with those set out in setsound which you noted earlier.

Here is the setting for the Dell installed SoundBlaster emulation - as you can see, these numbers are the default SB values, therefore they agree with setsound defaults for that device. (NB there are 2 sound blaster types in setsound - try both (Mine works with the sound blaster pro/100% compatible drivers, but not with the SB16/AWE32). Also try other drivers - your card might be able to natively emulate a Roland perhaps?.

If your values here differ from setsound - you will need to change those in setsound via the manual setup method and retry. If you do not have an emulation driver and your sound card cannot natively emulate a SoundBlaster, see your sound card documentation as to whether you require a separate SoundBlaster emulation driver (you most likely will). If it is not pre-installed - check your sound card install disks, as it may be in there (read any readme.txt files!) - also check out the manufacturer's web site as sometimes these are made available there (e.g. I found a DOS driver for my ESS sound chipset on my portable at the ESS web site. Drawback was it only works in pure MSDOS so if I want to play SP2 or SPWW2 on the laptop, I need a DOS boot disk, and a batch file to set up this utility - it does not auto load).

3] Video card problems

Some modern video cards, especially 3D accelerated ones, are not VESA compliant. These usually need a set of DOS VESA mode drivers loaded - see your video card documentation and install disks, and refer to the manufacturer's web page if required. Some 3D cards will need a reboot should you need to use or change from DOS VESA drivers - however many can in fact work in tandem with a 2D card to handle such things as DOS and also plain windows applications - see your card documentation to see if it can work as part of a 2D/3D card combo. This may save the pain of reboots to change drivers. If you installed a new 3D card you may have your old 2d card ?. Worth reinstalling, as 2D cards handle regular Windows updates better than some 3D cards often enough.

Also - see the note above in setting up your shortcut about selecting full screen in the shortcut, should you see a set of lines at the top of the screen - setting this is all some video cards need - they do not seem to accept the game's VESA request for full screen mode properly.

4] When all else fails

Some particular PCs are just not set up quite right to play DOS games - it can be any combination or conflict of sound, video, or other devices, or Windows version.

Each and every PC box is different. My old Windows 95 P100 desktop would only play the SP series games with a 'restart in DOS', i.e. This was the only thing it could do, but luckily no start-up disk was required. It would not play the game as a DOS full screen windows application. However, Don Goodbrand also has a Windows 95 desktop, and the game works perfectly OK from a desktop shortcut for him. My guess is the el cheapo SoundBlaster clone in my old machine would only work properly in pure DOS sessions. My portable is an old W95 PII 200 MMX system, and it unfortunately came with an ESS integrated chipset. I found a SoundBlaster driver for this at the ESS website, but this will only work from MSDOS, that is MSDOS from a boot diskette - not 'reboot to MSDOS' . It also needs to be run before the game - it wants answers to questions, so cannot be put into a batch file. Should you need to run from a DOS boot disk - see the SSI documentation from your SP2, SP3 or Arsenal product, these have sections on making boot disks, and a utility to create same. Also - read the readme files SSI provide on the CD.

Additionally - your machine may have a poorly set up default autoexec and config files for MSDOS windows (including running from a shortcut) In particular, DOS CDROM and Mouse drivers may not be included. Look in your \windows folder as there may be other MSDOS command shortcuts provided, other than the default 'command' that your desktop shortcut will use. My Dell, for example came with MSDOS mode shortcuts entitled 'Exit To DOS' (full screen mode), 'MS-DOS Mode for Games with EMS and XMS Support' and 'MS-DOS Mode for Games' as well as 'command', if your PC supplier has provided alternate DOS environments, experiment with these. In especial - right click on them, open up the 'Program/Advanced' dialogue, and check out the settings under the 'Specify a new MSDOS Configuration' sub-windows - there may for example, be DOS mode CDROM and Mouse driver lines in there, that were not in the regular 'command'. If there are alternatives - double click and open the DOS window, navigate to the SPWW2 directory and start SPWW2. If it runs under this DOS window, then right-click drag the appropriate shortcut to the desktop and select 'create shortcut here', then modify its properties as mentioned above. If double clicking it now works, you have a working shortcut, so move it from the desktop to wherever you want to store it. If it refuses to work, then you will need to open the DOS box, and either navigate to the directory and start SPWW2, or better yet write a batch file to do it for you (see DOS help).

5] other points to note when running the game

This game is an MS-DOS game; based on code originally written when Windows was a separate application you launched from DOS when required. In particular, its memory manager knows little of modern Windows applications, and can get into conflicts with these.

Additionally, Microsoft provides no DOS-compatible mouse driver and sound card drivers with the Windows 95 or 98 CDs. (I found one for my laptop on an old install floppy for some cheap and long gone mouse which was lying about in my desk).

Some folk manage simply to play the game from a shortcut on the desktop; others have problems, especially laptop users. Each computer is different - different sound card, video hardware etc.

It is often necessary to play this game from a boot disk - the original SP2 and SP3 disks have a utility to do this. This solves most problems, but won't solve them all. This sort of thing was regular back in the DOS days, each game needing its own particular boot disk or menu item in config.sys and autoexec.bat. It's just that most have become used to modern Windows handholding!

Version 4.0 is much more stable than previous SP series games as we eliminated some illegal addressing we discovered in the legacy code - playtesters have reported running happily with for example, an Internet connection running, which previously would tend to cause crashes - but still check the below, if you have problems.

IF you manage to get the game going from a W95/98 desktop shortcut but still experience crashes randomly; here are a few pointers to running this game successfully. (It also applies to any other 'legacy' DOS game; the problems are not unique to this product!).

The major thing to recall is this is a DOS game and is not happy with Windows programs.

Always run the game after booting Windows as the first application.

DO NOT 'alt-tab' out of the game and do something (e.g. read email) and go back in. Sometimes you will get away with this, often times not. It all depends on how sensitive you PC box is - all installations differ in configuration.

Remember - run this game on a 'clean' Windows session only, as the first and only program, and you will tend to be OK. And that bit is in bold, as it needs to be emphasised!

Above all, have no background Windows tasks, especially communication-related programs going when trying to run a DOS game.

As one example of the oddities of PCs - one user had severe problems, until he turned off some form of hardware state of health monitor program that was running in windows - it periodically checked fan temperature or such like and whenever it kicked in, DOS windows died.

If you use the 'active desktop' feature of windows, ditch it, especially if its trying to do point cast stuff or otherwise interrupting the CPU with web downloads. The active desktop is the kiss of death for many DOS apps, and games, and quite a few older Windows applications too.

Have no email sessions going either.

If your drive is shared on a network and another user tries to access your drive, or a shared printer while you are in a DOS application, this will likely terminate you with extreme prejudice. Detaching from the network is a good idea.

The Windows TCP/IP stack (used in network and email apps) seems to be the kiss of death to DOS games. I find the main reason the game will go unstable and crash is having run Outlook Express - on my box, it will happily run at almost any time, but if Outlook Express has run, problems are highly likely. Also - this is especially true if Outlook Express has managed to 'lose its toolbar' as it does sometimes - the toolbar is visible, but refuses to answer, unless you exit OE and restart it. Whenever windows does that strange thing where all the icons change from the 'proper' ones to some weird selection - this is a good time to reboot Windows completely. (At any time, not just when running this app - it means Windows has its underwear in a severe twist memory wise! - plain windows programs will cause this one.)

On occasions Windows explorer hangs, and requires to be terminated with ctrl-alt-delete to task manager and terminate it from there. When that happens, often the system tray icons vanish. This is another clue that Windows has gone unstable and is about to go tits up on you - save all work and restart. Again, not just this app - just something Windows happily does, all on its very own. Trying to run the game after these things is about 100% fatal - the Windows memory management system is in a mess.

One key background task that can cause problems is virus scanning software, if it periodically scans memory or disk. Read the documentation for these programs, and tune or turn off as required. Also, backups if scheduled in the midst of a game session can cause problems. Some PC boxes will just slow down to a crawl, but others will lock up if a screen saver or background windows task kicks in on top of an MSDOS full screen application. (Some screen savers do not detect the activity of the keyboard and mouse in the DOS session, only Windows mouse and keyboard events! - so think you are off doing whatever and try to start up 'behind' your game).

A major user of the CPU and disk space waster exists if you have installed MS Office. 'FindFast' is a program installed by default when Office is put on your PC. Periodically it will scan your entire system for new Office documents, which it then adds to a (largish) database in your c: root. If you ever wondered why your PC slows down to a crawl for a minute or five every hour or so, and have Office (or components - Word, Excel etc.) Installed - you likely have FindFast enabled. FindFast seems to trash this game when it runs so is best removed. See your MS Office help for details. If you do not make much use of the 'Find office documents' item, then its worth removing in any case, or scheduling to a more sensible scan rate at the very least. MS Office also has a start-up program in your start-up folder - this takes up valuable system resources all the time by default. It handles the Office Taskbar etc., So if you never use this - find the shortcut in the start-up and nuke it. If you occasionally use it, then cut the shortcut and paste to your desktop so you can start it when required - e.g. you plan to do a lot of Word or Access work. Otherwise it uses system resources to no purpose.

Look at the scheduler for Windows 98 - this can launch applications at unexpected intervals if not set up correctly - like scandisk or defragmenting of the hard drive.

Some folk have an alternative solution for MSDOS games - since modern PCs are sometimes so DOS hostile, what they do is go out to a second hand or pawn shop, and buy an old specification box for peanuts, and use this as a DOS only game machine. Or they had an old 486 lying about being used as a doorstop or whatever - utilise that machine.

6] Setting up with Mo'Slo

This game was written when a 486 66 was a powerhouse, so it may tend to be a little fast on modern processors <G!>.

We have provided the slow down and accelerate keys ('[' and ']') for scrolling adjustment in game, but this really is only good for minor adjustments, with lower end chips - say PII 200 or so and below. The best way to slow a game like this down is to use a proper slowdown utility such as Mo'slo.com. (Also available at shareware sites like Tucows.com or shareware.com). Also see the INI file section about the adjustment available there.

Set up your shortcut to look like this:

The command line here is 'C:\SPww2v30\mo'slo.com /70 C:\SPww2v30\spww2.EXE' - Use YOUR path in your shortcut!

The /70 says to use the Pentium at 70% speed, which seems OK for my PII 450. Note: Mo'slo is a DOS program, so where you install the game to needs to be in a path with DOS compliant directory naming - i.e. 8 characters maximum, and no spaces in there, OR - use the 'mangled' version that you will see if you use a DOS window, and do a DIR command - with all those twiddle (~) bits.

Mo'slo is a shareware product - the registered version provides more functionality. It can be used for any DOS games, not just this one! - register if you pan to use it.


What is new?

What is new in Version 4.0?

New WW2 long campaigns for Poland, USMC, Japan, India, ANZAC

Pacific Front is available as a WW2 long Campaign Theatre, some nations are allowed to transfer between European and Pacific (e.g. ANZAC, USA, GB).

Amphibious assaults have been stabilised and so reintroduced to the WW2 Long Campaign.
- In addition, the code will now attempt to load things onto any existing 'floaters' and 'fliers' before auto buying landing craft to simplify user deployment.

River crossing assaults have been returned to the WW2 and generated campaigns.

Battle Locations will generate city battles at times where appropriate (e.g. Canadians in Caen area)

WW2 LC has some scripted areas which may appear (e.g. Meuse river crossing for Germans in France 1940)

Major changes to aircraft
- Helicopters are back, and are now the only on map air type.
- All other air units are offmap assets
- Transports drop paratroopers, who use parachutes
- Level bomber class introduced

Gliders start on map, to pick up troops, then are removed and come in as a programmed air drop.

Transports are like gliders, but the troops deploy by parachute.

Level bombers go to the target area and then offload their bombs, they do not dive on individual tanks, nor can they use direct fire weapons like cannons or rockets.

Introduced the ability to change the turn of a pre game bombardment mission from the default 0.

Introduced new Black Volcanic sand terrain type - mainly for Iwo Jima

Iwo Jima linked campaign added.

DD and Snorkel Tanks - DD tanks and snorkel tanks show a different graphic when afloat, and cannot fire (both are effectively underwater!). Snorkel tanks less easy to spot, but find spotting very hard. DD tanks have spotting ability reduced. Snorkel tanks difficult targets when swimming. DD tanks can be sunk when swimming (the apron collapses).

Campaign Difficulty modifier - from very easy to very hard, allows user to set difficulty as desired in both the WW2 Long Campaign and the Generated Campaign. (Not the user campaign, as this is set by the designer).

In Contact/Out of Contact - Coloured status line added to unit information for this very important data.

Vehicle Dust Trails - high speed, or high quantity of vehicle movement in a hex in certain weather conditions will lead to dust trails rising above moving vehicles. High visibility conditions in Desert, high visibility and high summer months in Green and Jungle may give rise to 'rooster trails' potential conditions.

Hull gun equipped vehicles will tend to turn to face e.g. in reaction fire - Grants, Char B etc were previously handicapped as only the turret would turn to face.

At short ranges, AI tanks will often turn to bring bow MG to bear on an infantry target.

Infantry can hit the deck, and if successful, take cover, from fire. Hitting the deck makes them more difficult targets, and a good skill roll may break the firer's chain of fire, and a skill check may allow them to break LOS by finding cover as well. A successful taking of cover can reduce suppression. Infantry which are forced to pull back from fire will now sometimes turn and take a pot-shot back at their tormentors, especially if of high morale and/or experience.

Poor morale and/or poor training level infantry, especially those which have no viable or ineffective AT weapons may retreat in 'tank panic' either when attempting to close assault a passing AFV, or when such arrives in the next or same hex. Bigger, heavier armoured AFV tend to cause more consternation that tin-plated open top recce vehicles. Japanese are not greatly subject to tank panic.

Water movement allowance is shown in blue, alongside the normal MP allowance.

Game ranges can be displayed in hexes, yards or metres, by an INI file setting.

Surrender option - mainly for PBEM games - introduced, ending the game at that point with a massive points bonus to your opponent.

End of game map review feature - roam the map, viewing your and your enemy's troops at the end of play.

PBEM end game - now, after the game ends, zip your files and send to your opponent, who will unlike before, be able to review the end game data, and as above, the map.

Skilled AT shots allowed to hit vulnerable areas. Very experienced shooters, at close ranges, can generate additional AP over the 'book' value to simulate a skilled aimed shot to a weaker area such as say a vision block, or if insufficient penetration is available, they can direct the shot to hopefully gain a disabling track hit. Very dependant on firer skill, but there to simulate say, skilled German tankers versus French Char B in 1940, or KV later, or Allied tank crews bouncing a shot off the bottom of the panther front glacis down through the driver's hatch.

Hand to hand melee bonuses for some troop types, and certain nations renowned for hand to hand combat ('firing' at range 0, i.e. in the same hex as the enemy). Lancer cavalry have good HH bonus, and an additional bonus against enemy non-lance cavalry. Irregulars, Commando classes, Paratrooper classes, Ghurkas and Legionaries are enhanced for melee combat. Japanese and Australians are enhanced for HH combat, US Marines and UK infantry less so.

Scenario editing enhancements - more control over the global beach and wide river variables, and the ability to easily clear the victory hexes down and/or set all to a common points value in one operation.

User Campaign Editor - designer can now edit the number of flights made available to the human player.

Companies can be bigger - changes to 60 from 40 maximum units in a company.

New integrated glider and Transport aircraft equipped infantry units have been produced, these save you having to calculate the appropriate 'lift' of aircraft required or to buy separate transport plane units. These units are air units, so are only presented when air units are made available to you.

The SP Camo 'shotgun' victory hexes will now appear in delay or defend missions, at 60% of the frequency allocated to the meeting engagement battle in the INI file setting.

In random battles, where the user does not use a specified saved map, then the objective hexes are labelled and the value of each objective is shown as part of the text label.

Several cases of the original legacy code addressing illegal memory addresses, or returning out of range values from functions (usually negative values where positives only were expected) etc. have been tracked down and eliminated. This makes the game noticeably much more stable than before. Many playtesters report that they can for example download from the Internet in the background, do email and, in my case as the programmer, run the Borland C++ Builder development suite, and also alt-tab in and out of a running game session, without requiring to reboot the machine to play SPWW2. SPWW2 runs fine in a DOS window on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, and one of our playtesters uses OS/2.

 

So What Were the Major New Changes for version 3.0?

SP:WW2 V3 allows you to choose from nine map sizes to a maximum of 100x200 hexes. All other Steel Panthers based games offer three map sizes to a maximum of 100x80 hexes. This change allows you to play a game on a simulated battlefield of up to 50 square Kilometres! - map sizes: 40x100, 60x100, 80x100, 100x100, 120x100, 140x100, 160x100, 180x100, 200x100.

SP:WW2 V3 now gives you up to fifteen levels of terrain to work with. All other Steel Panthers based games allow only three elevations above ground level.

SP:WW2 V3 now allows each player to command up to 500 units. The previous limit for SP:WW2 was 200. The maximum number of formations per side has been increased to 200, it was about 50 before.

SP:WW2 V3 has removed many of the previous terrain editing restrictions in the original SP games. Now, every terrain feature except swamp and pavement can be edited into any level on a map. Cultivated fields and multi-hex buildings can be placed on any level. This new feature is not simply restricted to hand made maps and scenarios.

Computer generated maps will now use 24 variables when creating a map. Previous SP map generation routines used only 10 variables and only 6 of those actually caused changes to the maps .As a result, you will be presented with MUCH more interesting computer generated maps than ever before.

AI map deployment has been completely overhauled and the computer set up has been made much more challenging than in the previous versions of the game.

There have been an additional 20 terrain tile SHP file SETS added to the game so as to allow old features such as crops to be edited onto higher elevations. We have added numerous new functional terrain features such as Snowdrifts, Light snow, Rice paddies, Mud, Orchards, Impassable Terrain, Hedgerows, and Trenches.

Snowdrifts, mud, soft sand, rice paddies, hedgerows and crossing of trenches are liable to cause vehicles to stick, mud being the worst, soft sand and snow drifts less so.

Terrain descriptive text can now be added on scenario maps.

Elevations can be changed right on the map being edited so if you wish to place a small elevation change in a map to break up LOS, that can now be done.

SP:WW2 V3 now has over 237 unique battle locations built into it. With the increased number of map variables the code uses you will now see computer generated maps that could only have been hand made before. ( And with the added elevations and new terrain could never have been made before ) For example; Hedgerows are auto generated in Normandy maps, Raised dike roads in Holland, Pacific maps will have rice paddies and raised rice paddy bunds. Streams create valleys across the map now rather than run up and down hillsides. Cultivated fields may be bordered by trees and the fields themselves are much more realistically generated than in the past. You will find maps that contain rolling hills covered in high grass or deep ravines that cut across flat plateaux.

We have added over 100 new unit classes to the SPOBS Many of these have special characteristics such as ski troops which move faster than regular infantry in snow terrain. There are now 169 unit classes in SP:WW2 V3. Listed in MM

We have added new code modifiers to the Orders of Battle which allow us to create formations with increased or decreased battle experience and morale. This has allowed us to create Elite and sub standard formations which gives us much greater freedom to create more historically accurate formations for the game. More units and formations may be added to the Orders of Battle in the future, as will battalion command formations.

Appropriate points are now charged depending on the national characteristics when that option is selected. If your base experience for that year is above 70, you will be charged more points, if less, your troops will cost less. Contrast this to previous SP versions where some nations received a free bonus and others such as the French in 1940 were paying full cost for less capable units. Elite units such as SS will now cost over and above the national base cost, but less capable units like Volksturm will cost below the national average.

All units and formations now have both month and year in-service and out of service dates.

We have also created new bunkers including turreted forts and Panzerturms (with rotating turrets) as well as Caves.

World War II Long Campaigns SP:WW2 V3 now includes a long WW2 campaign similar to the one included with the original SP game. We have written long campaigns for the following countries: USA, UK, Germany, USSR, Canada and Italy. (We will add other nations and cover the Pacific front in a later release).

The Campaign upgrade screen is now at the start of next game so upgrades will be at that battle date. Previously, you upgraded at the end of the last battle and therefore would be required to carry obsolete equipment forwards. The update screen has been upgraded to include a review option allowing you to look at unit statistics. We have additionally added a new encyclopaedia button to this screen.

The campaign upgrade paths have been overhauled. For example; a towed artillery piece can now become an SP gun (which previously was not possible). The player can use these "cross overs" to change core units as desired over the life of a campaign, the same towed gun which upgraded to an SP Gun is now considered 'armour' and so could finally become a tank (if this was desired). Finally, we have doubled the Campaign core unit limit to 200 units.

User Generated Campaigns: Linked and Branching We have written new code which allows up to 999 scenarios to be linked together creating user generated campaigns. Unlike SP3, which was limited to a straight linear progression, SP:WW2 V3 has linked campaigns which can branch to different scenarios depending on what the end battle results are (there are 5 end conditions ranging from total defeat to stunning victory). The designer can determine final victory from the number of battle victory points, and optionally reward players who have unspent campaign repair points with extra victory points as a reward for prudent players. Designers can write their own descriptive introductory texts for each battle location and also separate end game messages for each of the possible exit conditions for each battle. Designers can write user campaigns where the points are fixed and unchangeable by the end user if desired. Scenarios designed for user campaigns can place the human player start line as desired.

Over 150 SHP files have been either added or improved in SP:WW2 V3! This includes an additional 60 unit Icons. The result is that SP:WW2 V3 now has over 570 individual unit Icons!

Reinforcements have been added for scenario design and uses a system similar to that in Steel Panthers 3, but with a number of improvements. Reinforcements can easily be set up to appear on ANY hex on the map and the chance of arriving can be adjusted from 10% to 100%. Reinforcement units can carry passengers and off map support units (including gliders) can be selected as reinforcements.

The AI will now frequently fire a preliminary bombardment when you have an "advance" mission. The AI will sometimes direct a pre game bombardment on the deployment area when delaying or defending, and the code is written to make road hexes more attractive to target. This will annoy the heck out of human players who use 'packed road column' tactics against the AI - something they would not risk against a human opponent. The AI is now much more like a human opponent in this case and will plaster the approach routes of your forces.

Tanks, both yours and the AI's, will often turn to face their opponents thus presenting their thicker frontal armour. If they have smoke dischargers they will now often use them.

The AI will fire smoke more often than before. This is a random event and not predictable.

In the defence, AI units are now deployed in much improved "killing zone" formations. Thus they will cover better arcs to spot you and the AI will sometimes place pillboxes turned so as to generate flanking fire.

A help file facility has been added for basic in game help (for example to point users to the game documentation or the list of new hotkeys we have added).

Non - PBEM games autosave at pressing the end turn button to save game slot number 999.

A 'bail out' key for vehicle crews has been added, so you can retreat and perhaps save your vehicle crews from immobilised wrecks!

SP:WW2 V3 reports firing ranges in yards (or metres, or hexes at user's choice) rather than the previous count of hexes . Indirect firers now correctly report as firing indirectly.

A building 'lock' facility in the editor allows you to repeat a selected building during placement and is ideal for quickly building city grids.

In the encyclopaedia, we have presented the user with the basic ammunition loads for a unit. This information not previously available outside an actual battle. Additionally the OB designer can write descriptive text for each unit which will be displayed in the encyclopaedia. The encyclopaedia is accessible from many more locations than before to aid decision making. For example; on the main battle screen or in the campaign upgrade menu.

The OB designer can write descriptive text files for any formation - if present, a button is displayed on the formation purchase screen.

Allies are available, you can buy supporting troops from an allied nation, or if desired, buy those of an opponent and mark them as captured forces (they will then use your national flag, leader names, and qualities).

Firing ranges can now be set during deployment. This was not possible with an SP2 based game before.

Darkened hexes can be cleared during Artillery plotting

Rafts are now usable. In previous SP games when too many infantry were deployed in the water in rafts, the game would crash. SP Camo Workshop has fixed this problem. Additionally, rafts will now use a rifle type weapon to provide a little self defence.

Air units, if called in too close to your own forces, will often engage your forces instead of the enemy (more like Steel Panthers 1). Very close air support is now the dangerous proposition that it really was in WW2. Try to keep air strikes well beyond 20 hexes (1 KM) of your forces, especially vehicles.

Units can now be stacked during initial deployment phase.

Jungle grass: When high grass is set in a jungle map (palm trees on) then it gets a bonus random 3 foot height to represent the sort of high grass or bamboo found in tropics.

Major changes have been made to the OOB code ( Orders Of Battle ). Previous versions of SP2, SP3 and SPWW2 allowed 249 units, 199 formations and 249 weapons. SPWW2 V3 allows the creation of up to 599 units, 399 formations and 249 weapons in it's lists for each country. The OOB designer can enter a descriptive string for each SPOB file - with for example, version and copyright information. This string appears on the encyclopaedia screen, allowing users to check which OB set they have installed.

The game will also have a copy of a new MOBHACK in it's own sub directory for use in creating custom OOBs

OOBs have been extensively redone. Accuracy and authenticity are greatly improved over previous versions. Even small details, such as proper SABOT ammunition availability, have been addressed. Sweden added.

Artillery Effectiveness: Player Preference The artillery routines have been extensively reworked. However, since there are various opinions on just how effective artillery should or should not be, we have added an artillery effectiveness control to the Player Preferences which will allow players to fine tune the effect of artillery.

Off map Artillery - no restrictions in battle type, and can be bought as campaign core and upgrades.

Troops can negotiate -1 depth lake and water hexes, as was the case in SP1.

Barges can unload in -1 depth water. Map generated beaches will have some shallow (-1) water off the beach.

Units must be in the same hex to load onto transport, except during the deployment process. However, since they can be in deep water unreachable by other units - barges and rafts can still load from the hex alongside.

Formations purchase page - now has next and previous buttons, 20 formations shown per page, old falling off bottom of the problem gone now - can have lots of formations active simultaneously (was about 20, then fell off page foot).

loading and unloading units cancels undo - this fixes some cheats, especially the barge to opposite shore, unload and return infinitely one!

Cavalry and motorcycles no longer get the hexmoved=0 prone (infantry in dirt) bonus when pinned.

Max save slots now 1000 items for scenarios, saved games, user maps. PBEM still 5 slots - to move to separate page later. Most load and save pages now show 25 list items.

All guns now print the '*'s for weight class, even if they have movement ability

Number of flights remaining is shown at foot of purchase menu.

Map sizes in non scenario campaigns now vary - generally, more core = larger maps, smaller core points, or one side defending or delaying lead to a smaller map size.

Game lengths are longer to allow for larger and more complex maps, and the fact that most infantry walks in WW2. Game lengths longer for advance or assault missions.

Extra smoke allocated on assault missions.

MRL rates of indirect fire greatly increased (rocket launcher classes only).

13 man limit on squads icon changed - over 13 use 13 man icon and no longer become invisible (e.g. when large bunker crews bail out).

In a beach assault, landing craft and heavy amphibs with radios can call artillery even if spotters is true and they are not '0' units. (Unless you bought an OP plane, or some form of amphib unit with a command unit - you could only plot in pre game deploy, or when some commander had unloaded on the beach - transport is subordinated and passenger command units cannot call for fire)

Added strafer type plane - uses top HEAT armour value as a maximum number of passes (can still chicken out early if a morale+experience roll is failed). This is chiefly used for returner type planes with MGS less than 20mm cannon - e.g. a biplane with 2 MG - which previously only made 1 pass and then went home. Strafe maximum passes is shown beside the plane name in the purchase screen in the format (s:NN).

