MSG_Urban
07-01-2007, 08:49 PM
I've taken the liberty of taking the EndWar trailer frame by frame and disecting every act of it, squeezing out every last possible juicy detail. Now that you've read that disgusting intro, please enjoy my disection of the Tom Clancy's EndWar Trailer.
Est. Time spent disecting: 5 hrs +-1 hr
00:01 : Screen displays Ubisoft Logo:
- Well, it's made by Ubisoft, who has done a pretty good job at making Clancy games so far.
00:04 : Unknown Speaker; "They promised the shield would save us from nuclear annihilation..."
- The "Shield" refers to a satellite based nuclear missile shield to prevent the successful launch of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Just this year, America's defense secretary proposed such a shield to be placed over Poland but the offer was opposed by both Russia and China since they felt it would make their nuclear arsenal's useless.
00:08: Unknown Speaker: "They were right... They also promised, a new era of peace..."
- This statement implies that while politicians claimed that the missile shield would "save us from nuclear annihilation," conventional warfare remained strong, or even grew stronger with the threat of nuclear retaliation removed.
00:11 We see earth and the moon in the background.
- Ummm... well, I guess this establishes that the game takes place on Earth... How else do you want me to read into this?
00:13 Four satellites come into view.
- The nature of these satellites is unknown at this time. They may be surveillance satellites taking a realtime picture of earth. They may be GPS, or perhaps they are all in one. Or they could be part of the missile shield. They could also be missile satellites as seen later in the trailer.
00:15 Different Unknown Speaker: "General, we can not let the Russians secure Paris or the rest of Europe will fall." We also see a tactical map of Europe. America controls most of Spain, and the western half of France. The rest, including Portugal and England, is under Russian control.
- It appears Russia has "resurged", or "returned to its old ways". Russian forces have expanded out across Europe in what appears to be some sort of blitzkrieg... Russian style. As to whether this is just a lebenstraum take over like with the German Blitz of 1939-40 or whether most of Europe willingly gave up to Russia for instance due to some disaster, we don't know. Hopefully this will be expounded upon when the game is released.
00:18 The map zooms in to a close up of Paris, including streets and structures. Russian forces are advancing from the North, East, and West on American forces holding out to the south.
- The Russians control most of Paris and America retains a small foothold in the city. It seems that the Seine River running through Paris is America's defensive line, and American forces probably were able to hold off Russian forces as they fell into choke points along the bridges. American forces control everything south of the Seine river, while the Russians hold everything north of it.
00:20 Unknown Speaker: "Destroy those Russian positions, at any cost. Is that clear?" The camera pans back from the map to show that it is on a computer display in a control room. As the camera pans back, we see the General. The General says "Affirmative."
- The person addressing the General is not ordering him like a direct superior, nor is he suggesting, like a subordinate. This leads us to believe that the person speaking to the General is perhaps a civilian superior such as the Secretary of Defense, or perhaps the President himself, or that the speaker is an advisor such as an S-2 Intelligence officer or an S-3 Operations officer directly within the General's command staff. By extrapolating information from other parts of the Trailer, the General's name is Smith. He is a "two star" Major General. He possesses an Expert Rifleman badge and an Expert Parachutist badge, and he is wearing ACUs which leads us to believe that he was once an infantryman in a US Airborne division. His branch of service tape does not say "US Army" as his choice of camo would lead us to believe. Instead, it says "Joint Strike Force" which is an implied joint force formed between the US and her surviving allies. His beret is a dark (not navy) blue, unlike US forces who wear black berets, or the UN which wears a sky blue. Rather than a sewn on device, above the eye as seen on modern berets, the general wears his rank, as well as a seemingly metal triangular device, most likely the symbol of the JSF.
00:22 The General says: "Affirmative". He turns to a table with a holographic display much like the tactical map. It shows an overhead view of the Eiffel Tower and surrounding buildings highlighted red.
- The general speaks with an American-sounding accent, implying that he is either American, or in a highly unlikely case, perhaps Canadian. The buildings on the map including the Eiffel Tower are all red, signifying they are under Russian control. It is implied that this map will be an important tool in the game to select and order units, while a full 3d view will give you a more cinematic view of the battle.
00:23 The General slides his hand across the map to scroll it until he reaches a green part of the map. Blue units are seen on the streets in the green sector.
- It appears that on the map, green signifies controlled parts of the map, much like in Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, where on the tactical map, if you cleared an area of all hostiles, it would change from red to blue. Blue symbolizes friendly units.
00:25 The general taps one of the formations of blue units and the units are highlighted with a white box. The General then drags his finger forward to tell the units to advance. The platoon leader confirms with "on the way"
- It seems here that EndWar will follow the usual RTS gameplay style of highlighting units and then telling them where to go and what to shoot at, although they may throw it up a bit, especially since the player is not using a mouse.
00:26 A group of M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles grind to a halt and infantry pile out of the back.
- Right away when I saw the Bradley's I knew this was a mechanized infantry division. Sure enough, infantry began disembarking. Mechanized Infantry units are used to rapidly deploy combat infantry to needed areas, while providing them with armor support and cover via their IFVs. (The US does not use APCs anymore, since IFVs do a much better job of delivering troops with some cover fire to boot.) The infantry are wearing a bizarre mask attached to their helmets which do not provide any environmental or shrapnel protection. (This headgear style was available in the GRAW2 Multiplayer, although it was not shown in single player). From what I can deduce, these masks provide protection if the soldier takes a spill, for instance if they are blown from their vehicle. The helmet is designed like a BMX bike helmet, but cut down a bit so the soldiers can access their face (such as when they need to depress the "talk" button on their microphone as seen in the trailer).
