[SOW] Horse-drawn vehicles
 

Historical accuracy question here - will there be horse-drawn vehicles in the game? Most of the German army, and probably the other armies too, was moved by horse in WW2. Are there legal/political/marketing reasons to prevent the player from shooting at horses?

Probably not!

Only ethics and moral will prevent you.
But this is a flight simulator not a slaughterhouse simulator so let’s hope it’s not possible.

Viking

It's a WW2 air-force flight simulator, and the armies of 1940 used horse-drawn vehicles, and were attacked by aircraft. I don't have any desire to shoot at horses (seagulls, yes, but not horses. Thank you Silent Hunter for that catharsis) but they were there. To my mind, 100% motorised ground forces look odd!

(I wonder, in 2110, when there are flight simulator games made of the great Australian-American war of 2062, will people protest at the historical inclusion of manned aircraft and say the game should only feature armed UAVs that made up about half of each force? :-P )

LOL. O.K. I'll refrain from destroying the enemy's transport when I'm attacking his transport. That's what real pilots did, I'm sure.

As for an answer to the question, I recall seeing horse drawn equipment, in early screen shots, so I'd assume horses to go with them. If PITA has a problem with us shooting artificial Horses they can get......er, a life. (how Oleg deals with it is a matter for speculation)

Horses where slightly used in the early war.
If gore could be added to SoW,I would vote to having first pilots grinded by propellers blade.

Horses were the major method of moving artillery and caissons, especially on the eastern front. In terms of SOW they were still the main mode of transport for civilians in France and Britain in the 1930's.

Historically one of the Luftwaffe's more successful tactics in the Battle of France (learnt during the Spanish Civil War) was to machine gun the long columns of civilian refugees (on foot and with horse drawn carts) to create havoc and block the roads. A road blocked by injured and dieing women, children and animals is a serious hindrance to enemy troop movements.

HOWEVER the official reason given for excluding horses from IL2 when this topic has come up in the past was that allowing the shooting of animals would increase the censorship rating of the game well past M15+ and make marketing difficult. I assume the same applies with SOW.

why not?
in Arma 2 yu can kill wathever you want

I'm not interested in gore, particularly. You'd shoot a horse and it would go from the 'horse walking' or 'horse bolting' or 'horse standing still' animation to the 'horse lying dead' pose. If you deal more than a certain amount of damage, the horse could just disappear, rather than have bits of exploded horse flying everywhere :-P

The game Mount & Blade has horses (and blades) which behave like this, but with hitpoints. There's no gore. If you attack a riderless horse I think it runs away. If its hitpoints are reduced completely, it whinnies and falls over.

Horses were used extensively by the Germans through WW2. A moment's Googling found this article, written March 1946. http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/g...rse/index.html

"Public opinion to the contrary, so great was the dependence of the Nazi Blitzkrieg upon the horse that the numerical strength of German Army horses maintained during the entire war period averaged around 1,100,000. Of the 322 German Army and SS divisions extant in November 1943, only 52 were armored or motorized. Of the November 1944 total of 264 combat divisions, only 42 were armored or motorized. The great bulk of the German combat strength—the old-type infantry divisions—marched into battle on foot, with their weapons and supply trains propelled almost entirely by four-legged horsepower. The light and mountain divisions had an even greater proportion of animals, and the cavalry divisions were naturally mainly dependent on the horse."

Well, I thought I'd heard that we didn't get horse-drawn vehicles in Il-2 for this reason.

Oh now you've done it, expect to hear a reply from madfish (cuddlefish) about the inhuman and cruel treatment of animated animals in a war simulator. Why don't we throw bubble gum at each other instead. You people crying about no nukes, no nukes, or how dare you shoot at that cute furry animal. Why don't we all go play with our Barbies now. For crying out loud this is a war simulator we're talking about or am i mistaken. Aren't there any other flight sims for the faint of heart. Why are flames modelled in this sim, not to mention bullets and bombs. Aren't we afraid of hurting someones feelings. You little girls make me ill. Just thinking out loud, hope i didn't offend anybody.:-)

this would be historically correct...however quadruped animation is the most difficult of all animation to achieve..the time spent creating it might be better spent on other issues. 1 further point the British Army sold all its stock of horses to the Germans in the late 30's thus there was no horse drawn units in the British Army by the time of BoB.

