winSPWW2 Patch Changelog

What's new in winSPWW2 Patch 9.0

Apr 20, 2016

6 New Scenarios
12 Revised Scenarios
3 New Campaigns
22 New or Revised maps
464 New or Revised Photos
410 New or Revised Icons
36 Updated OOB files with a new R&D OOB
42 Revised Icon Graphic files
2 New or Revised Text files
Upgraded GameOptions
Upgraded SCENHack

New in winSPWW2 Patch 7.0 (Mar 25, 2014)

12 New Scenarios
63 Revised Scenarios
2 New Campaigns
6 Revised Campaigns
40 Revised Campaign files
1 New Map
1 New Sound file
1,250 New or revised Photos
67 New or Revised Icons
36 Updated OOB files
12 Revised Icon Graphic files
10 New or Revised Text files
Upgraded Game Options
Upgraded MOBHack
Upgraded Cost Calculator
Upgraded ScenHack
Upgraded Camo Map Editor
All 15 levels of terrain are now represented by different colours on the mini map. Previously only the first 10 levels were with level 11-15 the same colour as level 10
MOBHack has been improved to work with most of the commonly used integrated database checks. For example, if you select "Unit Checks" and " Find units *" and you, for example, clicked on 01- Infantry you would see a message to the right that reads " Searching for Units of class 1 Infantry" and under that would be a list of units that use that unit class. In the past you would then have to open MOBHack manually and scroll to the unit you were interested in. Now you can click on that unit in the database and it will automatically set MOBHack to that unit ( or formation if you select formation checks..... the tabs marked with an asterix ( * ) will do this
MOBHack now has a "paste icons only" check box to allow pasting of only the 3 icon fields from the paste buffer.
Units of class 180 Artillery Prime Mover will now offer crew protection if the front armour is >0
A bug was fixed in the AAA reaction fires routines if weapon 1 is turned off or damaged. This mainly affected dual gun/SAM systems in MBT
AAA gun accuracy has been reduced at long ranges (>50% range) Non specialist AAA units with warhead 1 weapons ( AAMGs ) are also less effective (at ranges >5. Specialists with radar control are not particularly effected (>85% range)
Rifle fire base hit chance has been reduced slightly at ranges of 6+ hexes and Self-Loading Rifle type weapons chance to hit has been increased slightly. SMG to-hit chance at 2 hexes or less has been increased slightly. This code was already in WW2 is now applied to MBT as well. An "assault rifle" is treated as an SMG at 2 hexes or less, and as an SLR at 3+ hexes. In addition, sections with more than 13 men have an additional to-hit based on the excess remaining men over 13 for any infantry prime class weapons. This code was also already in WW2, but is now applied to MBT as well. None of the above apply to indirect fires - only to aimed direct fires. In these examples a "Rifle" is an Infantry primary class (weapon class 1) weapon with a HEKILL =1 and a range >4. An SLR is a Infantry primary weapon class (weapon class 1) with HEKILL>1 and range >3. An "Assault Rifle" is an Infantry primary weapon with HEKILL of 3+ and range 5+ and a SMG is a Infantry primary weapon with HEKILL of 5 or more and range

New in winSPWW2 Patch 6.0 (Apr 11, 2013)

