Panzer Corps 2 News

[h2]Axis Operations 1946 lands on November 30th, we’re a mere month from launch as of this writing![/h2]

On top of that, we have an extra special focus on the BIGGEST ground units ever seen for today’s Panzer Corps 2 Dev Diary: Landkreuzers!



For the first time in the Panzer Corps series, we’ll be bringing these behemoth vehicles to the battlefield in the upcoming Axis Operations 1946 Campaign. For anyone who doesn’t know, the concept of a Landkreuzer was to make what was essentially a mobile fortress. While super heavy vehicles such as the Karl-Gerat mortar were intended for long range fire support, the Landkreuzer was envisioned to participate in the thick of combat. Armed with battleship-grade main guns, a Landkreuzer could easily smash any Allied tank without contest. Should entire formations of enemy vehicles challenge this super tank, the Landkreuzer boasted many secondary weapons to fight with, all protected by unsurpassed armor thickness.

This uncompromising design of outrageous firepower and unparalleled protection meant Landkreuzers were designed to be more than 1000 tons in weight, so heavy that they needed U-boat diesel engines to power the tank. To attempt to bring this monster vehicle into Panzer Corps 2, we definitely had to make some unique rules just for Landkreuzers.



Landkruezer Special Rules

To make Landkreuzers work in Panzer Corps 2, we couldn’t just give them more stat inflation over say a Maus tank. Just adding more attack and defense values is insufficient for how insane the concept of the Landkreuzer really was.

The first thing we needed to do was to give Landkreuzers a ranged attack, similar to a Karl-Gerat mortar, to properly represent the range and power of its battleship-grade 280mm primary guns. This range attack is absolutely devastating to even the heaviest Allied tanks, which cannot even retaliate at extended distances.



But to prevent the Landkreuzers from being an invincible titan on the battlefield, we’re experimenting with giving it a non-standard unit strength value. By inflating this number past the default 10, we can make a Landkreuzer a target that can be swarmed and defeated by enemy tanks who manage to get in close, as opposed to giving a 10 strength Landkreuzer impenetrable 40 or 50 ground defense ratings.



In addition, the Landkreuzer acts more like a naval vessel, in that it is a single entity. This means that regardless of its strength value, it attacks and defends itself with a set number of attack rolls. This will further allow swarms of enemy tanks that managed to close range with the Landkreuzer to be able to effectively engage it, without the Landkreuzers retaliation fire instantly obliterating its assailants.

We’re in the final stages of the process of testing the exact stats and traits of Panzer Corps 2’s massive Landkreuzers, but getting these vehicles into the game has been a dream since Panzer Corps 2 first launched, so we’re going to give them all the love and attention they need to be amazing new units for Panzer Corps 2 players to enjoy!



A Unique Landkruezer

But wait, there’s more! We have a very unique announcement to make. Even more special than revealing the existence of Landkreuzers in Panzer Corps 2, we are even going to have a completely original Landkreuzer design added to Panzer Corps 2.

In the bizarre German tradition of naming larger and larger vehicles after smaller and smaller creatures (Maus/Mouse, Ratte/Rat), we have christened our original design as the Landkreuzer P.1600 Meerschweinchen.

Image Credit Google Images

Oh wait, that’s not the right image of our Meerschweinchen, it’s this one!



The main difference between a ‘normal’ Landkreuzer Ratte and the new Meerschweinchen is an even more absurd upgrade of the main armament. The Meerschweinchen utilizes a turret from a Yamato Class super-battleship, with whopping 460mm main guns! How exactly this turret ended up on a Landkreuzer, you’ll just have to see for yourself inside of the upcoming 1946 campaign.



Final Musings

Before we end this Dev Diary, I actually wanted to just share some musings about Landkreuzers with our readers.

Did you know we actually planned to add Landkreuzers to Panzer Corps 2 right after the 1.0 launch back in early 2020? I’ve wanted to add this very unique and special vehicle to the game for a very long time now, because so few games include them in their roster of units.

We discussed plans and prototypes to get Landkreuzers working in Panzer Corps 2 quite extensively. The original idea was for Landkreuzers to be true multi-hex units, with the front of the vehicle acting as the ‘head’ of a snake that the ‘tail’ unit was forced to follow in whatever path the ‘head’ moved along. While this idea worked great in many ways, especially to control the orientation of the two pieces to ensure they always remained in sync, it proved to be untenable in other ways, such as properly linking the health of the two halves together. Personally, I thought it would have been amazing to see the front half of a Landkreuzer reduced to a burning wreck, while the Maus Turrets and FlaK weapons of the back half continue to operate and fight, but alas it was not to be.

Our experiments with super-sized naval vessels proved this concept could be done so, and so we ultimately choice that option to deal with some of the more complicated aspects of implementing Landkreuzers into Panzer Corps 2.

One thing we should say though, the images you see here of our new Landkreuzers models aren’t 100% complete, we’re still making final adjustments to the formulas around these monster machines to get them nice and polished for the upcoming game release. So their size as seen here might differ from what we end up with in game. Me personally, I hope they get EVEN BIGGER, but I suspect we might have to tone down their size a little bit to better accommodate the game’s unit selection and targeting mechanics.



