Get the WinSPMBT v4.0 off WP (20mb)

WinSPMBT v4.0 Upgrade Patch

• 13 New Scenarios, 37 Updated Scenarios
• 1 New Campaign
• 422 New photos
• 210 New and Revised Icons
• 92 Updated OOB Files
• 10 Revised campaign files
• 31 New and Revised Graphic files
• 20 New maps
• 122 New or revised picklists
• Upgraded Cost Calculator
• Upgraded MOBHack
• Upgraded ScenHack
• Upgraded CampaignHack
• Upgraded GameOptions

1) A large number of OOB corrections and additions have been made since v3.5 was released. The " to do" list would print out to over 60 pages so we won't detail everything that was done for every OOB but China and Japan have had work done as has the Russian OOB but really, every OOB has had some work done to it. Scenario designers who may have scenarios not in the game but posted on various scenario depots on the 'net may want to check them over with ScenHack for unit/weapon errors. The large number of updated scenarios in this upgrade are mainly due to OOB re-organization . As usual with this game, OOB's are always a "work in progress" as new information is uncovered.

2) Previously radios were given to almost every platoon leader and section leader no matter what the radio codes in the OOB's were set to . This has changed in both WinSPMBT and WinSPWW2. Now every company, platoon and section reads the radio codes and if the OOB's are set up with low radio chance then that's what you'll see in the game. The main HQ unit will always get a radios. This change affects two things mainly. 1) Calling for artillery will not be as easy as it once was and units from a formation will not be able to wander far from their "0" unit lead. If they do it becomes harder to rally. This is no different that the way the game has played in the past but in the past most units had radios. Now there are fewer units that do especially in the WW2 and just post WW2 era. One example would be snipers. Snipers in the game have acted as scouts, Forward observers and snipers. There are far fewer snipers in this version of the game that have radio contact with artillery. We expect that this change will take some players who were used to picking almost any command unit as a Forward observer a bit of time to get used to . The effect is far less in the game on "modern" era armies

3) You will see a further addition to the HQ menu. You will now see ' R ' or ' * ' in the HQ menu list of units. The leaders with the R have a radio and as always in SP only leaders ( the x0 ) with radios can call arty so if you see a x4 unit with a radio it doesn't mean he can contact the artillery only leaders can do that. That aspect of the game has not changed but this change makes finding he leaders with the radios easier. As well these are colour coded and match the messages you would see at the bottom of the battle screen when you click on a unit. A white ' R ' or ' * ' means " in contact" and all that means is they have C&C link to their immediate superior. A yellow ' R ' or ' * ' means there is radio contact and a red ' R ' or ' * ' means the unit is out of contact with it's immediate superior. All of this is handy to know at a glance. If you are playing with a nation that has few radios you'll probably want to be careful where you put them. This allows you to find them without having to check every leader in the game

4) A further change has been made to the "Passenger" report you see in the main battle screen at the bottom left of the screen.

Previously the unit named there would be the last unit loaded onto or into whatever is carrying them. Nice if you only have one unit loaded but useless if there are more than one. The only way to know for sure what you had loaded was to check the information screen and then all units loaded would be listed but in a game clicking on a APC and seeing "sniper" wasn't that informative when you might have three scout teams and a sniper loaded. This is all less of an issue when loading tanks or halftracks but it has always been a problem with large capacity transports like landing barges or helicopter and even though you might know what's loaded in you never really knew how many more units you could load except by trial and error

This has been changed.Now, on the main battle screens your passengers are listed something like this

LOADED: 10 ( of 13 )

When dealing with infantry this tells you that you have 10 men loaded into or onto a vehicle that has a 13 man capacity. You no longer have to guess. For vehicles loaded into units like landing barges the game reads the carry cost of that vehicle so a tank in a landing barge might be reported as something like: LOADED: 30 ( of 50 ). Now you know exactly how many other points you can put in. Large helicopters are handled the same way.

5) The move cost for infantry (foot class) has been increased by 1 for wooden and stone buildings. Buildings will no longer be treated like open terrain

6) Units will only charged a movement penalty on entering a slope hex from a lower altitude so travel down hill is no longer penalised.