7 New Scenarios
45 Revised Scenarios
1 New Campaign
5 Revised Campaigns
15 Revised Campaign files
7 New Maps
1 New Sound file
154 New or revised Photos
76 New or revised Icons
36 Updated OOB files
27 Revised Icon Graphic files
5 New or Revised Text files
Upgraded SHPEdit, MOBHack, Cost Calculator, ScenHack, Camo Map Editor
Shiny new content and revisions! Let's look at some of the more detailed changes...
Germany late in the war, as well as USSR and Finland, will now buy demolitions in the delay or defense, especially in city maps.
The US Army WW2 LC now starts later, avoiding the Aleutian campaign now in Torch (user has option to choose Pacific if desired of course). The Aleutians are now only available for generated battles at the appropriate date.
Unit Class 206 was Mountain Support. It is now Mountain Infantry AT, as that was what it was mainly being used for and it now uses the Inf-AT graphic.
Map vision algorithm changes have been made. The game is now more likely to produce both high (70-80 hex visibility) sunny days and also some night (1-4 hex) visibility conditions. Rooster trails of dust from moving vehicles in deserts and dry summer conditions have been adjusted upwards by 10 hexes to allow for the higher typical visibility. (Previously the game tended to produce too many low visibility days of 20-40 hexes maximum visibility, i.e. an overcast day).
26 pages of suggested OOB changes and/or corrections have been reviewed, researched and applied to the game along with a number of changes we made to enhance OOB accuracy and/or completeness.
And as above, so below. Read a complete list of changes in the online game manual.
A cool change to both games is available to owners of the Enhanced Editions, both the physical CD and the downloadable version. Now when the mouse cursor is passed over a hex the following information will be displayed: ground height, obstacle height, total height, and terrain density. Before the only information was height and terrain type.
The display looks like this: Ground height/obstacle height/(combined height) density.
A tree hex could be: Height 1/18/(19) Density 26.
While height is self-explanatory “density” is a value the game uses to determine how solid or transparent a bit of terrain is. For example, trees block Line of Sight (LOS) to the next hex when they are greater than 30 density. If they are under 31 LOS is deemed not fully blocked and you can see into the hexes beyond that hex.
Density is cumulative for purposes of LOS. A hex with trees that have a density rating of 20 will not block LOS to the hex beyond it but if that hex has trees that are also have a density rating of 20, LOS will be blocked beyond that hex.
The game has worked this way since Steel Panthers 1 was first released, it's just being displayed to players for the first time. And remember, it's only available for owners of the Enhanced Edition, yet another reason to upgun your copy from the free download!

New in winSPWW2 Patch 5.0 (Mar 27, 2012)

New in winSPWW2 Patch 4.25 (Mar 27, 2012)

New in winSPWW2 Patch 4.0 (Mar 27, 2012)

22 New scenarios
52 Revised scenarios
6 Revised campaigns including the ANZAC campaign
96 New or revised photos
29 New Icons
36 Updated OOB files
40 New or revised text files
4 Revised Sound files
17 Revised graphic files
Upgraded ScenHack, MOBHack, and Cost Calculator
1) There has been a new "explosives" class added to the game. In WW2 there are three types of units added to each OOB
Booby traps
These represent any type of anti personnel weapon typically built from small explosive charges or bundles of hand grenades. They may occasionally damage an armoured vehicle or destroy a truck.
Demolition Charges
A charge powerful enough to bring down a concrete / steel bridge but also used to bring down buildings on advancing
troops in defensive battles. They could also be used as "roadside bombs" or IED type weapons.
Fougasse
Fougasse was typically a mixture of gasoline and oil with an explosive igniter. In Britain during WWII fougasse was usually a 40-gallon drum dug into the roadside and camouflaged at a location such as a corner where vehicles would need to slow down. The Russians first used 'Fougasse flame throwers' in the defences around Moscow in 1941 and in the defence at Stalingrad. They were remote-controlled cans with nozzles designed to be embedded in the ground and set off from a distance and they were the basis for a German copy that showed up in Italy. Those weapons were buried with a fixed direction discharge tube and integrated with conventional landmines and barbed wire in defence
works. Weapons of this type were widely used in the Korean and Vietnam wars as well as other conflicts and are well known to combat engineers.
NOTE: These units are set up as one per formation maximum to curb overuse. They cannot be moved so must be placed during the deployment phase of the game.
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 would now retain the nation when "Paste as target nation" box was selected when copying formations from one nation to another.
5) When tanks turn their hulls to face an enemy 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) All OOBs have had every unit and formation trimmed back to 12/46 where the OOB still existed in 1946. All OOBs have been checked for units that started before 1930 and the few that were found have been corrected to 1930. All OOBs that started or ended between 1930 and 1946 such as The Slovak Republic, Italian RSI, Polish LWP and both
Spanish OOBs have had their start and end dates adjusted to their actual in and out of service dates used by the game code for all units and formations that strayed before or after those dates. Any unit with a start date after 12/46 was removed. This was a holdover from the original version of the game that allowed game play to 1949.There were 86 units that started after 1946 so were wasting space in the OOBs and there were 4851 units with end dates after 12/46 which made for "messy" OOBs.
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) Japanese infantry units may now disperse but at a 50% chance compared to all other nationalities. This speeds up the game and eliminates the need to hunt down 1 man squads.
10) MOBHack now shows template units used by formations as underlined in the units section and in the formation section the total number of men in a formation is now reported up to a limit of 255.
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 differ from the original without aborting the game.
13) More historical battle locations for Canada in Normandy onwards in NW Europe have been added, such as "Le Mesnil Patry", "Orne Valley", "Quesnay Wood", "Scheldt estuary", "Hochwald forest", Sonsbeck (town), and Gronigen (city). In campaigns it is no longer possible to change a dead unit and retain that dead units experience and morale for the new unit.
14) Smoke is now more readily available for non x0 armoured vehicles. In the past some formations contained support units who's purpose was to provide this service but they had no smoke rounds due to code restrictions.
These restrictions have now been removed.
15) The code has been adjusted so that the V hexes , both cluster and "shotgun", are more evenly distributed to both sides.
16) Experience and Morale are now presented in the same order on all screens.
17) Occasionally the last reported page of formations in the purchase menu would turn up blank. This has been corrected. The code was producing an extra page every 25 formations instead of at 26.
1 The ratings for HEAT protection of German Shurtzen has been increased from 6 to 10 based on new information found in a post war British test.
19) Two of our game development programs have been included with this patch and can both be found in the main winSPWW2 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.
20) There were numerous minor unit and formation changes made to the OOBs .

