This is one hell of a mission: very intense, very exciting and demanding. It calls for excellent shooting and movement skills, a cool head, solid judgment in analyzing the situation and planning responses, and the ability to improvise - because it is also a mission with a great many random factors built in; in fact it's one of the most unpredictable missions in the game, so that I can't give you a step-by-step walkthrough guaranteed to work each time. All I can do is give you the general idea and let you play it as it develops.

It's a lot of work and it may well take several tries (and you'll need all your saves), but when you run it successfully for the first time without losing any men, you'll get a real rush of satisfaction.

At the same time it's a very authentic SAS-type mission - one of the few such in the game - in that it involves an attack on a desert airfield. True, doing it in the daytime is just crazy; it should have been a night mission. With that one pretty large exception, it's fairly realistic by shooter-game standards.

A small airfield somewhere in the North African desert, held by a small force of Italians, including both infantry and aviation tech types. Macchi fighters, at least one of which will take off if it gets a chance. A force of infantry on the way, supported by a smallish but nasty tank.

You're supposed to be trying to capture this German officer, but surprise surprise, he's been there and gone. The actual mission is, one, to obtain a set of documents - presumably telling you where he's gone - and, two, to kill or capture all enemy personnel at the airfield. In addition, for extra points, you can destroy the parked aircraft and the fuel storage tanks. At the end you have to leave either in the Jeep you rode in on or a captured vehicle.

One man carries a sniper rifle; this man should also have two or three fragmentation grenades (not the contact kind) ready to use at the start of the mission - rifle on his shoulder, grenade in his hand, more grenades on his belt. The only sniper rifle available on the opening menu is the Springfield, so give him all the ammo he can carry.

Three men have submachine guns: two Thompsons, or Stens if you must, and an MP-40. The man with the highest stealth rating should have the MP-40, and every round of ammo available for it. The other two don't have to stock up as heavily on Thompson clips, since they don't have as much shooting to do and anyway there will be plenty of MP-40s and ammo available later on.

Each of these latter three should have a rifle of some kind; the Lee-Enfield is particularly good because of its high capacity. They shouldn't need all that much ammo; the rifles are throwaway equipment anyway, only used in this mission.

There are only three of the big medical kits available; be sure and give one of them to the stealth man, because he's going to be in harm's way. Probably the sniper should get the small ones, as he shouldn't get hit as much.

Two men must carry explosive charges - the oblong kind, not the bundle of dynamite sticks - even though only one will be needed. If you just take one, there's a possibility the man carrying it may not be able to get into position to use it. You'll see why. Important: one of these charges should be carried by the stealth man.

Finally, it's a good idea for everybody to carry a few grenades, but don't overstock on them or go short on anything else in order to carry them. They may prove handy at a couple of points, but you won't need many and chances are you won't need any at all. And they're of no use in any of the following missions.

The following represents the best tactical plan I've been able to come up with for this mission. It's not the only possible way to do it - for a time I even had a different one posted here - but I have tried one hell of a lot of different approaches and this is the one that gives me the best and surest results, at least at Hard level.

The mission opens with one of those cut-scene videos, featuring a radio blasting out a Fascist marching song of which I guarantee you are going to get VERY DAMN SICK AND TIRED before this mission is over.

When the mission itself opens, everybody is sitting in the Jeep out on a desert trail headed toward the airport. You're standing beside it. Go get in the jeep and drive, not too fast, ahead a little way and then to the right, staying up among the dunes and keeping well clear of the airport until you're past the end of the north-south runway. Stop the Jeep and get your sniper out. Make sure he's got a grenade in his hand and others on his belt.

Move him northward, in the direction of the airport. His target is the nearest machine gun bunker, which you can easily see right beside the nearby runway. He should get down and use the little dips and declivities to move in closer, and then crawl, going to silent crawl as he gets near. (You'll probably find it easier to do this in third person view.)

Line him up on the bunker from its south end and use a light underhand toss to drop a grenade in, preferably in the middle. Get another one out instantly, because almost invariably at least one of the three men in the bunker will survive and probably come running out. Toss in the second grenade before he can do it.

This bit can be a real hoot; it's one of my favorite moments in HD2. If you place the grenade just right, with the right timing, the blokes in the trench react comically as hell; you see them look down and then they see that grenade and wig out and start to scream and run, but then it goes off and sometimes you'll actually see one of them flying up through the air ass over elbows.

For some reason these explosions go entirely unnoticed at the nearby airport. Fire one rifle shot, though, and the shit will hit the fan. Don't ask me. Getting these three, without letting them get off a shot, is worth the time and trouble - not that they're all that dangerous, or that their position has any tactical value; just that if you don't they turn up later on and create additional problems at a time when you'll have more than enough to handle. Besides, the odds against you in this mission are so heavy that you don't want to miss a chance to reduce their numbers. However, if your grenade technique is weak then you can bypass this part, and just keep an eye out for them later on. (If you blow it they'll undoubtedly kill your man and you'll have to restart; you need all four for the missions ahead.) One of the dead guys has an MP-40; have your sniper take it, and its ammo, before going back to the Jeep.

