[Americans] Carentan Counterattack - Mission 4

[Susurrus]

Basically, on expert, I found only 1 way of getting so many kills: Spawn camp.

Build mass defences in the Nortwest corner (which is where most of their troops come from). Notice that there are lots of MGs and ATs that can be crewed by engies at the start of this mission. Im talking serious defences: 2 snipers, maybe 6-7-8 MGs, and 3-4 ATs, all pointing at that corner (best to hide in the village). Mortars are useful to, but not crucial. After the battle starts, just build as many engies as you can to recrew/repair. Placement of mines is crucial. Do not use barbed wire as it blocks AT shots. Which is a problem due to the number of Stugs.

You also cannot afford to ignore the other two roads (West and North), as anything from Stugs to flame pios and mortars can spawn here. I positioned one group of sandbagged paras at each of these (both with Recoilless Rifles), and an MG emplacement to keep any incoming troops suppressed (due to poor Para anti-inf fire with Recoilless).. Barbed wire also helps here. These ought to be able to hoold out against anything on their own, with little micro (this wasn't always true for me).

Strat. for main battle: Just make sure you keep everyone suppressed. As you should have all MG/AT guns behind sandbags, you need to keep the snipers as roving FlamePio killers, and the same is true for the MGs. They will supress em pretty quick, but if they get in range of flaming you, you're toast. You need floating engineers to keep your AT guns alive, repairing them as necessary. THIS IS CRUCIAL, because once you are down to 2 At guns, whatever arc they have, it is impossible to hold back the Stugs. I found 3 barely sufficient.
As for the rest, just try and keep as many units pinned as possible, to avoid fire for your own units. This is why you have stupid amounts of MGs --> Limit of incoming fire = limited casualties.

Eventually, it will be impossible to hold them back. At the point where it becomes obvious that a breakthrough is imminent, fall back to the Church. Hit retreat on everything. You'll lose some in the retreat, but you have to do this, because there is not time to rebuild an army before they will be on the church. DO NOT try and hold the town centre. Waste of time, coz it just gets Artilleried, and youll take heavy losses. AT THE POINT OF FLEEING, TO GET 350 KILLS, YOU NEED UPWARDS OF 250 KILLS, PROBABLY AS MANY AS 275. Do not bother defending the church if you dont get this. You wont be able to get the medal.

Fortify the church. Hopefully you have paras and engies for building defences. You need 3 AT guns for this bit, to cover the three roads. Lets hope you either are floating manpower (unlikely), or you got 3 AT guns out.. Neither of these is necessary, as it is possible to churn out the 3 AT guns (cover front, left side, right, in that order when they come out), but it will leave you struggling.. MGs do the same, snipers in the tower. You need at least 300 kills by the time the timer runs out.

Able Company enters (or is it Dog?) when the timer runs out. PAUSE. Find the exit for the troops (it is to the right of the northern road, in a gap in the hedgerow, possibly even on the east edge). Send all your tanks here. Youll probably lose at least 2 doing this, but they infinitely respawn so who cares. You need the tanks the far side of the rightmost bridge, taking care of every infantryman they see. I reckon there are likely to be almost exactly 45-50 enemy troops on the map when the timer runs out, so you need to kill all of these. Save a tank til last (preferably disabling its engine in the process). This will ensure that you dont accidentally miss someone or anything.

When I completed this level, I got EXACTLY 350 kills, and there were no more on the map, so check everywhere..


So yeah. To wrap up. Camp Northwest corner with MGs and ATs. Use paras and MG nests to cover over roads. Mines are crucial. Snipers and dead pio-teams are also crucial. German mortar teams are annoying, but more dangerous to try and take out than anything. You need 275 kills ideally before you retreat to the church. You need AT LEAST 300 kills by end of timer, preferably 310-315 to be sure. Move tanks to exit zone. Kill all troops. Leave tanks til last.

[Dryden]

I tried that... I couldnt do it. When 6-7 mins left, enemy arty bombards exactly the houses where I camp, killing most of my MGs. Flame pios do the rest.
By i'll try again

[Dryden]

oh and one more thing. In the beginning of the mission, it is cheaper and more effective use paras instead of engies to re-man heavy weapons. New Engie costs 160mp, reinforcing 3 paras costs 132mp and new weapon crews will get more HP.

[Susurrus]

Fair enough. Its certainly not worth your while building more para units though.

Um, don't deploy in buildings when defending the Church. Sounds silly, but you REALLY need a much tighter defensive ring with the amount of units you are likely to have.
Furthermore, yes, you're right. Like I said you need to have 275ish kills before you flee, because if you don't then you have no chance.. For the last few minutes you're just trying to hold on, (oh, and gain 30 kills), before the Armour arrives. I was reduced to cica 1 MG team with 2 men, a couple of paras and no MP when I first retreated to the Church (the barrages followed me too).

Its hard. Even like this, it took my so many goes. But it is also the only way. :-)

[Shiroman]

To get 350 kills requires the person to be very offensive in the beginning. Take it to their door! Some of the balancers(aka pro-gamers) here were able to do it that is why i set it so high. =)

~M04 Designer.

