A work around soloution is to download and install the Sprite Pack. You will get much better looking ships, planes, ect. It is located at:
http://www.stonyroad.de/_spritesection.php
WARNING!
I had problems getting it to work correctly. However, I also had sprites from two other different sources, all mixed together with the CORE mod, and my own mods. Your install of the sprite pack
should work fine, but maybe NOT. Therefore, BACKUP your GFX directory. Just copy and paste to your Hears of Iron directory so you will have a backup. If you have problems, delete the orginal GFX, and rename the copy back to GFX, and you are no worse off than before. To make the fix by hand, like I had to do, do the following:
Again backup your orginal GFX directory. Yes, be a bit paranoid... Install ithe sprite pack into a seperate directory, like \Games\HoI_Sprites, or whatever. Copy from the sprite pack install (the sprite directory structure will mirror the orginal) anything related for FIGHTER GER L2 .BMP or .SPR file from the GFX\pallette (1 file); GFX\MAP\UNITS; and GFX\MAP\UNITS\BMP to the same destination in your HoI game. The files in the UNIT and BMP Directory are devided into three types. A STAND, two FIRE, and a WALK for each compass point, so 11 spr files and 11 bmp files. Just copy and overwrite. Poke around, it will make sense what is needed. I have done this and no problems. The F190 sprite looks very nice.
You can also do this for ships and motorized units, since they look 1000 times better than the orginal sprites. The German L3 and L4 Panzers are also nice, I perfer the orginal L2 panzer to the one in the sprite pack. Would be careful about installing any other sprites from the sprite pack. Should be OK, but I have not tested them yet and had some problems with torpedo bombers displaying correctly. However, I have a lot of mixed up sprites from different sources so probably my setup.