Welcome back to another installment of Verdun’s “Weapon Wednesday”, we use these media updates to tease upcoming content and provide you with an update on the overall state of the games development. This week we keep it short as we are all hands on deck for the upcoming performances patches and the rendering pipeline overhaul.
Gewehr 88/05
The German army adopted the Gewehr 1888 to replace it’s out-dated Mauser 1871 rifle. This was common among many of the European powers, as the transition from smoked to smokeless powder was taking place ( The adoption of the Lebel 1886 kick started this trend) Used in many of the early colonial conflicts prior to the Great War, the Gewehr 88 was recommissioned by the German army in 1905 (and 1914) with a new model that used stripper clips instead of a 5 round enbloc. The Gewehr 88 has a near identical barrel to the Lebel 1886, however looks notably different due to the addition of a barrel sleeve (design to increased accuracy, but often led to problems with rust) It is one of a very few rifle designs used by the German army not to be designed by Mauser, infact the Mauser factory didn’t produce any throughout it’s production run.
Karabiner 88/05
Developed alongside the Gewehr 88, the Kar 88 was designed for use with cavalry units. With a shorter barrel, lighter weight and reshaped bolt handle, it fulfilled its role well - it did however retain the barrel sleeve. With several carbine variants being produced later on (for use with artillery units etc) it often saw its way to the frontlines of the Great War, appearing often with sentry and reserve units. With the Gewehr 88, it would see use well into the 20th Century.
The Gewehr 88/05 and Kar 88 rifles will be used by German sentry squads as well as Jaeger units. Offering similar accuracy and rate of fire to the Gew98, the rifle's main advantage will be the sights - which should allow for much easier targeting.
FN Browning M1900
The FN1900 was design by John Browning in 1896, presented for production in 1898, it was the first production handgun to use a slide and was one of the most important weapon designs of the late late 19th century. With mass-production starting in 1900, it quickly became a popular pistol for both military use and civilian use. With a relatively short production span of 11 years, some 700,000 were produced. Belgium used the FN1900 primarily - alongside the Ruby and other pistols including the Nagant revolver.
The FN1900 will boast reasonable accuracy, a fair reload speed and will be common among Belgian forces.
Development status
Development continues this week on the animations, nearly all have been completed now! Here’s another example of their work:
Work in Progress M1909 hotchkiss sprint animation
Game Update Status
As said it is all hands on deck with performance improvements. Several elements have been improved included the loading of characters. We are also trialing a new technique in the render pipeline which so far has yielded excellent results. To test this further I’d like to invite everybody (especially the more active community members) to join the beta testing team! As we update the beta to test performance as well as the graphics, you will be able to get early access experience with the gore system in the days to come. here
Screenshot of the Week
“Wet warfare on Ypres salient!, 1917”
And another one, because we can: “Assault in the Douaumont sector”
That will be all for this week. See you on the battlefield!