[Dryden]

Shiroman
hey guy but with all that changes in patches balance of this mission can change bc its a so-so battle and smallest change affects the whole battle.
But I still didnt try my best bc of lack of time. I'll post here later

[Dryden]

The worst change of balance of that mission came with new Wermacht mortars. Now, when they are fixed, they easily destroy my defence on N end of map, while begin unkillable. 2 mortars sat in light cover and 2 vet3 snipers couldnt kill even 1 of them and being killed by supressed (!) grens. My retaken 80mm mortar (also vetted) barraged them but was so inaccurate that didnt killed even 1 team.
I just cant understand, maybe Axid mortars in this mission have some kind of bonus or they are scripted?

[OliverDogg]

I think they are different, they can shoot überfar.

[Dryden]

OliverDogg
man i used captured axis mortar to counter axis mortars. My was vetted and barraged. Their didnt barrage.

[OliverDogg]

Well, I could be mistaking. It was a long tima ago when I accually payed attention to them.

[Dryden]

Shiroman
if someone will be able to beat 350 expert kills in 2.201 - plz write here what tactic they used.
It isnt even funny. I vetted to 3rd level 4 MGs, 3 paras, and 3 snipers in mission 3 especially to deal with 4th. I tried different combination; vetted mortars instead or more MGs. I spend a lot of time trying get that force alive and healthy to mission 04.
I am not only ultra-offencive. I feel like i am CHEATING doing all this.
And i am still unable to do it.
Give me a clue, plz.
Or take that in consideration for next patch

[Arcinatus]

how bout mining the whole upper part of the map? would that work?
would take a ton of muntions and time, but it would work...lol

[Dryden]

Arcinatus
did u try it?
seems a lil bit unrealistic that i will have enough mines to get me 350 frags
Tho I'll try this cheat in m03 when i have thousands of spare muns...

[Dryden]

i mined N corner (had about 1000 mun in m03) and added some in m04.
I can tell you, the only enemy unit that ruins my day is Axis mortar:
1) they cant be killed by snipers (they just miss ~90%)
2) they cant be killed by paras on close range (4 mortars killed 3 paras with 3-4 members using small arms. It means that 4 vet0 men of weapon crew are equal to 10-15 paras vet3.
3) they cant be killed by mortar barrage (dont kill even when visually hits)
4) they cant be killed by Off-Map Arty (same as (3))

But. Sometimes, seldom, they can be killed and it means that there are just some bugged scripts that defend those mortars while they are trashing houses full of my MGs, kill AT guns and therefore destroy my main AI and AT force.
gg.

[Susurrus]

I found the spawn points of mortars was random so that they didnt always appear in the NW corner... But sometimes on the other roads.. Even so, they r a pain, and you need constant engineer squads to reequip MGs and ATs..
I tried this again at home.. Only had a couple of tries because I'ev done it before.. I came very close but didn't quite get 350 kills..

@ Dryden.. ARe you sure you had that many units? Because the pop cap on mission 3 is 30, and 3 snipers = 12, and 3 full paras = 18.. and thus the 4 mgs would be over...

My advice would be: Don't put MGs in houses. Too easy to get them taken out, because they are easy to hit with tanks and flamepios. Sandbags are the way forward, in a long line. I never even tried to kill the mortars.. They are too far out of range, and it takes more deaths than is viable to even damage them..

When deploying, I had 2mgs and 2 ats left of the NWestern most house, firing NE. Note that they were well back from the beginning of the forest to the north, to avoid flamepios firing over. I had 2 MGs in the street between the 2 northern most houses, covering as much in front of them as i could. I had 3 MGs and 2ATs east of the Northernmost house, pointing NW. My two snipers were here too, and were used exclusively to kill off flamepios..

[Dryden]

I could field 3 snipers and 3-4 MGs im M03 bc I lost 3-4 paras in each squad and didnt reinforce em...

i will try to play M04 w\o garrisoning thx

[lampuiho]

Hey, can someone that is able to get 350 kills post a picture showing how they deploy their units plz? Pictures explain everything.

Yes, you are right. THE MORTARS ARE INDEED INVINCIBLE. I tried with snipers, engineers with flamethrower, para, mgs, and mortars. (I rushed all of my units to the axis mortars just to see what is going on with the annoying mortars)

[Dryden]

with fixed dmg tables of mortars which made them very dangerous, their invincibility makes them actually game breakers
you cant be super-aggressive when they pound you.

[lampuiho]

I could only get 200 kills when I defend the church only. However, in that way, there is no more annoying mortars.

[MFMCosta]

Can get the 250 kills even doing this:
I play mission 3 again to mine and wired everything for mission 4.
The axis mortar's fire was inoffensive because they couldn't cross the wire fence and they can't hit my defences.
Tanks in the left bridge of the map never show up but if you cross the bridge 2 tanks were there waiting for the soldiers blow up the mines (soldiers can't cross the bridge and blow up the maps because the bridge was also wired.
I've took a Pak + Engineer (flamers) crew and kill everything from left to right (including the mortar axis team) but couldn't make the 250 kills.

