Will You Have Ice In That?
This is a stupid mission in some respects but it's not a particularly hard one. Especially if you've still got a man in German uniform.
A German weather station is located in the Norwegian Arctic (OK) on an iceberg (WHAAA?) This is too idiotic to endure, but just call it an island rather than an iceberg and the whole thing makes a bit more sense. A U-boat is tied up at a wharf next to the station.
There are some documents on the premises that you have to collect. You also have to use the German radio - twice - and, oh yes, take over the U-boat.
Once again there is no direct requirement that you kill everybody present, but in practical terms you have to.
This is mainly a sniping mission, with a modest amount of close-up shooting. You should have at least two sniper rifles, possibly three, from the previous mission, and I hope you took the opportunity to load up on Mauser ammo. Each man should have a submachine gun of some kind. Rembember that your disguise character has to carry only German weapons: MP-40 and scoped Mauser. He should also have a knife.
There's nothing to be done with grenades on this one so dump any you have left.
When the mission starts you are all standing on the shore next to the PT boat. The pilot is on board, offering to go with you. Somebody tells him to stay here and keep his head down. Here he is aboard a ninety-foot torpedo boat tied up in plain sight within rifle shot of an enemy base, to say nothing of a U-boat, and he's supposed to stay out of sight. Oh, well.
There are some supply boxes next to the boat. One contains a Lee-Enfield sniper rifle. Give this to your best shot who still doesn't have a rifle, and let him use the ammo supply box to stock up on loads - leaving enough for any of the others who are a bit short; if one of your team scored that Thompson at the end of the last mission he'll need more ammo - and then turn around and give everybody Follow Me and head for the mountain nearby.
(One of the other supply boxes contains an M-1 rifle - not altogether absurd since the PT boat is obviously meant to be American - and if you've got another man with no rifle it might be worth picking up, though it'll complicate the ammo supply problem.)
Go on up to the mountain but don't take the team all the way to the top yet. Park them at the foot of the trail and go up alone in disguise. There's this one German wandering around up there all by himself, and when he runs into the team there'll be some shooting; he may even hit somebody before he's killed. The racket brings more enemy troops rushing up from the camp, and they're liable to get there before you've deployed your men.
So get the knife out - you'll have to park one of your long guns before you can use it; dump the MP-40, you can take the one from the German after you kill him - and once you've found and disposed of this lone enfant perdu, you'll have bought yourself a little breathing space.
Walk around a little, now, studying the layout. Look the camp over from up on the mountain - use the rifle scope if you like - and get an idea where things are. Study the shape of the mountain. You'll see that there's only one usable trail going up around the shoulder of the mountain on the north and northwest side. Find a good spot where your men can cover this; up on the hill overlooking the trail is good, it's better not to face them straight on. Park your character, now, where he's out of sight of the camp, so he doesn't start any private wars until everybody's in place.
Now you can bring the team up and deploy them in defensive positions, facing roughly north, overlooking the approach trail from below. Make sure none of them is in a position where he can see the enemy camp; this is very important, otherwise they'll get distracted shooting uselessly at the guards down there. At this point everybody should be holding submachine guns rather than rifles.
If no attack has materialized yet - and if you killed that one guy silently, it probably hasn't - take one man up to the crest and have a cautious look and try to pick off a German or two down in the camp. This should be enough to set the others off. Bring the sniper back to join the others, now, and help fight off whatever attackers show up.
It won't be a mass attack; they'll come by ones and twos, and there won't be all that many of them. But they're pretty aggressive, and some of them are good shots, so everybody needs to be fast and shoot straight.
After the attacks start to peter out, you can take your sniper back up to the crest and let him do some more shooting, staying down flat and using cover as much as possible - most of the Germans in the camp are lousy shots but a couple of them are dangerous. Watch out for a dog and shoot him if you get the chance.
As soon as you're reasonably sure nobody else is coming after you, you can move another rifleman to the crest, and then another; but keep at least one good man with a submachine gun covering the approach from below, just in case. If you've got four sniper rifles - and you should by now, if you paid attention on the last mission - you could trade positions after a time and let everybody get in on the action. Spread your snipers out so they can get various angles. There's a kind of dip or saddle in the crest of the mountain that makes a good post.
If you look past the camp you can see the U-boat, or parts of it, and a couple of men on board. It's a very long shot, but try to pick them off; it's doable and it's very important, because they've got a 20mm. gun on that thing and you don't want them getting it into action. (Though to be honest I've never seen it come into play.)
Take your time now; allow your snipers to work on their own, they're probably better than you at spotting targets. Let them use up some of that ammo you've all been lugging around. When nobody can find any more targets to snipe, it's time to go down to the camp. Take your team down one by one, starting with the man in disguise. If you've done a good job of sniping nobody will shoot at you. The trail goes around the northeast side of the mountain and on around the east side before dropping down to a steep narrow bank; be very careful and look where you're going, it's very easy to fall and kill yourself.
Assemble everybody in the area at the foot of the low bluff to the west of the camp. Now take one man around the hillside, staying south and out of sight of the camp, to a position where he can cover the U-boat - both the decks and the approaches - and snipe any remaining Germans on board or by the gangway. Leave him there; he has a very important function. There's an officer who may try to board the U-boat and if he does the U-boat leaves and you get Mission Failed.
Now deploy your two remaining non-disguised men along the low ridge to the south of the camp, where they can cover both the camp and the mountains beyond. They need to have both rifles and submachine guns. If one of them doesn't have a sniper rifle, give him your Mauser; you won't be needing it any more.
