Mortain
Following the loss of Capt. MacKay, Able Company is taken off the front lines and ordered to relieve Dog Company from Mortain. Able's orders are to dig in and wait for re-supply.
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#1
Mortain
Following the loss of Capt. MacKay, Able Company is taken off the front lines and ordered to relieve Dog Company from Mortain. Able's orders are to dig in and wait for re-supply.
Last edited by Akranadas; 3rd Oct 07 at 4:16 AM.
In this mission you have 2 main objectives: A) defend the hill and B) defend Mortain and your 2 production buildings in the northwest. You're defending this hill on the next mission too, so you want to use mission 12 to prepare for mission 13 as well.
The hill has several approaches. There is an S-shaped approach to the north, with a break in the hedges just to the left of the S-shaped road. There is another S-shaped approach to the northeast. Then there are narrow approaches to the northwest and southeast. Finally there are 2 wide approaches to the west and south/southwest. In short, you want to block all but the NE and W approaches with tank traps and barbed wire, and you want to do this far enough down the hill so that Nazi tanks aren't in range of the stuff on top of the hill. You will leave open, but heavily defended, the NE and W approaches. You'll need the western approach open for this mission (Mission 12) and the northeast approach for Mission 13. The following is how I did this.
1) build 2 Engineers and 1 halftrack from your production buildings in the northwest of the map. Put the waypoint for both buildings on the hill so that anything you order them to build goes straight to the top.
2) use the 2 Engineer units you already have on the hill to build tank traps and barbed wire as low as you can on all the approaches to the hill. If the tank traps are low, tanks can't come close enough to shoot at the MG nests I'm going to tell you to build near the top of the hill in just a few steps. Start buliding the tank traps on the north and eastern approaches, then work your way back around to cover your northwestern, southeastern, and southern/southwestern approaches. Leave the northeastern and western approaches open. When Mission 13 loads, any tank traps you built on the NE approach will be deleted, so don't bother with tank traps and instead...
3) pull the 4 little 2-3-man groups spread out on the map back to the top of the hill. Have the 3 2-man groups man the 3 abandoned AT guns. Reinforce the 4th 3-man group to full strength. Point 2 of the AT guns at the NE S-shaped approach. Take the 3rd, plus the one manned by an elite crew in the south part of the hill, and point them at the western approach. Your Engineers will be blocking up the other approaches with tank traps. This will leave you with 2 doors for vehicles: one to the NE and one to the West.
4) build 1 more Rifleman group.
5) by now the 2 new Engineer units and halftrack should be on top of the hill. Put the 2 new engineers to work building MG nests near the top of the hill covering the northwest, north, northeast, and southeast approaches. Nazi infantry don't seem to come up the western and southern/southwestern approaches that much, just tanks. Try to build the MG nests in such a way that they cover each other. MG nests seem to do a good job pinning enemy troops, but they're not that good at killing them. So...
6) Put your 2 Elite Rifleman units on key 1, the half track on key 2, and the new and reinforcing rifleman units on keys 3 and 4. Load key 1's Rifleman group into the halftrack. This is your counter attacking unit. You will use it to counter attacks made against your HQ and Mortain in the west. Have these guys pick up Panzershreks whenever possible. They'll need some AT punch now and in the next mission. This group should live around your HQ. They'll be busy enough out there.
7) Use the 2 rifleman units on keys 3 and 4 to counter attacks on the hill when the MG nests fail to wipe them out. You may also want to build a sniper and/or 1-2 mortar teams to add additional anti-infantry defenses to the hill.
8) By now your 4 teams of Engineers should have wrapped the hill in tank traps and have built several MG nests to cover the approaches from the north, northeast, and east. The enemy will be attacking soon, if not already. You're going to get shelled from off-map Nazi artillery. You just have to suck it up and try to repair the MG nests and re-man the AT guns that get hit. It's because so many defenses are needed so quickly, and because they'll be getting shelled throughout the mission, that you should have 4 Engineer teams.
9) The medal mission is to save a team of Rangers who appear in a building to the north shortly after the Nazis start attacking. I used the howizter to blast the Nazis attacking them. The alternative is to send in ground forces, but you have too few and the quickest route to the building takes you in front of the Nazi's northern base which triggers more intense attacks. Just shell the bejesus out of them. BE SURE TO TARGET CAREFULLY. If you target the Nazi units, the howizter's poor accuracy is likely to blow your Rangers up too. Target a bit behind the Nazis (to the SW of them) so that they'll get hit but your Rangers won't. Once the Nazis are dead the Rangers will hop out. Have them capture the nearby SP and then try to run them to the hill. If they go the quickest route to the SE, they're going to meet resistance and might get wiped out, but maybe not. If they go NW first, then SW, they'll come out near your HQ. It's longer and takes more micromanagement, but it's also safer. If you can get them to the hill, they'll be handy taking out any Nazi armor that approaches the open NE and W entrances to the hill.
10) As far as talents, I recommend first going for the 'Rifleman can build defensive structures one. Your engineers are going to get hit pretty bad and will have a tough time keeping the MG nests up. This talent will allow your counter-attacking Rifleman to build even more tank traps in the northwest, west, southwest, and south. You basically want to channel all Nazi armor to one of your two hill entrances, which are guarded by AT guns in heavy cover. After that talent, switch over and try to get the Rangers. They're going to be great replacements for your Rifleman who will have a tough time fighting off so many tanks.
SUPER ALTERNATIVE STRATEGY
Forget the hill. It's crowded, has too many approaches, and gets shelled by artillery. I think you'll only fail if you lose the SP on top of the hill. Instead, pull back to your HQ, build Shermans, and turn the entire western half of the map into a fortress. Use Engineers and Riflemen to build tank traps around your base that channel Nazi armor to 1-2 heavily-defened approaches. There are actually fewer approaches to this part of the map, and you can leave the entire western approach to the hill wide open so that you can easily counterattack any attempts to take the SP up there from your base in the west with your Shermans. I'm going to go try this now. It sounds like fun!