Off map artillery can now fire all over the map - unlike before, there are now no unreachable 'dead zones'.

Fixed the '2 pounder problem' by actually checking if the weapon has the requisite ammo as well as being in range (previous SP code did not actually check the ammo status, e.g. no HE ammo for a soft target).

On map planes, LCS and LCG no longer buy themselves barges in beach assault missions.

Units in a lake hex should no longer suffer immobilise track and engine compartment effects, as there was no way to recover these (e.g. to rescue passengers).

In the scenario editor the N and P keys allow selection of off map units, so the scenario designer can modify their statistics.

Added variable start line facility for user campaigns - in the scenario editor hit '%' - enter the x line that the human player can deploy to

At the special request of the SPWW2 scenario design team - added a Y/N query at exit of map editor, to remind scenario designers to save off their work before exiting and losing it all.

Wheat fields are taller than green fields or winter crops now, and can have 'dips' of lower (flattened) corn in them which can provide ambush positions (dead LOS) for infantry squads.

For OB designers (e.g. Mobhack users) - added a parameter to the .ini file which shows the unit and formation ID numbers on the purchase screens, ideal for helping debug OBs. Not much use to ordinary players though!

Added a scroll rate reduction parameter to SPWW2.INI file - used to slow scroll rate. (See section on the INI file).

 

What was new for version 2.2:

SP-Camo Style Victory Hexes

These new style victory hexes are there to liven up the game somewhat, and to remove some of the predictability of the default SSI style V-hex cluster placement, especially in the meeting engagement.

We provide 2 new types of V-hex usage in the meeting engagement. The first is a set of 3 traditional 7 hex clusters, however all these will be centrally placed - no 'home plate'. All 3 will be flagged as neutral. Other than that, there is no difference to the SSI meeting engagement - but all 3 being out in the middle will tend to spread the battle out more. No more 'grab the middle objective and hang on' - you have that 3 times over now, so your forces will be more spread out.

The second pattern is the 'shotgun'. You will understand why when you see it . here there are NO 7 hex clusters any more! Al 21 are spread around the map, half on one side and half on the other. Those near the centre will be marked as neutral, those more into either player's side with their flags. These hexes are marked up in terms of points over a traditional meeting engagement - 75 points each. However - the 3 objectives deepest in each player's zone are marked as 200 points each to make them worth going for.

The shotgun is intended to provide a sweeping dogfight of a meeting engagement. It should be fun for PBEM. In the defence or delay, we use the 3 7 hex clusters, but these are not as tied to the road network as in the SSI setup. In particular the extremely easy to defend '3 sets along a road' will no longer appear.

We have tried to go for the original SP1 flavour of defended areas V-hexes- spread quite widely apart for the most part. Also - our victory hexes are not as tied to hill tops as the SSI type - they can be happily placed in marshland. Usage of the new-style SP-Camo victory hexes are controlled at the moment by 2 lines in the SPWW2.INI file, as laid out above. If line 5 is set at say, 80 then for each battle - there is an 80% chance of our style, and 20% of original SSI victory hex format being used. (We may put these numbers in a preferences screen in a later version - ini files are unfriendly, but easy to do). Line 6 controls what %age of meeting engagements IF an SP-Camo type is chosen, will be the shotgun type. So a 50 here means that 50% of the battles of type meeting engagement, which have decided from line 5 to use SP-Camo type, will use the shotgun. 100 here would naturally mean that all meeting engagements using SP-Camo format would be shotguns. Should you decide not to use the SP-Camo types - just set line 5 to 0, and then line 6 is irrelevant. You will then only get the original SSI flavour of objectives.

Artillery Changes

Artillery has been remodelled somewhat, as the original SP2 model was too tied to post WW2 mode artillery. The major change is that a minimum delay of 1 turn is imposed for fire plotted onto a pre-registered 'gold spot' target. This delay will increase in the earlier time frames, for between the war and WW1 artillery. No more almost instant artillery response - you will need to plan ahead, and predict where moving enemy are likely to be when the rounds arrive.

Artillery observers are much more important now. The spotter plane is now counted as an OP type. Delays for call of fire from non observers is higher than if an OP type calls the shots. Additionally - only observers will have an 0.1 delay per adjustment of fire - others will have much longer delays added per 'hop'. These delays will also increase as you go back to WW1. (Note as an aside - we plan to produce WW1 mobs etc. in due course - this is why the dates start at 1910 after all! - but WW1 is a very secondary project, and requires more than mere mob changes. It needs to be built into the code as we go along.)

Having LOS to the impact hex is much more important now. If fire is unobserved, then it can drift quite considerably off the intended spot, barring any pre game move 0 bombardment. Fire missions plotted on Gold spots will not drift too much even if unobserved - a maximum of 2 hexes drift on pre registered targets. This also applies if you adjust back onto a gold spot from 'dirt'. If the observer has LOS to the impact hex, then it will drift no further. It can be worthwhile accepting a longer delay by using a regular unit HQ with LOS to the target, than a faster call from an OP who is on the other side of the field and has no LOS. When fires fall on an unobserved hex, then the shell pattern will loosen up, as it is assumed that harassing and interdiction fires are the objective. This spread can in fact be useful if all you want to do is beat up an area.

NB - you can now plot a smoke mission for your guns, even when all HE ammo is expended, unlike before. Smoke ammo has been allocated to some types which previously did not receive it - e.g. SP Mortars.

The artillery HE pattern is now more of an oval, longer in the 'X' direction, than a circular pattern. Mortars tend to be a bit more random and circular. Bridges are slightly more resistant to artillery fire - where one round was needed to drop one before, it may now take several hits. The plotted artillery "gold spots" are now cleared between battles, but not it would appear when using the scenario editor.

Counterbattery changes

Now, only batteries which have no mission planned will join in counterbattery fires, unlike before when some batteries would fire on map, and then also shoot CB. CB missions will destroy guns from the last to the first in an off map unit, this avoids the previous problem where if CB destroyed gun No. 1 - the entire battery was then useless despite having several viable weapons. CB missions can now DESTROY off map batteries if lucky, previously there was no way to do this, and hence get the points value your opponent had spent on these added to your score.

Hits on off map batteries do not always do damage points, but now they will kill both men and guns, as well as doing damage points. However, the targeted battery is subject to morale rules now, so a veteran battery may take a heavy hit, perhaps losing a gun - and fight on, or green gunners may decide to rout for a long time. Better morale gunners will tend to retreat less on receiving CB.

On map artillery have a small percentage chance of being marked as spotted per round fired, as with SP3. This really helps the AI out more, as human players already know what the 'smoke plumes' in the enemy rear are and can target them.

The AI and Artillery

The AI will fire on map CB fires on your smoke plumes, and it rates a spotted on map artillery piece higher than a smoke plume. Therefore you may need to consider moving your artillery - i.e. buy gun tractors etc. - and also the old habit of parking ammo trucks by firing pieces is less viable.

Ammo tucks do not explode yet - but they will later! There was a cheat in the old SP2 code which the AI used to switch fire all over the battlefield at no delay cost, this is now eliminated.

The AI uses the same rules as the human to plot and adjust fires. It knows about 'repeat' shots at low delay, but is not very good at using this. It does not use gold spots - these points will be addressed post 2.2. The AI will now attempt to predict ahead of moving targets, though it is still not very good at it. This area of AI will be addressed more fully in a later release. The AI's use of artillery is therefore best when you stay in a place too long.

When the AI has no better targets located, it will plot fires both on and around neutral or enemy victory hexes on occasion. Note that aircraft are artillery, and that means that sometimes the AI will manage to get some strafing runs in on you as you approach, especially in meeting engagements. At the moment this plotting is pseudo random - some more intelligent plotting is planned for future releases - e.g. Having the AI dump all over the roads in the deployment area in a pre game bombardment just like a human player will, so negating the mass traffic jam most players adopt vs. the AI. AI smoke usage, and some form of planned fires when advancing are also on the cards.

The AI will now plot fire missions from SP-mortars, though it will not move them as yet. In a later release the AI will move its artillery, and I will tell it all about ammo trucks as well. Sometimes the AI will bombard an objective in turn 1 or 2, which is quite early. This could mean that an on map battery and its observer can see the impact hex, and are highly skilled, sometimes the AI will by happenstance select the same hex that the battery had set for it on game entry. (If you select a battery for the first time, it is usually plotted somewhere on map)

Formation Numbers

Maximum formation number is now 60 (was 52), so you can buy more of the 200 max units now. (We have built a version with 400 units and 160 formations per side, but this caused problems with already written scenarios and PBEM security. This will be rescheduled for the 3.0 release when we can address the scenario and PBEM security more fully).

SP3 type formation lettering is used A0-AZnn for when we are able to provide reliable 400 unit armies. Actually, 160 formations (80 each) seemed to work OK with scenarios but we decided to stick with 120/60 for safety's sake this release as the 120 formations was already there - users were restricted to 52 by the A..z formation ID scheme.

Campaign Mods.

A new terrain type named "DEFAULT" has been added to the campaign generator which will allow you to pick up these maps and locations in generated campaigns making this not quite a true "long campaign" but much better than the previous release. A true "Long Campaign" will be released with version 3.0 as will user defined linked scenario campaigns (the button is already in place for this). However, if you select Germany in 1941-45 with all 3 opponents as USSR, and campaign terrain as 'default' you will get your battles as per the battle generator terrain. In other words, close enough to the long campaign for certain select opponent pairings, e.g. Germany vs Russia from June 1941 onwards , The British vs Germans from the beginning of 1941 onwards, the Americans vs Germans from Tunisia to the end of the war in Europe and the USMC vs Japan from 1942 to the end of the war. The river assault battle type has been temporarily removed from the campaign.

There is a severe bug in the original river assault code when more than a certain number of assault troops have rafts added, which will cause a memory leak and overwrite your preferences before eventually causing a crash. We will fix this later, but for now please limit river assaults to scenario games only, or where small numbers of assault troops are used.

Campaign core is 100 units as per SP1 this should be half max (200), also the 125 given before was over the max of 120 units allowed for a beach assault. We will further address this issue in version 3.0 when we increase the number of units and formations available in the game.

Campaign support points values have been changed based on the real value of your troops points (adjusted for experience etc.), and battle type. No more 350 support points for every battle. Assault support points can now be 800 or so. A bottom end cap allows a decent support base for small cores, and a top end cap is used to limit elite cores from simply wiping the floor with the AI.

PBEM

The main problem with PBEM is the user unfriendly nature of the process. We intend to address that later, but for now a few minor changes have been made which we hope may help avoid user errors, the commonest form of PBEM problem.

The 'exit' button is removed from the password screen, as if one exits the game during this phase, the game data is corrupted. Also added (hopefully) more meaningful help strings on the password entry scheme when you hover your mouse over the buttons. NB - when setting up a secure PBEM game, as player No 2 - when you get your initial turn and open it to purchase your forces, do not under ANY circumstances exit from the purchase screen - go through the entire process and enter your password, then save the game. Any exit between the initial load by player 2 for purchase and before the entry of the password and subsequent exit to the deployment screen (the one with the 'AUTO DEPLOY', 'HUMAN DEPLOY' buttons with a red bar asking for password entry at the top) - will totally trash the game as the security 'keys' are not set up until the password is entered and the game is initially saved between the password entry screen and that deployment scheme. So do not exit in the middle of buying troops, unless you are player 1 and wish to abandon this game entirely.

I have added (hopefully) more meaningful error messages when security warnings arise than the previous 'programmer geek speak' with lots of exclamation marks (!!!).

"Security violation - Corrupt saved game file" Something dreadfully wrong has gone wrong with the PBEM data file.

"Security violation - Executable corrupt - Reinstall Game" Maybe someone was poking new values into the .Exe?.

"Security alert - Player 1 MOB file not found" "Security alert - Player 2 MOB file not found" The game was unable to find the required mob - did you delete it somehow?.

"Security alert - Player 2 MOB file corrupt" "Security alert - Player 1 MOB file corrupt" You MUST play the PBEM game right through with the identical pair of mobs in place on BOTH player's PCs. This one means that one of the mobs has changed, or if you are player 2 and this is the first move - player 1 and you have different mobs, so ask him to send you his or otherwise resolve this issue. The likeliest reason for this is somebody loaded their mobs into Mobhack or another editor during the game. NO mob changes are allowed during the lifetime of the PBEM game on both player's PCs so do any mob hacking in a different installation of the game than the one you play PBEM on.

"Security alert - Player 1 has already played this turn?" "Security alert - Player 2 has already played this turn?" This means you are most likely trying to reopen a move you have completed, and have either not yet sent to your opponent, or have done so and not received the reply back yet. This error - trying to open a played move - does not corrupt the PBEM data any longer.

"Security violation - Cause unknown" Well - if you get that one, I am equally baffled as well!

NOTE - the 'unable to load mobxxx' error will sometimes be seen when attempting to load a saved game of any type - but especially a PBEM game - which was unreadable or corrupt in some manner. It is most often seen when a move from a different version of SP:WW2 is sent over. PBEM games are NOT able to be transferred between different versions of the executable. Regular save games are (but will not be when we go over to 400 a side), and scenarios are as well. We hope to provide a scenario conversion utility when we change to 800 units maximum in a later version.

Battle Locations

Over 120 new battle locations have been added to the battle generated terrain, and these are used in specific dates and opponent pairings. Some of these produce city terrain - e.g. USSR vs Germany in December of 42 will give you Stalingrad, Canada vs Germany in 12/43 will have you fighting in the town of Ortona in Italy. Countries should now take the "correct" map side in the main, but still a few may need ironing out.

Other Items

Soviet 'horde' extra points bonus removed. Soviets use normal points values multipliers. They no longer get 50% on top of the agreed points level.

Japanese infantry will now pull back but after taking higher casualties than other nations but they will no longer stay pinned and be slaughtered. Japanese will retreat where others rout. Japanese will not rout, so will rally faster after a setback. Japanese scout planes will retreat on damage like other scout planes, not sit still in 'permanent retreat'.

The 1 hex to-hit bonus is based on experience and pin state, and is slightly reduced if firer moved. (NB - for those who wonder why they cannot hit at 1 hex - target speed is a factor, as is your speed - so if the target did 30 mph, and you charged up to him at 30 mph - there is a 60 mph speed difference that being at 1 hex helps, but does not remove completely !)

Civil wars - if both sides are the same nation, player 2 uses a different flag for victory hexes and ID tags. This does not apply to the encyclopaedia, or the turn indicator flag at RHS of the screen, it is there to help you tell things apart on the battlefield is all, and you will both be called 'USA'. Civil war is good for human vs human 'chess' play - where both forces are drawn from the same toolkit, and so the difference is more down to pure generalship.

Landed gliders now convert class to a truck type - so are far easier to shoot up on the ground. As air units before - even when landed - they were very difficult to hit even at 1 hex landed beside you. This problem still exists for spotter planes when landed, as they have to be able to take off again - but will be fixed in a future release.

Russians and Australians are now less likely to surrender, more likely to fight on or retire. We will be expanding the list of national characteristics in Version 3.0.

The A0 units will no longer be placed on transport when "auto deploy" is used. This increases the life expectancy of the AI's commanding officer considerably. Trucks will now pick up, as will jeeps etc. In the AI's or "auto" deploy. Trucks and APC's will pick up MG teams - tanks will not use them as riders. Snipers will not be picked up as AI tank riders.

In snow, there is a possibility of vision being further reduced to represent snowstorms etc.

The main page uses buttons, not the dial. All menu screen graphics have been upgraded as well.

Infantry, on becoming pinned, are now classed as stationary targets, i.e. not as moving at the speed they were before the pinning fire was received.

Rifle and MG suppression on AFVs has been reduced, small arms hits from under 3 hexes may still retreat or rout AFVs, but long range small arms fire is merely an annoyance now.

A hit by a shell fired in indirect fire will now throw any tank riders off a tank with possible casualties, just like direct fire.

Close assault code is nearer original SSI's spec code, modified slightly. Both sides of the assault can take more suppression, infantry squads who fail an assault can be spotted, infantry AT will occasionally fire, infantry who move and then assault are severely handicapped. (Note that the movement includes transport movement, so charging riders in a HT 12 hexes and then offloading to assault a target is less of a reliable tactic now).

The number of smoke grenades issued to infantry has been reduced

The chance of bridges not being blown in a river crossing slightly - still very rare

Several artillery types (e.g. SP ARTY) were classed as armour, so did not get artillery command ratings - now they do.

Moving infantry is now much more vulnerable, especially out in the open. Try not to move over 1 hex if under fire - and passengers count the vehicle speed when debussing, to represent being tightly packed on exit. Just debussed infantry are therefore highly vulnerable if caught at that point.

When fighting versus infantry at 1 hex or less, units which fail a test based on current morale, experience and suppression will 'panic' and have reduced to hit chances occasionally - this is done on a line by line basis. Units which panic badly can have suppression added to them. This allows good quality troops to close with poor quality and/or shaken infantry at 1 hex with a reasonable chance - previously the 1 hex bonuses tended to favour the defender far too much, even if severely pinned.

Bugs Squashed

Heavily damaged squads being able to rally to Ready, but unable to move is fixed.

Too many secondary weapons were being removed when damage was received - less now, so depleted squads should have a shot of LMG, AT weapon or hand grenade at move start - though movement will reduce this as will suppression.

Landed gliders now become a 'truck' type - so are reasonably easy to shoot up, as they are no longer classed as 'aircraft targets'.

There was a bug that was giving very low leader rally ratings when the user preferences for 'national settings' was unselected. This has been fixed.

An annoying bug/cheat has been removed whereby if you right clicked on a hex which had hidden enemy units in it , your unit did NOT turn and this gave away the fact there were enemy units there.

An annoying bug/cheat where the hit locations of unspotted armour was reported by artillery shells has been removed. Unspotted vehicles now behave the same as infantry - only if destroyed will you be informed.

Found out why the close assault code sometimes crashed the PC in weird situations as well - squashed. The annoying bug where off map crews etc. shot up your off map batteries has been addressed.

A bug has been fixed where the AI random map generator would place buildings on rough terrain, this was an illegal placement. Side effect of this is that you now are not allowed to place buildings on rough in the scenario editor, nor does the scenario editor allow you to place buildings in lake hexes any more.

Vehicles should no longer eject 2 crews on occasions

Vehicles no longer 'explode' when crew bail out with low morale.

Removed a bug where shooters at infantry were getting suppression reduced.

Wrong protection factors etc. were being used for HE and artillery fire for FO vehicles and a few others..

Artillery, rifle and MG fires now more effective, and trucks will be destroyed by indirect fire HE. There was a bug where stationary vehicles were classed as moving when firing - accuracy is now better for stationary firers.

Invisible buildings - in cities etc. - this seems to be related to some building graphics not covering the required area, we have found one major culprit and replaced that graphic. There will likely be more to track down.

What was introduced in version 2.0:

SP: WWII is essentially a new game. Although it is an offshoot of our earlier work, SP2WW2, the two games are not totally compatible. Steel Panthers: WWII is meant to replace SP2WW2. This is a general overview of the changes made to create SP: WWII and does not include the dozens of "Nuts and Bolts" changes made to help improve the game.

Security for PBEM games: The changes include

1) Normal scenarios may now be played as password-protected email games.

2) Passwords have been encrypted.

3) The number of times each player has loaded and exited a game is recorded and can be displayed by his opponent.

4) All email games are autosaved when the user exits the game.

5) The user cannot unzip the game, play it and then unzip it again, to improve his score.

6) The user cannot install a second copy of the executable and use one for test playing.

7) No saved email game can be edited in any version of the executable.

8) Both players in an email game must use identical MOB files, throughout the game - i.e. any change of the MOB is detected as a security violation.

Combat System Enhancements:

1) Moving a unit now reduces available shots and shooting reduces available movement points. A unit can loose up to ˝ of its shots or movement, this way. The losses are interactive. You will no longer be able to charge in, fire all your shots, then run for cover. Infantry transported in a vehicle will also lose shots depending as to how much the transport moved.

2) Movement TO HIT penalties have been removed, but all units except for aircraft and vehicles with gun stabilisers now loose target acquisition when they move.

3) Units now gain back some shots at the end of the turn to use for opportunity fire during the enemy movement phase. Up until now, if you fired all your shots, you have nothing left for opportunity fire, which allowed your opponent the chance to charge in and fire point-blank. This amount is randomised, and based on unit experience as well.

4) Indirect fire against AFVs has been made less lethal and more suppressive. The AFV should get hit less often and when hit, less should be track hits. The vehicle will take more suppression, however and crews may bail out and run, especially if the tracks are broken and the vehicle is immobilised

5) The delay for indirect fire has been increased. In the past, units who self-targeted received no delay penalty. The penalties now range from +1 turn to +3 turns. This will make pre-registered locations and artillery spotters more important in the game.

6) The artillery fall of shot spread has been modified. It is generally a more narrow spread than it used to be depending upon the accuracy of the ordinance being fired. Some shots still can fall quite wide of the intended impact point, especially if the spotter has no LOS to the impact point so calling in artillery 'danger close' to your own forces is still quite risky.

7) Infantry are now MUCH harder to spot, especially by vehicles or when moving slowly in good cover. Buttoned up, turretless vehicles are the worst at spotting. Size zero, sniper class units of high experience are the hardest to spot. Since infantry is now harder to spot and harder to hit you will notice that firing on infantry will produce fewer kills and more suppression than you may be used to.

8) Japanese units will no longer surrender, retreat or rout.

9) The USMC will no longer surrender.

10) Infantry can now only throw smoke grenades one hex.

11) Unit weapons ROF calculation was enhanced. The ROF now considers the size of the round, number of crewmen, unit ROF and crew experience.

12) Terrain defensive values were enhanced. All terrain, other than clear, now offers some protection. So, units will take fewer casualties and rout out of stone buildings less often.

13) Infantry units can now close assault more effectively. Attacks may now also be on the side or rear armour.

14) Computer opponent set up is now less predictable. They may set up near the right or left edges of the map or near both or neither. This way, the player will have to plan to protect his flanks. This has also been set up to be unpredictable. You will not always see the same units doing the same thing with each game. In particular, when advancing versus an AI force, you can no longer assume the top and bottom edges of the map are free of defenders. AI reserve formations will often be there - the old 'form a column and crawl along the map edge' human vs. AI tactic is now extremely risky. Be prepared to be in the middle of a concentric ring of closing AI formations once taking an objective.

15) The ROF for artillery using indirect fire has been increased.

16) Stacking limits have been removed. Press the keyboard SHIFT key to enter a hex that already contains another unit

17) Units moving through hexes that already contain other infantry, vehicles, bunkers, wreaks etc. Will have one movement point subtracted for every unit which is already in the hex. This is in addition to all movement penalties imposed for the terrain. For example, a tank moving through a hex that already contains four infantry units and two wreaks will lose an additional 6 movement points on top of the cost of the terrain in that hex.

General Changes and Enhancements:

1) Leader leadership and morale values were converted to WW II levels.

2) Unit experience and moral values were converted to WW II levels.

3) Counter battery values were converted to WW II levels.

4) Air superiority values were converted to WW II levels.

5) Dates were changed to appropriate period and will now run from 1910 to 1949. For Ver 2.0 we have only supplied MOBs that generally go back as far as 1930, more usually 1935. Future releases or updates MAY extend back further

6) Battles will now take place in generally appropriate geographic locations. We have tried to make non-historical battles occur somewhere believable, rather than just being in the desert, as was the case before.

7) A number of enhancements were made to the scenario editor, including the ability to place grass and sand dunes on hills.

8) The ability to change the side where each force begins the game when creating scenarios was added.

9) A cargo aircraft class of unit was added. Taking off costs half the planes movement points and climbing costs 10 movement points. Landing costs all remaining movement points.

10) The glider class of unit was redefined and enhanced. This speed of this class is halved each turn, until it must land. Once landed, it may not take off again nor will it rout off map if fired upon.

11) The ability to assign individual sound files to unit movement and weapons was added. Note that this will require the KobHack for SP: WW2 editor. This editor is deliberately not being released publicly at this time, for further explanation, see below.

12) Several new sound files were added that are unique to specific weapons.

13) A leg artillery forward observer class has been added with enhanced spotting ability.

14) Month of UNIT availability and out of service month has been added. NB - formation availability has not been addressed yet due to lack of time. Some formations will appear without a corresponding troop type.

15) Players with very fast computers can now adjust the map scrolling speed with a hotkey (SEE: HOTKEYS, at the end of these notes).

16) The AI will now pick up and carry infantry on tanks in the same manner it did in Steel Panthers 1. As well, if you press the " Load infantry onto nearest vehicle" button in the deploy screen the infantry will load onto your tanks if they have the carrying capacity to do so.

17) There are now over 200 NEW icons in SP: WWII over and above the standard WWII set found in Steel Panthers 1 or the WWII section of Steel Panthers 3. Added to this are dozens of vehicle icons that have been redone and enhanced. There is also a new set of menu screens, Control buttons, reworked Terrain Icons and a completely new set of factory buildings. You will also notice that many of the flat roofed buildings have been replaced with peaked roof structures.

Highlighted Features:

Gliders The Glider routine is much improved from SP2WW2. The most noticeable change is that when landed they will stay on the ground. We are hoping to improve this further in Ver 3.0 but an important thing to remember is that these are for HUMAN USE ONLY. Do NOT give these to the AI to use. As mentioned above, each turn gliders are in the air they will lose half their movement points until they must land. At present, landing is still a little too much under the human player's control - we hope to fix this later. Also, note that sometimes an unloaded glider will not be visible to the opponent if he did not have LOS when it landed and unloaded a minor bug we hope to address later. The number of countries with gliders as also was expanded to reflect that they DID exist in other nations TO&E as well (although rarely used). Gliders are now included with Italy, Russia and Japan. Gliders are for Human players only. Do NOT give them to the AI to use.

Light Observation Aircraft Light observation aircraft may land, but once landed may not take off again that turn. They will still "hover" if they are not moved. We strongly recommend that if you are playing a game with them that they be moved their maximum movement allowance each turn even if its at the back of your side of the map. These are NOT artillery spotters. They do not get the spotting bonus that either FO vehicles or leg FOO units get but they can spot for the FO. These are unavailable to the AI so these are strictly a Human controlled unit and are best suited to PBEM games. For this class and for the air transport class, as with gliders, landing is still far too much under the player's control. We hope to fix this. Also, those classes, which take off, will in future editions require that some form of 'clear runway' path. Currently, you can land and take off in a hex in the middle of a town. Doing this is really 'gamesmanship' - and yet another reason to limit these classes to the human player to be used in the 'right spirit' of the things, and not to bend the rules. Try to limit yourself to landings and takeoffs in a 'believable' place - along a road, say. There are no limits to this as yet, just the players honesty. These classes are currently wide open to misuse by the gamesmanship sort of 'demi-cheater'. If playing a human, agree pre-game on acceptable usage of these things, when negotiating points, realism settings battle type etc.