New in winSPWW2 Patch 3.5 (Mar 27, 2012)

9 New Scenarios
5 Revised Scenarios
8 New maps
6 New or revised photos
2 Revised Icons
36 Updated OOB files
2 Revised Graphic files
3686 new Icon spots added
Upgraded Cost Calculator
Upgraded MOBHack
Upgraded Extended Map Editor
1) Fixed old "W" key bug where weapon ( 1 ) could not be fired when using the "W" ( weapons ) Key to fire only 1 weapon.
2) PBEM Campaign bug where smoke was not being given to core troops after the first turn is fixed.
3) AIAdjust percent INI modifier will now affect the buy of AI played forces in any battle type.
4) A bug in special battles that was carrying beach assaults over into the next battle has been corrected.
5) On map Arty command units have been removed from the list of units able to act as spotters. They can no longer call indirect artillery missions which was allowing an arty cheat that existed back to SP2.
6) ANZAC WW2 Long Campaign now starts 1/41 in the Western Desert, rather than the old earlier date. That was the first Australian action (6th Div, Bardia) in WW2.
7) Scenario 312 fixed and now has V hexes. Scenario 5 revised to make it more playable.
A small bug where vehicles that automatically used their smoke dischargers would not be able to move has been fixed.
9) 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. The game would not run time backwards but it would only run the latest month.
10) 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.
11) European WW2 Long Campaigns will now end in May 1945 instead of April 1945. This month is used for special situations e.g. the battle for Berlin.
12) More Eastern Front WW2 locations have been added. There is no longer one set battle location for every month in the East Front campaign, many alternatives have been provided.
13) Landed gliders are no longer automatically destroyed, but are now treated as abandoned vehicles.
14) A bug with all units of a side being destroyed leading to screen flicker has been fixed.
15) A Bug with all units of a side being destroyed but the game did not end even if all objectives taken has been fixed.
16) Problems with the AI counter attacking early in the delay or defence has been corrected.
17) 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).
1 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.
19) 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.
20) 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.
21) 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.
22) 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.
23) There was a bug in the WW2 code for guns with range >100 and AP that caused problems with the cost calculator. Now fixed.
24) 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.
25) 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.
26) "Tank Rider" passengers now have a greater chance of more casualties if caught on the tank when they are fired on.
27) Crewed weapons such as AT guns, howitzers and mortars when loaded onto a paratroop transport for air dropping now split into the crew and un-crewed weapon . They 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 but there are no "air droppable" vehicles , or transports capable of dropping them, in WinSPWW2 and very few crewed guns or mortars in droppable para formations so this change will mostly impact WinSPMBT rather than WinSPWW2.
2 Numerous small OOB corrections.