There are plenty of xbox games where blood thirsty kiddies get to wander around chainsawing limbs off dead corpses. They are generally the same brats that flame people in online forums and start fights in online game servers.

There is a perception that this is "what the market wants" partly because online game reviews are written by the same immature brats. Hence even though the biggest selling game worldwide on any platform is actually "Sims" where you do not get to blow up, gut or kill anyone people seem to think pandering to bloodthirsty teenagers is good marketing.

Personally my main objection is the more blood and gore you add the more pain in the butt immature brats, trolls and hackers will want to play - ruining the game for everyone else.

Have I mentioned we also want mules and squirrels?

Both life like animated when shot?


:rolleyes:

One of the Norwegian Spitfire pilots flying for RAF (No 331 and 332 Squ) wrote after the war that shooting up horse drawn vehicles was what got to him the most. Humans could always jump off, take cover, shoot back or whatever, but the poor horses had never hurt anyone and was trapped in their harness. Whenever he had had dreams about flying, it was always about the horses.

While were at it why don't we include some ambulances and red cross vehicles and railway carriages. There should be some no-shoot objects in the game. They could be set up to give negative points and court martials in our mission debriefings.

Also give you that nasty sinking feeling when you missidentify your target.

As an aside, durring World War I the one of the last things the many of the Australian Light Horse soldiers had to do before they left the middle east was shoot their horses. They couldn't be brought back home and they didn't want to leave them in unkind hands. Even though it bought war-hardened men to tears they generally chose to do the job themselves as a sign of respect for their mounts and as a chance to say a last good bye.

Cheers!

On a positive note if horses were included there might be an opportunity for a western SOW addon, Custer's last stand maybe?

I'm not sure about sims but do they have WW2 aircraft armed to the teeth whos whole purpose is to kill and destroy. I'm simply saying War is ugly and your trying to make it a little cute fuzzy thing. Have some respect the men who fought and died in all Wars and show it like it is to the best of your capabilities or don't show it at all. Maybe you should go play Sims instead or I'm sure there are other flight sims where all they do is wave at each other.War is violent play it like you mean it or don't play a war simulator. IMHO:-) I'm not asking for chainsaws or anything else that wasn't part of WW2. I'm simply saying if the game developers are trying to create an emersive WW2 sim why not make it an option to turn down the gore. By the way War is gory.

Hunden - you're one of the guys who continue shooting up the other plane even if is burning or has a dead engine, right?

Yes, just making sure. btw I don't play on line I'm basicly off line.

It is better to concentrate on the simulation of the technics, that is for everybody.

OK, Hunden just cracked me lol. My sick sense of humor I guess.

As someone else mentioned, trying to get horse animations right would be a serious development and maybe frame rate issue.

I have no problem with shooting at another simulated pilot because I figure he strapped on his simulated plane the same way I did :). But in my own game, I would draw a line before shooting horses. Humans tend to bring their troubles on themselves or at least have choices. Animals, not so much. I didn't even like shooting the dogs in the original Wolfenstein lol.

That's why I don't hunt. I will eat anything YOU kill and I know where the meat from my grocery store comes from, I just don't want to be the one pulling the trigger on an animal. But a human breaking into my house is in serious trouble ;).

Now where did I put my skirt.....

Splitter

I'm with you on that I don't hunt either. But if I had to I would. I just like getting a rise out of some people.

'At their own risk and peril'
 

...

;)

During the early part of the war, the Seenotdienst was inaugurated by the Germans to rescue airmen downed over the sea, using Heinkel He 59. These aircraft were painted white and adorned with numerous red crosses, could carried armaments and were observed carrying out reconnaissance tasks. The British government duly gave warning in a communiqué of 14 July 1940 that such planes would be considered legitimate targets.


...

oh noes .. you mean the Nazi zombies with chainsaws were not real ???

http://www.neonpunch.com/wp-content/...now_bluray.jpg







btw .. the adjustable gore feature was implemented in the very first IL2 game but was never really that popular .. it only worked on a few aircraft like the original Emil, basically spraying blood all over the cockpit glass when viewed in external view.