Air Transports Air transports have been added for games where you might want to simulate the Air Landing of troop reinforcements but it has also been used in scenarios to attempt to simulate paratroop drops as well. Our plans for Ver 3.0 include the addition of paratroop drops from aircraft with the drop zones chosen in much the same manner as artillery is plotted now with the aircraft entering and exiting the map in much the same manner as air strikes. For now though the Air transports stay on the map (UNLESS ROUTED).

Artillery Changes

1) You will need larger guns than before to create craters, and to drop bridges.

2) Artillery effects on armour are now mainly morale effects - artillery will break up armoured assaults, but by making tanks button up and possibly retreat rather than by destroying them.

3) This does not mean that artillery, even mortars, cannot kill tanks. However it's more likely that a track hit will occur, and the crew will bail out if moral is poor. If you want to actually kill tanks, then go for 6 inch (150mm) or larger guns.

4) Artillery is primarily an anti infantry weapon, but it does this more by morale strikes than by kills. Artillery kills over time - do not expect one salvo to remove a squad.

Infantry Changes

All small arms will suppress more than they kill. We made infantry harder to spot, which in turn makes them harder to hit which makes them harder to kill. When troops are pinned they are facedown in the dirt and even harder to spot which in turn makes them harder to hit and kill. So as a result there are fewer kills and more suppression in SP: WWII and infantry will more likely retreat to someplace safe and rally then re-enter battle rather than be slaughtered at the first few shots.

Note that sometimes when infantry become pinned, then the LOS is recalculated and can be broken due to the squad having now hit the dirt. So you can have the situation of firing a shot and then no longer having a LOS to the target. The same is true for your own squads that are fired on. When they hit the dirt, their spotting ability is reduced. Infantry is deadly against unsupported armour. If you run a tank down a road without infantry in support the tank WILL die if it bumps into enemy infantry. If you plan to move through territory held by enemy infantry then you had best slow down your tanks, dismount your infantry and move them together to advance. The infantry should advance a hex or two in front of your tanks so the armour can provide direct support should the infantry bump into something nasty. You CAN use tank riders to (hopefully) disrupt close assaults, but these guys will tend to pay the price for acting as a form of 'reactive armour If you suspect infantry - dismount the squads and let THEM find the ambush. They spot better on foot in any case!

If you STRONGLY suspect an ambush at a particular point - dust it off with artillery, then scout with dismounts, with the tanks supporting them. Don't blunder into infantry zones - at least drop a barrage, and then follow up close behind this. Artillery is the best cure for infestations of infantry and AT guns you have.


Historical Design Notes

General Points

SP: WWII has both the month of introduction added as well as the Out of Service month. This is a major improvement over Steel Panthers 2, which only caused things to go in and out of service by the year. (To be fair, the month of introduction is far less critical in a Modern era game but it is essential for World War Two due to the rapid and important improvements made to armour and weapons throughout the course of the war.) Note that this applies to formations as well now, unlike earlier versions.

You will sometimes find duplicates of things - for example a Stug may be there twice, once as say an assault gun and once as a tank type. This is usually to let the player use that vehicle in 2 different formation types - e.g. in a regular Stug company, or as a replacement for tanks in a panzer company. Sometimes it is just mainly for the AI's benefit. This is because the SP formation type is based on unit class - there is no 'MBT or Stug' way of doing them other than duplicating unit types, or formations.

"This machine gun/mortar has 2/3 MGS or mortars". We reduced the hordes of little singleton MG and mortar units and combined these to form MG or mortar sections, not individual weapons, for most armies. Count the number of crewmen - it'll be 8-10 odds like a rifle squad. This cuts down the unit count. In addition the combined units are much more effective, and so expensive points wise. The Machine guns are either Medium MGS or Heavy water cooled MGS mounted on tripods or wheeled mounts. The LMGs are integrated into the normal infantry squads.

The horse and cart is available in some armies as a medium truck, or a heavy truck. It is mainly of use as a cheap gun shifter - do not try to take infantry into combat on them! There is also a new sound for these as well ( Note: the code has been set up to provide a default "horse and wagon" sound F/X for any "truck" class with a speed set to 6 or less) There are bicycle troops added for a few countries early in the war. These have been put in the Motorcycle class for now but we hope in a future release to give then a class of their own.

Some formations have plus (+) and (-) added to them. Those with a + usually in military speak means reinforced; those with a - then something is detached. In general this is the case, but I also use + to note for example batteries with extra ammo load outs. A rifle co (+) may have support weapons added from the battalion support co, or trucks, a (++) when seen often has the weapons with light trucks, or even more weapons than usual. Or an infantry company might be designated light or with a (-) this usually has the heavy weapons deleted. Best way to find out is to look, and compare with other units.

Note that we have lumped most scout patrols together with snipers as 'sniper' class - this freed up an infantry class for other use. They are then in scout/sniper formations - choose from a patrol or a marksman as required. PS - unlike other SP editions, the sniper if used correctly by a thinking player is quite a pain to other human players . The chief thing to remember is to place them where there is cover to which they can retire (break LOS), and to break contact (LOS) when spotted or after a couple of shots - if located they do not last long, so plenty of scoot with your shoot. Then sneak up to (move slowly) another hiding position and engage. Better to sneak into a new fire position on one move, but not to fire until next move when stationary, so less detectable.

SMG range is only 150 yards - 3 hexes, which is an extreme maximum range for the ammunition they used, but it was decided that from a gaming perspective 3 hexes was better than 2. They are deadly at close quarters, but any SMG armed troops trying to fight rifle armed will pay a heavy price if the rifles can engage at over 150 yards - which is most places really. I tend to avoid SMG troops in campaign 'core' forces and only buy them as support if it is say, a city bash. But they can be useful as tank riders, so long as not then caught standing out in the open by someone with even an M1 carbine at range.

SP WWII tripod mounted MGS now reach out a long way. The key to their use is to engage enemy infantry from long range - beyond rifle range. Or place them a few hexes behind the rifle line, and fire in support of the fire fights overhead of your grunts. They can be very nasty indeed if you place them carefully say behind a hill or building, and then engage from the flank while being protected by the obstacle. If the enemy has no tank force to engage the MGS with direct HE (so early British tanks can be ignored till close) open up with MMG at 20 hexes or so on any soft stuff you see. We hope to give MMGs some form of linear area fire effect into more than just the target hex later on, but this is still just an idea.

By the way - when setting up pillboxes and bunkers, you can actually turn them by right clicking (many people seem to forget this). Thus you can then set up nests of mutually supporting bunkers with crossfire. Or you can set one up behind blocking terrain to fire flank shots at passers by as with MGS above. This adjustment is available in the Deployment Phase only - but if your opponent is not aware of this little feature, it can be quite upsetting sometimes.

In SP:WWII AT guns are MUCH more dangerous than in SP1 (or SP3)- there they commonly fired 1 shot, were instantly detected and destroyed by moving tanks. NOT SO NOW! In WW2 the AT gun was a chief tank killer. The Germans in the Desert would often flaunt some panzer at over-keen British armoured cavalry units, who would then chase them, while the Germans retired through an AT gun ambush position. Exit British cruisers. Antitank guns in SP: WWII are for the most part set to size ZERO to better reflect that these things were easy to conceal and difficult to detect in battle, especially from a tank.

Unlike other SP series games, off map artillery is purchasable in all games. The AI will now buy off map artillery in non-assault missions, so you will need to think about counter battery. In general your guns must have the same, or better range than the opponent, and you get more counter battery fires if you leave the battery 'idle' than if you keep firing it. Also, better-experienced gunners fire more often and to better effect. BUT - the better-experienced batteries are the ones that you can plot with lower delays on map. So it is a case of swings and roundabouts - you will have to make the decision.

SPWWII artillery is not cheap and deliberately so. It is quite effective now, and in any case unless the battle was an assault, then most armies would use about 1 battery per battalion in combat - so buying an entire artillery brigade of 9 batteries in a meeting engagement is now more prohibitive. If you have a force of 3-4 companies or so, budget for one battery if you want historicity. (For those of you who are new to military stuff - a battalion is a group of usually 3 to 4 companies)

Some of these off map 'batteries' come with 1 unit, some with 2. Why? Many armies used a 4-gun battery such as Germany. Others used 6 as a basis, so these nations come with 2 by 3 gun platoons to a battery. The British used an 8 gun organisation, so 2 troops (= platoon in UK artillery orgspeak, and cavalry as well. USA 'troops' are company-sized units) of 4 guns in a battery, though sometimes they used 6 for some heavies, and sometimes 4 gun extra heavy batteries.

There are some light trucks that are classed as 'APC-wheeled' - this is to help the AI, or in some cases to allow a specific light 4WD truck only in formations, not the medium trucks. It helps the AI because it currently will not load infantry onto trucks. We hope to address this problem in a later release.

Nazi Germany

1935 to 1946

The extra year is there to allow a what if the war lasted a bit longer phase, and so some of the more likely fancy projected kit that might have appeared, like the Panther II. They are NOT extended to 1949 for the hypothetical WW3 scenario as there is no way the Allies would have tolerated the remnants of this regime fighting alongside them.

Early on the real tanks should be PzKw I and II's. Panzer III and IV numbers were very limited early on - you should fight France with many Skoda tanks and Panzer IIs as was the case in reality.

Germany was almost as entirely unprepared for WW2 as the allies; the German army and navy were working to a 1943 or 44 kick off. The annexing of Czechoslovakia meant they took over one of Europe's chief armament industries and coincidentally they nearly doubled their tank strength, taking the first Pz38(t) right off the end of the production line. Not to mention that the severe and chronic artillery shortage was somewhat alleviated.

The invasion of Poland got the German armed forces into a war footing before they were actually ready for the game. Germany never had enough to go around, so this army has to be one of the most kleptomaniac ones ever seen. It was always, in other than the key SS and Panzer divisions, an amazing polyglot mix of kit.

As with the kaleidoscope collection of weaponry, there were any number of TOE charts for German units, most of which were in reality pure central command wish lists. Darned few started off on the official footing - many had more - but well under strength was more the rule, especially for units at the front. There are 2 panzer companies - a 17 tank and a 14. Both organisations were in use by both the Heer and the Waffen SS. A HQ of 2 and 3 4 or 5 tank platoons.

Half-tracks - the heavy half-tracks with weapons are subclassed so only the one per platoon with 37mm or 28mm gun can be selected. The light half-track carries only a half squad, so is in the utility vehicle section- carry scouts or HQ units in these only.

There are 251 half-tracks with box mounted rockets - one has flame rockets. (NOTE: These 251 Ht's with rockets have a MINIMUM and MAXIMUM range. If you find that they cannot be targeted you will have to move them until they can be fired. The acceptable indirect band is quite narrow.)

The Sturmtiger is SP-artillery, so it can fire indirect if desired, but slowly. They are better fired over open sights at close ranges.

The later 15cm sIG has a HEAT round - towed or tracked mounts. The 15cm gun is one of your best grunt-removers, and the USSR AI quite likes grunts (hint!).

Tanks with the NbW92 have multiple smoke dischargers. It could throw a HE grenade shower as well.

The Panther Uhu (Eagle Owl) has night fighting gear - in reality a receptor for IR light from a searchlight on a separate half-track, but beyond the SP game mechanics. Some later what-if tanks have IR as well, but the Uhu was pretty much the only real combat use of night aided vision.

Some later German planes have SD-2HE and SD-4AT bomblets. The SD-2 were 2kg anti-personal bombs and the SD-4 were 4kg hollow charge Antitank bombs carried in boxes mounted under the wing and dropped a hundred or so at a time. In SP: WWII the SD-2 have been set up to provide a high HE kill against infantry with very little effect on armour The SD-4 has high HE penetration values against armour but very low HE kill so these will have little or no effect on infantry. Make sure you drop the correct bombs on the correct target. Remember: SD-2 HE for infantry, SD-4AT for tanks. The best uses for these is to wait until your opponent has bunched up then bring in the bomblet-carrying plane.

The amphibian tanks are added really for fun, for Sealion. In reality, they ran on the bottom on their tracks with an air float above. SP thinks they can swim and so fire, but then it does this for the DD tank as well. However, these could be a nasty surprise on a map with a lake or large river.

Early PzKw IV's are classed as close support tanks, same as Stugs. The Pz IV was the close support tank to Pz III and really only became the main battle tank when the PzKw III turret ring was too small for long 75mm cannon.

The 3-gun light flak section is really for battalion 20mm AA guns. The 2 gun section and 4 gun battery organisation is for medium flak - 37mm, and Vierlings.

German SPA has low ammo loads so if used you should consider ammunition carriers as well.

There is a what-if ATGM from June 1945 on. It is the only ATGM in the game


OB rewritten by Claus Bonnesen and Helge Bertram for version 4.0 .

Poland

1930 to 1949

The expanded dates assume the expatriate Poles stay on the Allied side in a hypothetical WW3 with the USSR. The ex-patriot Poles were some of the best soldiers in the war.

The German-Polish campaign was not quite the walkover many believe it to be. It is worth remembering that no other country was invaded on two fronts by both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.

This MOB is focused on 1939, then the Polish remnants in France (assume most armour, aircraft, etc. there is French support units), then as a British ally for the rest of the war.

In 1938 or so, Poland had a dispute with Czechoslovakia and annexed some territory (Cieszyn) peacefully - but a nice "what-if" for a battle or two. There was quite a lot of early-war armour, and innovative designs - they had good engineers, but a limited industrial base, and not enough money.

Japan

1930 to 1949

The expanded dates are to allow for an invasion of the home islands, and for it to take rather longer than the Allies would have thought. Assume the A-bomb was a 'fizzle' in that case. .

This was an infantry and horse drawn army. It really was only a threat to the Western Allies in 41 or so offensively. This was chiefly because the British empire forces had been drawn off to fight Nazi Germany, and the US Army at that time was a few garrisons in the Philippines and not much else even in the continental USA. And the white man of the time tended to think themselves incredibly superior over little yellow men who wore glasses. The Zero fighters and the Long Lance torpedo came as a rude shock, as did the tenacity of the Japanese soldier. Their brutality should not, for they had been demonstrating this in Korea and China for some considerable time already. The determination and bravery of the Japanese soldier combined with his beliefs that dying on the field of battle for his Emperor was considered an honour and being captured alive was a great dishonour was a bitter surprise to Allied troops. The tenacious fighting of the Japanese troops until death caused difficulties and delay to the Allied operations despite the considerable numerical and technical advantage they enjoyed in the last years of the WWII.

Japanese infantry was probably the best trained force on the world. The special night, and close combat training were generally received by every soldier and from 1941 the jungle training was also started. In other armies only special forces received such training. The army and the naval SNLF gained considerable experience in the several China conflicts.
The Imperial Guards were an elite force. They fought in Malaya and later on in China. Some sub units were stationed on Betio, too. Japan had a Paratroop Division and later they begun to organise Airborne troops. The Paratroops first saw action at Palembang in Sumatra.

Japanese tanks are simply hopeless against anybody other than the Chinese. We have allowed a few later types, but these were almost hand made, and if any were produced, not more than 50 or so. But a home islands assault would have met a few of these I suppose.

Japanese antitank weaponry is also limited. The long 47mm gun can kill Shermans from the flank, but the best weapon against tanks is infantry assault. This can be by 'special attack' (i.e. suicide) Tokkou, in which case lunge mines or satchel charges would be used. The Japanese also used glass gas grenades against tanks - a choking tear gas, or cyanide gas. Use of these would cause a crew bailout and these would then be dispatched. But these were rare. The 70mm infantry gun has a HEAT round later on, but is not much of a Sherman stopper, but Allied Grants and Stuarts were destroyed by such weapons. In 1944 the Japanese developed a 70mm rocket launcher which had good range and accuracy, but the penetrating power was lower than a Bazooka. About 3000 were built but they were reserved for the defence of the Japanese islands. Also they experimented with recoilless rifles but those were never produced.

The 75mm Type 90 Field Gun was pressed into ATG role in 1943, before then it has no AP ammo. It served well against even the Sherman tanks. Later the modified version, the Type 3 tank gun was built in the Chi-Nu. Beware, the Type 90 is not an ATG! It has the size of a howitzer!

The 50mm grenade dischargers, erroneously termed the 'Knee mortar' by some, broke the thigh of anyone so stupid as to try firing it that way! It also proved quite effective in AT work. There is a myth that Japan did not use mines. They certainly did, but did not have vast quantities, and concentrated on AT mines. But they preferred to use engineering obstacles such as tank traps. AT mines therefore tended to be placed manually on tanks by special attack squads.

Japanese planes early on were a rude surprise to the Allies, but this lead did not last long. However they still produced outstanding designs such as the Ki.45 Toryu with a 37mm and 20mm cannon in some variants, and the N1K2 Shiden-Kai with 4 20mm cannon. In late 1945 the first Japanese jet appeared, the Nakajima Kikka. Only prototypes did exist but by a hypothetical US invasion they would have been produced in limited numbers.

Japanese artillery was rare, but their mortars were always there and well handled. The 150mm Type 97 Heavy Mortar was built in limited numbers about 110 of them were built. The 32cm Spigot was a huge bomb launcher with a short barrel. They were employed at Hong-Kong and on the Philippines presumably against fortifications.

The bicycle units were raised in Indonesia and Indochina, where they utilised the fair road network of the colonial countries.

Japanese Ski units were stationed in Hokkaido and Manchuria. Combat records are unknown.

The rocket launcher is mainly for scenarios. These could be launched from tubes or simply off their sides on a ramp, but in some cases caused problems for the USMC.

The Japanese made great use of snipers; hence there is a sniper unit that is a team of 2 as opposed to the standard single man.

The Armoured Boat and the Gunboat are used in China to patrol the rivers. They have limited carry capacity to lift small groups of infantry. The Gunboat and the Armed Daihatsu were used to escort transports on the river. There were several types of Daihatsu. This one represents the variant used for amphibious landings.

The Ch-13 class Patrol Boat is a submarine hunter and escort vessel. It was also used for shore patrol and short range bombardments.

OB rewritten by Zoltán "Kazan" Zajonskovsky for version 4.0. with special thanks to Akira Takizawa (Taki).

France

1930 to 1949

This MOB chiefly focuses on the 1940 campaign (has been extensively rewritten for V 3.0; see also the Army of Liberation notes below for V 4.0 additions). Later it's a British sort-of ally, after Tunisia the Free French repatriated Vichy follow US Army organisation There are also some Vichy and Maquis units, but these are chiefly for scenario designers. If you want to try some of the Free French vs. Vichy French squabbles, then there is a problem as both use this mob, and so the victory hexes are the same flag. There are no plans to do a separate Vichy MOB.

The 1940 French tanks look good on paper, but suffered from many poor design qualities. Chiefly a lack of radios and the use of single man turrets where the commander was also loader and gunner. So these tanks have low radio percentages, low ROF, and poor FC and RF. Still quite tough for the era though. The Somua was good enough for the Germans to keep on and use against the Allies in Normandy, and some were supplied to Italy.

Those with the 37mm L21 gun will have a hard time killing a Pz II unless they come within 400 yards or so - this Puteaux gun was developed in WW1 really to throw HE as infantry support. So H-35s will actually do rather well if they act together with leg grunts and concentrate on killing German infantry, smacking MG nests etc. The 37L21 uses 'sabot' AP ammo but only to give a short range AP round in SPWW2 game terms - panzer2 frontally at maybe 2-3 hexes, (100-150 metres) if lucky!.

The French 47mm long tank/AT gun is something German armour of the period will have to treat with respect. Do not get into tank duels at long range with anything armed with this gun. Unfortunately for France, they decided vast numbers of the smaller 25mm gun were a better investment than 47mms.

Mechanised infantry units are provided, but in reality these were very rare. The old WWI Renault models 17 and 18 may not have seen combat in 1940, but over 1600 of these were in deep reserve.

France really was not in a good state for the fight in terms of national morale, especially so after the outflanking of the Maginot Line, it is best to have their Troop Quality low, 65 or so if you are using 75 or 80 for Germany (1940 national characteristics reflect this). However some units were significantly better than average, so you may prefer to play against elites, such as De Gaulle's 4e DCR, or the excellent Colonial troops such as the Chasseurs Afriques.

V4 includes significant changes to the French Army of Liberation units and formations. They are now more comprehensive and accurate in terms of detail and use of French names.

What is not widely known is how effective the late-war French units were. The Army of Liberation was essentially composed of French colonial troops and was later reinforced with partisans who had been drafted into regular service. This force, known as the French First Army, fought with an élan second to none and conducted several campaigns against the Germans worthy of the name 'Blitzkrieg'. By the end of the war, the French had overrun the Black Forest and a fair portion of Bavaria -- lending the French First Army its motto:
"Rhin et Danube".

The fascinating variety of late war French troops is present in V4, including Goumiers, Legionnaires, 'Choc' commandos, Alpine troops, and the poorly equipped metropolitain program troops of late 1944 and 1945.

In terms of organisation and equipment, the French AL units are very similar to US units of the same period, although there are small variations and some unique organisations like the Goums.

Combined arms teams can be easily purchased by buying "Cie Renforcee" formations. These are infantry companies bolstered with armour, engineer, artillery, and reconnaissance assets.

Unlike the French Army of 1940, the French AL did not suffer from significant morale or leadership problems. Many of the formations reflect the superior experience and morale of the colonial and elite units.

OB rewritten by Claus Bonnesen and Bill Wilson for version 4.0.

Great Britain

1930 to 1949

This OB is mainly British Empire forces in the Western theatre. Therefore it subsumes some Imperial contingents - for example the South Africans, Australians in the Desert, and Indian Army forces seconded to the Desert.

British rifle platoons had 1 AT weapon in platoon HQ, and a 2 inch mortar which is ignored since it was used to fire flares and smoke rounds, not HE. Neither are really modelled in SP. 2 inch HE was only ever brought forwards from reserve in places like Italy where WWI like trench systems were very close together - then it was used as a nuisance device in day to day trench tedium. Its only 'sights' were a white line painted down the tube. There was no LMG at platoon HQ, but in fact units usually scrounged extra LMG either from rear Supply Company's allocation, or from captures. The German MG42 was quite popular, there are photos of a carrier platoon in Tunisia where all 3 visible had both a 42 in the 'redoubt' and some Bren guns carried loose in the back. So British leg platoons are 1 'heavy' squad and 3 others. A Humans-only Platoon HQ Section is provided for those who like a 2-inch mortar as a 'grenade launcher'.

Mechanised units could carry an AT weapon per squad. (Note that in the UK 'Squad' is a drill parade term for an ad hoc collection of soldiers, the tactical formation is a 'section') So here they are all heavy infantry. Other than the carrier recce platoon in some infantry battalions, mech. infantry was rather uncommon until Normandy. Even if moved to the battlefield on lorries or APCs, British infantry fought on foot.

For some strange reason the UK branched off to have 2 tank types, infantry tanks to fight alongside the foot infantry and cruisers which acted independently and would have no need of infantry support. Most tank squadrons (companies) had 2 CS tanks in the HQ troop (platoon), with a 3.7-in. howitzer then the 3-in, howitzer, and finally a 3.7-in. (95mm) once more. Some regiments concentrated the CS tanks and used them like a direct fire artillery battery. These CS howitzers reach out to a respectable range now, as opposed to SP1 where they were a point blank weapon. So they can trouble 88mm guns, but if your opponent has sense he will remove the CS tanks as priority items.

The Valentine squadron is for those Valentines with 3 crew, not 4. British tank squadrons often adjusted the tank quantity to fit the personnel strength, not the other way around. So Grant squadrons would often drop one troop to provide the extra bodies for this tank type. Later on, it was common practice to add a long gun tank to a troop, making a 4-tank troop. Some units reduced their troop count and others did not. And of course some others preferred a separate Firefly troop. British Lt. Colonels had rather a lot of leeway as to how they ran their battalions. Despite the 'command tank' label, platoon commanders very quickly learned that the 17pdr armed tanks were the German's 'kill me quick' targets, so it was usually the troop sergeant who got this duty. That is why the tank is number 4 as well, so your opponent cannot single out your commanders for the chop first. (Old 'command tank' class is now relabelled as 'gun tank').

Armoured car units used a 3-vehicle troop in the beginning of the war, and then tended to use a 4-vehicle high/low mix of a scout car section of 2 and armoured car section of 2. However both types overlapped considerably, and seem to have been a question of the commander or his Brigadiers choice. Some squadrons added a 'heavy' section of 2 with a heavier gun - more for the HE than AT purposes, such as later 75mm armed AEC models, sometimes half-tracks were used instead for the fire support element.

Rifle companies usually had a 2-tube section from the battalion mortar platoon assigned and sometimes some MGS from the battalion support Weapons Company as well. Therefore there are several variant rifle companies available for you to play with.

AT guns were at one point removed from infantry battalions to be totally under RA control in centralised brigade AT batteries. Naturally the infantry objected somewhat to this and the experiment did not last long. The infantry got their 4 to 6 AT guns per battalion back, and the RA AT batteries stayed as well. These latter were the 17 pdr and SP-AT users, infantry battalions usually keeping the 6 pdr, even till the 1950s.

Artillery batteries are 8 guns, in 2 by 4 gun troops, but heavies are in a 4-gun battery with 2 by 2 gun troops. Off map Div. Arty is the entire Brigade allocation of guns, a 25pdr regiment with an added medium battery from Division. Unfortunately the picker usually makes a hash of this. (The new artillery sub classes help here!).

The carrier platoon is more of a reconnaissance and cavalry unit than a mechanised infantry unit, one such per battalion. Some early war light tank battalions had a carrier platoons attached or even one per squadron. As with the rest of the British army there was no centrally-commanded 'doctrine', so some battalion commanders would just use the carriers as 'tin jeeps' to bring up hot rations and mail, and for the RSM etc. to run about in.

The Heavy Cruiser squadron is for Grants and 6 pdr Crusaders really, these were designated as such just at the end of the usage of the Infantry Tank/Cruiser designations was becoming obsolete.

Although Priests are provided, in fact by 45, and certainly post war the Sexton was the prime SPG, the 25pdr was a standard Army calibre, whereas the USA 105mm was a 'special item'.

The Matilda 40 squadron is for that period, in France. The number of Matilda 2s available was not great at that point. Most Matilda 1's were lost in France and the ones that were not were relegated to training so they were not used in the desert in 40. And once they had disappeared, Matilda 2 was just called 'Matilda'. The Matilda 1* is the support version, some had a 0.5 inch mg instead of the rifle calibre

Centurion Mk1 arrived in Germany just too late to take part in WW2. It is there for the "what-if" 1946 UK vs. Germany, or the "what-if" WW3 vs. USSR. Centurion represents British tank thought from end war to the present day, firepower and protection is emphasised over speed.

This army's strength lies in its infantry and the Royal Artillery. Its tanks are not great, except in parts. The key to using this army is to using all the support arms to get your infantry close with the enemy. British infantry wants to get to close quarters and kill with the bayonet, not engage in pointless firefights.

Version 4.0 updates by Andy Gailey and Don Goodbrand.

Soviet Union

1930 to 1949

The expanded dates are for the hypothetical Allies vs. the USSR World War 3 scenario, or to invade the Japanese Northern islands.

Some of the companies are actually a platoon in game terms and all lumped in one formation. This is historically more realistic, and reflects the poor command and control of Soviet formations. There are also battalions provided which in SP terms are actually companies. These formations are also fragile for morale purposes, just one commander to try to rally himself and nine subordinates. Good formations for USSR 1941 then!