Last edited by Servius; 23rd Sep 06 at 9:03 AM.
Fac et Spera
i held the hill without any tanks beat that =p
not a single Sherman, M10, Halftrack or greyhound. Just spent all my resources on infantry.
Unless I wasn't paying attention, you can't build a tank depot on this map, which is quite unfortunate. So, forget about Shermans.... Guess we'll have to stick to underpowered infantry. Oh btw, whoever came up with the 75 pop limit for single player needs to take a one-way ride on a V1 rocket.
I agree heartily with the pop cap - it just gets eaten so fast! Building enoug troops to ensure a good base defence leaves you basically with a single rifle squad to go capping and tank hunting - brave lads indeed...
Oh, and I just got my arse handed to me by the AI on the defend the hill mission. Iwas basically screwed by 12.10 minutes remaining, but managed to prevent them taking the hill with off map artillery.
Eventually they got it do to poorly aimed fire, so my last remaining squad had to try and run the whole way back up the hill from the town where they'd just laid several tonnes of tank traps and razor wire. Needless to say, we got nailed...
Riflemen with grenades and BARs own any axis infantry. Just make sure you man at least 3 AT guns to wipe out Axis tanks. If the AT gun is facing the tank, nothing short of a tiger can blast it to death, but the same is not the same for the tank.
I notice you're given 30 minutes to defend the hill, but just to make sure, at what point do the enemies start to come? Just want to make sure when so I can get an idea how fast I need to build.
They start attacking very early, I think if you help the rangers by sending your original troops, then they will attack by the time the rangers will get back to your base.
It starts with infantry, then they add light vehicles and near the end they will reinf with some heavy armors.
You start with alot of infantry support (mortar, machineguns) and one sniper.
IMHO, the best places for the mortars are behind the trees next to the roads, so they can hit infantry while they are trying to get by the entrance and also while they are walking on the road.
If you use the sniper (I threw 2 additional snipers in higher difficulties), it can make your life alot easier, you can use them to take out enemy infantry manning the cannons, just be sure to order him to walk because when you shoot a cannon it will turn back to the sniper unless you hide him again.
Use the rangers to flank the armors and hit them in the back. Get BAR upgrade and use infantry to pick up the weapons left by nazi axis. You can also use engineers to pick up the weapons as you will need some to build defenses.
You can defend easily the western part by setting mines in the town and a bunker just at the south east of the capture point, in the corner of the buildings (it will be able to shoot infantry coming from south and north of the place).
Try to place also some mortars so they will be able to hit infantry who is capturing the ressource points from behind the trees or an obstacle. So you will have enough ressources to place alot of defenses. Try to cut all the paths which let the enemy sneak past your defenses.
This mission seems very hard at first because in the other ones you can turtle and still do ok. This missionis the first one which requires good timing and reactivity.
I'm stuck on this mission. First off, I fucking HATE defend the base for X many minutes missions. Talk about milking time outta the game. That, I think, is a really lazy part on the developers. They couldn't think of anything good for a mission, so they decide to make you turtle for half an hour? Please. I think this mission will end the campaign for me, real shame too, because I was really liking it. Oh well, maybe there is a mission end cheat out there or something so I can get past this...
In reply to 'doughbot'. There is a trainer (do a google search) which gives you infinite resources (munitions, popcap etc) which I used before beating this mission 'properly'.
A few words of warning; it will bring your PC to its knees if you haven't got a decent system, also at the start of Mish. 13 you'll have a humongous number of units camped on the hill and make sure you DL the right version of the trainer for your version of CoH (patched/unpatched).
i couldnt beat this mission unless it was on easy level but still it was hard
on normal level i got as close as 30 secs left on the clock
so what is the best stragergy for it any recommendations
i carried an idea i had which was pull back every1 to the big gun
hq defended by 3 turrets plus ranger and a rifle the town defended by a turret by hq build a barrack and support tent this will continue the on going reinforcement
by the big gun placed 2 of each mg cannons snipers and 2 normal troops and 2 mortars sure they can capture the point but they cant hold it lol worked a treat when they all dead i recaptured it
Last edited by sniper-X; 25th Oct 06 at 7:59 AM.
You dont have to fall back. This mission was quite easy on Normal, if you did it like l did.
In the start, you should just pause the game, look around and get a real good feel for the map. Use the unsupported rifleman to capture the outter sectors. Select all the elite squads (Ones with 3 chevrons) and use them to hold the inner hill. Make sure they all stay in the trenches. Once you have captured the points, select all the unsupported rifleman and man any MGs and set them at the trenches. All the unexperienced rifleman should become team 2. Purchase BARs.
When they start attacking use the Elites as a last resort kind of team, and use the mass of rifleman as your moving element. Rifleman easily dominate any guys Axis send out, including MGs, mortars (If any) and snipers. When the tanks come around, use stickies and bazookas. Put 1 MG in your HQ and Mortain is defended. Always keep people in the trenches when the hill gets shelled. In general, they shouldn't do any damage to the elites at all.
Just remember to keep a steady base of fire.
Build a bunch of MG nests all around the front perimeter, so that when one or two get blown up, there is one still remaining. I had several MG nests back-up with another right behind the first. Also build tank trap "fencing" and infantry barb wire "fencing", that is build a fort around the front of the hill. Also have some guys back at the town, ready for the armour car that shows up.
For the medal uses the howizter to blow up the german in the courtyard, and send in a engineer team from the back entrance to clean-up if necessary. But be careful when you target the germans, watch the target ring, don't get to close to the building.
