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.

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. CSIM: From the descriptions available so far, it would seem that Panzer Elite has you play the career of a single commander, trying to stay alive throughout various campaigns of WWII. If this is correct, it would beg a couple more questions: Does this mean you cannot jump from tank to tank as in a number of previous tank sims? Also, is keeping a single commander and his crew a realistic goal for players who choose American tanks, where attrition was really extreme?

WINGS: To restate, you are the commander trying to stay alive through the war. You cannot jump around tanks, as this would compromise gameplay and realism. In World War II, tank warfare was constrained by visibility and Panzer Elite convincingly emulates this using its detailed terrain engine. Allowing the player to change tanks dynamically runs completely against this design intention. We transmit spottings from wingman to player via voiced radio messages.

There is however a realism setting, allowing you to switch your external camera view to the turret camera of your wingman if this is desired. We would recommend playing the German side when you play Panzer Elite the first time. In keeping with WWII, --keeping your commander alive in an American tanks is tough. However, any crewmember lost during the battle can be replaced at the base camp, even the commander of wingmen. If you the player die, you cannot continue. You must restart the scenario.

If you adopt the fighting style of the American forces, your survival rate increases. At your disposal are:

• § more artillery strikes to use against heavy German positions
• § smoke for you or your accompanying platoon members to use against heavy tanks
• § a superior number of tanks and infantry to encircle heavy German tanks.
• Historically large numbers of German heavy tanks were rare later in the war. German forces lost over 60% of them due to artillery or air strikes.

CSIM: From the screen shots at E3 it would appear that the graphics engine supports sophisticated 3d hardware and special effects. Tell us about the graphics engine. What resolutions will be available? Will there be support for particular cards?

Italy. Click for larger image.

WINGS: The software renderer supports any high-color resolution your graphic card allows, everything from 640x480 up to 1280x1024 or more. We support 3Dfx and 3Dfx2 (Voodoo and Voodoo2) boards directly via Glide, while other cards will be supported via Direct3D. There will be more direct customization to some graphic boards, but those are to be decided later. AGP support is in place and our textures can be as large as 16 megabytes.

The engine is customized to push as many polygons as possible and configurable to lower the CPU speed needed to calculate the complex terrain we show. We also support alpha effects for smoke, dust and explosions with our particle system. The screenshots you saw at E3 were from the software renderer. Keep in mind that the game still looks great even without 3D acceleration.

Buildings. Click for larger image.

CSIM: Depth of field in ground sims is closely related to mesh detail levels, and this becomes terribly important in sighting and targeting and reading terrain in order to maneuver and hide. How much depth of field will we have in Panzer Elite and how is mesh detail handled?

WINGS: Panzer Elite supports mip-mapping and LOD (Level of Detail) rendering for the landscape. This provides us the ability to display terrain at large distances. The renderer is designed to increase the detail close to your vision. In gameplay terms, this permits you to hide in gullies or depressions.

The smallest surface polygon we have is 2x2 meters. The landscape of a 5x7-kilometer battlefield consists of 11.2 million polygons. Add the ground detail and we manage nearly 16 million polygons per battlefield. The normal visual range in high detail is 500 meters, 1000 meters with binoculars (high detail) and 3.6 kilometers in low detail. Considering the average fighting distance in World War II of tanks was 800 meters, this is more than adequate.

Infantry. Click for larger image.

CSIM: Compiling enough detailed statistics to merit simulating so many variants of a single tank must require some excellent source information. How did you collect the necessary data to properly represent these variants?

WINGS: Our main source of information was the Panzer Museum in Munster. This institute has most common World War II tanks still in working order. Our secondary source was the original blue prints and data sheets of the German and American manufacturers of the armaments. Additionally interviews were conducted with veterans, providing us with supplementary supporting data.

Some information was difficult to establish, but Internet contacts provided us with this. The best source we found were the original manuals used by the tank crew. Not only did they describe how the systems functioned; the technical data included was invaluable.

Shermans. Click for larger image. CSIM: What factors will go into resolving damage modeling?

WINGS: The collision algorithm provides the angle and penetration values of the shell on the armor. After resolving those formulae, we continue following the path of the bullet through the inside of the tank.

We have a layered model of the interior, where all internal systems of the tank is displayed. When the bullet/shell hits a system, its kinetic energy is lowered and the component is damaged. This continues until the kinetic energy of the projectile reaches zero. This model is adapted to certain ammo types (hollow charges etc.), but fundamentally they all have a similar functionality.

Two of the three layers. Colors represent areas of modeling for damage.

CSIM: Can you describe how the campaign system will work?

WINGS: The campaign is a sequential order of scenarios you have to finish in order to advance to the next. In preserving your original platoon from scenario to scenario, they gather experience and keep equipment from their battles.

CSIM: How will infantry and anti-tank guns figure in the game, if at all?

WINGS: We have infantry platoons in the game as well as small infantry guns and AT-Guns. Infantry are modeled as 2D sprites to permit many to be placed in a scenario. Infantry have their own specific AI and can use half-trucks or trucks as transport. The AI handles infantry vs. infantry tactics as well as infantry vs. tank tactics. Behavior exhibited in the game includes:

• § Infantry throw smoke before crossing open ground
• § Infantry can and will engage in close combat with tanks to attempt to immobilize them
• § Infantry have (if available) Panzerfausts, Bazookas or Panzerschrecks at their disposal
• § Infantry wisely stick to cover and limit open ground exposure
• § Infantry have modes like panic (run to closest cover and cower) and pinned (cover, don't fire)

Infantry. Click for larger image.