Days ago try it with normal defences (only mine and wire the bridges) and I hit 237/250 kills.

I've been playing this mission like 8 times (+ 4 times mission 3 to change the initial crew in mission 4) and can't get the 250.

[ozrock]

lol cant you just howitzer everyone??

[Dryden]

lol OMA is 150 mun (or 125) you cant spam it. And you cant kill those mortars even with OMA.

[adamsun]

My version is 2.202.0. Normal level. Attack at spawn camp or defense at bridges does not work for me.
Defend town hall also not work, need to roll back very early.
The best way/cheating(for me at least) is to plant mines(in last mission) all over the map, including fields, because a lot of enemy movement is not on road. Since we will get ‘off-map artillery’ in beginning of this mission, I saved all my munitions for this artillery (150 munitions per call, should get 1500munitions for 10 calls when the attack starts, another 400+ munitions for next 10 minutes?) , no need to waste munitions on mines around town hall(the only place not mined in last mission), they will be blown away by enemy artillery.
About 1/3 force to protect the fuel point(since we do not need fuel, it is not necessary), 2/3 force to defend the church.
Send two snipers north to spot enemy for ‘off-map artillery’. Enemy’s first objective is the north munitions point. Use ‘off-map artillery’ to protect this point, also to attack large group of enemy detected by snipers, it is very effective(kill large amount enemy in short time period). Due to the ‘off-map artillery’ and mines, only one enemy tank has reached the church with less than 10% health. Just when Abel company has arrived, the tank is destroyed by the forces defending the church (not by Abel company, also I forget to call ‘off-map artillery’ on this). Once this tank is destroyed, the mission is completed. The two snipers are only ones that are lost. Abel company is not used.

At least for my version, one sniper killed to mortar teams, another sniper spotted two or three groups of mortars(each group had two to four teams) and call OMA, OMA will kill anyone who's in the yellow circle for OMA.
Played a few more times, always get 3-4 enemy tanks left when Abel company arrives. I guess it's first-timer's luck?

[Lith]

I remember playing this map a couple of months back, before some patches, and I managed to get the medal quite easily on Hard (maybe even Expert, I don't remember). Now it seems plain impossible. I would ask all people posting previously that it was "simple" to try and get 350 kills now, preferably with a replay on how to do it. It's frustrating as hell as I can esaily pass this mission on expert, but instead I'm mentally stuck trying to earn this damn medal. I even replayed the previous mission and took the time to turn the whole map into a goddamn mine-laden trench. All for nothing. When the indestructible (yes, I checked) UberMortar teams show up - you're done for. And the artillery shelling begins 9 minutes till countdown ends, attacking not only the town square but also targetting precisely on your positions (red smoke). Plus there is the issue of almost-unpinnable german engineers with flamers... do I have to say more? Seriously, getting 350 kills is almost impossible, if not only for the difficulty, then for the extremely limited time to do this, limited german forces and the inefficiency of MGs at killing soldiers. For all I know it's possible that those 350 soldiers won't even spawn on the map, and I'm not even talking about killing them... If at least tanks counted for, say, 5 kills...

Please post your observations

[Susurrus]

Once the arty starts, YOU HAVE TO retreat to the church. Otherwise you get owned. Only solution.

The correct amount of troops only spawns if you're killing others.. There can only be an arbitrary number of Germans on the map at any one time.

The mortars are damn annoying, yes.

I find the only way to do it is to mine, mg nest and one rr airborne at west and ne road, and then put roughly 6 MG teams in a _| shape around the NW entrance, supported by snipers (who MUST target flame pios), and AT guns to target those stugs. Engies to repair AT guns are also a must, as are mines to take out the first wave.. I didnt find mortars too useful..

NOTE: I haven't done this recently, but tried it only a couple of iterations ago.. It still worked, just as it did the first time i did it, but even then it was HARD.. You need to have over 305 kills before the reinforcements show up, and then you need to kill EVERY soldier on the map.. Charge the shermans straight towards the exit point (east, small road), which its helpful if you barbed wire and mine, and try and kill everything.. Leave the stugs til last.. You get unlimited rifles and shermans at this point so it doesnt matter how many troops you lose..

[Lith]

Well, except for covering the west and NE roads with MGs (only mine fields) I did just that, exactly. On the main spawn point (roughly where the houses start) I set up MAD amounts of MGs (about 8) + 4 MG emplacements, three mortars teams, 4-5 AT guns, a sniper, flamer engineers, mines, sandbags, barbed wire. I get around 150 kills until I have to retreat.

If you can, just try it. If I know it's possible I'll have more motivation to continue...

Plus, even if its possible, the crazy amount of work required to achieve this medal makes it quite pointless, at it requires "cheating" by setting up heavy defences in the previous level. Compare it to the banal requirements for the Sniper Medal in the first Carentan mission.