The T-34/76a model is defined as a heavy tank as it was only available in limited numbers in 40-41. Vast fleets of BT and T-26 were the chief tank forces then. Briefly! The Allied lend lease tanks are often classified as light tanks, these were usually deployed in quiet sectors as the Soviets did not think much of them. The only one they actually liked and asked for more of was the Vickers Valentine. The Lee/Grant earned the sobriquet 'the coffin for seven comrades'. Shermans were reasonably popular for exploitation usage - for their mechanical reliability, not their firepower.

Soviet light tanks (T-60 and T-70 for example) were not really much used for reconnaissance. They were mainly used for infantry close support in quiet sectors, freeing up the better tanks for elsewhere. When used alongside heavier stuff, they accompanied the SU-76 or KV series tanks in support of the infantry line. This is why their speed is not great, they were an auxiliary tank, which could be turned out in reasonable numbers by lesser engineering works (they used truck engines), not a speedy recce design. They usually only had 2 crewmen as well, so ROF is not great.

The T-54 came off the production lines in 1947, but was not available in numbers until 1948. This tank was good for target practice in SP2 Modern, it is a far more formidable opponent here.

Early tank companies used the 7-tank organisation, later they were 10 tanks, but both coexisted. Also early on there were some independent tank platoons of heavies or T-34s added to units since the Soviets had read the wrong lessons from the Spanish Civil War, and broke their tanks up in penny packets rather than concentrating them in armoured formations.

The Soviet army is a mass army. Artillery is the Red God of War and has been since the days of the Tzars. Start with your artillery plan, and work from there. This army is one of the few that is not greatly troubled by German tank superiority, in fact at certain points this one has the superior armour This is the army that caused the German need for all these super tanks in any case! In addition, your medium tanks are noticeably faster than the opposition. Use this facility to make wide encirclements, or to shift your thrust rapidly from one point to another. Also recall that any Soviet tank is not fully dressed without its tank riders, so take SMG squads and use these in very close conjunction with the tanks, never more than a hex or 2 away if at all.

In the assault, by the end of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet 'norms' for a breakthrough assault by an Army would be 200-300 guns, rocket launchers or mortars per kilometre of front. A kilometre is 20 hexes in SP. Tank and SPG density would be 70 to 85 per kilometre, and a rifle division's assault sector would be 1.2 to 2.5 kilometres. An Army level assault would be of this density across a 16 to 25 km frontage, and several armies of the Front would attack simultaneously on axes about 20 to 40 km apart.

Always buy hordes of riflemen, they are cheap and cheerful. Recall Stalin's dictum 'Quantity has a quality all of its own'. Where you would use a company in other armies, use a battalion. Advance this mob, with a few KV or other heavies in support behind a creeping barrage. Keep the barrage up continuously, just adjust the guns forward 2 or 3 hexes per shift (select the gun on the barrage dialogue, and hit the HE icon, it targets its last adjustment at low delay so there is not a long wait. Then use the Adjust Fire button to shift 2 or 3 hexes if required. This is how to do a 'creeping barrage' in SP without the lengthy delays. Think of it as a preplanned fire program). Be prepared to keep close behind your barrage, and accept some friendly fires. (The British term for this is 'leaning on the barrage' and like the Soviets, they were prepared to lose a few for the advantages gained arriving quickly on the position while the enemy is still naturalised by the bombardment).

This main force of infantry, heavy tanks and the accompanying barrage is your 'Hammer'. At the same time, use the fast tanks (BT or T-34) to outflank if you can and as deep as you can. This is the 'Sickle' of Soviet tactics. Once in the rear, the Sickle can become the anvil for the hammer, or itself drive forwards as the Hammer, the main force becoming the new Anvil. Either way, the idea is to get the enemy between a rock and a hard place. Part or all of the outflanking Sickle (and you can also double envelop if the German keeps his force too tightly concentrated. This is wonderful as it also helps with the artillery pounding!) once in the rear can break off and act as an Operational Manoeuvre Group. The task of this detachment is to sweep up the rear area soft targets, headquarters, supply, and above all artillery. Naturally, the entire Sickle force could perform this function before shifting its axis back into the rear of the enemy fighting positions.

The problem for the Soviets was that in the real world, it was difficult to synchronise their forces to this extent. Execution was often therefore less than the ideal. But SP has no real Command and Control rules (yet), so you as a human player are in pretty much total control.

US Army

1930-49.

Allowed to go beyond 45 for Operations Olympic and Coronet vs. Japan, and for the hypothetical WW3 vs. the USSR.

Mech. infantry 1942 organisation - only take the 37mm AT gun here; the 3-inch won't fit with the rest of the troops (the new light AT gun class should help here). The 1943 organisation separated the AT guns, but again 37mm were common, and at most use 57mm. These units have a lot of firepower, but dismount strength is low, best used for the delay mission. They are also very good for shoot and scoot mobile defence or as exploitation troops. This was their historic role, they are not meant for, and USA doctrine did not see them as, assault troops. The M2 60mm MMC is the correct fire support half-track, not the 81mm (now in its own class to ensure that only this one is used). The M2 60mm MMC has a limited lift capacity. It represents firing the mortar from the vehicle, common practice, and hence no dismounted mortar is provided. As a SP-Mortar it can fire indirect. The M3-MG half-track has extra crew to service the additional MGS, so does not have quite as much lift as the regular half-track so this one and the mortar half-track usually carry the smaller teams.

The USA had a strange idea at this time, the UK was not alone here, they called it the tank destroyer doctrine. Basically, tanks were seen as infantry support and for use in exploitation of a breakthrough with the mechanised infantry. Their job was not to take on enemy tanks, and special formations of tank destroyers were provided to perform this task. This would have been fine if the Germans had played by the same rules, but funnily enough they did not wait around for the tank destroyers to turn up, and their tanks did not ignore the American tanks either. The TD doctrine was way ahead of its time really but it needed anti tank helos to properly implement the concept, though the Hellcat is getting towards what a TD should really be. Use the nippy Hellcat to work the flanks of German armour, try not to get into a head to head slugfest! The M10 really had few advantages, not much speed or armour wise, and once the 76mm gun was available on regular tanks, little point in it. The M36 with its 90mm gun is however a very good SP AT gun, but too slow for the proper TD concept of mobility. TD units had a large scouting element of armoured cars, the TDs were not supposed to take on the enemy armour during the breakthrough, but to engage them in ambush tactics once the enemy tanks had burst through the lines. AT guns were also parts of the TD units, but received low priority, mobile AT capability was seen as more use.

The drawback to the TD concept was that the main battle tank was not seen as needing much anti tank capability, hence the moderate 75mm on the Shermans. It took a lot of pressure from the troops at the front end to convince the supply end to produce 76mm gunned tanks. And they had to fight to get a decent heavy as well. The Pershing arriving just in time, but would have been rather useful 6 months or a year earlier, which it could have been if the production side had not had such power. The Jumbo Sherman was some help, but again it was an initiative of the front line troops over the production moguls. There was a limited 76mm gun field modification of this, maybe 20 to 30 total produced in field workshops. Please do not take fleets of this one. It's only made available to human players. A couple or three Pershings were field modified with extra bolt on armour cut from destroyed panthers but not provided here. Too few to justify, we will leave these for scenario designers to manufacture in the editor if required.

American artillery was about the best in the world. In fact the series had been designed in the early 20s, but severe financial budget shortages meant that the new 105mm, 155mm, and 8 inchers were only put into production in the nick of time. But the same basic pieces are still in service today, a tribute to the Westervelt Board, set up in 1918. Before 1940, the US Artillery Park was almost entirely old ex-French and British WW1 stock. The 1940 models are available a bit too early, but in game terms a Schneider 155 is similar to a modern 155, however in a later release I may revisit the pre war guns.

The other strength of the US Army was in its air support. Use your air and artillery assets to counter the German armour superiority. Use the mobile troops to sweep up the mess left after they have done their job! If you do not have air support, drop artillery and smoke on the German heavy tanks, and either take them with infantry assault or bazookas, or sneak round the side with something 76mm armed and hit the weaker armour Panthers can be taken through the side by the short 75mm if lucky. But without the air, you will have to use skilful manoeuvre to deal with German tanks; you will not do well in a head to head. Try to tempt them into close country or towns and deal with them at close quarters with combined arms, tanks and infantry together, engineers with flame-throwers and so forth. Try to remove the accompanying German infantry to make this task easier. Light tanks like the Stuart may not look very good with only a 37mm gun even in 1945, but in actual fact these are very useful to support the infantry. They deal with German scout cars and half-tracks rather well, and skilfully used can duel with the lighter German SP-guns like the Marders. They can kill a Panther with a close range up the kilt shot - but only try it if you are feeling very lucky..

Notes for Version 4.0:

There have been many detail changes to the US Army OOB. The most obvious is the use of machine gun sections with two versus three machine guns in them. This change was done to more accurately represent machine gun distribution in US infantry and heavy weapons companies. For players wanting three MGs in a section, the 50/30-cal combo unit is still available.

A similar change was done to 60mm mortars for reasons of transport within certain formations and ease of formation purchase. The 60mm mortars are now represented as single tubes with the appropriate quantity included in the various formations.

Formations have been restructured to more accurately reflect assigned vehicles and equipment. Some more combined arms formations (company teams) have been added with a varying mix of equipment. Entire troops of mechanised cavalry may now be purchased.

There are more varieties of M4 medium tanks available. Check out their statistics prior to purchase as they are not all the same! Some will be more economical to purchase but will be made of weaker armour.

US Army OB author for V 4.0 : Bill Wilson

.

USMC

1930-1949

Dates are expanded to allow for hypothetical operations Olympic and Coronet vs. Japan, and for the hypothetical WW3 vs. the USSR, as with the US Army.

The best infantry the Americans had, and naturally enough these guys were in the Navy!

Unlike the US Army who in this period saw the rifleman as the lowest of the low (and assigned the lowest draft categories to rifle units, enlisted and officer), the USMC turned that idea on its head completely. Everybody in the Corps was first and foremost a rifleman, whether he was a gunner, a pilot or a bottle washer. As many Japanese who got into the rear area of USMC units found, attacking the caterers and clerks was not the winning proposition it might have been when fighting against other organisations The Marines are, were, and always have been right up at the top of the list when it comes to fighting prowess, up there with the Ghurkas, Highlanders, Legionnaires et al. Their personnel guys were better aware of keeping up unit cohesion as well, so replacements would often return to their units after an absence due to injury or whatever. So they had a form of the rest of the world's 'regimental' system whereby you 'belonged' to some particular outfit, unlike the US Army where you were more of a commodity.

Morale and troop quality can be set quite high, but unfortunately your opponent is the Japanese in the main, and they should be high quality as well. Because they were part of the Navy, you get lots of carrier air support to play with, plus naval gunfire support and amphibious vehicles. There is a very pretty Devastator in the pre-war rig to play with! Some later squads have a flame-thrower or bazooka.

Fighting against the Japanese, anti armour is not high on the priority list; bazookas were mainly bunker busters. The 37mm gun has been redone with canister as a 'weapon slot' - this was a prime use for this weapon as close infantry support. There is no canister ammo in SP, so it has to be a separate 'weapon'. There are one man flame-thrower teams available as the 'Inf.-AT' class for those who want one.

Armour is scarce in an USMC force so your main strength is your riflemen. Historical TO&E for a Marine Division was one battalion of tanks throughout the War. This proportion would likely have grown if there had been fighting through the Japanese home islands. Some later tanks are provided for this scenario, but really you should stick to Lees, Shermans and Stuarts.

Remember that the USMC knew the value of the bomb and bayonet. They were more likely to go for the close assault than the US Army infantry who preferred to shoot the enemy off the objective if they could. USMC infantry doctrine is very similar to British. Fire is used to facilitate manoeuvre, and the point of manoeuvre is to get your men up close and personal to the enemy. This tends to settle the argument quickly, rather than wasting time in a pointless firefight.

China

1930-49

Although the nationalist flag is used, this mob also covers Communist guerrillas. There are no plans at the moment for a separate Communist Chinese list, so use RED if you need to fight Maoist vs. Chiang Kai Shek.The expanded date range is set up to accommodate this hypothetical.

Early on, the Chinese warlords had a lot of equipment from German sources, and around 1937 weapons from the USSR. Later on, the Nationalist Chinese were supplied with Western gear, and the Communists received Soviet backing. All used captured or abandoned Japanese hardware when available.

ANZAC

1930-1949

From the acronym of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps of WW1, this OB is mainly focussed on the Australian part of that pairing, the Kiwis being subsumed. Also focussed on the war with Japan, it is probably best to use the UK OB as a basis for desert fighting (or as allies providing the tanks).

AC1 Sentinel is a home produced tank with around 60 built, 50mm armour basis, 40mph, but governed to about 30mph. This was relegated to training roles, but one each of a 17 pdr and a twin 25 pdr version were made as prototypes. They are available to the human player only as a 'what-if'. They were put into production, as the UK could not guarantee tank supply. However in actuality the massive production facilities of the USA proved sufficient to cover their needs, mainly the Stuart and Grant models. It shows what a small country could produce, even with a limited industrial base.

Although there is armoured infantry, armoured cars etc., most of the fighting in New Guinea etc was an infantry affair, supported by Matildas in the main, along with Stuarts. Some Grants and a few Shermans become available later on. The Matilda Frog was a conversion using a flame-thrower instead of the 2 pdr.

You will also find the ANZAC A-20 has "Para-Frags" which were dropped from low flying aircraft and have much the same effect as the German SD-2 HE bomblets.

India

1930-49

This covers the British Imperial forces from Palestine through India to Hong Kong. Its mainly for Slim's 'Forgotten Army', who actually inflicted more casualties to the Japanese than the entire USMC Pacific Island hopping campaign. XIV Army to be precise. Extended to 49 to fight a hypothetical invasion of the Japanese mainland, or to help sweep up in China.

Soldiers of this army could have been British, (mainly) Indian, Chinese, Burmese, East or West African, Ghurka, Karen, Naga or Kachin, to name a few. Basically a British Army variant, it was poor off for equipment, mostly receiving obsolescent stuff. Most mediums would be Lee/Grants, and by 1945, a few Shermans. A battalion or so of Churchills was shipped out just too late for the war against Japan.

Bulgaria

1930-49

This small nation is there for completeness. Post war it is there as a Soviet Ally for the WW3 "what-if". Mainly involved in the Balkans, this army is likely mainly to interest scenario designers.

About the only claim to fame for this nation in WW2 is that it managed the feat of being jointly at war with both the Allies and the Axis, if only for a short while!

Yugoslavia

1939-49

This OB covers the Yugoslav nation, and then the various partisan factions of the area.

Yugoslavia entered the war in the spring of 1941 when it was invaded by German, Italian and Bulgarian forces. Hitler wanted to bail out Mussolini against Greece, and Yugoslavia, resistant to the use of its soil for German offensive operations against Greece, stood in the way. The Yugoslav army was defeated in 20 days, with light losses for the Axis. Thereafter, it was partitioned, and an armed resistance struggle continued until liberation by the Russians in 1944.

The Yugoslav army had a handful of purchased French tanks, including the FT-17, and the more modern R-35, which was a match for the German Pz II still in use at the time. After occupation had started, they relied mostly on captured Italian and German equipment. The use of German Armoured cars and Italian tankettes was truly rare, as vehicles were not suitable for a partisan campaign. After the war, Yugoslavia received considerable quantities of Soviet and some western equipment.

Updated for 4.0 by Boris Ajdukovic.

Belgium

1930-49

The Belgian OB is primarily there to cover the battles of 1940, but has been expanded to cover the entire 1930 - 1949 period.

1930-1940 - Belgian Army:
Primarily an infantry army, the Belgians had by the late 1930s motorised their cavalry and parts of the heavy Corps artillery. The infantry divisions still relied primarily on horse and foot. The Chasseur Ardennais divisions relied on bicycle transport but their artillery were partly motorised

In the 1930s, the Belgian Army still operated the French FT-17 light tanks acquired shortly after World War I, but by 1935 they had been turned over to the Gendarmerie and were phased out of service from 1938. They have been retained in the Belgian OB until 6/40 as "Obsolete Tanks" on the assumption that some remained in storage until then. The replacement for the FT-17 was the French ACG-1, but only 12 were acquired in 1937/38. Instead, the Belgian Army relied on light tanks and tank-destroyers based on various Carden-Lloyd designs.
The T.15 was a light tank with a fully rotating turret mounting a Hotchkiss 13.2mm machine-gun and used for reconaissance in the Cavalry and Ardennais divisions.
The T.13B2 was a tank-destroyer with a semi-rotating turret facing to the rear. The T.13B3 had a fully rotating turret and thus had all the characteristics of a light tank. Both vehicles were armed with a Belgian 47mm gun.

For motor transport, the Belgian Army relied on locally produced trucks with Ford and GMC as the primary suppliers. Sidecar Motorcycles came from the Belgian companies of FN, Gillet and Sarolea. FN also produced a vehicle unique to the Belgian Army, the FN Tricar, a 3-wheel utility vehicle found in many different versions, including an antiaircraft version. Another unique vehicle was an armoured 1-ton Ford truck with 4-wheel drive courtesy of Marmon-Herrington.
In the mid 1930s, Belgium also acquired a number of small tracked "Utility Tractors" from Britain. These were among other things, used to tow the 47mm AT-guns.

In the artillery, the Belgian Army also relied heavily on domestic production, among which were a wheeled 76mm mortar and a 47mm anti-tank gun.


1940-1941 - Belgian Forces in Congo:
After the defeat in Europe, Force Publique of the Belgian Congo raised 3 battalions to fight against the Italians in Ethiopia and Sudan. These forces were not lavishly equipped and relied primarily on horse and foot for transport. We have retained some medium artillery, motor vehicles and light tanks for the Belgian Army of this period to give the player more options, but these items are probably not historical for the Belgian Forces in Congo.
The Belgian Forces were employed against the Italians and accepted the surrender of Italian forces in Gallo Sidano in July 1941. Other contingents served in Nigeria and Palestine.


1942-1945 - Belgian Forces operating from Britain:
Soon after the defeat in 1940, a small Belgian force was raised in Britain. Over the years, it grew to brigade strength and landed in Normandy in August 1944. Using British equipment, they had no armour, except some armoured cars, so we have included some British armour formations in the Belgian OB for this period.
Note also the Belgian Special forces in the form of Commando (Cdo) units representing the Belgian troop of 10th Inter-Allied Commando that fought in Italy in 1943, in Yugoslavia in 1944 and later in Western Europe. These units also represent the Belgian Parachute company of the British SAS that was dropped in Europe in 1944 making sabotage actions and doing reconaissance for the invading allied forces during their drive through Northern France and Belgium.
As the allied forces approached Belgium, units of the Armee Secreté (AS) assisted and later formed the core of the so-called Fusilier units, locally raised militia that did guard duties in Belgium after the liberation but also became involved in the fighting, most notably in the Ardennes in the winter 1944/45. The Fusilier units served with all the allied forces in Belgium including Canadian, British and US.


1946-1949 - Belgian Army:
Post-war Belgium units primarily armed with British equipment.

Version 4.0 rewrite by Claus Bonnesen, with special thanks to Bill Wilson and Bernard Bloock for data provided on Belgian forces.

Netherlands

1930-49

Again, another small nation primarily there for the 1940 Fall of France, this also covers Netherlands East Indies forces fighting the Japanese in the Pacific.

Dutch armour at home consisted of 12 Landsverk (Swedish) L-180 and 12 L-181, called M36 and M38. The 12 M36 formed the 1e Eskadron Panserwagens, the M38s the 2e. 12 DAF PT3 armoured cars, termed M39 were just entering service. They may have been ready or captured part fitted out. They would likely have formed the 3e Eskadron. There were about 2 FT-17 and perhaps 5 Carden-Loyd Mk IV tankettes available - there is a special formation for these '2 FT-17/5 CL Max' - to remind you not to fleet buy the things. It is doubtful if these antiques were actually runners by that time, in any case. The tankettes were called Poema, Jaguar, Panter, Luipaard and Lynx, for the trivia mongers out there, their unit was called the 'Yellow Riders'.Dutch escapees fought with the British in both European and SE Asia, though her main contribution was in naval units of excellent quality.

Norway

1939-49

This small nation was invaded in 1940. This OB covers the Norwegian army of that period, together with the Allied expeditionary force of French and British troops sent to aid them (disastrously). The latter included some Polish forces, but whether as part of the French or British contingents are unknown. It then covers the resistance to the Nazi occupation. The French sent two independent tank companies to the fighting. A special unit is allowed for the British - this is mainly for scenarios - HMS Warspite. The British Gladiators whom operated off a frozen lake are also included. Fleet Air Arm Skuas etc are not, as they were used primarily for anti shipping missions. The Hurricanes are not included either as they fought air-air only in this campaign.

For version 4.0. OB rewritten by Tony Engelsen and John Turesson with additional help from Arne Bowit, and a special thanks to Roger Mĺrtenson and his site at http://hem.fyristorg.com/robertm/norge

Following the end of the Norwegian campaign, the government-in-exile set up a training camp in Scotland with the purpose of building a force that would be ready for a future liberation of Norway. Called "Den Norske Brigaden i Skottland", it would eventually consist of 3 mountain infantry companies, one artillery battalion and one reconnaissance squadron. Other units included a parachute company, an SOE company and a troop with the 10th "Inter-Allied" Commando.


The resistance movement "Milorg" was formed in occupied Norway in order to conduct sabotage, gather intelligence and to operate behind enemy lines as partisans in case of an allied invasion. In 1945 it totalled 40000 men armed with weapons hidden away in 1940 or supplied by the British through parachute drops. A trawler has been included to simulate the SOE organised "Shetland Bus" which were used to ferry agents and saboteurs into the country.

The post-war army was organised with help from the British and used a lot of equipment supplied by them. However because of troubles during armament purchase negotiations, a large portion of the equipment left behind by the Germans which had not been destroyed by the allied disarmament committee was pressed into service as well, some of which were used for several decades.


Swedish weapons originating from the police units, pre-war Norwegian types and ex-German booty material from various nations were also put into use. Some vehicle types were supplied by the US army, which in the early `50s stepped in as the major supplier of arms and equipment. This gave the army of the late `40s and early `50s a very motley appearance which is represented through the very varied equipment available for purchase in the game.

Canada

1930-49

Most people think of the Dieppe disaster when it comes to the Canadian army. In fact they provided many units in both the D-Day campaigns and in Italy.

This is a British mob variant, with its own little peculiarities. The Ram tank was a Canadian design, based upon the US Lee/Grant. However the Canadians did away with the clumsy sponson of this tank and went for a turret. It would appear that this design helped with the genesis of the M4 Sherman - a cross-fertilisation of ideas between the design teams. Ram production took longer to get going, and so the Shermans overtook the design. Few Ram gun tanks saw service, if at all. But the chassis was used as an APC, and also the basis for the Sexton SP 25 pounder, which was produced in some numbers. The gun tank is allowed as a "what if". Ram Badger was a flame-thrower version of the Ram Kangaroo. The Canadian wasp carrier flame variant typically carried an extra crewman over the British version, and usually a 2-inch mortar.

The OB extends to the end of 1949 for "what-if" WWIII play. But you will not find some of the more exotic toys available in either the American or British OB's You'll have to fight T-54's with Fireflies as that's all there was available. The Centurion was not available to the Canadian army until after Korea.

Greece

1930-49

This small nation fought the Italians off so well that the Germans had to invade the Balkans to pull their allies fingers out of the fire. The resulting campaign diverted many German divisions from Barbarossa, and resulted in the destruction of the paratroops in a Phyrrhic victory in Crete. More importantly, it delayed the planned kick-off of Barbarossa. The Greek diversion just may have cost Germany the entire war, as they did not quite reach Moscow in '41 due to the early onset of an exceptionally harsh winter.

British allies (Valentines and Matildas) are provided for the German invasion. A lot of captured Italian kit is there as well, from the previous successes. The OB is then a resistance force till post war, when it can act as a Western Ally, likely against Yugoslavia, Bulgaria etc - in the hypothetical WW3 vs. the USSR.

Republican Spain

1936-39

For all the attention paid to WWII, both in history and in wargames, proportionally little has been given to the civil war in Spain. Far from being a "local conflict", the Spanish Civil War could easily be called the opening salvo of WWII. Fuelled by the conflicting ideologies of Fascism and Communism, it brought volunteers from over forty nations to fight for their respective beliefs. France, Germany, Italy and the USSR all committed substantial troops, arms or material. The war became a testing-ground for new weapons and tactics that would be replayed in only a few short years. Over 700,000 combatants and civilians would lose their lives in the bitter struggle.

Many varied units are reflected in the kit. Infantry ranges from militia and special police units who were the early defenders of the Republic, to the EPR (Popular Army) and the international volunteers. Weapons will reflect modern antitank and infantry guns, and turn-of-the century trench mortars and machine guns. Aircraft include the R-Z "Natasha" biplane bomber and the Soviet-made I-15 "Chatos". The Republican forces will be mainly an infantry affair. Tanks and aircraft were always in short supply; ammunition for artillery pieces was very scarce. This is all reflected in increased unit cost, decreased unit sizes and low ammunition load outs. Combat on the offence or defence will be bloody and bludgeoning. It should provide you some distinct contrast to the mechanisation and manoeuvre tactics found in the other SP series games.

Nationalist Spain

1936-1943

This OB becomes available in July 1936, with the beginning of the mutiny of Spanish troops, which led to the Spanish Civil War. It also includes lot of Italian and German kit, and some captured from the Republicans. Many of the units stay available until September 1941, to allow what-if battles.

Afterwards the MOB extends till October 1943 to represent the Spanish forces fighting in the USSR on the German side. Spanish volunteers formed a whole German Infantry Division, the 250th (also known as "Divison Azul"). It was finally retreated back to Spain when it became obvious that the Axis countries would loose the war.

The Spanish Nationalist Forces consisted mostly of infantry; the armour is of poor quality and quite expensive. The artillery is cheaper and is purchased with more ammunition than on the Republican side. The Blue Division was an infantry division, so the only available armour are assault guns, tank destroyers and armoured cars.

The Trubia was a domestically produced Spanish tankette, which was intended as a replacement of the FT-17 tanks bought from France after WW1. A few were used on both sides during the early phase of the Civil War. The Verdeja was a project to domestically develop a tank, using many parts of the T-26 tanks used by the Republicans. The reason was the inferiority of the tanks delivered by the Germans and Italians in comparison to the Soviet built tanks on the Republican side. Only a few prototypes of the Verdeja were built, although trials showed its superiority over the T-26 and BT-5.

The Camion Blindado is an armoured truck. Such vehicles were used on both sides during the Civil War, equipped with MGS and mortars and with firing ports for the transported riflemen.

The Regulares Marroqui (also known as Fuerzas Regulares Indígenas; Moroccan Regulars) were the best units available to the Spanish Nationalists during the Civil War. These units also represent the infantry of the Spanish Foreign Legion (Tercio de Extranjeros), which were elite units as well. The other infantry squads represent the units of the regular army, the Guardia Civil (a paramilitary police force) and the Guardia Asaltos (paramilitary police storm troops; most fought for the Republicans), as well as the Carlist Requétes and the Falangists. The equipment of the squads differs a lot.