You dont need to use the Howizter to take out the Axis attacking the Rangers. You only need 1 MG set up beind the fence for defilade and watch him mow down the troops from behind.
I hate defend base X for X min type games. Pointless other than to see how quickly you can build and move your units around to defend new threat areas. Too damn stressful.
Anyway, I beat this mission on normal on the first try but failed to protect Mortain and also to relieve the rangers.
Here's how I played it (mission analysis later):
1) You're given a lot of troops at first, so I sent them out to get the strat/resource points and built OPs to load up on resource points. Very, very handy later since the Germans will retake all these points and squeeze your resources down very quickly.
2) Built two mortar teams and a few extra MG teams. Used the riflemen to pick up as many MGs and AT guns as possible. During the mission, the riflemen were useless and eventually converted them all to MG teams.
3) I also built an elite sniper (from my previous missions). Not sure why I did that since its a base defense mission but it turned to be a blessing later.
4) I shifted most of my teams onto the top of the base and faced them outwards with as much enfilade and covering fields of fire as possible.
5) I placed two to three MG teams at the lower bases where the computer said "Reinforce Here". It was actually a mistake to reinforce these forward points (see analysis below).
5) I did not bother defending Mortain town since it does not determine mission success. My goal was to get through this mission ASAP.
6) I didn't build any tank traps, mines, barbed wire defenses. If I had more time (I click really slowly), I may have thought of it, but the Krauts start coming in after 5 mins.
Mission Analysis:
1) After five minutes, the Germans started coming in from the north. They start probing attacks on the lower northern sandbagged point where I had a Rifleman unit. Brought in my howitzer on their position. I started to realize that manning forward sandbagged positions was useless since they would be overwhelmed with time.
2) More attacks from the south. Again I placed an MG team too forward and they took casualties from infantry attacks.
3) All my forward downhill positions were overwhelmed in a second wave.
4) At this point, I realized the key to successful defence was the building of LOTS of MG teams. MG teams in trenches with covering fields of fire will pin and destroy all infantry attacks hurled at you. However, they do take casualties and if halftracks come in, you're screwed. So get as many MG teams produced as possible with some in reserve.
5) Mortain was attacked and the Rangers mini-scenario popped up. I howitzered the Germans attacking the Rangers but my cock-eyed arty officers blew up the building the Rangers were holed up in too. I started to pop howitzer shots onto any tanks and troops that were attacking my forward OPs and Mortain.
6) At this point enermy snipers started taking out my northern MG teams at the summit just as the new wave of attacks started to crest in. That's where my Elite sniper helped to turn the tide. My sniper single handedly killed off about 8-9 enemy troops with panzerschreks and the enemy sniper in a zone that was totally devoid of any of my MG teams. My reserves were still being built.
7) The enemy arty shells started coming in, but they sound worse than their actual effects on your troops. Luckily my troops were in the trenches.
8) I am not sure about the effectiveness of my mortar teams since I had no time to track the trajectories of their fire. Anyway, they all survived the mission since I placed them right at the top of the hill.
9) At this point, I realized that my howitzer was taken out and that panzers and halftracks started popping out in the west and south. The few AT guns I had managed to repulse these guys. At this time, I realized I needed more AT guns and started cranking 3 new ones out. AT guns are great, but their arc is tight. That's why I placed them at the top of the hill pointing outwards. I had to shift these guns several times to get their trajectories on the panzers and halftracks. I cannot emphasize how much of a lifesaver these guns were.
10) After a while the situation stabilized and the defensive perimeter I had with overlapping arcs of MG and AT fire with mortar support and sniper reserve coverage held. Whatever was being thrown up at me was effectively mowed down. I was one with the hill and Jerry paid the price for even attempting an attack. The only worry I had was the erratic enemy artillery fire.
11) I had a few hairy moments when I thought all was lost and the Germans were right at the top of the hill. Thankfully, my sniper and quick reorientation of my MG teams served as a standout last line of defense. The mission ended at around 1 min when the enemies started to retreat.
12) The final end play of the mission had my troops in a very tight circle at the top of the hill. All forward positions, Mortain, the rangers and my howitzer were wiped out. I also had next no available manpower resource left since I kept cranking out MG and AT teams and the Germans controlled every single other resource point.
I completed this mission by the skin of my teeth and I'm definitely not replaying at all. Way too much stress for my liking. It is so similar to those "Protect this Ship/Convoy" missions in flight/space simulators. You have to replay the mission 50 times before your stupid convoy decides not to do something idiotic and get their asses toasted.
I've been trying to finish the campaign a 2nd time at elite level, but have been stuck on this hill for 2 weeks. Anybody else had a successfull crack at it at elite? I've gotten down to within a minute but the bastards over run me. das horror.
I have been trying to defend this hill for weeks now. I am at the "hard level" and getting my butt kicked every single time. Can't imagine what mission 13 will have instore for me if I ever get there.
What are the top 5 strategic points to beat this mission at the "hard level" ?
Concise replies, if you please.
Mission 12 is pretty straight forward. I think people are forgetting that the 105 should be used to bombard targets. You should build mostly MGs at first and reinforce the positions on the map. Put infantry on the guns sitting around. Then move most of the anti-tank guns to the left side of the base.
When you get experience go for the off map artillery upgrade.
So when you see tanks you have the 105 and artillery to call on.
Towards the end when things go nuts keep building infantry to slow them down, you can also put them on the MGs sitting around.
You should have no trouble holding the hill while your 105 and artillery pound their positions.
The problem with artillery calls, is they don't work well on tanks. Why? Because the tanks scatter as soon as they see the red marker smoke. I find AT and sticky bombs are more effective.