P.S. Dunno if you noticed, but I'm almost sure that destroying enemy units with Off-Map Artillery gives you no "kill points"

P.P.S. Just finished the map, again. Took me 1,5 hours to set up the defenses, I defended everywhere I could, even while retreating due to arty barrages. Kept losses to minimum. Results? 274 kills, even with Krauts stuck due to wire blocking their retreat path.

[Lith]

I did it!

It's still possible with patch 2.301 on Expert (350 kills required). It is very hard, and requires some preparation in the mission before (Carentan). I will try now to give a more detailed description of the specific tactics used. Use the map here (page 1 of this thread) for reference http://forums.relicnews.com/showpost...6&postcount=11

1. No matter when - during the defense or the previous mission - prepare defensive positions in points 1), 2) and 3). The roads in 1) and 3) are the secondary lines of advance of the German forces, about 90% of the troops will come from 2). In 1) and 3) the Germans from time to time spawn small amounts of infantry and, unfortunately, the occasional Stug. That's why you need to put barbed wire near the spawn areas and place sandbags overlooking the spawn for your soldiers to take cover. One Airborne team with Panzershrecks or Recoilless Rifles and an MG team/MG emplacement for each spawn point seems to be an absolute, effective minimum. If you're lucky, only small numbers of Stugs (or even none) will spawn there, making the defense of these roads much easier. You can also mine the general spawn area, but this reduces your resource acquisition rate.
You can take over the ammunition points on the other side of the bridges in the previous mission, but that results in some German squads not spawning at the beginning, so you lose around 10 kills from the start.

IMPORTANT: Do NOT cover the spawn areas in 1) and 3) completely with barbed wire, so that it's impossible for enemy infantry to move - this is said to reduce the overall spawn rate of German forces so that it can make your task of reaching 350 kills impossible. What I did was create a maze of wire, which was still theoretically passable, but forced the infantry to run in circles under heavy MG fire.

2. Mine all the bridges. Plain and simple.

3. Of course, collect every piece of equipment when the mission begins - this goes especially for AT cannons. You'll need at least four. The American ones seem to be much better here due to the optional use of AP ammunition. German MG42s are crucial - what you want to do is set up as many of these as possible in 2) and pin down German infantry as soon as they show up on the horizon. One mortar team (a German mortar usually lies somewhere to the left of the Town Hall) is also useful when dealing with concentrated crowds of pinned-down infantry - use its barrage ability. I wouldn't advise producing more, though, as these are not very efficient in the long run - and efficiency is the key here. You'll need at least two, ideally three or more, snipers to take out the extremely dangerous Sturm-pionieres with flamethrowers. Those guys can wreak your whole defense in seconds if they show up in bigger numbers. Priority target!

IMPORTANT: There is a hidden road to the right of 3); it is crucial to plant barbed wire there so that it becomes inaccessible (try to send you infantry to the other side to check) - when the cavalry arrives German infantry already spawned on map will retreat there. If the road is thus blocked, they will stand near the barbed wire, confused - this can provide the last kills you need to get the medal.

4. Set up your defenses in 2) so that they roughly form one line with the first northernmost house there. Use tons of barbed wire to direct the advancing forces just under the barrels of your MGs. Use sandbags, and a lot of them too. Set them in two or three rows so that your teams can retreat a couple meters back and continue firing if things up front get ugly. It is important to note that about 80% of the forces spawned in 2) attack down the road (to the left of the northernmost house). That's why your left flank needs to be much stronger; I ended up setting all four MG emplacements I was able to build right there (two to the leftmost near the stone wall and two in the narrow path between the houses). I added two AT guns and four MG42 teams behind sandbags as well. (take care not to place your AT directly behind MG emplacements - they will destroy them with friendly fire!). On the right you'll need two entrenched MG teams and the two remaining AT guns, optimally in such a way that they can also fire a bit to the left side to assist if they're not under direct assault. Try to achieve maximum efficiency. Snipers are best hidden somewhere near the center, so they can shoot down German flamethrower engineers. The mortar team can fire from behind the houses, you want them to stay out of direct fire for as long as possible. Use your engineers to repair the MG emplacements. They can also be pretty useful if you have the supplies to give them flamethrowers - then they can defend the forward line of sandbags quite effectively. (remember that you start with an additional team hidden in the Town Hall). Hide the jeep between the northernmost houses, this gives you an advantage in sight range.

IMPORTANT: When using the off-map artillery strike, you receive NO kill points. Yes, any tanks/infantry/bikes killed with arty do not count, so use it only when the line is about to be breached or when retreating. This sucks, I know.

5. Look out for German mortar teams. They usually spawn in 2) and sometimes are... invincible. If you can see them (usually thanks to that jeep) try to kill them using the artillery strike. If this doesn't help, well, you're unlucky. Save often so you can avoid particularly heavy losses due to the bombardment.

