Previous Page End Next Page Development History What is new over SP2? The following is a general list of improvements in this game (WinSPMBT), as compared with the original SSI post war wargame Steel Panthers II : Modern Battles (SP2), as some players will not have experienced the changes in the SP2 game engine.

The artillery routine was completely revised and these changes were carried into WinSPMBT right from the start. Your artillery fire now lands at the end of the enemy player turn, as opposed to SP2 where it landed at the end of your turn, thus allowing your opponent to rally away the suppressive effects. You can now take advantage of your artillery's neutralising effects properly. This means predicting where the enemy will be when the shells arrive is a much more challenging procedure than has been the case in the past. You will no longer be able to simply shift fire a hex or two and have your artillery land right after you press the end turn button. This is a MUCH fairer system for both sides and better reflects "reality" where orders from the front lines had to be passed on to the gun troop commander who then passed the correction onto the gun crews who then adjusted their fire to new co-ordinates. This was not something done in a minute or two and this new system reflects that. The change takes a game or two to get used to but once you have played this way you will agree it is a better system than what was in place in the past. As well, guns that have high turn delay ( such as .05 ) will deliver fewer shells on target than if the delay was .00

Expanded map size. SP2 maps were limited to a maximum of 80 hexes height and 100 width. MBT maps can now go from a minimum of 20 hexes wide and 20 hexes high to up 160 hexes wide and 200 hexes high. ALL maps are fully playable in generated, campaign, PBEM or scenario based games. AI deployment routines for units and victory hexes have been re-written to accommodate every map size. Campaign players now have the added bonus of pre-selecting map size before every game to allow them to tailor map sizes to fit their campaign core size.

Area fire can now be directed through smoke at reduced effectiveness and accuracy

Enhanced secure Play By E-Mail mode, this makes cheating rather more difficult than the original SP games, where an opponent could simply re load the turn and replay it as much as desired before returning this to you. We provide a non secure PBEM mode for those who do not need the encrypted secure mode.

You can now play scenarios against a human opponent in PBEM or in hot seat mode (handled like PBEM, but on the same PC), not just being limited to the AI.

Dates can run from 1946 to 2020, SP2 only ran 1950 to 1999.

Availability dates work on month as well, SP2 availability dates were by the whole year only.

92 Nations (OOBS), SP2 was limited to 43 nations. MBT national flags change to the appropriate one for the year when necessary, e.g. from USSR to Russian flag. Nations appear at the appropriate time (e.g. Ukraine, Zimbabwe) or disappear (e.g. Rhodesia, ARVN).

Expanded OOB files, MBT can have 999 units, and 999 formations in its database, SP2 was very much smaller than this, the expanded MBT OOB size allows designers to produce a much richer palette of forces for you to command.

Expanded maximum units in a game. SP2 was limited to around 200 units per side, and about 49 formations. In campaigns, core size maximum was about 100 units. In MBT, you can have up to 500 units per side, in up to 200 formations, and cores of 200. Thus much larger battles are possible.

Expanded unit classes. SP2 was limited to about 40 unit classes, MBT has about 255. This enables OOB designers to assemble much richer OOBs, and to handle mixed formations much better.

Expanded terrain types. We have added mud, impassable to vehicles terrain, orchards, hedgerows, fire trenches, volcanic sand, railway and tramway terrain tiles. Fire trenches may be bought and laid out by the defender similarly to mines, dragons teeth and much more.

Expanded terrain heights. SP2 was only capable of maps of 3 terrain height levels. MBT maps can have 15 levels, 5 times more. Truly mountainous maps can now be generated, for example in Afghanistan.

Enhanced terrain map generation routines. We have nearly tripled the number of variables used in computer map generation compared with the original SP2 code. MBT maps can be custom tailored with for example, tree lined roads, paddy fields inside bund walls, or to generate urban sprawl or villages, and a new town type of map intermediate between the old full map city grid and the villages.

Enhanced battle location generation. In SP2, when 2 nationalities fought each other, only one default battle location was used. This soon grew tiresome after a few battles!. MBT generates historically believable battle locations for the major conflicts post WW2 that occurred, or had the potential to occur (such as a NATO v WARPACT WW3). The battle location code for the USSR vs Afghanistan is 1286 lines of 'C' code for example.

New Aircraft classes, SEAD planes to perform wild weasel strikes, Level Bombers to perform arclight missions, Transport planes to drop paratroops, spotter planes and UAV for scouting. New heavy transport helicopter class.

Parachute drops and Gliders can be used for air landing of troops.

Many new unit classes allow richer OOB designs. Some specialist infantry classes have additional abilities in close combat, or in crossing impassable terrain, or are trained paratroops. Some APC may be more resistant to mine explosions.

Formations may have morale and training bonuses both positive for above average troops, or negative for less elite groupings. Appropriate points cost modifiers are made here, unlike SP2 which charged the same points for a T72 whether crewed by experience 60 conscripts or by experience level 90 veterans.

New weapon classes and defences. Top Attack missiles attack the thinner top armour of MBT, multi charge ATGM help defeat Explosive Reactive Armour defences. Autocannon can engage low flying planes and helicopters. Advanced ERA such as Soviet Kontakt can deflect AP shot. Visual and Infra Red Screening Smoke can defeat incoming ATGM, and Soviet Arena active countermeasures systems can hard kill them.

The unit information screens now show much more data than before, when purchasing units, you get to see the full ammo loadout, whereas in SP2, you were often in the dark as to how many missiles a TOW jeep carried for example. New armour information lets you cycle through the 3 armour types for vehicles, steel, anti HEAT and ERA, with the ERA values being current reflections as to how many charges remain on a face. Informational text is made available for units, and also at the formation level.

New cross attachment code lets you reorganise your companies, platoons can be moved under command of different company commanders. In campaigns, you can attach support troops bought for this mission under your core troop companies for the current battle. You can still attach individual units as with previous SP games, but we now ensure that the command unit cannot be attached away, leaving a 'phantom commander' as was the case in older versions of SP games.

More information about your troops is now available in the new headquarters and company details screens, for example which platoons belong to B company.

In campaigns, you can use your repair points as buy points to expand your core force. Therefore you do not require to buy lots of cheap armoured cars and trucks at campaign start in order to change these into useful units later on as in older SP series games.

You can set up user or historic long campaign difficulty levels, either making it easier by granting yourself more repair points, or less so as you wish.

Air parity is allowed now, just because you have been granted a few air strikes does not automatically mean your opponent has none as was the case in other SP games, he may have a few, or even a few more than yourself. You will always have to guard against the air threat, unless the opponent is completely bereft of air, e.g. the VC.

All fixed wing assets are off map assets, only helicopters are under hex by hex player control.

Units with smoke dischargers can pop these in response to enemy incoming fires. Units when fired on from the flank will often turn to face the firer, thus presenting thicker armour and/or locating previously unspotted firers.

Infantry when fired on can hit the ground, and possibly take cover perhaps even breaking LOS. Infantry can suffer from tank panic and flee from AFV if not equipped with AT weapons.

When infantry fight in the same hex, melee combat may occur, and some troops such as commandos and paratroops are better at this form of close combat. Sometimes in close quarters combat, troops especially if low morale or experience may be panicked and hence produce less accurate fire than would normally be the case.

The AI is considerably enhanced as compared with the SP2 version. It is not as objective obsessed, and will attempt to flank your entire position as well as bypassing round strong points. It is somewhat more cautious than the 'tin lemmings' of SP2!. The AI uses an adaptive purchase routine which uses points remaining and chance die rolls in buying its forces thus you will find enemy forces bought by the AI more varied than in SP2. The AI no longer assumes that if it is granted air strikes that its opponent will have no aircraft, so it buys AA assets even in this situation. The AI will use opening barrages in non assault games now, and it will often target the roads inside the human deployment area as human players tended to get into the habit of forming a traffic jam here against the old SP2 AI, which did not fire such missions. The AI will often plot interdictive missions on approach roads, bridges and cross-roads in no mans land as well, unlike previously. It also now knows about the smoke hexes that indirect fire of on map artillery leaves in SP series games, so will counterbattery your on map artillery assets more than you may have experienced in SP2 games. You will therefore have to learn shoot and scoot artillery tactics. It will now sometimes launch a patrol into enemy territory when defending, to locate your approach, or launch a spoiling counter attack. When defending, the new AI knows about the old human trick of running an end run along the top or bottom map edges, where the old SP2 AI would often not lay mines. The new AI will often lay edge of map mines, sometimes several layers deep. It now lays random individual mines or groups of mines on road hexes in its defended zone, and on bridges these may be backed up with a barrier (represented by a dragon tooth hex). The new AI knows that defending forwards when defending a river crossing is a good idea, it wants to shoot up those vulnerable rubber rafts now!. It will lay dragons teeth when defending a beachhead as well in some cases. In MBT, it knows about helicopter transport, it will use these in all battle types, not just when assaulting you, and it will try to get into the rear of your half of the map sometimes, even in a meeting engagement. If these transport helos are well armed, it will use them to cause annoyance to you as well whilst ammo remains. It may begin the game with SEAD strikes on your AAA systems. It may hold reserves, especially of attack helicopters and desant airmobile units to launch into the battle later on, perhaps to retake some objectives when the human player has moved on from these.

Expanded tools for scenario designers. Troops may be designated as reinforcements which arrive later, and this mechanism can be used e.g. for pop-up partisan units in certain scenario types. You can change the map side of the 2 players from the default game assigned setup. Scenario designers can set the various water variables for river crossing and beach assault missions. In user campaigns, pre determined auxiliary troops can be granted to the player, and if desired these can be in fixed positions which the player cannot alter on his deployment. Scenario designers can now add descriptive label text to hexes on the scenario map. As we now allow 125 waypoints to be plotted instead of the 10 of SP2, scenario designers are free to be more creative in setting up AI movement on map, for say patrol paths.

We provide the Mobhack windows based data editor. This allows the skilled end user to adjust unit, weapon and formation data to his liking (but incautious use of this may affect scenarios). SP2 of course provided no such utility.

Release History

This section provides information on the changes to the game made since SPMBT Version 1.0 was first release in 2001 with the latest changes first and the oldest last

WinSPMBT version 6.0 Upgrade patch ( Released March 2012 )

21 New Scenarios
49 Revised Scenarios
7 Revised Campaigns
20 Revised Campaign files
1 New Map
701 New or revised Photos
194 New or Revised Icons
92 Updated OOB Files
22 New or Revised Icon Graphic files
3 New or Revised Text files
2 New Sound files
16 Revised picklists
Upgraded SHPEdit
Upgraded MOBHack
Upgraded Cost Calculator

Snipers can now target and destroy IED's. However, it is not a "one shot, one kill" type of thing and the heavy anti-material rifles work best.

AI controlled Helicopters will now occasionally pop up to high altitude to "look around" then drop down again.
Problems with close range Z fire scattering too far have been resolved. Firing at 3 hexes or less, even blind fire with no LOS, will not scatter onto the firing unit or stray wildly from the target hex

Destroyed or damaged core units now do not add back their full cost if their core formation is deleted. They will only return their cost minus the damage inflicted. Previously, if your core unit was worth 250 points for example and it was totally destroyed (0) or damaged (-110 damage points for example) then deleting the formation gave you back the *full undamaged value* of 250. This gave you "Free money" for destroyed or damaged units. With the current code, you will get 0 points returned if your formation is completely destroyed and any damage points will be deducted if it is just damaged

The code routine that calculates the number of turns in a game has been re-worked and now the game takes better account of wide (X) and high (Y) maps with extra turns added for large maps, and some deducted from smaller with added turns now given for attack and assault battles

A bug in the main code for regular and campaign games that affected defend battles for players with very large cores has been corrected. In the past if the core was near the maximum there would not be enough points available to assault a force that size. Now, if the core is too large to allow the proper ratio of attacker/ defender in a defend battle defend battles will be rejected and the game will select a different battle type so players with large cores especially in campaigns where they have added to their core force and increased their overall morale and experience levels to the point there were not enough points or unit's/ formations available to attack them with may never see a defend battle. What had been happening was when the core value became too high it broke through the maximum value allowed and wrapped around upon itself creating very small attack forces for the AI

Both games OOBs have been checked and standardized for the following items for ALL units in ALL OOBs in BOTH games

- Infantry size. ALL infantry units that are NOT scouts are now size zero if they are 4 men or under and scout units are size zero at 6 men and under. The rest are size 1
- Hand grenades have been standardized at 2 grenades per man for regular line infantry, 3 grenades per man for elite or specialist infantry like Paratroops and 1 grenade per man for second rate units like militia or partisans
- Infantry rifle and LMG ammo has been standardized to a scheme mechanically determined by code, not whim and has been applied to all applicable units. If, for example, Nation A has a section with 9 men it , every other 9 man section will have the same rifle and LMG ammo. Elite or second-rate classes may have a few more or less than a regular.
- Infantry speed checks were made for cavalry =speed 12 , bicycles=speed 9 and infantry limited to 6 movement points max if not a scout . Swim speed checks were done for infantry with all reset to 0 except for a very few specialist frogmen which are now swimspeed =1. Cavalry was standardized at swimspeed=1
- Survivability- This field has been zeroed for any Infantry , off-map artillery, or aircraft and helicopter classes that may have had a rating applied over the years for units in these classes do not use this rating
- Heat armour- If HEAT armour was less than steel for any facing the error was corrected

MOBHack has had more selective items added to the cut and paste section . Previously there was " Paste armour suite only" and " Paste as target Nation" to that we have added. All of these were added to streamline the process of ensuring a unit used by one nation, and the same unit used by another, stay the same where it is applicable to be so.

- "Keep target unit dates" -This allows you to copy a unit's data from one OOB and paste it into another existing unit and maintain the in service dates for the target unit
- "Keep target unit weapons" -This allows you to copy a unit's data from one OOB and paste it into another existing unit and maintain the weapon slots used for the target unit. Frequently, the same weapons use different weapons slots in different OOBs and this allows you to maintain the existing weapons used by the old unit
- "Keep target unit Icons" - This allows you to copy a unit's data from one OOB and paste it into another existing unit and maintain the Icons used by the target unit. Many vehicles have unique Icons used by different nations even if its just tan Icons used by desert Nations and green Icons by the others.
- "Keep target unit UnitClass"- This allows you to copy a unit's data from one OOB and paste it into another existing unit and maintain the UnitClass for the target unit. For example, a tank may be "MBT" class in one OOB and "Medium tank" in another. When faced with dozens of changes made to dozens of units in dozens of OOBs this comes in handy

These additions greatly helped speed up the process of standardizing or changing units and can be used in combination EXCEPT for " Paste armour suite only" which must be used alone

The code for snow vehicles has been altered so that these vehicle types are also now far less likely to get stuck in soft sand, volcanic ash, mud,water etc. This reflects the multitask use of the BV202/206 vehicles that mainly make up this class

A bug has been fixed where switching between the armour descriptions would change Helicopter altitude.