Also available are Italian squads of the Corpo di Truppe Volontairie.

Italy

1930-49

The Italians have been completely redone to cover the country for the entire two decades. In the early thirties we have the forces gradually becoming more diverse as the Italians geared up for their colonial expansion in the mid-thirties. Italy was on the move much earlier than the other countries. The Italians had begun their military expansion even before the 1930's began, and this new OOB displays this. Italy also incorporated many modern methods of warfare earlier than other countries, and their composition in the early-to-mid 1930's shows this. However, fighting in Spain and East Africa expended their meagre resources before WWII even began, and they fell far behind in the arms race as they struggled to patch together their depleted armed forces. When World War II was in full swing, they were still recovering from their previous expenditures of men and equipment.

The Italian military during WWII was always hobbled by the lack of equipment, ammo and men. While they had a wide variety of equipment overall, most times and places found them with woefully small quantities of essential armaments. Very often they faced tank assaults with little else besides rifles and raw courage, with all proper anti-tank weapons somewhere other than where they needed to be. Even when they did have the proper weapons, they were beset by lack of ammo or other supplies (like water), or lack of leadership. Too often leaders who spoke the truth about the military situation were replaced by political appointees who had no idea of military strategy. The lack of good leadership played a crucial role in the many defeats Italy suffered.

The Italian tanks were a product of a 1930's strategy: the use of small, quick tankettes to exploit holes in the enemy line and harass the rear elements. The L Series of tanks were designed to fight infantry that had little anti-tank capability, they were never meant to fight other tanks. Unfortunately, they were very often called upon to do just that -- to predictable results. The M Series suffered from lack of resources, lack of time and too much corruption in the government and economic sectors. By the time they fielded an adequate M Series tank, the momentum of the war was all on the Allied side. The lack of resources kept their only P Series (heavy tank) tank construction continually delayed until it no longer mattered. The P26/40 was three years behind schedule, and Italy was a divided country by the time it fired its first shot.

Without a reliable tank to use, the Italian forces turned to their Semovente (self-propelled) series, and used every conceivable self-propelled vehicle in every possible role. Semoventes as tanks, tank destroyers, self-propelled artillery, assault guns -- any role they could possibly fill, they did. It was much the same for every other piece of military, and civilian, machinery as well.

Throughout the war years of 1939-1943 the incredible mix of old, new and cobbled together equipment is well represented in the game. A Human Player will have the opportunity to pick from a vast assortment of equipment and formations. These diverse units and formations adequately encompass the breadth of Italian military diversity, and will give the player an opportunity to experience the rise of the Italian Empire as well as its demise. However, the AI Player is necessarily restricted to a generic representation of the general forces at large. There are many unit types represented that were very rare, and widespread use of these would seriously skew the historical basis of the game. So the AI is restricted from using such items.

Italian forces are covered in-depth for the Colonial Period (Libya & Somalia), the East African Campaign (in its entirety), Spanish Civil War, the North African Campaign, the Balkan Campaign, the Eastern Front, and the Italian Campaign itself. Attention was also paid to other campaigns the Italians participated in, such as The Battle of Britain, France (1940 & 1944) Central Africa, the Middle East and the Far East. The Black Shirts (CCNN, Camice Nere, GGFF, Giovanni Fascisti, Brigata Nere) are here as well, their presence almost as ubiquitous as it was in actuality.

Post-surrender (1943-1945) forces are included also, both Axis and Allied Italians. Most Post-9/43 Axis Italian infantry formations are identified by the RSI (Republica Sociale Italiana) and CCNN designations. Included also are Italian Partisans (Allied), both before and after 9/43. The complete range of the Italian experience is represented here, from the need to use buses as APCs, to state-of-the-art commando units -- and everything in-between.

German weaponry post-9/43 can be used by either Allied or Axis Italians depending on the situation. Generally though, the Allied Italian forces will be represented better with Italian and Allied weaponry, while the Axis Italians will be better represented with German and Italian weaponry. It should be noted that immediately after the surrender was a time of chaos. Most Italians wanted to end the fighting, but the war raged all around them with Italians fighting the Axis, Italians fighting the Allies, and Italians fighting Italians. All through 1944 and until the war ended in Spring of 1945, Italians fought on both sides of some of the most fierce fighting the war would see. From Monte Cassino to the streets of Rome, Genoa and Florence, Italian soldiers fought and died for both sides. The war did not end for Italy when she surrendered.

Post 1945 is included for WWIII scenarios with the Italians as an Allied country. Some few German weapons are included into the 1946-49 period, but are there only to represent that the military would have used whatever equipment was still functional.

Italy suffered most from a lack of resources and a lack of military generalship. The Italian forces, as Rommel (and many others) said, were continually asked to perform tasks they were not equipped to do. The outcomes were inevitable, and in most cases do not reflect badly on the individual soldier. You will find that is true in the game as well. The Italian equipment during 1941-43 is not up to the tasks at hand. It will take good strategy and excellent tactics to win -- things the Italian commanders of the day rarely had in adequate supply.

Version 4.0 Italian OB author : Edward R. Mortimer, with special thanks to Umberto Comella.

Finland

1930-1949

This small country in Scandinavia fought no less than three wars between 1939 and 1944.

In the Winter War 1939/40 the Finns successfully defended their independence against the vastly superior Soviet army.

From 1941 till 1944 they fought their own Continuation War against the USSR, but without being really allied with Germany.

After signing the armistice treaty with Russia, they had to fight once more, that time the Lapland War against the German troops in northern Finland.

The Finnish armour troops were mostly equipped with captured Soviet kit, and later in the Continuation War they also received German tanks and assault guns. However, the available tanks are usually only mediocre, and very expensive.

The infantry however is excellent, and later in the war they get quite well equipped.

The most numerous tanks in Finnish service was the T-26, many of them were captured from the Russians during the Winter War and the first phase of the Continuation War. The models marked with a (+) are former OT-130 and OT-133 flame tanks which had their flame-throwers removed and were instead equipped with a DT bow MG. The T-26e is an up-gunned Vickers 6 ton tank.

All T-26 tanks were removed from service in July 1944, but had to be put back into service as the Germans ceased to deliver AFVs to Finns. They were badly outdated at this time, but no better equipment was available.

The BT-42 is a Finnish modification of captured Soviet BT-5 and BT-7 tanks; the 45mm gun was replaced with 4.5-inch field gun. It was a very unsuccessful design. The T-34/76a (Model 1940) tanks in Finnish service were not equipped with the 76.2mm L-11 tank gun like their Russian counterparts, but with the slightly stronger 76.2mm F-34 gun.

In 1942, Finland bought six Swedish Landsverk Anti II AA-tanks. These vehicles were basically a 40mm Bofors AA-gun mounted in an open-topped turret on a m/36 tank hull. They were used quite successfully to repulse air attacks against the Finnish armour units.

The Panzer IV and StuG III in Finnish service differed a bit from the tanks used in German service, e.g. the StuGs had their sideskirts removed and instead had additional armour plates at the front hull and logs at the sides of the superstructure.

Czechoslovakia

1930-49 (extended from V3)

This nation was formed after WW1 and the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

This area had been the main armaments production of the Empire - the Skoda works in particular. Skoda armaments appear all over Europe - artillery (the Italian 100mm and 149mm are license built Skodas) and tanks in particular. Between the wars Skoda cars were highly regarded, not the butt of jokes they are here in the UK. Czechoslovakian armour designs appear in lots of other armies, chiefly of course, in the German. The Bren gun is based on a Czechoslovakian design and the name is an amalgamation of Brno and Enfield. It is still regarded as one of the best light machine guns ever produced. The BESA was based on a Czechoslovakian design as well, its early problems being due to poor training, not the inherent design.

The take-over of this country was a shabby affair. The Munich agreement gave Hitler the part of the country that had all the major fortresses, so that when he decided to take the rest it was merely a formality. Germany then gained one of Europe's main armaments manufactures, and sufficient modern tanks to equip 2 or 3 panzer divisions. They took over large artillery park and a good small arms supply as well. They also gained some major truck manufacturers - Germany was always chronically short of trucks during the war.

This OB allows the what if of a possible war with Poland that nearly occurred in 1938, but it is primarily there to let you try what might have been without the Munich stab in the back. In other words, if Germany had had to fight to take the country. It is extended till 1941 to allow that Hitler may have needed time to build up his forces before trying to crack this particular nut.

Recall, before you try this one as a German player in 38, that only a very few Pz IV and Pz III tanks were actually around then. Perhaps 100-150 Pz III and 20-40 Pz IV, the bulk of the tank fleet would be Pz II and Pz I. You don't get the 35(t) and 38(t) - these are on the other side! Forget the JPz I as well - that potent little 47mm gun is the Czechoslovakian PUV vz 36.

The LT34 is an early Skoda design the Germans do not seem to have taken up on the capture of the country - perhaps they used it as a training tank or gun tractor? The LT35 is the 35(t) and the LT 38 is naturally the 38(t). The Germans actually took the first production LT38s off the end of the assembly line. The ST39 was a projected design, and seems to be based on the design work done for the Hungarian Turan, this tank would have had the potent 47mm tank gun. There were a few clapped out FT-17s, and some light tankettes. The Tancic 34 is a 'Bren' type light carrier - an APC unit representing 2 of these has been provided; though any real mechanised infantry units would be unlikely.

If fighting against a German AI opponent with this army you will have to ignore its buying of Czechoslovakian tanks. Just imagine that they have had to turn captured ones round like both sides used the T-26 in the Spanish Civil War.

The V4 Czech OB now reflects the historical dissolution of the Czech Republic in March 1939. After 3/39, the units and formations are those of Slovakia, a German ally until mid-1944.

The last major combat action of the Slovak forces was the battle for Melitopol in the Ukraine in October 1943. Again, to reflect the historical situation, from 11/43 on, Czech units and formations are those of the Czech forces fighting with the Soviet Union and those of the post-war Czech government. Naturally, these units and formations are equipped and organised like their Soviet sponsors. The post-war units include certain German aircraft and armoured vehicle types that were still produced in the immediate post-war period.

The heaviest Czech fortresses are only available for the period 1/30 to 3/39. These are assumed to have been dismantled by the Germans upon their occupation of the remnant of Czechoslovakia. Regular bunkers and pillboxes are available after 3/39.

Version 4.0 - OB rewritten by Bill Wilson and extended to cover 1949.

Hungary

1939-45

This OB was rebuilt for version 4.0 by Zoltán Zajonskovsky (Kazan).

Hungary regained it's long lasted freedom from Austria after the WWI. The freedom became bitter as the peace treaties in Versailles decided to divide up the former Austrian Empire. In reality they divided up Hungary only to form allied countries against the communist Soviet Union. After a communist take-over in 1919 the government decided to resist the unjust punishment by force. After a desperate fight the Red Army was defeated. The Treaty was signed in the palace of Trianon and sealed the fate of Hungary for the 20th century.

Hungary had hardly recovered from the loss of more than two-third of the country the second war approached. The economic crisis was added to the poor financial situation. The rearmament proceeded in secrecy like in Germany but the monetary and industrial problems could not provide enough resources. The foreign companies took advantage of the desperate Hungarian needs and raised the prices. Also the purchases were also political due to the approach to Italy and Germany. Many misjudged purchases occurred especially with the poor quality Italian planes. In 1937 the rearmament proceeded unconcealed, and several national designs were started. Hungary purchased Swiss (Solothurn), Swedish (Madsen, Landswerk) and Czech weapons and licence agreements along with the revival of the local military production.

The German politics used the lost territories as a bait to lure Hungary into an alliance. The two Vienna Treaties were given back territories from Slovakia and Rumania. This led to an even stronger hostility with Rumania. Further territories were taken back from Serbia with the German attack on Yugoslavia. The prime minister committed a suicide after Great Britain has recalled it's ambassador from Hungary. The country hopelessly drifted toward the Axis side. The Government was extorted with the territories to send troops against the Soviet Union and to declare war on the Allies. However the High Command and the Governor sent only minimal troops to the front and many officers did not believe in the German efforts. Hence the Hungarian war effort was only a show for Germany. The troops sent to the front were highly trained and had the best equipment thus reducing the losses for a doubtful cause. The production and purchase of new equipment went slowly and the troops received German equipment to equip the 2nd Army in 1942. The 2nd Army was destroyed by the Soviet counter attack in January 1943. The German forces left the Hungarians alone and fled in panic. The loss of over 100000 men was a disaster. The year 1943 was spent with refilling the losses and the few troops on the front served as occupation forces. The local residents were mostly friendly with the Hungarians as they were not cruel and despising with them. In 1944 the Government started negotiations with the Allies and the Soviets for a possible breaking of alliance with Germany. However the Front reached the country, and the Rumanians changed sides and attacked Hungary and the German forces. The Hungarian peace attempt was revealed and Germany occupied Hungary. The Nazis, the Arrowcross took over the command. With the loss of Budapest after a battle as brutal as the siege of Stalingrad the war ended for Hungary. The new government declared war on Germany and
many officers surrendered to the Soviets to save their men. However, still many troops fought on the German side to avoid being captured by the Soviets and planned to surrender to the western powers.

The Royal Hungarian Army (Magyar Kiralyi Honvedseg) was a well-trained and well-led infantry force, yet it lacked modern equipment. At the onset of Operation Barbarossa, the Hungarians fielded only 100 light L3/33 tankettes and 38M Toldi. The elite "Rapid Corps", a mechanised cavalry division had such a shortage of trucks, that horse and wagon transport was needed to move men and material on the advance. This lack of modern weaponry would plague the Hungarians throughout the War. The German equipment received were mainly obsolete or used. Most of them were in poor condition. These "presents" were mainly given on the front to recover losses. However, the troops managed to show the best performance out of their poor equipment and fought bravely against the overwhelming odds

With a mixed bunch of guns the artillery showed good performance, although their mobility was degraded by the shortage of prime movers.

The armoured vehicles that Hungary produced were licence built and modified ones. The unit encyclopaedia texts detail each vehicle.

The OB includes Mountain troops, Paratroops and even Marines. These were the Royal River Forces or the River Guard. Also their ships are included. The River Guard was a division, but the actual number of troops were about 2000, a size of a brigade. Hungary had six large patrol boats, all but one (which was underwent reconstruction) are represented. It can be represented with the Sopron if needed. A K.u.K. Monitor is also included as a what if and for Yugoslavian or Rumanian use. There are description texts on each ship with details.

The troops designated with SZU are fought on the Soviet side against the Germans

The SS troops were either the Hungarian SS troops or the Waffen SS troops temporarily under Hungarian control.

The Nyilas(ok) are the Nazi Arrowcross units which were rather a police force from irregulars.

Romania

1939-45

The Romanian Army of the late 1930's had become a military mess. The soldiers were poorly trained and equipped. Their commanding officers, which mainly came from upper-class families, flaunted their social status, further effecting morale. In September 1939, the Romanian government asked German military advisors to restructure the Army. Within two months, Romania became an Axis ally and by June 1941, the Romanian Army had become an effective fighting force. In time, Romania would field the largest of the Axis-Minor armies.

This was mainly an infantry army, and chronically short of artillery, AT guns, and armour. Almost all the Romanian armour came from Germany or war-booty. This shortage is reflected in overall higher armour costs. The late-war T34 addition reflects Soviet allotments once the Romanians declared war on Germany in late-1944.

A few new aircraft variants have been added, and include the Romanian produced I.A.R. series, Hs 129,and the Bloch MB 152.

Red

Removed - now a generic, empty OB for skilled designers to create their own nation. See the section Below.

Sweden

1939-49

Sweden managed to keep out of the Second World War through appeasement and good luck. Iron ore and ball bearings were exported to Germany until 1944. One reason Germany did not attack Sweden was that in case of attack, the iron ore mines would probably have been demolished. The miners political views where leftist and in military terms, a mining company is one big demolition unit.

The Swedish arms industry in 1938 had some world class designs. The strv m/38 was the world's first operational tank with torsion bar suspension, welded armour and advanced optics as well there was the Bofors 40 and 75 mm AA guns. This was due to German involvement. Germans owned the Swedish tank manufacturer Landsverk. As well, Bofors of Sweden co-operated with Krupp. For example, Krupp designed 88mm AA guns where built by Bofors for the Dutch navy in 1922. When the War started the Germans left and Sweden was on her own regarding "intellectual capital" and raw materials. To convert workshops producing small batches of arms into volume industries took half of the war. However, by the time quantity arms production started, the arms themselves were obsolete.

Basically there were three different organisations of infantry units named after the year they were supposed to have taken effect; 1937, 1941 and 1943. It seems that's the 1937 org. was ordered in 1925 to be completed in '37 and the 1940 org ordered in 1937 to be competed in 1940. In reality the 1937 org. seems not to have been completed until 1940 when some regiments had already started to convert to the 1941 org.


In 1940 the plan for 1941 was decided and implementation started immediate. The army was expanded by 100 % in number of divisions, this was achieved by cutting down the number of men in each squad from 12 to 10 and deleting a rifle company in each battalion plus training approximate 40 000 conscripts that had not been trained during the thirties.
While 1941 expansion was implemented a new modified organisation was planned for the army, the 43 org. calling for more modern weapons in an effort to increase units firepower. The initial plan was postponed and modified as 43M. The changes were not completed until 1945.

Blue, Yellow, Green

As with Red, these are blanks for designers to create their own armies. See the section Below.


Frequently Asked Questions

In PBEM, I never see my opponent's artillery on the playback, just new craters.

Unless BOTH of you have 'fast artillery' set to OFF then no history of the artillery barrages is saved in the PBEM file. Play PBEM with fast arty off - both of you - to see the shots and messages in the replay. And ensure you have animation turned on as well - or you will not see direct fire shots either.

My aircraft seem useless, and cannot hit things with guns/rockets.

If you see the message "attacking hex" then your plane has not been able to establish LOS to the target hex. This is usually due to smoke and dust in the area, but sometimes it is because the target is tucked away behind a ridge for example. Try to target aircraft, especially if relying on direct fire weapons like rockets, onto targets well out in clear air, and preferably out in the open - on a flat plain as opposed to in a town, wood, or valley. Do not target artillery bombardments and planes on the same target area - this is a major failing of the AI. If you must hit a target in smoke, flames etc., then try to use planes with bombs, napalm, or PTAB bomblets as these are area fire weapons. Still not as good as a clear attack, but better than random cannon strafing. Remember, very big bombs will kill infantry in the adjacent hexes as well (~1000lbs and more).

You will know if you got a good shot since the message will be 'attacking T-34' or similar and a percentage to hit is usually displayed on the yellow bar at the top of the screen.

To try out aircraft tactics it is best to set up a test game. Set up with both sides human player for everything, and give the side you are testing planes the advance, especially if you decide to let the AI run the targets - then it wont move! Go to the Preferences Menu and set up the air strikes item to at least one to ensure you can buy air. Then when setting up enter no passwords, and for the delaying (target) side, buy the sort of targets you want to test against. Set the target side up in interesting arrays - and its often best to set these up as preplanned bombardment targets ('gold spots') for the advancer to save time waiting for strikes to arrive. Now play the game; try out various plane types as desired on target types and arrays as desired. Because you are playing left hand vs. right hand, you can inspect the damage from the target's viewpoint. This method is also useful for testing out AA tactics and units as well. Or pretty much anything for that matter, before jumping off to a bulletin board, try a few experimental tests of your own. Many folk just do not seem to realise that they can in fact play both sides, so as to try things out.

I bought a 90mm AA (AT) gun formation with trucks but they cannot pick them up.

Some AT gun formations were provided with integral trucks, but the picker will let you choose any legitimate AT gun, howitzer or whatever. In this case there is usually a separate 'Heavy AT Gun/T' formation with 7.5 ton heavy trucks or similar. What can be picked up is a vexed question in SP. Look for the '*' after some guns, read the manual.

But the best way to see what fits what is to set up a test game, buy one of about every type of transport and load item, and try it out in the set up phase of the game, then quit before playing. This is especially true of some things like say USA mech. Infantry. You should be able to fit most combinations in to the vehicles some way but do not buy 76mm AT guns for example. If offered mortars, you should stick to the correct 60mm sections, as 4.2 inch mortars are both ahistorical, and likely will not fit, or not leave room for that final bazooka team.

There is no real easy way to screen out inappropriate choices (though the new classes for V3.0 will help), learn by experimentation, do not plunge into a game and then find out what lifts what when it is really embarrassing.

I cannot spend all my points/ buy any more support troops in a campaign game.

There is a limit to the number of units you can buy in total - this has been increased to 500 units per side in version 3.0, over about 130 before. In addition, there is a limit to the total number of formations (platoons formations, and a 1 man sniper formation is a platoon!, not companies). Also - in a beach assault you are limited to about 400 units, as the game needs space for the automatically bought landing craft, and in a river crossing assault, we have left about 90 free units to provide assault raft unit space for deployed infantry assault boats and deployed barges off barge carriers as these need to be created on deployment. In a campaign core, you can have 200 units now.

Once you reach either limit, you cannot buy any more units, even if you have a lot of surplus points. The formation limit means that it is best to buy in reasonable sized platoons of 4 or 5, not sections of 1 or 2. However, avoid things like the 10 tank Soviet 'Company in a Platoon' since when things start going bad for this unit, the leader is unlikely to be able to rally that many subordinates.

There is an 8cm-mortar platoon and a 12cm mortar platoon, what is the difference?

Usually, just the number of mortars (but with version 3.0, with new heavy and light mortar classes - the OB designer may have utilised these so the heavy mortars are in their own units, now). For example, 6 tubes in a German 8cm platoon and 4 12cm tubes in that platoon - one off each in the battalion support company. However, to SP they are all mortars so all are made visible to the buyer. (NB - mortars are sections now - so count the tubes - an 81mm section may have 3 and a 4.2-inch may only have 2 tubes). In a later release we hope to provide a Heavy Mortar class to allow separation (we did!).

The 'All Formation' key produces unusual results when I try to move a platoon.

This button has never really worked since SP1. Do not bother with it. Its only use is when setting an entire formation's range with the 'Y' key. Select 'all', select any unit of the formation set the range, and all the formation uses the range setting. It saves a few extra clicks. Then remember to turn the all mode off before moving anything or you will get a rude surprise. That's the only practical use for the ALL key in SP. By all means try the all formation key a few times for fun in a scratch game - the results are often interesting, but not what you desired even on flat ground. Note that the button was removed, and only the 'A' hot key remains.

I think artillery/infantry is too powerful/too weak

See the section on 'The Preferences Screen'. Experiment with the values till it suits your idea of 'reality'.

How do I call a quick repeat artillery mission?

Once the artillery unit has completed its mission it tends to keep its last x,y target location, unless it was manually cancelled, or was an aircraft. Go to the bombardment screen, and press the ID button for the unit. Do NOT click on the map - or you are calling a brand new mission in! press the HE icon (or smoke if that was what was wanted), and the symbol will appear at the last x,y location. Adjust if required, but the time will be much less than a new fire mission from scratch. This is how to do a 'creeping barrage' - plot and fire, letting the battery finish, then call a repeat using this technique, and adjusting the line of fires forwards a bit.

How do I fire counter battery fires on enemy off map batteries?

You (the player) do not - your gunners will attempt to locate off map batteries themselves, and allocate any units in range to CB fires.

For a battery to fire CB missions, it needs to be idle (not plotted to fire missions), it needs its crew quality to be good (better than 60 or so - and the higher the better), have HE ammo to hand, and to have equal or better range than the enemy battery in order to be able to reach the target. It also has to pass a chance roll. Off map artillery units range is shown as a number usually in the 200 series or more, 209 is longer range than say 205. Range information is found in the encyclopaedia entry for that battery.

How do I recrew my vehicle/Gun etc. ?

Once the crew has stopped running away - walk them or transport them back to the same hex as the gun or vehicle they abandoned, and leave them there for a while. Provided their morale is good enough, and the item to be crewed is not too badly damaged, they will mount up. NB - the original crew for the abandoned unit is the only one which can recrew it.

How do I get things into the same hex as one containing another unit

Whether friendly, enemy or wrecks, select the unit to be moved, then hold the SHIFT key and click into the target hex containing other units. (Enemy units in the target hex may object to this!).

How do I get an enemy squad to surrender?

Enter the same hex as the retreating or routed squad, and blaze away - when approximately 2/3 of the crew is gone it will tend to surrender, depending on nationality and morale. Japanese will require to be destroyed completely.

Alternatively, provided you are shooting the unit up, and it cannot find a hex to retreat to, it may surrender - i.e. Typically it is surrounded by your units which have shots left AND are in good morale - an enemy squad may run into a hex containing a retreating unit of yours, or just may panic and enter an enemy held hex regardless. Note that rivers for example, can block retreat paths, as can minefields.

How do I turn a unit in place?

Select the unit, then RIGHT click into a hex which is clear of wrecks, friendly or enemy units in the desired direction then the unit turns, and the unit LOS in that direction is shown by dark and light hexes. Use the clear dark function to remove the dark hexes. Some units like pillboxes cannot turn (other than when being placed in deployment) and barges and other watercraft need to be moved to turn - they cannot turn in place.

What is the LOS from this unit?

Please refer to the question 'how do I turn a unit in place?' above.

How do I destroy a bridge?

Use typically an engineer unit with satchel charges, anti tank mines (can represent hollow charge demolition munitions) or a Churchill AVRE - and area fire onto the bridge hex. (Z key). It may take several attempts, especially for stone bridges. Very large artillery can destroy bridges, as can aircraft using large bombs if they drop these onto the bridge hex (bridges are valid aircraft target hexes). Generally - crater causing artillery (about 120mm up) is needed to drop wooden bridges, and 8 inch or greater artillery to have a chance on stone bridges.

When a bridge collapses, all units on that section are destroyed by falling into the river, and this can be very satisfying when you catch a massive traffic jam of the opposition's units on a rickety wood bridge with some 122mm...

Why does my 88mm Flak not fire at passing planes?

The 88mm German Flak cannon causes much confusion. People keep asking why this AT gun does not shoot at planes as it did in SP1 and SP3. It is an AA gun true, but it is deployed the role of an AT gun. It is therefore in an anti tank position, with AP and direct fire HE ammo loadout. The battery AAA director and computer together with the electrical hook-ups and the AAA ammo and the fuse setting machine for it are in the rear area.

Just like a GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun), the 88 is a multi-role weapon, but the GPMG needs the SF (Sustained Fire) kit to be issued to make it an MMG rather than an LMG - it cannot change at whim. So with the 88 as AAA artillery - it needs all the extra AAA fittings to do so. The British 3.7 inch AA gun could not fire without the director - it had no sights on the gun at all, just the pointers and dials to take the cues from the AA director via an electrical hook-up. When deployed remote from a director, as at Tobruk, the gunners had to braze a lash-up set of AA speed ring sights halfway up the barrel of the gun, and shoot mainly by 'Kentucky windage'. The approved method of using this gun in an AT role, mainly for self-defence, was to pair guns to the AA director and fire by salvo at the target. I myself know of only one occasion when 3.7s were used in a deliberate direct fire support role, in the breakout from Tobruk, and here the guns were moved out at night and set up in dominating positions for the next day's battle. Battlefield mobility was really minimal - this gun was 'strategically mobile' - it took rather a long time to move and set up. The other time 3.7s were notably used as direct fire artillery was in German hands - they had captured about 80 and thought highly enough of this weapon to set up an ammunition manufacturing capacity for it. This was at Walcheren Island where they severely beat up allied amphibious craft with them.