The soldiers are not wearing ACUs as I expected. At first glance, I thought they were wearing 3 color desert DCUs, which would be weird since they are not in a desert, and only the Air Force and Navy still deploy with DCUs. Instead, they are wearing Crye Precision's multicam. Multicam was not officially adopted by the US army, although Crye Precision tested it with the Army and in my opinion it is a much better pattern than ACUs. Multicam is a well developed pattern designed to provide camouflage in nearly any environment, be it desert, woodland, urban, or whatever. The pattern is very effective and you should check out some pictures on their website at <www.multicampattern.com>. At present time, only contactors or private military corporations usually buy Multicams, but perhaps the Army has changed its mind in a few decades.
Next up is the firearms. The soldiers are equipped with the XM-8 (but at the time the game takes place, it would be just the M-8) rifle. The XM-8 project was officially abandoned in 2005 when the plastic body of the rifle could not hold up to the rigors of combat. The XM-8 rifle was based off of the H&K G36 series rifle. H&K, holding the rights to the original design, still tries to develop the XM-8, but H&K enthusiasts usually agree that the G36 is a well built design that does not need improvement upon. The rifle features an ACOG 4x Scope, which leads us to believe these Mechanized Infantry are capable of ranged combat, although the rifle is also equipped with a vertical foregrip, further solidifying my belief that the Mechanized Infantry unit in the game is designed for rapid deployment (The vertical foregrip helps steady your rifle when you do not have any cover to rest your rifle against, and helps you gain a target acquisition faster without having to "settle in" to your firing position).
00:31 One of the infantrymen activates his mic and announces: "moving to the front, sir." A small explosion goes off within the ranks of the infantry. We see that this Mechanized division is at least 100 men strong (putting it at company strength) and is reinforced by about a dozen Bradley IFVs, and at least one or two notable M1 Abrams tanks.
- The fact that there are several Abrams tanks mixed in with the Bradleys means a couple possible things. One possibility is that the mechanized company comes standard with a few tanks for protection. Another possibility is that the Armored units happened to be intermixed with the mechanized units. A third possibility is that the player gets to choose the makeup of his mechanized force. A mortar or artillery round going off within the lines shows us that the Russians are shelling the American forces. The shelling is very light and sporadic, so either the Russians only have a handful of artillery pieces or their artillery is having a hard time keeping up with the wide spread of American forces.
00:35 The General highlights another mechanized group to advance. The platoon leader acknowledges with: "Understood".
00:38 Again we see a mechanized group advancing, this time over a large pile of rubble. Shelling continues, the Abrams tanks return fire, and a Bradley fires off one of its TOW missiles at Russian forces.
- We can tell that the Russian forces are close now, as one of the Bradleys fires off a TOW missile only a couple hundred feet ahead of itself. The missile, guided by advanced electronics, does not fly straight, and instead arcs over the American forces and then descends to its target.
00:41 Before we can see the impact, the camera cuts away. As tanks and Bradleys peak over the rubble and advance, we see a handful of infantry armed with miniguns firing away at off-screen Russian forces.
- Ah yes, the minigun infantry. They don't seem like much at first glance, but they are pretty interesting if you take your time and pick apart the details. The soldiers are heavily armored, with metal or ceramic plates along their torso, arms and legs. Their camo pattern is undistinguishable at this time, although it is either "None", "multicams", or "ACUs". They also have a metal backpack of sorts, probably to power the minigun. Also, they do NOT have the funky mask thingy. They are armed with M134 Miniguns, which are virtually impossible to fire from the shoulder. I began to raise questions in my head about this when I paused the video and realized that the soldiers are not holding the miniguns aside from to aim and fire it. The soldiers are actually sitting on some sort of hydraulic stationary platform that holds the miniguns. It appears that this is a defensive measure for your force. Now as to how these minigun platforms are built, my guess is that it could be the traditional "build your base" way of doing things, but judging by the sloppy clustered placement, perhaps the infantry lug the platforms over their shoulders and then set it up on the field (although it would probably take quite a bit longer than the GIs in Red Alert 2).
00:44 We see from the perspective of the Russians as they peek over a sandbag emplacement to take shots at the advancing Americans. One of the Russians shouts something with two syllables.
- Ahh, finally time to dissect the enemy. As for the dialogue, I do not understand Cyrillic speech or text, but thanks to SkyRaptorRUS I got a translation. The first shout is "STOYAT!" (Hold it!), then as the camera pans over, the same Russian shouts "BYSTREE, LOZHIS!" (Hurry, take cover)
At first, I thought the Russians were wearing German Flecktarn Camouflage, but upon a second inspection they are wearing modern Russian camo. Finding a good picture of one of the Russians' guns was hard. I had expected it to be a G36, since thats what the OPFOR carried in the two GRAW games, but once I finally found a good picture, I grew disappointed in myself. I could not identify the design. I checked the internet to see if it perhaps matched any known designs such as China's Type 95 rifle, or the OC-14 Groza, and failing that I scoured the internet for any other possibilities, but I still have no idea what the hell it is. The best I can tell you is that it looks like a cross between an Israeli Tavor and a Chinese T-95. I'm sorry I can't give you any better. I can tell you though that the gun features a large external scope, warranting that it is either extremely long ranged, or electronically assisted (or both). The Russians are also seen wearing either a modern Kevlar helmet or a ski cap.
