[Americans] St. Fromond - Mission 8

[Druidika]

St. Fromond

Operation Cobra. Able Company is deployed to St. Lô sector, also known as Hedgerow country. Their first mission is to secure the town of St. Fromond and establish a bridgehead across the river Vire.

[Weavern]

MEDAL OBJECTIVE: Destroy Axis HQ (easier said then done)

This can be an easy or hair pulling difficult level.

The objective is to hold a small square just north of your position and defend it against wave after wave of panzer IVs and grenadiers. To make matters more difficult a series of super nebels will begin to hammer this position.

Depending on how brave you are you can play this as a straight out defence mission. However this is not how I would recommend winning this level. Before attempting the method I have selected play through it and learn the where the nebel sites are and the various other defenses scattered around the map.

Prefered victory method: (hard+expert valid)

Do not capture the town center, do not go anywhere near the town center except to clear out the anti air cannon facing the bridge. Do not break the chain of control from the town center to the axis HQ in the top center corner. The reason for this is as follows, once you clear the center and capture the point or just clear it as control is given to you, they will begin sending waves of troops towards you.

So knowing this you must build up. Send your calliope to the bridge and have it pick off the machine guns and pumas guarding the other side. Use your mortar to get anything it cant reach. While this is occuring obtain halftracks. Your goal with the halftracks which will be filled with riflemen is to go and capture all those flashy points on the map. There are multiple panzers on patrol and a few stugs later on.

After destroying the pak38 along the left roadway, or the two anti air cannons on the right roadway you are cleared to basically capture and hold the entirety of the map upto the axis HQ. Do not scout the axis HQ as it triggers additional troop deployment. Using the halftrack reinforcement ability and your riflemen you should be able to easily secure the map and the village center still mostly untouched has not started the 30minute counter. Preemtively mine roads using a greyhound and setup some mines in the graveyard nebel sight. Now when you have sufficent troops and have your base setup you can cut off the supply chain.

For this mission your best friend is the supersherman and the calliope. Attacking the axis HQ on higher difficulties is near death due to the panzershreks. So you want to surround and mortar and camp the entrances while you prepare to take the base itself. If you wish to cheat and get a medal the easy way you can calliope minimum range rocket barrage it, this should do sufficent damage to inflict a near KO, if not paradrop a squad in and satchel the rest. However it should be noted that camping with 57mm, a med tent and a halftrack is the easiest way to ensure you are not over run on higher difficulties.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

It is actually possible to take out the Axis HQ somewhat painlessly once you obtain Supply Drop. Use a recon flight to land paratroops, an AT gun, and a supply drop on the northern road entrance to the Axis base, and drop more troops as you are able. The main obstacles you face are Flak Vierlings near the town hall and enemy vehicles being produced in the base. The AT gun should suffice for enemy vehicles. Use the mortar from the supply drop to kill the eastern flak vierlings crew. You can either destroy it directly, or use Smoke Rounds and send in an Airborne squad to grenade/satchel it. Smoke rounds usually takes less time, but is more dangerous. It should then be a simple process to clear the western Flak Vierling. Then it is simply a matter of using AT guns, satchels, and mortars to eliminate the HQ.

Smoke rounds are also an excellent way of protecting your engineers until the machineguns can be taken out.

As for the primary part of the mission, I found the use of tank traps to channel enemy vehicles essential. A line of tank traps west of the church and across the eastern approaches can force enemy tanks into two routes; straight down the road (where your defences are probably concentrated) and across the west river road. That route is particularly easy to hold with a sandbagged AT gun emplaced on the bridge island.

(Conducted on Hard.)

[Iron_Paw]

All I did to destroy the Axis HQ was keep using airstrikes...since you control most of the map easily, you should have plenty of munition. Just send a recon flight to scout the map and bomb/strafe the crap outta all those Jerries sitting there!

[anonymousMarine]

nonsense.... the way to destroy the Axis HQ is WAY easier

send recon flights right at the Axis HQ, they'll get shot down on the way and crash into the HQ.

3 suicides will finish it. make sure the plane's recon path travels down the center of the map coz that's where Oswinds and Flak cannons and stationed.

*grin*

[KlavoHunter]

Yes, the whole "Suicide Recon Planes" thing made things a lot easier on this map for me on accident. It's how I commonly took out one or more of the Nebelwerfer sites.

However, I had a fairly winning strategy for clearing out the Axis HQ. 3 infantry squads (2 rifles, 1 Para) go up to the point to the southeast of the Axis base area, and secure that, and use the Goliaths dropped by the trucks to help blow your way in. Or not, it doesn't really matter. Move up the Sherman Calliope, and just use that to steadily leapfrog your advance with the infantry. Make sure to rush your infantry North right away to kill off the PaK gun so it doesn't do much to the Calliope. Then liberally use the Rocket Barrage on stuff... like the HQ. There's a gigantic stack of troops and halftracks that pile up in front of it, and 2 barrages destroys the whole lot of 'em.



