Check out these latest hardware announcements for today from around the web. Also included are some hardware news bits, and on some days, a few rumors tossed in for good measure. Click on the links below to read the official press release, visit the products web page, or to an independent news source.

• ASUS Announces 20th Anniversary Golden Edition GTX 980
• GIGABYTE X99, Z97 and H97 Series Motherboards Ready for Intel SSD 750 Series
• ASUS Announces White Colored GeForce GTX 970 Turbo Graphics Card
• Intel Unveils Its Highest Performing Client SSD
• ASUS Announces ROG Sica Mouse and Whetstone Mousepad
• The DeepCool Assassin II CPU Cooler Now Available
• Speedlink Announces the Strike NX Gamepad
• GeForce GTX 980 Ti Launches After Summer
• Japanese OEM Tosses Out GTX TITAN X Heatsink for AIO Liquid Cooler
• Kingston Releases 4th Generation High-Speed Media Reader; 64GB 600X CF Card
• WD My Passport X Delivers 2 TB of Storage for Xbox One and PC Gamers
• AMD Faces Securities Fraud Lawsuit
• Samsung Releases m.2 and mSATA 850 EVO SSDs

The 241 Day Long Siege of Tobruk; Part 2 The Siege Continues

By John Dudek @ The Wargamer

The Siege of Tobruk lasted some 241 days from 10 April 1941 until 27 November of the same year. During the entire siege Tobruk remained a painful thorn in the side of German Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel who desperately needed that key sea port town to provide vital logistical support for his far flung Afrika Korps in order to continue his military offensive against the British into Egypt. His closest base of logistical support lay in the port of Tripoli, almost a thousand miles away across North Africa. Everything necessary to sustain his army in battle had to travel on a long, arduous overland trip oftentimes in the teeth of Allied air support.

Read on…

By Ryan McCaffrey, IGN

Much to my chagrin, Rainbow Six: Siege went completely dark following its jaw-dropping, IGN Best of Show-winning E3 2014 reveal. So to say I was excited to see it again after a nine-month wait is an understatement. And after getting to spend several hours with the upcoming closed alpha build on PC, my enthusiasm for the tense, tactical, trash-everything first-person shooter has not diminished. But I have a few concerns as well.

Read on…

Bohemia Interactive today released the second developer diary about the upcoming Arma 3 Marksmen DLC.

While the first developer diary explored the new weapons and free platform features, this new developer diary takes a closer look at the new showcase scenarios, training courses and firing drills, Virtual Garage, the new End Game multiplayer mode, and some of the experimental multiplayer systems.

The Arma 3 Marksmen DLC includes seven new weapons, two scopes, remote designators, ghillie suits, firing drills, and the Marksmen showcase scenario. The DLC will be accompanied by a major platform update, which will be free for all people who own Arma 3. The supporting update will introduce weapon resting and deployment, improved recoil simulation, improved AI suppression, various sound enhancements, a new multiplayer mode and showcase scenario, suppressor and bipod weapon attachments, heavy and grenadier vests, nine additional face paints, and Virtual Garage.

For more information about Arma 3, please visit the games official website.

We are delighted to reveal another highly detailed map for the upcoming American Civil War wargame Brother Against Brother: The Drawing of the Sword!

The Battle of Wilson’s Creek represents one of the first battles fought in the Mississippi Theatre and it was seen as a great springboard for the further Confederate operations in the region.

As we did for the previous Battle of Manassas, we are giving alongside the map also a 20 page PDF booklet with the precise description of the forces on the battlefield with the proper order of battle!

Download the full package here or click here to browse the map online!

Map and Booklet are added in the download section of the product page!

Stay tuned for further reveals!

Get more information about the game from its official product page.

Today we are very excited to announce the release of Battle of Kursk – the first expansion of Battle Academy 2 – on PC, Mac and iPad!

