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Hello folks, and welcome back for another update of the Forgotten Hope Mod. This time we continue our Italian holiday and have some new armor for you. In a previous update you already had a look at the Carro Armato M13/40 light tank and the Semovente da 75/18 Su Scafo M 41 assault gun. This time, you can review their smaller siblings.

The first piece on view today is the Carro Armato L6/40 modeled by Lude and skinned by Montoya. Production of this tank began in 1939 and it was considered to be about the same as the German PzKpfw II in terms of firepower and general mobility. With a maximum speed of 42km/h it dashed through the desert and hunted the enemy, whether with its 20mm Breda M35 gun in the open field, or as a flamethrower-equipped variant in urban regions..

Next, we have the Semovente L40 da 47/32 assault gun once more created by that dynamic duo, Lude and Montoya. Though not designed to be a tank destroyer, it soon fell easily into that role. This was the largest Italian self-propelled gun sent to the Russian Front. A total of 300 were produced between 1941 and 1943, including a command version in which the main gun 47mm L/34 was replaced with a Breda Model 38 8mm machine gun.

And since we got quizzed last weekend for not mentioning D-Day, we want to give some historical background about the 12th of June. Today, 61 years ago, the first V1 rocket hit London, and the US opened the 5th war loan drive. 60 years ago, on this day, the Allies freed the city of Trieste from its Yugoslavian occupiers.

But not only major incidents happened in the past, on this day. There are also small stories to tell. 61 years ago, Pilot Officer Andrew Charles Mynarski, RCAF, died of burns suffered when he attempted free the tail gunner of his damaged Lancaster bomber before bailing out over Cambrai. The tailgunner survived the crash and Mynarski was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

We hope you enjoyed the additional information and we are grateful that you decided to stop by the site and check on our progress, be sure to stop by our public forums and discuss this news update.

Hello folks, and welcome back for another update of the Forgotten Hope Mod. First of all we have another small web page update for you. Thanks to the help of Orange, Maximilian Weisemann and Guybrush Threepwood the French-language version of the site is now all done and at your disposal. We hope all the French-speaking people out there, account themselves lucky and enjoy the opportunity to be able to review our page in their native language.

But that's enough of the preliminary skirmishing. For today's news update we have Italian infantry arms for you. McGibs was really busy and deserves a holiday named after him for the creation of these fancy toys. The most common weapons in the Italian army were rifles as in any other country. But the Italian Army was faced with a critical deficiency in the primary arm of their infantry throughout World War Two. The M1891 had seen service since World War I. As the cartridge was insufficiently powerful, a post-war shift to a 7.35 mm round was made, but only a few weapons had been modified before the next conflict began.

As a result, Allied soldiers had the edge on the Italian army in a typical firefight. And the open fields of the desert made the problem even worse. The only advantage was an extra round in the magazine, which was still too small compared to the British weapon, which was loaded with 10 cartridges. Two carbine versions also saw service, the M1891 carbine, which was a straight adaptation of its parent with reduced length. A second version was the M1938 with an overall length of 1015mm and caliber 7.35x52 mm. This later model appeared only in limited numbers.

    

Moving from bolt-action to automatic weapons, the Beretta 38A was the most reliable and prized Italian small arm of World War Two. The Beretta evolved from a pre-war police carbine into an effective submachine gun, and carried over the accuracy of its single shot predecessor into the automatic version. This weapon compares well with its Russian counterpart, the PPSh 41.

Also effective, though not without limitations, the Breda 37 represented perhaps the best of the various infantry weapons available to the Italian Army, outside of their excellent submachine guns. The use of lubricated ammunition invited stoppages, especially when introduced to the desert environment of North Africa. The Breda 37 typified the overall problems experienced by the Italian infantry. Every weapon outside of the submachine gun class included several unwelcome features. We hope you will enjoy them anyway.

    

That's all for today, but be sure to stop by our public forums to discuss this and other news updates!

Hello folks, and welcome back for another update of the Forgotten Hope Mod. First of all we are proud to be able to tell you that our member Lude won the 3rd Peugeot Design Competition. He was able to prevail against 9 rivals with his idea after he made it to the finals before where only 10 out of 3800 entries from 170 countries were chosen for. We would like to pronounce our congratulations and our best wishes to our member and friend. You did a great job. Keep it going!

    

Next good news we have for you is that our team has grown by one member recently. The newest Padawan we have is K96 and he will work in the 2D & 3D arts. It is good to have him aboard as we will need lots of help in preparation for Forgotten Hope 2. You can look forward to some of his first efforts for FH in the near future.

And now it is time to show some more development progress. Many of you might remember the mapping contest a while ago. The price offered to the winner was a static and a vehicle of choice. The Orthodox church static was already shown in a former news update, but we still owe the winner mArs his vehicle. His choice was the Soviet T-26 tank used in the early war years mainly for infantry support. Montoya created this prize, so that contest winner could finally receive his reward. After heavy losses in early part of the German invasion, most T-26s were converted to artillery tractors and a few were even filled with explosives and used as radio controlled mines.

We saved the best for last - the introduction of the first armoured pieces for the Italian army. First of all we have the backbone of the army with the M13/40 tank. Weaker than the better German tanks, it proved to be unreliable and prone to catching fire, although it's 47mm cannon was good enough to deal with most of the British armor. For that reason the British used any of the M13/40s they could capture and had more than 100 hundred of that type in service. Forgotten Hope will have it in its service thanks to Montoya.

Later in war the Italian Army ceased the production of the Carro Armatos series tanks and used their chassis for the production of the Semovente da 75/18 Su Scafo M 41 assault gun. Based on the model of the German Sturmgeschütz III this vehicle was by far better than the CA. Armed with a 75mm cannon it was mainly used as artillery and tank hunter by the Italians. Later most were taken over by the German army, which used then primarily as long range artillery owing to the difficulty of maneuvering them in the mountainous regions of northern Italy. Once more a vehicle created by Montoya.

That's all for today folks. Stay tuned for more information about the mod development progress on the next weekend and give our public forums a visit to discuss this one.