by Leonard Hjalmarson with Neil Mouneimne

The creaking was driving me insane.... and every time we hit a bump my stomach would be in my mouth again. Still, a Tiger on the move is better than a Tiger sitting still... Unless, that is, you have excellent cover!

Cover is JUST what Wings Simulations will give you, in the most amazing armor simulation I have yet seen. You want trees and bushes? Try about two dozen types, each meticulously modeled. You want to cross the river and see the water splash? Done! You want wind and weather in WWII? You got it. You want ten score infantry in action? (Geez, you are HARD to please).. ok, done. Now you want ballistics and physics accuracy that is obsessive.. alright, its yours.

That's not enough, you want object modeling equal or beyond M1 Tank Platoon II, and you want two score different buildings, each with their own damage model. You want the ability to poke your main gun through a wall, or to drive through one wall, leaving the others intact as a way to hide. And you want damage modeling in your vehicle that rivals the best flight sims out there.

GUI. Click for larger image.

Still not satisfied, you want a logical and intuitive interface that allows you to access a lot of information quickly and make adjustments easily. And you want accuracy in object and damage modeling that will surpass any armor sim to date, because the designers have stood beside a real Tiger and heard it growl (there are only a handful of people worldwide who have heard the engines run). These guys have taken measurements in person, and have reams of photos and actual German design docs IN HAND. In short, you want it all!

Where you are going to HAVE it all is in Panzer Elite. Good grief, I thought flight sim designers were obsessive! Teut Weidemann and Heiko Schroeder, the founders of wings Simulations GmbH in 1996, won't be surpassed in their attention to detail any time soon. Factor in Teut's love of strategy and tactics, and you have the makings of a match made in heaven. Panzer Elite has a state of the art graphics engine not just because Italy or France look so good, but because they want to give you the ability to interact with terrain and objects tactically.

To that end you'll find at least thirty different trees, bushes and hedgerows in Normancy, and an entirely different set for Italy and Africa. Buildings and objects in Normandy run about three hundred. The terrain texture varies incredibly also and is generated on the fly by your CPU.

As I was viewing an engagement with Teut at the controls, he astonished me by informing me that I was viewing the software only mode! The simulation looks very, very good in this mode, but will also run in D3d at 1280x1024 if you prefer, and in Glide up to 1024x768. If you have AGP you'll be able to run in the highest detail levels with no loss of frame rate.

And with a solid grasp and love for tactics, you can imagine that the AI in Panzer Elite will also rival the best out there. In fact, the campaign is deep enough that resource management is important, and this includes your crew, who grow in their abilities over time. But enough for introductions. Here is an interview I fielded some weeks ago. I'll follow this up in a few days with more information gleaned first hand in San Francisco.

Click to continue

CSIM: Information on Panzer Elite has been hard to come by. Could you help set the stage by briefly describing a little about the character of Wings Simulations and Panzer Elite?

WINGS: Teut Weidemann and Heiko Schroeder founded wings Simulations GmbH in 1996. Both have worked in various fields of the gaming industry for 11 years until the opportunity arose to gather the creative talent needed for work on high-level PC simulations.

Panzer Elite follows the initial skirmishes between the German and American forces through North Africa, moving on to Sicily, Italy and Normandy. As a Platoon Commander, your primary objective is assuring your own and your crew's battle performance. You must fulfil your mission goals using guile and tactics -- not by taking foolhardy risks to the detriment of your crew. You must also strategically limit the risks posed to your wingmen. Survival of the war is your primary objective. During all these battles, you will also receive news updates on events happening on other fronts to allow you to relate to events happening elsewhere.

CSIM: How would you describe the level of simulation in Panzer Elite? Is it going to be more along the lines of a typical Psygnosis game in being very action-oriented, or skewed more towards the realism end of the scale like Nations: Fighter Command?

WINGS: Panzer Elite is a high-end simulation with all the essential elements that enthusiasts rightfully expect, and hopefully more. To make the game more accessible to the casual user, there are several options available to configure the realism settings and adjustable gameplay settings. For example, three ballistics settings are available for the gun:

• § "doom" mode (straight shots only)
• § ballistics (only gravity applied)
• § realistic (gravity, spin, air friction etc. applied)

CSIM: How much detail is going into systems and weapons modeling?

WINGS: Weapons are simulated according to historical data we thoroughly researched. This includes all aspects of the tanks included and the individual attributes of the guns and machine guns carried. The physical formulas are as accurate as current CPU processing speeds would sensibly allow.

The driving model takes individual suspension of the road wheels into account but uses an abstract model for the calculation of the max speed over different terrain types. The resulting simulation model follows the data gathered as closely as possible. This is not to the detriment of gameplay.

We model muzzle velocity, spin derivation, gravity, AP, HE, Hollow charge ammo, smoke, smoke pods, smoke mortars, AP-T, APCBC-T, APCR-T, HE-T, HEAT, and APBC-T types of ammo, along with all ammo types for small weapons like machine guns, hand grenades, Panzerfausts, Bazookas, Panzerschrecks amongst many others.

GO to Part II