RT Unofficial Screenshot Thread

[Artemis258]

That's the way to take a town.... piece by tiny, matchstick sized piece

[Heinrich505]

George MC,

  Nice video.  Looks very good.  You sure the lead Panther wasn't commanded by a guy with an "itchy throat?"

Heinrich505

[George MC]

23 minutes ago, Heinrich505 said:

George MC,

  Nice video.  Looks very good.  You sure the lead Panther wasn't commanded by a guy with an "itchy throat?"

Heinrich505

Ermm, actually I put the least experienced crew out front...

[Heinrich505]

  Exactly what I would have done too, haha.  Well played. 

       Not to say that the commander wasn't hunting for a Knight's Cross though, despite his inexperience. 

[Heinrich505]

September is still warm in the ruins of the great city named after Stalin.  Lt. Dragan is holding out with his small band of survivors in the Nail Factory.  But the word is given to pull out and save his men.  He was expecting to be told to die in place, but someone with some sense is apparently still in the chain of command and his men are still needed alive.

Lt. Dragan gives the order and the men start to move out, cautiously.  The Germans are all around and they cannot afford to alert them as they try to move to safety.

The men ease up to the edges of dark streets, and then dash across in reckless abandon, hoping they aren't rushing into ambushes.

 

Squads get separated in the dark.  Some ease off to the east.  The Lieutenant has a compass but he can't be everywhere.  A squad splits and half dash across the street, but then hunt forward slowly and deliberately, seeking safe passage in the dark.  The burning tank in the distance provides a little light. 

Suddenly shots ring out and soldiers scream in pain.  They have blundered into a German strongpoint.  Many fall and Private Erokhin and his friend Razev split off to the right, dashing into the nearest building to either safety or certain death.

 

 

Senior Sergeant Oblonskie sees the fire of the enemy and orders his squad to open up on the enemy position.  He hopes he has distracted the enemy enough to save the soldiers that blundered into the enemy.  The screams of the enemy soldiers blend with the screams of his comrades. 

 

Erokhin accidentally choses the right place, and he and his friend are the only two to escape the ambush.  They hear the gunfire into the enemy ambush position as they lean against the wall of their temporary refuge, breathing heavily.  They know they cannot rest though.  They have to keep moving.  More Germans will be drawn to their location soon.

Erokhin hears a noise in the next room.  He jabs his partner with an elbow and they gently ease through the doorway into pitch darkness.  They can hear scrabbling but it could be rats.  There are plenty of them everywhere.  It could be the two-legged type of rat as well.

As Erokhin's eyes sensitize to the darkness, he hears heavy breathing and then his eyes catch movement on the floor.  A Facisti is crawling on the floor, trying to escape the charnel house that was the ambush position that wiped out Erokhin's squad.  There is no hesitation - there won't be any prisoners.  Shell casings fall from his weapon.  The German is cut apart.

 

Dead German bodies mix with the rubble in the ambush position.  A squad has rushed the position from another direction and flushed the enemy out.  Erokhin can hear hushed voices speaking Russian and he knows the enemy are done.  He has enacted a small measure of revenge for the loss of his comrades.  He and his partner quietly slip in the darkness away towards possible survival.

 

Further north from Erokhin's position, Senior Sergeant Sbitnev has rushed his squad across a dark street and into the ground floor of a building.  They pause for a moment to catch their breath, looking out the windows for signs of Germans.  Suddenly Sbitnev feels a slight tug on his sleeve.  It is Andreev.  He has a pained expression on his face, and he is pointing up with his other hand. 

Sbitnev instantly feels a chill rushing up his spine as he understands what Andreev is trying to tell him.  There are Germans on the first floor, above them.  He makes frantic gestures to his men to get their attention and keep them from talking or stumbling about in the rubble.  They all freeze, knowing that they are in imminent danger. 

Sbitnev gathers the men around the rickety stairway that leads to the floor above them.  He takes the lead and the men queue up behind him, grim looks of determination on their faces.

They go up, the stairs creaking much too loudly for Sbitnev.  The Germans, if there are any up here, will have to hear us coming, he thinks to himself.  He grips his submachine gun tighter.

 

Sbitnev initially sees nothing in the dark, and suddenly he sees them, the enemy, and it appears they have complete surprise.

 

Suddenly Bolkhin stumbles up the stairs into Sbitnev's arm.  The enemy hears the noise and spin to see his men coming up the stairs.  Sbitnev's last thought is what an idiot Bolkhin is as he has probably killed them all.

