Welcome to our fourth progress update for the SQUAD Bundeswehr Mod! I´m LieutenantK, the project manager of the mod. This time we proudly present insights into our Fulda Gap Leveldesign, a change of the Bundeswehr faction setup in light of OWI´s new divisions system and of course new impressions of our ongoing 2D/3D art development for weapons and vehicles. If u are new to the project, have a look into our previous updates about it. Without further ado:

Leveldesign Progress

Here you get a view of a forward logistical site (FSL), named “Uniform Hotel Alpha 7” (UH A7). It is situated just 500 m north of the Uttrichshausen truckstop at the Autobahn 7 (Highway No. 7). NATO forces can fill up their supply and repair their vehicles here, before they move back to the front lines, pushing back advancing Russian forces. With full size flag layers on a 64 km² map, conquerable FSL´s like these are necessary to shorten supply routes for ground vehicles – some of you may recognize the concept from OWI´s own Skorpo map and it´s invasion layer.

Our level design team is making great progress with our first playable flag layer “Battle for Zillbach”, a roughly 2 x 3 km infantry heavy layer on our map Fulda Gap. Here we will test much of what we are planning to introduce with the big map layers – so prepare yourself for a contested and partly destroyed German village, situated between forested hills and open fields. You will be able to experience modern trench warfare, while making use of cold war era bunkers and prepared vehicle fighting positions. We will show you more of the first map layer with our next Blog!

Note: All vehicles shown here are operational within SQUAD by now. Yet we are still not happy with all the details and prefer to iron out last bugs, correct 3D meshes, add beauty items and optimize 2D textures, to give you an optimal gaming experience, once our V1 is ready to be play-tested.

Cpt. Brotzeit sends his best regards, with a scene from within one of my Fachwerk (wood framed) buildings for Fulda Gap.

 

SQUAD Divisions: New upcoming Vehicles & Weapons

Offworld Industries, the publisher of SQUAD, will add “Divisions” to the game. This means, players will be able to vote for their preferred faction setups before the start of the next round. If you prefer to play as paratrooper unit with helicopter born infantry and light but fast support vehicles or if you prefer to use heavy armored forces instead and exclusively – you will be able to do so. We really liked this idea and changed our general faction setup, so it would work with the Bundeswehr Mod as well.

While we are calling our divisions “Brigades” and “Regiments” and even name specific companies, we are not using real life unit counterparts. We decided to create fictitious units on a company level. One reason for this decision was to represent and honor all similar units of the army (Heer) of the Bundeswehr and not just some specific ones. Another reason is SQUAD´s comparably limited engagement sizes, mirroring platoon sized battle-groups with 50 to 60 soldiers and their equipment, instead of divisions with 10.000 soldiers each – we felt naming companies of mixed brigades and regiments is more realistic in this regard. We hope you like our new sub-units, their emblems and the new vehicles added to our development schedule! (The website will be updated accordingly in the following week after this Blog dropped)

101. Panzerbrigade [Combined Armed Forces]

The 101. Panzerbrigade (armored brigade) is a heavy combined armed forces brigade of the Bundeswehr, including Panzer and Panzergrenadier troops, with support of Jäger and Fallschirmjäger forces and their respective equipment. Vacant vehicle roles with V1 may be substituted by vehicles of other Bundeswehr forces. Note: The composition of available equipm. may vary with each and every SQUAD map, keeping balance in mind.

V1 Vehicles: Vehicles coming with the first iteration of our faction [Dev. Goal: 2022]

V2 Vehicles: Vehicles coming with the second iteration of our faction [Est.: 2023]

 

101. Panzerbrigade, 505. Panzergrenadier Battalion, 2. Panzergrenadier Kompanie

The second Panzergrenadier [mechanized infantry] company is part of the 505. Panzergrenadier Battalion, of the 101. Panzerbrigade. As “heavy cavalry” / mechanized infantry brigade, it is equipped with tracked infantry fighting vehicles (IFV), supported by main battle tanks (MBT), armored mortar carriers (AMC) and heavy logistics trucks. 

V1 Vehicles: Leopard 2A6M [MBT] | SPz Puma VJTF [IFV] | Panzermörser M113 [MC]

V2 Vehicles: Leopard 2A7V + RWS [MBT] | HANS 10T-GL [Heavy Truck] | Fennek A2 [SCOUT]

 

101. Panzerbrigade, 191. Jäger Battalion,  3. Jäger Kompanie 

The third Jäger [motorized infantry] company is part of the 191. Jäger Battalion, of the 101. Panzerbrigade. As “light cavalry” / motorized infantry battalion, it is equipped with wheeled armored personnel carriers (APC), mine resistant ambush protected vehicles (MRAP) and tracked weapons carriers (AWC), supported by light trucks and medium helicopters.

V1 Vehicles:  GTK Boxer [APC] | ATF Dingo 2 FLW200 [MRAP] | Wiesel MK20 [AWC] | HANS 5t-GL | NH90-TTH [Log. Helo]

V2 Vehicles: ATF Dingo 2 FLW100 [MRAP] | Wiesel TOW [AWC] | Fennek A2 [SCOUT]

 

5. Luftlanderegiment, 4. & 7. Fallschirmjäger Kompanie

The fourth Fallschirmjäger [paratrooper] company is supported by the seventh “heavy” Fallschirmjäger company. They are part of the fifth air deployable regiment. The seventh company is equipped with air deployable wheeled light armored personnel carriers , tracked weapons carriers, medium and heavy helicopters for infantry support.

