We hope everyone is having a good holiday season! We, of course, never rest, so here's some more goodies to put under your tree.

• Wanne (Advance)
  
• Battle in House (Holiday Fun Map)
  
• Kruokovo (Push)

• Squad leaders can now place rally points unassisted within friendly territory
  
• Increased the squadmate rally point assist radius from 15m to 25m
  
• New tank destruction emitter with cook-off
  
• Fixed spawn points not working on Celles due to earlier gameplay logic change
  
• The AVT-40 barrel can now overheat
  
• Makhnovo is back!

See you on the battlefield,
Darklight Games

We're proud to announce the latest addition to our armor lineup, the fearsome Flakpanzer IV "Wirbelwind"!



This vehicle is pretty much exactly what it looks like: a Flakvierling AA gun on top of a Panzer IV chassis. The vehicle was produced in small numbers during the war and was primary used for anti-aircraft duties. However, with its high rate of fire, the Wirbelwind can make mincemeat out of infantry and light vehicles caught out in the open, so don't underestimate it!

The Wirbelwind can be found on the following maps:

• Balaton
  
• Bridgehead
  
• Cambes en Plaine
  
• La Gleize
  
• Ogeledow
  
• Stoumont
  
• Valko
  
• Champs

Happy hunting,
Darklight Games

At long last, Darkest Hour now has true white phosphorous (WP) smoke rounds!



Apart from looking like a million bucks, the WP projectiles will also ignite enemies unfortunate enough to be next to the blast. The round also leaves a choking haze that will kill infantry that stay in it for too long, making it a great area denial weapon.

Due to the relative rarity of these rounds (and for balance reasons) you will not be able to resupply WP rounds from logistics trucks or vehicle resupply points.

The white phosphorous rounds have replaced the generic "smoke" round for the Churchill Mk. VII, Cromwell, Sherman 75mm variants, Sherman Jumbo and Sherman M4A3 105mm.

As part of our never-ending quest to improve the weapons, we have done a pass of small changes that can be summarrized in a few key points:

• Sub-machine gun spread has been slightly reduced
  
• Weapon sway has been adjusted to better reflect a weapon's weight and bulkiness
  
• Increased the bash & stab range
  
• Attaching a bayonet now has a greater effect on weapon sway
  
• Adjusted the field-of-view of some weapons to afford a better sight picture

• Added AVT-40, a fully automatic version of the SVT-40.
  
• Added Soviet 45mm AT gun.
  
• Increased mortar resupply interval from rally points to 30 seconds.
  
• Reduced the rally point "establishment" counter from 15 to 10. Squad leaders should no longer need to worry about abandoning their rally points when placing them on the move.
  
• Allied binoculars now have a unique skin.
  
• Squad signals and name tags are now hidden when looking down a 3D scope.

• Fixed a bug where squad rally point timers were not being reliably reset on round restart.
  
• Fixed a bug where German Combat Engineers had no weapon on Black Day July.
  
• Fixed a bug where the PPS43 sight was misaligned.

See you on the battlefield,
Darklight Games

We're back again with another big update! v9.3.0 has a lot of things that have been in the works for a long while, so let's get to it!

The (in)famous Razorneck has put the finishing touches on St. Marie du Mont, the equally famous sleepy Normandy town that saw fighting on D-Day. This map has been a long time coming, and we're excited to see you in the fields!



As part of our ongoing overhaul of all Allied weapons, GarlicAAZ has done a tremendous job revamping the model and animations on this neglected part of the arsenal. It's now a joy to use, give it a shot!



* New Armored Maps: Panzerschlact, Eidhoven, Belgium
* Updated map overviews for a number of maps

* Fixed rendering issues where some vehicle periscopes allowed players to see through smoke
* The chance of vehicle fires breaking out is now dependent on the characteristics penetrating projectile.
* Updated tank obliteration effects.
* DT29 hull machine-gun overlay is now back.

* Surrender voting no longer assumes a "No" vote for non-voters.
* New historically accurate binocular reticles.

See you on the battlefield!

We're back again, this time with an update that's slightly different from the usual! This time, we're focusing on some much needed love for Soviet armor, and the improvement of some explosion and impact effects.

• Added map DH-Armored_La_Feuillie_Clash.
  
• New explosion and smoke effects when vehicles are obliterated by rounds cooking off.
  