The Libyan now reverts back to the correct national flag after the fall of Ghadafi.

All on map TOWED arty over 155mm has been removed from the game leaving only off map arty and SP arty in that caliber now. All 150mm-155mm standard arty now has the same ROF. It had been 4 for some and 5 for others and is all 5 ROF for that size now . All towed artillery, both on map and off map, has had the ammo loadouts standardized by caliber so all nations using the same sized gun get the same amount of ammo with smaller caliber's having more ammo than larger caliber but now, all will be the same instead of one unit in one nations OOBs having 40 rounds and another unit with a similar caliber in the same OOB with 50 rounds and the same gun in a different OOB having 30 rounds. As well, all (+) double ammo loaded, on and off map artillery units, have been removed from both games and for winSPMBT 155mm is the maximum caliber for on map TOWED arty. Anything over that is now off map or , in some few cases, SP arty only. This was a major change in both games that took nearly a week to individually comb through every OOB to complete.

There has been a very large number of OOB changes made to the winSPMBT OOBs. The list of items completed this time around ran to 209 pages which is over double the average update. We estimate that there has been, at the very least , 25,000 individual data changes made with nearly 4500 items marked "done" with a great many of those issues requiring multiple data changes in a number of OOBs. This is why all of the new MOBHack utilities exist, to speed up the data changes that have been made to winSPMBT this time around. The end result should be more consistent and accurate OOBs

As usual we remind everyone that on going secure PBEM games WILL fail if this patch is applied while they are being played.

WinSPMBT version 5.5 Upgrade patch ( Released March 2011 )

15 New Scenarios
30 Updated Scenarios
8 Revised Campaigns
36 Revised Campaign files
1 New Terrain type ( Desert Houses )
337 New or revised Photos
530 New or Revised Icons
92 Updated OOB Files
40 New or Revised Icon Graphic files
12 New or Revised Text files
1 Revised map
43 Revised picklists
Upgraded Cost Calculator
Upgraded MOBHack, MOBHack.INI and MOBHack Help file
Upgraded ScenHack
Upgraded Camo Map Editor
Upgraded Game Options

1/ Guns or vehicles loaded onto their transport planes in the game have their crews split off when loaded so they are dropped separately. Previously there was no way to rejoin them during the deployment phase. New code has been added so that in the deployment phase only, if you unload one of these units from a TRANSPORT AIRCRAFT, the crews will be re-united with their gun or vehicle by pressing ' J '.

2/ All Anti Tank gun unit classes have had their cost reduced by approximately 25%

3/ The GameOptions program will now auto-detect if your operating system is Windows XP or earlier or Vista / Win7 and any future OS Microsoft may release. If it finds you are running an operating system newer than Windows XP it will automatically run a command line that shuts windows explorer down briefly then restarts it ONLY IF you have the game set to run in FULL SCREEN MODE.

4/ There was a minor bug that allowed artillery falling on map in some cases to affect off map units. This has been corrected

5/ HQ's, scout classes, Forward Observers and ammo vehicles will now withhold opfire if they have not been fired on so these units will no longer give away their position prematurely. This makes scouts , for example, much more likely to be bypassed than in the past

6/ Anti Tank guns and flak units will also withhold fire on moving infantry and some soft vehicles as well but will not let the enemy get as close as Scouts etc.. This is an improvement on past code that tended to allow opfire from Anti Tank guns and flak units at moving infantry from long ranges when they should have stayed concealed.

7/ Non FLAK units in the delay or defence will not fire AAA weapons except if the fighter bombers are very close in the first 12 or so turns . This stops " recce by spotting AAMG fires "', if you put strike planes in as a pre-game deployment to find the enemy layout. Those units with AAMGs WILL fire at paratrooper carrying aircraft and gliders normally, however.

8/ There was a small section of code missing from the pre-game deployment screen (L)oad and (U)nload ALL UNITS routine where the (ESC)ape key did not allow you to change your mind but loaded or unloaded all units when the (ESC)ape key was selected. This has been corrected and the (ESC)ape function now allows you to back out of that situation

9/ Units on water that were destroyed were not being credited as kills. Now Corrected

10/ There is new min range code for artillery based on 1/5th of the units range with 5 hexes being the absolute minimum on map artillery units will target indirect, up to 20 hexes minimum. An on map gun , for example, with a 90 hex range would be able to target units a minimum of 18 hexes from the gun. All guns with a range greater than 100 hexes will only be able to fire at targets greater than 20 hexes from their location on the map. Mortar units on the other hand will have their minimum ranges determined by their sabot range with the absolute minimum mortars can target indirect now being 2 hexes.

11/ The PBEM long campaign was not supposed to have special battles, but a bug was allowing these through. The campaign loop now clears down the special battle flag in the correct place and these will no longer show up in PBEM campaigns.

12/ Widescreen support has been added to the game for CD owners. This will allow you to run the game at the same resolution as your normal desktop. If a player wanted to use a resolution OTHER than the current windows desktop mode (e.g. to run the game in 1024x768 full screen, with the desktop set to say 1280x1024 ) then he would need to set the windows desktop to the desired size before starting the game. (Click on desktop, settings, choose required windows mode).

13/ The game code has been altered to make it much more windows friendly when it comes to CPU usage. In the past the game wanted all the resources it could have all the time including that time you were away from the keyboard making a cup of coffee or thinking about what you would do next. Now, the CPU usage will drop considerably when the game is waiting for input from the human player. It still requires all the CPU usage it can handle when the AI is moving but once it is the human players turn many players with high end computers will notice their machine is not working nearly as hard as it used to be and the effects are more obvious the newer and faster your computer is

14/ There were numerous minor unit , weapon and formation changes made to the OOBs .

15 / SAMS are now filtered on warhead size versus spotter planes and UAVS. Large SAMs will no longer needlessly engage small spotter aircraft or UAV's. These will be left for the smaller SAMs

16 / SP ATGM classes allowed smoke if "main gun" ammo had a Warhead size greater than 3 which allowed SP ATGM units smoke when they should not have it. This has been rectified in the code and smoke will no longer be issued to those units

17 / Unit class #59 and #102 are tank classes than now allow up to 4 passengers to be carried as if they were APCs and are used specifically to allow Israeli Merkavas to carry 4 men internally

18/ All ON MAP rocket units that had a minimum range close to or exceeding 10km have been removed from ON MAP formations and now can be found solely in OFF MAP formations

19/ Reaction fire with HEAT being used as HE against non-vehicle targets was previously restricted only to close range targets (about 250 metres).Now, units will occasionally reaction fire HEAT as HE out to longer ranges of 1 km (20 hexes). This is especially likely for the CS-tank classes.

20/ A new terrain set has been added to the game that will place single hex desert houses when desert maps are called for on all auto-generated maps. For sceanrio design purposes either house type can be placed on maps simply by switching between desert and summer .

21/ Added Georgia and South Ossetia battle locations for RED (Georgia) versus Russia in 2008.

22/ Smoke was not being replenished in some cases in Campaigns. Now corrected.

WinSPMBT version 5.0 Upgrade patch

19 New Scenarios
53 Updated Scenarios
130 New photos
159 New or revised Icons
92 Updated OOB Files
2 New and 1 updated sound File
19 New and Revised Graphic files
19 New and Revised Text files
11 New maps
Complete picklist update
Upgraded Cost Calculator
Upgraded MOBHack and MOBHack Help file
Upgraded ScenHack
ArmourCalc
APCalc

1) There has been a new "explosives" class added to the game. These explosive devises can self detonate when enemy units are nearby and, in the case of Demolition Charges and Fougasse can be "command detonated" on the players turn who "owns" them, IF there is radio contact, by selecting the explosive charge then pressing "F"
2) Buildings that collapse into rubble for any reason will now cause casualties to anyone in the building with more potential damage if the building is stone. Previous to this there was no test in the code for such casualties.
3) Engineer type vehicles that deliberately rubble a building will show markedly less chance sticking when "bulldozing" buildings than regular tanks do.
4) Mobhack will now retain the nation when "Paste as target nation" box is selected when copying formations from one nation to another.
5) When tanks turn their hulls to face an enemy that is firing they no longer turn the hulls directly 90 degrees which generally increases their chance of survival by increasing the angle of attack for the shell.
6) Passengers who dismount into a hex with mines will now be tested to see if they set off a mine. Previously the only test was for the vehicle when it entered the hex. This change also applies to any passengers unloading from a helicopter or a helicopter landing in a minefield.
7) Players had been able to change from regular HE to Cluster munitions while a barrage was on it's way or in progress. That is no longer possible
8) There was an extensive comb though of the weapons list was done to corrected deviant and erroneous entries. All weapons of one type should now have the same stats in every OOB they are listed
9) There should be far fewer false move radius reports now.
10) Scout vehicles now provide protected carry to passengers if front steel armour is > 0
11) After a campaign river crossing, your core infantry will no longer be permanently assigned an inflatable raft.
12) When playing PBEM in basic security mode the game will now simply warn players if the OOBs are differ from the original without aborting the game.
13) A new batloc has been added for China vs India (Himalayas) that is hilly or mountainous with snow in winter months ( October - March )
14) In campaigns it is no longer possible to change a dead unit and retain that dead units experience and morale for the new unit.
15) It had been possible to buy air stikes in campaign cores under some circumstances. This has been corrected and it is no longer possible
16) The code has been adjusted so that the V hexes , both cluster and "shotgun", are more evenly distributed to both sides
17) Experience and Morale are now presented in the same order on all screens
18) Artillery will now cause fewer craters than was the case previously
19) It is no longer possible to move, look around, then undo while playing against the AI. If you legitimately make an error in movement while playing the AI you can still undo but only if you do not look around to check LOS with the unit you just moved
20) Two of our game development programs have been included with this patch and can both be found in the main winSPMBT folder. ArmourCalc is a very straightforward program. Enter the armour thickness and angle and press calculate and the answer is displayed in the Result box.The second program is named APCalc and is a bit more involved. At the top of the screen is a "Select OOB" box where each nation can be picked. APCalc reads the weapons data in each OOB and displays the potential armour penetration at various range increments for AP and Sabot. HE and HEAT have only one result as they are not affected by range. There is also a "Best" results box for each type which will give you the best possible result from 1000 calculations .Re-sampling CAN give a different result sometimes, depending on the influence of the random factors the game uses to calculate penetration. Help files for both can be found in the main game folder along with the programs.
21) New code has been added to cut down the number of fires that start when flame weapons are used.
22) New code has been added to lower the number of "999" penetrations for flame weapons.
23) New animation code and graphics have been added for vehicle and infantry flame weapons.

24) A bug was discovered in the code that was not checking passenger status of units with Radar Fire Control which was allowing them to be targeted by aircraft armed with both PGM and ARM weapons while loaded as passengers This has now been corrected. While tracking down that bug we also discovered that an ARM hit treated a flak gun as a hard vehicle and this has been corrected as well
25) As with the previous patch, a large number of OOB corrections and additions have been made since v4.5 was released. The completed " to do" list would print out to over 110 pages so we won't detail everything that was done for every OOB . Iraq and North Korea have had a lot of work done but really, every OOB has had some work done to it. A number of "Future weapons systems" that were cancelled or delayed have been removed or moved back in some of the OOBs and a number of "what if" weapons have been removed.Scenario designers who may have scenarios not in the game but posted on various scenario depots on the internet may want to check them over with ScenHack for unit/weapon errors.The large number of updated scenarios in this upgrade are mainly due to OOB re-organization and it is a 99.8% certainty that any third party scenarios that are not included in this update WILL VERY LIKELY need to be revised by their designers. There was no way around this and we apologize for it but it's the price of improving the game. As usual with this game, OOBs are always a "work in progress" as new information is uncovered and also As usual we remind everyone that on going secure PBEM games WILL fail if this patch is applied while they are being played.

26) We found some inconsistencies between the number and modified dates of picklist in our master game files and the master patch game files so we are providing a full set in this patch to ensure everyone has the exact same files

WinSPMBT version 4.5 Upgrade patch

25 New Scenarios
43 Updated Scenarios
84 New photos
99 New and Revised Icons plus terrain tile updates
3686 new Icon spots added
92 Updated OOB Files
10 Revised campaign files
31 New and Revised Graphic files ( including Terrain SHP's )
28 New maps
41 New or revised picklists
Upgraded Cost Calculator
Upgraded MOBHack
Upgraded ScenHack

1) A large number of OOB corrections and additions have been made since v4.0 was released. The completed " to do" list would print out to 117 pages so we won't detail everything that was done for every OOB but Russia and Iraq have had a lot of work done but really, every OOB has had some work done to it. A number of "Future weapons systems" that were cancelled or delayed have been removed or moved back in some of the OOBs. Scenario designers who may have scenarios not in the game but posted on various scenario depots on the 'net may want to check them over with ScenHack for unit/weapon errors. ESPECIALLY if they used the Russian OOB.The large number of updated scenarios in this upgrade are mainly due to OOB re-organization and it is a 99.8% certainty that any third party scenarios that are not included in this update WILL VERY LIKELY need to be revised by their designers. There was no way around this and we apologize for it but it's the price of improving the game. As usual with this game, OOBs are always a "work in progress" as new information is uncovered and also " As usual " we remind everyone that on going PBEM games WILL fail if this patch is applied while they are being played. You have been warned. As well, due to the large number of changes to the Russian OOB, saved games that use the Russian OOB, even if they are not PBEM, WILL BE affected.