6. In my game, when its about 9 minutes left, things get really ugly. Nevertheless, try to hold on as long as possible unless you experience heavy losses. It's possible to keep a small force fighting to the leftmost right under the tree line as it seems to be a blind spot for enemy artillery. Keep your snipers, MGs and at least one AT cannon there when the shelling begins. Forces to the right are usually an easy target so withdraw them to the town square. Remember that it will soon come under heavy artillery fire too. If you can, have some forces cover the bridges at 6) and 7). When the battle reaches the stage when you have to retreat *all* forces from 2) (save often!), try to stall the enemy advance using your snipers; get as much kills as possible without losing them - nothing is more irritating than running five kills short at the end. There is a small space near the 6) bridge (just left to the number "6" on the map) where your snipers can hide and shoot down enemy infantry and bikes crossing the bridge.
You'll have to retreat the forces at 3) as well, but it is possible to defend 1) and the bridge at 5) for quite some time (if they don't get shelled, that is)

IMPORTANT: It is generally not a good idea to sacrifice units to get a couple of kills more - this way you'll be less efficient when pushed back to the Church.

7. Once the artillery strikes force you to retreat to the Church (14), it's all or nothing. It is generally true that if you have about 270 kills when this happens you can feel rather safe as far as getting the medal is concerned. Place all you remaining forces behind sandbags and barbed wire right in front of the Church, place all your snipers in the Church tower. If possible, you can even add a fourth one. Place the AT guns in sets of two on each side; remember that armor can arrive through the road to 10) as well. You need all your MGs to cover the front, at least one should cover the road to 10). Hide the mortar team behind the church. If the jeep survived, place it near the front line to gain line of sight. Airborne squads are less useful here as the Stugs are usually facing the Church, so bazookas/shrecks/r-less rifles are almost ineffective.

I managed to keep all four AT guns through the whole mission, all three snipers (additional one produced when defending the Church), most MG teams (lost two) two decimated airborne teams (squad cap full), one engineer squad and the jeep ;-) Of course, this required almost 30 savegame slots. With such a defense, Wehrmacht forces get killed very quickly and so the replacement is quick as well (there can only be so much German units on the map at one time).

Just as Able company arrives, equip the Shermans with .50 Browning MGs and charge at the retreating infantry. Avoid the remaining Stugs until you get enough kills to receive the medal. Most likely when Able arrives there is around 40 kills worth of infantry on the maps still, don't give up until you checked it all. Remember the road near 3), to the right? Drive right there and you should encounter a couple of squads stuck there. Some squads may also become stuck on the road between 1) and 2), near the stone walls. Good luck!

Notice:
Some of the ideas in this text are not originally mine; many thanks go to previous "posters" here as well. It took me around a dozen of attempts to finally succeed. As I mentioned, I got kinda obsessed with this mission ;-) With this it shouldn't take you that much. You'll need a lot of luck too to get the computer to spawn more infantry instead of Stugs (one Stug still counts as one kill! This seriously ought to be changed). Don't give up.

Lith

[CaptHurricane]

Heh heh. This thread's still about then?

I first came here ages & ages ago when I couldn't figure out how to win the medal. Even after reading it I still found it challenging.

I had another go last night 'cos for the first time you can play campaign in the beta and it was slow getting a real game.

What worked for me and what I haven't seen get much emphasis before is the importance of mortars. Mortars & snipers kill dudes. Mgs supppress.

Three tasks teams each responsible throughout the game for a bridge quadrant, or whatever a quadrant is called when there are only three of them, works ok. Retreat when inevitable and do the same thing again at the church. Don't bother with the town hall. In order of importance:-

Sniper
Mortar
Engie (flamer)
Airborne ( 1 shreck ea. max)
HMG (.30 cal for pref.)
AT gun.

The jeep has probably gone west, which is a shame as it's a good opportunity to get one into persistent squads, so get an extra AT gun at the church so you can cover all the ways in effortlessly.

It's most fun to vet up what you need in the previous mission but it can be done with just the units you are given on a non carry over start. In fact in some ways it's easier. You just get what you want when you want it and it vets up fast anyway.

[Q77]

Damn now I wanna try this again as well

[Dryden]

CaptHurricane
you forgot to mention skill level on which you played. I suppose it was easy-normal.

[Thrud]

Just gave this another go. Managed about 150+. Utter pants. I had 3 mgs + 3 nests, 2 engineers, 3 paras and 3 snipers plus one AT covering the centre. 1 mg and 1AT covering the sides.

Problem tends to be the pioneers, and the fact the mgs are rubbish at killing anything. Mortars just end up shredding my defences from the sides, where I cant retaliate as easily.

Its the one medal I just cant get.