00:46 The camera pans over and the Russians continue firing and ducking. We also see the barrel of a Russian tank, which fires, and we also see a flamethrower firing from the tank.
- Well, it appears the Russians have a trick up their sleeve. Their tanks, either by standard or through a specialized upgrade, can be equipped with flamethrowers. These flamethrowers are most likely an anti-infantry deterrent, but it is possible that they are also effective against light armored vehicles.
00:47 The commander swipes his finger across his units to order them forward.
- Here we see an actual physical representation of the units (including full 3d models of the infantry) on the General's TAC map. We also see that the Green part of the map is expanding in real time as his troops secure ground.
00:47 The map zooms in and the switches to the real view. We see infantry and vehicles rushing forward. We hear the whistle of an artillery just before it hits a US vehicle, sending infantry ducking for cover and sending the wreckage tumbling forward. The infantry pick themselves up and move forward for cover behind an Abrams tank.
- One of the infantrymen is not wearing multicam. Its hard to tell at this resolution, but he is either wearing Midnight Digital Camo. Since a couple seconds later, we see this soldier communicating with the General/Player, I'm almost certain that this different colored soldier is the unit's commander, and this way you can distinguish which soldier is leading your forces. Another possibility is that he is a member of a Ghost Recon squad, since press releases state that the Ghost team is an available unit. I do not believe this is so, though, since he is wearing the same helmet and using the same gun as the Mech Infantry he is with (a ghost would have some more task specific guns and gear like an FN SCAR or an MR-C LW). Also, the vehicle sent crashing by the artillery blast appears to be a multi-person Buggy/ATV, which in modern times is used by Special Forces. It is virtually unarmored, but well armed with high speed and usually a few LMGs.
00:52 Safely behind the tank with some of his men, the Midnight camo soldier announces to the General: "we are pinned down by enemy fire! Need air support!"
- This offers two gameplay features I'm happy about. 1) Your soldiers seek and use cover rather than just running around and shooting like in other games (I'm looking at you, C&C series... and pretty much any other RTS with firearms...) 2) Your soldiers will communicate their battlefield conditions to you, and announce if they need help. Much better than the old "Our base is under attack." "Unit lost."
00:53 The camera floats up and we see the advancing Russian armor.
-The tanks actually appear to be T-85s or T-90s. The T-90 tanks are much more advanced than the old cold war era T-72s still employed by Russia and most of Asia.
00:54 The General responds: "Help's on the way." He pans the Map over and highlights a group of 6 helicopters encircling a tiltrotor aircraft. He orders them forward.
- The Helicopters are RAH-66 Comanche Helicopters. Again, this game incorporates an American weapon that was a great concept, but has been discontinued. The Comanche was designed to fill a recon and light attack role. The Tiltrotor, is a V-22 Osprey, designed for passenger and cargo transport. A V-22 Osprey is also seen in the game Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 with the Ghost Recon squad's logo on the side when it goes in to drop off "combat engineers"
00:58 We switch to the real time view and we see that there are actually several dozen Helicopters and at least a half dozen tiltrotors.
- Well, with this surprise, we see that the unit representation on your map is only a scaled down version of your real forces.
01:00 With the Eiffel tower looming ahead of them, the Comanche Helicopters begin their attack run on the enemy. The flight commander confirms this announcing: "Alright, men, we've got the enemy in our sights. Get ready for some fireworks."
01:02 Seeing the overwhelming airfleet overhead, the Russian soldiers pull back.
- As to whether this is by the doing of the player commander, or whether the soldiers are just, by nature, smart in the game, we don't know.
01:09 The General nods his head in moderate satisfaction of the effect his comanche's had on the enemy. The Infantry on the ground see the Comanche's do a flyby directly overhead and the soldiers stand and raise their rifles, shouting with excitement.
- At this point, I'm wondering, if this is just cinematic spectacle or if there is actually a morale feature in the game (explaining why the US soldiers stayed pinned down, why the Russians fell back without orders, and why now the US Soldiers are getting up and advancing with spirit.)
01:14 A lone Bradley IFV advances forward, firing its 25mm cannon, when a Russian tank peaks over a lip of debris and crushes the Bradley undertread.
- This is perhaps showing that the game features actual physical interaction between armored units, rather than in C&C games where they'd never crash, or bump into each other or ram, or anything like that.
01:19 We see what appears to be a heavily fortified base. In the base is a launch track, from which a small aircraft takes off, followed by many others like it.
- These aircraft are very small and low profile. They are launched much like the V-1 Rocket produced by Germany in WWII. Since they are small. They are most likely a UAV of sorts.
01:21 The General hunches over his command map, his eyes narrow in focus on his helicopters and the action below them. He then looks over to see an advancing multitude of red blips advancing rapidly on his helicopters.
- These red blips are the Russian UAVs advancing on his aircraft. The commander sees these UAVs, and his look appears to be one of at first confusion and then frustration.
01:24 In real time we see one of the Russian UAVs up close. The UAVs are armed with several missiles along their wingspan.