When they're in place, pick yourself up and walk around the hill to the trail entering the camp, up by those birdhouses (or whatever they are), and start to enter. Don't go very far, though. Just about halfway between the birdhouses and the first buildings, you'll hear a voice shouting and it's time to hit the deck. You've tripped a trigger, and now some men are going to come charging out and attack your boys up on the ridge. They won't last long, if your gunners are any good, but it's better for you to stay down out of the way of stray fire.
Once the fight is over - it won't take long - go back to the men on the ridge and arm them both with sniper rifles. Back to your disguised character, now, and start walking on up the trail again. As you get close to the first buildings there should be an enemy-sighted message from the boys up on the ridge. Get down again, just to be on the safe side, while they take out some riflemen who have appeared on the distant mountainside overlooking the camp. This may take a minute or two but there shouldn't be any real doubt about the outcome.
After the shooting is over, you can get up and proceed to finish clearing the camp. By this time there should be only three, or possibly four, Germans left alive on the premises - not counting the U-boat, of course.
Three will be in the first building on your left. The other is a sniper and he's up in that kind of tower at the far end of the building. You need to get him first; or rather check on him, because chances are he's already dead. Go on past the long building, anyway, and climb the stairs and see if he's deceased, and if not then attend to it. Go on into the room, even if you see from the doorway that he's dead, because a couple of times I've encountered a German officer holed up over to one side.
Now you can clean out the remaining bastards from the long building. There's no need to be fancy about this; just walk around the outside till you see them looking out the windows and shoot them. They're widely separated so none of them will see you taking out any of the others.
One of them is in the room down at the east end of the long building. He may be a little hard to spot; sometimes he hunkers down below the window. If you climb up on the snow outside, though, and look down, you should be able to see him. If not, don't worry about it, you can get him a little later.
The other two are on the north and south side of the long building, respectively. Walk along till you see a face and shoot it before it has a chance to think, "Hey, wait, that ain't our Hans."
Now you can enter the long building. Go in the front door and TURN RIGHT; do NOT go through the door on your left. (Dog.) Go through the door on the right, through the next little room, and into the long corridor with the Nazi flag on the wall. In the first room on your left are the documents you're after, lying as usual on a table out in the open. (What a good thing these Nazis never heard about safes.)
If you weren't able to get the man on the end from the outside, you can walk down the hall now and take care of him. Now you basically own the camp. Get the hell out of that building and close the front door behind you. That damn dog is bad news, and he isn't a bit impressed by your natty little German outfit.
The next requirement is to send a radio message. That's easy; just find the radio shack - it's the one with the antenna on the roof, duh - and go in and walk up to the radio and hit your Use key. Listen to the corny exchange, if you like, or walk back out if you prefer. At this point you've got only one job to do, but it's kind of hairy.
It's not really all that hard, though, provided you still have a man in a German uniform. (If not, then you're in for an extremely difficult time; I hope you've got a save left.) Get rid of your rifle if you're still carrying it, and make sure you've got a knife on your belt. If you didn't bring a knife then it's going to be harder and that's what you get for not listening to me; but check out the bodies lying around, one of them might have a blade on him.
Walk up the gangway to the sub and over to the conning tower. The next part can be pretty maddening; the climb function gets very cranky here and it's hard to make your man climb the little ladder. For some reason it works better if you start from a crouch.
Up on the conning tower, switch to the knife if you haven't done so already and go over to the hatch and use the ladder. CAREFUL, damn it, if you miss the ladder the fall is a fatal one.
At the bottom, turn and head forward. (That's the nearest door; aft is beyond those periscopes.) Open the door and there'll be a bald-headed sailor with his back to you. Step up behind him and knife him and then close the door behind you. Let your stealth meter build up all the way; switch back to the MP-40. Go and open the next door.
There are two men in the forward compartment and they're both armed, one with an MP-40 and one with a pistol, so you're going to have to shoot very fast and straight. You can do it, but you might get nicked a little in the process. Bandage yourself up, while you're waiting for the Disguse-O-Meter to come around again, and then head back in the other direction.
There are four men still on board the sub. The first one is alone in the first room after you pass the periscope tubes. He's got his back to you so he's easy to knife. Get back into the control room and switch back to the MP in case anybody comes after you. If not, then go back to the knife and go on back to the next compartment.
There'll be a man in there too, bent over a sink with his back to you. Stab him and then immediately switch back to the MP-40 and stand over to one side of the next door, because a man may come through in a second or so, looking for you - and your disguise will still be down.
If he does, shoot him and then stand still and wait; another one will be along in a moment, this one an officer. If nobody does come through the door, let your disguise build back up and then walk into the aftermost compartment and shoot them both before they can react.
If you want to have some real cowboy fun, you can dump the MP-40 and use a pistol instead. There are a couple of dead officers somewhere around the premises, so it's not hard to get hold of a Luger; take some clips too. You'll need to have room on your belt for the pistol as well as your knife and the clips, so you may have to toss your first aid kit to make room. That's OK, you shouldn't need it unless you really screw up big time. Just follow through as detailed above, using the pistol instead of the MP-40. No real point in doing it that way, but it's kind of fun; something different, anyway. One of the very few points in this game in which a pistol is of any use.
Check your shit sheet now and it should indicate success in all but one item. Climb back up the ladder to the conning tower and walk back to the gangway and then up the hill to the radio station. Go in and use the radio again. That's all there is to it.
Congratulations; you've finished your first campaign in HD2.