The microscopic description of heavy-ion reactions at low beam energies is
achieved within hadronic transport approaches. In this talk a new approach
SMASH (Simulating Many Accelerated Strongly-interacting Hadrons) is
introduced, verified, and applied to study particle production at E_Kin =
0.4 - 2 A GeV in Au+Au, C+C and pi+A collisions. First SMASH results for
dilepton and strangeness production are presented. Finally, an extension
of SMASH with forced canonical thermalization in the high-density regions
is demonstrated. This extension effectively accounts for many-particle
collisions.