Extreme East Front Makeovers

Hello and welcome to another update of the Forgotten Hope Mod. Sorry that we missed an update last week, we are all spoiled from having Bug$ take care of this task for us. To make up for it, we have some extra goodies for you to look at today.

First of all, Forgotten Hope is participating in another Topsite Listing, this time one being run by frag4fun.com. A link for this and for Doomlab's list have been added to the left hand side of the page. You don't actually need to click either of them to add to Forgotten Hope's site score, it registers automatically once a day, the first time you visit our homepage (the one you are reading right now). But, by visiting the toplist sites, you can rate Forgotten Hope, post comments and check out a lot of other BF2 sites, but it does not affect the FH site ranking. If you do decide to visit, please be considerate of the other mods and pages--it just makes us look bad to have negative remarks about other mods and sites, connected with FH.

Getting to the actual new stuff, first we have a reskin and remodel of the the T34-76 Model 1941. This was unquestionably the best all around tank at the beginning of the war and is one of the most influential tank designs of all time. Its balanced combination of mobility, protection and firepower made it a uniquely formidable weapon for its time. Although T34s were only available in relatively small numbers to resist the 1941 invasion, by 1943, T34s made up over 50% of the entire Soviet Tank force.

The new FH T34-76 is based on the current FH T34 with a turret modeled by Master Minder, and based on the original DICE hull. StrangerThanFiction revised the hull and (very slightly) the turret, and Rad modeled completely new wheels (some of you got an unauthorized preview of this, a few weeks ago). The skin is entirely new, with the tracks and wheels being by Rad, and everything else by StrangerThanFiction.

The Heer was unprepared to deal with the T34 and had to revise existing armor tactics to deal with its superior qualities. Being both impressed and short on equipment, German armored troops were not slow to press captured T34s into service, as the Panzerkampfwagen T34 747(r). Crews were aware of the danger that their own troops might fire on them (a feeling familiar to anyone that has ever stolen an enemy vehicle in FH), and tended to paint on extra-large insignia to aid in recognition by friendly troops. The PzKpfw T34 747(r)was created by Dice, Master Minder, Rad, and StrangerThanFiction.

In late August of 1943 high ranking officials of the Soviet armaments industry discussed the difficulty that the T34s 76mm gun had in dealing with the new, heavier, German tanks that had appeared during the summer, especially during the heavy fighting at Kursk. They concluded that The T34 badly needed a more powerful gun to deal with these new threats. The new T34-85s, equipped with an 85mm gun, began to reach the troops in the winter of 1944. In addition to greater firepower, The T34-85 featured a roomier 3-man turret, that allowed the crews to fight more effectively. The T34-85 model is also based on a revised Dice hull with a new turret by StrangerThanFiction plus wheels by Rad. The skin is by Rad and StrangerThanFiction.

As a final treat we have some ingame screens of the Rad's new Kübelwagen and Mange's civilian truck. These screens should lay to rest any fears that these will only look good in news renders. They will, of course, look even better in FH2.

That's all for today, but be sure to stop by our public forums to discuss this and other news updates!