Flag mod for Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa

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Historical Flags and Symbols mod version 1.0


The purpose of this mod is to represent all flags and symbols that were used by the different units in the game as accurately as possible within the constraints of the game engine. I am interested in vexillology, heraldry, and semiotics, not politics. You should never be allowed to forget who is doing what to whom, because when you bowdlerize evil you make it more acceptable. And then the bad guys win.


This mod is a graphics-only mod. It makes a few changes to the graphic presentation, nothing more. It will have zero impact on any pbem games, and won't cause problems if one player uses it but another doesn't. It is very similar to my mod for DC:Case Blue, but not identical. Several of the flags from that mod have been repainted (e.g. the Romanian and Soviet flags).


This mod is designed to be used with other graphics mods. These don't exist yet, but no modder can resist making grass mods, so sooner or later...


Here is a list of what this mod changes, by country:


Germany:

The mod uses a German roundel derived from the roundel on the Parteiflag.

The large, medium, and small headquarters flags are the Reichskriegflag, the German warflag. This is the flag that would have flown in front of any army or navy headquarters, as well as in front of administrative offices in any occupied territory.

The crossed anchors icon for the Wehrmacht navy is the emblem that was worn on the shoulder boards of the Kriegsmarine.

The Luftwaffe eagle icon has been repainted.

I have replaced the SS icon with the white SS runes on a black background.



Romania:

The Romanian flag is now King Michael's warflag.

The national icon for Romania is now the Romanian cross (reportedly modeled on the German balkenkreuz).



Finland:

The mod uses the Finnish warflag from WW II. The Finnish warflag is unusual in that it uses a medieval swallowtail design with the national coat of arms mounted on the intersection of the two arms of the cross.

The national icon for Finland is the national coat of arms (gold lion rampant on a red shield).

The alternative would have been to use the airforce symbol. The Finnish airforce began using that symbol when the country was becoming independant during the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. A Swedish nobleman whose ancestor had gone crusading in the Baltic donated a personal airplane to Finland, the first airplane in what was to become the Finnish Air Force. To show their recognition Finland adopted part of the nobleman's coat of arms as their aircraft symbol. In the Middle Ages, if you had gone crusading in the Holy Land, you often added a Jerusalem Cross to your coat of arms. But if you hadn't gone all the way to the Middle East and had only crusaded with the Teutonic knights in Prussia or the Baltic, you removed half of the crossbars from the Jerusalem cross before you mounted it on your coat of arms. So that is why the Finnish Airforce was using a symbol that we now think of as a swastika long before the German Nazi Party came into existence. The Finnish Air Force swastika isn't really a swastika, it just looks like one. I didn't want to use the Finnish Air Force symbol as the national ID symbol because I always prefer to use national coats of arms instead, and on top of that I find it very confusing to see a swastika on Finnish units, even though I know where it really comes from.




Italy:

The national icon for Italy is now the coat of arms of the house of Savoy (white cross on a red shield with a blue border).


Hungary:


The icon for Hungary is now the national coat of arms with the crown of St. Stephen.



Soviet Union:


The Soviet Roundel now sports a hammer and sickle.


The Soviet flag has been repainted.


The icon for Soviet regulars is derived from the Red Army badges that were made out of enameled metal, and is a red star with a gold edge and a gold hammer and sickle mounted in the middle of the star.


The icon for troops from Siberia is identical to the icon for Soviet regulars, except that the red and gold star is shown against a green background. Siberia has lots of taiga and tundra, and both are green when not covered in snow.


The icon for Soviet conscripts is identical to the icon for Soviet regulars, but without the gold trim around the edge of the red star (a very small hammer and sickle on a red star).


The icon for Partisans is a simple red star cut out of fabric (no hammer and sickle).


The icon for Soviet Naval Infantry (the Black Death) is based on the fouled anchor that appears on Russian marine badges.



Non-swastika version:

I have decided not to make a swastika-free version of the mod. The game's vanilla graphics are perfectly adequate if you happen to be squeamish about that sort of thing.




WHERE TO GET THE MOD


The mod can be downloaded from this link:



https://app.box.com/s/4x7dvkpfjtns0pmsnzeybui19mpopkvb



I frequently run out of bandwidth towards the end of the month. If that happens you could always wait until the begining of the next calendar month and try again. But there is also a copy of the mod hosted on Vic's site here:


http://www.advancedtactics.org/scenario.php?nr=228&tpage=0&tplayer=0&ttag=0&tai=0&tdeleted=0&tengine=0


If you are interested in the flag mods that I've made for the other games in the series, here are the relevant links:




http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3755829&mpage=1&key=&#3970837



http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3768892



Historical Flags and Symbols mod version 1.0 screenshots:















































 
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