The 88mm is a medium AA gun, and when firing AA it fires battery salvoes under central director control, to lay down predicted flak curtains at medium altitude against bombers flying in formation. SP planes are down in the weeds individually attacking, and here we need guns that are used to track individual targets. That is why there are NO medium AA guns in STEEL Panthers: WWII - you are much better off with a 20mm Vierling. It is also why 88mm units had light flak - for self defence against low fliers on flak suppression missions which they themselves could not handle. There are no plans to have medium or heavy AA batteries in STEEL PANTHERS: WWII, as they are off-topic for the tactical level of the game.

In addition, not having your cunningly sited AT guns give their positions away by randomly popping pot-shots off at passing planes is "A Good Thing". A standard tactic when fighting a game against the Germans in SP1 was to fly a Hurricane over with the map zoomed to max out. Then you could make a note of each silly 88 that fired at the plane and plot a massive 25-pounder barrage on each gun so revealed. It could give the entire defence line away. This method was especially valuable against the AI, which does not move the things. One of the main reasons these were taken out of the FLAK category was that during an airstrike these weapons would fire at aircraft, then once your turn started you could use these same guns to start shooting at tanks. As stated above this is not possible, the fire control equipment was completely different. Bottom line - any field gun, or heavy AA gun, found in an AT-gun formation is of class 'AT-gun' (or one of the new V3 variations). So the detached field gun will not fire indirect, and the AA gun is looking for tanks to annoy today.

How do I deploy a barge or raft?

When beside the water - with some MP left - attempt to 'drive' the barge carrier into the water, or 'walk' the infantry squad into it. A barge carrier will appear in the water or the squad will transform into a raft carrying itself. To unload - 'drive' the barge or boat onto the river bank or beach side. If in -1 water, barges can now unload into the water if desired.

Why cant I buy Waffen-SS tank-formations larger than a platoon before November 1942 ?

From the book "Weapons and fighting tactics of the Waffen-SS", Dr.S.Hart & Dr.R.Hart, Brown Packaging Books Ltd. ISBN 1-86277-060-0 Page 119-120:
Quote:
The first Panzer IV tanks to serve with the Waffen-SS - indeed the first tanks of any type to do so - were the handful of Model D vehicles allocated to the Leibstandarte Motorised Regiment during the winter of 1939-40. These tanks first saw action during May 1940, where they provided valuable mobile fire support as the Leibstandarte advanced, first through Holland, then west beyond Arras towards Dunkirk, and finally south deep into the interior of France until the French Government surrendered on 25 June 1940. This armour also participated in the battles fought by the Leibstandarte in the Balkans and Soviet Union during 1941. It would not be until 1942, though, that the Waffen-SS received large numbers of tanks. The élan displayed by the Leibstandarte, Das Reich, Totenkopf and Wiking Divisions in combat on the Eastern Front led Hitler to reward the Waffen-SS by ordering that these formations be upgraded to panzergrenadier divisions. During the spring and summer of 1942, therefore, these divisions each received a panzer battalion equipped with new Panzer Ill Model J and L vehicles and long-barrelled Panzer IV Model F2 and G tanks. In early 1943, the Germans redeployed the recently formed I SS Panzer Corps, with the Leibstandarte, Das Reich and Totenkopf Divisions under command, from the West to the Eastern Front. In the bitter battles fought by I SS Corps around Kharkov during the spring of 1943, the long-barrelled Panzer IV outperformed the latest Panzer III vehicles and demonstrated the qualities that quickly transformed the tank into the mainstay of the German armoured force.
End of Quote

 


SPWW2 V3 Unit classes and SPOB nation numbers

Nations are listed here to aid in the creation of support text files (e.g. when editing leader name files) - gaps represent nationalities currently unused in the game.
Spob 0=Nazi Germany
Spob 2=Poland
Spob 5=Japan
Spob 6=France
Spob 7=Great Britain
Spob 11=USSR
Spob 12=USA
Spob 13=USMC
Spob 14=China
Spob 15=Anzac
Spob 18=India
Spob 19=Bulgaria
Spob 20=Yugoslavia
Spob 27=Belgium
Spob 28=Netherlands
Spob 29=Norway
Spob 30=Canada
Spob 31=Greece
Spob 32=Spanish Republicans
Spob 33=Spain
Spob 34=Italy
Spob 35=Finland
Spob 36=Sweden
Spob 37=Czechoslovakia
Spob 38=Hungary
Spob 39=Romania
New Version 4.0 'User' nations
Mob40=Green
Mob41=Yellow
Mob42=Blue
Mob43=Red
 

User nations

These nations are provided with blank OBs, and are there for the very creative OB designer to fill with their own home rolled nation's data.

Note to average user - you will not be using these, unless you download an OB from somewhere.

Note to OB designers

- The AI pick list for these is all the same, the relevant dates are in the skeleton OB files provided. The compulsory troop types are there (e.g. if the barge carrier is unit 123, it has to remain as #123, if a formation is given, then it has to use the dates given). If you do not know what a pick list is - you do not have the OB design skills to implement your own nation - read the appropriate Mobhack help pages and experiment. The pick list code used is provided in "USERPICK.TXT". this is a very simple pick list, a slightly expanded version of the original SSI code, nowhere as complicated as an SPCamo main player pick - language is 'C'.

Locations used are a restricted set (and may be overridden depending on whether the user nation is player 1 or 2 - so experiment with all likely opponents, in all years the OB covers to be 100% sure). Green - uses 'plains city', 'central Europe' (main location), 'mountains' , 'forest and 'plains'. Yellow - uses 'Jungle City', 'Far East Asia' (main location), 'mountains', 'Pacific' (2 different). Blue - uses 'mountain city', 'Central Europe' (main location), 'forest', 'mountains' and 'Balkans'. Red - uses 'mountain city', 'Balkans' (main location), 'forest', 'mountains' and 'Eastern Europe'.

Note that User nations are entirely unsupported - the above is all the documentation provided, these are for skilled OB designers, and apart from that - entirely up to you. No correspondence will be entered into.

Unit Class Names & Numbers, any special abilities
UnitClass 0=Fort Stationary - can have turret if correct icons provided now
UnitClass 1=Infantry Base infantry type, cloned by many others
UnitClass 2=Inf-AT Base infantry AT weapon type
UnitClass 3=Cavalry Infantry type, on horses
UnitClass 4=Machine Gun Base MMG/HMG (tripod) type
UnitClass 5=Mortar Fires indirect
UnitClass 6=AT Gun Base AT gun type
UnitClass 7= Unused
UnitClass 8=Flak Fires at aircraft
UnitClass 9=Howitzer Fires indirect
UnitClass 10=Off Map Artillery offmap, fires indirect
UnitClass 11=Armoured Car All terrain wheeled (default) armoured vehicle
UnitClass 12=Light Tank Tank Clone
UnitClass 13=Medium Tank Tracked AFV, basic armoured vehicle type
UnitClass 14=Heavy Tank Tank Clone
UnitClass 15=Close Support Tank Tank Clone, may have smoke shells in non command units
UnitClass 16=Infantry Gun Now for direct fire type IG only - use UnitClass 154 Infantry Howitzer for indirect IG firers
UnitClass 17=Flame Tank Tank Clone
UnitClass 18=Assault Gun Tank Clone
UnitClass 19=Tank Destroyer Tank Clone
UnitClass 20=Engineer Infantry clone, clears mines and DT
UnitClass 21=SP Artillery Fires Indirect
UnitClass 22=SP Flak Fires AAA
UnitClass 23=APC (Wheel) Protects carried troops
UnitClass 24=APC (Halftrack) Protects carried troops
UnitClass 25=APC (Track) Protects carried troops
UnitClass 26=Utility Vehicle soft skin
UnitClass 27=Medium Truck soft skin
UnitClass 28=Heavy Truck soft skin
UnitClass 29=Infantry AAMG Fires AAA
UnitClass 30= Unused
UnitClass 31=Off Map Rocket Arty Fires Indirect
UnitClass 32=Scout Vehicle Armoured car type
UnitClass 33=Light Ambhibian Swims (if OB designer remembered)
UnitClass 34=Heavy Ambhibian Swims (if OB designer remembered), bought in beach assaults in some armies
UnitClass 35=Amphibian Tank Swims (if OB designer remembered)
UnitClass 36=Mine Clearing Tank Clears mines and DT
UnitClass 37=Engineer Tank Clone of 36, Clears mines and DT
UnitClass 38=SP Mortar Fires Indirect
UnitClass 39=SP Gun Tank Clone
UnitClass 40=Heavy Infantry Infantry clone
UnitClass 41=Landing Barge Can be carried by barge carrier, default buy for beach assault transport
UnitClass 42=Assault Boat Given 1 per rifle squad in river assault (only squads given a raft by the AI buy routines can carry a raft)
UnitClass 43=LCS Barge type, fires Indirect
UnitClass 44=Aircraft Strike plane type
UnitClass 45=Sniper Special hide and extra difficult to hit abilities. Extra inbuilt accuracy.
UnitClass 46=LCG Barge type, fires direct
UnitClass 47=Glider Was old SP2 transport helicopter. Speed halved per turn after arrival.
UnitClass 48=Barge Carrier Comes loaded with one AI selected barge.
UnitClass 49=Motorcycle Infantry type.
UnitClass 50 =Air OP Aircraft Air type - was attack helicopter in SP2
UnitClass 51=Light Infantry Infantry clone
UnitClass 52 =AT(Wheeled) Wheeled vehicle AT type
UnitClass 53 = helicopter Helicopter
UnitClass 54=Crew special infantry type generated from destroyed tank, gun, or bunker.
UnitClass 55=HQ Special infantry type used for A0, better artillery spotter than other 0 unit types
UnitClass 56=Ammo Carrier Replenishes ammunition expended
UnitClass 57=FO Vehicle Vehicle which acts as artillery observer
UnitClass 58=Scout Infantry clone
UnitClass 59=Gun Tank Tank Clone - was called 'command tank'
UnitClass 60=Cargo Plane Air type which carries troops, drops paratroopers
UnitClass 61=Transport Air type which carries and drops paratroops {not yet implemented}
UnitClass 62=Bomber Carpet bomber type
UnitClass 63=Art Observer Infantry type with special artillery spotting and quick calling facility.
New for version 3.0:
UnitClass 64=Medium Infantry Infantry clone
UnitClass 65=LMG Section Infantry clone
UnitClass 66=SMG Section Infantry clone
UnitClass 67=Rifle Section Infantry clone
UnitClass 68=Rifle Squad Infantry clone
UnitClass 69=Mechanised Infantry Infantry clone
UnitClass 70=Heavy Mech Infantry Infantry clone
UnitClass 71=Medium Mech Infantry Infantry clone
UnitClass 72=Light Mech Infantry Infantry clone
UnitClass 73=Mech Support Squad Infantry clone
UnitClass 74=Mech SMG Squad Infantry clone
UnitClass 75=Irregulars Infantry clone. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 76=Partisans Infantry clone
UnitClass 77=Partisan Support Infantry clone
UnitClass 78=Partisan Band Infantry clone
UnitClass 79=Native Troops Infantry clone. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 80=Partisan Scouts Infantry clone
UnitClass 81=Mech Scouts Infantry clone
UnitClass 82=Patrol Infantry clone
UnitClass 83=Commandos Infantry clone, less problems with impassable terrain crossing. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 84=Commando Support Commando clone. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 85=Light Commando Commando clone. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 86=Medium Commandos Commando clone. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 87=Heavy Commandos Commando clone. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 88=Commando Scouts Commando clone. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 89=Guards Infantry Infantry clone
UnitClass 90=Guards SMG Squad Infantry clone
UnitClass 91=Light Guards Squad Infantry clone
UnitClass 92=Medium Guards Squad Infantry clone
UnitClass 93=Heavy Guards Squad Infantry clone
UnitClass 94=Guards Scouts Infantry clone
UnitClass 95=Guards Support Squad Infantry clone
UnitClass 96=Paratroops Infantry clone, will be able to jump out of planes. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 97=Paratroop Support Paratroop clone. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 98=Para light Infantry Paratroop clone. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 99=Para Medium Infantry Paratroop clone. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 100=Para SMG Squad Paratroop clone. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 101=Paratroop Scouts Paratroop clone. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 102=Cruiser Tank Tank Clone
UnitClass 103=Heavy Cruiser Tank Clone (not a warship - what UK called Grants, 6 pdr Crusaders..)
UnitClass 104=CS Cruiser Tank Close Support Tank clone.
UnitClass 105=Infantry Tank Tank Clone
UnitClass 106=CS Infantry Tank Close Support Tank clone.
UnitClass 107=Super Heavy Tank Tank Clone
UnitClass 108=Heavy Armoured Car Armoured car clone
UnitClass 109=Wagon Truck type Clone
UnitClass 110=Marines Infantry clone
UnitClass 111=Rangers Commando clone. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 112=Marine Light Infantry Infantry clone
UnitClass 113=Marine Support Squad Infantry clone
UnitClass 114=Ranger Support Squad Commando clone
UnitClass 115=Waffen SS Squad Infantry clone
UnitClass 116=SS SMG Squad Infantry clone
UnitClass 117=Legionnaires Infantry clone. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 118=Legion SMG Squad Infantry clone. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 119=Legion Support Wpns Infantry clone
UnitClass 120=Lend-Lease Tank Tank Clone
UnitClass 121=Tankette Tank Clone
UnitClass 122=Support Tankette Tank Clone
UnitClass 123=Cruiser Gun Tank Tank Clone
UnitClass 124=Light Infantry Tank Tank Clone
UnitClass 125=Gun APC (HalfTrack) APC clone, protects passengers.
UnitClass 126=Gun APC (Wheeled) Clone of 125, default move class is AT_Wheel
UnitClass 127=Gun APC (Tracked) Clone of 125, default move class is Tracked. (125-127 report name as same in game)
UnitClass 128=Light SPAA Vehicle Clone of 22
UnitClass 129=Tiger Plt CS Tank Close Support Tank clone.
UnitClass 130=SP Infantry Gun IG on SP chassis - same shorter min range cf SPA (21)
UnitClass 131=Cavalry Tank Tank Clone
UnitClass 132=Light Cavalry Tank Tank Clone
UnitClass 133=Light SP Mortar Clone of 38.
UnitClass 134=DD Tank Sherman DD only, uses different graphic in water, cannot fire in water, easy to sink by puncturing the canvas DD screen
UnitClass 135=Snorkel Tank Uses snort icon in water, cannot fire when so, difficult to hit snort.
UnitClass 136=Improvised APC APC clone, protects passengers.
UnitClass 137=SP Rocket Launcher SP rocket launcher
UnitClass 138=Bridgelayer {not yet implemented}
UnitClass 139=Ark {not yet implemented}
UnitClass 140=Pioneers Engineer clone
UnitClass 141=Para Engineers Paratroop clone, engineer abilities. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 142=Para Inf-AT Inf-AT Clone, Paratrooper abilities. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 143=Para Sniper Sniper Clone, Paratrooper abilities.
UnitClass 144=Para MG MG Clone, Paratrooper abilities.
UnitClass 145=Commando Engineers Commando clone, engineer abilities. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 146=Commando Inf-AT Inf-AT Clone, Commando abilities. Hand To Hand combat bonus.
UnitClass 147=Commando Sniper Sniper Clone, Commando abilities.
UnitClass 148=Lancers Cavalry Clone, extra hand to hand bonus at range 0 over other cavalry, wagons
UnitClass 149=Light Cavalry Cavalry Clone
UnitClass 150=Cavalry Scouts Cavalry Clone
UnitClass 151=Rocket Launcher On map artillery, fires rockets.
UnitClass 152=Heavy Mortar Mortar Clone.
UnitClass 153=Light Mortar Mortar Clone, minimum range halved.
UnitClass 154=Infantry Howitzer On map artillery, min range halved, use for indirect capable IG and mountain guns.
UnitClass 155=Heavy Artillery Off Map Artillery clone.
UnitClass 156=Light Artillery Off Map Artillery clone.
UnitClass 157=Light AT Gun AT Gun clone.
UnitClass 158=Heavy AT Gun AT Gun clone.
UnitClass 159=Captured Tank Tank Clone
UnitClass 160=Reserve Infantry Infantry clone
UnitClass 161=Reserve Sup't Squad Infantry clone
UnitClass 162=Ski Troops Infantry clone, snow terrain abilities.
UnitClass 163=Heavy Ski Troops Ski Troops clone.
UnitClass 164=Ski Sniper Sniper Clone, Ski abilities
UnitClass 165=Ski Inf-AT Inf-AT Clone, Ski abilities
UnitClass 166=Ski Pioneers Ski Troops clone, engineer abilities
UnitClass 167=Snow Vehicle Truck type Clone, snow terrain abilities.
UnitClass 168=Ski Scouts Ski Troops clone
UnitClass 169=Ski SMG Squad Ski Troops clone
New in Version 4.0:  
UnitClass170=Guards Engineers Engineer Clone
UnitClass171=Marine Engineers Engineer Clone
UnitClass172=Bicycle Squad Replaces old usage of Motorcycle class for bicyclists
UnitClass173=Para Mortar Team Paratrooper direct fire light/medium mortar class
UnitClass174=Waffen SS Engineers Engineer Clone
UnitClass175=Airborne Lt Tank Special light tank, for hamilcar glider landing
UnitClass176=Ghurkas Infantry class with good hand to hand (Kukri) skills
UnitClass177=Ghurka Hvy Section For Platoon HQ etc in Ghurka formations
UnitClass178=Police Infantry Clone
UnitClass179=Hvy Bicycle Squad Clone of bicyclists
UnitClass180=Artillery Prime Mover Special type for heavy artillery prime transport
UnitClass181=AA Truck as SPAA, but on soft truck
UnitClass182=Pack Animals Not Implemented
UnitClass183=Light Truck Same as light truck above, but assumed to be 4WD (mc=ATW)
UnitClass184=Airborne Field Howitzer Special Artillery piece, for airborne unit usage
UnitClass185=Waffen SS Hvy Infantry Infantry Clone
UnitClass186=Waffen SS Rifle Squad Infantry Clone
UnitClass187=Motorcycle(Light Inf) motorcycle clone
UnitClass188=Motorcycle(Heavy Inf) motorcycle clone
UnitClass189=Militia Infantry Clone
UnitClass190=Light Militia Infantry Clone
UnitClass191=Heavy Militia Infantry Clone
UnitClass192=Militia Support Infantry Clone

Non technical types might ask why so many classes are just clones (copies) of base classes - well, it is mainly of use in designing formations. The multitude of new classes allows the OB designer to write far more realistic OB files. Note also that any 'elite' or 'poor quality' comes from the formation that is used to hold the units, not the class - a Guards squad has no inherent elite nature - this comes from the 2 fields shown in the formation purchase screen. OB designers - note that anything marked as unused or not yet implemented should not be used for custom OB files!.


Customising SP:WW2

A Word about OB Customising
The SP: WWII SPOB editor is Mobhack - and it is provided with the release. Please see the help files for that utility for details of producing custom OB files.

Just remember the following about custom OB files:
1) In a PBEM game the 2 SPOBS must remain identical throughout the life of the PBEM game - therefore do NOT change OB files if you are playing someone in PBEM at that time.
2) Changing OB data can result in strange things happening in scenario games as these save all the game data except for weapons data - to which a reference to originating OB number and weapon number in that OB is stored. Therefore if you load a custom OB, and the OB designer decided to overwrite the Kar98k rifle with say a 155mm artillery piece - then all your German infantry will now tend to have 155mm howitzers. The OB designer can use weapons from other OBs than the 2 you thought he had used - so there can be these effects if you change an OB file you never thought had any relevance. (Say the OB designer loaded up Finland, and then issued some German squads with Suomi SMG..).
3) Changing OB data mid game can have the same effects on your saved games as 2 above.

Basically - change the OB files at some point where all your games are finished. Check any scenarios for odd weapons appearing - if so, contact the OB designer, not SP Camo Workshop!

Editable Player Files
A few enhancements have been made which will allow the player some flexibility in specific game areas.


Spww2.ini
This file currently contains a few numbers only. It is found in the \data directory of your game. At present, this file will setup the two default players, Month and Year in the Battle Builder, Editor and Campaign menus. If you open the file, (use notepad or another TEXT editor - never a word processor !) you will see a series of number as below:

9
39
0
2
1
80
1
0

 

Parameter
Description
1 Default month for battle generator etc - 9 is September
2 The default year for the battle generator - 39 is 1939
3 Default player 1 (LHS - human ) - 0 is Nazi Germany
4 Default Player 2 (RHS - computer) - 2 is Poland
5 Used to slow scroll speeds - 0=none, 1 = more etc.
6 The percentage chance of SP Camo Workshop shotgun style victory hex pattern being used in the meeting engagement. 0 is none to 100 as always. Here an 80 per cent chance is used. - The chance for defensive shotgun hexes will be 60% that of the meeting engagement.
7 Report ranges flag - 0=Yards, 1=Metres, 2=hexes. Here 1 for metres.
8 If 1 - this displays the unit slot number in the encyclopaedia, and formation ID slot numbers in the force purchase screens. This is a debug flag for OB designers, not for ordinary players. Here 0 for unused - only of interest to Mobhack users.

The 9 means the default month is September. The 39 means the default year is 1939. The 0 means the first default combatant is Germany (SPOB00) and the last number, the 2 means the second combatant is Poland (SPOB02). A list of the countries and their corresponding OB numbers has been added to these notes.

So the progression is:
Month
Year
Player 1
Player 2

If you put the following numbers in:
6
44
12
0

The defaults would then be June 1944, USA vs. Germany.

Parameter # 5 is used to slow map scrolling - in addition to the [ and ] keys and any external slow down utility such as Mo'slo. The number is used as a divisor - 0 does no slow down, 1 a bit, 5, somewhat more and so forth. If you have too fast a scroll in the game - try higher numbers here. If it gets to large, then the scroll may get a bit jerky, but this is something to experiment with to suit your individual PC boxes' setup.

Parameter #6 controls the usage of the new shotgun style victory hex which SP Camo Workshop introduced in version 2.2. Here, instead of the 3 clusters of 7 victory hexes, you get all 21 spread as individuals shotgun pattern over the battlefield, for a more wide ranging conflict. The 3 victory hexes at the rear of each player's side are worth more victory points than the others. Turn it to 0 if you just want the clusters of 3 victory hexes or 100 if all you want to see in the meeting engagement is the shotgun pattern, or an intermediate chance to suit your tastes.

Parameter #7 controls the reporting of fire ranges in the game for those who prefer yards/metres (SP1 style) over the hex notation introduced into SP2 and SP3.

Parameter #8 is for OB design only - and very useful for tracking duplicates and so forth in that process.


LdrXX.dat files
These live in the \data\NAMES directory of your game. Each XX relates to the Spob number. They contain the unit leader names table for each Spob If deleted, a standard set is used - i.e. these tables override the defaults. The list of countries and their corresponding numbers is at the end of these notes.


If your name is Bloggs - you can now have unit leaders called Bloggs in the game.


They are straight text files delimited by a cr/lf as in Notepad. Leader name maximum character limit is 15, do not make these longer. Usually longer names will be truncated, but sometimes unpleasant side effects occur. So be careful with name length. Do not use a word processor to edit - use a proper text only editor like notepad, which will not fill the files with word processing format garbage extra characters!


You must not add a name to the end of the list. The program is set up to pick a name at random from a fixed number of names. Do not increase the number beyond what is already on the lists. If you wish to add your name to a particular country list you will need to overwrite an existing name. Do not delete a name either, as this will cause problems as well. There must be exactly 100 name 'lines' in the file, no more and no less.


RankXX.dat files
These live in the \data\RANKS directory of the game. The game uses the following series of ranks:
Private
Corporal
Lance Corporal
Sergeant
2nd Lt.,
1st Lt.
Captain
Major
Lt. Col.
Colonel
Brigadier General

But in an abbreviated format.
Again the XX relates to the mob number. If a RankXX.dat exists for a nation, then those names are used to replace the game defaults. There is no benefit from renaming a lower rank to a higher one. Limit is 8 characters per name.


NOTE: We have provided abbreviations of national ranks as best we can given the limitations of 8 characters. If you wish to go back to the original ranks used in the SP series, simply rename the file folder RANKS to XRANKS. The program will ignore these new lists and run off of the defaults written in the code. If at some point in the future you wish to use these new lists all you need do is remove the "X". As with the leaderXX files, there must be exactly eleven data lines or problems will occur. As with other text files - Do not use a word processor to edit.

Other Text Files

In the data\text directory you will find encyclopaedia text files and the in game help files. These use the normal SP series format characters - see scenario editing section for the details. When making these, as with the Scenario introduction text - you will have to experiment with the text as it sometimes lays the text out quite oddly - practice makes perfect!.

etNNNIII.txt - the encyclopaedia text entries for each unit in Spob NNN and unit slot number III.

ftNNNIII.txt - the formation information text files that appear in the purchases screen, Spob NNN and formation Spob slot number III. - NB leading zeros used to pad these items for both et and ft text file names. I.E. France is 006 for the NNN part of the file name, formation slot number 12 would be 012 for the III part.

HelpNNN.txt - the in game help screen files which come up in the game itself when the ? button or key is used. Help000.txt is the main help file, others cover other help sub topics by number.


Other General Items


British Desert Camouflage
One of the quirks of the SP2 code is that the British will default to Tan uniforms when in a desert. (So will the Americans). There are two sets of Icons in SP2 (and SP: WWII) the "regular" set that you see when the Green, Grey and Brown infantry are on the screen and a completely different set for when the "tan" infantry are on the screen.
In SP: WWII when the British fight either the Germans or the Italians in North Africa the British uniforms default to tan and therefore draw their vehicle Icons from the "tan" set. We have repainted the Icons that would be available to the British between the beginning of 1941 and the end of 1942 to "desert" camouflage. HOWEVER, you will NOT see the German or Italian vehicles change simply because both those countries will ALWAYS default to Grey uniforms against the British.


So, in this case we can at least provide one half of the combatants in a more appropriate camouflage although in many cases the Italian and German are not too far off. It's the best we can do given the limitations. The only other alternative would have been to provide the Germans and Italians in the desert with "Tan" uniforms as well but this would have been somewhat confusing and time consuming to code

Steel Panthers Maps
please remember...SPWW2 is an entirely different game. No other SP series game's data will be usable here - you cannot in especial, move maps over to the new 15 level, maximum of 200 hexes wide format.

New Terrain Types

Impassable Is so to vehicles, is very difficult for infantry types, less so for commandos. Represents either extremely rough terrain, or extremely steep and/or scree-covered slopes or cliffs (truly impassable terrain is not implementable, as it gives the AI path finding routines severe fits).
Snowdrifts and Soft Sand Difficult going for vehicles and infantry, breakdown (sticking) possibilities for vehicles - especially wheeled. Ski troop types less affected, but snowmobiles can get stuck in this type though at a lower chance than regular vehicles.
Trenches Provide cover (even if you moved) as for being dug in. major obstacle to vehicles, which can be ditched trying to cross these - they are meant to represent wide fire trenches, not foxholes.
Hedgerows Represent major hedge obstacles with a substantial base, as in the Normandy Bocage, though also found elsewhere. A major obstacle to vehicles, which can be bogged down (stuck) crossing these.
Paddy Fields Are similar to marshes.
Mud Is a serious obstacle to all, and has a high chance of being bogged down if crossed by a vehicle.