7) It had been possible to buy an attack helicopter in a campaign core then delete it and be able to buy aircraft for the core. This has been corrected

8) In assault battles a bit of code that had previously been added so landing barges etc could call arty in beach assaults was allowing any unit with a radio to call arty in a beach assault. This has been corrected .

9) Multibarrelled type weapons like Gatlings or GSh-30-6 have been given a +6 point increase in their existing accuracy for their high ROF. This change allows us to better model the effects of these weapons that is fair when used in both aircraft and helicopters.

10) Bug found in MOBHack where deleting unused weapons would also delete weapons that are still being used. Now fixed.

11) Tanks from Unit Class 135 would not load into barges. Now fixed

12) Units in retreat or route can no longer use a radio to contact artillery

13) SP arty units have given a minimum of 5x their ROF for ammo for all nations that were affected by low ammo for some SP arty

14) Pre-revolutionary Iranian flag added

15) The enemy passengers loaded in or on a vehicle was reported on the info screen you get when right clicking on a unit. This has been removed.

16) The "phantom arty" bug that was causing regular artillery missions to not fire after some types of air attacks had been made has been found and corrected.

17) A text overrun bug that would intermittently show up on the HQ menu screen after purchasing has finally been squashed for good ( we hope.... )

18) There was a bug we traced back to the original code that was cancelling out the full effect to Multiple MG's on aircraft and only calculating for one gun. Now fixed.

19) All units in the game now have a photo assigned to them. Previous to this, 485 units in the game had photos missing.

20) PBEM Campaigns have been added to the game for CD holders.

21) New Top attack HEAT weapons class to generally cover light infantry Anti tank weapons that are not ATGM like the British MBT LAW.

22) In some cases enemy bunkers could attempt to fire at targets outside their weapons arc which triggered an opfire event by friendly units. This has now been fixed.

23) A rare bug where crews carried as passengers could turn into enemy crews has been fixed.

24) HEAT ammo previously could sometimes overpenetrate it's nominal penetration value to a significant amount and this could give some weapons abilities that they did not have in reality. The code has been adjusted so this is far less likely to occur

WinSPMBT v3.5 Upgrade Patch

* 2 New Scenarios
* 2 Updated Scenarios
* 103 New photos
* 153 New Icons
* 92 Updated OOB Files
* 126 Revised campaign files
* 159 .WAV format sound files added
* Upgraded CampaignHack
* Updated MOBHack

1. Numerous OOB corrections and additions have been made since v3.0 was released.

2. A New Hovercraft class replaced an old class that was not being used in any OOB. This was done because the old way allowed hovercrafts to be bogged down in swamps which is, of course, one terrain type these vehicles excel at crossing. All Hovercraft Icons in the game have been redone and new ones added to various OOB's

3. CampaignHack had a bug where it was not transferring all moved files from one slot to another. Now fixed

4. The campaign code had a bug that affected only some of the players that would prevent them from deleting a campaign core formation after purchase. Now Fixed

5. "ARENA" is now renamed "CIWS" or in the full message string--"Close In Weapon System defeats Missile".

6. The Icons for Gliders and Helicopters were not always displaying correctly in the purchase and encyclopaedia screens. It used to show rotor separately, with armour all around as if it were a tank. It now shows the rotor joined to the helo body as it should be. In non-encyclopaedia screens it shows the Helo at 2/3 size as with bombers so larger Helos now fit the screen better. The "armour" shown is now in "aircraft style" i.e. durability(toughness) like 12(2)

7. The "second rate company" formation is now called "Combat group"

8. All 5.xx mm LMG/SAW weapons for all nations that used them in the game that had a range of 8 hexes now have a 10 hex range

9. A full set of WAV sound files have been included and a new sounds.ini has been set up to read them. We found far too many people were still having trouble with the MP3 sound files so the decision was made to include a WAV set with this upgrade. The MP3 files that were included with the original game will still be in your WinSPMBTGame DataSounds folder and can still be accessed by setting up the "MP3Sounds.ini" file also included with this patch as the default "Sounds.ini"