Another good trick is delaying completing your objectives. Sit on your edge of the bridge with the Calliope and Mortars that you get at the start, and pick off the two Armored Cars, the two houses with HMGs, and the Flakvierling, while your Rifles take the Munitions point and then OP it for nice income. Take as long as you feel like, build up your base and add another Sherman to your army, a few more rifle squads, and equip the lot of 'em with BARs. THEN roll over the bridge.

But even still, ignore the Town - just take every point around it. In fact, take as much of the map as you want, EXCEPT FOR THE HQ AREA. Don't intrude in there. For some reason, when I moved my army into there to clean house, I automatically took control of the Town Square, and had nothing in position to move in.

However, take the rest of the map and leave some 'presents' in place for when the Germans move in the Nebelwerfers and whatnot.

[anonymousMarine]

Nice to see some1 agree-ing with me.

150 Munitions (3 recon flights) for Medal, that's a good deal :D

[wuyanxu]

really? got to try that.

i also found that if i had paratroopers on the other side (don't repair the bridge) and save the game.
now exit the game, load the save.
then the point you got to capture is empty, no germans. they are all at their base. and a few strafing rungs will do. (the recon play won't be shotdown, unfortunantly)

[live2play]

I tried taking alot of the points but not the town itself. Seems whenever I cross into the northern half of the map (or upper half, not sure which way north is on this map..) they flee the town and I automatically get control of the point. It's on normal diff, so I guess it's supposed to happen. I usually try to station some paras at the nebelwurfer sites so they neutralize a few of them right off the bat.

I wish I had longer to build up my defenses though. I'm not sure if it's a timed thing, or territory explored, or points captured that triggers the timer, it will take some more tries to figure it out.

Oh, and the recon suicide planes to get the medal thing works like a charm. :)

[nyyti]

I experienced a bug in this map = When you save the game and then load it, your manpower gain rate is set to "0". Anyone else with me?

[sgtsaunders]

I thought I saw it somewhere. But what worked well for me was to "before" going accross the bridge, build two extra tanks, one regular sherman and one flamethrowing Sherman. Also have three sets of engineers also so they can set up defensive. Having three tanks from the start lets you take out the axis rocket launches ( there is sets of two) guarded by artillery and armor. Someone also mentioned having a machine nest set up in town to take care of the random axis troops which wander in.

[eddy catflap]

i finally beat this one over the weekend.
Played through a few times using various tactics,but on one attempt a strange thing happend....

Had left the bridge unrepaired and sat building up resources,then repaired the bridge and sent a sniper in to clear the square.once this was done i sent over two MG crews.
As soon as they set foot on the other side of the bridge a totally unannounced NEBEL attack came from nowhere and blitzed them! then another fell in the middle of the square??

Anyone else had that happen?

[MadCatChiken]

MEDAL OBJECTIVE: Destroy Axis HQ (easier said then done)

Actually i just sent recon flights over and when they got shot down they crash into the HQ building taking away like a quater of health. :D

[evotech]

lol, stupid strat haha

[jeffchele]

Sniper and straffing can take out all the Neber thingies. Don't take town and just capture and setup your defenses for a fun fire fight against the tanks and stuff that you channel into crossfires.

[Offensive_D.Fox]

I attempted to have the plane crash into the house many times, but it never seemed to happen/work. It always went and crashed behind the house and never into it. How far away do you need to be to have it crash INTO The hoouse.
And setting up tank traps did not help me at all. The PIVs went right through them. What's hte purpose of using tank traps anyway in this game if they just get brushed aside like wooden pickets?

[KurseSa]

i had a lot of fun with this mission.
i didn't repair the bridge, but slowly built up command points with the use the calliope and 4 mortar teams trashing the first row of buildings closest to you, which gained me enough CP for paras, recon run and strafing run, this is where the fun begins.

recon over the axis HQ will reveal about 16-18 squads of assorted volks and grens, all nicely bunched together for a good 'ole strafing run. :]

with all the opposing infantry dead, retaking the entire map was a piece of cake, paras used to take out the nebelwerfers, FU + satchel + good timing = good.

if you're lazy like me, you can do a tripleinstantkamakazieintohq with the air support available if you so choose, or have some satchel fun



completion time = 12 minutes


peace
xx

[blackrook]

Completing the mission in 12 minutes is impossible; the mission requires you to defend the square for 30.

[Devil2575]

Completing the mission in 12 minutes is impossible; the mission requires you to defend the square for 30.


True, even if you take out the Chateau and the nebel sites the game still goes of for 30 minutes.

I've just played this 3 times on hard until I did it. The way to go is definately air strikes. 1 recon plane crash and a bombing run takes out the chateau. Same goes for each nebel site.

