Berghoff has been tree hugging again and has sent us the first Beta Test version of his African Tree pack for viewing and testing by our team. We will be using some of the trees of the pack for our Island Projects "Angola Bush" Island (Mini-Mod release), "Cuito" Island (Main Mod Release) and "Angola" Island (ArmAII Mod Release). The trees are of excellent quality as can be expected from Berghoff and cover most of the more common African species. An added bonus is a marked improvement of ingame frame rate over those of ArmA . The pack will include various bush species as well as Elephant and Buffalo grass.

With Berghoff's tree pack we are now able to complete and deliver a very authentic looking island of the African savannah. The pack is still in BETA and WIP stage and the final version will include a few more trees and bushes .

A panoramic view of the trees available in the BETA pack we are busy testing. Notably the different varieties of the African Acacia species and the Baobab trees which are very common to the area we are basing our mod on - Northern Namibia/ South Central Angola.

African Umbrella Thorn Acacias in "Forest" layout for Beta and Frame Rate (FPS) testing purposes . The final version will consist of much darker green foliage.

Later this month I will update with ingame screens of our "Angola Bush" Island incorporating the latest version of Berghoff's Pack.

I have not updated the site for a while due to the workload we have, putting the mod together for the mini-mod release. Due to suggestions made in our forums, I will try and update the site every second weekend with progress reports and screens.

I´ve been taking a break from the weapons pack and been making some African tribal huts for our Mini-mod island. The screens have all been taken in our mini-mod island called "Angola Bush". The pack will include, Mud, Stick and grass huts as well the traditional Himba and Herero tribal huts, kraals and bomas. I am also including SWAPO staging camps (Grass Shelters) as well as furniture and the SADF military tents used in border camps.

Herero tribal mud huts. I am busy with the stick made huts as well to add variation to the map. The Mud huts include a square version with a window facing the back.

Close up view of the round traditional Herero mud huts.

I am animating all the hut doors for more player interaction and game emergence. The final release pack will include traditional furniture in the huts.

Ran a destruction test on the huts using a timed bomb to test the ingame destruction ruin animation. All our buildings and huts will include custom destruct ruins.

A close-up ingame image of the destruct ruins for the Mud huts (Round and Square huts)

Will be posting more images this week of the rest of the pack as well as close up ingame images of the BETA African Tree Pack that Berghoff is making for the mod.

The screens have all been taken in our custom mini-mod island "Angolan Bush" so it will give you an idea of what type of terrain to expect from our the Mini-mod island. I will be adding Portuguese Colonial houses as well as SADF military base structures to the pack as soon as I have completed the Weapons and Units pack. End of May I will be announcing a release date for the Mini-mod.

On behalf of the team and myself I want to apologise for taking longer than expected to complete the mini-mod but we are a small team and want to deliver quality and not quantity. I hope to achieve that and use the mini-mod to test the rest of our Add-ons as we complete them and prepare the full BUSH WARS mod for ARMA II...

Our new Alouette III pack is finally completed. After the first beta release and all the feedback I received regarding bugs and texture problems. I completely reworked the Alouette III models as the originals where made with the old O2 tool. Added lots of small detail and enhanced the model textures as well as the bump mapping. I also completely remade the rotor section based on actual photos. The rest of the model I tried to keep as accurate as possible while keeping the poly count as low as possible. I think I have the right balance and I made them specifically with ArmAII in mind. I have included 4 versions of the Alouette III AS316/B as used by the South African Airforce during the Bush War.

The G-car version with 7.62mm FNMAG for insertion and extraction in Fire Force and COIN operations.

The K-car Gunship version with 20mm Ga1 cannon includes AP and HE rounds. The most prominent feature of the K-car was the specially developed Heat shield around the turbine which vented the exhaust gasses up towards the rotors. This minimised the heat signature of the helicopter making it difficult for the Russian SAMs to lock onto target. I have implemented this feature with the add-on. In game you cannot lock on to the K-car with a Stinger or any Surface to Air missile.

The Alouette III AS316/B in Search & Rescue configuration with wench. I will add a wench script at a later stage when it is completed. I have removed the roundel, for mission makers who wish to have the SAAF roundel viewed on the Alouette III S&R just insert this in the init field of the add-on in the mission editor: this setobjecttexture [2, "\bwc_alouiii\data\t\alou_signs_ca.paa"]

The Missile Gunship version with 2 X AS12 Stand-of-Missiles. Includes a laser designator with a 2000 meters LOS to target. I have tried to keep it as original as possible (from limited available photos) and have included the South African Manufactured Missile Guidance System. Only 2 versions where ever made and used Operationally in Angola by the SAAF.

