Changes in version 2.00

1) Helicopters; Helicopter gunships armed with ATGMs have been recoded as direct fire only. Those primarily armed with unguided rockets have retained their indirect fire capability. I have recoded all helicopters to give a token assault value (of 1) to all helicopters armed with at least one mg. This is to give some protection from assault by enemy forces, and to allow them to carry troops into an assault situation. Defence values have been reassessed, for the most part this has resulted in only minor changes. Victory points have been greatly increased to discourage gamey tactics, and give a more realistic value to these units. Later advanced ATGM equipped Gunship helicopters have been given increased hard attack values, to increase effectiveness especially at long range against MBTs. MBT's attack ranges (except for those equipped with ATGMs) have been limited to 16 hexes, to allow helicopters to attack them from long range without fear of return fire.

2) Mechanised (BTR) Infantry platoons and BTR platoons have been increased to 6 SPs.

3) Early period infantry 3D bmps changed.

4) Lebed LCAC 3d graphic changed.
 
Many small changes to unit codes.



Original Design Notes

1) In DG Edit Order of Battle program, you will find the new Soviet/Russian units under the "Soviet Union" slot, the "Russia" slot is empty and will probably be used later for China.

2) Aircraft armed with long range missile weapons, such as the Su-24 Fencer armed with the Kh-29T (unit P02165), are treated as off board artillery rather than traditional Airplanes. They will be found under "platoons" in the Order of Battle editor, rather than in the traditional airplanes selection method.

3) DG gets a bit confused with airplane defence values if you have more than one type of plane on one side in a scenario, you may want to stick to only one type per scenario. This may be a fault with all Campaign Series games, not just DG.

4) I have included some prototype units for hypothetical scenarios, some of these may still enter service in the near future, some such as the TOS-1 and Ka-50 may have been used in the Chechen conflict;

IT-130 Tank Destroyer (Prototype vehicle from 1960/70s)
T-94 Tank
Black Eagle Tank
Ka-50 Attack Helicopter
Mi-28 Attack Helicopter
BRM-3 Recce vehicle
9P157-2 SP ATGM
AT-14 BMP-3 SP ATGM
BMP-4 APC
BTR-90 APC
BMP-T Escort Vehicle
BTR-80S with Kliver turret APC
SU-39 Frogfoot

5) Other very rare units have also been added, because they did see service in limited numbers;

T-44 tank
IT-122 Tank Destroyer
IS-4 Heavy Tank
IT-1 Missile Tank
Kondensator 2P 406mm SP Gun

6) I have include some types of Hovercraft vehicles (LCACs), but I am not totally happy with the way these are represented in the game. The larger LCACs (Aist and Pomornik) are huge vessels capable of carrying a huge amount of men and/or vehicles, the Pomornik for instance can carry 360 men, the Aist 150 men. Of course Campaign Series games only allow a vehicle to carry a platoon, at most 6 sps. I have allowed these LCACs to be used and moved on map (however they will not be able to fire from deep water, another Campaign Series fault), but would suggest that they should be used as off map artillery support, and their cargo introduced as reinforcements in the desired hex locations. I used movement sound 4 for the Hovercraft, and changed it from the WWII German armoured car sound to a heavy propeller driven plane sound, which is very similar to sound of a hovercraft.

7) Some Weapon attack values may seem a little strange. Some have zero attack values for the first few hexes (this represents minimum ranges of things like heavy mortars, ATGMs, SAMs etc). Some have a big jump in attack values after the first few hexes (this represents units having more than one weapon, one of which has a minimum range, so at first the secondary weapon is in use until the minimum range of the main weapon is reached). Some units may have the same weapon as another platoon, but have different attack values, this represents the effect of better fire control systems.

8) I have recalculated the weapon attack values of the FROG (and SCUD etc) rockets. Some of them (FROG3 and SCUD A) now have very small attack values. This is intentional as these systems were very ineffective when firing conventional HE warheads, due to their very slow rate of fire and extreme inaccuracy. They were really designed to fire Nuclear warheads, and as such their range and warhead size would have made them useful weapons. But DG does not allow for the accurate representation of nuclear warfare, and so I have chosen to assume that they are equipped with conventional warheads only. Just think back to the Gulf wars and how ineffective even later designs of SCUD were.

9) Some AT guns (M1955 57mm, SD-44 85mm, and the 2A45 125mm) are auxiliary powered by small motors and are capable of limited movement (but faster than being pushed by the crew). They use the motorbike movement sound, so don't be startled when they move!

10) The BMD-3 can be airdropped with it's passengers already inside. Earlier BMDs (BMD-1 and 2), should be airdropped seperately from their passengers.

11) Some weapons may have unexpected firing sounds, ie 30mm Grenade Launchers and 2B9 Vasilyek mortars. These are intentional as these weapons are capable of automatic fire, and would therefore not sound like normal mortars.

Many thanks are due to Matthew Cornford (for his modified OOB editor which opens up the period 1948 to 1999).

Paul Adaway

19/07/03