My way of doing this mission, after several unsuccessful tries, was like this:
(NB NESW directions are according to the way up the map is on screen - it's probably not really NESW).
1. Send one Engie to capture the high Fuel and Muni points at the S of the map. OP the eastern one (it's closer to where the Axis will appear). These Engies can then go on to TT/mine the SE road, or start building stuff in Mortain.
2. Engie 2 builds barbed wire across the gaps in the hedges to the N. Then blocks off the big gap (allowing the enemy to walk straight past N of your Fuel point manned by 2-3 Riflemen at the start) in the SE with wire and tank traps.
3. Engie 3 builds an MG nest to cover the Northern approach (by a strategic point, covering the road).
4. Send fragmented rifleman squads to man the 2-3 unused AT guns. Get all the AT guns off the hill at once - they'll just get fragged by enemy arty up there.
AT gun 1: Covering the SE road approach.
AT gun 2: covering the winding forest trail off the SE road. i.e. where there's a hairpin bend, and already a couple of Riflemen there at the start.
AT gun 3: covering the N road approach (placing it on the windy path worked well for me, as it could be swivelled to cover the gap in hedges to the W of there as well).
AT gun 4: (I think I built an extra one): covering the N approach to your HQ.
In other words, I got everyone OFF the hill. I didn't need to bother keeping people up top there, as the Barracks are there and so I found I could usually build some Riflemen up there with unused Pop (OK, it's hardly ever unused, until the Axis starts to make room for you by killing people) if the Axis broke through.
I immediately sent the Elite rifle squad to the abbey to the W to rescue the Rangers. The Rangers are Elite and very useful. An Elite rifle squad just walks over the Axis forces attacking the Rangers.
The only things I built were one AT gun, one M8 (and a second after the first got fragged), and infantry: lots of MG squads and Riflemen. Engineers were running around the whole time building sandbags for AT/MG/Rifleman positions, and laying wire and tanktraps. Sometimes OPing points as well, when there was nothing more urgent.
The defences I had by the time the Axis started getting really nasty were (anticlockwise)
1. NE. One MG squad covering one of the two gaps in the hedge - both wired. Rifleman squad hanging about, plus M8 when it got hot.
2. N/NW. MG nest covering the N road facing NW, plus AT gun, placed on the windy track and covering the road, facing N. The open slope allowing the Axis to bypass the curvy track was wired and tank-trapped (that's the way they rushed me a few times in previous attempts).
2. W. Just an MG squad in the little sand-bag crescent, covering the road and the field on the other side. Riflemen hanging about for support, along with M8. The southward slope up the hill I didn't wire or tank-trap, and that's the way a Panzer arrived eventually (but the Rangers + a Rifle squad took care of it).
3. Headquarters: MG nest and AT gun facing North. Rangers hanging about until needed elsewhere.
4. Mortain. OP'd the crucial point in the little square (had to re-OP it after Axis attacked it with a halftrack). 2 MG nests at the W edge of the buildings, covering the road.
5. SE. 1 AT gun at the hairpin bend in the forest track. 1 AT gun just to the side of the road, S of the house. Road mined from S of the house about 100 yards E-ward. Road tank-trapped just E of the house. MG squad in the house. Riflemen squad hanging about waiting for trouble.
6. E. By your fuel point, an MG nest, MG unit and a Rifleman squad. Sandbags extended to make room for everyone. Big long wire stretching N/S along the fence.
N of this, the big wide gap between two hedges, giving access to the whole northern crescent around the bottom of the hill was wired and T-T'd.
Pretty much no-one on top of the hill, until the final tank-push, when I moved the Rangers up there and built a few Riflemen. Also moved 1 AT gun up there.
THe only times the Axis got people even near the top of the hill were:
- A Panzer came in from the W, and up the open slope. Rangers and Riflemen zapped it.
- About 2 minutes before the end, my SE/E defence collapsed (the one by the Fuel point). Some Engineers, Axis infantry, a halftrack and two tanks made it up to the top of the hill. By the time they were there I'd moved the "forest-track" AT gun up there, produced some Riflemen, moved some existing Riflemen up there along with the RAngers. Zapped all the vehicles just before the referee blew his whistle.
ONe key thing for me was the M8, keeping it well-repaired and moving it around constantly to wherever the trouble was.
Much easier than I thought (only on Normal level of course). The key to it for me was looking really thoroughly round the terrain on Pause at the start - as well as the experience of losing 3 times of course
hope this is helpful.
Finally got through this on expert. I tried letting the Germans take the hill, build up force at montain and try and take hill back 5mins before the end but gave up after 6 attempts. I eventually succeeded by surrounding the hill with tanktraps as much as you can leaving westside til last. As 2-3 eng teams are doing this, have another build as many MG nests on the hill as possible. Use your starting broken riflemen to capture their nearest points - you'll get them all bar the abbey. Have half tracks for quick response to infantry. Take out as many of the Ranger attackers at the abbey with howitzer and follw up with sniper for any left. Try and have two snipers on the hill for enemy snipers and pioneers. Keep deploying more riflemen on the hill to take up fallen AT/MG positions. hold onto the howitzer - guard with sniper and AT.
note: population cap is a play-balance mechanism- you would build too many troops for the ai to have any chance and human wave tactics would rule and the stradegy part would be no good. also, too many units will cause BAD lagging
I played a modification of Servius' strat. With the following edits.
1. Trap and wire every entrance to the hill except the northy windy road. Prepare all defenses to receive attack from there.
2. Build a quad to rescue rangers. I never had any luck using arty to rescue. Always ended up with dead rangers.
3. Build 2 MGE's facing north-west, just north of the Motorpool. They will kill a couple of squads of infantry which attack soon after the main attack at the hill.