- The missiles, although similar, are for very different purposes. The large, lone missile appears to be an AIM-9 Sidewinder or a Russian equivalent. The sidewinder is used for air to air combat. The four missiles clustered together appear to be Hellfire missiles, which are used for air to ground anti-tank combat. This leads me to believe that the UAV drones are designed for both air-to-air and air-to-ground combat.
01:26 The Drone releases the "Sidewinder" missile towards the American helicopters in the distance. The missile streaks through the air and singles out one of the Comanches. One of the helicopter pilots shouts something incomprehensible over the din of battle.
01:29 From another pilot's perspective, we see the explosion of the lost Comanche. Another missile streaks towards the viewing helicopter's wingman, hitting and destroying another target. More missiles fill the sky. The pilot shouts "All birds, break ranks!"
- If in the game, the helicopters actually follow through and "break ranks," this shows that not only are infantry smart, but vehicles will also react to changing combat situations. (Being "in ranks", or in other words grouped together, is better for focusing firepower, but it makes your unit easy targets when being fired upon.)
01:31 The infantry shield themselves from the bright explosions and falling helicopter debris.
- Perhaps units not only react to combat situations, but also to environments that are unsafe.
01:33 We again see the Command map, with a close up view of an Osprey and several other surviving birds. A red blip appears and flies at the osprey. When contact is made, the blue Osprey flashes red and begins to descend. In real time we see the Osprey took a hit to one of the rotors, which is now aflame.
01:38 The Osprey crashes into the ground. The wreckage continues forward with momentum right into a group of dug-in US Infantry. All appear to be annihilated by the wreckage.
- Again it looks like units have real time physics, and if wreckage plows into your infantry, it REALLY plows into your infantry.
01:43 We see the commander's tactical map again, presumably minutes or perhaps even an hour later. This time, only a small circle of green remains. The rest is all red. Several tanks and triangles approach a blue square within the green circle on the map.
- Well, looks like someone is screwed as bad as a drunk hot chick at a frat party. The Tanks are Russian T-90s and the triangles are the right size and behaving appropriately for infantry. The blue square appears to be your command vehicle, as a golden star rotates above it. The command vehicle appears to be equipped similarly to a Bradley (Bradleys are often used as command vehicles in modern combat). It seems to have a 25 or 30mm auto cannon, a TOW Pod, Satellite uplink dishes, smoke launchers, and perhaps other features.
01:48 Within the Command vehicle, the General remains hunched over the command map. At least a couple technical operators are in the vehicle as well. In desperation, the commander says "Arm the Kinetic strike, on my position."
- This is a very little known weapon that very few people have even heard about. (Clancy really does his research pretty thoroughly.) A Kinetic Energy Projectile is housed in a satellite in orbit. The projectile, which is not in any way explosive, is usually made of a dense element such as Tungsten and is usually shaped like a "rod". The KEP is launched from the Satellite towards ground targets, traveling with momentum at the speed of orbit (at least 9 kilometers per second). The largest version of this weapon could produce damage equivilent to a small nuclear weapon or large conventional weapon such as the MOAB Multiple Ordinance Air Burst Bomb. Smaller versions could be comparable to aircraft deployed bombs, and could be used on small targets such as stationary vehicles and structures. The KEP would be almost impossible to track, since it has no radioactive elements and almost no radar signature. (It would just appear to be a harmless metiorite). The "launch" and impact would only be separated by a few minutes. Unfortunately, although advanced computers could help the KEP track its fixed target on the planet, it would be blinded by the burning atmosphere created by reentry, so it could not track moving targets.
To sum it up, it appears that this conventional weapon has the power of nukes but at a fraction of the cost, both economically and environmentaly (no irradiation or mutations occur). I guess this is America's way of posessing super weapons but still avoiding "nuclear annihilation".
01:50 We see the Kinetic Energy Rods in their launcher satellite. The satellite holds 11 KEPs total. One of the KEPs "Unlocks" from the launcher.
01:55 The General steps out of his command vehicle. Russian troops move in and surround him, their guns cautiously pointed at him, and one orders "UDERZHIVAT' POZICIYU. PRIGLYADIVAY ZA NIM, NUKUDA NE OTHODI!" (Hold your position. Watch over him, dont go anywhere)
01:58 The General looks around at his would-be captors. The words "at any cost" reverberate through his head.
02:04 Finally confirming that there is no other way out of the situation, the General orders "Now!"
02:06 We see the Kinetic Energy Projectile, appearing much like a missile as it clears the launcher and fires its engines as it "falls" to earth.
-Now to confirm all of the text I just explained, this "explosion" featured in the trailer is not an explosion in the chemical reaction sense, but just highly excited particles scattering all about. As the Kinetic Rod hits the ground, it transfers all of its stored up energy into the ground. The result is that all of the matter around the impact site absorb the energy and simultaneously expend it, vibrating apart and causing total destruction. This is much like if a meteor were to hit the ground.
02:09 The Kinetic vibrations make their way to the Command vehicle and advancing Russians.
-Before they were engulfed in dust, I identified the following vehicles: 1 Command Vehicle, 1 Bradley IFV, 3 Abrams Tanks, 1 overturned ATV/Buggy, and 1 T-90
02:10 The camera pans back and we see several more Kinetic Projectiles hit Paris.
- Judging by the blast in scale to the buildings, the blast radius initially is about 2-3 city blocks, but as the energy is transferred into the earth, the blast radius expands to between 9 and 20 city blocks.
02:14 The camera pans back into space and we see that the satelites we were looking at in the beginning of the trailer are actually the Kinetic launchers.