[simanos]

CoH v2.301 here.
Why do you call it the motorpool bug?
Do you mean that there are 2 copies of OP on each point (below the river)?
I found that if you delete your OPs before ending mission 3 then there is no such problem. In fact if you start building in mission 3 an OP but move your airborne away half way through (but after it starts) you will be able to cancel it in mission 4 and get 200 points back so you start the mission with more resources. If you do it on all 3 points below the river you get 600 more than you should! And you get the real OP for free that the mission script gives at start and no reduced income BS. Try it. (You can also "cheat" with mines like this. Start making a mine in mission 3 and leave it at half done. In mission 4 you can cancel it and get 25 munitions back. Nearly unlimited supply.)
Just remember to take the 2 points above river in mission 3 and OP them. You don't get any freebies (or the points themselves) at the start of mission 4 concerning them (just a bothersome sniper).

The way I did this mission was to use my veteran squads from the previous mission. I set up sandbags (2 rows and barbwire in front of that) VERY near the 3 enemy spawning points (in mission 3). Over 90% of the enemy comes from the middle spawn. On the left and right spawn points I had 1 Airborne squad (with 2 panzershrecks each) and 2 MG nests (1 at start and more when I had enough fuel). These pin and kill all infantry and the Airborne kill the tanks. Just make sure to build them real close to the spawn points. You don't want anyone going away to bother your main force's flanks. Use wire to stop them and guide them to your MG nests.

Now for the middle. I had 1 Airborne squad (LMG+Panzershreck, mission 3 has enough heavy weapons for 3 squads, 5 shrecks and 1 LMG) and already built sandbag double walls and barbwire funnels. Just make sure you make your defenses real close to the enemy spawn point. You want your mortars to be able to kill their mortars (where they set up). Generally you have to be over the last house, by a lot.
My other forces were 4 AT guns (2 were pak38 from mission 3) and 4 mortars (1 german from mission 3).I set the mortars up in the middle and a bit back from the front line. The AT guns on the sides to avoid shot blocking and friendly fire. The main front line was the Airborne, 2 Snipers and 5 MG42s (there are 9 in mission 3,) and 1 Jeep right behind them (to give sight) and the last remaining Engineer next to it to repair everything.

Nothing bothered me much. The snipers took care of enemy pioneers. My mortars took care of enemy mortars (and my off-map artillery in some cases). My sides were safe, no problem. I got my kills easy and I built a couple of MG nests in the middle so I could retreat my troops after I got the medal (for 250 kills in normal) and give the Jerry something to waste his time (damn my AT are slow). I didn't use any mines except on the bridges which I had done in mission 3 anyway. Wasn't needed really. By the time I set up in my defenses at the church the allied reinforces came. I barely killed 1 enemy tank at the church and a dozen infantry. Then I took my tanks and went over the bridge again and retook the other side ending at the right most exit which I had blocked with barbwire so that fleeing enemies would be stopped. I killed those and then entered the Town Hall from the 2 bridges and killed everything in it while I broke my church defenses to attack from the front. It was a slaughter for Jerry. The enemy tanks barely move so you can even mortar them to death.

Well that's it for me then. Notice that my forces use 71/70 pop. Obviously I had 1 squad missing 1 person. When mission 4 starts you get 2 Airborne squads. I used those to take the free 3 AT and some MG42s and reinforced 1 Airborne squad by only 2 instead of 3.

[blackthorne]

Just recently got the medal on expert difficulty using patch 2.502/2.503. Its still possible but EXTREMELY difficult. I followed the advice above (Susurrus and Lith) to go offensive and set up defenses in the small town/city just outside where they enter the map (northwest end). Please note its important you do not setup up defenses any closer. This is becuase all troops still in red territory has buffed up armor/health, most likely to discourage spawn camping. So you need to move just far enough away so that enemy mortar crews do not mortar from with in this territory. This is where the notion of invincible mortar crews come in, but its really not true...its just becuase they are in the red zone.

I put most defenses in the location above and only 1 mg and 1 at gun at the other two points. In the mission before I spent time setting up a zig zag pattern of barb wire to force troops to crawl back and forth through mg fire on the left and right side entry points. This worked to a point. Eventually both sides fell (flame pios that dont die and dont get pinned) however I was able to get my AT guns out and back to the chruch which was key for AT defense at the church.

At the northern most point I have: 2 AT guns. 1 heavy MG and 2 MG emplacements. These are nice becuase they do not take any pop cap which is an issue. 1 mortar crew, 1 engineer crew to repair bunkers and 6 snipers which i believe were key for me winning this round. Of course I also had 2 airborne crews with 2 shrecks each.

Held out for as long as I could. 278 kills before full retreat to the church. I made it to the church with both airborne crews. 4 snipers and i believe my engineer crew. All AT guns gone from the northwest. mg team gone, as well as the mortar crew.

Basically I had to restart this mission a bunch of times trying to shift things over and adjust for what the AI was going to do. Took me a few days and a handful of total restarts to get everything just right. And even then on the final run through I didnt think i was doing that great.....but as time went along and kills racked up I finally had enough to get the medal. As things got bad i knew I had to keep my snipers alive but at the same time hold out for that magic 275 number. At that point I busted out with no more time to spare even if i wanted.