 

 

A hail of gunfire erupts as Sbitnev and Bolkhin are torn apart, falling back against others coming up the stairs.  It is all close quarters and it is hard to miss.

 

More of Sbitnev's men boil up into the killing zone.

 

Now one of the Germans is down, the odds cut a little.  The situation is still desperate, but the Soviets have more sub-guns than the Germans.

 

Another German goes down.  Shell casings glint in the ambient light as they cascade from the Russian submachine guns. 

 

The last German standing has his own submachine gun.  The men keep moving to make a harder target for the enemy.

 

And suddenly the German's gun runs dry.

 

With practiced efficiency, the enemy soldier pulls up his weapon and detaches the magazine, going for the reload.  In the frantic moments of the battle he held the trigger down too long and now he has to reload in the middle of close quarter combat.

 

As the enemy grips a fresh magazine, Corporal Rakhimov reacts to the sudden silence from the German's position.

 

The German is working feverishly to reload his weapon.  He slams home a fresh magazine.  He doesn't have time to wonder if he will be quick enough.  He is merely reacting per his training.  He will either succeed or die.  There are no other options.

 

And this time it is death that takes him.  Cpl. Rakhimov has gotten off a snap shot as he rushes for the stairs and safety. 

The Corporal and the two other survivors have panicked and pound down the stairs, rushing headlong across the very street they crossed moments ago.  He and his surviving squad mates catch their breaths as they lean against the wall of the building across the street.

Another unit rushes in to help them, urging them to leave the scene quickly and come with them.  They report that the Germans are hot on their trail.

Rakhimov has now regained his senses.  He is ashamed that he left his sergeant and the others and ran like a coward.  He announces that he will return to the building and see if there are any wounded.  The other soldiers wish him well and take off - they aren't going to take any chances waiting for this idiot Rakhimov who has some death wish.

Rakhimov and the two other survivors, Mishka and Velotin, now dash across the street again and this time rush right up the stairs.  Most of his squad are dead, ripped apart by the murderous enemy fire.  But several are still barely alive.  Rakhimov is glad they returned.  They take the time to patch up their comrade's wounds, and then they carry them out the back of the building and off into the darkness, the sounds of German voices close behind. 

They have just barely made it.  There is no telling if they will survive tomorrow but they are still alive tonight.  That is something to celebrate - a Russian will always look for a reason to celebrate. 

The war goes on...

Heinrich505

[A Canadian Cat]

Brilliant stuff as usual.  Great story!

[AlexUK]

Really nice!

[Heinrich505]

Thanks IanL and Alex UK.  Always appreciated.

The maps for the Stalingrad Mod are very atmospheric at night.

 

Heinrich505

[Chudacabra]

Great stuff Heinrich! I do believe BF has done away with any hand to hand fighting that you could occasionally see in CMx1.

[Heinrich505]

Thanks Chudacabra.

Yes, while the hand-to-hand was abstracted for CMx1, you had some slight animations ( I think ) and you had audio of gun butts striking and the like.  You did get the feeling that the guys were battling it out beating the hell out of each other. 

It would be very applicable to Stalingrad, but I would guess it would still require some abstraction - twenty guys battling it out with animations that looked right might be tough to program.  It would be great though. 

Heinrich505

[kohlenklau]

For melee I think they could use a speeded up version of the whole buddy aid animation but standing up? ...Tai Chi like moves...!

Maybe put a shovel or bayonet in their hands?

[Chudacabra]

A Stug crew flees their knocked out vehicle.

[Heinrich505]

Chudacabra,

  Nice one.  What did they get hit by?  Looks like at lease three hits.

Heinrich505

[Chudacabra]

A 45mm AT gun. Not such a bad door knocker.

[Glubokii Boy]

Some spring pictures with melting snow....Using the WINTER MOD from BarbaricCO, Kohlenklau and the gang...

 

[Erwin]

Amazing pics.

[kohlenklau]

Shucks, I just happen to be working a new CMRT winter scenario!

[Glubokii Boy]

1 hour ago, Erwin said:

Amazing pics.

Thanks, Erwin

[Glubokii Boy]

24 minutes ago, kohlenklau said:

Shucks, I just happen to be working a new CMRT winter scenario!

I'm sure this will be Another enjoyable scenario...You're in the habbit of producing those...

I'm messing around a bit in the editor...I have decided to try and make a little something centered around the closing days of the Korsun-pocket episode.