02:19 The EndWar logo appears.
02:20 Tom Clancy's name appears above that.
Est. Time spent disecting: 5 hrs +-1 hr
00:01 : Screen displays Ubisoft Logo:
- Well, it's made by Ubisoft, who has done a pretty good job at making Clancy games so far.
00:04 : Unknown Speaker; "They promised the shield would save us from nuclear annihilation..."
- The "Shield" refers to a satellite based nuclear missile shield to prevent the successful launch of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Just this year, America's defense secretary proposed such a shield to be placed over Poland but the offer was opposed by both Russia and China since they felt it would make their nuclear arsenal's useless.
00:08: Unknown Speaker: "They were right... They also promised, a new era of peace..."
- This statement implies that while politicians claimed that the missile shield would "save us from nuclear annihilation," conventional warfare remained strong, or even grew stronger with the threat of nuclear retaliation removed.
00:11 We see earth and the moon in the background.
- Ummm... well, I guess this establishes that the game takes place on Earth... How else do you want me to read into this?
00:13 Four satellites come into view.
- The nature of these satellites is unknown at this time. They may be surveillance satellites taking a realtime picture of earth. They may be GPS, or perhaps they are all in one. Or they could be part of the missile shield. They could also be missile satellites as seen later in the trailer.
00:15 Different Unknown Speaker: "General, we can not let the Russians secure Paris or the rest of Europe will fall." We also see a tactical map of Europe. America controls most of Spain, and the western half of France. The rest, including Portugal and England, is under Russian control.
- It appears Russia has "resurged", or "returned to its old ways". Russian forces have expanded out across Europe in what appears to be some sort of blitzkrieg... Russian style. As to whether this is just a lebenstraum take over like with the German Blitz of 1939-40 or whether most of Europe willingly gave up to Russia for instance due to some disaster, we don't know. Hopefully this will be expounded upon when the game is released.
00:18 The map zooms in to a close up of Paris, including streets and structures. Russian forces are advancing from the North, East, and West on American forces holding out to the south.
- The Russians control most of Paris and America retains a small foothold in the city. It seems that the Seine River running through Paris is America's defensive line, and American forces probably were able to hold off Russian forces as they fell into choke points along the bridges. American forces control everything south of the Seine river, while the Russians hold everything north of it.
00:20 Unknown Speaker: "Destroy those Russian positions, at any cost. Is that clear?" The camera pans back from the map to show that it is on a computer display in a control room. As the camera pans back, we see the General. The General says "Affirmative."
- The person addressing the General is not ordering him like a direct superior, nor is he suggesting, like a subordinate. This leads us to believe that the person speaking to the General is perhaps a civilian superior such as the Secretary of Defense, or perhaps the President himself, or that the speaker is an advisor such as an S-2 Intelligence officer or an S-3 Operations officer directly within the General's command staff. By extrapolating information from other parts of the Trailer, the General's name is Smith. He is a "two star" Major General. He possesses an Expert Rifleman badge and an Expert Parachutist badge, and he is wearing ACUs which leads us to believe that he was once an infantryman in a US Airborne division. His branch of service tape does not say "US Army" as his choice of camo would lead us to believe. Instead, it says "Joint Strike Force" which is an implied joint force formed between the US and her surviving allies. His beret is a dark (not navy) blue, unlike US forces who wear black berets, or the UN which wears a sky blue. Rather than a sewn on device, above the eye as seen on modern berets, the general wears his rank, as well as a seemingly metal triangular device, most likely the symbol of the JSF.
00:22 The General says: "Affirmative". He turns to a table with a holographic display much like the tactical map. It shows an overhead view of the Eiffel Tower and surrounding buildings highlighted red.
- The general speaks with an American-sounding accent, implying that he is either American, or in a highly unlikely case, perhaps Canadian. The buildings on the map including the Eiffel Tower are all red, signifying they are under Russian control. It is implied that this map will be an important tool in the game to select and order units, while a full 3d view will give you a more cinematic view of the battle.
00:23 The General slides his hand across the map to scroll it until he reaches a green part of the map. Blue units are seen on the streets in the green sector.
- It appears that on the map, green signifies controlled parts of the map, much like in Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, where on the tactical map, if you cleared an area of all hostiles, it would change from red to blue. Blue symbolizes friendly units.
00:25 The general taps one of the formations of blue units and the units are highlighted with a white box. The General then drags his finger forward to tell the units to advance. The platoon leader confirms with "on the way"
- It seems here that EndWar will follow the usual RTS gameplay style of highlighting units and then telling them where to go and what to shoot at, although they may throw it up a bit, especially since the player is not using a mouse.
00:26 A group of M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles grind to a halt and infantry pile out of the back.
- Right away when I saw the Bradley's I knew this was a mechanized infantry division. Sure enough, infantry began disembarking. Mechanized Infantry units are used to rapidly deploy combat infantry to needed areas, while providing them with armor support and cover via their IFVs. (The US does not use APCs anymore, since IFVs do a much better job of delivering troops with some cover fire to boot.) The infantry are wearing a bizarre mask attached to their helmets which do not provide any environmental or shrapnel protection. (This headgear style was available in the GRAW2 Multiplayer, although it was not shown in single player). From what I can deduce, these masks provide protection if the soldier takes a spill, for instance if they are blown from their vehicle. The helmet is designed like a BMX bike helmet, but cut down a bit so the soldiers can access their face (such as when they need to depress the "talk" button on their microphone as seen in the trailer).