4. I am not sure what I did different to defend the town of Mortain. Might have made a couple of MGE's which could cover each other and the point, mined the entrances. I know I could get a couple of flame engineers to mix it up with the attackers and re-take the point, if need be.
5. Made a couple of snipers and a mortar for the hill. Put the howitzer on hotkey and used it to dismantle tanks, snipers, At Guns, etc.
6. Defended the HQ by putting the rangers in there, built 2 x MGE's and 2 x AT's. Retreated the flame engineers back to base in order to deal with any leftover infantry.
The easiest way, so far, that I've found to beat this mission is to go on the offensive! The trick is to know that for about the first 15-20 minutes, until the Panzer's arrive most forces come from the road in the top left hand corner. If you can block them off it gives you a lot more time to prepare your defenses.
On starting the mission do all the usual stuff grab AT guns and a couple of MGs, and build a couple of Engineers from your HQ.
Move the engineers on the hill top to build tank traps and wire/sandbags before the T junction on the road. Make sure you cover the gaps in the hedge to the right. Position a couple of AT and MGs from the hill top there and let them deal with everything!
Meanwhile the engineers from the HQ should have been stringing wire and tank traps round the hill, mainly in the East, South and West. Make sure that you block the road off to East as a Puma comes up it and its rather irritating! Then set the engineers to building MG nests. Its also worth while getting flamers for your engineers who can then camp in the MG nests. Edit:- its worth backing these MG nests up with garrisoned MG's as well, makes your kill rate higher. The idea is that you abandon the brow of the hill and defend from the middle. Sounds silly but it works.
At the start its a good idea to use your two veteran rifle squads to go to the hall in the West. Get the BAR upgrade though, it helps alot! This forces the rescue the Rangers mission. Once you've rescued the Rangers move all three squads to the sandbags near the fuel point on the North-West point of the hill. Three enemy squads spawn there at the five minute mark and you need those men to take them out. Then use a squad to take all the points and if you've got the infantry building upgrade, cap them.
While all this is going on build a half track and an M8 and leave them by the motor pool. When your HQ is attacked they'll be able to defend it, just make sure there fully upgraded. After the attacks been fought off move them to the western side of the hill, and if you can repair them. The Germans breach your defenses with artillery fire there.
At about the 15 minute mark take the AT, MGs and any spare squads to defend your HQ. Two Panzers appear from opposite directions. Mortain can be ignored and recaptured using this force later. Once thats over with move everything to the hill top.
At this point its a case of doing your best! Try and keep one squad capping and building if you can. Anything you build now will help you later.
Couple of random points, watch out for snipers, there a real pain, three of them turn up on the hard setting. Also a Puma appears from the East, watch out for it. Keep your population full if you can, the more men you have the better you can respond to things.
Hope this helps, the first 20 minutes are a lot easier this way!
Only thought of this idea afterdoing that to my monitor several times! And always bear in mind, what you do in this mission affects the next one to! Hence build as much as you can.
Edit:- If you can fortify all the points on the map with tank traps and barbed wire. This especially applies to the area around the abbey, might be a good idea to build an MG nest or two to. Note :- do NOT fortify the Abbey, anything left in this area will be deleted! This included troops! This will make holding the Western victory point much easier. Also try to preserve your engineers and have all squads at full strength before completing the mission. The other major thing I would say is mine the road to Mortain, round the back of hill [NE] (past the munition and fuel points) and the main road running North to South. This will hopefully disable an attack on your HQ. Sometime during the mission its a good idea to try and block the main road off and the back route if possible. The final point on building works is that its a good idea to take a screenshot of the initial briefing, and plot out all access routes to your HQ for mission 13. Also for mission 13 you get a tank trying to flank the hill top, use this to make sure its all barricaded off. The more you can block the better! Finally leave the front ridge of the hill alone, your line of defense should be inline with the buildings on the hilltop. Tank trap, MG nest and have a couple of AT guns at the ready and then just try your best.
Last edited by hiua54; 2nd Aug 07 at 4:42 PM.
me i just fortyfied that hill so not even god himself could have gotten tru. i had tank traps all around the place and barbed wire to funnel enemy infantery inty my MGs an then i used the howie to kill the 88battery (oddly i took one salvo) mortars are great att harrasing enemy troops tring to take points. and have alot of mobile rifles as an rapid resons unit taking fallen AT and MG positions. and i cant stretch this enogh use artillery as much as possible.
It may be no one reads this any more since the game is so old. But I'm just playing it now. After having gotten a lot of help on previous missions, I thought I would post a somehwat different approach to this mission. I think it's easier to describe and execute than the others posted here, and I was easily able to win at the expert level with very few casualties and full pop when they finally turn tail and head for home. So here goes.
The general idea - abandon the top of the hill and set up a defenisve (virtually impregnigable) postion in the vicinity of the howitzer. Anything coming up the hill ends up coming from one direction only (more coming on that) and gets easily mowed down. Even the occasional artillery barrage from the other side only mows down their own men, not yours. You can do it however you want as long as you understand this concept of defending the hilltop from the side and setting up a single approach that becomes the ultimate kill zone. Here are the details of how I did it.
The setup - build a three sided defensive structure with tank traps on the outside and wire inside of that - a little like a long bowling alley. It should be open toward your buildings and the point, and closed on the other three sides. It should be just wide enough to cover the top of the hill (from just a little to the left of your buildings to the right-most trenches). It should start a little in front of your buildings and extend backwards behind your howitzer far enough for you to build replacements for the two buildings on the top of the hill which you will sacrifice. When I did it (several times successfully) I had three or four AT guns to the right of the howitzer pointing generally towards the point with overlapping fields of fire, one more at the end of that line (making 4 or 5 in total) that points almost at right angles to the others and covering anything coming from the right side, and one lone AT to the left of the howitzer pointing to the left somewhat to get anything coming from that direction.
