By Tim Stone on July 10th, 2010 at 2:26 pm.
If you’ve got a 50-ton M60A1 Patton tank parked on your drive, Ukrainian developers Graviteam
would like to talk to you. The team responsible for the best WW2 tank sim since Panzer Elite and finest WW2 tactical wargame since Combat Mission: Afrika Korps have just put out a request on the SimHQ forums for detailed interior pictures. It seems the lads and lasses from Kharkov are in the process of building us a post-Panzer, pre-Abrams armour sim.
The precise setting for this caterpillared clashathon will be disclosed at a later date, but mention of T-62s and M60A1s means wild speculation is possible nay obligatory. In 1973 these two trundlers met on the rocky slopes of the Golan Heights and the burning sands of the Sinai Desert. Would Graviteam dare to explore subject-matter as unfashionable/controversial as the Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur War? Going by past form, yes. In 2004 a good portion of the studio worked on Balkans On Fire (or Iron Warriors as it was later known), a tank sim set against the murky backdrop of disintegrating Yugoslavia.
Other possible settings include the commercially-suicidal Iran-Iraq War, and the we-intend-to-be-in-business-this-time-next-year 1991 Gulf War. Whatever the venue, the high likelihood of vast battlefields, realistic ballistics, solid AI, and lots of tense hill-cresting, means I’ll be all over this like Zimmerit come launch day.
As there are no screenshots or vids yet, here, courtesy of stalwart tank simmer Xambrium, are some T-64s bimbling around in Achtung Panzer.
10/07/2010 at 14:49 Mythrilfan says:
I’ll certainly need to include a police chase minigame: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Nelson
10/07/2010 at 16:53 DrGonzo says:
Woah a tank sim that doesn’t look like absolute pants.
I always wonder why military sims don’t just license the engine used in Arma
10/07/2010 at 17:28 CMP5 says:
Because the ArmA engine is awful for tanks?
10/07/2010 at 17:34 TheHumanBlur says:
Achtung Panzer! is a truly awesome game – It also has the best name in the history of videogames.
10/07/2010 at 17:36 Shadrach says:
A Sinai war game would be great indeed. I think its not been simulated at all except for the true hardcore in Shrapnel’s “The Star and The Crescent”. Or, a “grognard wet dream” of NATO vs WP in Europe would be equally awesome!
As a wargamer just seeing those T62s running around in the AP engine makes my mouth water :)
10/07/2010 at 17:55 BooleanBob says:
Bal·kan
/ˈbɔlkən/ Show Spelled[bawl-kuhn] Show IPA
–adjective
1.
pertaining to the Balkan States or their inhabitants.
Just in case anyone was wondering what brought the change of title about.
10/07/2010 at 18:06 Wooly says:
Anyone else actually intrigued by the idea of an Iran-Iraq set game? I think that would be really interesting if the developers didn’t pull any punches and tried to make it really horrifying… But maybe I’m just weird… :/
10/07/2010 at 20:04 Torgen says:
Every time I think of the Iran-Iraq War, it’s of young kids forced to run ahead of the tanks to set the mines off :(
I would love to see a Yom Kippur War game, or a trusty old NATO vs Warsaw Pact game. I haven’t seen the Fulda Gap since M1 Tank Platoon.
(Is there a version of M1TP that will run on modern machines?)
11/07/2010 at 13:38 Sonic Goo says:
Maybe it’s me, but I never got the whole Fulda thing. I’d just made a big sweep past the coast, taking all the harbors (supplies!) and then through Holland on to NATO HQ in Belgium.
10/07/2010 at 19:33 Mad Doc MacRae says:
I *know* I’m weird but I would like to see a game set in the Iran-Iraq war. Just not a tank sim; I’m too dumb and impatient for sims in general really.
I don’t see why an Iran-Iraq war would be commercial suicide in a niche market like this though. I don’t know how well Iron Warriors did, but Yugoslavia falling apart isn’t exactly a mainstream setting (I doubt the average Yank or Brit even knows where Yugoslavia was, really. Certainly Yanks don’t).
10/07/2010 at 21:16 TheHumanBlur says:
@MDMR Mostly because its a period of history most Americans want to forget – A period when they were backing a regime that was involved in suspected genocide & general bastard warfare™ (chemical weapons etc) Not to mention a few horrific blunders (Among them the shooting down of a commercial airplane with something like 300 civilians onboard)
Not to say that the backing wasn’t necessary (The iranian revolution was a truly frightening thing), but I think its still a bit too relevant to not cause discomfort In many. (Also Id say a large portion of the wargaming community are ‘semper fi’ types)
10/07/2010 at 21:26 TheHumanBlur says:
Oh and dont forget us Brits:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_war
Still, I think we tend to be a little less emotional about these things. (Although the media reaction to the whole BP thing was worrying)
11/07/2010 at 08:59 bil says:
@TheHumanBlur:
Don’t worry, if the emotional attacks on BP keep going, their going to get taken over by an oil company from Libya, Dubai or Iran… so then they’ll have even more control over the oil industry than now. Actually, maybe worry… but be happy.
10/07/2010 at 23:11 Spinoza says:
yeah.. and not … i really have hope for some more WW II settings .. perhaps early war , or Winter War .. everything after 45 too early for me :-)
11/07/2010 at 01:35 TheHumanBlur says:
That would be amazing – not enough wargames include skiing troops these days
11/07/2010 at 15:22 meeper says:
The Operational Art of War (TOAW) and its sequels touched pretty heavily on the Israeli wars as well. The engine is admittedly dated these days though.
12/07/2010 at 10:05 Richard J says:
Dear Graviteam,
Please can we have catastrophic ammunition cook-offs? (Turrets flying through the air etc.) That is all.
12/07/2010 at 12:30 tigershuffle says:
I though they had cookoffs in Steel Fury……but a bit random (unless it was either a mod or a dream).
If a film has been made for a time period/conflict then it should be fair game for games companies (although sensationalist airport massacres dont help!!), and even more so for sim makers.
Just hope they factor in air support properly for the time period.