10. A bug was found that allowed AA guns with EW of 1-4 to deploy either "CIWS" or "ARENA" missile defences. Now fixed.

WinSPMBT v3.0 Upgrade Patch

* 25 Additional Scenarios
* 89 Updated Scenarios
* 6 Additional previously released Campaigns
* 29 New Maps and 1 Updated Map
* 113 Updated AI Picklists
* 1 Updated Leader Name File
* 6 Updated Ranks File
* 695 New photos
* Over 400 New and Revised Icons
* 92 Updated OOB Files
* Upgraded Cost calculator
* Upgraded MOBHack

1. GPS and laser Range Finder have been integrated into the game for use by FOO officers and vehicles. When Artillery observers or FO vehicles are using
a Laser RF and IF the target hex is in LOS the shell scatter will be less. A FOO with a Range Finder rating above 20 is considered to have a Laser Range
finder. If the observer or FO vehicle is fitted with GPS the scatter will be less again. A FOO with an EW value of 15 has GPS. . Forward observers with both GPS and Laser Range finders are not cheap but they do have added uses in the game ( see point 2 )

2. The game no longer automatically issues 10 artillery priority hexes per side except for sceanrio design. Priority hexes are issued based on the type of battle and the number of Forward Observers and the equipment the forward observers have available. .

3. Retreat/Rally hexes have been added to the game.

4. Opfire filtering has been added as a bonus for players owning the CD version of the game. As well, ScenHack and CampaignHack, which were issued with the last version of WinSPWW2 for CD holders of that game, have both been rewritten for use by CD holders of WinSPMBT and have been included as well.

5. Multi Charge HEAT has been added as a new weapons class so RPG-7VR, RPG-29 , PzF 3T DC and PzF 3 IT-600 DC are modeled correctly now as well as well as the Russian 125mm Tandem HEAT ammo.

6. An Optional AI force level adjustment for Campaign games has been added An INI file variable has been added (optional) for users to use to boost (or even reduce!) AI points in campaign games .

7. HEAT ammo now has a secondary HE ability. Units with HEAT ammo can fire HEAT/HE at 66% if the effect of the regular HE round for that weapon. Units will reserve the last 4 HEAT rounds for anti-tank purposes, and are more reluctant to fire HEAT/HE against soft units in the reaction fire in the opponent's turn unless at 1-2 hexes or so. ( in close combat you throw everything into the fight ). HEAT/HE cannot be area fired (Z-Key) nor does it have effects in the surrounding hexes like regular HE might, for larger warhead sizes.

8. All HE ammo has been removed from RPG type weapons that had them added in to simulate the change mentioned above. This fixes the problem of two man AT teams carrying 10 or 12 ( or more ) RPG rounds. Typically now they carry half what they did before.

9. A "View All" key has been added to the game to show all hexes currently visible to your unit and saves clicking in all 6 directions.

10. The Light helo class is now classed as an arty observer and has all the same abilities as the Leg FO and FO Vehicle classes with the exception that the 15 EW value for other FOOs is not used, as that interferes with AAA self-defence EW.

11. Arid maps Changes . Arid maps (e.g. Iraq) were sometimes being referenced as a "summer" map, so the desert icons were not being used and the "green" set was used instead. Desert icons are now used (if they have them) by units in Arid maps.

12. Artillery effectiveness against armour was too high and the following changes have been made to the code:

* Only units in the shell explosion hex will receive top hits (except cluster munitions)
* Penetration in the blast circle outside the shell explosion hex has been reduced for shell splinters (except cluster munitions)
* Armoured units may now suffer a suppression-only hit (hit by shell splinters message)
* HE penetration on armour now needs more over penetration to be certain of a penetration effect. If equal, 25% will go through, if over penetration of 6, 90%
* More chance of immobilizations (track hits) rather than kills especially if the shell size is small

13. Short range effects in infantry combat was a bit too high and the following changes have been made to the code:

1. The bonus effect for fire at 50m reduced, and takes more consideration of firer suppression
2. The bonus for being unspotted (ambush fire at short range) has been reduced and takes more consideration of firer suppression level
3. The panic fire chance at 50 metres takes more consideration of suppression to the firer

14. Barge Changes-- Barges were creating a new barge in the barge carrier when save games were re-loaded. Fixed. One barge per barge carrier now.

