An Italian walks into a BAR...

Hello and welcome back to another update of Forgotten Hope. Today, we can finally show off our Italian player models as they now have their own helmets, hats, bags and pouches. We also have two new weapons for the allied forces in Normandy.

You have probably already noticed our Italian player models in Forgotten Hope 2.0 and 2.1, but we never showed them in any of our news updates because they were still missing much of their own equipment. They were still using German helmets, for example. In the upcoming 2.15 patch we are getting rid of all these placeholders. We have already shown the new Italian weapons in an earlier news update, now here are the finished Italian player models. These Italians soldiers were all modeled, skinned and coded by Jodonnell.

Next up are the two new allied weapons for Normandy. First up is the US Browning Automatic Rifle or BAR for short. This gun was modeled by Remdul and Dauntless and skinned by Seth Soldier.

The BAR first entered service in September 1918, during World War 1. Its use was very limited, as the war was over two months later and the US military was afraid the BAR would fall into enemy hands. The idea behind the BAR was that it would be able to provide advancing soldiers with suppressive fire, a role for which the ordinary machinegun was far too heavy. In World War 2 however, the role of the BAR changed to that of a squad light machinegun. It performed poorly in this role compared to the light machineguns of other nations such as the Bren, because it only had a magazine capacity of 20 rounds and no replaceable barrel. The final version of the BAR, the M1918A2, was introduced in 1940 and had a bipod, flash hider and the ability to switch between two different rates of fire. The BAR continued to be used after World War 2, even seeing limited use in Vietnam.

Finally we have the British Sten, modeled by Hail of Nails and skinned by Seth Soldier.

After the evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940, the British army was in desperate need for more submachineguns. The Thompsons purchased from the US were too expensive and too few to arm the necessary divisions needed to fight the Germans and Italians. In 1941, this led to the introduction of the Sten (an acronym for Shepherd, Turpin and ENfield). The main focus of the Sten design was to have it cheap and easy to produce and although it covered these conditions excellently, it proved to be prone to jamming, especially if not properly maintained. The mid production Stens were also notorious for their accidental discharges if dropped while cocked. Perhaps the most famous example of the Sten's unreliability is the 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague, during which assassin Jozef Gabcik's Sten immediately jammed, not having fired a single shot. Later versions of the sten were much more reliable and they continued to serve in the British army until replaced by the Sterling in the 1960s.

That's all for this week, but be sure to come back next time for another update. Until then, feel free to visit our IRC channel and our public forums to discuss this update and other news.