The Pumas have also been updated and all the bugs have been fixed. I reworked the Bump Mapping to give the Pumas more depth and detail . also reworked the filters and some other minor alterations and texture fixes. I completely retexture and normal mapped the panel to fix the transparency problem. The SAAF roundels are not visible and if mission makers wish to have them visible please refer to the included readme files.

To download the above add-ons please go to our DOWNLOADS PAGE .

Finally after quite a long delay due to the problems with our previous hosts and the changeover to armedassault.info I have been able to start releasing some of our Add-ons to showcase our work. We will have a beta version of our Mini-Map teaser Island "Cuito Cuanavale" early in February as Ebud still has quite a lot of work to do. In the meantime I will be releasing quite a few add-ons which will form part of our Mini-Mod release in May. The next release will be the completely remade Alouette III add-on after that I will be releasing some soldier units and our weapons pack. We will be uploading beta missions made by PETROVIC STUDIOS to test the add-ons within the next 2 weeks. I have quite a bit of free time coming up so will be catching up on a lot of add-on making.

After quite a lot of testing and numerous texture edits we are releasing the first batch of add-ons. First up is the South African Airforce Aerospatiale Puma SA330 version.

The Puma 330C in the CASEVAC configuration with the "Box" airfilters used in South West Africa (Namibia) border region. The Puma (CASEVAC) has 1 x pilot, 1 x copilot, 2 x stretchers for wounded and 8 places for troops (4 sitting shotgun in doorways)

The Puma 330L in the FIREFORCE configuration with FNMAG 7,62mm machine gun for suppressive fire support. The Puma (FNMAG) has 1 x pilot, 1 x copilot, 1 x gunner, 10 x places for troops.

I have completely remade the South African Helicopter pilots and added some custom animations. The pilots include the Elno 316 helmet and the Pat.82 type survival jacket with under arm pistol holster. A big thank you goes to UNN who scripted and tested all the animations, script work in SP and MP games. Pilots can holster and unholster pistol as well as raise and lower visor.

This is the new version of our Star 9mm pistol. I fixed some texture and Normal map problems as well as removed the tracer effects. Includes a slide and magazine animation.

I have also extensively reworked the Alouette II add-on as well as fixed the shadow problems. Rotor blur effects are now visible via proxies this solved the shadow problems. Added 2 new shadow lods so that proper shadows are cast. Fixed problem with instrument panel, now all instruments are animated and working.

I wanted to make an appeal to all our readers on behalf of BlueDingo who is looking for voice actors that can speak Portuguese, Afrikaans and Spanish. Please visit our forum for more details regarding a Voice project for the mod

We are sorry for the delays in releasing our add-ons earlier but most of the delays where not our fault and beyond our control. Hopefully this year things will move along much faster while we prepare for the main Mod Release in ArmAII

To download the above add-ons please go to our DOWNLOADS PAGE .

Ebud has been hard at work with our mini-mod island "Cuito Cuanavale" which will form part of our teaser mini-mod release early next year as soon as we have our basic units and weapons completed.

Berghoff has kindly started donating some of his African trees which he has been making for our island. Ebud is busy giving the island the dry African savanna feel and look which is typical of the Cuito region in Southern Angola. Island will include various types of African huts and colonial buildings typical of the region, the most prominent being the Herero Tribal "Grass and Mud huts" homes. I am in the process of making some terrorist camps based on Marxist guerrilla tactics of temporary forward staging camps made of stick and grass shelters.

We have started testing the beta "Cuito" island and is already looking good with some of Berghoff's African Acacia trees (African Umbrella thorn tree) which are the most predominant vegetation along with the huge but scarce Boabab trees and the dry savanna Elephant grass.

Aerial screen of the island looking South of the Lomba valley and towards the Namibian Border. The island contains 2 distinct types of African savanna, dry savanna to the North and semi arid to the South.

We are nearly done with the Alouette III's, Pumas and our new pilot models and I will have an update with screens by mid next week. We will be releasing the Pumas, Alouette IIIs and pilot add-ons before Christmas. We will also be announcing the date for our mini-mod release by end of January 2008.

Due to the unfortunate incident at our previous hosts we have decided to change hosts and move our mod website to our new address at armedassault.info.