New in winSPWW2 Patch 3.0 (Mar 27, 2012)

16 New Scenarios
34 Revised Scenarios
13 New and Revised maps
39 New photos
27 New and Revised Icons
36 Updated OOB Files
2 Revised campaign files
9 Revised Graphic files
Upgraded Cost Calculator
Upgraded MOBHack
Upgraded ScenHack
Upgraded Extended Map Editor
Upgraded GameOptions
1) The OOB changes mainly centre around correcting discrepancies between some weapons and the units in the various OOB's that use them. All OOB's were then put through the cost calculator once again to ensure uniformity
2) Previously radios were given to almost every platoon leader and section leader no matter what the radio codes in the OOB's were set to . This has changed in both WinSPMBT and WinSPWW2. Now every company, platoon and section reads the radio codes and if the OOB's 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)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 .
Bug found in MOBHack where deleting unused weapons would also delete weapons that are still being used. Now fixed.
9) Units in retreat or route can no longer use a radio to contact artillery
10) 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.
11) A text overrun bug that would intermittently show up on the HQ menu screen after purchasing has finally been squashed for good ( we hope.... )
12) 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.
13) PBEM Campaigns have been added to the game for CD holders.
14) 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.
15) A rare bug where crews carried as passengers could turn into enemy crews has been fixed.
16) Bulgaria was showing up as an opponent of Russia during campaigns. This has been corrected
17) Ranger and Mountain Forward Observers did not have the artillery spotting bonus. Now fixed
1 Changes to water depth were not being saved. Now fixed. The scenario #49 "Stark and Bitter Hours now has the correct water depth between the coral reef and shore.
19) 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.
20) Level Bombers were not always dropping all their bombs. Now fixed
21) One infantry class was missed in the code that restricted their ability to throw smoke to one hex. Now fixed
22) WW2 Long Campaign bug fixed. AI was buying mines etc in LC when it had to defend but was not deploying them.
23) The Japanese long campaign code was set up too passively in the early Chinese fighting. There were far too many "defend" battles for the Japanese. Now changed. They will be more aggressive than in the past and there will be more advance and assault battles
24) The special battle text files that appear when playing campaigns were missing and have been included in this upgrade.

New in winSPWW2 Patch 2.5 (Mar 27, 2012)

New in winSPWW2 Patch 2.0 (Mar 27, 2012)

New in winSPWW2 Patch 1.1 (Mar 27, 2012)

There were some problems with reinforcement units not having the same entry turn as their APC- fixed.
Passengers now have their reinforcement turn set to same as vehicle.
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
Short range effects in infantry combat was a bit too high and the following changes have been made to the code
The bonus effect for fire at 50m reduced, and takes more consideration of firer suppression
The bonus for being unspotted (ambush fire at short range) has been reduced and takes more consideration of firer suppression level
The panic fire chance at 50 metres takes more consideration of suppression to the firer
The net result of these changes are a more give -and- take firefight
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 on this is included in the Game guides "Playing a Campaign" section and in a Text file found in the Game Data folder
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.
Anti tank gun reaction fire adjustment
In reaction fire, ATG (and FLAK) are now more oriented to vehicle/armoured targets, infantry less so, especially beyond 500m range. A players Anti-tank gun will now tend to reserve fire for vehicle/armour targets and not pop off at infantry especially if not yet spotted.
Arid maps
Arid maps (e.g. Tunisia) used in V1 was being treated as a summer map, so not using the desert icons. Desert icons are now used (if they have them) by units in Arid maps.
Turn length
As WW2 tends to use marching infantry, default battle length has been increased a bit to allow for this.
Barges were creating a new barge in the barge carrier when save games were re-loaded. Fixed. One one barge per barge carrier now.
The cost of units has increased. In some cases more than others. Generally the change has been slightly upwards but heavier tanks now cost more. For example. A KV-1 in Ver1 cost 91 points in MOBHack and now costs 112 points ( the game cost will vary due to experience and moral modifiers ) A IS-II that cost 93 points in V1 now costs 126 points. A Koenigstiger in ver1 was 156 points and now costs 214 points in v1.1. As a result all scripted campaigns have had their points allotment altered and new versions of those files are included with the patch as are a complete set of OOB's which also contain a number of tweaks and changes based on suggestions or problems found after the game was released
Also included:
6 new PIC's
2 revised sound FX
3 new Icons
2 revised scenarios and 13 new ones bringing the total number of scenarios in the game to 345