American: Capture the Admiral

[Hamptonsux]

Ok, got the Admiral captured, leading us to the next mission, where you have to defend while the negotiations take place. Tried it over and over, but fail everytime, soooooooooooo....

I didn't stealth my way thru the mission where I capture the Admiral, and I recall that I was given a warning that it would make things tougher. I have 2 questions about this.

1. IF I had stealthed my way thru the 1st part, does it make a huge difference in the amount of troops and armored vehicles attacking later on?
I will be EXTREMELY pissed off if I actually take my time to stealth thru the whole damn thing, and STILL get swarmed by so many enemies.

2. How exactly are a handful of men, equipped only with a couple of knives that can only be thrown, and aren't allowed to shoot anyone, supposed to accomplish this freakin' nightmare.

Can the knives be reused after you throw them and make a kill?


A word of warning to any of you complaining about the difficulty of the other campaigns leading up to the American one, it only gets tougher. Take everything that pissed you off before, and now imagine only being given a handful of guys, and instead of armor, now you are given AT RIFLES......... yes, now you not only don't have any effective vehicles, your unit have to do "shoot and scoots" basically popping up to try to destroy armor before they get blown to pieces from multiple angles.

Honestly gang, I didn't buy this game to play "Commandos". I bought it for the unique opportunities to use different types of armor, and tactics with the "big toys". If the whole American campaign is like this, I might as well not even waste my time.

[Tomalak]

This is what I did:

1. Used the soldiers with knives to silently kill the sentries (the ones that patrol outside the wall), and then hide the bodies. You can pick a knife from the ground after you kill someone with it, use TAB to highlight it.

2. Separated my guys into 3 groups and took positions in front of the entrances, and explained to them that real men don't use stealth :grin:.

3. Attacked the entrance guards, killed them, and assumed defensive positions in front of the entrances, maned the MGs where possible. After that I stayed in cover, while the whole base flocked to entrances, where they died swiftly to my guys firing from cover. (Shoot those light reflectors also.)

4. After this, the base was almost empty, except some enemies hiding behind buildings, and the guards around the main building.

5. Now, I took my sweet time to mine all the three entrances, using all the mines from the truck. I also brought the MGs inside the wall. Don't attack the main building until you're done.

6. After defenses were complete, I attacked the main building, captured the admiral, left one guy to play sentry, while the others ran back to defend the wall.

My initial defense at each entrance was: one guy at the MG, two more ducking behind the lower parts of the wall. When you get reinforcements, notice that some of them have AT rifles. Keep these behind the defense points, in case an armor vehicle manages to get past the minefield, and the wall.

You can also take a few armor carriers during the attack, just clear them out with MG fire, then load your men in them. If the enemy tanks start firing from the distance, pull back a bit, they will either charge (hopefully, onto the minefield), or let your AT guys take care of them.

The toughest part is when they attack you with tanks, but you have AT rifles, AT grenades, and mines, so you should be able to manage it. As you're getting more of those resistance guys, keep a few of them with AT grenades in cover behind the buildings near the entrances, to give some depth to your defense.

EDIT: This was on normal difficulty (or is it called medium?).

EDIT 2: I hope I didn't forget anything, and that you'll find this helpful.

[Hamptonsux]

Ok, going to go back to the pre-mission, and clear out the entire base and lay some mines before I trigger "capture the Admiral".

I wasn't sure if the mines would carry over after planting them, I was hoping so, because I made sure I filled that truck to the brim at the end up the last mission, I just didn't have time to blast my way thru the remaining defenders, run to the truck, load 'em up, and lay down an effective mine deterrent in that 4 minute "prep" time.

Also thanks for answering about the knives, I have also told my men that throwing knives is best left to stage show acts, but nice to know I can re-use them if I need to in the future.

Ok, going to reload and conquer this time. Thanks, Tomalak.

[Hamptonsux]

Wow, final tally : enemy losses, 252 men, 15 vehicles vs 11 friendlies lost. Thank God for carry over mines.
Seriously, this is ridiculous, a nearly 25 to 1 kill ratio, NOT figuring in the vehicles, and that I had NO armor support.
Thanks again, Tomalak.

[scotland_93]

war isnt all about sending in a big army to kill everyone,
many main battles were won from help behind enemy lines.
its giving you a taste so dont moan about it

[bazzablue]

Just a few points points to add:

Those big tanks in the final push are a real killer. They don't play fair and come down the drive; they bust through the walls either side of it (? East entrance?) and cross the grass. So, when mining the gate areas beware of this.

You get one batch of reinforcements for each 50 kills (up to max of 8). Keep your eye on the counter and call them in as soon as you can.

There are crates of mines (tank and personal) near the main building - roughly SE of where the final cut starts, near a watchtower. Use your prep time to lay these as far as poss. with the heavy tanks in mind.

[Bonfire09]

It helps a lot if you have hitched up the flak gun from the previous mission to your truck (the game tells you that you can bring through a towed gun as well as whatever you get in the truck).

I cleared all the enemies outside, then the south gate, then up to the main building with thrown knives since I fancied being stealthy first.

Then I lobbed down AP and AT mines as far out from the building as I could without getting seen by the enemies left alive and brought in the flak gun and the machine gun from the south gate and popped them on the lawn.

Next I capped the admiral and cleared the buildings to the north with the initial reinforcements and set up guys around the perimeter wall covering from 3 o'clock past 6 o'clock to 9 o'clock, keeping the AT rifle just behind the line.

All the light vehicles fell easily to MG fire and mines, only issue was the tanks but the flak gun can drop them at the range they stop at to fire... also bring forward the AT rifles to fire when any vehicle is getting close.

If you have a save from the previous mission just grab the flak gun, hitch it up and it's not that hard to defend for tyhe negotiations.

Lastly... all your reinforcements should be men not the ammo truck.... the poxy truck brings mines you can't lay cause you are under attack and less total ammo than the men turn up with :) You can scavenge ammo off dead germans anyway.

Hope that helps.

[haorant]

oh yeah a got a tip for this mission take out the car which the amrial will be fleeing with a anti tank grade helps a lot

[happy]

Mines, from the start, use them.. block up the gates with them, this will produce a traffic jam with wrecks, infantry will advance but a few anti personel mines will soon take care of that.

Even if general runs for it, he's gonna run into minefield at the gate, that is if he wasn't taken care of by your men.

when you have to hold and reinforcement show up you can use a firebrigade to sent to hotspots if and when the enemy seems to be breaking through. Flanking them is good fun, while your dug in troops will keep them busy.
mind you reinforce the dug in force from time to time.

and scavenge everything off any death german you can find, you can't have enough grenades and ammo.

Good luck sir.

~ S

Happy