In front of the guns I had a row of sandbags, including short extensions on the side for the one gun on the left and the rightmost gun. This setup leaves all guns completely safe. As they take out more and more attackers they gain veterency and pretty soon they're blowing away attacking tanks with just a few hits.
In front of the sandbags I had four machine gun nests pointing generally in the direction the attackers woud come from (in other words they pointed gnerally towards the buildings and the point just like the AT guns did) with overlapping fields of fire. It's disappointing how few kills they get, but they successfully pin most of the attackers. Eventually I also built two more nests along side of the two guns on each end of the AT gun line - one pointing right and the one on the left pointing left.
I also had two snipers (they got most of the kills I think) - one in the pit with the howitzer, and one between a couple of the AT guns behind the sandbags. I also had two mortar crews near the howitzer and behind the AT guns. They helped the snipers take out any troops the machine guns pinned. I used the howitzer several times early to keep attackers at bay while the engineers were building. But after the defenses get fully built it's really not necessary to use it. Oh, I did use it a couple times to get attackers by my HQ, which had only minimal defenses.
Lastly I also had a half track with quad cannon that I used early in the attacks to fend off attackers while the engineers were still building out the defenses. I also had to use this a couple times until I got the sidewards facing maching gun nexts built, and you might need it if anything comes at the rear side of your defenses.
I initially had two maching gun crews in the two squarish defensive positions on the north west top of the hill. That's where the initial attacks come from and you want to delay them long enough to keep your engineers safe while they build nests, sandbags, etc. I generated two extra engineer groups from HQ to assist the two I started with. So I had four engineer groups working on the defenses.
As the attackers come along early while you are still building up, you will lose your two building on the top of the hill and maybe a few engineers. That's OK. You've got four sets of engineers building. Just make sure to keep a couple of them safe. Once your defense are in place you can rebuild the building behind the howitzer and inside of your defensive structure. Make sure when building the tank traps and wire that you leave enough room behind the howizter to fit in these two buildings. They will allow you to build replacement snipers or crews for your AT guns should you happen to lose any - although my only casualties were early while I was building this all out. Once fully built, I didn't lose a single man.
They can come at you all day and you're completely safe. That will win you the game and leave you a good crew in place to hold the point in game 13.
As for the town, I placed a machine gun crew inside of the HQ and two AT guns on the road side of the HQ (the other side away from the motor pool. The two guns pointed in opposite directions taking care of vehicles coming from either direction. I also built out one more engineer group and had them build sandbag defenses around the guns and a couple of machine gun nests on the far side of the motor pool. I think you still have enough pop to build another half track with quad cannon which will both help with defense and then be useful in the next mission.
Hope this helps any new people trying to take on this difficult mission. Ask me any questions if this is not clear.
#27
I had a re-go on this map, normal level though (just got bored) and i had a easy win because;
I forgot about the hill and tanktrapped the top entrance, plus sandbags and some mines within it.I placed 2 At guns at the east map entrance, plus some mg nests, and a pio squad to mine it everytime they could. The Axis troops die instantly. All mines traps etc you place there will be there next level also. I had a walk in the park, a bit of skirmish here and there but nothing complicated. I was floating muni's so I decided to lay mines wherever I could. Next lvl I saw enemy units blow up everywhere
Now thát's a Knight's Cross.
On Elite difficulty:
Like so many of you I found this mission very difficult to do and for a while I found it near impossible. You're given a lot of units to work with but many different approaches to hold and no sherman tanks to boot. And, on elite difficulty, compound that with enemies that are very accurate and aren't polite enough to lie down and die for you.
I came across a solution that is rather simple in design yet not entirely foolproof. After reading one of the earlier posts I was inspired to see what I could do with the five minutes of peace you are granted before you are attacked. Quite simple...I blocked all the entrances.
Abilities to get: rapid deployment, defensive operations, artillery.
Step 1: First you need to grab all the points you can save the one with the rangers...you'll save that for later. Don't bother spending the time to build posts on the points...you really won't need them and it's still a tiny drain on your very limited time.
Step 2: Build as many engineers as you can from the get go...every now and then, when you think about it, bring out more.
Step 3: If you've played this mission enough times you'll already know, for the most part, how the attack begins. First you got the attack near the point with the machine gun nest. Send two or three groups of engineers over there and, on both sides of the hedge near the edge of the map, first build tank traps and then build barbed wire fencing behind them...a bit closer to the center of the map. Be sure to have your engineers on the proper side of the barbed wire or they'll simply get killed and you'll have to build and wait for replacements...an annoying inconvenience, I assure you. Also be sure to send a freshly built engineering team over to the machine gun nest and man it. Engineers are the most cost effective way to produce bodies for gun emplacements. In addition send one of your machine gun teams from the center here and nestle them next to the machine gun that's already there. Send the other one to the distant corner where there's 3 ranger sitting next to a post and a fence...or keep them in the center.
Step 4: With step 3 done (or nearing completion) you'll have blocked off one path the enemy enters the map with infantry and armor. Most likely by the time this cluster of engineers finishes their task the attack begins. The TWO heavy machine gun teams at the site of the first attack will easily finish off the infantry the game spawns outside of the barbed wire/tank trap cage you have constructed. Simply kill the troops off with the machine guns and move the machine gun teams over to ranger areas and let loose on the troops attacking the rangers. A well placed Howitzer blast in the center of the attacking troops would also be helpful in liberating the rangers.
