Red Orchestra, UT2003 Mod, Released

Neophytus writes "The first public edition of the long awaited Red Orchestra mod for Unreal Tournament 2003 has been released. 'Red Orchestra brings you in-depth infantry combat on the Eastern Front of WWII. With the emphasis on realism and authenticity, the Soviet Red Army meets the German Army on the ground across battlefields from Kiev through Stalingrad and on to the Reichstag in Berlin. Real weapons. Real battles. Real soldiers.' Download from FilePlanet (free reg. req.), FasterFiles, more."

Re:Uhmm right..

[Locmar]

There are quite a few WWII FPSs out there, true, but most of them are pretty Quakey and unrealistic, and none that I know of have treated the Eastern Front with due respect.

Re:UT2k3 or UT2k4

[Vaevictis666]

Mods for UT2k3 will be binary compatable with 2k4. Mods for UT2k4 that don't involve any of the fun new stuff (like vehicles) will likely be compatable with 2k3.

UT2k4 is the same old engine, same old content, _plus_ some fun new stuff like more than double the maps, more character models, a few new (and some almost-old) gametypes, and more than cursory vehicle support. Oh yeah, and further graphics/networking optimizations.

Re:Getting UT2003 working with kernel 2.6.0

[ThreeFarthingStone]

The nonobvious but simple fix is to modify your 'ut2003-demo' or 'ut2003' startup script by adding "unset LD_ASSUME_KERNEL" at the beginning, and adding it "export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5" back at the end (so RPM will work again).

You probably don't need to set LD_ASSUME_KERNEL at the end of the script. Each program has a separate environment, initially inherited from the program that launched it. So "export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5" (in sh and bash scripts) only applies to programs launched by the ut2003 startup script after that line. Since its at the end of the script, it does nothing. In fact, the script would not need that line at all unless it wanted to run RPM.

To demonstrate (on OpenBSD, where LD_ASSUME_KERNEL probably has no meaning):

$ export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5
$ printenv LD_ASSUME_KERNEL
2.2.5
$ cat > sampletfsh
#!/bin/sh
# a script

checkcondition() {
if [ -z "$LD_ASSUME_KERNEL" ]; then
echo ut2003 works, rpm does not
else
echo rpm works, ut2003 does not
fi
}

echo starting...
checkcondition
echo unsetting LD_ASSUME_KERNEL...
unset LD_ASSUME_KERNEL
echo pretending to run ut2003...
checkcondition
$ chmod 700 sampletfsh
$ ./sampletfsh
starting...
rpm works, ut2003 does not
unsetting LD_ASSUME_KERNEL...
pretending to run ut2003...
ut2003 works, rpm does not
$ printenv LD_ASSUME_KERNEL
2.2.5
$

First I set LD_ASSUME_KERNEL pretending I had RPM on a Linux 2.6 system. Then I wrote and executed a script. The script unset LD_ASSUME_KERNEL so that ut2003 would start working (but rpm would not). However, even though I did not redefine LD_ASSUME_KERNEL at the bottom of the script, the shell from which I called the script still kept the old 2.2.5 value. The script could have been a ut2003 startup script.

One only needs to add the first "unset LD_ASSUME_KERNEL" line.

Here's a bit torrent for it:

[AIX-Hood]

There's a bit torrent download link for this at Filerush.com: Red Orchestra Beta 1 BT link [filerush.com]

Re:Good History Book for background

[voodoo1man]

I think a much better one on the subject is Valentin Pikul's Barbarossa. (ISBN 5-7838-0230-1 for the new printing, but I have not seen it translated to any language from Russian yet). It has a much deeper account of the political and military machinations leading up to the actual battle, recounting them mostly from the perspective of (as well as dealing with him as a man), Friedrich Paulus, and his contrast with Rommel. Despite being written in a rather informal style, it is very meticulously researched (I think Pikul claims close to 3,000 sources total, some of them first-hand), and some of his statistics really put the Russian front in perspective (something that seems to have been totally ignored by the current wave of rah-rah USA jingoism) - once he cites that just over 1% of the Wermacht forces were involved on the North African "front" in the years 1941-1942; the rest being almost entirely used in the Russian advance, underscoring Rommel's genius. The contrast he brings up in Rommel's inventiveness despite critical lack of reinforcements vs. the difficulties of the Eastern front (and the two conflict's political and strategic dependence on each other) is pretty unique.

What really sets his book apart is his meticulous reading into declassified Russian archives.* The blunders by Stalin and his henchmen turn out to be monumentally stupid at almost every strategic decision, and even worse the deliberate repressions they bring about, justified by party doctrine. Stalin's "incompetence" as described in Stalingrad pales in comparison to the actual events.

* Pikul's motivation for writing Barbarossa came after a series of Soviet documents were released that finally revealed the details of the fate of his father, who died defending Stalingrad.