[geroj]

i did the mission without retreating to the second line, however, it was ridiculously hard, i saved almost every minute and reloaded the game 200 times to avoid tank casualties.

at the beginning of the mission i pulled my forces from the trenches behind the buildings in the village to avoid as much mortar fire as possible. i placed all the troops i could right behind the buildings and the rest to the round stoned area that provided cover thoughout the mission. i placed the tiger approximately to the center of the square so it could fire to tanks comming from both directions and remained hidden. this part of the front did not change too much i just ordered 1 panzer ivf as soon as it was possible along with an armoured car and pulled the soldiers from the buildings to the round stoned cover to the rest. later i captured 5 tanks in total (2 churchills, 1 matilda, 1 crusader and 1 of the medium tanks, i dunno the name). the tiger eventually run out of ammunition(!!!!!!) so i moved it to the right behind the barricade and used as anti personnel weapon.

as for the western part i think the key was to pull all forces near to the quad flak gun except 3 soldiers with at grenades, i moved them to the left near the walls in cover. these were crucial in destroying the mortar that was placed to the left at the beginning.

i shelled the mortars as somebody pointed out, taking these little rats as early as possible can save a lot of soldiers.

i ordered panzer iv f-s to 4 places in the game: to the extreme left to reinforce the heavy flak gun but it was also able to fire to the entrance of the oil storage facility(?), to the right of the quad (light) flak gun, to the square of the village and to the far right, however it was not necessary. instead of pak guns i ordered armoured cars to take car of the enemy infantry and infantry to pin down the enemy and capture enemy tanks (this was the hardest of all but absolute necessary).

successfully completing the side quest with the rocket launchers is also an absolute must as you can obliterate the enemy in the trenches thus gaining enourmous advantage.

i think i made 3 mistakes:
1. not ordering pak guns at all early in the game (though i suggest to order panzers as they are far more durable and they have anti aircraft machine gun that helps against the infantry)
2. not capturing any tanks in the far left, this would have been an enormous help
3. allowing my mortar to be destroyed early in the game (it fired to the building it was behind and the explosion destroyed it, epic fail)

the mission ends when you successfully defended the center of the village for more than 10 minutes (but this objective triggers after around 40 minutes after the rocket launcher side quest)