In other key areas you simply repeat the process: build tank traps in a straight line to block off paths armor can get through and then barbed wire behind it to block any infantry. You need to build the tank traps first because, let's face it, if NO armor gets through then the armored cars you CAN build are more than a match for anything but the panzershrecks. In addition you can build a line of tank traps and your engineers could dance around them if they wanted...they can't dance around barbed wire.
While doing this I found there were holes or "mysterious" paths the computer was using to introduce more enemy forces into the map which is where the "not entirely foolproof" disclaimer comes into play. I say "mysterious" because these paths were dead ends. Sort of like cul-de-sacs with trees instead of houses. How armor and infantry originates from here, I don't know but you CANNOT build big enough lines for tank traps, let me assure you. If you need 5 engineer teams to seal off the corner with a huge line of tank traps in a quick manner do it.
Step 5: A short while into the attack be sure to build a few machine gun emplacements behind your base facing away from the base. The computer will eventually send some troops through your back door, including some panzershrecks, and 3 or so machine gun emplacements will effectively pin and neutralize them.
Step 6: While not 100% effective this WILL limit the infantry and armor that gets in. I occasionally had to deal with a tank or two, sometimes a halftruck, and of course some infantry but the amount of enemy forces I now faces was easily taken care of with armored cars and the ranger squad I had. For enemy tanks I used the artillery ability when necessary to soften the tanks up. The armored cars proved a very handy distraction for keeping the tanks in one spot. Stationary targets DO make artillery more...effective, no?
Summary: The whole point is the the computer, even on ELITE, is stupid. If you plug up the entryways into the map the computer will not cut the barbed wire and it will not destroy the tank traps. Deploy them as fast as possible, in as many areas as possible, and you'll save yourself some headache. Re-deploy troops to areas that need help, re-manufacture armored cars and upgrade them (or not...as you wish) and simply bide your time.
The result was I lost a heavy weapons building in the center, lost a dozen armored cars, some infantry, but I didn't really feel pressured or under the clock. When the last 30 seconds ticked down my armored cars were just finishing off some infantry in the center and killed off the infantry even as they started to run away.
A major bonus point is all this blockading you did carries over into the next mission as well. However...during the counterattack the enemy WILL punch holes through the blockades so consider everything you built in this mission to be simply a time buying measure.
Last edited by AngryBob; 2nd Jun 08 at 12:16 AM.
Normal level.
Enemy come from middle of North-eastern board by road, it is easy to guess this entry and set tank trap and barbed wire. Enemy also come from upper side of North-western board and upper side of south-eastern board, not by road. There are two red lines on NE and SE boards to show general enemy entries. ( If you move troops to there, the two areas are red. ) Use tank trap to stop enemy vehicles, use barbed wire to lead infantry to machine gun nest’s fire. Set these lines not too close to the red area, leave more room/space so make sure enemy are blocked in the areas. Make sure no enemy can move south along the NW board. NW area needs 5 short tank trap lines, NE entry needs 2, one on the road, one in the field on right side of the road. SE entry needs one short line in the trees to block both vehicles and infantry, and a long one near the road. No enemy can reach the hill.
As for trapped vehicles, the best way is to send AT to destroy them(let sniper make them visible); or keep one opening to let enemy tanks come in and let AT to destroy them. The reason for this is that these vehicles may be brought to next mission. In one of my many tries, there is a leak on tank trap line at NW entry, enemy tanks and vehicles get in through that leak, since they always attack from the same direction, it is easy to set up my defense to destroy them. In the beginning of next mission there is no enemy tank/vehicle in NW entry area(only 2 AT protect HQ there) and make that mission easier. Then I tried to play mission 12 again, this time there is no leak on tank trap line, all enemy tanks/vehicles are trapped but not destroyed. In the beginning of next mission there are MANY tanks/vehicles moving in from NW entry area.
The priority for this mission: in first 5mins, create 4 engineer teams and let them(with the two existing teams) to set up tank trap and barbed wire lines, then build as many machine gun nests as possible. Send infantry take all points, also rescue rangers(let howitzer to bomb the yard once the game started will make it easy. ).
After enemy attack started, build more machine gun nests, then it is time to prepare the map for next mission, set tank trap, build machine gun nests and triage centers(so that in next mission, infantry on the hill will get healed automatically) on the hill… Keep all troops and buildings at SW part of the hill, NE part of the hill will get a lot of enemy artillery attack in this mission and next one. Build observation posts on all points. It may also be a good idea to plant some mines, but I have no time to do it.
If you do not want to block enemy at entry areas and let enemy to attack the hill, make sure howitzer is not destroyed, it will be a big help to next mission.
Hope this is helpful.
I struggled with this mission because I underestimated the amount of enemy that were going to attack. On my first attempt I lost the hill and getting it back was impossible because there were an unbelieveable amount of enemy protecting the hill. Eventually I got down to 1 minute left and called in rangers just as my last unit was killed protecting the hill so it wasn't game over. The enemy started taking the hill with about 40 seconds to go and no rangers in sight but then amazingly I got a message saying the Axis were retreating and they left the hill without taking it! I got the medal but not the secondary mission (it got retaken from me)
After the trouble I had I was just relieved to complete the mission. Lesson learned is do not lose the hill because then its swarming with enemy.
My problem is I like to take my time building up defences and heavy armour so when I'm upagainst it with a time limit I'm not sharp enough.
This mission is tough but not impossible the 'timer' is both your friend and your enemy. Your friend in that you know how long you have to survive but your enemy in you get little time to mount a defence! I agree with other posters here ‘timer’ missions and VP missions (next mission) suck and I wish they would stop producing them, but you have to complete these to complete the campaign so we have to just get past them!
Points I have found helpful:
• Use ‘pause’ often (especially if like me you are not that quick!)
• Learn from your errors (use the game to see where the enemy come from and note it for next time a bit like ‘groundhog’ Day!)