Driven by two new challenging campaigns, this expansion includes a carryover system that invites you to have the wider strategic picture in mind when they plan their next turn. As the head of both armies, you will also have to quickly identify the strengths of the new units available to bring out the best of them.

Grab the game here (PC).

But the news from the Ostfront are not over!

Battle Academy 2: Eastern Front base game is updated to Version 1.0.4!

This version is available with several improvements and bug fixes! Now skirmish map generation scripts are in DATA/BATTLE/SCRIPTS (and this allows them to be over-ridden in a campaign for custom skirmish map generation) and the bug related to the sniper’s animation is fixed.

Be sure to check the list of changes and bug fixes here!

You can download the patch from here.

Get more information on Battle Academy 2: Battle of Kursk from its official product page.

The 241 Day Siege of Tobruk April-November 1941

By John Dudek @ The Wargamer

The Siege of Tobruk lasted some 241 days from 10 April 1941 until 27 November of the same year. During the entire siege Tobruk remained a painful thorn in the side of German Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel who desperately needed that key sea port town to provide vital logistical support for his far flung Afrika Korps in order to continue his military offensive against the British into Egypt. His closest base of logistical support lay in the port of Tripoli, almost a thousand miles away across North Africa. Everything necessary to sustain his army in battle had to travel on a long, arduous overland trip oftentimes in the teeth of Allied air support.

Read on…

Historical air-combat action game to re-create air-battles of American pilots secretly flying combat for China in World War 2.

Ace Maddox today announced Flying Tigers: Shadows Over China, an air-combat action game for PC based on the historical events of America’s secret volunteer squadrons that flew against Japan in the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theatre of WW2.

Get ready to swoop the skies of Southeast Asia as Flying Tigers: Shadows Over China reawakens a diverse set of historical WW2 air-battles, including the Japanese Christmas-raids on Rangoon in 1941, the Flying Tigers’ first combat over Kunming in China, the Battle of the Salween Gorge, “Hump” escort missions over the Himalayas, the Invasion of Malaya, and the Japanese conquest of Burma, to name a few.

Secretly recruited under President Roosevelt’s authority in 1941, the Flying Tigers were officially known as the “American Volunteer Group”. The clandestine unit was commanded by Claire Lee Chennault, a resigned US military-aviator who had been advising the Chinese Air Force since 1937.

Flying Tigers: Shadows Over China is scheduled for release in the summer of 2015.

Check out the first screenshots, intro video and key features of the game via the Flying Tigers: Shadows Over China website.

By John Dudek @ The Wargamer

Dudley Walker “Mush” Morton was a dynamic, utterly fearless, yet personable submarine skipper and a natural born leader of fighting men. The nickname of “Mush” was short for “Mush-mouth”, a name he picked up in college because of his decided southern drawl way of talk. Described as a “happy warrior” who exuded happiness, good humor and joy whenever entering into combat. His infectious, positive “can-do” outlook was electric and never failed to fire up his crew. Although prone to take great chances while playing against long odds, he continued winning big against the Japanese and single headedly raised the morale with the entire US Submarine Force with the tales of USS WAHOO’s mostly successful five war patrols over ten months.

Read on…

Be a part of The Revolution.

Source: IGN

In an effort to increase the diversity in their in-game world of occupied Philadelphia, Deep Silver Dambuster Studios is accepting applications from the public to be scanned and modeled as non-player characters (NPCs).

Those interested can submit photos via the studio’s official website. According to the terms and conditions, one must be at least 18 years old and able to travel to Nottingham in the UK for the 30-minute facial scanning process.

The developer will be contacting applicants throughout the year and reassures people to not become upset if they don’t hear back right away. It’s possible these scans will also be used in the studio’s prospective projects, as a note on the site clearly states they’re “looking for new faces to feature in Homefront: The Revolution and other future video games.”

Homefront: The Revolution is a follow-up to the 2011 FPS Homefront and is expected to release sometime in 2016. It was recently delayed when development shifted over to Deep Silver Dambuster Studio and given extra time.