WINGS: Depending on where the line is. In Panzer Elite a large scenario has over 35 tanks, 15 misc. units (trucks, half trucks, AT-Gunsetc.) and over 200 soldiers as infantry. The maximum number of vehicles is limited to 64.

CSIM: Will there be any form of resource management in the campaign?

WINGS: Depending on historical availability, the player can modify the tank types of his platoon in the campaign menu. He also can exchange crewmembers with others, or replace the wounded or dead. Modifications can be applied to some tanks (welded armor plates, Schuerzen, smoke mortar or pods etc.) and fuel levels can be adjusted. All variations of ammunition available can be distributed among the tanks.

From scenario to scenario, the supply level can change the availability of a specific item. For example, if you lose the Tiger of a wingman, it may take 1 or 2 scenarios before you are allowed access to another. Your wingman would have to fight with a Panzer IV instead. For players with less management skills, your adjutant can assume these tasks and automatically refuel, re-arm and replace lost tanks or crewmembers.

CSIM: The Panzer Elite web site describes a typical scenario, taking place over a 5km square battleground. That seems an awfully small area to maneuver in?

WINGS: Panzer Elite supports any battlefield under 40 square kilometers. A Tiger has a cross-country speed of 15 km/h (kilometers per hour), entailing a 20 minutes real-time drive for one end-to-end journey across an average playing field. This does not account for physical hindrances or enemy engagements.

Most scenarios don't show the "drive to the engagement" area. As the scenario starts, you are aware the enemy is near, sometimes even within battle distance. Some scenarios are 3x10 kilometers and you have to reach the end or protect a convoy for the entire journey. Driving for 40 minutes straight while fighting or guarding in-between is a long scenario to play. Road speed was much improved on most tanks. This makes roads tactically very important in the game.

Some historic cross-country speeds:

• § Shermans: 22-26 km/h depending on model
• § Panzer IV: 11 km/h
• § Tiger: 15-17 km/h
• § Panther: 30 km/h

  CSIM: Please describe how trees and cities will be modeled in gameplay. Will there be a combination of tree blocks and single trees on the battlefield? Can we expect a proper representation of urban combat in the game?

  WINGS: Trees are modeled singularly. Even dense woods are modeled from individual trees. They can be run over and provide excellent visibility cover. A unit behind the 2nd or 3rd tree line can see out of woods well, whereas spotting that particular unit is very hard. Bocage (Normandy hedgerows) have their unique simulation aspect to allow the application of the same tactics used by the Americans and Germans forces during the war.

  Buildings are individual constructions in a variety of sizes, and can be collapsed wall by wall. They are not replaced by a "destroyed sprite", but collapse convincingly and can even provide cover depending on their level of destruction. With this feature, you can enter a soft building with your tank and stick the cannon out of the other side to get better protection from its walls. This surface engine aims to provide and authentic impression of real tank combat, including city fights. Infantry assumes great power against tanks in cities as the buildings allow exceptional cover.

  
  Panther and Weather. Click for larger image.

  CSIM: What multiplayer features will we see? What is your goal for number of connected players in a scenario?

  WINGS: Besides the obligatory deathmatch, we support a co-operative mode where you can play any historical scenario provided in the game. In this mode a player can:

  • § Assume control of an entire tank platoon, including computer-controlled wingmen.
  • § Take individual control of one tank each, but form an allegiance with one another to form a human-controlled platoon.
  Both options are also available in competitive play.

  The number of players who can participate is heavily dependent on network speed. The game will benchmark this, and set the limit accordingly. We aim to support in excess of 8 players in any mode.

  
  On Patrol. Click for larger image.
  

  CSIM: Tell us about the current plans for expansions. Will there be an inter-operable expansion?

  WINGS: We already have plans for a "Late War" expansion which covers the Ardennes and the war in Germany until March / April 1945. This expansion will introduce new playable tanks and additional AI controlled tanks.

  We have designed Panzer Elite as a product line and will support the game accordingly. We aim to provide different settings (Russians, British, Canadian, modern...), either as mission disks or separate products.

  Ed. Note: In my San Franciso meeting Teut hinted at an integrated battlefield direction that would also include aircraft. Will we eventually see a Panzer Elite II? If the first product is successful, most likely!

  CSIM: One question that is almost required to ask of any WWII tank sim: can we expect to see any SS units during the game?

  WINGS: There was nothing exceptional about SS units, as they had the same tanks or weapons as others. They were only better supplied during the course of the war and usually had better training. Inclusion of SS units will add nothing to the game, and could possibly detract from the technology vs. resources aspects of WWII armored battle we wish to represent. Panzer Elite is designed purely as a tank simulation, not a historic battle simulation. In areas requiring sensitivity, we reserve the right to adapt the scenario design accordingly.

  CSIM: Tell us a little about your favorite aspect of the game.

  WINGS: I fell in love with the AI. It does things I never seen in other games. I often wonder what the tactics the CPU-controlled commander has adopted. On one occasion, I had assembled a heavy tank section (4 Tiger tanks) and fought against 25 Shermans to watch the result.

  When I came within range, the first Shermans turned around and fled. I continued my assault until another Sherman platoon opened fire on me, but with smoke shells! My visibility obscured, I didn't see the first fleeing Sherman platoon encircling me from the side. They may have lost 10 Shermans to my fire, but they finally got me.

  CSIM: We can't wait to see more of Panzer Elite. Best of luck to your team!

  Go to the Panzer Elite Update