2) 5 new fortified houses with "invisible" turrets for use with units that do not use an AT gun and are now capable of 360 degree fire. They are copies of existing houses in the game so blend right in . All OOBs that used fortified houses that did not have an AT gun have been upgraded to these new versions
3) Mobhack now underlines the name of any unit used as a formation template unit
4) Scenhack would not save changes to the game length correctly resetting the game to 90 turns has been fixed
5) Vehicles originally assigned to the AI were still, under certain circumstances, unable to move after popping smoke has been fixed
6) Helicopters would sometimes get "stuck" while retreating and just hover in place has been fixed. This was a large map issue and now all pathfinding code has been updated so this will no longer occur
7) The ' . ' (period) key can now be used to turn the hex grid on and off during deployment and while playing the game
8) "Golan" is now "arid" rather than "desert"
9) A bug with the map generator would not allow batloc zero to be entered has been fixed
10) Unit class #7 ( Automatic Grenade launchers ) did not generate a blast circle like MG sections do has been fixed
11) Changes have been made to the code so that if your vehicle kicks up dust due to movement then you can no longer undo that vehicle's action. (Note that this also applies for partial smoke that does not generate a smoke graphic in the hex).
12) In desert maps, hovercraft will kick up dust at any visibility
13) A new top attack inertial guidance weapons class added mainly for the MBT-LAW but useable for any infantry AT weapon that is top attack and is used by infantry squads rather than specialized AT teams. It has a built in boost for FC and RF
14) The weapon size no longer appears in the database, and 0 is inserted as well as having the field deactivated, plus a comment has been added that it is obsolete. "Weapon size" was not being used in the game but was causing some confusion with players who assumed it was .
15) Minelet artillery batteries are now no longer permitted to the assaulting player in a beach landings
16) Cluster munitions will now occasionally leave unexploded bomblets. These are treated as artillery mines.
17) On map rocket batteries with Cluster rockets are now treated as a greater warhead size than shown in the game for reloading from ammo carriers purposes ONLY. The game will ignore any warhead size entered for that class of weapon when reloading ammo and use a set value. Now two units using the same size rocket , one conventional and one CM will reload from an ammo carrier at the much the same rate which was not the case previously allowing CM rockets to reload too fast.
18) Naval artillery had a bit too much of a bonus for quick response. This has been toned down so they are only marginally faster than other off-map batteries.
19) A bug existed where if a core units AA radar was destroyed by an ARM it was not fixed in the repair has been fixed
20) A bug involving Thick Ice in winSPMBT only has been fixed
21) Missile units with stabiliser can now move a couple of hexes and still have shot(s). Previously any movement disallowed firing
22) Armoured car class now protects crew as APC in winSPMBT. This was a compromise because many APC's were being used by Armoured car classes and the infantry they carried were being treated as if they were riding outside the vehicle. Now any passengers carried by a unit in an "armoured car" class are treated as being in the vehicle and armoured cars that do not have inside carry capacity have generally been given zero carry capacity. There were actually very few true "armoured cars" in MBT with carry capacity anyway and this is more fair for the bulk of the units now using this class
23) Some units that should not have been on map were deployed on map in the PBEM long campaign has been fixed
24) A number of long standing issues with the ' W " shortcut key that allowed players to fire only one weapons have been corrected and the feature now works correctly. This had never really worked right but now it does. Information on how to used ' W ' can now be found in the Tutorial section of the game guide CLICK HERE
25) Gliders that land are now abandoned, not destroyed
26) The AIAdjustpercent INI variable now applies to generated battles, and for both sides if set to AI player control
27) A bug with all units of a side being destroyed leading to screen flicker has been fixed
28) A Bug with all units of a side being destroyed but the game did not end even if all objectives taken cleared has been fixed
29) Problems with the AI counter attacking too early in assaults and defends has been fixed
30) Problems with the core units not getting their smoke rounds back in the PBEM long Campaign has been fixed
31) A bug ( and serious cheat ) with arty command units and fire delays had been fixed by removing arty command units from units allowed to observe.
32) Cluster ammo costs for tubed artillery have been increased roughly + 50%. As a result a number of off map artillery units have had their cluster ammo reduced to keep them from exceeding the 999 points limit in the game

33) The delay for adjusting the fall of shot for both on and off map artillery landing out of the observing units line of sight has been increased and in most cases now means only one adjustment can be made without delaying the next fall of shot an extra turn.

34) A small bug fixed for generated and PBEM campaigns, where it was possible, if the campaign was set to run in the same year, to set an end month that was earlier than the start month ( or start month later than the end month ). The game would not run time backwards but it would only run the latest month

35) A new feature for CD holders only allows players to check the location on the map of the other units in a formation with a hotkey. Click HERE for more information

36) Crewed weapons such as AT guns, howitzers and mortars when loaded onto a paratroop transport for air dropping now split into the crew and uncrewed weapon which drop separately and you must now reunite the surviving crew and the unmanned weapon before being able to use it. This change also applies to vehicles and re-crewing is handled the same as any abandoned vehicle......the crew must be in the same hex as the vehicle when the turn ends and at the start of the next turn the two units will recombine. There is also a new one ( 1 ) vehicle per air transport limit in effect. This prevents players from overloading air transports with far more vehicles than was possible. This does not prevent more troops from being loaded in a vehicle carrying aircraft that may have more carry capacity though.

37) A PBEM campaign bug existed where on 3 failed attempts at entering the password a PBEM campaign ended the turn (and saved off the files) instead of aborting. Now the player is returned correctly to the main menu.

38) In Campaigns, core formations were able to cross-attach to non core formations. This has been corrected. You cannot now attach a core unit to a support formation.

39) A bug existed in PBEM Campaign Games where the turn 0 artillery was replayed before player 1 was asked for his password allowing player 2 to watch this turn on his machine has been fixed. Player 1 must enter his password in order to see the turn 0 bombardment. Player 2 cannot now run this turn.

40) A bug in PBEM Campaign Games has been fixed that showed the units of player 2 to player 1 during the pre-game ( turn 0 ) bombardment

41) A bug in PBEM Campaign Games where any unspotted player 2 units caused to retreat by the turn 0 bombardment were shown to player 1 was fixed.

42) Off map artillery will now have a chance of losing radio contact and when they do they will not appear in the bombard menu. However, if a fire mission has been plotted and you lose contact the turn before the fire mission is scheduled to go in the fire mission will go in as scheduled but because it dropped off the bombard menu just before it did you will not be able to cancel it or shift fire.

43) "Tank Riding" passengers now have a greater chance of more casualties if caught on the tank when they are fired on.

44) A further 3686 new Icon spots added bringing the total number of available slots in both winSPMBT and winSPWW2 to 8383

WinSPMBT version 4.0 Upgrade patch

13 New Scenarios
37 Updated Scenarios
1 New Campaign
422 New photos
210 New and Revised Icons
92 Updated OOB Files
10 Revised campaign files
31 New and Revised Graphic files
20 New maps
122 New or revised picklists
Upgraded Cost Calculator
Upgraded MOBHack
Upgraded ScenHack
Upgraded CampaignHack
Upgraded GameOptions

1) A large number of OOB corrections and additions have been made since v3.5 was released. The " to do" list would print out to over 60 pages so we won't detail everything that was done for every OOB but China and Japan have had work done as has the Russian OOB but really, every OOB has had some work done to it. Scenario designers who may have scenarios not in the game but posted on various scenario depots on the 'net may want to check them over with ScenHack for unit/weapon errors. The large number of updated scenarios in this upgrade are mainly due to OOB re-organization . As usual with this game, OOBs are always a "work in progress" as new information is uncovered.

2) Previously radios were given to almost every platoon leader and section leader no matter what the radio codes in the OOBs were set to . This has changed in both WinSPMBT and WinSPWW2. Now every company, platoon and section reads the radio codes and if the OOBs are set up with low radio chance then that's what you'll see in the game. The main HQ unit will always get a radios. This change affects two things mainly. 1) Calling for artillery will not be as easy as it once was and units from a formation will not be able to wander far from their "0" unit lead. If they do it becomes harder to rally. This is no different that the way the game has played in the past but in the past most units had radios. Now there are fewer units that do especially in the WW2 and just post WW2 era. One example would be snipers. Snipers in the game have acted as scouts, Forward observers and snipers. There are far fewer snipers in this version of the game that have radio contact with artillery. We expect that this change will take some players who were used to picking almost any command unit as a Forward observer a bit of time to get used to . The effect is far less in the game on "modern" era armies

3) You will see a further addition to the HQ menu. You will now see ' R ' or ' * ' in the HQ menu list of units. The leaders with the R have a radio and as always in SP only leaders ( the x0 ) with radios can call arty so if you see a x4 unit with a radio it doesn't mean he can contact the artillery only leaders can do that. That aspect of the game has not changed but this change makes finding he leaders with the radios easier. As well these are colour coded and match the messages you would see at the bottom of the battle screen when you click on a unit. A white ' R ' or ' * ' means " in contact" and all that means is they have C&C link to their immediate superior. A yellow ' R ' or ' * ' means there is radio contact and a red ' R ' or ' * ' means the unit is out of contact with it's immediate superior. All of this is handy to know at a glance. If you are playing with
a nation that has few radios you'll probably want to be careful where you put them. This allows you to find them without having to check every leader in the game

4) A further change has been made to the "Passenger" report you see in the main battle screen at the bottom left of the screen.

Previously the unit named there would be the last unit loaded onto or into whatever is carrying them. Nice if you only have one unit loaded but useless if there are more than one. The only way to know for sure what you had loaded was to check the information screen and then all units loaded would be listed but in a game clicking on a APC and seeing "sniper" wasn't that informative when you might have three scout teams and a sniper loaded. This is all less of an issue when loading tanks or halftracks but it has always been a problem with large capacity transports like landing barges or helicopter and even though you might know what's loaded in you never really knew how many more units you could load except by trial and error

This has been changed. Now, on the main battle screens your passengers are listed something like this

LOADED: 10 ( of 13 )

When dealing with infantry this tells you that you have 10 men loaded into or onto a vehicle that has a 13 man capacity. You no longer have to guess. For vehicles loaded into units like landing barges the game reads the carry cost of that vehicle so a tank in a landing barge might be reported as something like: LOADED: 30 ( of 50 ). Now you know exactly how many other points you can put in. Large helicopters are handled the same way.

5) The move cost for infantry (foot class) has been increased by 1 for wooden and stone buildings. Buildings will no longer be treated like open terrain

6) Units will only charged a movement penalty on entering a slope hex from a lower altitude so travel down hill is no longer penalised.

7) It had been possible to buy an attack helicopter in a campaign core then delete it and be able to buy aircraft for the core. This has been corrected

8) In assault battles a bit of code that had previously been added so landing barges etc could call arty in beach assaults was allowing any unit with a radio to call arty in a beach assault. This has been corrected .

9) Multibarrelled type weapons like Gatlings or GSh-30-6 have been given a +6 point increase in their existing accuracy
for their high ROF. This change allows us to better model the effects of these weapons that is fair when used in both aircraft and helicopters.

10) Bug found in MOBHack where deleting unused weapons would also delete weapons that are still being used. Now fixed.

11) Tanks from Unit Class 135 would not load into barges. Now fixed

12) Units in retreat or route can no longer use a radio to contact artillery

13) SP arty units have given a minimum of 5x their ROF for ammo for all nations that were affected by low ammo for some SP arty

14) Pre-revolutionary Iranian flag added

15) The enemy passengers loaded in or on a vehicle was reported on the info screen you get when right clicking on a unit. This has been removed.

16) The "phantom arty" bug that was causing regular artillery missions to not fire after some types of air attacks had been made has been found and corrected.

17) A text overrun bug that would intermittently show up on the HQ menu screen after purchasing has finally been squashed for good ( we hope.... )

18) There was a bug we traced back to the original code that was cancelling out the full effect to Multiple MG's on aircraft and only calculating for one gun. Now fixed.

19) All units in the game now have a photo assigned to them. Previous to this, 485 units in the game had photos missing.

20) PBEM Campaigns have been added to the game for CD holders. You can read more on this by clicking HERE

21) New Top attack HEAT weapons class to generally cover light infantry Anti tank weapons that are not ATGM like the British MBT LAW.

22) In some cases enemy bunkers could attempt to fire at targets outside their weapons arc which triggered an opfire event by friendly units. This has now been fixed.

23) A rare bug where crews carried as passengers could turn into enemy crews has been fixed.

24) HEAT ammo previously could sometimes overpenetrate it's nominal penetration value to a significant amount and this could give some weapons abilities that they did not have in reality. The code has been adjusted so this is far less likely to occur

WinSPMBT version 3.5 upgrade patch

2 Additional Scenarios
2 Updated Scenarios
103 New photos
153 New and Revised Icons
92 Updated OOB Files
126 Revised campaign files
159 .WAV format sound files added
Upgraded CampaignHack
Updated MOBHack

1) Numerous OOB corrections and additions have been made since v3.0 was released.

2) A New Hovercraft class replaced an old class that was not being used in any OOB. This was done because the old way allowed hovercrafts to be bogged down in swamps which is, of course, one terrain type these vehicles excel at crossing. All Hovercraft Icons in the game have been redone and new ones added to various OOBs

3) CampaignHack had a bug where it was not transferring all moved files from one slot to another. Now fixed

4) The campaign code had a bug that affected only some of the players that would prevent them from deleting a campaign core formation after purchase. Now Fixed

5) "ARENA" is now renamed "CIWS" or in the full message string--"Close In Weapon System defeats Missile".

6) The Icons for Gliders and Helicopters were not always displaying correctly in the purchase and encyclopaedia screens. It used to show rotor separately, with armour all around as if it were a tank. It now shows the rotor joined to the helo body as it should be. In non-encyclopaedia screens it shows the Helo at 2/3 size as with bombers so larger Helos now fit the screen better. The "armour" shown is now in "aircraft style" i.e. durability(toughness) like 12(2)

7) The "second rate company" formation is now called "Combat group"

8) All 5.xx mm LMG/SAW weapons for all nations that used them in the game that had a range of 8 hexes now have a 10 hex range

9) A full set of WAV sound files have been included and a new sounds.ini has been set up to read them. We found far too many people were still having trouble with the MP3 sound files so the decision was made to include a WAV set with this upgrade. The MP3 files that were included with the original game will still be in your WinSPMBT\Game Data\Sounds folder and can still be accessed by setting up the "MP3Sounds.ini" file also included with this patch as the default "Sounds.ini"

10) A bug was found that allowed AA guns with EW of 1-4 to deploy either "CIWS" or "ARENA" missile defences. Now fixed.

WinSPMBT version 3.0 upgrade patch

25 Additional Scenarios
89 Updated Scenarios
6 Additional previously released Campaigns
29 New Maps and 1 Updated Map.
113 Updated AI Picklists
1 Updated Leader Name File
6 Updated Ranks File
695 New photos
Over 400 New and Revised Icons
92 Updated OOB Files
Upgraded Cost calculator
Upgraded MOBHack

1) GPS and laser Range Finder have been integrated into the game for use by FOO officers and vehicles. When Artillery observers or FO vehicles are using a Laser RF and IF the target hex is in LOS the shell scatter will be less. A FOO with a Range Finder rating 20 and above is considered to have a Laser Range finder. If the observer or FO vehicle is fitted with GPS the scatter will be less again. A FOO with an EW value of 15 has GPS. . Forward observers with both GPS and Laser Range finders are not cheap but they do have added uses in the game ( see point 2 )

2) The game no longer automatically issues 10 artillery priority hexes per side except for sceanrio design. Priority hexes are issued based on the type of battle and the number of Forward Observers and the equipment the forward observers have available. Click HERE for more info.

3) Retreat/Rally hexes have been added to the game. Click HERE for more info.

4) Opfire filtering has been added as a bonus for players owning the CD version of the game. Click HERE for more info. As well, ScenHack and CampaignHack, which were issued with the last version of WinSPWW2 for CD holders of that game, have both been rewritten for use by CD holders of WinSPMBT and have been included as well. Click HERE for more info.

