Symbols

[Jorg Biermann1]

Yes another thread from a "Nazi Fanboi" who is asking about symbols..

After the release of the game I noticed some horrible things...

Symbols on the Campaign Cutscenes.
The symbols are so wrong. First I saw a first with an armband with an Iron Cross in it. Yes I understand why it can't have a Swastika.

But then I noticed... this. Why is there a poster from 5.SS "Wiking" in a mission about the Barrikady Gun Factory in Stalingrad? Also they replaced the SS logos with Iron Crosses. There shouldn't even be SS in the game! If the art department knew what they were doing they could of maybe tried to make the SS soldier look more like a soldier of the Heer by replacing the SS Collar tabs with Heer ones... also delete the decay on the helmet.

Spoiler!

German Uniforms no longer have Swastikas.
In the beta the German Uniforms had small swastikas in the Belt Buckle and Reich Eagle. They have deleted them.

German Heer Officer Cap
The Officer Cap on RO2 is a SS Crusher Cap, even the Eagle on it is a SS one. The Cap in RO2 has just deleted the SS Skull and just left it blank.

SS Crusher Cap

Heer Crusher Cap

 

[THunter]

Agreed.

Also the squad and team leaders, theyre insignia is totally wrong.

The squad leader should look like a NCO...with silver/grey NCO tresse around the colar and on the shoulder boards. His hat should be the proper EM/NCO type with the wreath & cockade.

The team leader ingame looks like a simple enlisted man with leutanant shoulderboards. This is wrong, a leutanant should have the upgraded "officer" style collar tabs and his hat should have the proper wreath & cockade with the braided silver chin coard on the hat.

on a side note, the G41 infantry man in game has TWO G43 magazine pouches! THERE WERE NO G43 POUCHES when the G41 was ISSUED! A g41 rifleman would have the standard k98 pouches carrying 60 rounds on stripper clips! they did not issue magazine pouches or extra magazines for the G41!

Photos (the 2 tunics in the pictures are of the M36 type) A type a NCO would most likely be wearing. Also the M36 was favored by all officers for its dark green collar.

 

[Sodbrenner]

Have to agree with you guys the current uniforms [well at least the german ones (dont know anything about russian uniforms) ] are a big no no.

But the game is still to buggy right now so the uniforms are probably on the lower end of the "to do list". So we should give them some time.

I used all my paint skills D) and made a pic a week ago about a german squadleader uniform [Unterfeldwebel in his case].

But as Thunter said

- Squadleaders tunic wrong
- Officers tunic wrong
- Officers cap... well its ... i cant talk about it... my german heart is crying...

 

[Landrik]

Actually M40 was in full swing by '42. For Unteroffizier (squad leader), the litzen should be represented.

 

[Bluehawk]

During the Soviet campaign, on the Apartments level, in the opening speech just before you gain control of your soldier, the Russian voice says "let's show them Bolshevik courage", as if he's been listening to too much German propaganda. Red Army soldiers of that era would never identify themselves as Bolsheviks or even "Bolshevists."

Also in the Station level you're consistently referred to as Guardsmen, but once you start playing no one is wearing the Guards badge... and that's a good thing

 

[Landrik]

The campaign introductions are very good at painting the picture of the mood of the battle and then there's a propaganda picture in the background just staring you in the face. Arbeitdienst? SS with Iron Crosses painted over their runes? Soviet rat over a bleeding skull? It really takes away from the setting and is really laughable. The after-action cinema with the writings from the soldiers is spectacular, though. Went right there.

 

[M.C.Darkness]

I think they should at least have an option to use historical symbols for the Axis, after all they used the Sickle and Hammer for the "Allies" which is equally offensive to the use of a Swastika.

 

[HLudwig]

Why do we in the US have to suffer because Germany and Poland have draconian laws about symbols?

 

[Jorg Biermann1]

Why do we in the US have to suffer because Germany and Poland have draconian laws about symbols?

Not just the US. Everywhere.

 

[GREIF]

I fully support Herr Biermann and THunter and would just like to add...

...at least the current uniforms look better than the ones from company of heroes!

 

[Nenjin]

You seriously took the time to obsess about uniforms in CoH? A FPS I can appreciate, they're always staring you in the face. An RTS with 20x zoom though....that's stretching

 

[MarioBava]

I think they should at least have an option to use historical symbols for the Axis, after all they used the Sickle and Hammer for the "Allies" which is equally offensive to the use of a Swastika.

