Is the last German mission winnable?

[Deathmachinept]

I really loved this mission beat in the first go but need some saves.
I used the tiger very successful eventually run out of ammo and had to look for it in some crate.
The key is using the tiger in the back as a sniper or as a reserve sometimes moving it in then reversing him out and parking at places where he hits most vulnerable parts of enemy tanks, I remember I parked him East of map in town when some churchs spawned out of the map east my tiger intercepted them and killed them by hitting they sides.

[FMAlanbrooke]

I held off wave after wave of British attackers with no result. I watched a Utube of the mission and decided it doesn't matter what you do. So I played the first defence line a bit, then put the game on maximum speed and virtually did nothing after that, just watched it while adding reinforcements as they became available and targeting the ship artillery - I still completed the mission!!!

There are some fun things you can do in this mission, for me it was the first to use all the most sophisticated aspects of the game:

1. officers - these extend the range of your guns (including machine guns) and make them much more effective. In other missions, the officers never seemed to have binoculars, so I never found them to be much use.

2. emplacements and mines. You can find the closest mines in a building within the fuel depot and the entrenchment tools in crates outside the vehicle workshop further south.

3. vegetation for Pak 40 AT guns - comes with every such gun, even though there isn't enough of it.

4. AT rifles - there's one (with ammunition) in the building within the fuel depot and another in one of the other buildings further south . There are also two MG 34 machine guns in boxes outside one of those buildings.

You can use a jeep to carry all the stuff around, I captured two of them, if you would rather not use a truck. There's also a kubelwagen in the radio shack.

My Tiger ran out of AT ammunition and then the defence collapsed. You can find 88mm ammunition in boxes next to the 88mm AA guns and also in the knocked -out Tiger tank next to the vehicle workshop. To top up your machine gun ammo all you have to do is drive your tank up to a destroyed enemy tank and then use the eye symbol on it to suck out all its ammunition directly into your tank.

The Germans soon run out of ammunition, particularly machine gun ammunition. There are also other things such as mines scattered around the map that they could use. Instead of destroying the British mortars, I was able to capture and re-use one of them, though I should have disabled the others by removing their ammunition, as I ran out of mortar ammunition pretty quick (the building with a fountain in a square has some). If you don't destroy or remove the mortars, the British re-man and fix them so you have to hit them with AT grenades or drive over them with your Tiger.

The Tiger can have trouble fighting the armoured cars because the armoured cars get too close for the Tiger to depress or fire its gun. There is simple solution: just ram the armoured car and push it over!!!

One tactic I wanted to try was a raid right at the beginning, before the first British soldiers and tanks arrived. I gave my troops a desperate mission to (a) run to a partly destroyed Crusader tank and get its machine gun ammunition plus repair kit (b) continue on to a wharf loaded with German stores just behind the British front line (c) load up a truck that was standing there with as much as they could in the short time available and (d) drive the truck back to my lines. On all previous runs of the game, the British attacked first on that (western) side of the map, so I didn’t think this would succeed. Fortunately in this game, the British attacked the other (eastern) side first.

Much to my surprise I managed to get the ammunition from the tank and kill all the British wharf guards for the loss of only one man (who, worst luck, was carrying the recovered ammunition). I then started to load up the truck, finding anti-personnel and anti-tank mines in the process. The men loading the truck then climbed aboard. Unfortunately one man had been severely wounded and was left behind nearby while he healed himself using first aid supplies (normally a foolish thing to do out in the open as it takes a long time).

This man, Karl, then became the hero of this little story (though hundreds are involved, each man in the game has a name). He firstly had to get the machine gun ammunition from the dead German soldier - but this left no time to get onto the truck. Thus he was told to protect the truck while the truck and its four remaining soldiers made a dash for the German lines. A single British soldier had moved up to the woodland next to the road and looked likely to foil my entire plan.

Incredibly, Karl was able to distract that British soldier without being killed and the truck was able to make its slow way to my base despite being unarmoured. Nevertheless Karl had been left behind enemy lines and was surely on a suicide mission. He had not been able to kill the well-hidden British soldier and he had to run out into open ground to get away. He was running out onto the open road when a column of two heavily armed British Jeeps turned up and started turning their machine guns (one .30 cal Browning each) toward him. Should he throw a grenade at them and go down fighting or run towards the British soldier in the woods? There were some rocks nearby so I got Karl to turn around and run towards them - well anything is worth a try! I looked around for support and got the German heavy machine gunners in German trenches to start firing at extreme range at the Jeeps – and the first one was hit! It then ran into the busted Crusader tank and had trouble turning around. The second jeep was unable to start shooting until Karl had got behind his rock and was lying down. This jeep then kept going as fast as possible and left Karl behind.

Karl now had a new, even more audacious mission. A couple of British soldiers had started setting up a mortar position near to him. If that mortar started firing, the German trenches would be indefensible. There were three other mortars and the German player was told he had to get them all. Karl had to not only kill the mortar crew, he had to destroy the mortar so it couldn’t be re-manned (which would happen quickly otherwise). The mortar was too far behind enemy lines for any other troops to have a chance at this. So he had to try, even at the cost of his life. He was already in grenade range, so firstly he threw an ordinary grenade. That killed the crew, but also another British soldier that had arrived. Now Karl had to get closer to throw a much heavier anti-tank grenade to completely disable the mortar. Other British soldiers were appearing nearby, but Karl managed to shoot them with his rifle first. He then threw the anti-tank grenade and the mortar never got a chance to bother the Germans.

This guy was already nearly dead once and a hero, could he get back to his lines safely? He had to run across an open road with that British soldier still hiding in the woods. He waited until the British soldier was reloading his rifle, threw another grenade at him (he missed), and then ran for his life. He ran for the jeep, which had lost its crew to the machine-gun fire. He didn't know if the jeep was damaged or not. It was running fine!

He jumped in only to find the Jeep had trouble getting away from the knocked-out Crusader tank. However he was able to disentangle it and drove all the way back to the trenches (though much slower than the jeep did originally). He then safely delivered his load of machine gun ammunition in time for the next British attack. His recovered repair kit was vital to the fixing up of one of my only two German 37mm anti-tank guns, shot up by the other jeep. I wish Men of War awarded medals and veterancy to such guys!!!