5) Multi Charge HEAT has been added as a new weapons class so RPG-7VR, RPG-29 , PzF 3T DC and PzF 3 IT-600 DC are modeled correctly now as well as the Russian 125mm Tandem HEAT ammo

6) An Optional AI force level adjustment for Campaign games has been added An INI file variable has been added (optional) for users to use to boost (or even reduce!) AI points in campaign games . Information regarding this variable can be found in the WinSPMBT\Game Data folder in the file "Campaign AI Point Adjustments.txt" OR by clicking HERE

7) HEAT ammo now has a secondary HE abiltiy. Units with HEAT ammo can fire HEAT/HE at 66% if the effect of the regular HE round for that weapon. Units will reserve the last 4 HEAT rounds for anti-tank purposes, and are more reluctant to fire HEAT/HE against soft units in the reaction fire in the opponent's turn unless at 1-2 hexes or so. ( in close combat you throw everything into the fight ). HEAT/HE cannot be area fired (Z-Key) nor does it have effects in the surrounding hexes like regular HE might, for larger warhead sizes.

8) All HE ammo has been removed from RPG type weapons that had them added in to simulate the change mentioned above. This fixes the problem of two man AT teams carrying 10 or 12 ( or more ) RPG rounds. Typically now they carry half what they did before.

9] A "View All" key has been added to the game to show all hexes currently visible to your unit and saves clicking in all 6 directions.

10) The Light helo class is now classed as an arty observer and has all the same abilities as the Leg FO and FO Vehicle classes with the exception that the 15 EW value for other FOOs is not used, as that interferes with AAA self-defence EW.

11) Arid maps Changes . Arid maps (e.g. Iraq) were sometimes being referenced as a "summe r" map, so the desert icons were not being used and the "green" set was used instead. Desert icons are now used (if they have them) by units in Arid maps.

12) Artillery effectiveness against armour was too high and the following changes have been made to the code

- Only units in the shell explosion hex will receive top hits (except cluster munitions)
- Penetration in the blast circle outside the shell explosion hex has been reduced for shell splinters (except cluster munitions)
- Armoured units may now suffer a suppression-only hit (hit by shell splinters message)
- HE penetration on armour now needs more overpenetration to be certain of a penetration effect. If equal, 25% will go through, if overpenetration of 6, 90%
- More chance of immobilisations (track hits) rather than kills especially if the shell size is small

13) Short range effects in infantry combat was a bit too high and the following changes have been made to the code

1. The bonus effect for fire at 50m reduced, and takes more consideration of firer suppression
2. The bonus for being unspotted (ambush fire at short range) has been reduced and takes more consideration of firer suppression level
3. The panic fire chance at 50 metres takes more consideration of suppression to the firer

14) Barge Changes-- Barges were creating a new barge in the barge carrier when save games were re-loaded. Fixed. One one barge per barge carrier now.

15) The coding for Smoke shells in campaign game upgrades was wrong and has been fixed. In campaign battles beyond the first, units will have correct smoke shell loads.

16) When "clone all" was selected in the scenario editor where the cloned units had weapons deleted ("-"), the game initialisation code was wrongly loading the template weapons for all the cloned units if the scenario was reloaded in the scenario editor, or when the scenario was played as a game. FIXED. The cloned units will now retain their weapon changes

17) Maximum game points has been increased from 50,000 points to 65,000 points. Previous versions of the game allowed 65,000 points only in one specific case. We now allow the 65,000 maximum in all cases.

18) New Iran - Iraq war battle locations added

19) AI picklist revisions

20) MoBHack database checks expanded

21) Infantry and vehicles may now enter -1 water hexes. Previous to this change they could enter -1 hexes but only if they are classed as "land". There are sticking penalties for vehicles moving though these water hexes similar to swamp or mud. Infantry move one hex per turn. The game will now also accept entering -1 into a water hex with the map editor and the change will stick. Previous to this it would not.

22) Infantry costs have increased. The increase can range from 30% -60% on average and the greatest increase has been to the "low end" infantry units.

Plus many other small tweaks and adjustments

WinSPMBT version 2.0 upgrade patch

The version 2.0 patch contains all the version 1.01 changes that were included in the CD version release plus all the additional changes made after the CD was burnt. The v1.01 changes are listed first ( 1 - 25 ) then the v2.0 changes ( 26- 66 )

1) Points were not correctly charged for elite or second-rate troops when bought by the human player -FIXED

2) The cost calculation was done in floating point, leading to rounding down when e.g. a squad at 15 was revalued to 15.75 points, was reduced back to 15 when converted back to integer. Now rounds up to 16 before returning.

3) Combat sounds had short delays after them left over from the old DOS sound system which only played one track at a time. These have been removed, as well as reducing some delays on user messages appearing during combat sequences. Sounds should be quicker, and the delay when a unit was destroyed is gone.

4) A problem in XP which could cause a crash (and very rarely in Windows 98) when deleting formations on purchasing when the formation spanned 2 pages was fixed. Now when a formation is deleted, the entire list is recalculated.

5) Air weapons were not showing correctly in the scenario editor change weapons dialogue. The weapons list now shows all potential weapons, and since there was only room on the screen for 120 weapons we have added 3 "pages" accessed by entering negative numbers as the page number. -1 for page 1, -2 for weapons 120+ and -3 for weapons 200+.

6) Casualties for paratroops landing has been revised. Small one man teams should have less casualties on landing, as should vehicles especially the "airborne APC" class. Ammo containers no longer explode when dropped

7) Numerous OOB fixes - UK , Netherlands, India, and east Germany have had more work that some but a number of nations using 'Carl Gustaves" had them classed incorrectly in the weapons list and those have been corrected. There were a few other minor issued that resulted in all OOBs being point recalculated.

8) I new Scenarios added #107 Raid into Honduras 1986

9) 2 Scenarios reworked . Scenario #1 has been extensively revised and sceanrio #28 has had minor alterations

10) Game Options master Control Programme now exposes 2 variables that were only available through INI file editing.

- A] Graphics delay is the minimum wait time between screen redraws

- B] Unit Move delay controls the time units wait between multiple hex moves.

11) Game Messages Delay has been changed to work in roughly 1/4 second intervals and not 1/2 second. In addition, a user-editable modifier has been added to the INI file [game] section for those who require to radically alter the base messages delay level.

12) Instructions have been added to the sub folder of \Game Data\Sounds for people who may encounter sound problems on their computers when using the MP3 sound files in the game. We did not include WAV files as comparable quality WAV's would have added 144MB to the amount of HD space used by the game but we have included step by step instructions for those few players who may encounter difficulties

13) There have been a few minor alterations to some vehicle SHP files

14) a few photos used by the OOBs have been revised

15) a correction has been made to the Sounds.INI file that prevented the PPsh sound FX from playing in the game

16) two in game help texts have been revised

17) The game manual has been corrected to give you more information on the additional controls added to the GameOptions Misc page

18) UAV now considered high flyers, above rifle and AAMG height and require proper AA guns and SAM to engage.

19) Bugs with Allied units showing the wrong experience level and ID tag were fixed.

20) Bug with points not being correctly charged for unit experience and morale levels fixed.

21) Bug where pressing previous page after a formation was deleted in the purchase screen occasionally crashed the PC fixed.

22) Bug where having more than 23 of a particular unit type simultaneously available caused the units to be unpurchaseable fixed. Now if more than 23 of a type are available at the first time, only the first 23 are displayed rather than declaring a formation invalid.

23) In the advance or delay with the traditional victory hex clusters, occasionally these were displayed off the bottom of narrow maps under 40 hexes tall. -FIXED

24) Bug where pressing escape in the map save screen after changing your mind on the selected save slot -FIXED

25) A bug whereby units in a campaign which used ARENA or VIRSS did not have the shots restored -FIXED

The following changes were added after the v1.01 CD release and were included in the 2.0 patch

This patch can be applied to ALL versions of the game.

26) Iraqi Picklist altered to give a more accurate " insurgent" type force composition for the AI. A further revised OOB

27) NVA Picklist altered to give a few armoured vehicles to the AI once in awhile while US forces are still engaged plus added APC infantry after the USA departed

28) There was a bug when the AI was buying 1/50th of the force value as mines in defence then 20% more if it was a river crossing or beach assault. - in campaign battles only. -FIXED

29) added "Dragons teeth" to hex mouse-over, if DT's are in the hex and added "Mines" to hex mouse over if mines detected in a hex

30) AI was sometimes deploying units in lakes. FIXED

31) A "mission" button has been added to the deployment screen ( Useful if you saved during deploy, and came back 2 weeks later and forgot your mission)

32) In scenarios, if the "reaction turn" is set to "turn 98" units will hold in place for the entire game and not counter attack to re-take V-Hexes. This includes both advance and assault and delay and defend scenarios"

33) New Icons include a Merkava MICV "Nemer", USMC "EFV" , British/Dutch Scarab, USA desert M3a3, German Dingo and Fennek Icons added along with a new Challenger 2 uparmoured Icon and a new 2S6 Tunguska Icon series

34) AA radars will now spot planes and helos at ranges beyond the firing unit's ground vision rating

35) The list of a campaign core force units on the upgrade/fix/review screen between battles (if allowed to refit) - was indexing incorrectly - in large cores you only saw 2-3 pages because the bug was skipping pages in the middle and showing first, second and last generally- FIXED

36) There were occasions when some maps said "town" or "city" etc, but none appeared or only a few villages seemed to appear. FIXED

37) Changes made to "Carry capacity" and "Carry cost" did not stick when changed in the editor. FIXED

38) Visibility can now be changed from the "View Map" screen. Previously this could only be changed before starting a battle. This allows players a second chance to do this while setting up a game ( for PBEM for example ) and now allows campaign players the option of adjusting the visibility during campaign games

39) There was a minor bug in the "View Map" screen where pressing ESC would not allow you to back out of that function without selecting a map number first. FIXED-- Pressing ESC while in the "Change Map ID" subscreen of the "View Map" screen will now properly exit that screen without having to enter a map ID number first

40) Updated South African and USMC AI Picklist

41) There was a bug that was preventing units from clearing mines after a save. FIXED

42)Thermal imaging sights ( TI ) will now have some LOS blocked by a fire hex (usually 2 or more fire hexes are needed for significant LOS degradation), and heavy smoke reduces LOS penetration very slightly, causing some "shadows". usually 5-6 hexes of freshly laid (full) smoke is needed to reduce TI penetration level slightly. Fire and smoke hexes do NOT reduce radar AA Fire Control LOS against aerial targets.

43) There was a difference between the way User Campaigns and Generated Campaigns allowed you to change ( upgrade ) units . This has now been standardized for both campaign types. The Unit list menu is now an "active" menu for both campaign types allowing you to select units to change from there

44) Mike Torrance's Campaign "Silver Lions" has been added

45) There was a bug where flak units firing at enemy aircraft increased the kill count with every hit even though no kills were made. FIXED

46) A bug where a fire mission could not be cancelled has been fixed.

47) A Bug where player 2 in a scenario could see player 1's troops during the pre game bombardment, if player one was the AI fixed.

48) A safety feature has been added to the scenario editor. The sceanrio editor will now auto saves to slot 999 on exit with title "AUTO SAVED SCENARIO"

49) The mini map was not centring on the location of the unit in use on the main map. FIXED

50) Vehicles and artillery pieces "dug in" in a hex showing a sandbagged revetments can now regain dug in status one turn after entering. They are not restricted to their original revetments and can enter any "sandbagged" hex to regain hull down status

51) The vehicle Load / Unload screen would not allow you to scroll around the map. FIXED

52) The game maps can now be scrolled in all directions using the up, down, left and right arrow keys. If accessed from the numeric keyboard Numlock must be OFF

53) AAA reaction fires has been tweaked a bit . If they are hidden they will fire at very short ranges only or if the to-hit is better than 9%. Therefore,- hidden tanks will not pop off at passing planes unless these spot them by flying close enough, or if the aircraft or Helo gets to a 9% to hit OR at 3 or so hexes, they will blaze away as the thing is too close.

54) There has been a slight adjustment upwards for spotting hidden vehicles when using vehicles with a Vision rating of 40 and above especially if the "hidden" tank fires

55) Spotting with TI ( vision 40+ ) decrease slightly with speed. You'll spot things a bit better if you are not moving at top speed

56) There have been slight alterations to the accuracy numbers for smoothbore guns. The length/calibre cals did not give accurate numbers with shorter barrelled smoothbores like the German L44 or the US M256 and the longer Russian barrels gave them slightly higher accuracy than reality. As well. Fire Control ( FC ) and Range Finder ( RF ) ratings were not quite giving the added benefit to higher end equipment that they should have so the formulas have been slightly altered to give greater benefit to the vehicles with the higher end equipment. Each of these factors, if overdone, have a HUGE effect on gameplay and we have endeavoured to strike a fair and balanced compromise. Sometimes even slight changes can make a noticeable difference so we've been careful not to overdo it

57) An additional PBEM security type has been introduced. "Basic" security will not kill a game ( in the most common cases ) if it detects something wrong. It will allow players to play on two machines ( on a laptop then back home on the desktop for example ) and it will not stop a game if both players are using different OOB sets. This is "Security lite" for those players who trust their opponent and just want password protection to prevent peaking and / or wants to play at work and at home and cannot with the more stringent regular PBEM security. However, it will NOT allow you to rename the save slot number of the PBEM. If you do it will kill the game.

58] A new message will appear when ground units fire at aircraft and Helicopters indicating whether the aircraft / helo was hit by ground fire. The code has always run tests to see if a hit would cause damage but until now you had no way of knowing if you were taking hits or not before the damage occurred. Now you will see a message indicating that a hit has occurred. If Damage is taken a second message indicating the damage will appear right after the hit message

59] Artillery and aircraft bomb collateral blast damage has been adjusted. Artillery cluster munitions have a minimum blast radius of 1 now and air-dropped cluster bombs have a radius of 2 hexes (speed and height of delivery, larger footprint). Previous versions of the executable had blast damage into surrounding hexes as well but we discovered a bit of code that was reducing this after it had been applied. That bit of code has been commented out and now you will find aircraft weapons and large calibre arty gives blast effects out to , in the case of 2000 lb bombs, a potentially lethal area of 200 yards around the point of impact. As well, there is a new game function that allows you to see the potential blast radius while the artillery barrage or airstrike is going on. Pressing the "R" key while in the bombardment or "Z" key menu will turn on or off the blast radius markers. There are white circles that show the maximum blast radius and there are yellow circles that show when known enemy units that are within the main blast radius are damaged by the blast effects. It is important to remember that even though the blast effect for some weapons like 2000 pound bombs may be quite large this does **NOT** mean that every hex and unit within the blast effect area is affected by the blast. This addition allows players who are interested to see just how the blast area works in the game. Blast effects are reduced by the distance from the impact hex, and by the usual effects of dug-in status, being in cover etc. Cluster munitions are more evenly distributed over the blast area than an HE round, so range effect is reduced for them. Armoured vehicles more than 1 hex from the impact will tend to be supressed by blast rather than be destroyed by fragments, except with cluster munitions. Click HERE for more information and screen shots

60] Units retreating and routed will now surrender a bit more than previous when the situation is "hopeless". There is less chance of a routed unit retreating into an enemy occupied hex now

61] There was a bug which deselected the current unit if you went to the HQ menu and then exited as player 2 in a game. In certain circumstances you could then examine player 1's artillery menu, and his force structure. FIXED

62] The CostCalculator ( and all the OOBs ) has been altered to give extra cost for high-tech equipment ( Vision, Range Finder, Fire control etc) . Generally this penalizes modern kit more, with early kit staying about the same, especially if fitted with high end range finder, stabiliser, FC 35+, thermal vision etc. - TI type sights (vision>=40) cost more (about a 40+ point raise) - Range finder costs more, esp. range 20 or so plus - FC, esp. over the 35 value, cost more - stabilizers cost a bit more - Electronic warfare (EW) more costly per point - AAA radar FC more costly (sees planes through smoke now) - Open topped armoured vehicles a few points cheaper For example. A M1A2 SEP Abrams previously cost 443 points ( that is the BASE cost unadjusted for morale and experience). It now costs 526 points. An Iraqi T-72G with Vision 30 was 236 points it costs 244 now so it's really only the higher end equipment that gets the increases.