But not only will players have access to two different Landkreuzers, there just might be some strange circumstances where you just might encounter hostile Landkreuzer under American control. Taking on this monster vehicle and its escorts could prove to be the ultimate Elite Objective!



Conclusion

We hope you enjoyed this sneak peak into the Landkreuzers that are coming to Panzer Corps 2. Be on the lookout for our next Dev Diary, where we’ll be taking a look at even more new units that are being added to Panzer Corps 2 for its Axis Operations 1946 campaign!

So get ready for Axis Operations 1946, launching November 30th:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2393021/Panzer_Corps_2_Axis_Operations__1946/

[h2]Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe[/h2]



Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe are invading Panzer Corps 2! In the first of four Dev Dairies for the upcoming Axis Operations 1946, we’re going to have an in-depth preview on some of the new aircraft and new aircraft mechanics being added to Panzer Corps 2.

[h2]German Aircraft[/h2]

The first aircraft we want to highlight today is the Focke-Wulf TA 183 Huckebein.



When adding new units for Axis Operations 1946, we wanted to attempt a different design philosophy. Rather than continue to just to power inflate, we instead wanted to create more interesting alternative options, and the Huckebein is a great example of this. Let’s compare its stats to the current best German jet fighter, the Gotha 229:



As you can see, it’s actually inferior in almost every stat and costs more than twice the prestige, but
this is actually quite deceptive on first glance. The two stats the Huckebein trumps the Gotha over are movement speed, which is very important for airfield based aircraft in Panzer Corps 2, and more interestingly, it has an incredibly low 4 slot cost. Compared to a 5 slot FW-190 D-9, the Huckebein stats completely outclasses the FW-190 D-9.

So the end result is that we aren’t out to replace the Gotha, but we’d like to see the Huckebein coexist alongside the Gotha or Me-262 as a valuable low slot cost alternative, as fleets of just Gothas and Me-262s will very rapidly fill up a scenario’s slot limit very quickly!

Next up, we have the Ju-187, or ‘Super Stuka‘



While the Huckebein would like to co-exist alongside existing German fighters, the Super Stuka is absolutely meant to be the ultimate German Tactical Bomber. The venerable Stuka has been in every Axis Operation campaign since Spanish Civil War, and lately it has absolutely shown its age and vulnerability to interception. It’s long past time for it to get a major upgrade, and we have that now with the Super Stuka. Note that very crazy looking inverted tail, which was actually designed to rotate mid flight into this position for better control during dive bombing!

The last German aircraft we’ll look at is a flying wing. But it’s not just any flying wing, it’s a proper Amerika bomber, the 6 jet engine Horten XVIII.



We don’t want to spoil too much about this incredible machine, but I’m sure some of you have seen that gif of that other very special variant of the Horten Amerika Bomber with a rather unique payload that will also be available in Axis Operations 1946...

[h2]Japanese Aircraft[/h2]

Two of the new Japanese aircraft we want to highlight today are a fighter and a strategic bomber.



First off, we have a very unique fighter aircraft design in the Shinryu II. Basically, think of this design as someone who looked at the Me-163 and said ‘more rockets please’. This thing is just made of rockets, rockets, and just rockets. It’s rocket powered, and armed exclusively with anti-air rockets designed to shoot down American bombers such as the B-29. There’s not a machine gun or cannon to be found anywhere in this aircraft’s armaments.

To bring this unique design to life in Panzer Corps 2, it has a stat page completely unique from all other fighters. An insane 25 air attack value combined with an integrated Rapid Fire trait will make mincemeat of any American bombers, but its pitiful 5 initiative leaves it incredibly vulnerable to enemy dog fighter aircraft. In addition, it has a paltry 2 ammo count, meaning that if it takes a shot at an American B-29, it has a mere 1 shot left to defend itself from enemy fighters with, before all
following fighter attacks on the Shinryu II attack it without any fear of return fire.

Next up, we don’t just have the infamous 6 engine Fugaku, but we also have a very special variant of the Fugaku coming to Panzer Corps 2.



This special variant is borne as a result of the direct cooperation between the Axis Powers. This special Fugaku has been armed with German wire guided Fritz X missiles, making it the first, and only, aircraft in Panzer Corps 2 that has a ranged attack!



The American Pacific Fleet is going to be in for a very nasty surprise! They’re about to discover its CAP of Hellcats and Corsairs protecting its Essex Class Fleet Carriers from torpedo and dive bomber attacks can’t reach these Fugaku bombers that are raining down guided missiles on the American fleet from a most unexpected distance.

[h2]American Aircraft[/h2]

Last but certainly not least, we’ll look at just some of the new American aircraft being pressed into service to challenge the joint German-Japanese invasion of the United States. First off, we have a wooden conscript aircraft, the XP-77.



Pressed into service in the face of invasion, the XP-77 is not a high performance aircraft in the slightest. Out performed by the venerable P-51, the XP-77 was instead meant to effectively be a conscript aircraft, something that could be produced cheaply and in mass quantities very rapidly. So while the XP-77 might not seem to be a major new threat, the numbers this aircraft will appear in could be a challenge of its own kind to overcome.

