Hello and welcome back folks for another Forgotten Hope news update. This week's update is about a completely new Pacific map, based on the battle of Saipan Our new map was made by Real-BadSeed, with a little help from Dime a Dozen and Lobo.

By mid-1944, Allied forces in the Pacific had driven Japanese forces back to the main line of defense for the home islands. If the Marianas fell, the newly introduced B-29 Superfortresses that could base there would be within range to strike directly at Tokyo, making Saipan--the largest Island in the northern Marianas--a position that Japan could not afford to lose.

U.S. Marines began landing on June 15th, gained a thin foothold after a day and a night of bloody fightiing, and were reinforced the next day by Army units from the 27th Infantry Division. An attempt within a few days by Japanese naval forces to counterattack resulted in the Battle of the Phillipines Sea, which ended a disastrous loss for Japan by the 20th. Without hope of reinforcement or resupply, Saipan's defenders held out for almost three more weeks, most of the last remaining forces perishing in a suicidal charge on July 7th.

    

    

    

    

    

As a last bit of eye candy we want to highlight a couple of items that were made especially for this map by Rad. Neither have any place on a North Africa map, but they will be returning in FH2 on Pacific maps in the future. First we have a beautiful wood and reed hut.

And, in keeping with Rad's tradition of making extremely slow-moving, unarmed vehicles, we have the Harbor Sampan.

That's all for today folks. We hope you enjoyed the update and would like to invite you to visit our public forums to discuss this or other Forgotten Hope news.

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Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.

--Francis Bacon

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Welcome back for another Forgotten Hope news update. This one is devoted to getting to know some alternate versions of some familiar faces. Some of the vehicles in this update have been shown before and you are getting a closer look. Others are have been redone for 0.7 and are being shown in their current form for the first time.

Before we get to the goods, I want to take a moment to welcome two new members to the team. First of all, I want to welcome Konigstiger who will be working on FH's sounds, and TPM_Montross who will be skinning. Both are veteran modders with lots of prior experience, and we are all looking forward to seeing what they come up with. Let's give them both a hand!

Leading off the new goodies, lets have a look at the M3 Light tank (known to the British as a Stuart) that will be battling the Imperial Japanese Army in the jungles and on the beaches of the Pacific, while its lend-lease cousins are seeing service in the Western Desert. There were many variants to the M3 Light Tank series: This one features a trio of hull mounted machine guns, in addition to the one in the turret. The two sponson-mounted side mgs were remote fired by the driver. The M3 Light Tank was modeled and skinned by Rad.

Next we have ingame screens of a rebuilt T19 Howitzer Motor Carriage. The T19 carried a 105 mm howitzer mounted on an M3 Halftrack, and was the largest halftrack-based artillery used by the U.S. during the war. This T19 was built by Rad based on the Dice hull and using the 105 howitzer by Dacrapper. The detail screens show some new features added to Forgotten Hope's M3 halftracks in general, including mouselook for the driver and a movable armored windshield.

     

Moving along we have some new perspectives on the Piper L4 and the GPA. Rad has modifed the Piper L4, originally Mange and Armin Aceto a seaplane version, as well as adding a functional door. There is really nothing new about Rad's GPA, at least not since last week, but it somehow ended up in all the pictures of the Piper, and is still fun to look at (and even more fun to drive!)

    

    

For our last set of variations, we have the sandbagged version of the M4A1 Sherman, and a n S.A.S. edition of the M3A1 halftrack, which did not quite make it into 0.67, but will finally arrive in 0.7. The M4A1 was modeled by Omni and skinned by McGibs, as well as having a wheels by Lude and tracks by Montoya. The S.A.S halftrack variation is by DICE and RAD.

     

That's all for this week, but be sure to come for some more news. Until then, feel free to visit our public forums to discuss this update and other news.