63] Cluster munitions costs and ICM (arty AP rounds) have been revised. They were not being charged very much. That has been changed upwards They are also more effective now.

64] 34 new scenarios ! Ten new scenarios from Bill Wilder and Twenty four from Ulf Lundström plus 20 new Maps

65) Some problems with ARM and PGM fired from planes in stand-off attacks resolved. (Plane would fire a missile and have a round detected, but nothing happened).

66) Aircraft PGM (not ARM which will still search for enemy radars anywhere on map) targeting modified. PGM will only be targeted on a 15 hex circle round the original target hex. There is no longer a "magical" detection of previously unspotted units, so you should aim at areas with located enemy units. COIN fighters will me more likely to attack detected infantry than other strike planes, as usual. All planes will prefer AAA type units if detected in the 15 hex radius, over any others since the rationale is they are things that attack planes, so the pilots give them a higher priority. (They also like ammo carriers, and the enemy HQ if they can see it).

67) Mostly, planes which launched a PGM or an ARM will then exit the map, without making the normal bomb run over the map to the target hex. Exception - a non-wild weasel type plane which launches only an ARM is considered to be firing that to aid its run-in to the map, so it will continue on with the plotted bomb run, unlike a wild weasel, which will pull off at long range. Planes which make a stand-off attack are only subject to fires from long range AA weapons (>100 hex range) - usually SAMs. A strike plane with say 2 Mavericks in the same weapon slot can therefore make 2 completely stand-off attacks, provided each such attack launched a missile, and only then (if it has some bombs) need it enter the map to deliver these in the normal manner. i.e you can "plink" at targets from off map, especially if the enemy have no long ranged AA.

WinSPMBT version 1.0

Conversion of the old MSDOS game engine to Microsoft Windows.

Complete removal of all the old problematical MSDOS sound, mouse and graphics problems.

Optional DirectX or Windows GDI based graphics.

Option to use DirectX Full screen mode, or operate in a window on the desktop.

Windows-compliant sound and mouse routines.

Game size is no longer restricted to merely 640 by 480 pixels. User can choose from 640x480, 800x600, and in the enhanced CD version 1024x768, 1152x864, 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 modes.

Completely re-organised game screens

Arid and Savannah type terrains added to the map generator. They replace many maps that used to be desert but really shouldn't have been

New zoom-in level added

3 New Scenarios
1 New Campaign
5 Updated Scenarios
8 New Maps

10 NEW terrains added

- Bare Earth (Arid Soil)
- Red Earth
- Brick Cobblestones
- Stone Cobblestones
- Beach Sand
- Sparse Grass
- Grass ( variant )
- Leaves ( Forest Groundcover )
- Autumn trees ( October )
- Autumn Orchards ( October )

The Map Autogenerating routine has been upgraded to use the 10 new Terrain types

12 Terrain tile sets totally re-done

- Green Grass
- Rough
- High grass
- Snow
- Soft Sand
- Desert Rough
- Sand
- Paved Roads
- Pavement
- Winter light snow
- Winter Snow Drifts
- Mud

- 92 Updated OOB Files
- Two new nations added ( Paraguay and Uruguay )
- 3 Updated Leader Name File
- 5 Updated Help Text
- 5 Updated Picklists
- 66 New and 20 revised Vehicle Icons

- Revised Game palette
- Railways will now occasionally be generated on maps
- Barbed wire added for defensive battles. The AI will place Wire when it defends
- Loading and unloading of passengers now costs Movement points for both the vehicle AND the passenger units
- Custom OOBs can now be easily loaded and the default set of OOBs can just as easily be restored
- AI may now target any smoke signatures with artillery
- Vehicles may now reverse while while keeping the vehicles front pointed towards the enemy

Plus dozens hundreds of other small tweaks, bug fixes and adjustments to game play

Some notes on the new AI "Artillery Interest" routines.

Previously, the AI arty routines targeted those troops which were spotted in its own phase and would then fall-back to the routines to beat up objectives, or approach roads etc. Thus you could do the "hill dance" of moving up from behind a ridgeline, firing and popping back down, drawing only normal return op-fire while exposed but ending your move out of LOS, so the AI would not assign arty on these units. The new AI artillery interest routine is linked to events which the human player is told about during game play, but which previously the AI was ignorant of. Basically - anything which generates a message that your human opponent (in a PBEM) could use against you, the AI now knows about as well. The AI artillery interest routine takes events which the human player would spot, and assigns a chance for the AI to assign available artillery to the general area of this event. Trigger events include flipping an objective hex, making direct fire smoke, making smoke from dust trails from vehicle movement, direct fire events (including direct area fire with the Z key), normal on-map artillery firing indirect fires (which generate smoke in the hex), missile (SAM and ATGM) fire events, and engineering clearance operations. All things reported to a human opponent, and now available for the AI to assign delivery of a few "presents" to as well, just as your human PBEM opponent would.

Also previously the AI was a bit reluctant to plot its on-map artillery assets, usually mortars. Often, a mortar unit with 60 or so original rounds would end the game with perhaps 45 or so rounds remaining. There is now a routine to check for possible mortar (includes all on map arty including say SP-MRL) targets, with the AI focussing on detected enemy units close to objective hexes as the prime search criteria. The on map arty assignment also tends to fall-back on enemy held objectives if nothing better is located, so it then drops searching fires around these. Thus, "camping out" near objective hexes will be somewhat more interesting for the human player!.

Addition features of the enhanced CD version only

( for more information on the added features available on the extended CD version click HERE )

- Cut and paste Map editor
- Secure Tournament play
- 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1152x864, 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 windowed and full screen modes.
- 250 Secure PBEM save slots
- Encyclopaedia Sorting functions

SPMBT Version 3.01
1 New Scenario
15 Updated Scenarios
2 New Maps
1 Updated Map
7 Updated Picklists
41 New Unit & Formation Texts
1 Updated Help Text
1 Updated Leader Name File
224 New LBMs
24 New Desktop Shortcut Icons
92 Updated OOB Files
Many tweaks and adjustments to the code including:
-UnitClass 138=Heavy Transporter reported as being "Bridgelayer" -FIXED now properly reports as being "Heavy Transporter"
-UnitClass 139=Self-Propelled Gun reported as being "Ark" -FIXED now properly reports as being "Self-Propelled Gun"
-Initial Move Radius showing on Rice Paddy terrain was wrong -- it showed the movement possible as if Clear. -- FIXED
-During the deployment phase the AI opponent would opfire during deployment if you did something that triggered opfire-- like unloading in LOS - FIXED
-In PBEM games a player could spot the enemy during deploy on smaller maps. -FIXED
-Auto deployed barges sometimes ended up deployed on land - FIXED
-Units unloaded during beach assault set ups had been programmed to drown at the end of the first turn after deployment in beach assaults but they could still fire at beach targets while unloaded during the first turn then reload into Landing craft and continue to the beach. FIXED. Units left out of landing craft will "drown" at the start of the first turn now
-Random seeming game crashes mostly affecting XP users have been eliminated.
-SABOT range added to indirect fire artillery was also acting as the minimum indirect fire range- FIXED. On-map artillery now has a 20 hex minimum range for all guns. This is unchanged from before but now Sabot range does not affect that minimum
-Revised Game palette
-80 new single hex houses have been added (the original 40 removed). This doubles the number previously available. In addition, 12 wooden multihex buildings and 12 stone multihex buildings have been redone for the v3.01 Supplemental Patch. These additions had been planned for the next full release but we decided to add what we had done so far to the patch.

SPMBT Version 3
Completely new set of larger format OOBs (Order of Battle files) with many thousands of revisions and additions. New format OOBs can now hold 999 Units and 999 Formations. An additional 36 Unit Classes have been added as well. The OOBs have been extensively researched and availability dates, ammunition loadouts and formation design has been finetuned throughout. New units and new formations adorn many of the OOBs.

Many tweaks and adjustments to the code & AI picklists have been made to fine tune & refine gameplay
533 New Pics
420 New & Revised Icons in 34 SHP files
28 New Scenarios
40 New Maps
51 New Text files
64 New Sounds
Finetuning tweaks to existing scenarios.
Update modifications made to several existing maps.
One updated Campaign: Thunder in the Sinai, October 6-17, 1973. You will command an Egyptian armored force during the Yom Kippur War in October 1973. Prepare to fight the greatest tank battles since World War II as entire armored brigades thunder across the deserts and passes of the Sinai! The campaign covers 5 battles: Shovich Yonim, Lituf, Ras Sudar, Chinese Farm, and Deversoir.
New "Player_MBT_Scenario.xls" file listing all scenarios, maps, and campaigns in the Game Notes folder.
All Scenarios and Maps are now numbered in the game selection screen, and maps also have their size listed.
The map code auto-generator has been extensively enhanced and the coded routines greatly embellished.
13 totally new terrain features have been added, as well as 4 old terrain types being completely revised. Transition months between seasons are now more accurately detailed and varied in terrain. As well, the transition between terrain types adjacent to each other has been refined.
The 13 new terrain types are Ice, Frozen Streams, Marsh, Ploughed Field, Red Sand, Red Sand Rough, Grey Sand, Grey Sand Rough, Arid/Fall Grass, Arid/Fall High Grass, Winter Crop Field, Mid-Winter Snow Field, and Bare Winter/Late Fall Trees
The 4 completely revised terrain types are Green Crops, Yellow Crops, Rice Paddies and Early Winter Fields.
A map generator that allows maps to be auto created using 19 different variables has been added, and is accessible from the Map Editor as well as the Battle and Campaign Unit Purchase screens so that you can customise your maps before each battle to further enhance your gameplay. You can even Save the maps you design on the fly, or load previously saved map -- even from the View Map screen of the Purchase Units section!
Maps can now be created as small as 20x20 (1 kilometer square) and can be expanded in 10 hex increments (half kilometers) seperately in both the X and Y axis up to 200x160 hexes (10 kilometers by 8 kilometers).
A number of important changes have been made to the "View Map" screen of the Deploy menu for generated battles and PBEM (all changes detailed within the Game Guide)

- Redraw the Map for the Current Opponents (use different battle location for these opponents and date)
- Redraw Map for the Current Battle Location (use same battle location)
- Change Map ID (specifically change battle location to another one by indicating batloc ID number)
- Redraw V-Hexes without changing terrain
- Change Game Length

