BG42-OPERATION_Citadel
======================

This is Operation_Citadel - an official map for BattleGroup42.
It requires the latest release, BG42_070, to play.

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History:
--------

After the fall of Stalingrad, the armies of Generals Vatutin and Golikov launched an attack to take Kharkov 
at the end of February 1943. Field Marshal Manstein -- after a brilliant regrouping of his forces -- recaptured Kharkov. 
Elation of in the High Command led to an ambitious operation -- 'Zitadelle'. 
This was a plan to eliminate the salient around Kursk. From March to June the Germans built up their reserves and brought in more tanks. 
The Russians took the opportunity to build eight concentric circles of defence and by the time the offensive was launched, 
they had a numerical superiority over the Germans in both tanks and men.

The battle began on the 5th of July with the Ninth Army under General Kluge attacking from the north and the Fourth Panzer Army under 
von Mantein's attacking from the south. In the north, the Ninth Army penetrated a mere 10 km and lost 25,000 men (killed), 200 tanks and 200 aircraft. 
In the south, Manstein's army penetrated 40 km, but also with great losses ; 10,000 killed, 350 tanks destroyed.

On July 12th, the Russians launched a counter-offensive in the north agaisnt Orel and by July 23rd, the Germans were back where they had started. 
Manstein withdrew against orders to the Dniepr. This battle is known as the greatest tank battle of the war and it involved two million men, 
6000 tanks and 4000 aircraft. It stopped the pattern of successful German offensives followed by Russian winter counter-offensives, 
from that point the German armies were in retreat.

Source: http://srm.racesimcentral.com/il2/kursk_history.shtml


Requirements & Installation :
-----------------------------
Battlefield 1942 v1.4 or later
Battlegroup42 Mod v0.70 (installed to Mods\BattleGroup070)

The RFA file must be extracted to the "Battlefield 1942\Mods\BattleGroup070\Archives\Bf1942\Levels" Directory

This map supports Single player, Conquest and Coop mode.

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Operation Citadel vehicles and equipment:
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Axis side :
- Tiger I 		heavy tank
- Panther Ausf D 	medium tank
- BF-109 		fighter
- Stuka 		dive bomber
- Hanomag		aPC
- Wespe 		mobile artillery
- Opel Blitz		troop transport
- Flak 88		duel Purpose gun
- sIG33 Artillery	fixed artillery
- Panzer IV Ausf H	medium tank
- Panzer II		light tank


Allies side :
- KV1			heavy tank
- KV1-S			heavy tank
- T34/76		medium tank
- Yak-9			fighter
- M3A1 APC		aPC
- Katyusha		mobile Rocket launcher
- Zis-2			anti tank gun
- Zis-3			anti tank gun
- M2A1 Howitzer		fixed artillery

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Credits:
--------
Map created by: Gurki (Gurki_BG42@yahoo.com)

Skins by: 	Gurki
		Multimadman (headshotenterprises@yahoo.com)
		Myopic Zaitcev (heer_riq@hotmail.com)

Loading screen: Multimadman

Beta testers:	Panzaman 
		Vimeous
		DaCrapper
		A. J. Rock
		Multimadman
		BeanBandit
		Myopic Zaitcev
		Gimli
		=[OG]=Panzasmurf
		=[Peiper]=
		Haribo
		Seven
		Joc




Please visit our website at www.battlegroup42.com or join us on our foums at bf42.com and modtheater.com

Enjoy,

Battlegroup42 staff


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Used tools and resources:
-------------------------

- Tools:
- Madbulls Editor
- Editor42
- Batlecraft
- Photoshop
- Notepad
- Rexman tools


Websites used for information:

- Battlefield 1942 Modder's Wiki: http://www.twilighthalls.de/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?HomePage
- BD42.com Forums: http://www.bf42.com/forums/


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All contents of the map conversion are copyright BattleGroup42.
You MAY distribute this File in any not-for-profit electronic format (BBS, Internet,
CD, etc) and include all files, including this readme, intact in the original archive.
