Marco Bergman

The vehicle shown is indeed a Ferdinand. It is interesting, because it is NOT one of the 48 that were modified with a hull MG and commander's cuppola, although it does have the usual zimmerit coating to half-way up the side of the fighting compartment. The tank destroyer is a Marder III (Panzerjager 38(t) mit 7.5cm Pak40/3 ausf M.) The other tank would appear to be a Panzer II ausf F, but it's damned hard to tell. The large gun is a 17cm Kanone 18 ( 17cm Kanone 18 in Morserlafette ) calibre 172.5mm shell 68 kg (HE) range 28000 M Can't identify anything else. Is it possible to rescan these at a far higher resolution?

According to my sources in Italy we used: Sherman Ib (M4 105) Sherman III (M4A2) Sherman Ic Hybrid (M4 Hybrid Firefly) Sherman Vc (M4a4 Firefly) Sherman Ib had a large, bulky mantlet, and Fireflies had the wide mantlet, so the odds are good that you are seeing early-build Sherman III. Following American practice, M10s were regarded as 76mm AT guns that just happened to be self propelled. So they were issued to 7th Anti Tank Regiment. Thier role was consolidation; holding ground in conjunction with infantry after it had been taken by tanks and assualting infantry. They were not tanks, but a more mobile AT gun. From winter 1944 onwards they tended to be used more as artillery in a support role.

To make the textures High Res, you need to enlarge their width and height while keeping the ratio the same. Normally doubling the sizes is the best ammount. Use your paint program's resize or resample (or whatever they call it) to enlarge the texture size while scaling the image. Now when you look at the picture, it looks just the same, but zoomed in you'll find that what were single pixels are now 2x2 pixel blobs. You should now be able to make small but sharp text, and sharp details. The new sizes would be: 3660 256x32 3661 128x256 3662 128x64 3663 64x64 3664 128x32

I assume this is what people are asking for. Subdued version on top. [This message has been edited by Marco Bergman (edited 01-17-2001).]

Well, if nobody says anything, how do I know there's a problem? Revised versions of most of the Sherman mods will be coming out very soon, so if people would kindly email me with specific problems/errors/requests I'll see what I can do. m_bergman@xtra.co.nz

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by von Lucke: So, um, Marco --- what else did you get in return for selling your soul to the Devil for all this talent?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Sorry, but no sale. Which probably explains why I have no social life or girlfriend. By the way, Old Dog is getting in early on this one; it's still a good week away from completion.

Grizzly was the Canadian name for M4A1s built in Canada by the Montreal Locomotive Works (Sept-Dec 1943).

Rereading my post I realised it sounds more negative than I meant. The idea is attractive enough that I tried it, after all. As Slapdragon says, if there was a pop-up unit list to select the next unit from, the idea would probably become viable. Actually, I would like to see a unit-list-popup key available, full stop. Would save me having to turn on those coloured bases all the time just to try to find all my stuff...

Try playing that way on a slower machine. You would probably give it up before the end of the first game, thanks to the slow scrolling times. I did.

Would you mind emailing a vehicle-set of Mod-managered files to Old Dog, so that we can compare how someone else is arranging these? (US M4A1 is probably the smallest.) We're just trying to figure out the best way make these mods compliant, so another input would be helpful. bnptoole@bellsouth.net

On my PII/400, 128 MB, 8MB TNT Vanta I can use all high res vehicles and trees, but need to have low res grass. Also I have to turn ambient sounds off.

If you're going to quote a source, please quote the whole sentence, not just part of it: "The M3 and M3A1 models were widely used by armoured units as ambulances, command cars, and general utility and liason vehicles." Note that the quote doesn't say M3A1 only. In fact, the entire article on M2/M3 doesn't state one way or the other that the capacity of the M3A1 was different. In fact, I refer you to the specification on page 193, which says: "Specification Designation: Carrier, Personnel, Half Track M3 or M3A1 Crew: 3 plus 10. Duties: commander, driver, co-driver plus 10 passengers." Now, I would like to refer you to page 67 (page 80 in Acrobat) of: Catalogue of Standard Ordinance Items, Second Edition 1944 (Office of the Chief of Ordinance Technical Division) which can be downloaded from: http://carlisle-www.army.mil/cgi-bin/usamhi/DL/showdoc.pl?docnum=710 This lists the following: M2 crew 10 M2A1 crew 10 M3 crew 13 M3A1 crew 13 M3A2 crew 5-12 [This message has been edited by Marco Bergman (edited 01-02-2001).]

A high-res add-on pack for non-batch users, and a full low-res pack ( batch & non-batch ) are ready, PC tested, and awaiting only Mac testing confirmation. (hint hint, aka_tom_w ) The Plainpack option gives you Olive Drab coloured UK and Canadian hull sides, top, and rear. Turrets will have to be shared with the US/FF vehicle. It isn't as bad as it sounds, because the hulls look quite diferent. This should solve the problems for Mac users who were seeing funny colour mixes on Stuart Vs, and for PC batch-free users. These will be sent on to CMHQ just as soon as all the testing results are in. In the mean time Old Dog is guarding them.