MOBHack will now allow entering different Icon numbers for summer, winter and desert terrain and the game code has been revised so these will show up in the game at the appropriate times. Due to the lack of available time in this last development phase, not many units take advantage of this new feature in WinSPMBT. But we plan on fully developing this in future releases.
In defend battles the Defender can not only place trenches, but remove them once placed in order to achieve a special effect. Laying & Removing trenches is used to simulate previous defensive engineering efforts to remove trees, bulldoze rough areas and otherwise improve Line-Of-Sight and strengthen the defenses because when a trench is removed the hex (in most cases) becomes Clear Terrain. Trenches can be laid and removed anywhere on the Defender's half of the map. Trenches laid in Water terrain will create a small island to put the trench on.. Trenches can also be placed on the attackers side of the map to simulate forward area anti-tank trenches or the previous front lines. Trenches cannot be removed once placed on the opponents side of the map because doing so gives the Defender too much control over the terrain and tilts the play balance in favour of the defender.
Victory Hex Point allotments can now be reduced down to 5 points and up to 250 points in 5 point increments. Victory Hexes worth less than 50 points will be ignored by the AI, and can be used by scenario designers to develop special battlefield situations and tweak AI and Player movement.
The ammunition loads of vehicles with auto-cannon have been reviewed, resulting in a steep drop of shots available to these weapons. Many auto-cannon armed vehicles do not carry much ammunition, and have high rates of fire, so they have to choose their shots carefully. The importance of the secondary weapons of these vehicles in the antipersonnel role is now much more apparent because of the ammunition limitations of the auto-cannon. Equally apparent is the superiority of certain IFVs because they have been designed to carry much more ammunition for their auto-cannons than other vehicles, and
thus can fire more shots (bursts) during the course of a game.
Automatic weapon and autocannon ratings have been revised and refined based on new formulas that have been extensively researched in order to bring more realism to combat tactics, strategies and results. As well, ammunition loadouts of autocannons have been researched and an appropriate number of "shots" have been assigned instead of the generic loadouts of previous versions (which was actually much too generous). Each in-game "shot" is the equivalent of short bursts. The new loadouts and weapon ratings illustrate how quickly autocannons eat up ammunition and also how deadly they are. Many auto-cannon armed vehicles do not carry much ammunition, and have high rates of fire, so they have to choose their shots carefully. The importance of the secondary weapons of these vehicles in the antipersonnel role is now much more apparent because of the ammunition limitations of the auto-cannon.
Tank ammunition loadouts fine-tuned according to new data uncovered.
Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs) have been completely redone and no longer have any legacy SP2 ratings. All SAMs from all countries, whether shoulder-fired or launched from a stationary missile platform have all been rated to be relative to each other. This levels the playing field across the board for all countries air defense. The legacy ratings were no doubt arrived at with very little hard evidence to help the designers. There is still very little hard evidence out there, but at least there is more than what the SP2 designers had available to them. We anticipate refining these numbers even more over the next releases, but are very happy with the results as they amply demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of the many SAM systems.
Vehicle Dust Trails have been revised to begin appearing in desert terrain and summer months at higher Visibility settings than previously.
A new Map Editing feature whereby you can add "Clear Terrain" (Grassy Plain) to a hex, and still keep the height contours of the existing map. You no longer have to add Clear Terrain to a contoured section of the map by removing all the terrain features of the hex, including height. If you move to the second page of map editing buttons you will note that when you pass the cursor over the "Clear Terrain" button on that page it reveals that it will "Add clear terrain to hex following the contours of the existing map." The "Clear Terrain" button on the first page remains the same as it always was-- it clears all terrain and all height from the hex.
Armament loadouts of planes have been revised and varied loadouts created for use in different mission types. A huge effort was made to review the weapons loads on fixed wing aircraft and helicopters (many thanks to Jakub Jaraczewski). Dozens of different air-to-ground rockets were identified and established as weapons in the game. These were matched to aircraft of the appropriate nationality and period. As an example, the SU-25 ("Frogfoot") can now fire 57mm, 80mm, 122mm, and 240mm rockets depending on the player's mission and availability of purchase points. Likewise, depending on the period, an American forces player might have 5-Inch Forward Firing Aerial Rockets, 5-Inch High Velocity Aircraft Rockets, or 5-Inch Zuni-series rockets to bring to bear on ground targets. A parallel effort was made to identify the characteristics of the aircraft cannon and their ammunition loads. Thus, players with an eye to detail will appreciate the use of "20mm Colt Mk.12" instead of the old generic "20mm-cannon." This detailed approach highlights the capabilities of a large weapon like the 30mm GAU-8 found on A-10 Thunderbolts, and allows it to be contrasted to an older, less effective weapon such as the 30mm ADEN cannon. On the rotary-wing front the same care was taken so that Russian Hind attack helicopters are loaded with a variety of rockets suitable for any mission that provide fire support ranging from "harassing" to "obliteration".
New armor values and penetration ratings for weapons. Many armor ratings were reviewed and modified, as were the capabilities of key anti-armor weapons in the games. This resulted in all-encompassing changes that enhance the dynamics of tank combat in the game. For more information see the Notes on the V3 Weapon System Changes immediately following this section.
Changes to Range Finder ratings. In many cases Range Finder ratings have been increased to better reflect the capabilities of the actual gun sights and range finders. This is especially evident in the latter decades in which many of the modern units have
laser range finders. The improved RF ratings make the tanks more deadly during the opening rounds of an engagement. However, performance drops as suppression rises amid the battlefield chaos, making achievement of first hits a high priority.
Standardization of cannon rates of fire. To a large degree, the rates of fire of tank guns, anti-tank guns, and artillery pieces have been standardized. This corrects the problem of like weapons having different ROFs from OOB to OOB.
A "Player's Info" text file included in the Data/Design folder to help modders build new OOBs using the same basic rules that we do, and also to give an insight on how the game works.
The Boats Get Stuck Under Bridges Bug has finally been eradicated. Now boats can ply the waters under bridges, but their icons will appear on top of the bridge solely for ease of locating. If the boat icons are allowed to go under the bridges, they can become hidden from view very easily and the Player might lose track of his units. So we have made the icon appear above the bridge -- but it is simply a matter of visuals, and the boat does not add movement costs for traversing the bridge or otherwise exhibit any adverse effects in the game. For all game purposes the boat is under the bridge and in the water.
The code controlling troops dismounting from APCs and other vehicles was tweaked to allow more realistic engagement by opponent forces that are in LOS of the dismount.
Helicopters allowed to be part of the starting core force in campaigns. Air Cavalry user & generated campaigns are now possible.
Frequency of fords in streams was revised, and fords are made to flash yellow on the mini-map for easy identification. The chance of getting stuck at fords was also revised downward a little.
Road code finetuned.
Many small code tweaks to finetune the frequency of various results.
Notes on the V3 Weapon System Changes
Autocannons are a significant weapon in WinSPMBT that cover four classes of weapons -- anti-aircraft, small cannon, aircraft cannon, and autocannon. A brief survey of practically any OBAT will show at least several autocannon in service. It was essential, therefore, that the autocannon ratings reflected both the effectiveness of these weapons against various targets and their effectiveness relative to one another.
Research about these weapons considered over 100 different aerial and ground-based platforms, and spanned the era from the cannons of the 1930s to modern weapons such as the ATK 30-mm Bushmaster II. Thus, weapons like the Hispano 20-mm cannons carried in WWII-era fighters are reflected accurately and in proper relationship to a Russian GSh-23-6
multi-barrelled cannon.
Two key aspects of the weapons definitions are the HE Kill rating and the armor penetration ratings. HEAT rounds play a small role here, although some weapons, like the 30-mm M230, fire a high explosive dual-purpose round that incorporates a shaped-charge warhead.
In the case of autocannons, the HE Kill rating is driven the amount of "metal on target", a way of measuring the sheer amount of metal and explosives the cannon project in a given amount of time. Some cannon, like the GAU-8/A on the A-10, fire something like 25 Kilograms (about 55 pounds) of depleted uranium and high explosive at a target every second! Cannon with higher amounts of "metal on target" are given appropriately higher HE Kill rating in the game.
Armor penetrating rounds for small cannon have traditionally been full-caliber AP and sub-caliber APDS, but fin-stabilized APDS rounds are becoming more common. APDS appeared before the end of World War II; the German 3.7-cm BordKannon on Stuka tank-killing aircraft fired an APDS round with a tungsten core. A peculiar aspect of the small caliber AP rounds, particularly for aircraft, is that their armor piercing ratings are not often disclosed. Fortunately for designers, some of the rounds are documented, and, in general, the muzzle velocity and general type of round tend to imply certain penetration capability. Depleted uranium rounds are give a boost in their AP rating, as are Gatling-style cannon with very high rates of fire.
Larger post-WWII AP rounds, such as those used by tanks and anti-tank guns, are not that well documented and are subject to a large degree of designer interpretation. The problems with determining a specific penetration rating are legion. Armor quality varies and there are different kinds of armor plate. Projectile design varies and interacts with differently with various types and qualities of armor. Complicating the mix is the game's use of the AP value of the projectile immediately as it leaves the muzzle -- a penetration rating not often quoted (usually pen ratings are given at a range such as 1000 meters).
Doubtlessly, those with extensive knowledge of projectiles and armor penetration will want a discussion on some of the ratings used in the game. We will be glad to accept any revelatory evidence that can be used to refine our ratings in future versions of this game. The design standard we used was to represent the projectiles in terms of their performance against a given quality of armor.
The performance of these rounds is difficult to determine at times. Even the performance of creaky old items like the 90-mm rounds used by U. S. M-47 and M-48 tanks are hard to track down, and when quotes are found, they sometimes make little sense -- such as implying that U. S. postwar 90-mm round penetration was less effective than the rounds used during WWII. In spite of these difficulties, the projectiles were assessed and assigned what The Camo Workshop believes to be realistic ratings. Many different methods were used to assess projectile performance including use of penetration quotes from sources such as Janes (and in many cases, the military forums on the internet and national military websites), trending "backwards to zero" from known data, comparison to similar projectiles, confirmation of predicted performance by the use of formulae, and actual projectile performance in battle.
Infantry and artillery weapons were simpler to standardize as their performance is usually documented, although the effective range of infantry weapons can vary depending on the opinion of the author. The difficult part here was the sheer quantity and variety of these weapons. Some of the weapons are also a bit obscure, such as the Spanish Alfa machinegun - but our OBAT depicts both the 7.92-mm and 7.62-mm versions of this weapon. For those players looking for a good deal on weapons references, I recommend querying www.abebooks.com for older editions of Janes publications. They can be had for good
prices, and often, the older editions were more comprehensive in the data they presented. For example, older editions of Janes Armour and Artillery had weapons, ammunition, and specific turret applications data all in one volume - but, for the latest edition, one must obtain three separate volumes to cover the same ground. In our case, we used many different sources, from Janes to Hogg & Weeks to many others, continually cross-referencing and debating the differences
Armor ratings were also intensely re-researched to incorporate new data, as well as to find the best up-to-date estimates of the armor that is still classified secret. Tankers from a number of countries were questioned, and their experiences in T-55's, T-72's, M48's, M60's, Chieftain's and others were instrumental in compiling anecdotal evidence as the starting point for more scientific research where publicly available hard data is virtually non-existent at any price. Armor and tank forums and websites on the internet were mined for as much information as possible. Inter-library loan librarians were kept busy for months searching for copies of military manuals and other published data on modern armor. Indispensable was www.bublos.net for finding the best price on all manner of publications -- which is very important in a free project with absolutely zero budget. And as always, the Players themselves were invaluable in digging up and translating Cold War and modern military manuals from their respective countries. Information was obtained from Eastern Europe that probably has not otherwise been seen publicly in the West before. While the future will reveal more hard data for us to incorporate in later versions of the game, this release goes a long way to getting the armor values into perspective across the entire range of eras and countries that the game makes available for your enjoyment and education.
The Camo Workshop hopes you are pleased with the weapons and armor interaction in the game. It is no exaggeration to state that hundreds of hours, if not thousands, have been used to identify the unique characteristics of the weapons depicted in the game. For those interested in good sources of information on modern weapons, there are several good sites on the internet (try searching on something like "N-37 37mm"), and standard references like Janes and Brassey's are invaluable in the assessment of weapons performance.

SPMBTv2.01 Supplement

Changes/Additons to SPMBT in the Supplement

A completely new set of OOBs with numerous changes and additions

A new Cost calculator with the following corrections:

- - changes to ERA costs ( applicable to SPMBT only )
- - changes to flame weapons costings (long range flame weapons increased)
- - EW cost changes (+) ( applicable to SPMBT only )
- - off map and on map HE shell costs were reversed - fixed
- - sabot ammo was using the AP range, not sabot range- fixed
- -off map planes with missiles were using off map HE costs which were too high- fixed

2 new scenarios

120 new or revised Icons ( 41 revised SHP files )

Revisions to some of the Name and Rank data files as well as an additional 77 encyclopeadia text files

30 additional PIC's

Many tweaks and adjustments to the code including:

- -helicopters could not unload on a bridge on lake hexes - fixed
- -other units on a bridge on a lake hex could not unload passengers - fixed
- -mine points rolling over to a very high number for dragon teeth buy when 0 fortification buy points- fixed
- -reinforcement mortars off map fired if under AI control - fixed
- -bomber aircraft were not dropping the last cluster bomb - fixed
- -some small maps caused a crash
- - was due to the random trees placement code not being changed to allow for map X and Y changes -fixed
- -mortar ROF was decided to be too high - reduced. Mortar ROF is ROF+1 if warhead>4
- -indirect artillery was using the direct fire graphic when attacking armoured targets, causing the incorrect graphic and or a shot to appear from -1,-1 to target - fixed.
- -Artillery indirect fire circle size tightened up slightly
- -Ammo units - boosted load of weapons with warhead size <4
- -road bridges over lake hexes were reporting as rail bridges if any rail bridge present on map - fixed
- -In user campaigns, if the map size was > 100 in width, the non fixed troops were deployed on column 98 still. Fixed.
- -Infantry speeds in MPH sometimes went down on 3rd hex moved - fixed.
- -Vehicles which were reported correctly as dug-in on the deploy turn or in scenario editor were losing dug in status in turn 1 onwards.-Fixed.
- -Infantry were not being charged for soft sand - now +1 MP is charged for moving in a hex with soft sand.

SPMBTv2.0

Most OOBs have had numerous additions and adjustments and as well, 16 nations have been added ( Japan, Australia, Canada, Algeria, Thailand, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia, Croatia, Chad, Ethiopia, Sudan, Lebanon , Kenya, Indonesia, Malaysia and Somalia. )

40 new scenarios and 1 New Campaign have been added. Included with the new scenarios is a Beginners tutorial in the first slot.

400 new Vehicle and Aircraft Icons added

New MOBHack Database checking utilities and OOB Price Calculator

ALL units have been re-priced with the new calculator (which can now be found in the "Cost Calculator" folder )

Numerous small code adjustments have been made to fine tune gameplay.

Checks have been added for aircraft (planes,helicopters etc) in cores - these are automatically stripped now.

A bug has been fixed where if a formation had non aircraft in slot 1, planes could be added in subsequent sections and this would then fool the air selection code and allow either unlimited planes or to add such formations to cores.

Battle location have been updated for new and existing nations. Indonesia is mainly in Borneo for the emergency vs UK, Australian, Malaysia nations in 46 to 66, post this Australians get Timor as a location as well

Iraq locations and types updated to reflect latest conflict (expect more urbanised bias to locations)

Korean war locations have been updated, certain key location areas added (e.g. Seoul City in both 9/50 (going up) and 3/51 (coming back down again!), Pyongyang City in 9/50, "North of The Yalu" and N Korea locations in 10/50 to 12/50 period. Also corrected were some nations who were getting China locations in Korean war period instead of Korean locs. Additionally to this, Korean war LC changed to disallow China pre the official start date in the generated campaign if date is in the Korean war period AND at least 1 of the 3 slots is allocated to NORTH KOREA, until post the correct introduction date for Chinese "volunteers". Set up a Korean War LC now with china in 1 or 2 slots (As desired) and NK in the remainder and if the code generates a Chinese battle prior to Chinese entry date it overrides that with NK as an opponent.

All AI picklists have been re-checked and adjusted. For example, UK and Argentine pick lists and code changes for Falklands will now generate reasonably correct force structures for both sides, e.g. UK is a light infantry army with Gazelles as main helo support, Argentineans there are conscripts and marines.

The surrender option has been removed.This proved to be a cheat in PBEM..

Some rework of the AI pick code to buy tanks a bit more in non tank heavy if lots of free buy points available.

The AI helicopter landings hex selection routine was redone to accomodate the new map sizes

Mines were not able to be laid on the RHS of larger maps - now fixed as well, mines are now deployable in the UC if bought.

SPMBTv1.5 Upgrade Patch

The game now allows 135 map sizes. Maps can now go from a minimum of 20 hexes wide and 40 hexes high to up 160 hexes wide and 200 hexes high. All maps are fully playable in generated, campaign, PBEM or scenario based games. AI deployment routines for units and victory hexes have been re-written to accommodate every map size. Campaign players now have the added bonus of pre-selecting map size before every game to allow them to tailor map sizes to fit their campaign core size.

Area fire can now be targeted through smoke filled hexes. No longer will smoke act as a barrier to fire however, accuracy and effectiveness is far less than aimed fire against a clear hex but this new system works quite well for harassing advancing enemy infantry.

Using direct HE fire, all units in the target hex now receive splash damage while in direct fire by HE weapons. This includes the original target if missed, but the shell still lands in the target unit's hex. (The original code ignored the original target if a miss was scored). This slightly increses HE effect in direct fire.

The code has been changed to favour solid shot over HEAT provided it has a decent chance at range fired, but HEAT still preferred for armoured targets with low frontal armour.

The "exploding paratrooper" problem is fixed

The retreat code has been altered to give more realistic retreat paths in most situations

A new "Infantry colour" has been added to the game.