15. The coding for Smoke shells in campaign game upgrades was wrong and has been fixed. In campaign battles beyond the first, units will have correct smoke shell loads.

16. When "clone all" was selected in the scenario editor where the cloned units had weapons deleted ("-"), the game initialization code was wrongly loading the template weapons for all the cloned units if the scenario was reloaded in the scenario editor, or when the scenario was played as a game. FIXED. The cloned units will now retain their weapon changes

17. Maximum game points has been increased from 50,000 points to 65,000 points. Previous versions of the game allowed 65,000 points only in one specific case. We now allow the 65,000 maximum in all cases.

18. New Iran - Iraq war battle locations added

19. AI picklist revisions

20. MoBHack database checks expanded

21. Infantry and vehicles may now enter -1 water hexes. Previous to this change they could enter -1 hexes but only if they are classed as "land". There are
sticking penalties for vehicles moving though these water hexes similar to swamp or mud. Infantry move one hex per turn. The game will now also accept entering -1 into a water hex with the map editor and the change will stick. Previous to this it would not.

22. Infantry is more expensive in V3. A typical rifle squad that costs 14 points in the previous version now costs 22 but the costs vary by eqipment. A "high end"
squad that cost 34 points in the previous version costs 39 now which is considerably less. The net result is the overall cost of buying infantry in the game has gone up whereas tank costs have stayed the same or maybe gone up a point ot two .

Plus many other small tweaks and adjustments

WinSPMBT v2.5 Supplement Patch

1. A bug existed whereby secondary explosions from ammo dump explosions caused crashes . Fixed

2. A bug existed that prevented AI defender from staying in place to defend - Fixed

3. A bug existed that prevented keyboard scrolling in the game map editor - Fixed

4. A bug existed the prevented roads from showing up on some terrains in the mini map- Fixed

5. A bug existed that sometimes had the AI's units facing away from enemy units - Fixed

6. AI units will now look around their position for enemy units just the same as a human player would.

7. The code to move units from hex to hex will now ensure that turrets point in the direction of travel, and not some random last direction. NB - units with a target that have a stabiliser fitted, will track the current target as long as they have LOS to it.

8. In arid terrain, vehicles with desert camo will use these instead of the regular temperate scheme.

9. AI now buys mines in the long campaign when defending.

As well there are:

- 15 new scenarios by Ulf Lundström and Bill Wilder
- 13 new Vehicle Icons
- 48 new or revised photos
- 54 Revised OOB's

WinSPMBT v2.0 Upgrade Patch

This patch was originally intended to put the DL version of the game in sync with the CD version in terms of OOB's, bug's fixed, scenario and graphic fixes. HOWEVER----because we made such a large number of changes and additions after the CD's had already been burnt this patch should also be applied to the current CD version as well.

Note: The first 25 items of this list were included in the v1.1 CD release.

1. Points were not correctly charged for elite or second-rate troops when bought by the human player -FIXED

2. The cost calculation was done in floating point, leading to rounding down when e.g. a squad at 15 was revalued to 15.75 points, was reduced back to 15 when converted back to integer. Now rounds up to 16 before returning.

3. Combat sounds had short delays after them left over from the old DOS sound system which only played one track at a time. These have been removed, as well as reducing some delays on user messages appearing during combat sequences. Sounds should be quicker, and the delay when a unit was destroyed is gone.

4. A problem in XP which could cause a crash (and very rarely in Windows 98) when deleting formations on purchasing when the formation spanned 2 pages was fixed. Now when a formation is deleted, the entire list is recalculated.

5. Air weapons were not showing correctly in the scenario editor change weapons dialogue. The weapons list now shows all potential weapons, and since there was only room on the screen for 120 weapons we have added 3 "pages" accessed by entering negative numbers as the page number. -1 for page 1, -2 for weapons 120+ and -3 for weapons 200+.

6. Casualties for paratroops landing has been revised. Small one man teams should have less casualties on landing, as should vehicles especially the "airborne APC" class. Ammo containers no longer explode when dropped

7. Numerous OOB fixes - UK , Netherlands, India, and east Germany have had more work that some but a number of nations using 'Carl Gustaves" had them classed incorrectly in the weapons list and those have been corrected. There were a few other minor issued that resulted in all OOB's being point recalculated.