I think this MOD will fit nicely for such a scenario...

I'm not sure if it will result in anything useful but i will give it a goo...

 

[DasMorbo]

I like goo.

[kohlenklau]

For Cholm I have made a small 208m x 208m map based on the GPU prison. As the prison I am using a few semi-damaged modular buildings with concrete bunkers pre-deployed in them to try to represent the thick masonry walls. I am using Juju's mods (parachutes, containers, burnt stumps and burnt building mod) and some of umlaut's mods (trees with no leaves and some factory modset stuff) and maybe some of NPye's stuff from Stalingrad. All will be properly credited in the designer's notes. I am making a few new mods as well. Maybe the map size will slightly creep up but with bad visibility the relatively close ranges are historical.

[Bulletpoint]

On 4/4/2016 at 11:32 AM, Baneman said:

Top stuff George !

These are sort of screenshots that make me marvel when people say CM graphics are old/not good enough ( maybe I'm easily pleased )

I believe most of these screenshots are heavily modded though.

[George MC]

11 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

I believe most of these screenshots are heavily modded though.

They are BUT I have a top notch graphics card, pretty beefy PC and run at top quality settings so the images are very crisp and clear. I get the same image quality results using stock 'skins'. Just the stock skins are not often as extremely dirty as players often like/want. But that aside they are very crisp 3D models with great skins in their own right. A couple of the images I was playing about with light filters "in-game" but found although they gave interesting atmospherics I lost out in crispness so I now stick to the default lighting "in-game".

[mirekm61]

Hi

a short video what's going on in my games https://youtu.be/8bKIaBe_uBM

 

[Heinrich505]

Max is panting heavily, condensation rising from his open mouth.  He has ducked down behind the rubble of a nearby building on the edge of a shellhole.  He is looking across the frozen roadway, looking at the bodies of his friends.  Some of them are still bleeding, and steam rises from their bodies in the frigid Hell of this cursed country.

Cholm!  If Hell is truly a frozen wasteland of horror, then its earthly name is Cholm.

His position was in a rock-solid frozen crater from a Stuka bomb, about 40 meters outside the walls of the GPU Prison that others are defending from the constant Soviet assaults.  Der Alte volunteered his MG team for this spot because he felt they had a better chance for survival outside the walls.  He was wrong.

Max doesn’t feel the cold, even though it is cutting through his thin uniform.  His eyes are on his comrades, partially camouflaged with supply parachutes cut to form shawls for concealment.

Thirty meters away.  Der Alte, Fritz, Scrounger…all lying there, helpless in the bitter cold.  They were cut down from canister shot from one of the damn Russian tanks that have plagued them every day of this encirclement.

Max was No. 3 man for their heavy machine gun.  When the Russian shot ripped through his comrades, training and survival kicked in and he raced for cover across the street.  He looks down in amazement at the MG 34 and belt of ammunition in his gloved hands – he has no recollection of ever grabbing the machine gun.  All he remembers is the screams of his friends.  He is filled with fury.

 

A sudden burst of machine gun fire over his shoulder causes him momentary distraction.  It is fire from a German MG behind his position.  He was unaware there were other sections behind their position. 

 

Now he hears the slap of frozen leather boots against hard roadway.  The Russians!  They come!!!  Survival kicks in once again. 

 

Sergei is panting as never before.  He has never felt terror like this, ever.  His unit was just thrown into battle this day, after a long road trip in trucks.  All he can see is the back of his only friend from their small village.  Illya was always a better runner than he.

Sergei wants to yell to Illya to slow down, but he is sucking in frozen air so fast that he can’t call out.  All he can do is run, gouts of condensed breath wreathing his face and head and trailing behind him.

The Sergeant told them to rush the roadway to the prison wall right after the tank shot up the Facisti machine gun nest.  He said it was safe.  Sergei didn’t believe him but he didn’t dare question it.

Now they run like frozen scared rabbits, towards what seems like certain death.  He ruefully thinks to himself that to be Russian is to be a fatalist.

 

Max drops to a prone position, his white camouflage smock blending into the icy snow.  He slaps the end of the ammo belt into place, slams the cover shut, and pulls the cocking lever, hoping that it isn’t frozen in place.  It racks roughly.  The steel is still pretty hot from their previous gunfire.  The belt is locked into place.