The soldiers are not wearing ACUs as I expected. At first glance, I thought they were wearing 3 color desert DCUs, which would be weird since they are not in a desert, and only the Air Force and Navy still deploy with DCUs. Instead, they are wearing Crye Precision's multicam. Multicam was not officially adopted by the US army, although Crye Precision tested it with the Army and in my opinion it is a much better pattern than ACUs. Multicam is a well developed pattern designed to provide camouflage in nearly any environment, be it desert, woodland, urban, or whatever. The pattern is very effective and you should check out some pictures on their website at <www.multicampattern.com>. At present time, only contactors or private military corporations usually buy Multicams, but perhaps the Army has changed its mind in a few decades.
Next up is the firearms. The soldiers are equipped with the XM-8 (but at the time the game takes place, it would be just the M-8) rifle. The XM-8 project was officially abandoned in 2005 when the plastic body of the rifle could not hold up to the rigors of combat. The XM-8 rifle was based off of the H&K G36 series rifle. H&K, holding the rights to the original design, still tries to develop the XM-8, but H&K enthusiasts usually agree that the G36 is a well built design that does not need improvement upon. The rifle features an ACOG 4x Scope, which leads us to believe these Mechanized Infantry are capable of ranged combat, although the rifle is also equipped with a vertical foregrip, further solidifying my belief that the Mechanized Infantry unit in the game is designed for rapid deployment (The vertical foregrip helps steady your rifle when you do not have any cover to rest your rifle against, and helps you gain a target acquisition faster without having to "settle in" to your firing position).
00:31 One of the infantrymen activates his mic and announces: "moving to the front, sir." A small explosion goes off within the ranks of the infantry. We see that this Mechanized division is at least 100 men strong (putting it at company strength) and is reinforced by about a dozen Bradley IFVs, and at least one or two notable M1 Abrams tanks.
- The fact that there are several Abrams tanks mixed in with the Bradleys means a couple possible things. One possibility is that the mechanized company comes standard with a few tanks for protection. Another possibility is that the Armored units happened to be intermixed with the mechanized units. A third possibility is that the player gets to choose the makeup of his mechanized force. A mortar or artillery round going off within the lines shows us that the Russians are shelling the American forces. The shelling is very light and sporadic, so either the Russians only have a handful of artillery pieces or their artillery is having a hard time keeping up with the wide spread of American forces.
00:35 The General highlights another mechanized group to advance. The platoon leader acknowledges with: "Understood".
00:38 Again we see a mechanized group advancing, this time over a large pile of rubble. Shelling continues, the Abrams tanks return fire, and a Bradley fires off one of its TOW missiles at Russian forces.
- We can tell that the Russian forces are close now, as one of the Bradleys fires off a TOW missile only a couple hundred feet ahead of itself. The missile, guided by advanced electronics, does not fly straight, and instead arcs over the American forces and then descends to its target.
00:41 Before we can see the impact, the camera cuts away. As tanks and Bradleys peak over the rubble and advance, we see a handful of infantry armed with miniguns firing away at off-screen Russian forces.
- Ah yes, the minigun infantry. They don't seem like much at first glance, but they are pretty interesting if you take your time and pick apart the details. The soldiers are heavily armored, with metal or ceramic plates along their torso, arms and legs. Their camo pattern is undistinguishable at this time, although it is either "None", "multicams", or "ACUs". They also have a metal backpack of sorts, probably to power the minigun. Also, they do NOT have the funky mask thingy. They are armed with M134 Miniguns, which are virtually impossible to fire from the shoulder. I began to raise questions in my head about this when I paused the video and realized that the soldiers are not holding the miniguns aside from to aim and fire it. The soldiers are actually sitting on some sort of hydraulic stationary platform that holds the miniguns. It appears that this is a defensive measure for your force. Now as to how these minigun platforms are built, my guess is that it could be the traditional "build your base" way of doing things, but judging by the sloppy clustered placement, perhaps the infantry lug the platforms over their shoulders and then set it up on the field (although it would probably take quite a bit longer than the GIs in Red Alert 2).
00:44 We see from the perspective of the Russians as they peek over a sandbag emplacement to take shots at the advancing Americans. One of the Russians shouts something with two syllables.
- Ahh, finally time to dissect the enemy. As for the dialogue, I do not understand Cyrillic speech or text, but thanks to SkyRaptorRUS I got a translation. The first shout is "STOYAT!" (Hold it!), then as the camera pans over, the same Russian shouts "BYSTREE, LOZHIS!" (Hurry, take cover)
At first, I thought the Russians were wearing German Flecktarn Camouflage, but upon a second inspection they are wearing modern Russian camo. Finding a good picture of one of the Russians' guns was hard. I had expected it to be a G36, since thats what the OPFOR carried in the two GRAW games, but once I finally found a good picture, I grew disappointed in myself. I could not identify the design. I checked the internet to see if it perhaps matched any known designs such as China's Type 95 rifle, or the OC-14 Groza, and failing that I scoured the internet for any other possibilities, but I still have no idea what the hell it is. The best I can tell you is that it looks like a cross between an Israeli Tavor and a Chinese T-95. I'm sorry I can't give you any better. I can tell you though that the gun features a large external scope, warranting that it is either extremely long ranged, or electronically assisted (or both). The Russians are also seen wearing either a modern Kevlar helmet or a ski cap.