8. I new Scenarios added #107 Raid into Honduras 1986

9. 2 Scenarios reworked . Scenario #1 has been extensively revised and sceanrio #28 has had minor alterations

10. Game Options master Control Programme now exposes 2 variables that were only available through INI file editing.

A. Graphics delay is the minimum wait time between screen redraws,
and
B. Unit |Move delay controls the time units wait between multiple hex moves.

11. Game Messages Delay has been changed to work in roughly 1/4 second intervals and not 1/2 second. In addition, a user-editable modifier has been added to the INI file [game] section for those who require to radically alter the base messages delay level.

12. Instructions have been added to the sub folder of Game DataSounds for people who may encounter sound problems on their computers when using the MP3 sound files in the game. We did not include WAV files as comparable quality WAV's would have added 144MB to the amount of HD space used by the game but we have included step by step instructions for those few players who may encounter difficulties

13. There have been a few minor alterations to some vehicle SHP files

14. a few photos used by the OOB's have been revised

15. a correction has been made to the Sounds.INI file that prevented the PPsh sound FX from playing in the game

16. two in game help texts have been revised

17. The game manual has been corrected to give you more information on the additional controls added to the GameOptions Misc page

18. UAV now considered high flyers, above rifle and AAMG height and require proper AA guns and SAM to engage.

19. Bugs with Allied units showing the wrong experience level and ID tag were fixed.

20. Bug with points not being correctly charged for unit experience and morale levels fixed.

21. Bug where pressing previous page after a formation was deleted in the purchase screen occasionally crashed the PC fixed.

22. Bug where having more than 23 of a particular unit type simultaneously available caused the units to be unpurchaseable fixed. Now if more than 23 of a type are available at the first time, only the first 23 are displayed rather than declaring a formation invalid.

23. In the advance or delay with the traditional victory hex clusters, occasionally these were displayed off the bottom of narrow maps under 40 hexes tall. -FIXED

24. Bug where pressing escape in the map save screen after changing your mind on the selected save slot -FIXED

25. A bug whereby units in a campaign which used ARENA or VIRSS did not have the shots restored -FIXED

The following changes were added to the patch after the v1.1 CD release to make this the 2.0 patch:

26. Iraqi Picklist altered to give a more accurate " insurgent" type force composition for the AI. A further revised OOB

27. NVA Picklist altered to give a few armoured vehicles to the AI once in awhile while US forces are still engaged plus added APC infantry after the USA departed

28. There was a bug when the AI was buying 1/50th of the force value as mines in defence then 20% more if it was a river crossing or beach assault. - in campaign battles only. -FIXED

29. added "Dragons teeth" to hex mouse-over, if DT's are in the hex and added "Mines" to hex mouse over if mines detected in a hex

30. AI was sometimes deploying units in lakes. FIXED

31. A "mission" button has been added to the deployment screen ( Useful if you saved during deploy, and came back 2 weeks later and forgot your mission)

32. In scenarios, if the "reaction turn" is set to "turn 98" units will hold in place for the entire game and not counter attack to re-take V-Hexes. This includes both advance and assault and delay and defend scenarios"

33. New Icons include a Merkava MICV "Nemer", USMC "EFV" , British/Dutch Scarab, USA desert M3a3, German Dingo and Fennek Icons added along with a new Challenger 2 uparmoured Icon and a new 2S6 Tunguska Icon series

34. AA radars will now spot planes and helos at ranges beyond the firing unit's ground vision rating

35. The list of a campaign core force units on the upgrade/fix/review screen between battles (if allowed to refit) - was indexing incorrectly - in large cores you only saw 2-3 pages because the bug was skipping pages in the middle and showing first, second and last generally- FIXED

36. There were occasions when some maps said "town" or "city" etc, but none appeared or only a few villages seemed to appear. FIXED

37. Changes made to "Carry capacity" and "Carry cost" did not stick when changed in the editor. FIXED

38. Visibility can now be changed from the "View Map" screen. Previously this could only be changed before starting a battle. This allows players a second chance to do this while setting up a game ( for PBEM for example ) and now allows campaign players the option of adjusting the visibility during campaign games