• New shell shatter effects.
  
• New bullet impact effects on players.
  
• Reduced the reload times of Soviet tank cannons.
  
• Improved the armor penetration capabilities of Soviet tank cannons (they
  were all under-performing compared to real-life counterparts).
  
• Added APCR round to T34/85.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Hetzer was unable to be resupplied.

There's quite a lot in development right now, including the addition of airstrikes (with full pilot AI!), a host of new levels, and yet more beautiful explosion effects coming your way.



See you on the battlefield,
Darklight Games

A new tank server has launched! The server will only have armored and combined arms levels in rotation. A big thanks to the Good Guys (GG), Real Panzer (RP), Backis, Patison, and everyone else who helped to get things done. Try it out this weekend! Longer view distances (up to 4 km!!!!), lots of tanks, rallies, contructions, and nostalgic levels that have been improved!

See you on the battlefield!

At long last, v9.1.0 is released! This feature update brings a lot of cool stuff we’ve been working on the last few months. The change log is extensive, but has pretty GIFs, so read on!

This release sees the first fruits of our efforts to significantly upgrade the visuals and animations of virtually all Western Allied weapons, and generally weapons that weren’t already included in Red Orchestra: Ostfront. Our primary goal in this effort is to make all the weapons feel consistently polished and satisfying to use, as well as taking the opportunity to tweak and upgrade various weapon mechanics.

The first weapon on the list to get the full treatment is the Enfield No.4 which now looks, feels and sounds great!

All of these changes would not have been possible without the efforts of GarlicAAZ, whose animation talents have been put to good use, enabling us to fix and improve so many things we previously were unable to.

After a very long hiatus, 3D scopes are back!



We made the decision to exclude 3D scopes from DH all the way back in v6.0 due, in part, to the wild inconsistency of the weapon animations and them generally feeling unpolished. In retrospect, this was probably a wrong-headed decision, and one that we’re happy to reverse.

You can enable 3D scopes in the game’s graphics settings.

All bolt-action rifles can now be reloaded with individual rounds! This means that, on weapons like the Mosin Nagant and Karabiner 98k, you will no longer need to expend 5 rounds in order to perform a reload.



This feature wouldn’t have been possible without the hard work of Dan’06, who got this feature across the finish line and worked out a number of the bugs.

While we were re-working the bolt-action reload system, we also took the opportunity to fix a mechanical error that had gone largely unnoticed for years. When you open the bolt on a bolt action rifle, the loaded round will now be ejected. For example, if you take a single shot with a rifle, cycle the bolt, and then reload, you will need to insert 2 rounds into the weapon in order to fill the magazine to capacity.

Pistols are now much more accurate, but have increased sway. We have changed how the pistols look when sighted and removed the “zoom” when sighted. Overall, pistols should now be significantly more effective.

Accuracy Changes
All automatic weapons are now more accurate, but will potentially have more recoil (see below). This makes automatics more responsive and intuitive to shoot, since there is less randomness to contend with.

Recoil Changes
All automatic weapons have had significant changes to recoil. The strength of recoil is no longer constant. Instead, recoil strength is now based on a curve, where longer consecutive shots result in more recoil. This promotes the use of short bursts, since firing constantly will make the weapon significantly harder to control. This should raise the skill cap and promote more authentic and sensibile usage of automatic weapons.

Reduction in Numbers
We feel the changes to accuracy will make automatics much more deadly in the hands of a skilled soldier. To counteract that, and the problem of automatic weapon proliferation, we’ve dialed back the availability of automatic options from a number of roles.

Overheating
The FG42, Bren, BAR can now overheat like other the Machine Guns.

The suppression system has been tweaked to reduce the strength of involuntary flinches you experience the more you get shot at. In other words, the more a player receives involuntary flinches in a short time, the less strength those flinches will have. At the same time the player will receive more weapon sway. This adjustment essentially trades flinches in for additional weapon sway. If a player stops receiving fire for some time, the sway and flinch strength resets to normal.

The idea here is to make overcoming sustained suppression possible for brave and skilled players; flinches are impossible to overcome, but additional sway is not. We will monitor how this affects the game and make changes based on player feedback.

Satchel Charges have always been a hot topic of debate. In recent past, we adjusted Satchels to not be very effective against tanks. However, based on community feedback, we have made some changes.

