Are you typing anything else? Is Steel Panthers stored in a subdirectory of c:\dos_gs , or is the Steel Panthers .exe stored directly in c:\dos_gs? (See for instance the 60 Seconds Guide.)

Also, you're aware there's an OS X build of DOSBox, right?

Hi Jorpho,
Thanks for your reply. I have the Steel Panthers in a directory Steel. So I of course do
c:\
cd steel
steel.exe

As I said the sound actually works when the game loads; it goes away when I start a scenario. Does that particular pattern (the sound working some of the time) suggest a solution to any of you?

Thanks for your help,
Clark

So far, so good. The next obvious questions are:

Are you using an original copy of the game, or did you download this from somewhere? If you simply downloaded it from somewhere then it could very well be incomplete (or otherwise hacked) to a degree where it is pointless to attempt further troubleshooting.

Have you tried an SVN version of DOSBox? Many improvements have been made since the official 0.74 release; if this lack of sound is due to a bug in DOSBox, it may have been fixed.

Hi Jorpho, I've been using a downloaded version, but I've ordered a used copy of the game from Amazon. It will arrive in 2 days. Is there a particular SVN you'd recommend? Thanks for your help, Clark

The SVN Daum build is pretty handy (but you'd best stick with the 2014 versions).

The biggest recommendation is to run Dosbox natively. Running Dosbox in a VM in OS X will eventually bite you somewhere. Most likely mouse problems.
So either use the Dosbox 0.74 built from Dosbox' download page or use my up to date built of current Dosbox code (see my signature). Btw. The current official 0.74 built was made by me as well 😉

Hi Jorpho and Dominus,
Thanks for your help. I was able to get the sound to work when I installed the game from a used CD. I will have to try the SVN Daum and the other builds of DosBox you mentioned later when I have a bit time. I've tried running DosBox in MacOS in the past; it's been very slow. However, I imagine your build might be better!

Best,
Clark

For OS X stay away from 64bit builds - these are way slower than they should be. 32bit Dosbox is similar fast as on Windows but of course depending on your machine.