I can't agree. I'm not arguing against historical accuracy or in defense of any political or economic system or party, but I also understand that the Nazi hakenkreuz is different than the hammer and sickle, and it's not that hard to see if you know what Hitler said about it. Here's why it's different: Looking at the symbols themselves, the Nazi hakenkreuz differs from the hammer and sickle in the offensiveness of what each ostensibly represents.

Spelling it out, by Hitler's own description, the incorporation of the hakenkreuz as the symbol of Nazism is racist in nature (he describes it as symbolic for the Nazi party of the struggle of the "Aryan man"), and inextricable from the racist ideology of Hitler. Whereas the hammer and sickle represents unity of the peasant and the industrial worker. It's not that the Soviets were angels or that the revolution was bloodless, it's that the symbol is hardly offensive in itself, hardly racist, in what it represents and how it was conceived. What is done under it is another issue entirely, and nobody really "wins" that contest.

But, whatever atrocities were committed under any flag in the war (let's just admit it: war is atrocious!), there is still this basic difference in the national symbols that cannot really be argued. The Hakenkreuz, unlike the American Stars and Stripes (Americans did atrocious things in the war, too!) or the Soviet Hammer and Sickle, was chosen because there was an explicit conception of it as a racist symbol, and at the center of the ideology/program for which it was chosen is an undeniable racism.

By the way, this is all also regardless of the history of the swastika prior to its use by the Nazi party, because it is the intention of the Nazis that matters when it concerns their use of it. Their interpretation is a twisted version of matters regarding the meaning of the symbol; it's certainly by no means the traditional Buddhist conception, for example (the word "aryan" even has a Buddhist meaning, but it's not similar to the Nazi usage, either).

Personally I don't care that the swastika is not in the game, and I'd rather cut TWI some slack for playing it safe. For me the game is a WWII combat game, not a WWII political game. Since the tiny symbols on the brass don't affect the combat, I don't give two turds whether they are accurate or not.

 

[Uffz.Juschkat]

I don't know how many times I've brought up the variations in uniforms on these threads. I've suggested letting people choose whether they get an M36 or M40 tunic, whether they get to wear helmet camo covering, chicken wire, rubber band, or just plain. Also a billion times suggested that the "squad leader" NCO get tresse on his tunic. The officer in game is funny looking.

To address this:

The squad leader should look like a NCO...with silver/grey NCO tresse around the colar and on the shoulder boards. His hat should be the proper EM/NCO type with the wreath & cockade.

The team leader ingame looks like a simple enlisted man with leutanant shoulderboards. This is wrong, a leutanant should have the upgraded "officer" style collar tabs and his hat should have the proper wreath & cockade with the braided silver chin coard on the hat.

Sorry, but NCO's and frontline leutnants wore helmets. You also realize that some officers wore EM tunics and just had officer shoulder boards and litzen (collar tabs) and maybe officer's breast eagle... But twi could have easily have skinned a proper officer's tunic. Just needed an extended collar, and french cuffs. Example below... unfortunately these are Chinese remakes... I think the pocket flaps have been a bit exaggerated

Edit: Oh not to mention that TWI hasn't really given the Germans M36/M40 Mantels or the grey-white parka for the winter maps

 

[Uffz.Juschkat]

Actually M40 was in full swing by '42. For Unteroffizier (squad leader), the litzen should be represented.

Landrik, you realize thats an M42 you posted right

 

[Gerhard Schiller]

I know TWI has a problem with putting SS ruins in their game, but does that rule apply to modded uniforms created by the playerbase?

 

[Nenjin]

I don't believe it does. Player created content run on a player-owned server is their business, unless it's actively subverting something like the leveling system. I'm going on their attitude from KF.

About the only issue I forsee is them not allowing people to post mods in their forums with banned Nazi iconography. They might view allowing people to display those mods here as flouting the no-swasitka policy.

I doubt they'd concern themselves with what mods people choose to run though, since stuff like re-textures can conceivably be done client-side.

 

[CrisM1]

Edit: Oh not to mention that TWI hasn't really given the Germans M36/M40 Mantels or the grey-white parka for the winter maps

as always