We now have 2 different satchels, small and large. A small satchel is meant to be roughly half the explosive power of the large. A large will be very effective against tanks, but must be placed under the tank, near the tracks on the side, or over the engine vent. A large satchel well placed will be able to destroy or disable the heaviest tanks. A small satchel may require more precise placement or require a second charge to get the job done.

Combat Engineers will now spawn with one small satchel. The plan is to later have a different model for the small and large satchels and allow players to combine 2 small satchels into 1 large.

Satchels can also now reliably damage or destroy Obstacles and Constructions, even through walls. This means Satchel Charges can now destroy barbed-wire fences, wooden fences, and will be more predictable in their effectiveness.

At long last, anti-tank guns can now be fully rotated in-place!



Smaller guns like the AT-57 can be rotated by a single soldier, while larger guns like the PaK-43 need multiple soldiers in order to be rotated.

To rotate an anti-tank gun, simply walk up to one and press the command menu key (default: CAPSLOCK).

• Friendly anti-tank guns are now visible on the map.
  
• Friendly danger zone boundary is now visible on the map.
  
• All vehicles that venture deep into the opposing team’s territory will have their precise location visible on the map. This is done to counteract vehicles being used for extreme behind-the-lines sabotage, making it easier to combat such tactics. Anti-tank guns, supply caches and platoon HQ locations are spotted in the same manner.

• Can now be cut by wire-cutters
  
• Added a unique placement sound
  
• Added an intermediate stage (has wooden pikes, but no wire)
  
• Added a cut stage (when cut by wire-cutters)
  
• Increased supply cost from 25 to 100
  
• Increased construction time from 2 to 4 digs
  
• Deconstruction with the shovel takes significantly longer while the wire is intact
  
• Can no longer be damaged by grenades
  
• Improved collision so players cannot dive over them

Whew! What a list! We're excited to get in game and try it all out with you all!

See you on the battlefield,
Darklight Games

The player who finds the most eggs will be announced the winner of the event!

The event will last all day Sunday and the rules are simple. Find an egg and destroy it, if there are 32 or more players on the server (must be an official server), the game will record that you found an egg. We will be using the official server statistics to keep track of how many eggs players have found. Players can destroy eggs by shooting them, hitting them in melee, explosives, or running them over.

The current plan is to have eggs hidden on "Official" maps (non-WIP maps). However, some levels require more than 32 players, so those will not have eggs.




The egg-painting contest will allow players to submit paintings for the eggs players see in the levels. You can find more details regarding the Egg Painting Contest in the #egg-painting-contest discord channel.

See you on the battlefield!

Today sees the release of a brand new map, Rabenheck, by community member Dolas!



Rabenheck, or "Raven's Hedge", depicts the bitter fighting of the Hurtgenwald in late 1944, during the ill-fated Operation Queen.

This map will be playable for the first time on Sunday during the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest event! Be sure to Join the Discord to stay up to speed on monthly events and all things DH!



In addition, last week saw the release of another incredible map, Ten Aard, by long time contributor Kashash!



Ten Aard depicts the fighting in the eponymous town during the Battle of Geel in northern Belgium, an oft-overlooked engagement taking place during Operation Market Garden.

Click here to see a "before an after" video showing the map compared to its real-life counterparts, to get a sense of the incredible amount of work and attention to detail that has been poured into the map.

In addition, we've managed to slip in a couple of quality of life changes and tweaks:

• Squad assistants now have access to the Command channel
  
• Resupply points are now displayed on the situation map
  
• Resupply points cost more to deploy, but now last longer
  
• Fixed a bug where vehicles could end up permanently reserved

See you on the battlefield,
Darklight Games

Strap your helmets on tight! This update is going to blow your mind! We have put our heads together to make Darkest Hour even more a thinking man's shooter!

Darkest Hour has always been a thinking-man's-shooter, but after this update, players will grow their cranium to unlimited proportions. Making headway in Darkest Hour will require players to be more headstrong.

However, let's not get ahead of ourselves, here is the change log!
• Players will get smarter more quickly by achieving kills
• New players will have an easier time killing veteran players on killing sprees
• Players will now be able to rename their squad to 20 characters long, instead of 16

Do not let the update get to your head. As always, see you on the battlefield!