Cold War Game News

The M60A1 is a general-purpose medium tank of the US Army. Its production began in 1962 on the basis of the M60 tank. The M60 series became the primary main battle tank of the US Army during the Cold War.

The M60 series, except for the M60A2, utilized the excellent 105mm L7A1 British designed gun, which was produced in the U.S. and named M68. The 105mm main gun was so successful that it was later mounted on the first series M1 "Abrams" machines.

M60A1 featured a newly redesigned longer turret, with increased thickness of frontal parts and additional hull armor. The tank was also equipped with an air filtering system.

The highest priority in the supplies of the M60A1 was given to armored battalions deployed in Western Europe. M60A1 tanks fought in the Middle East wars (the Yom Kippur war, the Iran-Iraq war, the Lebanon War and a number of others) where it was effective against comparable USSR tanks such as the T-62.

Israel, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Italy, Austria, Turkey and other countries continue to operate M60A1 until nowadays.

In 1961, one of the first M60A1s delivered to Iran was transferred to the USSR where it was extensively studied that influenced the design of the Soviet T-62 tank.

Coming up to EA date, we have re-evaluated our current readiness level of the game. Not all game elements meet high requirements we planned to have for EA. Several improvements are to be made before we deliver the game to community.

Good players’ impression and positive game experience is the most valuable asset for us. We can’t put the risk on it.

We are sorry about possible inconvenience. We care about players’ satisfaction rather than allegations in lack of punctuality.

We hope that community will understand our decision.

Saved time will allow our small indie team to complete campaign for USSR.

We are focused to fix bugs by ourselves as much as possible, because we plan to pay a lot of attention to players’ feedback after release of our game.

Thank you so much to everyone!

This week we continue to cover air defense systems in our game.
The unit of this week is the self-propelled anti-aircraft gun M163 Vulcan.

The M163 Vulcan Air Defense System (VADS) is based on the M113A1 tracked armored personnel carrier, which is equipped with a six-barrel 20 mm M168 rotary cannon with range-only radar on the rotating turret. The M168 gun is a modified M61 Vulcan aircraft gun and has a high rate of fire up to 3000 rounds per minute.

Just like its Soviet counterpart ZSU-23-4, the M163 is extremely effective in a ground support role, but its primary mission is to engage low-flying air targets.
M163 was actively used by the U.S. Army in the Vietnam War, as well as exported and used in many military conflicts in the second half of the 20th century (the Lebanese War, Yom Kippur War, etc.)

This week our team focused on the infantry and its mechanics and the creation of gaming maps and game world.

Stay tuned!

https://youtu.be/dcrHvLSDY4Y

In the previous posts we covered helicopters that dominate the air.

In order to efficiently combat enemy aviation the Soviet army has a well-known anti-aircraft self-propelled gun ZSU-23-4V1 "Shilka".

A distinctive feature of this vehicle is four 23 mm autocannons with a colossal rate of fire of 3 400 rounds per minute. It is capable of protecting military convoy on the march, destroying air targets and lightly armored ground units. Firing is effective both on-site and on the move due to its integrated radar and gun stabilization system.

Terrifying ZSU-23-4V1 "Shilka" was an irreplaceable war machine in almost all military conflicts of the second half of the 20th century.

Hello, everyone!

In the next "unit of the week" post we have decided to tell you a little bit about the process of its creating. Our team pays special attention to the details and realism, that our future players will certainly appreciate.

Mi-4 (known to NATO as “Hound”) is the first Soviet military transport helicopter, also widely used by the Warsaw Pact countries. The helicopter is presented in our game in two main modifications: Mi-4A and armed Mi-4AV.

Mi-4AV is the armed version of the Mi-4A equipped with four 9М17М ATGM "Phalanga" (known to NATO as AT-2 “Swatter”) and 96 57-mm NAR S-5M. Also Mi-4AV can carry up to six 100-kg bombs or four 250-kg bombs but this option will be added later.

In our game this helicopter is versatile, it serves as a transport for the infantry and also allows you to defeat the enemy's ground equipment and infantry.


As sometimes there is no possibility to get high-quality blueprints of military equipment as it was with Mi-4AV, we decided to use the photogrammetry technology. This technology allows you to build a 3D-model based on many photos of the real object, taken from various angles.

To make photos of the Mi-4, we went to the Central Air Force Museum of the Russian Federation, where there is a great collection of unique models of aircraft of that period.


The Central Air Force Museum of the Russian Federation https://cmvvs.ru/


More than 500 photos of the Mi-4 were taken from a variety of angles.


The 3D model, which requires further refinement, was built on the base of these images.


Matching the resulting 3D model with the existing sketch drawings

HighPoly


Highly detailed HighPoly model (more than 4 000 000 polygons).

LowPoly


In game LowPoly model (34,000 polygons)

Texturing


Adding textures to the model

After setting up the animation the model is ready for integration into the game engine.

Screenshots