Next up we have the XP-55 Ascender, or the aircraft that was seemingly ‘built backwards’:



We’ve stat-ed this new fighter fairly conservatively, looking to make it a nice new adversary for players to encounter that is about on the power level of the P-51H. Testing is still ongoing, however, so watch out for this aircraft might get a new trick up its very unusual sleeves sometime between now and the launch of 1946! Design of the Me-163 seems to be popular today, because next we have another aircraft with a very similar visual profile, the XP-56 Black Bullet.



Unlike the Me-163 and its pilot melting rocket fuel engines, however, the Black Bullet was power by an aft mounted prop engine, similar to the rear mounted prop of the Do-335 Pfeil. Historically, this diminutive fighter wasn’t exactly designed for an Me-163 performance profile, it’s small and unique designs were actually to test the concept of using Magnesium instead of Aluminium to build the aircraft with.

We better wrap up this Dev Diary though, because we’re definitely getting hungry, and the shape of the Vought XF5U is only making us think of one thing... pancakes!



Historically, the hope for the very strangely shaped ‘Flying Flapjack’ would be to potentially usher in the next generation of piston engine aircraft. Whatever improvements these designs may have provided to piston engine aircraft were however moot, as the emergence of jet aircraft superseded propeller driven aircraft. But in Panzer Corps 2’s alternate history of 1946, we’ll be seeing this aircraft pushed into service in the defense of the United States against the joint German-Axis invasion!

[h2]Conclusion[/h2]

We hope you all enjoyed this first reveal on just some of the new aircraft being added to Panzer Corps 2 for its upcoming 1946 Axis Operations campaign. Just remember these are just a few of the new designs being added to Panzer Corps 2, and there are even more coming that we have not covered today!



So be ready for even more new aircraft to be included and don’t forget to add Axis Operations 1946
to your wishlists

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2393021/Panzer_Corps_2_Axis_Operations__1946/

Do not miss the chance to sign-up to the new October Chess Tournament which will feature the 3 multiplayer chess maps.

You can sign-up here.

The tournament follows Swiss Tournament rules: you can find the full list of rules here.

The first round will commence on Friday, 6th October 2023. No further entries can be accepted after the tournament has begun.

The tournament will last 3 rounds, 10 days each. Games are paired, so each matchup will be played both ways. All you need to do is sign up, then the system will pair you with opponents and create your PBEM games. You will be notified by mail of when the tournament is starting and when it will be time to play your turns.

It is said that every end is a new beginning, and Panzer Corps 2 is about to embark on an unprecedented journey. Building upon the alternate history established in previous DLCs, we are delighted to announce Axis Operations - 1946.

Wishlist now:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2393021/Panzer_Corps_2_Axis_Operations__1946/

This monumental expansion invites players to explore an original and expansive campaign, where the Axis Powers launch a joint invasion of the United States.

Prepare your Wehrmacht invasion forces for their ultimate battles as they confront the mighty United States in a colossal 30-scenario campaign spanning from coast to coast across the Continental US.

Players can expect a truly unique narrative as they navigate the intricacies of this captivating alternate history. While Axis Operations 1946 draws upon the rich lore of its predecessors, it has been meticulously designed to welcome both new and veteran players. The introduction of a tiered objective system adds depth to the gameplay, including Primary Objectives, Bonus Objectives, and Elite Objectives.

Panzer Corps 2: Axis Operations 1946 introduces exciting gameplay elements, including:

• Special extra-large unit models for warships, such as the Japanese Super Battleship Yamato
  
• American Atomic B-29 Bombers
  
• German Atomic-armed V-2 Rockets
  
• Japanese 6-engine Fugaku bombers modified with Fritz X Missiles
  
• Several entirely original unit designs created exclusively for Panzer Corps 2
  
• Landkreuzers!
  

In addition to these extra special units and their new mechanics, the release of Axis Operations 1946 will also be adding a wealth of more than 50 new, high quality, 3D unit models to the game's extensive roster of World War II vehicles and aircraft!

As with previous Axis Operations DLCs, players can import their core forces from the previous Axis Operations 1945 East campaign or utilize a preset core force to embark directly on the Axis Operations 1946 Amerika campaign.


[h2]Join Now: Beta is Open for Sign-up[/h2]

We are recruiting new participants to test Panzer Corps 2: Axis Operations - 1946. Give us your feedback and sign up for the Beta on the Slitherine Website here

Will you rewrite the course of history, or will the United States prevail against the mighty Axis forces? The fate of nations awaits your command, stay tuned for more updates.

Everyone,

Another Panzer Corps 2 article is on its way! Get ready to meet Kerensky, who will provide us with an exclusive sneak peek into the upcoming Panzer Corps 2: Axis Operations - 1946.

You can find this Slitherine editorial, titled "The Insider," on our Slitherine website.


We will be releasing more information about Panzer Corps 2: Axis Operations - 1946 soon, so stay tuned