I am not even sure if it still works in IL2_1946 it could well be disabled.

I'm for horses. European horse stocks were almost entirely wiped out through use as pack animals (or food towards the end of the war). This element of the destruction shouldn't be overlooked.

Something for the modding community once the SDK is out, I should think.

I'd say that perhaps we should include horses in SoW - if not in BoB then in whichever upgrade represents the final stages of the European war. Pilots on the axis side (purely in the interests of realism) will be obliged to eat them. Along with dead dogs, and the occasional rat if they get lucky...:wink:

LOL, I had no idea you were fighting off these urges, I'll leave you alone now LMAO:grin:

Yes, As shown with their naval raiders like the Kormoran, Germany was not adverse to disguising military missions in civilian colours. (As I am sure the British did as well)

At least the British gave a clear warning that aircraft acting outside the guidelines stated
in the Red Cross Convention would be considered hostile and treated as such.

Cheers!

Would it really be hard to animate horses? Mount & Blade managed it and that's made by a team of two. Wouldn't need to be magnificently detailed (or maybe it would, to match the magnificent close-up detailing of the other ground vehicles). X-Plane's managed to have huge flocks of seagulls to fly into (another source of catharsis, even if it fatally breaks my aircraft most of the time) all rendered in 3d without frame issues.

Aw, man, don't talk to me about X-Plane birds! I counted and one time got THREE bird strikes in 10 missions lol. Once at altitude in a Baron that took out the port engine. Then there are the deer that run across the runway...have you noticed how they ALL look at you and seem to be laughing? (at least you can't actually hit the deer).

I'm no programmer, but from what I understand a good, detailed horse would be hard to portray with minimal resources. Plus I think most horses have four different gaits and some north European breeds have five (don't ask me why I know this stuff....maybe it is five and six). With the team's attention to detail, I could see a four month delay to get the horses just right lol.

BTW, I DO get a frame rate hit with X-Plane and birds/deer. I have a decent video card but only a so-so processor.

I would still feel bad having to shoot horses....I might just try to shoot the teamsters....

Splitter

Poster 1: "The German horses in SOW are under-modeled, they move too slowly."

Poster 2: "Rubbish they are fine where is your evidence."

Poster 1: "German breeds were known for sturdiness and had 5 different gaits, here is a link ... ".

Poster 2: "Wikipedia does not count as evidence they make it up as they go along, and anyway the Wehrmacht horses were not the good breeds and were half starved."

Poster 1: "Rubbish here is a report from an SS Artillery Officer comparing Soviet and German transport horses in 1943 ... "

Poster 3: "Actually its not the gait that matters its the nature of the tack and rigging and US Army horses were far fitter and better suited than either."

Poster 1: "Not for European conditions they weren't, German horses excelled in cold climates."

Poster 2: "You made that up troll ... plus the Nazi's mistreated horses everyone knows that .. "

Poster 1: "Your mum smells like a Troll and so does your face ... "

Poster 1: "Fascist ... "

Poster 3: "Your all commo hippies ... "

its not that its hard to implement rather the time required to complete the animation. walkcycles from a techincal perspective are amoung the most difficult and time consuming jobs for animators. Quadruped walkcycles are even more tricky to do well. watch Shrek u never see more than 1-2 sec of donkeys legs animated in a particular shot....animating seagulls is nowhere near as difficult.

Don't get me wrong I think it would be a nice feature i personally would like to see more animated life in general occuring within the game. It really adds to the players immersion. However its always a trade off between time money and priorities and at this stage i think its more about polishing than production.

ROFLMAO, that's pretty much how it would go. Pure win in that post. If you had put "elderberries" somewhere in that post I would have lost bladder control lol.

I will not be shooting horses. Commo hippies though.....:grin: Did they have commo hippies in WWII? Could they be seen or smelled form the air? Can you still see them when they are hiding behind unrealistically large trees? Now I am going back to rethink my position on gore.

Splitter

WTE_Galway That was hilarious, at first I thought you were arguing with yourself. LMAO:grin:

Splitter, did you know, the horses used by the Wehrmacht were all commo hippies?

Ok, forget everything I have said then. Now it's just a choice between incendiary or AP....

Splitter