39. There was a minor bug in the "View Map" screen where pressing ESC would not allow you to back out of that function without selecting a map number first. FIXED-- Pressing ESC while in the "Change Map ID" subscreen of the "View Map" screen will now properly exit that screen without having to enter a map ID number first

40. Updated South African and USMC AI Picklist

41. There was a bug that was preventing units from clearing mines after a save. FIXED

42. Thermal imaging sights ( TI ) will now have some LOS blocked by a fire hex (usually 2 or more fire hexes are needed for significant LOS degradation), and heavy smoke reduces LOS penetration very slightly, causing some "shadows". usually 5-6 hexes of freshly laid (full) smoke is needed to reduce TI penetration level slightly. Fire and smoke hexes do NOT reduce radar AA Fire Control LOS against aerial targets.

43. There was a difference between the way User Campaigns and Generated Campaigns allowed you to change ( upgrade ) units . This has now been standardized for both campaign types. The Unit list menu is now an "active" menu for both campaign types allowing you to select units to change from there

44. Mike Torrance's Campaign "Silver Lions" has been added

45. There was a bug where flak units firing at enemy aircraft increased the kill count with every hit even though no kills were made. FIXED

46. A bug where a fire mission could not be cancelled has been fixed.

47. A Bug where player 2 in a scenario could see player 1's troops during the pre game bombardment, if player one was the AI fixed.

48. A safety feature has been added to the scenario editor. The sceanrio editor will now auto saves to slot 999 on exit with title "AUTO SAVED SCENARIO"

49. The mini map was not centring on the location of the unit in use on the main map. FIXED

50. Vehicles and artillery pieces "dug in" in a hex showing a sandbagged revetments can now regain dug in status one turn after entering. They are not restricted to their original revetments and can enter any "sandbagged" hex to regain hull down status

51. The vehicle Load / Unload screen would not allow you to scroll around the map. FIXED

52. The game maps can now be scrolled in all directions using the up, down, left and right arrow keys. If accessed from the numeric keyboard Numlock must be OFF

53. AAA reaction fires has been tweaked a bit . If they are hidden they will fire at very short ranges only or if the to-hit is better than 9%. Therefore,- hidden tanks will not pop off at passing planes unless these spot them by flying close enough, or if the aircraft or Helo gets to a 9% to hit OR at 3 or so hexes, they will blaze away as the thing is too close.

54. There has been a slight adjustment upwards for spotting hidden vehicles when using vehicles with a Vision rating of 40 and above especially if the "hidden" tank fires

55. Spotting with TI ( vision 40+ ) decrease slightly with speed. You'll spot things a bit better if you are not moving at top speed

56. There have been slight alterations to the accuracy numbers for smoothbore guns. The length/calibre cals did not give accurate numbers with shorter barrelled smoothbores like the German L44 or the US M256 and the longer Russian barrels gave them slightly higher accuracy than reality. As well. Fire Control ( FC ) and Range Finder ( RF ) ratings were not quite giving the added benefit to higher end equipment that they should have so the formulas have been slightly altered to give greater benefit to the vehicles with the higher end equipment. Each of these factors, if overdone, have a HUGE effect on gameplay and we have endeavoured to strike a fair and balanced compromise. Sometimes even slight changes can make a noticeable difference so we've been careful not to overdo it

57. An additional PBEM security type has been introduced. "Basic" security will not kill a game ( in the most common cases ) if it detects something wrong. It will allow players to play on two machines ( on a laptop then back home on the desktop for example ) and it will not stop a game if both players are using different OOB sets. This is "Security lite" for those players who trust their opponent and just want password protection to prevent peaking and / or wants to play at work and at home and cannot with the more stringent regular PBEM security. However, it will NOT allow you to rename the save slot number of the PBEM. If you do it will kill the game.