00:46 The camera pans over and the Russians continue firing and ducking. We also see the barrel of a Russian tank, which fires, and we also see a flamethrower firing from the tank.
- Well, it appears the Russians have a trick up their sleeve. Their tanks, either by standard or through a specialized upgrade, can be equipped with flamethrowers. These flamethrowers are most likely an anti-infantry deterrent, but it is possible that they are also effective against light armored vehicles.
00:47 The commander swipes his finger across his units to order them forward.
- Here we see an actual physical representation of the units (including full 3d models of the infantry) on the General's TAC map. We also see that the Green part of the map is expanding in real time as his troops secure ground.
00:47 The map zooms in and the switches to the real view. We see infantry and vehicles rushing forward. We hear the whistle of an artillery just before it hits a US vehicle, sending infantry ducking for cover and sending the wreckage tumbling forward. The infantry pick themselves up and move forward for cover behind an Abrams tank.
- One of the infantrymen is not wearing multicam. Its hard to tell at this resolution, but he is either wearing Midnight Digital Camo. Since a couple seconds later, we see this soldier communicating with the General/Player, I'm almost certain that this different colored soldier is the unit's commander, and this way you can distinguish which soldier is leading your forces. Another possibility is that he is a member of a Ghost Recon squad, since press releases state that the Ghost team is an available unit. I do not believe this is so, though, since he is wearing the same helmet and using the same gun as the Mech Infantry he is with (a ghost would have some more task specific guns and gear like an FN SCAR or an MR-C LW). Also, the vehicle sent crashing by the artillery blast appears to be a multi-person Buggy/ATV, which in modern times is used by Special Forces. It is virtually unarmored, but well armed with high speed and usually a few LMGs.
00:52 Safely behind the tank with some of his men, the Midnight camo soldier announces to the General: "we are pinned down by enemy fire! Need air support!"
- This offers two gameplay features I'm happy about. 1) Your soldiers seek and use cover rather than just running around and shooting like in other games (I'm looking at you, C&C series... and pretty much any other RTS with firearms...) 2) Your soldiers will communicate their battlefield conditions to you, and announce if they need help. Much better than the old "Our base is under attack." "Unit lost."
00:53 The camera floats up and we see the advancing Russian armor.
-The tanks actually appear to be T-85s or T-90s. The T-90 tanks are much more advanced than the old cold war era T-72s still employed by Russia and most of Asia.
00:54 The General responds: "Help's on the way." He pans the Map over and highlights a group of 6 helicopters encircling a tiltrotor aircraft. He orders them forward.
- The Helicopters are RAH-66 Comanche Helicopters. Again, this game incorporates an American weapon that was a great concept, but has been discontinued. The Comanche was designed to fill a recon and light attack role. The Tiltrotor, is a V-22 Osprey, designed for passenger and cargo transport. A V-22 Osprey is also seen in the game Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 with the Ghost Recon squad's logo on the side when it goes in to drop off "combat engineers"
00:58 We switch to the real time view and we see that there are actually several dozen Helicopters and at least a half dozen tiltrotors.
- Well, with this surprise, we see that the unit representation on your map is only a scaled down version of your real forces.
01:00 With the Eiffel tower looming ahead of them, the Comanche Helicopters begin their attack run on the enemy. The flight commander confirms this announcing: "Alright, men, we've got the enemy in our sights. Get ready for some fireworks."
01:02 Seeing the overwhelming airfleet overhead, the Russian soldiers pull back.
- As to whether this is by the doing of the player commander, or whether the soldiers are just, by nature, smart in the game, we don't know.
01:09 The General nods his head in moderate satisfaction of the effect his comanche's had on the enemy. The Infantry on the ground see the Comanche's do a flyby directly overhead and the soldiers stand and raise their rifles, shouting with excitement.
- At this point, I'm wondering, if this is just cinematic spectacle or if there is actually a morale feature in the game (explaining why the US soldiers stayed pinned down, why the Russians fell back without orders, and why now the US Soldiers are getting up and advancing with spirit.)
01:14 A lone Bradley IFV advances forward, firing its 25mm cannon, when a Russian tank peaks over a lip of debris and crushes the Bradley undertread.
- This is perhaps showing that the game features actual physical interaction between armored units, rather than in C&C games where they'd never crash, or bump into each other or ram, or anything like that.
01:19 We see what appears to be a heavily fortified base. In the base is a launch track, from which a small aircraft takes off, followed by many others like it.
- These aircraft are very small and low profile. They are launched much like the V-1 Rocket produced by Germany in WWII. Since they are small. They are most likely a UAV of sorts.
01:21 The General hunches over his command map, his eyes narrow in focus on his helicopters and the action below them. He then looks over to see an advancing multitude of red blips advancing rapidly on his helicopters.
- These red blips are the Russian UAVs advancing on his aircraft. The commander sees these UAVs, and his look appears to be one of at first confusion and then frustration.
01:24 In real time we see one of the Russian UAVs up close. The UAVs are armed with several missiles along their wingspan.
- The missiles, although similar, are for very different purposes. The large, lone missile appears to be an AIM-9 Sidewinder or a Russian equivalent. The sidewinder is used for air to air combat. The four missiles clustered together appear to be Hellfire missiles, which are used for air to ground anti-tank combat. This leads me to believe that the UAV drones are designed for both air-to-air and air-to-ground combat.
