Battlefront.com announces the release of Combat Mission: Fortress Italy, which offers Windows and OS X gamers the latest installment in this strategy series. Word is this will be followed by a patch for the first game in the series and a demo: "A 2.0 Upgrade will also be available separately for the first game in the series, Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy, within a couple of months. A free demo of CM: Fortress Italy will be released within a couple of weeks. Customers who preordered and customers who order a mail delivery now can expect the hardgoods to begin shipping within 10-14 days." Here's the deal on the game:

This latest installment in the critically acclaimed Combat Mission series of tactical ground warfare simulations takes the players to Sicily in the year 1943, and the first Allied invasion of mainland Europe during World War Two. The “soft underbelly” of Europe turned out to be anything but, and the US forces in Combat Mission: Fortress Italy (including elite Rangers formations) encounter equally veteran German Wehrmacht (such as the Herman Goering Division) and Luftwaffe Feld Division, Italian Bersaglieri troops, new tanks and weapons, and unique steep, rocky and arid terrain.

In addition to all the new toys, 5 (!!) campaigns (including 2 special Tutorial campaigns, one for beginners, a second for advanced players), more than a dozen standalone missions, and 250 (!!) QuickBattle maps, CM: Fortress Italy also includes the long awaited v2.0 game engine! Here is just a very short list of some of the highlights of the improved game engine:

• Moveable Waypoints
• Target Armor Arc Command
• Expanded Floating Icon Categories
• "Fog of War" Floating Icons
• 2D Editor Map Overlay (so you can create your maps right out of real-life satellite photos and maps)
• Auto-Assemble Road/Wall/Hedge Tool (“paint” a road or wall now!)
• Camera Jump to Groups
• Target Briefly Command
• New Rendering Shaders (check out the new screenshots!)
• Bump and Normal Mapping
• Improved Framerates
• Pausable Realtime TCP/IP Mode
• ...and more!