58. A new message will appear when ground units fire at aircraft and Helicopters indicating whether the aircraft / helo was hit by ground fire. The code has always run tests to see if a hit would cause damage but until now you had no way of knowing if you were taking hits or not before the damage occurred. Now you will see a message indicating that a hit has occurred. If Damage is taken a second message indicating the damage will appear right after the hit message

59. Artillery and aircraft bomb collateral blast damage has been adjusted. Artillery cluster munitions have a minimum blast radius of 1 now and air-dropped cluster bombs have a radius of 2 hexes (speed and height of delivery, larger footprint). Previous versions of the executable had blast damage into surrounding hexes as well but we discovered a bit of code that was reducing this after it had been applied. That bit of code has been commented out and now you will find aircraft weapons and large calibre arty gives blast effects out to , in the case of 2000 lb bombs, a potentially lethal area of 200 yards around the point of impact. As well, there is a new game function that allows you to see the potential blast radius while the artillery barrage or airstrike is going on. Pressing the "R" key while in the bombardment or "Z" key menu will turn on or off the blast radius markers. There are white circles that show the maximum blast radius and there are yellow circles that show when known enemy units that are within the main blast radius are damaged by the blast effects. It is important to remember that even though the blast effect for some weapons like 2000 pound bombs may be quite large this does **NOT** mean that every hex and unit within the blast effect area is affected by the blast. This addition allows players who are interested to see just how the blast area works in the game. Blast effects are reduced by the distance from the impact hex, and the usual effects of dug-in status, being in cover etc. Cluster munitions are more evenly distributed over the blast area than an HE round, so range effect is reduced for them. Armoured vehicles more than 1 hex from the impact will tend to be suppressed by blast rather than be destroyed by fragments, except with cluster munitions.

60. Units retreating and routed will now surrender a bit more than previous when the situation is "hopeless". There is less chance of a routed unit retreating into an enemy occupied hex now

61. There was a bug which deselected the current unit if you went to the HQ menu and then exited as player 2 in a game. In certain circumstances you could then examine player 1's artillery menu, and his force structure. FIXED

62. The CostCalculator ( and all the OOB's ) has been altered to give extra cost for high-tech equipment ( Vision, Range Finder, Fire control etc) . Generally this penalizes modern kit more, with early kit staying about the same, especially if fitted with high end range finder, stabiliser, FC 35+, thermal vision etc.

- TI type sights (vision>=40) cost more (about a 40+ point raise)
- Range finder costs more, esp. range 20 or so plus
- FC, esp. over the 35 value, cost more
- stabilizers cost a bit more
- Electronic warfare (EW) more costly per point
- AAA radar FC more costly (sees planes through smoke now)
- Open topped armoured vehicles a few points cheaper

For example. A M1A2 SEP Abrams previously cost 443 points ( that is the BASE cost unadjusted for morale and experience). It now costs 526 points. An Iraqi T-72G with Vision 30 was 236 points it costs 244 now so it's really only the higher end equipment that gets the increases.

63. Cluster munitions costs and ICM (arty AP rounds) have been revised. They were not being charged very much. That has been changed upwards They are also more effective now.

64. 34 new scenarios ! Ten new scenarios from Bill Wilder and Twenty four from Ulf Lundström plus 20 new Maps

65. Some problems with ARM and PGM fired from planes in stand-off attacks resolved. (Plane would fire a missile and have a round detected, but nothing happened).

66. Aircraft PGM (not ARM which will still search for enemy radars anywhere on map) targeting modified. PGM will only be targeted on a 15 hex circle round the original target hex. There is no longer a "magical" detection of previously unspotted units, so you should aim at areas with located enemy units. COIN fighters will me more likely to attack detected infantry than other strike planes, as usual. All planes will prefer AAA type units if detected in the 15 hex radius, over any others since the rationale is they are things that attack planes, so the pilots give them a higher priority. (They also like ammo carriers, and the enemy HQ if they can see it).

67. Mostly, planes which launched a PGM or an ARM will then exit the map, without making the normal bomb run over the map to the target hex. Exception - a non-wild weasel type plane which launches only an ARM is considered to be firing that to aid its run-in to the map, so it will continue on with the plotted bomb run, unlike a wild weasel, which will pull off at long range. Planes which make a stand-off attack are only subject to fires from long range AA weapons (>100 hex range) - usually SAMs. A strike plane with say 2 Mavericks in the same weapon slot can therefore make 2 completely stand-off attacks, provided each such attack launched a missile, and only then (if it has some bombs) need it enter the map to deliver these in the normal manner. i.e you can "plink" at targets from off map, especially if the enemy have no long ranged AA.

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