Back at the church I had my two AT guns and 1 more built. 4 Snipers in the church and two airborne squads. I had setup a few mines in key places I knew tanks were going to come and setup sand bags before hand to help defend. By the time able company arrived I had 340ish kills. Only needed a few more and got it with many to spare. I would agree with the above post. At least 250 before the retreat and pref 260 - 275.

If anyone wants pics let me know and I can post some showing where my stuff was at when I finally got the right balance and won with the medal in hand.

Very very hard. I stopped playing this mission a few times mumbling to myself....this is impossible. Thought about it while I was away from the computer and always came back with something new to try. maybe if i move him over here...and put some barb wire here. and my snipers over here. SUCCESS after much trial and error.

Good luck for those still playing these missions on expert and getting all the medals.

Tim.

[BlackOmne]

I've gotten medals on most of the missions at Expert except for this one. Frankly, I thought it was impossible unless you got very, very lucky. In my one shot at Expert at this mission, I did fairly well considering the health bonus Expert units get. I can't remember the exact kill number I had at the end but it was 240+ at least. But, I barely survived to the reinforcements. If the reinforcements had come just a few seconds later, I would have probably lost. I think that Relic should fix one thing about this mission - tank/vehicles should be worth more than one point/kill. Everything should be worth its pop count as a kill (eg, 8 for PzIV).

[Dryden]

@blackthorne

Id be thankful for some pics. I tried to defence in this small town too, where you say WM soldiers dont have def bonus. Didnt help.
Actually I played this mission so much times ( and previous one , to vet different kind of troops) that I didnt understand how Relic thought expert medal is achievable. I tried different placed to set up my main force, tried to be campy or instead be aggressive and harass WM with snipers+paras. Nothing worked.

[blackthorne]

@Dryden

Ok, I'll try to get them uploaded tonight. I'm not sure if they are from the most recent patch or the one just prior. If they are from the one just prior I hope they will still load. I'll figure something out either way and get them uploaded. Hopefully it helps you complete it. I may even be able to send you some screenshots during the battle which could be useful as well.

[blackthorne]

Alright here we go. These are from patch 2.502 (latest version).

First four pictures are the setup I have right before the battle. The last two are from right before i retreat to the church. As you can see there is nothing on the left or right sides on the last two pics. And the northern approach isint looking too good either.

On the mini map you can see my two pack guns from both left and right sides moving down to the church (triangles) as well as one group of airborne.

Some of the images were tilted so you can see more of the battlefield in each pic.

[Dryden]

thanks for pictures blackthorne!
seems that I underestimated the power of wire )

[mersesia]

I have a question for blackthorne...... where did you find enough resources and cap point to have 6 snipers ???
I can barely try to have 3 or 4 but then no more than 4 gun
and no mg emplacement and only few MG team. can you explain how you got them ?

Thanks
mersesia

[BlackOmne]

He has 70 pop to work with. So, let's see:
MG emplacements cost 0 pop
5 snipers (I count 5 around the 30s mark shown in the screens)=20 pop
jeep=3?
4 ATGs=12 pop
3 MG teams=9 pop
2 para sqds=12 pop
2? engineer teams=6 pop
TOTAL=62 (probably can't see the other units for the 69 pop he's showing)

[blackthorne]

Correct...and one more sniper in the church. And the last 3 points come from the mortar team.

The MG emplacements are nice becuase they have no pop cap, and it appears from some of the other posts that they have A LOT more MG gunners and AT guns. So this is where I make it up with more snipers.

The only drawback with the MG emplacement is that each hit from the stug takes almost half life off. So you have to contantly repair them with engineers. The good thing is that while they are firing on your MG emplacments they are NOT firing on your troops.

and one more addition. you carry over your troops from the last mission. so you want to max your pop cap, which I believe is around 50 for that one. I had 4 snipers going into the counter attack mission so just had to build another two. Hope that helps.

[BlackOmne]

blackthorne
I just tried your strategy, using just the units I had from the last time I played the first part (ie, only two snipers in my force initially). THANKS! It worked on Expert! I got 350 kills with no more than about 4 snipers at one time. I had about 300 kills before I was forced to retreat my remaining force back to the church. Next 50 were easily gotten in defense of the church and shortly into the arrival of the relief force. Worked like a charm! Thanks again!

BTW, this was accomplished under 2.301 because I have chosen to wait on patching until at least 2.6.

[hkkf1970]

Thank you, blackthorne!

I was not able to get the bronze star after twenty or so attempts, even after following the many suggestions on this board. Following your instructions, I beat it in one shot!

I made the mistake of having only two anti-tanks and too many airborne. So on the left and right, I just placed some airborne with picked up shreks. The key is building the piles of wire, placing that wall behind the emplacement, and then stocking up on snipers - your screenshots were a huge help.

I had one triple vet mortar which kept them at bay. When the German mortars showed up, I would double-click a sniper and send them all after their mortars. Also, I would attack ground with my mortar against theirs. Hiding my mortar behind the buildings meant I lost no health.

I don't know if you mentioned it or not, but I found that mining the three bridges helped a little bit - in slowing them down when I retreated and in getting a few extra kills.