Start the Jeep again and make a big wide swing around the southeast quarter of the airport, staying as far as possible from the center - once again you may get leaving-the-area warnings; just turn a little to the left and you should be OK - and head east end of the main runway. Take it easy on the dune driving; it's lots of fun roaring along leaping over the humps, but it's also very easy to turn the Jeep over and then you're shit out of luck. It wouldn't

Cut across the far eastern end of the main runway - watch out, there are some dugout positions in the area, don't run into one - and drive up into the dunes immediately to the north. Park the Jeep and have your sniper and your #4 man dismount and take up positions on the crest of the next to last big dune before the airport. The sniper should have a clear field of fire along the area to the rear of the airport buildings, while the other man should be positioned - holding a submachine gun - to his left, in case any of the bad guys get crazy and charge. Give the Fire At Will command, if you haven't already done so, though at this point there shouldn't be anything to fire at.

The first major problem in this mission is the ready aircraft sitting at the main runway intersection. Open the tactical map and use it to get a good look. (You can use it for that, you know, it's not just for moving men around.) The one I'm talking about is the Macchi fighter parked next to those two big tents - not the Stuka off to its right and rear, make sure you understand which one we're after.

As soon as any shooting starts, that fighter is going to take off, and then you're in deep and abiding shit, because it will strafe you and your men continuously and make it impossible to complete the mission; in fact it will probably kill all of you. So you have got to take that damn thing out right away, before you do anything else; and you'll have to do it fast and not screw up, because you'll only get one chance.

This is how you're going to do it: start the Jeep and drive on through the dunes to that dirt road that runs along the north edge of the mission area, between the airport and the cliffs. Turn left, and at this point switch to the #2 position so you can control both the Jeep and the machine gun. Swing off the road a little bit, up onto that shoulder to the right, and then in a kind of semicircle back to the left, moving slowly and carefully, until you can get that parked plane in your sights.

Open fire and don't stop until you see that damn Macchi explode. When it does, instantly swing the Jeep on around and haul ass back up the road, the way you came. Park it in back of that dune where you stopped before and both of you dismount and move up to the top of the dune to join your men, who by now may already be exchanging shots with the airport gang. At this point everybody should be using rifles.

If not, you may need to provoke them a bit. Take over your sniper and use his scope to look around and see if you can spot at least one bad guy in an exposed position. There's usually one way off down at the far end of the airport area, past the northwest corner of the main building. You probably won't hit him at this distance, but take a pot or two at him anyway and he'll move around and start firing back, and then one or two others will come running out behind the buildings, and pretty soon you should have at least a few of them down.

During this time, keep an eye on those two big tents. There are two or three aviation types in there, armed with MP-40s and therefore no real danger at this range, but on occasion it happens that one of them will charge you. Also watch the space between the tents, as best you can see it, because now and then - though not often - you get a surrender monkey standing there with his hands up. If you see him, immediately move everybody into positions where they can't see him; the AIs don't recognize surrender signals.

Once it's quiet again, leave the sniper in place and move the other three up to that next dune where they can cover the area around those tents. Wait a minute or so and a bad guy may come out and get shot down. If not, usually if you fire a burst or two into the side of the nearer tent it will be enough to flush them out.

Usually they'll come out at the western end of the tents, but not invariably. When they're down, one man needs to go and check for others lurking inside the tents or on the far side. Move silently and surprise them. If you see a man with his back to you, shoot him, don't try to capture him; if he's going to surrender he'll already have his hands up.

At this point if you do have a prisoner the rest of the mission becomes pretty straightforward: stealth man puts on his uniform and goes in the back of the main building and basically does the same routine you used in the underground complex: kill somebody, run and hide till the disguise recharges, go out and kill somebody else, until you've gained control of the place. However, we'll assume this didn't happen, as it very rarely does.

Leave your top stealth man and take the other three back to the eastward, all the way up to the farthest dunes. Get them into a position behind the dunes so they can't see, or be seen by, anybody at the airport or on the road. Use the tactical map to put them in Defensive mode, so they don't get themselves in trouble. You want them completely quiet and hidden for the next bit.

Why? Because now we come to the other big problem in this mission. You see, that scattered bunch of guys down at the airport aren't all you're up against. At some point quite soon a whole shitload of Italians (or, if you're really unlucky, Germans, but that only happened to me once) will come over the hill near where you drove onto that dirt road. They'll even have a small tank along.

And it's not easy to say for sure what's going to trigger their arrival, but generally if you start killing people at the airport terminal building they'll show up, and they'll come toward wherever the shooting has been going on. For which reason you want your men out of sight for now; if they get caught in the open by that lot, they're doomed.