• Aim to survive with the hill and Mortain intact and with some ‘vet’ troops and AT’s (you need them next mission!)
• Spend 1st 5 minutes ‘blocking’ up all but two entry points (several earlier posts note which areas to block).
• Defend these with AT, HMG’s and troops
• Defend against the waves of troops that come as well as armour and they will arrive in areas you have blocked to vehicles so defend here too!
• Use your ‘Howie’ and off map ‘Arty’
• Engineers are your friend and can man guns cheaply as well as provide repair and rebuild of defences
• Do not stay on the Hill! (it gets bombed), stay around it. later I did put the rangers on here to mop up anyone that got through
Getting almost set up in the 1st 5 minutes (before they attack) is the key to success. You have to make sure everyone is working every second of this time, particularly your engineers! To achieve this I ‘pause’ as soon as the cut scene ends and allocate tasks to everyone (e.g. engineers off to build defences, troops off to areas you want them, HMG manned and moved if wanted, AT moved/manned, production of AT from base and set base producing more engineers!) You can send all of these orders without time passing at all! Release ‘pause’ and things start to move but ‘pause’ often to make sure everyone is occupied and as ‘new’ troops arrive they are given a task. You will be amazed at how much can be achieved in this ‘stop-start’ 5 minutes! You can even take more of the points around your base to ‘up’ production!
You do not really have a lot of men in this mission but if you retreat the two lads who first flush out the Germans you can reinforce them and they are handy mopping up ‘breakthroughs’ as are the rangers which I rescue with ‘Howie’. Keep Engineers safe near to key points and as resources allow build MG nests (if possible in forward positions as Jerry sends in snipers which take out AT and HMG crews if you are not careful (Howie and of map are good against large troop concentrations).
Even during the mission you can ‘micro-manage’ your troops again by pausing. Sorry to say that if you do get overrun it may be best to try again as it is better for the next mission if you are in a good position at the end of this one!
#32
Personally, I tend to like the missions with time limits. I hope Relic continues to make them. The only mission where the time limit can be problematic is the final Normandy mission. Even there it doesn't bother me much. Really, if you need more time to think and issue orders, use the pause key as stated above. I do, frequently.
My least favorite mission is Sottevast - too linear, too special ops - I'm playing "CoH" not "Commandoes".
Finally! I beat this mission last Saturday after giving up on the game for almost a year. I loved the game up until that point and then I couldn't take it anymore as to how the Germans would rush my base in force before I even had a chance to set up good defences.
The way I beat it was to pause the game like BlackOme (I just can't react that fast) and started issuing orders too all my units.
I ordered all the outlying units to the hill to new positions or to man the MGs and AT guns. In the meantimes I had all my engineers building tank traps at the entrances to deal with the future panzers and once there were all built I had them lay barbed wire behind them.
I built two more engineer squads to help out and had one of them seal off the SP at Mortain with wire and sandbags.
During this I sent my two elite infantry squads to recue the rangers so I could free up my artillery and manpower during the attack.
By the end I was able to seal off almost all the entrances , since I knew this was important for the following mission, and resist all attacks with relative ease. Sometimes a half-track or Stug would get through but was quickly dealt with by AT guns and AP loaded MGs.
My only moment of some fright was when some panzers came up through the south and came within point blank range of my Howitzer but instead began dueling with my AT guns.
Beat the mission with all entrances sealed at the end with barbed wire and tank traps. As far as manpowered I finished the mission with two eliite infantry teams, the rangers, two mortar teams, two snipers, 2 engineer squads, 3 MG teams and 3 AT guns. Had a half-track but lost it to a Panzer through carelessness. Good carry-over for the next mission.
Last edited by Gomer Pyle; 25th Aug 08 at 10:11 AM. Reason: Add credit
The answer to this mission is "spawn camp".
The enemy spawns in 3 locations. Build sandbag fortresses around them and kill them as they appear. Remember to cap all points and pick up lying weapons. There's 3 AT guns lying on your hill so take them and take some HMG too. No need to build new squads at all. Reinforcing is much cheaper. Defend each spawn point with at least 1 AT, 1 Engineer (flamers and repairs), 1 mortar (the only thing you don't get free), 1 HMG and 1 riflemen squad. Build a (or 3 if you're lazy) halftrack for reinforcements on the spot. They have big firepower too so upgrade them. Use the rest of your pop cap to support where the enemies attack harder. You only have 9 left and 6 is for the Rangers unless you free them after maxing it. The other 3 was for the veteran AT gun you start with in my case.
Watch out for snipers. Mortar them and use halftracks on them immediately.
This is much easier than defending Carentan (mission 4), maybe less enemies spawn, or maybe they spawn on timers instead of almost right after each unit is wiped out.
I am not finding the mission too difficult (on normal of course) and have completed it without using tank traps, MG nests and mines. It's total micro management which I'm OK with. The problem I do have is that what I have remaining after the Germans bug out.
I can usually keep the Motor Pool and HQ without too much damage but my Barracks and the other building are pretty chewed up and I don't have any time really to rebuild the Company when the next mission takes off. The Germans just swamp me right from the start.
This has me redoing the first Mortain mission over and over again to try to get a better starting point. Pretty annoying that I can't produce tanks in these ones.
Maybe the rifleman units should have a Bazooka option like the BAR which makes some sense rather than trying to pick up enemy units remains.
Allright....I finally got through the 2nd counterattack part. This had to be one of the most intense and frustrating missions I ever come across. I found the trick was to keep doing the 1st part until you had it just as you need it at the end. The 2nd stage kicks off where you finish the 1st.
Oh yeah, it pays to man up at the end as the reinforcements that arrive put you over the pop cap.
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