THumpre, Your problem is easily solved, although possibly not to your liking. There was a texture error in the original versions of the game, just as you described. This has only just been fixed in the 1.1B series of patches. So to fix it, you need to be running v1.1b24. Spii, The problem here is that BTS have shared the entire turret and the hull front textures between the M5/M8 and the Stuart V. That means that if you run a US/FF batch, you MUST use US/FF vehicles. If you run a Commonwealth batch, you MUST use Commonwealth vehicles. There's no way around this. You have to use all US or all British or all...etc. The Sherman II is going to suffer exactly the same problem, and probably others too that I'm not yet aware of. I covered this in the first part of the docs, but I apologise for not making it clearer. Now, at this point you're saying "but I'm not using the batch files, so answer my question" That's true, but I wanted to slip in the above explanation just in case anyone else was wondering. The best I can do for you is that tonight I will make a plain-pack version; everything will be in the US olive drab. That's the only way around this for you. You will end up with the same turret for BOTH M5 & Stuart, but distinct hulls. ( I was waiting for someone to come up with this... Told-ya-so, Old Dog. )

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Forever Babra: A couple of notes on Canadian tactical markings: The Red & White National Identifier was not used in Northwest Europe. Some examples might still be seen in Italy in '44, but I'm pretty sure it had been phased out by then. Also, the rear decks on most Shermans carried an air recognition symbol (American star in circle). In Italy this symbol was the British aircraft roundel. I'm not sure if other tanks carried these, but Shermans did for sure. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Thanks for the info, Formerly B. I try to get the markings as correct as I can given the references I have to hand, but corrections are helpful. Canadian Shermans certainly used the red/white/red marking in Italy quite often, according to my references. However I could well be wrong about putting it on NW European vehicles. I will soon be releasing a Sherman tweak pack (Older style hulls, like the Firefly; 3 piece nose option; improved nose texture; hull top with tow-cable.) What say I include an optional Canadian hull top with star, and hull side without red/white marking? And can anyone help with Polish markings? I don't have a lot on them.

I have been looking to see whether I could fully support Mod Manager for my future mods. Unfortunately if I were to provide a fully Mod Manager compliant mod, with alternate textures having the same name but in sub-folders, it would completely break my batch system. Unless I have to issue two different versions each time for both high res and low res versions, the best I can do for future releases is to include the description and info files and a preview. I guess a mostly compliant is better than not compliant at all. Am I correct in assuming that Mod Manager is designed for overall control and occasional use, not something to replace the batch files on a use-every-game basis? IE Mod Manager to install new mods when they come out, batch files for daily use. If so, then my suggestion above seems to be the best compromise. However, if I am looking at this wrongly, I am open to suggestions.

Low res version has just gone out for final testing; should be sent to CMHQ in a day or so.

Well this all went rather sour for me. After reading the docs several times (which was a trial in itself since I couldn't read doc files from your version of Word) I still managed to get this all wrong. Since the docs don't say otherwise, I assumed that if only one mod is ticked, it would just add that one. WRONG. Actually, the manager DELETED every other texture, without warning. I'm sure it is supposed to work this way, but some form of warning for such a drastic step would have saved me several hours of reinstallation. Since I doubt I'll be the only one to make this error, I thought it might prevent others falling into this trap if I mentioned it. Please strongly consider adding some form of warning, in the docs at least if nothing else, about this behaviour.

Is there anything I as a PC mod author can do to alleviate this? To be frank, I wasn't aware that converting the mods was such a big effort. If there is something that can be done at my end, would someone please inform me.

It's out of my hands now, but if final tweaking goes to plan, release will be late tonight. Gordon Molek is just chasing the last possible batch bugs. If, unlike Maximus, you don't care WHY the batch system works, you should find the transition painless. Just copy all the files, and run your old shortcuts as usual.

Could someone please tell me why the Canadians no longer can get a Firefly IIc? I know I have seen pictures of Canadian Ics before.

Gordon has done an awful lot of high-res work on these very tanks, and has passed it on to me for finishing. Will be after Christmas.

See this thread: http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/012916.html

Large caliber artillery makes bigger holes that use the same texture as the foxhole. I found this out the hard way by doing exactly what this thread asks, way back when I first got the game. It was both mortifying and hilarious to watch a rocket barrage lay down a nice pattern of pretty sandbag-lined holes...

Audace, The side picture for the H39 that you've used is actually a Renault R35, which is why you're having trouble with the track and rear sprocket, since they're in totally different places. You might be better off cutting and pasting the BTS suspension back in, and recolouring it. The M13/40 is interesting. Looking good. Surprisingly enough it is a moderately close match both in shape and specs. But of course the H39 gun is a 37 instead of a 47, so the Italians are going to be a little undergunned. The same sort of swap should be easily achieved to make a Semovente da 75/34 M42 out of the Stug III. I have 5-view pictures of both these vehicles; please email me if you want them, so that I can get around to scanning them. Need to know what size files you want.