On the Hard setting, I was able to kill 265 before retreating to the church. To get 300 kills was a cake-walk after that - made me think that Expert is definitely doable.

Thanks again for your post.

[mrdither]

Well, it has been a while since someone has posted here. I recently reinstalled COH and am currently giving the single player campaign a go. I was really frustrated on this mission, keep getting blasted and nowhere near the 300 kills for the badge. So, I came to the forums to get some advice. It all helped. I finally beat this run on hard and got 300 kills, would like to post some SC's and hopefully get some feedback from anyone still reading through this thread.

On a side note, I noticed that I cannot change the difficulty setting when I replay Carentan Counterattack. Is this because it is tied into the previous Carentan mission? Or did I somehow trigger a bug?

[Dryden]

I am still reading it. But I am mostly interested in expert aсhievement

[Max Zorin]

Wanna have a easy go of this one? When I went through the campaign again (on hard this time) I remembered that you could use the defenses set up in the prior mission. So, I didn't complete mission 3 until I laid mines on almost every square inch (except where I would set up the spawn camps) of the north side of the river and the approaches to the church. Also, lots of traps and wire. Then finish M#3. Once M#4 starts, I put 1 MG, 1 Inf with AT weapons on each of the corner approaches. The middle approach was guarded by everything else. Just sit back and watch the fun. They can't move without hitting a mine somewhere.

Once Jerry breaks the middle up just retreat back to the church. Very few units will make it to the church from then on and are easy to take out. This takes a lot of time (and Ammo) to prep in M#3 but just great fun to see those explosions from the mines.

[JuiceWSA]

The "expert" difficulty medal is won with 350 casualties... not 100.... not 200... not 300.

In short I've been playing this level for about a year and a half and here's what happens:

I spawn camp 'em.

I've got 9000 mines down where they can't get by them... I've got 5 MG nests surrounding them when they spawn. I've got 3 mortar teams and 2 machine guns set up in a semi-circle around their first spawn (yea, I know where that is) and they basically crawl past my defenses. 4 Pioneers will simply walk through a hail of bullets and high explosives to hose down my entire army.

The best I've ever been able to do is about 120 casualties.

I enjoy a challenge - but this is a bit much.

[crimson.cosmos]

Hello!

I recently started playing through the CoH campaign again, on Hard. However, I'm having trouble getting the medal for this one. I need 300 kills, I got almost 240 (top so far).
I read through most of the thread but some things have obviously changed with subsequent patches and all that. Unless all fails, I'll just reload the previous mission and setup the whole thing there. I'd like not to resort to that though.

Here's how we stand. I've got 6 Para units, which I use to cap the 4 AT guns lying around and 4 MGs (lying around). I keep 3 Paras with 4-5 people each. I've got 6 MGs in all, I usually build another AT so I've got 5 of those. I've got 3 Engies and 1 wounded Sniper. I tried building another one and that works pretty well. Ah, and a mortar team (tried with 2 as well).

Defense wise, I found the cleanest way is to fortify the square in front of the Town Hall, and the West bridge (left one) - thanks Weavern! That way I only have to retreat at the 5 minute mark when they just blow the whole plaza to pieces. It works quite well, and I don't have a lot of casualties. Falling back to church is pretty straightforward and with 4-5 ATs, around 4 MGs and a sniper, plus two MGEs and 3 units of Paras it's really a killing field.

I figure more of them spawn when the previous ones have been killed. Fortifying the bridges works, but I end up losing a lot of troops to mortars and artillery. It didn't get my kill count much higher either. I tried fortifying the top part of the map, but there's just not enough time to properly set up. I manged to get around 120 kills before I lost everything and they came washing over the rest of the city.

Basically, if anyone tried and got this medal with the 2.601 patch, can you give any tips? Or, heck, any tips would work. As I've said, I'd rather play this like it's meant to be played than use the previous map to build up the fort, but I'll resort to that if nothing else arises.

Much obliged!

cc

[jmroman]

Hi evereyone.

I'm running 2.601 and thanks to all the indications in this thread, and specially to the ones by blackthorne (useful images!!!), I have been finally able to get the medal on Hard but in the end I got far over 300 kills so maybe expert is not that out of hand with this strategy.

I would like to point out that, in my experience, german mortars can be destroyed, but not if they are inside the red square NE, so, don't plant your defences to close to the sector line or they will stay in and will annoy you untilyour retreat to the church. The wire maze in the secondari¡y spwan points works perfectly well in combination with one HMG in a house and a AT at the other side of the maze: any armor will concentrate in the house and expose its back to the AT.

Thanks to everyone for your help.

[Wolfways1969]

Anyone done this on expert 2.602?
I've tried a few times but my latest game i got 152. The highest i got before that was 88!
I defend the bridges then fall back to the church when the arty comes in around the town square.
There just doesn't seem to be enough german troops...or i can't kill them fast enough.
I don't want to move on in the campaign until completing this badge and it's driving me crazy