The changes since 1.4 have definatley made it a lot harder. Shrecks blew my armour to pieces. Mind you my own AT guns weren't much better with totally uncalled for Friendly fire. I could understand if you had instructed them to attack a target but to fire at the back of my tanks of their own accord it just stupid.

[doomlord520]

theres a small glitch in this mission. If you just go to the top right corner (or there abouts) you'll find a building filled with kraut. If you just kill that building, you win. You dont need to do anything else.

[CroatNotBorat]

I'm replaying the campaign on expert now in 2.203, and man, I can't do anything in this mission. Strafing run was nerfed, nebels were buffed (range, damage, flames - I've got nebel rockets landing in my base at the bottom, FFS!), the Calliope is defenceless, and it's all horrible... Not taking the town square is kind of lame, so I'm trying to defend like the game wants me to. I can't even think about getting rid of the Wehr HQ since the dozen nebels destroy everything I have.

Any ideas?

[hanz gooblemien]

best way to complete on expert is as someone mentioned earlier...

do not repair the bridge until you have built up a considerable amount of both resources (esp. muni) and have assembled a force to defend the town.

Use the muni to mine the crap outta the south east entrance of St Fro...as the tank traps wont do it.

You will also need the muni's to strafe and spot by air.

As well make sure you have excessive amounts of MP..youll need them for reinforcement.

Once you have all this...try to avoid placing too many units near the north end of St.fromond as it will encourage his units to push deeper into the town.

As for taking out the newbels...well youll need to use both the strafing and the galli...niether one is particularily effective...but used togther it will get the job done.

As for the base being hit...not much you can do except put space between buildings...

I had to laugh as the last time i did this mission newbel's wiped out my barracks and HQ...which i didnt notice until too late...

but taking out the German Hq? pretty tricky to do now.

[GenericNameAlph]

What I did is not repair the bridge and waited a while. To get Cps. I built an MG nest then deleted it, so i had everything except a bombing run. Then i landed some paratroopers on the left side of the river can captured the undefended points there.

I had triggered a retreat from St.Fromond to the HQ so all the squads were grouped infront of it.

Afterthat I accdently attacked one of the AT guns infront of the Axis HQ triggering the capture of ST. Fromond. After this two shreked Gren squads came out and were jumped by my vet 2 paratroopers. While i rushed my forces cross the bridge to The strategic point. After I had 2 dual shreked vet 3 paratroopers hanging around the entrance, nothing is going to get out. So I moved up my Calliope and bombarded the HQ and surrounding buildings and won without even defending the town for the whole 30 minutes.

[Steakmancer]

All you really need to defend the center is 2 engineers, a sherman, and 2 mortars. By the end of the game the mortar will have around 30-40 infantry kills the CPU rushes to the point. Eventually you will want a squadron of 4 Shermans including the Caliope, which should have Vet 3 10 minutes into the game.

[adamsun]

Normal level.
I repair the bridge too early, saved only 3000+muni(when the 30min comes, besides mining roads.)

Before taking square, take as many points as possible, use tank trap and barbed wire to make enemy can attack from north road only.

I set two lines tank trap at right side of the square. The inner line is too close to my defense, when enemy gets to this line, they can see my forces and call artillery, also tank trap can be destroyed by artillery fire later. Then in next run, I build another/outer line of tank trap and barbed wire far away from the square.

In the square area, for the road to bridge, I build two lines tank trap to make sure enemy vehicles can only go to the bridge head(cannot get in the square), where AT/tank/mortar are waiting for them.

Destroy all buildings north of the square so that enemy can not occupy them.

Before (or at the beginning) of the 30min, send 2 snipers north, the priority is to find the three groups of 150mm rocket battery. The sniper at right side may find 1 group near by a panzer command building, then call air support to destroy it. When rocket attack starts, only two groups left to be destroyed. After finish this objective, send sniper to enemy HQ, call air support to destroy it.

Place one sniper north of the square(outside not inside the square) to show coming enemy.

Hope this is helpful.

[alternateve]

Im Stuck I need help with the suicideing thing i send paras on the left of the map without teh brdge being rpaired but where do i put the recons target because mine always wihter diapper completky or just fly over

[hooahguy14]

this mission is the hardest one in the US campaign, IMO.
i started out by not capturing the town, but went around and captured everything until i got to the entrance of the german HQ. then all hell broke loose. waves of infantry with panzershrecks, and tanks and rockets, they just came from everywhere!
finally when i stemmed the tide i went in with 2 tanks and 3 AB squads. i was massacred, in short.
i think im going to try the "crash the planes into the HQ" route.

[simanos]

Using their Goliaths on them is hilarious :p

[RANGEMASTER]

i got lucky on this mission my airplane are shooted down to their HQ use air Recon to bomb them self to their HQ due some ostwind nearby HQ,cost 200 anmo(4 plane to destroy the HQ)since my strafing run fail and hit the HQ i just got this idea :p.Watch out sniper nearby the nebelwefers use Halftrack/M8 to take nebel