As with all bad terrain - the faster the vehicle has travelled before hitting this, or the more MP expended whilst in such terrain - the greater the sticking chance.

German Abbreviations

A list of the abbreviations used, to help out those who do not speak too much German!
Abbreviation
Full
English translation
Abt Abteilung battalion with less than 5 companies
Art Artillerie artillery
Aufklaerung Aufklaerung reconnaissance
Ausf. Ausfuehrung model designation
B.W. Begleitwagen lit. escort tank - codename for PzKpfw IV
BegleitGren Trp Begleitgrenadier Trupp escort grenadier section
Beob.Flugzeug Beobachtungsflugzeug spotter plane
Besatzung Besatzung crew
Btl Bataillon battalion of 5 companies
btr Batterie battery
Feldbefestigung Feldbefestigung field fortification
FH Feldhaubitze field howitzer
FJg Fallschirmjaeger paratrooper
FJg Gruppe Fallschirmjaeger Gruppe paratrooper squad
FJg Spaeher Fallschirmjaeger Spaeher paratrooper scouts
Fla Flugabwehr anti aircraft
Flak Flugabwehrkanone anti aircraft gun
flamm Flammenwerfer flamethrower
gep gepanzert armoured, armoured
Gren Grenadier mechanised infantry
GrW Granatwerfer grenade launcher, mortar
GrW Zug (gep) Granatwerfer Zug, gepanzert armoured mortar platoon
IG Infanteriegeschuetz infantry gun
Infanterie Grp Infanterie Gruppe infantry squad
InfGeschtz Grp Infanteriegeschuetz Gruppe infantry gun squad
InfGrp (SMG) Infanterie Gruppe (Maschinenpistole) infantry squad (submachinegun)
InfGruppe SS Infanterie Gruppe SS infantry squad SS
Kavallerie Kavallerie cavalry
Kommandeur Kommandeur commanding officer, headquarter section
Krad Kraftrad, Motorrad motorcycle
Kradschuetzen Kradschuetzen motorcycle borne infantry
KwK Kampfwagen Kanone tank gun
LaS Landwirtschaftlicher Schlepper agricultural tractor -codename for PzKpfw I
Lastkahn Lastkahn barge
Lastkahn-Transp Lastkahn Transporter barge carrier
LKW Lastkraftwagen lorry, truck
Minenraeum Zug Minenraum Zug mineclearing platoon
Mit Art Btr Mittlere Artillerie Batterie medium artillery battery
mot motorisiert motorised
Nebelwerfer Nebelwerfer multi-barrelled mortar (lit. fog (smoke) thrower)
Pak Panzerabwehr Kanone anti tank gun
Panzerbuechse Panzerbuechse anti-tank rifle
Panzerjaeger Panzerjaeger tank hunter, tank destroyer
PanzerSpaeh Trp Panzerspaeh Trupp armoured scout section
Pferdewagen Pferdewagen wagon
Pi Pionier combat engineers
Pionier Gruppe Pionier Gruppe combat engineer squad
Pz.Bef.Wg. Panzerbefehlswagen armoured command vehicle
PzAufklaerer Panzeraufklaerer armoured reconnaissance troops
PzAufklKp (rad) Panzeraufklaerungs Kompanie mit Radfahrzeugen armoured recce company (wheeled)
PzAufklKp (sw) Panzeraufklaerungs Kompanie (schwer) armoured recce company (heavy)
PzAufkl-UstZg Panzeraufklaerungs Unterstuetzungs Zug armoured recce infantry support platoon
PzGren Grp Panzergrenadier Gruppe mechanised infantry squad
PzGrZg (gep) SS Panzergrenadier Zug (gepanzert) SS mechanised infantry platoon SS
PzKw III(tauch) Panzerkampfwagen III (tauchfähig) submersible tank
PzSpaeh Trp Panzerspaeh Trupp section of armoured cars
PzSpaeh Wagen Panzerspaeh Wagen armoured car
PzVern Trp Panzervernichtungs Trupp tank hunter section
Raeumpanzer IVh Raeumpanzer IVh mineroller tank
Scharfschuetze Scharfschuetze sharpshooter, sniper
Schwere Art Btr Schwere Artillerie Batterie heavy artillery battery
Spaehtrupp Spaehtrupp scout section
StKp PzAufklAbt Stabskompanie Panzeraufklaerungsabteilung staff company of an armoured reconaissance battalion
Sturmboot Sturmboot assault boat
VB Vorgeschobener Beobachter artillery forward observer
VGren Gruppe Volksgrenadier Gruppe Volksgrenadier (Home Guard) section

 


Scenario Editor

The scenario editor is where you design scenarios for the end user to play. We will cover here the basics of scenario editing and design - the subject really requires a complete guide of its own, which we may well publish. Also see the Wild Bill's Raiders pages at the Gamer's net - but recall that most of this will be SP2 stuff, there are differences for SP2WW2.

Basic scenario design process is to firstly design your map - this is the most important element of any scenario, and you should therefore make this element first, and above all, save it off separately from any other scenario work. Having the map saved off separately means that you can easily re use this element for other scenarios using the same terrain, or simply to start over if the design was a wash out!Once happy with your map - then buy and deploy the required troops. Have an idea of what you want to do as well - research the scenario from historical documentation if it is a historically based one, rather than a 'what if'.

- The scenario editor will now object if you press the 'deploy' key for a force which you have bought no troops for. You must buy some troops to deploy troops for a side!

The main editor page is where you make some critical design decisions. Underneath it live the map editor, and the scenario deployment sub routines. As mentioned above - make your map first, and save it off somewhere safe well before you start dropping troops onto it to create a scenario.

One major point to consider at the outset is if you are designing a game where the player takes on the AI, or one where a human can play either side. In the former - the AI needs to be given consideration, and it will need to be given advantages of force size, or position, or more likely both. Or the game length can be reduced so the human must make a quick rush at it. Scenarios designed for the computer to play one side should not be played by the human as the other side - it will be a walk over for that player. Therefore, advise the player in your introductory text not to play the computer side. Scenarios designed for 2 humans to play will be usually very difficult for the AI to win, so again state up front that a scenario is designed for 2 humans to play each other head to head. A rare minority of scenarios can be playable by the AI as both sides, or give a human player a challenge if he plays the non-default set. In nearly all circumstances, the human player should be the player No 1 in a scenario, unless you are an experienced designer.

And we may as well take some time here to note some points about scenario purchase and design - your scenario will be reported to the end user as whatever mode it last was in (advance, say). this does not mean that you require to edit the scenario in that mode. For example you may want to set up a meeting engagement, but you need to entrench some units, or buy a pillbox. Fine - build the scenario as an assault, dig the defender in and buy pillboxes, then switch to a meeting engagement. Then buy the second player troops, or they may get the dug in status that you get as an assaulter in a regular battle! Changing the battle type in creative ways during the design can be a useful tool for the experienced designer. For example - to get rafts for a non assault battle. Or simply to get the user off on the wrong foot - dig the defenders in and tell the user it is a mere advance mission, he may not expect mines lying about then..

The date of the battle determines the 2 sides involved. Note that it is perfectly possible to use a different date, should whatever you want not be available at that point - enter the desired date and buy troops at that point in time, then reset the date to the scenario date later. Only the last date used during the design process is the one reported by the scenario, so you could try a what if of 1940 French versus Germans with 1945 equipment - Just whizz the date to 1940, buy the required French kit, whizz the date to 1945 and buy the German stuff. Mainly this is of use in special circumstances for a scenario - the introduction dates of equipment in the OB files tend towards 'general service' dates - if you have a historical scenario where say some pre-production Tigers were used this is how to get them (and also to surprise the human player who may not expect to meet tigers before the 'encyclopaedia date' <G!>).

The map editor is reached via the edit button - but before you hop off and start editing - select the map size from the available buttons on the left. (You can come back later, and select a larger map size - and then add stuff to the South part, or a smaller map size to 'crop' it into a narrower strip in the North - but it is better to start off with the correct size first to save hassles). You can save off the map separately from the scenario inside the map editing subroutine. Note that selecting the date and the opponent pairing will determine the map used for random maps from the normal SP Camo selection - this ignores the climate of the map (desert, summer or winter).

The climate buttons determine the basic map colour, desert gives yellow tiles and desert features (like soft sand), summer is the regular green background (toggled to 'jungle' if you select the palm trees inside the map editor), and winter gives white tiles and access to the winter extra tiles such as snow drifts. Note that the editor does not care about dates regarding winter - you can make a winter map in august, should you so desire.

A BIG note to map designers is that the map will be one of these types only - Summer, Jungle, Winter or Desert, depending on what mode it was last edited in.

Why say this? - well some map designers go in and use say a green summer map, then come out to the main screen, flip to winter, and then go in and place a few white tiles for what they think will be a few patches of 'snow' on a green map for extra 'colour'. Nope - if they last edited the map in 'winter' mode - as far as the game is concerned the map is now entirely a winter map! The colour of the basic clear tiles has no in-game effect, the season of the map is a global variable which affects the entire map. Only the special 'feature' tiles (such as snow drifts or soft sand) have inbuilt special effects. 'Clear' terrain tiles do not. Any tile that gives out 'clear' when you hover the mouse over it is a 'basic' terrain tile, of the type of terrain you last edited the map in - so if you say started with a summer map, exit and changed to desert and laid some 'yellow' clear tiles, then exited again, changed to winter and laid some 'white' clear tiles - this is now a winter map, and all the yellow, green and white 'clear' tiles will be basic snow (winter) terrain - because the last map edit mode was winter.

Select the visibility in hexes for the scenario with the visibility control.

Give the scenario location a name with the name button - this is NOT the scenario file name, it is he location name reported inside the game - like 'Sword Beach', 'St Lo', i.e. the geographical place name.

The save button here saves a scenario - a scenario is a map plus troops deployed. A scenario can be played, and a separately saved map can be used in battles.

The Load button by the maps loads a pre made map into the scenario.

The Random map button generates a random map using the SP Camo map generation code, based on the 2 players involved and the date, but ignoring the climate - so a German vs French 1940 'desert' map would tend to look like a 'yellowed' France 1940 map. However, random maps are not a great deal of use in scenario design as you will be crafting your own from scratch mainly.

The 2 main players are selected as for a normal battle. However unlike other battles - in the scenario editor, the map sides each use as home base is reported here, as this is very important stuff for scenario design. In scenarios we often need to be able to have the 2 sides fighting in a different direction. The side that you play from determines the retreat direction for routers, and where off map artillery comes from. If you just lay your troops as desired, but on opposite sides from the given - routers will run to the enemy and artillery will come from the wrong direction as well. Note that the directions are given in map terms - left and right, as there is no compass direction in any SP series game - Left side of the map can be North, South East or whatever you desire to call it. (Many players mistakenly think of the Right of the map as 'East' say - not so. Just a convenient convention which fits most cases. If you need North to be at the 'bottom' of your map - just design it that way, and note where North is in the scenario introductory text - you can even put the direction to North on the map with Map Text).

The Map Sides buttons are what allow you to exchange the default map sides, and it is a very, very good idea indeed to set the map sides before you buy a single unit of either side should you need to exchange sides. When you enter the editor for the first time the map buttons are 'free' - press Swap to exchange sides. The map side buttons will then be put into 'locked' state and the Swap button will be hidden. You can unlock the Swap button if required. Also note that loading a scenario into the editor will take the map sides you set up while editing that scenario, and place map sides into locked state. Just so you do not make a mistake. If you like the map side setup, then press Lock to lock the sides in, should the map sides be in free status.

The preferences button allows you to set preferences as you desire. For scenario design, points are of course unlimited - you just buy the 2 sides regardless of any notional points values (But, the points values of the various units will be counted as part of the scoring process at game end! - some scenario designers have in the past placed some 'destroyed' tanks etc. as 'scenic effects' - a 'destroyed' Panther on the map will still be about 40 victory points to the opposite side! - if you do not want this, remember to adjust the points value for such a creation to 0 in the deployment subroutine!). The end user will be able to override your preferences - should these be important for your design then put a recommended set into your scenario introduction text. What is effected here is basic troop quality - if you want this to be other than the default, set as desired before buying your troops as this will save time editing later. You can go through them all and individually change morale and experience - but if the default for a nation is say 60 experience at this point in the war, and you know in advance that you want an elite bunch with say about 80 experience - set this up here and most of the troops bought subsequently will be nearer what you want on purchase.

The map editor subroutine of the scenario editor is where you create maps, naturally enough.

Generally, it is just a case of laying down tiles, but see above about the climate.

A couple of other game global variables require to be mentioned however that relate to water borne scenarios.

The first is the gBeach global variable - this one determines if it is a beach assault, and whether landing craft are auto bought for your troops. This requires to be set before you buy any troops, and it is determined by building a beach in the editor with the appropriate key. Simply drawing in a lot of 'lake' tiles will not suffice - you must use the map editor beach key to have a beach built - though after the game has put your beach down, feel free to edit whatever it placed on the map of course. If you set the gBeach variable then all the assaulting side's troops will have landing craft bought for them by the AI buy routine, and added to their formations. You can of course edit the AI bought craft later, should you so desire. The gBeach variable is also used by the game purchase routines to make naval artillery available for purchasing. It is quite possible, should you desire, to ignore the gBeach variable and just lay down water - however it is then up to you to buy trucks (say) and convert to landing craft manually, and to buy artillery and also convert these manually. - see the '&' key below..

The Second Global water variable is the gWideRiver variable. This is used to indicate to the game that this is a river crossing assault, and that the assaulter's troops that qualify will be issued with rubber assault rafts. This is the only way to have squads issued with rafts and to be able to carry these - a separately bought raft will need a truck to move it, it cannot be placed on a squad. Once again, just laying a few lake hexes manually to create your own wide river will not do to tell the scenario it is this type. Use the 'convert all rivers to wide rivers' key. Now this key will convert all the rivers on the map to wide rivers, so it is not a brainy idea to use this at the end of map design, should there be a need for minor streams and so on. Do this at the start - lay a stream about where you want your wide river to be, then convert this stream to a wide river. Lay your normal streams later, and edit whatever the AI did to widen the initial river to suit your map. Should you need both sides to have rafts - after setting the wide river variable - buy side 1, with the battle dial set to assault for that side! - and their squads get rafts issued. Now - go back to the main screen, save the scenario! - and flick the battle dial to the other side, so it is the 'assaulting' player now and buy its required forces and they will have rafts as well - see the '^' key below..

Note that if you need jungle terrain - then edit a summer map, and first thing - toggle the palm trees icon to use palm trees, not European ones. Then jungle features arrive - paddy fields, high grass becomes tall jungle grass (or bamboo etc.).

There are 2 map design pages - use the '>' red button to toggle between pages. Some features will change depending on climate (such as winter snow drifts).

There are now 15 hill levels as opposed to the other SP series games, which had a mere 3 hill levels - - but only 1 through 4 are there all the time on dedicated buttons - use the '+' Cycle Level key to cycle the max hill button - this starts at level 5, one press of '+' Cycle Level key and you get level 6 and so on, cycling back to level 5 after 15. This method saved a lot of extra terrain level buttons.

Map Editing Hot Keys
B Create level 2 Hill in hex
C Clear terrain in hex
D Dirt (earthen) road
E save the map (not scenario!) to disk
F Wheat (taller) field - Winter, Winter Fields
G High Grass Field - Winter, Winter High Grass
H Level 1 Hill
I Level 4 Hill
J Toggle Palm trees, and paddy etc in Summer terrain = Jungle terrain
L [Page 2] Make a beach on the Left or Right (and set gBeach variable)
N Go to next editor buttons page
O [Page 1] Orchard (low trees) [page 2] Convert streams to Wide Rivers (sets gWideRiver variable)
P Top level hill (as set by cycle button)
Q Exit
R Rough
S [Page 1] Stream. [Page 2] Bocage type hedgerow.
T Level 3 hill
U Swamp
V Green (low) Field. [Winter - Snow Drifts]
W [Page 1] Water (Lake) hex. [Page 2] Trench
X Clear the map
Keypad Move 1 hex in the keypad direction - 8 is up, 2 is down.
= Random map
+ and - Zoom and Unzoom map
. Toggle hex display on or off
# Clear out all map text strings in one easy operation (do NOT 'remove' the text by 'blanking' the strings - use this key to properly zero the text on any map)
; lock the current building type until you press another icon or button. Very useful in laying city grids!
> Toggle display of victory hexes on or off
< Toggle the display of map text strings on or off
? Access in game help
* Use this to adjust the height of the hex. Experts only.
&

Use this to set or reset the global beach variable 'gBeach' of the map for beach assault missions (triggers purchase of landing craft, use of naval off map artillery etc). Very useful for folk who made a large water map and forgot to make it using the normal 'convert 1 side of the map to beach' key! use this key after you have loaded the map into the editor, and before you purchase any troops at all, or difficulties can occur. This section of code will check to see that this is an assault mission, and will prompt you if it is not - you can elect to not follow this advice, but non-assault beach scenarios can have strange results. The game is intended only for assaults when the beach flag is on, remember!

Note that when you purchase the assault nation's troops you will be asked if you want to buy the landing craft for them - in some circumstances you may not want to do this (say for a batch of troops on an island, which the human player will ferry over as secondary waves, using the first wave's transport).

Note also that before the landing craft are bought, the code will now try to load up any swimming or flying transport craft with troops, before it buys the landing craft - so it will load up any separately bought amtracks, DUKW or Dakotas you have purchased, unlike the original SP series games!

^ This works as for the global beach variable above, but applies to the global Wide River 'gWideRiver' map variable. In other words, use this to expressly set the wide river assault flag (infantry buy rafts) - for example when you have a map where you want to put say a lot of small lakes, but do not want to use the 'convert all streams to wide rivers' flag for some reason. Again - the game will prompt you to make this an assault mission as this is the correct battle type for a river crossing. Also - use this key after you have loaded the map, but before you buy the troops, as usual.
% This sets a start line for the human player 1 in user generated campaigns only. Player 1 gets to deploy up to this line, side depends on his base edge.

Scenario troop deployment and editing

OK - you have made and saved off your map. This is where you buy your troops and deploy them for the battle.

Purchase is as for normal battles - but points are unlimited, as the troops on the table are what you decide

Deployment is basically similar to normal battle deployment with loads of extra features added on

Placement of troops is pretty much standard - it is the editing that differs

The first thing you will want to do is to place the victory hexes - it matters not which of the 2 sides you are editing when you do this. Use the edit victory objectives button, and lay your victory hexes where you want them to be, and what nationality they will start as. The big decision here is what points value to make them - victory points are part of the score, and what you grant here is relevant. Low values will mean VP for destroying units is most of the end game score (approximately half the value of a destroyed unit is given as VP, remember, and abandoned units are counted killed to the side which has most score and/or holds all the objectives). High victory hex points will tend to skew the end score towards holding of victory hexes - especially where the overall points values of the 2 forces are on the low side, less so if this is a monster 12000 points a side scenario. If you do not require all 21 victory hexes - simply leave some at 0 value, and stack these with other scores victory hexes. Never leave a victory hex with zero value out in the open as it were, unless you are an expert. Recall that on initial entry, the victory hexes will have zero values! - the AI will not steer to victory hexes worth nil points that much - this is a common complaint from some new scenario designers 'I laid out the victory hexes but the AI would not advance on them it just sat still' - please give the victory hexes a VP value greater than zero, bar the unused ones that you stacked with a scored one should you need less than 21 locations. Do not leave any victory hexes on the grey map edges as this causes the AI to have fits - ensure all are on the playing surface. Also, ensure that there is some way that the AI especially, and the human player less so - has of getting to these. A victory hex in a lake hex will only be reachable by swimming - ensure the AI has such units, and several ,as the first few may be killed. Better still - always place V hexes on terrain that any infantry or vehicle can reach.

- We have added a new button to the victory hex placement window to clear the victory hexes down and/or set all of them to a common value. The first question will allow you to move all victory hexes to the 0,0 position, and the second allows you to allocate a value to all simultaneously.

The Victory hex placement 'shapes' your scenario, for both the layout of defenders, and the likely approaches of the attackers, especially moving AI troops. Get it right and you have the basis of a good scenario, get it wrong and you have started your design off on the wrong foot.

If this is an attack and defence game, then you probably want to lay the defence side out first. Then place the attackers where you want them, determined by the defence layout and your scenario requirements.

Note that in a scenario battle, the only pre registered artillery targets that the player will get are those you set up for him here, in the deployment phase. Be creative with these - if you place too many right on the other sides defended locales, you will give the defence away! Place them 'near enough' to adjust from, and blame that on faulty intelligence staff work <G>. Also - you may really need only 2 or 3 gold spots, place the others at misleading places on the map, again to mask the AI deployment. If you do not place any pre registered gold spots, all artillery calls for impromptu fires will be at full delay. This may be what you actually require in your scenario - if so, do not grant any pre registered targets.

Any pre game bombardment you plan will also fall as well, with nothing the player can do to alter this. A scenario starts at the beginning of turn 1 - the turn 0 artillery plot (including pre registered targets) is up to you, the scenario designer. - see the section on the bombardment screen for the new information, e.g. about timed missions and aircraft deployment.

The normal deployment hot keys are made available to you, with some additions we detail here.
D Edit the current units data. Note that we have allowed access to the armour fields for all units, in case they need correcting. DO NOT add armour to unarmoured types, such as infantry or AT guns, as this will just cause odd things to happen in the game. An AT gun with a 1 front armour value does NOT have a gun shield, it will probably get shot up with AP, or other unpredictable results.
O Toggle the objective hexes display on or off
R

Change the current unit to a different type. Generally speaking - if you need trucks, buy a truck unit, but in certain circumstances you may need to change a unit to something else. Buying a rifle company and then changing all the units to tanks is just plain silly :-) - buy the correct formation type when you can. Also - changing type can cause problems sometimes, so you may need to check the unit over with the D key, and ensure things like armour are correct. In other words - this facility should not be abused.

Note - planes are artillery, and only planes can be changed to other planes - should you want a mixed flight, say as most end users expect the things to be in multiples of 2 - a mixed flight of 2 different plane types can upset their count somewhat.. Be careful changing off map units to on map types, or vice versa - any on map unit of an off map formation will be a LONG way from its command unit, so will tend to be out of command control, and so not rally very well, amongst other things. Stick to changing off map gun types to other off map gun types and planes to other plane types, and you should be OK.

Z Place and point objective hexes. (NB - objective hexes usually start with a value of 0, which the AI will naturally ignore. Many folk ask 'why does the AI not go for the objectives I placed in my scenario?' - well, check that you remembered to assign them a positive value! :-> )
. For a scenario this is how you enter the game (scenario) length in turns - IMPORTANT! - a scenario with a 0 length will end very abruptly!
#

Set reinforcement turn for this unit, at the current hex. Set reinforcement chance - this is a percentage chance of arrival per turn, NOT a one shot chance. Therefore a reinforcement with a 10 per cent chance which does not arrive on the due turn will test again on each subsequent turn after its due turn as and until it makes the chance roll or the game ends, whichever comes first.

Off map reinforcement units (air, artillery) will not arrive on map, but will be unavailable until they do arrive

(Exception - reinforcement batteries will fire CB fires, something the game scenario designers wanted to represent higher formation counter battery assets under Army etc control - not the player's to plot on map missions with - they belong to 'A General of Artillery', not to 'Lt Col Player!').

This facility could be useful to ensure, say, that the AI keeps its planes in reserve for a later phase of the game as a surprise strike (the human player may have decided that since he has seen no air activity for some time,that the AI has none..). Off map units includes gliders - if set as a reinforcement, their speed does not start to halve per turn until they are on the map.

Note that there are no restrictions to moving reinforcements about after setting them - but the thing if marked as a reinforcement will be removed from the game map at scenario start, and will use the location and facing it was in when you set it as a reinforcement.

Any non reinforcement units loaded as a passenger on a transport will automatically be given reinforcement status as passengers of that transport - so load your transport up and just set the carrier up as a reinforcement, no need to do each carried unit separately.

There are no restrictions as to arrival point - just do not use the grey hexes! - so your reinforcements could be paratroopers, or partisans appearing in the rear of the enemy. Or a massive flank march!

The next and previous keys have a major difference here - in that they allow you to choose off map units (including passengers) - as you just might want to be able to edit their characteristics. Note that as you can see passengers, you will see things like 'M10 - passenger M10' which you don't normally see as you cannot select passengers - worry not, this is how SP points to its internal linked list of passengers - these M10s will likely be on a amphibious barge. Normally hidden from you as passengers are in normal games, unelectable. But - to be safe, it is best not to edit any unit that is a passenger as the game could possibly lose track - unload passenger units, edit them, then replace.

Notes on changing unit type and editing data

First off - due to a flaw in the game design that goes right back to SP1 days, changing German weapons will not 'take' - they will look fine till you reload the scenario from disk. Germany is OB 0 (zero) and internally in the unit data, the original programmers used zero to indicate 'no weapons data changes' - and this is buried so deep in the code it is quite utterly impossible to fix. The cure to this, should you want to change German weapons is to:

1) Change Germany's nation flag to something else at the main scenario screen - German weapons exist in most other nations weapon OB data, but some obscure ones may not. You may need to hunt about (use Mobhack to check out weapons as it is easier to load an OB and browse the weapons data that way).

2) Re Enter the deployment subroutine, and change the weapons. This tricks the code to using the other nation's (not zero!) OB number to index the changed weapons.

3) Exit deploy, change Germany's flag back to Germany and save the scenario. Exit the editor to the main game screen, then re enter the editor and load the scenario from disk once more, and check the changes 'took'.

Luckily - changing unit weapons is not an often used facility, especially for Germany as there are many other units available which may have the desired weapon - the alternate method, if squad type A has not got what you want, is just to change the unit to squad type B which does, then change a few names etc, e.g. from say 'FG Gruppe to 'VG Gruppe' if you say wanted VG Gruppe with FG42 rifles. (And recall, you can go back or forwards in time at the main screen to purchase units out of their time frame, this can be handy, e.g. to get that obsolete tank no longer available in the main line OB but necessary as being used for airfield defence in your historical scenario).

The D key and button - give you access to most of the statistics of units. You can add on a point of armour for some of your units, say to represent sandbags, layered on tracks, or logs, if desired. You can remove armour - say to have a unit without the anti bazooka side plates, or to represent a particular tank at a certain point which was known perhaps to have brittle armour. Whatever is required fro your scenario. You can increase or decrease crew experience, moral, and play with the leadership values. You might want to increase the Range Finder and Fire Control values of some known elite unit - say Wittman's Tiger 1. Do not add armour to an infantry unit, gun or whatever - that is silly, but feel free to armour vehicles, say a truck with improvised plates.