He lines up on the first Russian and he feels the comforting buck of the weapon into his shoulder as he pulls the trigger.  He wasn’t sure the damn thing would fire, but it does.  Hot brass rains from the ejector port and immediately melts into the snow to his right.  He cannot hear the hiss as the casings melt into the snow – the MG is too loud.

The rounds run true – the first Russian is cut down by a stream of hot lead.  Max sees the gouts of blood misting around the enemy soldier as his bullets rip through the man’s body.  The man is dead and doesn’t know it.  He runs a few more steps before his body shuts down and then the man collapses.  He makes no sound.  The fall of the dead man is muffled by the bed of icy cold snow that he falls upon.

 

Sergei hears the rip of nearby machine gun fire and sees Illya stagger and keep running.  He thinks for one brief moment that the enemy gunfire missed his friend.  His eyes are filled with horror as he sees the bloody mist erupt around his friend.  Illya collapses without a sound.  He is gone.

All this takes a moment to register in Sergei’s oxygen-starved brain.  He has kept running like an automaton, frozen feet in frozen leather boots slapping loudly on the frozen roadway.  He is running right into the same ambush that claimed Illya.

Terror grips him even tighter, and with great effort he slows, his boots skidding on the icy road, and then he cuts right, away from the threat and the bloody rags that used to be his friend.  There is a trench nearby.  He can make it.

 

Max sees the second Russian skid and slow, then cut away from him.  He is numb with the cold and his arms suddenly feel like frozen logs.  For a moment his humanity struggles with his emotions.  Should he shoot down the second Russian?  How many are coming down the road?  Does he need to shoot this man in the back?  Should he save his ammo?

There is a cry and a moan from across the street.  His friends!!!  He is chilled – they live!  One of them, probably Fritz, lets out a cry “Sani!!”  He is crying out for the medics, the Sanitäter.  Yes, it is Fritz.  Max recognizes his accent.

In that instant his heart hardens.  He will kill them all, every last one, to avenge his friends.  There will be no mercy this day.  He grips the machine gun tightly, steam rising from the hot barrel.  He can feel the heat on his frozen face, rising from the steel, and it feels good.  Death is coming.

 

Max opens fire again.  He has to hurry.  The Russian is fast receding from his view.  In a moment his enemy will gain cover and then probably come after him.  That mustn’t happen, he tells himself.  He has to kill them all and then maybe he can save his friends.  The Russian’s coat starts to blend into the grey landscape.

 

Sergei has only one thought.  The trench!  He can make it.  It is only 15 meters, maybe 10.  He struggles through the snow as it gets deeper away from the roadway.  His lungs are screaming for air.  He thinks it is amazing that he still has his rifle in his hands.  He has seen others throw their weapons to run faster, but he is afraid that if he is found without his rifle, the sergeant will have him shot.  He will make it.  He has to make it.

It feels like he is running in slow motion now, exhaustion is taking its toll.  The snow is fighting him but he won’t let it win.  He can’t fell any part of his body except his lungs - they feel like they are about to explode.  Hot lead rips all around him but it matters not.  The trench!  He is almost there.  He WILL make it!

 

Max walks the gunfire stream right into the Russian, just like he has been trained to do.  He sees a bloody mist envelop an enemy soldier, for the second time in what, seconds?

 

Sergei is confused.  His lungs?  Did they really explode?  His vision is clouded by bloody mist.  What is happening?  His brain is not processing what his body is experiencing.  He senses he is falling.  He can’t run any more.  Is he…dying?  Oh, God! 

Now he is on his back, staring at the grey overcast sky.  He is filled with horror and dread.  What about his family?  He remembers the party membership forms that he and Illya didn’t get a chance to fill out.  They were rushed into battle too quickly.

His blurry thoughts focus for a moment - They don’t bury soldiers who aren’t party members.  Oh, Dear God, they don’t even let the family know what happens to soldiers who aren’t party members.  His family, his mother, she’ll never know what happened to her only son. 

Sergei tries to cry out, some form of vocal anguish to express his last thoughts of terror and sadness, and to try to summon help.  He cannot.  All he can do is close his eyes one last time…

 

Max searches for more targets.  The second Russian died just as silently as the first, he thinks to himself. 

The cold is seeping into his body now, numbing his mind.  He has to remain vigilant.  There will be more Russians coming.  He has to kill them so he can get medical help for his comrades. 

What a God-forsaken place this hellhole is, he thinks.  If he ever gets out of this place alive, he will never utter the name Cholm again.

 

The war goes on…

 

Heinrich505