Points changes made in the editor will now "stick"

Over 300 new Icons added

All OOBs extensively upgraded with four more nations "activated" (Nigeria, Eritrea, Tanzania and Uganda ) The balance of the Work In Progress nations will be issued with our next patch of the game. Our Player Community was the origin of many OOB tweaks. While we may not respond to every issue raised on the message boards, we do read and research every bit of information and opinion that the games generate.

A new pricing formula has been used for all units

New ammo loadouts for all non-vehicular mortars, howitzers and naval guns have been implemented to smooth out inconsistencies between OOBs that resulted in unfair advantages/disadvantages for some countries.

A bug in the computer purchased forces points values was found and eliminated. The troops were bought at the correct cost but the units point value field was left the basic OOB book value rather than the adjusted cost for + or - experience/moral. Any forces bought by the AI or human player using the computer buy routines will now reflect the correct cost adjustment for Experience and Morale rating.

Campaign core force points values had remained at the original purchase cost throughout the campaign thus not properly reflecting their changes in Experience and Morale over time. This bug has now been isolated and eliminated. Core forces will be shown at purchase book value for their template formation at the beginning of their first battle but will be individually priced at the end of their first battle depending on their true individual Experience and Morale rating. As they further progress through the campaign they will gain value as they gain experience and moral.

There was a bug whereby campaign core forces morale jumped to the 80's after their first battle. This has been eliminated, and therefore core forces morale will now properly improve with successful battles

The internal routines that calculated points value variance from the default 70 produced very skewed results when the difference was 10 or more points either way. The formula was revised to a flatter range.

Six new sceanrios have been added to the game for this patch as well as 1 new User Campaign.

The SPMBTv1.01 Patch contained a large number of OOB corrections plus code changes to fix a Y2K type bug in the campaign generator as well as a 26,000 point cap on defender purchases which will now allow the attacker to purchase the correct proportion of points. Plus, there was a fix for a bug that was appearing when mixed cluster and HE missions were plotted simultaneously and another fix for a bug that was not giving the correct base experience ratings for various nations.

SPMBT Version 1.0 was entitled the preview version. SPMBT was supposed to be a simple extension to SPWW2 that would only take 3 or 6 months work. That was in 2001 and has since grown into something much more extensive. A great deal of work has gone into the OOBs. They have, literally, been created from the ground up to be consistent with the system we set up for SPWW2. There have been over 2000 new Icons added to what was the SP2 Modern Icon set . Code work has also been much more extensive than we had originally planned with many new additions not found in our previous releases plus much new code to better represent modern weapons as well as improved AI performance

Credits and Information

ORIGINAL SP SERIES DESIGN AND PROGRAMMING
BY
Gary Grigsby, Keith Brors and SSI

WinSPMBT v6.0

PRODUCERS: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

GAME PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey

MOBHACK and UTILITY APPLICATIONS PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey.

ICON DESIGN : Don Goodbrand

OOB Photos: Don Goodbrand

SCENARIO DESIGN : Christopher W. Berry, Jose Logrono, Ulf Lundström, Cam Murdoch, Abraham Paul

PLAYTESTING: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

OOB CONTRIBUTORS: Thanks to all the contributors on the Shrapnel Games forums and a special thanks to Patrick Conklin, Michal Derela, Richard Hopkins and Marcello Invernizzi who have helped make these OOBs better.

GAME MANUAL AND DOCUMENTATION: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

WinSPMBT v5.5

PRODUCERS: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

GAME PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey

MOBHACK and UTILITY APPLICATIONS PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey.

ICON DESIGN : Don Goodbrand, Joe Rieger, Tangui de Saint Hilaire

OOB Photos: Don Goodbrand

SCENARIO DESIGN : Christopher W. Berry, Andy Gailey, Marcin Kaluza, Ulf Lundström

PLAYTESTING: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

OOB CONTRIBUTORS: Marcello Invernizzi ( Iraq, North Korea ), Patrick Hunziker (Switzerland OOB). Thanks to all the contributors on the game forums and a special thanks to John Pryor ( "Imp" ) for the further work he did in providing the spreadsheets highlighting the remaining errors and inconsistencies in the weapons database for winSPMBT. I'd also like to thank Patrick ( "Fastboat Tough") Conklin for all the information he has provided in the past year that has helped make these OOBs better.

GAME MANUAL AND DOCUMENTATION: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

WinSPMBT v5.0

PRODUCERS: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

GAME PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand.

MOBHACK and UTILITY APPLICATIONS PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey.

ICON DESIGN : Don Goodbrand, Tangui de Saint Hilaire

OOB Photos: Don Goodbrand

SCENARIO DESIGN : Christopher W. Berry, Ulf Lundström

MAP DESIGN: Ulf Lundström

PLAYTESTING: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

OOB CONTRIBUTORS: Marcello Invernizzi ( Iraq, North Korea ) , "Zaphod72" ( Greece ) Thanks to all the contributors on the game forums and a special thanks to John Pryor ( "Imp" ) for the work he did in providing the spreadsheets highlighting the errors and inconsistencies in the weapons database for winSPWW2 and winSPMBT.

GAME MANUAL AND DOCUMENTATION: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

WinSPMBT v4.5

PRODUCERS: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

GAME PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand.

MOBHACK and UTILITY APPLICATIONS PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey.

ICON DESIGN : Don Goodbrand, Tangui de Saint Hilaire

OOB Photos: Don Goodbrand, Ulf Lundström

SCENARIO DESIGN : Ulf Lundström

MAP DESIGN: Ulf Lundström , Marek Tucan

PLAYTESTING: Pyros Lambert, Artúr Székely-Takács, Mike Torrance, Jason Young

OOB CONTRIBUTORS: Tangui de Saint Hilaire ( Turkey ), Marcello Invernizzi ( Iraq) , Maxim Yegorov & Timothy Igoshin ( Russia ) with special thanks to all the members of the WinSPMBT Sharpnel Games Forums for ongoing discussion, support and research.

GAME MANUAL AND DOCUMENTATION: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

WinSPMBT v4

PRODUCERS: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

GAME PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand.

MOBHACK and UTILITY APPLICATIONS PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey.

PLAYTESTING: Marc Buchsbaum, Tom DeShetler, Mike Ely, Chaim Krause, Pyros Lambert, Artúr Székely-Takács, Mike Torrance, Jason Young

ICON DESIGN : Don Goodbrand, Tangui de Saint Hilaire

OOB Photos: Don Goodbrand, Ryan Crierie , Patrick Hunziker

SCENARIO DESIGN : Ulf Lundström , Artúr Székely-Takács, Andy Gailey

MAP DESIGN: Ulf Lundström , Andy Gailey, Marek Tucan

OOB CONTRIBUTORS: Patrick Hunziker (Switzerland OOB) ,Ryan Crierie ( China OOB), Tangui de Saint Hilaire ( Japan OOB) with special thanks to the members of the WinSPMBT Sharpnel Games Forums for ongoing discussion, support and research.

GAME MANUAL AND DOCUMENTATION: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

WinSPMBT v3.5

PRODUCERS: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

GAME PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand.

MOBHACK and UTILITY APPLICATIONS PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey.

PLAYTESTING: Marc Buchsbaum, Tom DeShetler, Mike Ely, Chaim Krause, Pyros Lambert, Artúr Székely-Takács, Mike Torrance, Jason Young

ICON DESIGN : Don Goodbrand, Tangui de Saint Hilaire

OOB Photos: Don Goodbrand, Cam Murdoch

SCENARIO DESIGN : Artúr Székely-Takács

OOB CONTRIBUTORS: Patrick Hunziker ( Switzerland ) ,Cam Murdoch ( Canada ) with special thanks to the members of the WinSPMBT Sharpnel Games Forums for ongoing discussion, support and research.

GAME MANUAL AND DOCUMENTATION: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

WinSPMBT v3.0

PRODUCERS: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

GAME PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand.

MOBHACK and UTILITY APPLICATIONS PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey.

PLAYTESTING: Marc Buchsbaum, Tom DeShetler, Mike Ely, Chaim Krause, Pyros Lambert, Artúr Székely-Takács, Mike Torrance, Jason Young

ICON DESIGN : Blazej Ciepluch, Don Goodbrand

OOB Photos: Blazej Ciepluch, Don Goodbrand, Cam Murdoch

TERRAIN TILE ART: Don Goodbrand

SCENARIO DESIGN : Tom DeShetler, Chris Ireland, Ulf Lundström , Fabio Prado, Andy Weaver, William H Wilder Jr, Jason Young.

CAMPAIGN DESIGN : Tom DeShetler, Exequiel Lopresti, Artur Szekely-Takacs, Mike Torrance, William H Wilder Jr

OOB CONTRIBUTORS: Blazej Ciepluch ( Poland ) . Cam Murdoch ( Canada ) with special thanks to the members of the WinSPMBT Sharpnel Games Forums for ongoing discussion, support and research.

MAP DESIGN: Blazej Ciepluch, Ulf Lundström

GAME MANUAL AND DOCUMENTATION: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

WinSPMBT v1.0 , v1.1, v2.0 and v2.5

PRODUCERS: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

GAME PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey and Don Goodbrand.

MOBHACK and UTILITY APPLICATIONS PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey.

PLAYTESTING: The Camo Workshop-- Boris Ajdukovic, Dr.Helge Bertram(Ph.D), C B Blackard, Dick (Boomer) Burleigh, Tony Engelsen, Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, Dale Hight , Edward R. Mortimer.

PLAYTESTING: Shrapnel Games -- Simon Baxendale, Davide Bendazzi, Marc Buchsbaum, Mike Ely, Dr Gary Galbraith (Ph.D), Chaim Krause, Pyros Lambert, Duri Price, Todd Rossel & Stefan Weniger (Lead Tester)

ICON DESIGN : Don Goodbrand (v1.0, v1.1, v2.0, v2.5), Pierre Arnoldy ( v2.0 )

TERRAIN TILE ART: Don Goodbrand

SCENARIO DESIGN : C B Blackard (v1.0 and v1.1), Tony Engelsen (v1.0 ), Ulf Lundström ( v2.0, v2.5 ), William H Wilder Jr ( v2.0, v2.5 )

CAMPAIGN DESIGN : Pyros Lambert (v1.0) & Mike Torrance ( v2.0 )

MAP DESIGN: Boris Ajdukovic ( v1.0), Don Goodbrand, ( v1.0), Bitxo (v2.0) Pyros Lambert (v2.0) Ulf Lundström ( v2.0 ).

SOUND F/X EDITING: Don Goodbrand

GAME MANUAL AND DOCUMENTATION: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

SPMBT Version 3.0 and v3.01

PRODUCERS: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand & SP Camo (Boris Ajdukovic, Jake Cornmesser, Tony Engelsen, Fernando Giorlando, Miguel Guasch Aparicio, Doug McBratney, Edward R. Mortimer, Bill Wilson).

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand & SP Camo (Boris Ajdukovic, Jake Cornmesser, Tony Engelsen, Fernando Giorlando, Miguel Guasch Aparicio, Doug McBratney, Edward R. Mortimer, Bill Wilson).

GAME PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey and Don Goodbrand.

MOBHACK PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey.

COST CALCULATOR PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey.

PLAYTESTING: SP Camo (Boris Ajdukovic, Jake Cornmesser, Tony Engelsen, Fernando Giorlando, Miguel Guasch Aparicio, Doug McBratney, Edward R. Mortimer, Bill Wilson).

OOB DESIGN and CO-ORDINATION: Edward R. Mortimer

WEAPON DESIGN and CO-ORDINATION: Bill Wilson.

ICON DESIGN and CO-ORDINATION: Fernando Giorlando, Don Goodbrand, Edward R. Mortimer

SCENARIO DESIGN and CO-ORDINATION: Doug McBratney.

CAMPAIGN DESIGN and CO-ORDINATION: Doug McBratney.

MAP DESIGN and CO-ORDINATION: Doug McBratney.

LBM DESIGN and CO-ORDINATION: Tony Engelsen.

TEXT FILE DESIGN and CO-ORDINATION: Boris Adjukovic.

INTERNET FORUM and EMAIL GROUP CO-ORDINATION: Miguel Guasch Aparicio.

SOUND CO-ORDINATION: Edward R. Mortimer

INTERNET FORUM REPRESENTATIVE: Miguel Guasch Aparicio

ADDITIONAL DESIGN: Don Goodbrand, Andy Gailey, SP Camo (Boris Ajdukovic, Jake Cornmesser, Tony Engelsen, Fernando Giorlando, Miguel Guasch Aparicio, Doug McBratney, Edward R. Mortimer, Bill Wilson), and end user's suggestions.

RESEARCH AND OOB DATA DEVELOPMENT: SP Camo (Boris Ajdukovic, Jake Cornmesser, Tony Engelsen, Fernando Giorlando, Miguel Guasch Aparicio, Doug McBratney, Edward R. Mortimer, Bill Wilson), Don Goodbrand and Andy Gailey.

OOB CONTRIBUTORS AND CONSULTANTS: Paul Bellerive, Luke Bennet, Dan Bowen, Alessandro Bonanni, Blazej Ciepluch, Nermin Dupovac, Antonio Giubergia, Richard Hopkins, William Hutchinson, David Hysky, Jakub Jaraczewski, Sven Kessen, Yegorov G. Maxim, Gorka Martinez Mezo, Pavel Novak, Jim Nutter, Jo van der Pluym, Rahman Setiawan, Rami Sihvo, Jerry Sindle, Laurent Touchard, Eurico Viegas, Victor Vondrasek, Massimo Zampini and with special thanks to The SPCamo Yahoo! listmembers for ongoing discussion, support and research.

ICON ART: Blazej Ciepluch, Fernando Giorlando, Don Goodbrand, and Joe Rieger

TERRAIN TILE ART: Don Goodbrand

LBM ART: Blazej Ciepluch, Nikolay Dimitrov, Tony Engelsen, Fernando Giorlando, Miguel Guasch Aparicio, Don Goodbrand, Richard Hopkins, James E. Martin Jr, Edward R. Mortimer, Magnus Rosander and Rahman Setiawan.

OTHER ART and GRAPHICS: Don Goodbrand and Edward R. Mortimer

SCENARIO AND CAMPAIGN DESIGNERS: C.B. Blackard, Frank Kontowicz, Don Lazov, Ulf Lundström , Doug McBratney, von Rom and Bill Wilson.

MAP DESIGNERS: Boris Ajdukovic, Steve Fields, Sven Kessen, Doug McBratney and Edward R Mortimer

TEXT FILES: Boris Ajdukovic, Blazej Ciepluch, Tony Engelsen, Don Goodbrand, Doug McBratney, James E. Martin Jr, Edward R. Mortimer, Felix Schulz, Eurico Viegas and Bill Wilson.

SOUND F/X EDITING: Alessandro Bonanni, Scott Littleton and Edward R. Mortimer.

GAME MANUAL AND DOCUMENTATION: Edward R. Mortimer.