A major field for the scenario designer to play with is the points cost. Recall that approximately half the cost of a destroyed unit is granted as part of the final score, so playing with this value can be most useful. For example, if the scenario is a convoy situation, you may want to make the convoy trucks worth 300 points or so, so that losing one will hurt the player's score. A particular pillbox may be the desired point of a commando raid to blow it up with satchel charges - if so, point it high so the destruction of the thing is the point, not any victory hex it is placed on - as a victory hex belong to whoever last walked into that hex. Then the commandos can destroy the thing and withdraw, without some enemy straggler flipping over the hex it is placed on after they depart.

Remember also that this editor when allocating ammo will allow sabot rounds even if there are none for weapon 1 no check is made. Only weapon 1 has HEAT or SABOT ammo (bar those with an internal 222 code - see Mobhack for details), and the smoke ammo is related to weapon 1. (Main weapon smoke ammo is editable for scenarios, but not in Mobhack - it is data generated inside the game, not from OB files).

Making Your Scenario Introductory Text

No proper scenario is complete until you have made a text file which is the text that the user sees on selecting your scenario on the main game scenario page.

This file is a plain text file that you create in a text editor, such as notepad, not a word processor which stuffs a lot of extra nonsense into the data - a plain text only editor. It is called 'SpscnNNN.txt' and lives in the scen sub directory of the game. NNN is a 3 digit, leading zero number and is the same as the slot number you saved your scenario to, with 000 being the first slot and 999 the last.

It uses special characters to format. The code will wrap paragraphs, but is not very good at this, so it is best to manually place the CR/LF character yourself in text files.

The '*' (asterix) character is used to indicate an end of line CR/LF pair.

The '_' (underscore) character is used to space titles etc - the underscores are not shown.

Generally, it is best to lay out your introductory text along the following lines:
________SCENARIO TITLE*
*
______nationality #1 *
________vs.*
______Nation #2 *
*
Date: February 24, 1941* [use the long style, with month spelt out - other nations do not use the same dd/mm/yy format as others - some use e.g. mm/dd/yy]
Location: Somewhere*
* Designed By : designer's name* [You would like the credit, no?]
*
Historical overview section - if required. [Lay out the background here, as it applies to both sides. Leave nation specific stuff to the national briefs below]
*
*
__nationality #1 MISSION STATEMENT*
[Lay out what is required for player 1 to play the scenario, intelligence briefing, what he is expected to do, any special conditions in this section]
*
* __nationality 2 MISSION STATEMENT (if required)*
[Normally, player 1 is the human player, and player 2 is the computer. This section is therefore only required if this scenario has been designed to be played either way, or as a human versus human scenario. If the computer side is not designed to be played by a human - say so here!]
*
__Special notes*
*
* place any special requirements or recommendation's here - e.g., that this scenario is not designed to be played with a human as player 1, or suggested reality settings. (Even if you laid these out above - repeat, for emphasis)

Naturally - feel free to do it your way, but the above is a useful template to start off with.

Note the underscores used to lay out headings, and the asterix used to end lines (=CR/LF).

Distributing Your Scenario

A scenario is simply another form of save game - it therefore consists of the 3 parts SpscnNNN.txt if you provided this (and you should do so, it is the only way to talk to the end user!), SpscnNNN.cmt and SpscnNNN.dat. Remember that NNN is the slot number you saved to. As with PBEM games - you can open the .cmt file to see the game title in notepad but do not edit this, should you forget which is which, and select 'sort by name' so all the appropriate files are shown together in Explorer. Read only!

Zip the 3 files up, add any text file you need to the zip (assume the end user will not read this, they hardly ever do, heck hardly any read game manuals like this one! - consider yourself a cut above the average end user for having actually opened the game guide <G!>). Send to a friend, or post at sites which have SP scenarios. Include your email address in the end section of the intro text file - assume as I say that nobody will read any readme.txt file you supply in the zip.

One point - if you use slot 19, and someone else has already used slot 19 in their installation - your scenario will overwrite the existing number 19. The end user should know that he should manually renumber the scenarios as desired, but most do not, even though it is in the manual.. But remind them of this in your 'never-ever-readme.txt' file. And be prepared for complaints from those who never read these things, and toast their existing scenario..


User Campaign Design

User Campaign Editor

In SP3, you could link up to 12 scenarios in a strictly end to end linear succession to form a user campaign.

As you may have gathered from looking at the above screen shot, the SP Camo SPWW2 user campaigns allow a lot more flexibility than that! :-). We allow up to 999 scenario nodes in a user campaign, not 12.

Our campaigns are not linear - the battle result is used to determine the next scenario node to play, hence our campaigns can be 'threaded'.

User campaign editing is not for the faint hearted - it is for experienced scenario designers only. The following is aimed at that target audience, and as a general guide - you will require to experiment to get your campaigns right, much more so than you would with scenario design.

This is a 'live menu' screen. Live menus have 'live text' whenever you put the mouse over the text - most of these text fields are in fact 'buttons'.

Campaign Name - click the campaign name field and enter a new one, default is 'A campaign with no name'.

National Flag - click the flag to change the player's nationality.

Save - Saves the campaign data

Exit - leaves without saving

VICTORY these fields are used to determine the campaign end result in victory points (VP) At the moment 3 VP for a decisive battle victory, 2 for a win, 1 for a draw. (SSI campaign default) [We may change these values if designers think say a 0 1 2 4 8 type sequence is better, in a later release]

ML LEVEL enter the VP score needed to be met to gain a marginal loss of the entire campaign (failure to meet this level is taken as a decisive loss of the campaign)

== LEVEL enter the VP to be met for a draw of the entire campaign

MV LEVEL enter the minimum VP score required to be met to win the campaign marginally

DV enter the VP level which if met or exceeded results in a decisive level of victory for the entire campaign.

As a rule of thumb - count along the 'straight path' through your campaign, and assign perhaps 2.5 to 2.8 points times the number of battles in a row, all at DV exit level to reach the campaign end. So if the quick path through your campaign was say 10 battles - then a VP level of maybe 25 to 28 (out of a possible 30 VP) would be a useful first approximation of the DV level needed to win the campaign decisively, and scale the rest from there - here at 1 point for a draw, perhaps 15 for that level, and the win, but not decisively about half way between the draw and the decisive level.

BPR DIV This stands for 'Build Points Remaining Divisor'. This field gives the designer the ability to reward a player who has a surplus of build points left over at campaign end with a bonus amount of VP. Only unspent Build Points left in the player's 'kitty' count to this total. A player who completes the campaign with unspent Buy Points may have had an easier or more successful run than someone who goes the same set route of battles, but has spent all his points as he went along - either in repairs or upgrades. This bonus therefore rewards the more prudent player (or perhaps the one who uses a smaller core force, and does not expand it much) or the one who completes more missions with less loss - and hence less repairs required. If this field is left at 0 - excess Build Points are ignored, only the basic VP are used to determine campaign victory level. If, however this field is set to a positive number - then the amount of Build Points remaining will be divided by this number then the factor is added to the VP total for battles won. For example - entering 1000 here will add 1 VP per full 1000 remaining BP at end of campaign to the VP already gained for winning battles.

Scenario Nodes each node (battle location) has a set of fields:

The Number - At the left hand side - this denotes the node number, But it is also a LIVE FIELD. Pressing a node number field results in that number being entered as a selection - This number is then automatically pasted into any of the Exit fields you then left click on. This saves an awful lot of typing! - simply select node 123 by licking its number field, then fill all the EXIT fields which need 123 in them. A note is placed at the foot of the screen showing the value of the current selection, for your information. Click on this field to clear the selection. A live field is also provided at the foot of the page with 1000 as a value - select this to enter a selection value of 1000, the terminator node number. 1000 in an Exit field of a node is the signal to end the campaign.

Node 0 (the first one on the list) is the Start battle location for the campaign.

Scenario Name - to the right of the Number field. Press this and If the scenario is 'No Scenario' then the list of available scenarios is displayed.

1) The scenario name appears at that battle node number

2) The original scenario is copied as a template, then it is saved off as a campaign scenario file, with a note displayed confirming this. (See campaign files later). Therefore you can reuse the one scenario several times at different node locations, provided that the dates are correct!!

The end user does not require the scenario file to be installed in his scenario directory - you will distribute the scenario data files which contain your nodes scenario data.

IF there is a already scenario name - then pressing again clears the name. (But does not delete the node files generated - you may need to manually delete these if not overwritten with new game data)

Scenario Exit Branches - there are 5 of these for each scenario battle node. From left to right - DL - go to this battle node if the battle was a decisive loss for the player ML - go here if the player lost marginally == - go to this location if the battle resulted in a draw MV - goto this location if the player has won a marginal victory DV - goto this location if the player won a decisive victory NB - remember that 1000 is the magic number for termination of the entire campaign at that exit point.

These numbers act differently depending on whether or not a selection is 'live' (see Number above). If a selection is live - then the value of the current selection is automatically entered on pressing the exit link field, but if there is no selection currently live - you will be asked to manually enter the number.

Build for Node 0 - this will be the initial buy points for the entire campaign, as node 0 is the starting battle. For subsequent nodes, this field is the repair/upgrade points received at the start of that battle. Leaving this field at 0 results in whatever game defaults are in use being used as the basis of calculating the build points for the battle or campaign (if node 0). Entering a positive number results in this amount of points being granted to the user as a maximum - i.e. this is a 'cap' to the number of points granted (if the user has set preferences to a lower level, or his core is small for example, so the game generates a lower number - he will get less than this. If the game generates a larger number - this cap value will be used). Entering a negative number results in what I call a 'locked points' campaign. The user is given this amount of points (returned to him as a positive value!) and this overrides any user set preferences (so if the game decided on say 49 points, but you had entered -55 the player gets 55 whatever the game thinks). Thus a value of -1200 for node 0 gives the player 1200 start points to buy his core, and a value of -123 for battle node 1 will result in him being granted 123 buy points on starting that scenario to build or repair with. This method gives the designer the most control, and removes the problem of someone say selecting 3000 points at the outset of a campaign you designed to start with say 600 points and so destroying your careful balance of battles. (You should mention if a campaign is 'locked' on the introductory text screen for it to notify the end user of the fact.)

Support This field controls the amount of support points granted for each battle to purchase non-core units. Again - leave at 0 to use game defaults, a positive number for your 'recommended' level which the user preferences can override, and a negative value to use as a locked value, which the end user will not be able to override.

Flights This field is used to determine the number of flights made available to player 1 (The human) - player 2 (the computer's) flights are whatever you put into his force in the scenario design. -1 uses the current game preferences setting (XXX or whatever the user has entered), 0 is no planes at all, positive numbers allows that number of air strikes.

Variable start lines in user campaigns - when designing the scenario, you can enter a start line which deviates from the normal 25 or 50 of the default battles - use the '%' key in the map editor to assign a start line for usage only in user campaign battles, and only for the human (player No 1). This allows the user campaign designer a latitude of freedom similar to a scenario set up.

Overall though - the best way to find out how the campaign system works is by making and experimenting with a few small test ones - even 2 battle ones. Only a foolish person would dive right in and try a 50 battle mega campaign as a starting point!

User Campaign Design

When using a scenario for a campaign, take care to note that the human player will ALWAYS be player number 1 (i.e. his flag is on the LEFT hand side when the scenario is in the editor).. This does not mean he plays on the left side remember! The player 1 forces for the scenario are REMOVED to be replaced with player bought forces. Player 2 forces will remain. Best to buy an HQ unit anyway for safety.

The name given to the scenario in the Scenario Editor, number of moves, and visibility etc. will all be used. ABOVE ALL - the scenario date will be used for the battle date! - do NOT use a 1939 scenario after a 1944 one, or you will warp back in time! Another date related item - certain nations will use different sides of the battlefield depending on opponent and date. If you use a scenario as a battle location where say the original designer has 'swapped sides' then you can end up with both sides having the same deployment side of the map! The key one that causes confusion is where a scenario was designed for one nation (say USA) as player #1, and you use a different nationality (say USSR) from the original scenario player #1 as the human player nation in the user campaign.

It is therefore best to test each scenario you intend to use in a 'test rig' campaign consisting of precisely 1 battle location - you can use this in succession, replacing the scenario with each of the set you plan to use. Load the scenario to test, save the test campaign and start it - you should quickly determine if it is one where the enemy is on the wrong map side at that date and time. You may need to redo the scenario.

You can reuse a scenario several times over - say if you place it on a different 'thread line' depending on earlier victory or loss situations in the scenario line of progression. If all the parameters stay the same - fine, just use it as it stands. However - you may need to adjust the battle date if the time line for the scenario differs in the new thread. Just load the scenario into the editor, change the date (you could change the name too!) - and save in a scratch file, then use that scratch file in your user campaign.

It is not a very good idea to loop backwards in the campaign flow. This could create endless loops, and going back to battle 0 is not likely to be a good idea either. Probably the best idea is to lay down your 'decisive victory' main thread as the first sequence of battles - this will be the series of battles the end user plays should he win decisively in all battles to the campaign end. Use that as the backbone to your campaign design. Then, say, write a thread of battles from the marginal victory of battle 0, and lay this down after the main backbone thread. This thread may rejoin the main thread after a decisive victory, say.

You cannot easily enter (insert in between, rather) new nodes - so do not write a campaign 'on the fly' as you make it up - otherwise you will end up with a tangle of 'spaghetti code' which will be nigh on impossible to maintain. Plan your campaign, and write your battle flow as a proper flow chart on paper first. Also - there are 999 locations here, and most user campaigns will not use anywhere near that number - one idea would be to space your initial nodes apart say 3 or 4 lines, thus leaving space for last minute additions to be inserted later on, without as much grief. Any of you who ever programmed in one of those BASIC compilers which had no 'renumber' command in the editor will know why the default was to number lines with an interval of 10!

User Campaign Files

The campaign data is saved in the /scen directory in the format UCAMPNNN.DAT (User campaign 999 would therefore be Ucamp999.dat) Each battle file for each scenario is saved off in the form CNNNSXXX.DAT (Battle 1 for campaign 0 would therefore be C000s001.dat)

Note - once you have used the 'advance of the guards' scenario as a template in say node 123, the data will be saved off into a separate copy for the scenario - there is no need to supply 'advance of the guards' to the user (unless you really want to). You have distributed it to the user as CNNNSXXX.DAT. If you need to use a particular scenario at different places in your campaign - just place it at each node as required, provided all details (especially the DATE!) will be exactly the same. If, however you need variants of the scenario (even just slightly different dates to fit the campaign 'chain') either - create as many clones and edit them in the editor as required, then link into the campaign in 1 campaign edit session - or just use the one, link and save in the campaign editor once, save the campaign and exit, edit the scenario details as required, exit and save from scenario editor and re enter the campaign editor and link the altered version. That decision is up to you. Also recall - in your scenarios written for campaigns, there will be no need to buy any troops or place them for player 1 - bar the HQ say as a placeholder, for these will all be removed from the map in any case.

User Campaign Text Files

You can write an introductory text file for the scenario, which is displayed on selecting the campaign on the main game selection screen. Use a text editor like notepad to generate a file and save it with a filename of the format UcampNNN.txt, and that text will display when the user selects your campaign on the game menu. Ucamp0001.txt would therefore display for campaign slot 1 (recall these are indexed from zero!).

Do not use a word processor, and ensure your text is USA ASCII compliant (no umlauts, stuff like that).

For each scenario you can write both introductory text and exit text files. All take the form UCCCLNNN.txt where:
CCC is the campaign number (000 to 999)
L is the ID letter for the message text file for each of the following game events:
i = the scenario introductory text message, played on entry to game
a - the text displayed at end game if the user loses badly
b - same, but user has merely lost
c - text displayed if the battle is a draw
d - congratulatory text on user winning the scenario
e - the text displayed if he won decisively
NNN is the battle node number (000 to 998)

The introductory text file for a scenario is displayed at the entry to the scenario - it is scrolling text, and I have tried a 25K file. The exit texts can be used to taunt or congratulate the user on his progress, and give campaign progress info etc. All the text files are optional, but really should be prepared for a professional campaign. If the intro texts are not provided or not found - no adverse effect. If the exit texts are not found or provided, the default SSI exit texts are used (Scendd.txt etc. from the \scen directory).

Note - use the SSI text formatting characters, as with any scenario introductory text:
* is used for a CR/LF pair (new line or empty line) and are not displayed
___ (underscores) are used to align (e.g. centre) text and are not displayed

Distributing Your User Campaign

bundle up: UcampNNN.dat, UcampNNN.txt (if used), all the generated CNNNSXXX.DAT scenario files, and any UCCCLNNN.txt files you created.

Wrap these up in a ZIP file, and instruct the user to extract to his \scen directory.

Better yet, use some form of self extracting executable file installer - we have found that simple things like ZIP files, even PDF document files - confuse many less computer literate end users. Also - a decent install program will at least put the readme files in front of your end users eyes at least once, should you have readme files. Assume the end user will not read the readme files in any case - 90% will not, from our experience. Go to www.clickteam.com for a shareware install maker (which we used for this game ).

Note - if the end user has a campaign NNN installed already. In this case - instruct him to extract to a temporary directory and rename NN1 to whatever new NN2 he desires that is unused in his \scen directory. Or just to overwrite the existing campaign. It is perhaps best to hint to the end user to keep your (and every other campaign's) distribution files in a safe place - then he can extract from these as required.


Credits and Information

CREDITS

ORIGINAL SP SERIES DESIGN AND PROGRAMMING BY Gary Grigsby, Keith Brors and SSI

 

SPWW2 Version 4

PRODUCERS: Don Goodbrand, Andy Gailey

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: Don Goodbrand, Andy Gailey, and the Playtesters

ADDITIONAL DESIGN: The Playtesters, and end user's suggestions

PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

RESEARCH AND MOB DATA DEVELOPMENT: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, Claus Bonnesen, John Turesson, Helge Bertram, Bill Wilson, Edward R. Mortimer, Zoltán "Kazan" Zajonskovsky, Boris Ajdukovic, Nick Hyle, plus special contributors as noted in the Historical Notes section.

MOBHACK OB DATA EDITOR PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey

ART AND GRAPHICS: Don Goodbrand, Zoltán "Kazan" Zajonskovsky (Japan, Hungary)

VIDEO DESIGN AND LAYOUT: Don Goodbrand

PLAYTESTERS: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, Claus Bonnesen, John Turesson, Helge Bertram, Bill Wilson , Ken Sharman, Dick (Boomer) Burleigh , C B Blackard, Dale Hight, Marc Bellizzi, Edward R Mortimer, Zoltán "Kazan" Zajonskovsky , Nick Hyle, Boris Ajdukovic

SCENARIO DESIGN CO-ORDINATION: Bill Wilson

SCENARIO AND CAMPAIGN DESIGNERS: Boris Ajdukovic, C.B. Blackard, Claus Bonnesen, Dick (Boomer) Burleigh, Andy Gailey (Amiens), Dale Hight (Amiens,) Ed Mortimer, Bill Wilson, Zoltán "Kazan" Zajonskovsky

GAME MANUAL AND DOCUMENTATION: Andy Gailey.

CONSULTANT: Dale Hight

 

SPWW2 Version 3

PRODUCERS: Don Goodbrand, Andy Gailey

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: Don Goodbrand, Andy Gailey, and the playtesters

ADDITIONAL DESIGN: The playtesters, and end user's suggestions

PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

RESEARCH AND MOB DATA DEVELOPMENT: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, Claus Bonnesen, Swedish OB by John Turesson, Helge Bertram, Bill Wilson, Philippe Sacr (French army data)

MOBHACK OB DATA EDITOR PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey

ART AND GRAPHICS: Don Goodbrand

VIDEO DESIGN AND LAYOUT: Don Goodbrand

PLAYTESTERS: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, Claus Bonnesen, John Turesson, Helge Bertram, Bill Wilson, Ken Sharman, Dick Burleigh , C B Blackard, Dale Hight, Marc Bellizzi, John Malcolm

SCENARIO DESIGN CO-ORDINATION: Marc Bellizzi

SCENARIO AND CAMPAIGN DESIGNERS: Marc Bellizzi, Dick Burleigh , C B Blackard, John Turesson, Helge Bertram, Bill Wilson, Claus Bonnesen

GAME MANUAL AND DOCUMENTATION: Andy Gailey. Original HTML framework for the manual provided by Shaun at Imaging Systems UK International.

CONSULTANT: Dale Hight

WEB SITE PROVIDED BY: The Gamers Net

 

SPWW2 Version 2.2

PRODUCERS: Don Goodbrand, Andy Gailey

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: Don Goodbrand, Andy Gailey, Maik Ehrhardt

ADDITIONAL DESIGN: The playtesters, and end user's suggestions

PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

RESEARCH AND MOB DATA DEVELOPMENT: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, Maik Ehrhardt

MOBHACK OB DATA EDITOR PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey

ART AND GRAPHICS: Don Goodbrand

PLAYTESTERS: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, Maik Ehrhardt

GAME MANUAL AND DOCUMENTATION: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

CONSULTANT: Dale Hight

WEB SITE PROVIDED BY: The Gamers Net

 

SPWW2 Version 2.0

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: David Heath

PRODUCER: Don Goodbrand

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: Don Goodbrand, Andy Gailey, Nick Papp, Maik Ehrhardt and Piero Angeli

ADDITIONAL DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: Wild Bill Wilder, Michael Wood, Playtester's and end user's inputs

PROGRAM SPECIFICATION AND DESIGN: by SP Camo Workshop

PROGRAMMING: Michael Wood

OB DATA DEVELOPMENT CO-ORDINATOR: Andy Gailey

RESEARCH AND MOB DATA DEVELOPMENT: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, Nick Papp, Maik Ehrhardt and Piero Angeli

MOBHACK OB DATA EDITOR PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey

ART AND GRAPHICS: Don Goodbrand

CONTRIBUTORS OF ADDITIONAL PHOTOS, SOUND AND MOB DATA: Darwin Barnes, Davor Popovic, Pentti Perttula, Frank Donati, Akira Takizawa, Yrjö Hakkarainen, Valery Zhigarev, Gene Duque, Jarkko Vihavainen, Georges Ostermann.

MUSIC COMPOSED BY: Derek Boain

VIDEO DESIGN AND LAYOUT: Joe Osborne, Michael Wood

PLAYTEST CO-ORDINATION: Maik Ehrhardt

PLAYTESTERS: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, Nick Papp, Piero Angeli, Wild Bill Wilder, Jim "Figmo" Faletti, Darwin White Rook Barnes, Marc "Bayonet" Bellizzi, Bryan "Marauder" Melvin, Pentti "Ambush" Perttula, Louie "Gung Ho" Marsh, Davor "Tank Hunter" Popovic, Nick "Magyar" Papp, Gordon "Lifeline" Kennedy, Mark "Waylaid" Mitchell, Dick "Warmeister" Reece, David "Mad Dog" Heath, Eric Johnson, Massimo Rocca, Hans Gaschler, Guy DeYoung, Chris Massey and Paul Vebber

SCENARIO DESIGN CO-ORDINATION: Wild Bill Wilder

SCENARIO DESIGNERS: Wild Bill Wilder, Jim Figmo Faletti, Darwin White Rook Barnes, Marc Bayonet Bellizzi, Bryan Marauder Melvin, Pentti Ambush Perttula, Louie Gung Ho Marsh, Davor Tank Hunter Popovic, Nick Magyar Papp, Gordon Lifeline Kennedy, Mark Waylaid Mitchell and Dick Warmeister Reece

GAME MANUAL AND DOCUMENTATION: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, Nick Papp

CONSULTANT: Dale Hight

WEB SITE PROVIDED BY: The Gamers Net

SPECIAL THANKS: Brigham Hausman, Joel Billings, Gary Grigsby and Keith Brors and all our families.

 

SP2WW2

PRODUCER: Don Goodbrand

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: Don Goodbrand, Andy Gailey, Nick Papp, Maik Ehrhardt and Piero Angeli

PROGRAMMING: Don Goodbrand, Nick Papp

OB DATA DEVELOPMENT CO-ORDINATOR: Andy Gailey

RESEARCH AND MOB DATA DEVELOPMENT: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, Nick Papp, Maik Ehrhardt and Piero Angeli

MOBHACK OB DATA EDITOR PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey

ART AND GRAPHICS: Don Goodbrand, Piero Angeli and Nick Papp

PLAYTEST CO-ORDINATION: Maik Ehrhardt

PLAYTESTERS: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, Nick Papp, Maik Ehrhardt, Piero Angeli, Wild Bill's Raiders

SCENARIO DESIGN: Wild Bill's Raiders

WEB SITE PROVIDED BY: The Gamers Net

 

Special Credit

A very special thanks goes to Fred Chandla - creator of SHP-Edit and SPILE. With out his editors, utility programs and support of efforts, none of this would have been possible.

 


ON LINE HELP

First thing to do is to read this manual thoroughly - try using your browser's search utility to look for a word, if you cannot find what you require from the links in the left pane. See the section on using the guide at the start of the document..

If you have questions - register at the SPWW2 group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SPWW2 - you can browse this through the web interface, or elect to have the messages emailed to you. Look through all the message traffic, as your question is quite likely to have already been covered - if not, then post a message and someone will try to help you out.

 


DISCLAIMER

Users of these programs must accept this disclaimer of warranty:

This software is supplied on an AS IS basis. The authors specifically disclaim ANY warranty, expressed or implied, as to the fitness for any particular purpose of the software. Under no circumstances will the authors be liable for any direct, consequential, special, indirect, or other damages including, but not limited to, loss of data, profit, or the use of the software arising from the distribution, use, misuse, or inability to use the software.

USE OF THIS SOFTWARE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. BY USING THE SOFTWARE, YOU AGREE TO THE TERMS OF USAGE SET FORTH IN THIS DISCLAIMER.


NOTICE

Neither the revisions to the game code, nor the data editors and utilities used to create these revisions are in any way connected with, endorsed by, or supported by Strategic Simulations, Inc.

 


DISTRIBUTION NOTICE

The authors are releasing this product as honourware. It is NOT public domain! You may use the program freely for personal usage. You may distribute it to whomever you like (e.g. by making it available on a web site) but (unless express written consent is negotiated):

1. Do NOT distribute modified versions, you must distribute the entire fileset unchanged.
2. Do NOT bundle with other programs.
3. ALWAYS distribute with the provided documentation.
4. Do NOT charge a fee for distribution.


The unique artwork and data provided within this game are protected by copyright law and may not be used or altered without the express written consent of SP Camo Workshop.

No other limitations are placed on the usage of the software.


TRADEMARKS AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

.
Steel Panthers, Steel Panthers 2 and Steel Panthers 3 are all trademarks of Strategic Simulations, Inc.
Steel Panthers 2 for World War 2 (SP2WW2) is a trademark of SP-Camo Workshop.
Steel Panthers: World War 2 (SP:WW2) is a trademark of SP-Camo Workshop.
Steel Panthers: World at War (SPW@W) is a trademark of The Gamers Net/Matrix Games.
Parts of the version 2.0 code is copyright of The Gamers Net.
Version 2.0 scenarios are Copyright of Wild Bill's Raiders and The Gamers Net.
Version 3.0 and 4.0 scenarios are Copyright of SP Camo Workshop, and the individual scenario authors.
Swedish OB data is copyright of John Turesson
All game artwork, organisation data (except as noted in the OB copyright notice) and other game data files are copyright of SP Camo Workshop.
 
Mobhack Data editor copyright Andy Gailey and Scotia Software Ltd.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SPWW2