Flies of Steel

Hello and welcome back to another update of Forgotten Hope. This week we will take a look at the Sherman V series, or, as the Americans called it, the Medium Tank M4A4. We would also like to promote an unofficial Forgotten Hope 2 Nations Cup that is being organised on our forum.

Let's begin with the Shermans. As with the M4A1 model (called the Sherman II by the British), we also have a bunch of M4A4s. This includes the famous Sherman VC 'Firefly', armed with the 17-pounder. These Shermans were modeled by Omni and skinned by Toddel.

Construction of the first M4A4 Medium tank began in July of 1942. It was, much like the M4A2, mainly intended for export through the lend-lease agreement. Later in the war, the UK became the primary user of the M4A4, which they named the 'Sherman V'. (V being the roman number 5, the reason the M4A4 isn't the Sherman IV is because the British started their naming at the M4, which became the Sherman I, while the next version, being the M4A1 was called the Sherman II). An interesting fact about the M4A4 is that is it longer than the other Sherman models. This is because it used the Chrysler multibank engine, which was five car engines combined to run as a single engine. Nearly 7500 M4A4s were built.

One especially interesting, and by far the most common, modification of the M4A4 was the Sherman VC 'Firefly'. Instead of the regular American 75mm gun, it mounted the powerful British 17-pounder. Although there were many problems involved with mounting such a large gun into such a relatively small turret, the firefly design was highly successful and about 2000 fireflies were made during the war.

Finally, we have an advertisement for the unofficial Forgotten Hope 2 Nations Cup, being organised on our forum. The idea is to get teams of players from different countries playing against each other until one country can be crowned the winner. A more detailed description can be found below. The sign up thread can be found here.

A team must have atleast 8 and maximum of 10 players. Also a captain is needed to lead and organize the team. However we would like to see as less organization as possible to keep the game fun and let the best players decide on the battle day what they are worth. Also to keep it as fun as possible cause fun will be the goal. But make sure as captain that your team will show up on battle night. We will play with a knockout bracket and the losers will play in the loser bracket. In the end the 2 finalists will compete over the rights to brag and the awesome signature that will be created by Graphical artist SamNadine who also made the awesome poster for this event.

Rules:

• Matches will be set for 10 vs 10, if a team cannot field the 10 players then they can field a minimum of 8 players, lower then that will be a forfeit.
• Both teams will play as allied and as axis, the team that had the total of most points then decides which side they want to be for the final round, winner of that final round will go forward in the bracket, the losing team goes to the losers bracket.
• Bunnyhopping will not be allowed.
• Try to play the game as real as it was meant to be.
• No trash talk or allchat during the rounds and the admins will have the final say in each conflict, but please keep it fun and mature.
• A teamspeak will be there for you to use, no registering is needed and for each team a channel will be made. The TS IP is: 193.93.46.62:8787 and will be up and ready to use in the upcoming week.
• Matches will be played on a England based server, actually we will have 2.
• Each round will have a map attached to it and announced in this forum.
• All communication for this event will be posted in the official thread.
• It is allowed to signup more teams from 1 country.

Fellas lets make this an awesome and fun event and may the best country win this year's Cup. Please post this advert on as many as possible communities and clans you know to gain enough players and teams. Also as Captain please accept the task that you will dedicate yourself to this event and that you will do whatever you can to get your players to show up and play.

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