A big thank you goes out to Cervo the Admin. at armedassault.info for the great hosting offer and the quick support and response he gave in helping us get our site up and running again.

We apologise to all the people that visit our website and support our mod for the inconvenience caused by this disruption.

We are continuing with our Mod development and will announce a mini-mod release by end of January. Due to the amount of work involved in developing a full mod and the miss calculation of the work required to complete such a task, we will only be releasing our full mod for ArmA II. We will however release numerous add-ons and content for testing and the development of ideas, suggestions, scripting and recruitment of members interested in this subject. We are using the ArmA platform to test and perfect our add-ons, "Angola" island and missions while we wait and prepare for our main release as an ArmA II mod.

I will be updating our site with developments and new WIP screens of various add-ons near completion as well as our mini-map "Cuito Cuanavale" by Ebud. I have disabled the download section as we are busy updating the add-ons previously released and I want to release the new versions together before Christmas which will be the Puma AS330, Alouette III and the proper SAAF pilot versions. January will release 2 units with custom weapons (32 Battalion and SWAPO) and the mini map (Cuito Cuanavale) as well as some missions.

I also take pleasure in announcing that we have struck a cooperative agreement and formed a coalition with the chaps at PeS mission developing studios who will be making all our missions and campaigns.

We are using the ArmA platform to perfect our mod for ArmAII. This is the long haul and it certainly not easy.... but worth it... me I am doing this for the love of modelling as a hobby and creating a mod about a war that has not been represented in RPG games and of which very little is known. A war in which I took part (1982-1984) and in a time that we thought we where doing the right thing, beating the odds with very limited military hardware and support and we did what we could and although people and history won't admit it , this war changed the path of history for Southern Africa forever. History will not credit this event because it was fought at a time when South Africa practice its Apartheid policies but in the field where we lost our friends and brothers we did not distinguish between black or white but shared the brotherhood that only a soldier that fought side by side in a war will ever know. I aim to portray this with this mod and in the missions we are going to create . With no political connotations or views attached and to bring awareness to the gaming community about this war. What better way to do it than through a mod for what I consider the best war simulator ever.... ArmA and the soon to be released ArmAII. I think I speak for all those that where involved or are interested in this subject.

Welcome back and thank you all for the support.......

Ebud send us a pre alpha version of our miniteaser island called Cuito Cuanavale. We took our first look at it and decided to present some screens for the community to view.

"To the North West is the Cuito river and the Cuanavale river to the North East. South East is the beginning of the Lomba Valley. This area will include the towns of Savate to the South, Mavinga and Jamba to the South East and Tumpo just South of Cuito Cuanavale."

The shown Map is a placeholder to get a view of the topography of the area as well as a feel of the African Savanna.

Map Screen 1: Looking North to the town of Tumpo with Cuito Cuanavale on the East side of the Cuanavale river. Some of the largest land battles between the SADF and the FAPLA/Cuban 54th Brigade took place in this area. We want to keep our mod as authentic as possible and true to the feel of this African conflict.

Map Screen 2: Moving South past the Lomba Valley and on the way to Savate with the Cuito river on the right and the Cuanavale river on the left. Ebud has started placing some trees while we wait for the African Acacia trees (African Umbrella thorn) by Berghoff. Africa is just not Africa without the Acacia trees. Its what gives Africa that distinct bush smell.

I also want to welcome 2 new members to our team, Rellikki who is going to assist NBSVieiraPT as Co-Leader in the making of our MOD campaigns and missions. FALCON 1 who will be helping with the Forum moderation as well as all the beta testing and aircraft specs, research and advice. Welcome to the team guys.

Ebud has been hard at work on our "ANGOLA " island map and has sent a VISITOR screen shot of the Cuito Cuanavale area he is busy with. To the North West is the Cuito river and the Cuanavale river to the North East. South East is the beginning of the Lomba Valley. This area will include the towns of Savate to the South, Mavinga and Jamba to the South East and Tumpo just South of Cuito Cuanavale. Ebud also let us know that Berghoff will be making an African nature pack for us to use on the island. We will be posting updates regularly on the progress of the "ANGOLA" island. As a word of note, some of the largest battles between the SADF and Cuban-FAPLA-SWAPO forces took place in this area.

I would also like to take this opportunity in welcoming a new member to the team. MiG known for the OFP mod "Colonial Wars" has joined our team and will be helping us with original Models as well as configs and texturing. MiG thanks for joining our team, you are a valuable member and will contribute greatly towards the mod. Welcome aboard mate!