Hello commander!
We hope you are well. Today’s pre-Christmas WARNO menu will consist of three delicious courses, all easily digestible. As we are leading up to the big-ticket milestone OUDINOT, we have the following items to share with you.
Keep reading and dig in!
Some OUDINOT news
As you know, in the upcoming OUDINOT update, which you can read about here, we’ll feature two new battlegroups, all focused on a Battle for Berlin (1989) war scenario. As a surprise, and a big Eugen thank-you to our players, these divisions will be free to all owners of the Early Access version of WARNO!
Having unveiled both NATO’s Berlin Command and Warsaw Pact’s Unternehmen Zentrum, some community feedback was raised. We have taken the comments to heart and will make some changes to the unit composition of these formations.
Berlin Command Update
NATO’s Berlin Command gets the first treatment. In the dedicated DevBlog, we mentioned that West German troops featured in the division would be presented as BGS (border guard police) recon squads and Heimatschützen (reservists) raised from the city’s population. To make clear, as it was pointed out to us, West Berlin’s citizens were exempt from West Germany’s conscription. This resulted from the post-World War II treaties, which prohibited both Germanies from having any military unit within the divided city. Therefore, the Heimatschützen will be removed from the division.
There is a catch, though (as there always is with treaties). The local police forces were not considered part of the military. As such, West Germany organized a force of Freiwilligen Reserve-Polizei (Volunteer Police Reserve) from ex-policemen. These were trained with light military weapons; the total force accounted for around 10.000 men. In times of war, these troops would be put under the command of the western Allied forces (American, British and French), with their primary task of guarding key buildings and infrastructure.
As police, they would have worn the same uniform as the BGS but with different headgear and shoulder patches. As West Germany couldn’t actually equip this force, a loophole was found (again!): the volunteer police would be armed with “French G3” battle rifles. These small arms were built under license at the Saint-Etienne arms factory in France, shipped to West Berlin by France to equip its garrison there, and then, eventually, distributed to the local West German force. Much in the same way, the British headquarters in West Berlin kept a handsome stock ready of over a thousand GMPG just for West German “police” use.
Leading us to the new unit in Berlin Command. In-game, the reserve police forces will be represented by the new 10-man FR. RESERVE-POLIZEI squads, locked at zero veterancy, equipped with 9x G3 battle rifles and 1x MAG GPMG.
Unternehmen Zentrum
Let’s prepare for the second course, which is made up of three parts. Our Warsaw Pact’s Unternehmen Zentrum division will also feature some new units.
The first one is the SPW FUG, a Hungarian BRDM-1 variant able to accommodate a few passengers. Within WARNO, it will be an armored but unarmed recon/transport vehicle. They will carry the new MOT. GRENZER squads.
The second unit is the SPW PSH, which is the Hungarian PSzH IV, a wheeled APC used by the VPB police units but armed with a BRDM-2 turret. We will also make this vehicle available to the VPB squads already part of the K.d.A. Bezirk Erfurt battlegroup.
And for the third new unit. Much as the West German Heimatschützen, it was pointed out to us that the 1. MSD, which is the East German division at the core of Unternehmen Zentrum, featured a cadre of assault engineers specifically equipped for urban warfare. This makes sense if you are the designated attack force for eliminating NATO’s pesky presence in West Berlin.
As such, they were not supplied with old-style portable flamethrowers, as their counterparts in other divisions, but rather with Romanian-built AGI 3x40 incendiary rocket launchers. These weapons were a poor man’s M202 Flash, cobbling together three RPG-2 launchers with incendiary rockets and firing them in quick succession. These new units will replace the typical PIONIER (Flam.) and will be called PIONIER (AGI) squads.
New destruction textures
Next is the rework of the textures used to show off destruction in our environments. Think artillery impacts, shell craters, scorch marks, etc. They have all been made more realistic.
The same visual overhaul will be applied to tank wrecks, featuring new terrain textures to show debris, burned detritus, and more. This will definitely increase the level of realism and display the savage mayhem you commanders can leave in your wake on WARNO’s World War III battlefields!
Friday Night WARNO Event
Lastly, we’ll have another monthly Friday Night WARNO Event, which is a 2v2 tournament by the renowned Protosz. This event will happen this evening, on Friday the 9th of December, where Protosszocker and Eugen’s own DamNed will join the competition. Not only that, but while playing, they will discuss WARNO’s development in depth!
The Friday Night WARNO Event begins at 18:00 GMT / 19:00 CET and will be streamed on Twitch. If you want to know more about the event, be sure to check out the dedicated page here.
See you on the battlefield
Before we leave you be, a small tease. As you see, Twin Cities is not the only urban map we are working on…
As always: check the latest news on the Steam News page or visit the Steam Forums. Get together with other players on either the excellent Discord server, Reddit page, YouTube or our Instagram.
See you on the battlefield, commander!