V1 Vehicles: ATF Dingo 2 FLW200 [MRAP] | Wiesel MK20 [AWC] | NH90-ATT [Log. Helo] | NH90 [Transp. Helo]

V2 Vehicles: ESK Mungo [L-APC] | ESK Mungo Logistic [L-APC] | Wiesel TOW [AWC] | CH-53GE [Heavy Helo]

Note: Vehicle additions which are new to the current SQUAD meta, such as Trucks with MG´s, armored mortar carriers or heavy logistics trucks / helicopters may be balanced by Russian equivalents, developed or co-developed by us for SQUAD in the near future.

 

Weapons Development Progress

Ah yes – glorious double optics in SQUAD. Everyone´s dream and nightmare is about to come true. Our G36A3 variants will come with a “Zieloptik” (ZO) 4×30 scope optic, with markings for up to 800 m shots. On top, you will be able to use the standard Bundeswehr red dot sight – a powerful combination, which is standard with the German armed forces since the introduction of the first G36A1 variant back in the 1990s.

The renewed standard rifle of the Bundeswehr is the G36A3. We already introduced the WIP model of At0mis and Cpt. Brotzeit with our previous update. You may marvel now about their amazing end-product, with bluetooth push-to-talk  module (our SL will no longer touch his head, while talking), HK foregrip and semi-transparent magazines (yes, you will be able to see the bullets left in game!) and awesome new textures.

The “K” with the above shown G36A3 versions stands for “Karabiner” or carbine and describes a shortened version, suited for close-quarter-combat, like in woods, trenches or urban areas. It may be not as precise on ranges over 500 m, but it will give some advantages to above mentioned combat scenarios, which usually include burst or full auto fire.

The animations shown here were made by Umbop and are WIP as well, but we thought it to be a nice additional touch for this progress update. 

 

Vehicle Development Progress

The German MRAP ATF Dingo 2 by our [FWF] Toby progressed to a nearly finished 3D model with full interior. This one took especially long, since the interior is quite complex. Toby also overworked the back of the vehicle and added several technical details to the mesh.

The navigation screen in the middle and the vehicle commander screen to the right will be functional in game, like the screens of SQUAD helicopters. The passenger on the right seat will be able to help navigate, while still seeing whats around him. Next are tweaking of last details with the 3D mesh and the marriage with the FLW200 remote weapons station, shown below.

Lynx finished the last touches of our remote weapons station FLW200, with it´s M2 Browning 50 cal. heavy machine gun. It it is beeing used by multiple of our vehicles, including the coming Leopard 2A7+ variant – that´s why we spend a little more time to perfect it. Awesome job and incredibly detailed, guys!

Below you can take a look at our new MG3 “Lafette”, an open top turret on all of our loggy and transport trucks. Gone are the times of defenseless loggy runs. They might not be up-armored, but at least they get a fighting chance against Helicopters, unarmored vehicles and infantry along the way. Around 1,200 rounds per minute are a very convincing “sheesh” for annoying predators along your supply routes.

Note: Vehicle additions which are new to the current SQUAD meta, such as Trucks with MG´s, armored mortar carriers or heavy logistics trucks / helicopters may be balanced by Russian equivalents, developed or co-developed by us for SQUAD in the near future.

Another vehicle model near´s it´s last modeling touches! The tracked armored weapons carrier Wiesel 1A2 MK20 received a lot of new details by SomeKevin, thanks to roughly 200x 4K photos we were able to make at the Militärhistorisches Museum der Bundeswehr (military historic museum) at Dresden and an insanely detailed 3D scan of  Per_von_Harke, shown below.

Awesome job guys! Much thanks to BEAST & SomeKevin for a very unique vehicle for SQUAD and the Bundeswehr Mod. Below you can get a glimpse of the detailing of the 3D scan we used for referencing. SomeKevin played around with the new Unreal Engine 5 and created this stunning computer graphic (s!c) with it:

 

Support Us!

Join our team! 

You can expect to work with a divers and 100% remote team, made up of 30+ AAA artists, indie game developers and skilled hobbyists from all over Europe, North America and Asia. A experienced leadership level will support your efforts and give you advice whenever needed. Your tasks are clearly outlined from the get go. We are supported by a group of military advisors of the Bundeswehr from different military branches, to secure highest quality standards and valuable insights. We are using a growing shared pool of licenced software, such as Perforce, Substance Painter 2021, Marmoset 2021, Character Creator 3, custom made Blender Plugins, Quixel Mixer and more.

We are currently looking for these following talents:

• Environmental Artists (3D / 2D)
• 3D Artists (Weapons, Vehicles & Characters / Textiles)
• UE4 Blueprint Specialists (Vehicle, Weapons and new game mechanics integration)
• VFX-Artists (Environment, Smoke & Explosion effects)

You may apply over at our #recruitement channel, over at our Discord.

Donate via PayPal! 

Your donation helps creating even more realistic maps incl. new German foliage, level props and alike. But also peripheral costs like software licences, server costs and such will be covered with your donation. Especially on software licences, we spend way more until now, then any donations available could pay for. Thank you in advance from the whole team!

Spread the word! 

The simplest way to help us, is to spread the word about our project. Feel free to share this blog post with your gaming community and friends who might possibly help our team to reach our development goals faster. Also thank you in advance for sharing our story from the whole team.

LieutenantK out!

PS.: We wish to do a christmas Blog next, only two month from now – let´s hope we reach all our goals up to then! Expect to see more of “Battle for Zillbach”, about finished weapons and progress with our vehicles.