GAME MANUAL HTML DESIGN AND GRAPHICS: Edward R. Mortimer.

BEGINNERS TUTORIAL: Douglas McBratney.

GAME CONSULTANTS: Don Goodbrand and Andy Gailey.

HISTORICAL CONSULTANTS: Dimitar Boikov, Jakub Jaraczewski, Don Lazov, Jim Nutter, Yegorov G. Maxim, Jo van der Pluym, Rahman Setiawan, Felix Schulz and the SPCamo Yahoo! Listmembers.

SPCamo PLAYTESTERS:( SPWW2 & WinSPMBT ) Boris Ajdukovic, Jake Cornmesser, Tony Engelsen, Fernando Giorlando, Miguel Guasch Aparicio, Doug McBratney, Edward R. Mortimer and Bill Wilson.

INTERNET FILE DISTRIBUTION SUPPORT: Dave Roberts.

SPMBT V ersion 2.0 and 2.01

PRODUCERS: Don Goodbrand, Andy Gailey.

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, and the Playtesters.

OOB DESIGN and QA CO-ORDINATION: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

ADDITIONAL DESIGN: The Playtesters, and end user's suggestions.

PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand.

RESEARCH AND OOB DATA DEVELOPMENT: Edward R. Mortimer, Bill Wilson, Boris Ajdukovic, John Turesson, Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, Dick (Boomer) Burleigh, Fernando Giorlando.

ADDITIONAL OOB CONTRIBUTORS : The SPCamo Yahoo listmembers for ongoing discussion, support and research with special thanks to Antonio Giubergia (South American nations), Jim Nutter (Southern African nations), Felix Schulz (East Germany) and Eurico Viegas (Portugal) and Jakub Jaraczewski .

MOBHACK OB DATA EDITOR & COST CALCULATOR PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey.

ART AND GRAPHICS: Don Goodbrand, Fernando Giorlando & Joe Rieger. ( additional Polish Vehicles in the Supp by Blazej Ciepluch)

ADDITIONAL INTRO SCREEN COLOUR PHOTOS: Jim Hair

SPCamo PLAYTESTERS:(SPWW2 & SPMBT ) Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, Edward R Mortimer, Bill Wilson , John Turesson, Helge Bertram, Dick (Boomer) Burleigh , C B Blackard, Dale Hight, Boris Ajdukovic, Tony Engelsen, Claus Bonnesen and Douglas McBratney

SCENARIO DESIGN CO-ORDINATION: Edward R. Mortimer & Dick (Boomer) Burleigh.

SCENARIO AND CAMPAIGN DESIGNERS: C.B. Blackard, Bill Wilson, Douglas McBratney, Edward R Mortimer, Dick (Boomer) Burleigh, Fernando Giorlando, Alexander V. Byrikhin, Steve Goodmansen and Ulf Lundström .

MAP DESIGNERS: Edward R Mortimer, Dick (Boomer) Burleigh, Boris Ajdukovic

GAME MANUAL AND DOCUMENTATION: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand.

GAME MANUAL HTML DESIGN AND GRAPHICS: Don Goodbrand, Andy Gailey.

BEGINNERS TUTORIAL: Douglas McBratney and Dick (Boomer) Burleigh

CONSULTANT: Dale Hight.

SPMBT Version 1.5

PRODUCERS: Don Goodbrand, Andy Gailey.

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, and the Playtesters.

OOB DESIGN and QA CO-ORDINATION: Edward R. Mortimer

ADDITIONAL DESIGN: The Playtesters, and end user's suggestions.

PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand.

RESEARCH AND OOB DATA DEVELOPMENT: Edward R. Mortimer, Bill Wilson, Boris Ajdukovic, Tony Englesen, John Turesson, Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, Helge Bertram, Dick (Boomer) Burleigh , C B Blackard, Nick Hyle, Dale Hight, William Hutchison.

ADDITIONAL OOB CONTRIBUTORS : Jarkko Vihavainen, Tong Yan, Daryl Noonan, Rami Sihvo, Eurico Viegas, Jim "Troopie" Nutter, Halstein Sjølie and Fernando Giorlando. As well, special thanks to the SPCamo Yahoo listmembers for ongoing discussion, support and research.

MOBHACK OB DATA EDITOR PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey.

ART AND GRAPHICS: Don Goodbrand, Fernando Giorlando.

SPCamo PLAYTESTERS:( SPWW2 & SPMBT ) Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, Edward R Mortimer, Bill Wilson , John Turesson, Helge Bertram, Ken Sharman, Dick (Boomer) Burleigh , C B Blackard, Dale Hight, Zoltán Zajonskovsky , Nick Hyle, Boris Ajdukovic, Tony Engelsen, William Hutchison and Claus Bonnesen

SCENARIO DESIGN CO-ORDINATION: C B Blackard .

SCENARIO AND CAMPAIGN DESIGNERS: C.B. Blackard, Bill Wilson, Doug McBratney

GAME MANUAL AND DOCUMENTATION: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand .

GAME MANUAL HTML DESIGN and Graphics: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

CONSULTANT: Dale Hight

ADDITIONAL SOUND F/X EDITING: Scott Littleton, Alessandro Bonanni.

SPMBT Version 1.0 and 1.01

PRODUCERS: Don Goodbrand, Andy Gailey.

PROJECT CO-ORDINATOR: Bill Wilson

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, and the Playtesters.

OOB DESIGN and QA CO-ORDINATION: Edward R. Mortimer

ADDITIONAL DESIGN: The Playtesters, and end user's suggestions.

PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand.

RESEARCH AND OOB DATA DEVELOPMENT: Edward R. Mortimer, Bill Wilson, Boris Ajdukovic, Vincent Roiron, Tony Englesen, John Turesson, Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, Helge Bertram, Dick (Boomer) Burleigh , C B Blackard, Nick Hyle, James Quinn, Dale Hight, Umberto Comella, Kodkod Eitan, Donald Nelson, William Hutchison.

ADDITIONAL OOB CONTRIBUTORS: Jarkko Vihavainen, Tong Yan, Michal Derela, Chris Shaw . As well, special thanks to the SPCamo Yahoo listmembers for ongoing discussion, support and research.

MOBHACK OB DATA EDITOR PROGRAMMING: Andy Gailey.

ART AND GRAPHICS: Don Goodbrand, Joe Reiger, Umberto Comella, Zoltán Zajonskovsky

VIDEO DESIGN AND LAYOUT: Don Goodbrand.

SPCamo PLAYTESTERS:Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand, Edward R Mortimer, Bill Wilson , John Turesson, Helge Bertram, Ken Sharman, Dick (Boomer) Burleigh , C B Blackard, Dale Hight, Zoltán Zajonskovsky , Nick Hyle, Boris Ajdukovic, Tony Engelsen, James Quinn, Vincent Roiron, Umberto Comella, Kodkod Eitan, Donald Nelson, William Hutchison, Claus Bonnesen and Joe Reiger

SCENARIO DESIGN CO-ORDINATION: C B Blackard

SCENARIO AND CAMPAIGN DESIGNERS: C.B. Blackard, Dick (Boomer) Burleigh, Helge Bertram, Boris Ajdukovic .

GAME MANUAL AND DOCUMENTATION: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

GAME MANUAL HTML DESIGN and Graphics: Andy Gailey, Don Goodbrand

CONSULTANT: Dale Hight

ADDITIONAL SOUND F/X: Scott Littleton

WEBSITE HOST: Mario Krolls "The Wargamer". www.wargamer.com Thanks Mario !

A VERY SPECIAL THANKS goes to Fred Chlanda who's SHPEdit program first allowed Steel Panthers Icons to be edited and put back into the SHP files. Without Freds SHPEdit to get things started, none of this would have happened.

ON LINE HELP

First thing to do is to read this manual thoroughly, try using your browser's search utility to look for a word, if you cannot find what you require from the links in the left pane. See the section on using the guide at the start of the document..

If you have questions, register at the WinSPMBT group at http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/ . Look through all the message traffic, as your question is quite likely to have already been covered, if not, then post a message and someone will try to help you out.

NOTICE

Neither the revisions to the game code, nor the data editors and utilities used to create these revisions are in any way connected with, endorsed by, or supported by Strategic Simulations, Inc.

DISCLAIMER & DISTRIBUTION NOTICE

LIMITED WARRANTY

SHRAPNEL GAMES WARRANTS TO THE ORIGINAL PURCHASER THAT THE DISK ON WHICH THIS PRODUCT IS RECORDED WILL BE FREE FROM DEFECTS IN MATERIALS AND WORKMANSHIP FOR A PERIOD OF NINETY DAYS FROM THE DATE OF PURCHASE. IF THE COMPACT DISK IS FOUND DEFECTIVE WITHIN NINETY DAYS OF ORIGINAL PURCHASE, SHRAPNEL GAMES AGREES TO REPLACE, FREE OF CHARGE, ANY PRODUCT DISCOVERED TO BE DEFECTIVE UPON RECEIPT AT ITS CUSTOMER SERVICE CENTER OF THE PRODUCT, POSTAGE PAID, WITH PROOF OF THE DATE OF PURCHASE AND VALID RMA NUMBER. THIS WARRANTY IS LIMITED TO THE DISK CONTAINING THE SOFTWARE PROGRAM ORIGINALLY PROVIDED BY SHRAPNEL GAMES, AND IS NOT APPLICABLE TO NORMAL WEAR AND TEAR. THIS WARRANTY SHALL BE VOID IF THE DEFECT HAS ARISEN THROUGH ABUSE, MISTREATMENT, OR NEGLECT.

FOR WARRANTY REPLACEMENTS, VISIT OUR CUSTOMER SERVICE CENTRE AT: http://www.shrapnelgames.com/service.htm

WARRANTY DISCLAIMER

SHRAPNEL GAMES DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES RELATING TO THIS SOFTWARE, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND ALL SUCH WARRANTIES ARE EXPRESSLY AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMED. NEITHER SHRAPNEL GAMES, THE CAMO WORKSHOP NOR ANYONE ELSE WHO HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN THE CREATION, PRODUCTION, OR DELIVERY OF THIS SOFTWARE SHALL BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE SUCH SOFTWARE EVEN IF SHRAPNEL GAMES HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES OR CLAIMS. IN NO EVENT SHALL SHRAPNEL GAMES LIABILITY FOR ANY DAMAGES EVER EXCEED THE PRICE PAID FOR THE LICENSE TO USE THE SOFTWARE, REGARDLESS OF THE FORM OF CLAIM. THE PERSON USING THE SOFTWARE BEARS ALL RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE.

SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF THE LIMIT OF LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, SO THE ABOVE LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

THIS AGREEMENT SHALL BE GOVERNED BY THE LAWS OF THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA AND SHALL INURE TO THE BENEFIT OF SHRAPNEL GAMES AND ANY SUCCESSORS, ADMINISTRATORS, HEIRS, AND ASSIGNS. ANY ACTION OR PROCEEDING BROUGHT BY EITHER PARTY AGAINST THE OTHER ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THIS AGREEMENT SHALL BE BROUGHT ONLY IN A STATE OR FEDERAL COURT OF COMPETENT JURISDICTION LOCATED IN WAKE COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA. THE PARTIES HEREBY CONSENT TO IN PERSONAM JURISDICTION OF SAID COURTS.

LIMITED LICENSE

BY INSTALLING THIS SOFTWARE YOU AGREE TO THE TERMS AND RESTRICTIONS OF THIS LIMITED LICENSE. THE SOFTWARE IS INTENDED SOLELY FOR YOUR PERSONAL NONCOMMERCIAL HOME ENTERTAINMENT USE. YOU MAY NOT DECOMPILE, REVERSE ENGINEER, OR DISASSEMBLE THE SOFTWARE, EXCEPT AS PERMITTED BY LAW. SHRAPNEL GAMES AND THE CAMO WORKSHOP RETAIN ALL RIGHT, TITLE, AND INTEREST IN THE SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS EMBODIED THEREIN AND DERIVATIVES THEREOF.

SHRAPNEL GAMES EXPLICITLY PROHIBITS ANY FORM OF THE RENTING, SELLING OR LEASING, OR ANY COMMERCIAL USE OF ANY PORTION OF THE SOFTWARE OR DOCUMENTATION TO ANY OTHER PERSON OR ORGANIZATION. IN ADDITION, NO USER GENERATED SCENARIOS, ARTWORK OR SOUNDS INTENDED FOR USE WITH THIS PROGRAM MAY BE PASSED ON TO A THIRD PARTY IN EXCHANGE FOR ANY FORM OF PAYMENT, REAL OR IMPLIED.

YOU ARE PROHIBITED FROM HAVING MORE THAN ONE (1) COPY OF THIS SOFTWARE, IN ANY FORM, CONCURRENTLY STORED ON A COMPUTER STORAGE MEDIUM OTHER THAN ONE (1) BACKUP COPY. EXCEPTED FROM THIS ARE ART, SOUND AND DATA FILES ASSOCIATED WITH USER CREATED ARMIES, SCENARIOS, MAPS AND CAMPAIGNS, IF APPLICABLE. THESE FILES MAY BE DISTRIBUTED NON-COMMERCIALLY.

ANY PERMISSIONS GRANTED HEREIN ARE PROVIDED ON A TEMPORARY BASIS AND CAN BE WITHDRAWN BY SHRAPNEL GAMES AT ANY TIME. ALL RIGHTS NOT EXPRESSLY GRANTED ARE RESERVED.

The unique artwork and data provided within this game are protected by copyright law and may not be used or altered without the express written consent of The Camo Workshop and Shrapnel Games, Inc.

If you wish to distribute the downloadable version of this game on a game magazine cover CD, please contact : http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Knowing_Us/Knowing_Us.html

TRADEMARKS AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

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Steel Panthers, Steel Panthers 2 and Steel Panthers 3 are all trademarks of Strategic Simulations, Inc.
Steel Panthers: Main Battle Tank (SPMBT and WinSPMBT) is a trademark of The Camo Workshop.
Steel Panthers: World War 2 (SPWW2 and WinSPWW2) is a trademark of The Camo Workshop.
Scenarios and User campaigns supplied with the game are Copyright of The Camo Workshop, and the individual scenario authors.
OB Data Copyrights to individual designers is as per the notice in the encyclopaedia text
All game artwork, organisation data (except as noted in the OB copyright notice) and other game data files are copyright of The Camo Workshop.
Mobhack Data editor, Map viewer, MapEditor and SP Cost Calculator copyright Andy Gailey and Scotia Software Ltd.

Discussion Groups-- http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/

Websites-- http://linetap.com/www/drg/SPCamo.htm

Internet File Distribution-- http://www.shrapnelgames.com/

We'd like to thank Shrapnel Games for sponsoring us, and our dedicated Player Community for supporting us. The best way we can show how we appreciate both of you is to bring you together. Please visit their website at http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ and have a look at the games they have to offer dedicated wargamers.

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