01:26 The Drone releases the "Sidewinder" missile towards the American helicopters in the distance. The missile streaks through the air and singles out one of the Comanches. One of the helicopter pilots shouts something incomprehensible over the din of battle.
01:29 From another pilot's perspective, we see the explosion of the lost Comanche. Another missile streaks towards the viewing helicopter's wingman, hitting and destroying another target. More missiles fill the sky. The pilot shouts "All birds, break ranks!"
- If in the game, the helicopters actually follow through and "break ranks," this shows that not only are infantry smart, but vehicles will also react to changing combat situations. (Being "in ranks", or in other words grouped together, is better for focusing firepower, but it makes your unit easy targets when being fired upon.)
01:31 The infantry shield themselves from the bright explosions and falling helicopter debris.
- Perhaps units not only react to combat situations, but also to environments that are unsafe.
01:33 We again see the Command map, with a close up view of an Osprey and several other surviving birds. A red blip appears and flies at the osprey. When contact is made, the blue Osprey flashes red and begins to descend. In real time we see the Osprey took a hit to one of the rotors, which is now aflame.
01:38 The Osprey crashes into the ground. The wreckage continues forward with momentum right into a group of dug-in US Infantry. All appear to be annihilated by the wreckage.
- Again it looks like units have real time physics, and if wreckage plows into your infantry, it REALLY plows into your infantry.
01:43 We see the commander's tactical map again, presumably minutes or perhaps even an hour later. This time, only a small circle of green remains. The rest is all red. Several tanks and triangles approach a blue square within the green circle on the map.
- Well, looks like someone is screwed as bad as a drunk hot chick at a frat party. The Tanks are Russian T-90s and the triangles are the right size and behaving appropriately for infantry. The blue square appears to be your command vehicle, as a golden star rotates above it. The command vehicle appears to be equipped similarly to a Bradley (Bradleys are often used as command vehicles in modern combat). It seems to have a 25 or 30mm auto cannon, a TOW Pod, Satellite uplink dishes, smoke launchers, and perhaps other features.
01:48 Within the Command vehicle, the General remains hunched over the command map. At least a couple technical operators are in the vehicle as well. In desperation, the commander says "Arm the Kinetic strike, on my position."
- This is a very little known weapon that very few people have even heard about. (Clancy really does his research pretty thoroughly.) A Kinetic Energy Projectile is housed in a satellite in orbit. The projectile, which is not in any way explosive, is usually made of a dense element such as Tungsten and is usually shaped like a "rod". The KEP is launched from the Satellite towards ground targets, traveling with momentum at the speed of orbit (at least 9 kilometers per second). The largest version of this weapon could produce damage equivilent to a small nuclear weapon or large conventional weapon such as the MOAB Multiple Ordinance Air Burst Bomb. Smaller versions could be comparable to aircraft deployed bombs, and could be used on small targets such as stationary vehicles and structures. The KEP would be almost impossible to track, since it has no radioactive elements and almost no radar signature. (It would just appear to be a harmless metiorite). The "launch" and impact would only be separated by a few minutes. Unfortunately, although advanced computers could help the KEP track its fixed target on the planet, it would be blinded by the burning atmosphere created by reentry, so it could not track moving targets.
To sum it up, it appears that this conventional weapon has the power of nukes but at a fraction of the cost, both economically and environmentaly (no irradiation or mutations occur). I guess this is America's way of posessing super weapons but still avoiding "nuclear annihilation".
01:50 We see the Kinetic Energy Rods in their launcher satellite. The satellite holds 11 KEPs total. One of the KEPs "Unlocks" from the launcher.
01:55 The General steps out of his command vehicle. Russian troops move in and surround him, their guns cautiously pointed at him, and one orders "UDERZHIVAT' POZICIYU. PRIGLYADIVAY ZA NIM, NUKUDA NE OTHODI!" (Hold your position. Watch over him, dont go anywhere)
01:58 The General looks around at his would-be captors. The words "at any cost" reverberate through his head.
02:04 Finally confirming that there is no other way out of the situation, the General orders "Now!"
02:06 We see the Kinetic Energy Projectile, appearing much like a missile as it clears the launcher and fires its engines as it "falls" to earth.
-Now to confirm all of the text I just explained, this "explosion" featured in the trailer is not an explosion in the chemical reaction sense, but just highly excited particles scattering all about. As the Kinetic Rod hits the ground, it transfers all of its stored up energy into the ground. The result is that all of the matter around the impact site absorb the energy and simultaneously expend it, vibrating apart and causing total destruction. This is much like if a meteor were to hit the ground.
02:09 The Kinetic vibrations make their way to the Command vehicle and advancing Russians.
-Before they were engulfed in dust, I identified the following vehicles: 1 Command Vehicle, 1 Bradley IFV, 3 Abrams Tanks, 1 overturned ATV/Buggy, and 1 T-90
02:10 The camera pans back and we see several more Kinetic Projectiles hit Paris.
- Judging by the blast in scale to the buildings, the blast radius initially is about 2-3 city blocks, but as the energy is transferred into the earth, the blast radius expands to between 9 and 20 city blocks.
02:14 The camera pans back into space and we see that the satelites we were looking at in the beginning of the trailer are actually the Kinetic launchers.
02:19 The EndWar logo appears.
02:20 Tom Clancy's name appears above that.