So park them out of harm's way, and return to your stealth man. Dump his rifle, pause to ghoul up any MP-40 ammo on the bodies by the tents, and then run back northwards, around past the tail of that parked Stuka, and in behind the big hangar building. Stop and get your breath back; check inventory and make sure your belt is full of MP-40 ammo - there shouldn't be anything else in your pouches except the big first-aid kit.

Now switch to silent mode and tippytoe over to the back of the main building and, still moving silently, go in the door. You'll find yourself in a corridor running clear through the building. On your left as you go in is a stairway to the roof. Ignore it. On your right is a closed door. Keep moving, don't stop and don't take your eyes off that door and for God's sake don't make any sound. Take up position on the left side of the door, and wait and listen. If nothing happens after a minute or so, make just a little noise - go to normal walk mode and hit your sidewise key a couple of times, just enough to make a thumping sound. Very soon you'll hear the door creak open.

A man will come creeping out, all crouched down. You'll see his gun barrel appear first, so you can be ready. Shoot him in the head; make it a short burst, just two or three rounds if you can do that. Kill him anyway; and then immediately run through the door, over his dead body, and shut it behind you.

You're now in the supply room, surrounded by boxes and shelves and so on. No time to look around, later for that. Switch to silent mode again and go to your right, toward that corner where the little hand truck sits. Turn so you're covering the doorway and crouch down next to that set of shelves.

Now be vewy vewy quiet. Listen for footsteps in the hallway outside. By now you'll also be aware of that Fascist marching song playing outside the window; ignore that. Just watch the door and listen.

You may hear a few footsteps go by; you may not even hear that. However, if you hear a lot of running feet just outside the door, followed by the growing sound of an internal-combustion engine, the reinforcements have arrived. Sometimes killing the supply room guy triggers them.

Usually it doesn't; then you have to find other ways. One that often works well is to go over to the window and see if you can spot somebody you can shoot. If you can't then you'll have to open the door very cautiously and sneak out into the corridor and look for trouble. If there's anybody out there you'll have to shoot fast and get back into that supply room even faster. Whatever you do, don't get too far from that supply room door at this point; it's your only good refuge.

When you do succeed in triggering the reinforcements you'll know it; you'll hear them clumping up and down the hallway and the rumble of that tank moving into position outside. It's pretty scary but keep your cool, the next part isn't as hard as it looks.

There are three possibilities, in terms of what happens next. One, the new arrivals bunch up outside the door and wait. Two, they come charging through the door one by one. Or, three, a few of them charge in and get mowed down and the others decide to stay where they are.

If they come in at you, just shoot them. You're in a good position, you've got an automatic weapon, the range is close, it's not that hard. Be ready to swing to the right as they come in, because they charge past you rather than at you, and then turn to face you. Keep reloading at every pause, the big danger is running dry.

If they keep coming, eventually you can kill them all, leaving yourself alone with an incredible and rather sickening pile of bodies for company. More often, though, at least some of them will be feeling less heroic, and will hunker down outside the door. Use third-person view to check the corridor before exposing yourself in the doorway.

If there's somebody out there, you can get him without showing yourself. Just estimate his location and shoot right through that shelf material. It's surprisingly easy once you figure out where to aim.

Wait a moment, go back to third person and check again, and if another one has moved into place shoot him in the same way. With this technique you can rack up a lot of kills without any serious risk to yourself. Keep checking and when there's nobody else but stiffs showing in the doorway you can stand up and have a cautious look.

You'll be amazed at the collection of cadavers you've amassed. But it's not over yet by any means, so reload before going out into the hall. Where you just may meet up with one of your friendly neighborhood surrender monkeys.

If you can capture him then and there you're practically home free; with any imagination at all you should be able to finish up the job with little trouble. More often, though, he turns and runs out the door. If he does, don't shoot him and make sure none of your team gets a shot at him.

He may not be there at all, though. If there's nobody in the corridor then step back into the supply room. Take a moment to frisk the bodies on the floor; there should be at least one valuable item.

Then settle down again, making sure the door's closed, and go back to your people waiting out in the dunes to the east. Bring them up into positions where they can cover the area with their rifles.

Take control of the sniper and use his scope to look for possible targets. Try out in front of the hangar area, near those parked planes; there should be a sentry walking around. You'll probably need to move forward some, to the next set of dunes, to be able to hit him. He'll shoot back so don't expose any more than you have to. As you shoot at him another man or two may run out of the back of the buildings; your other men ought to get them, even using iron sights, but if not you can swing around that way once you've done with the first bastard.

When you run out of targets, switch back to your man in the main building. Go out into the hallway again and walk silently up toward the front door. On your right just inside the entrance is a closed door. Open it and go in. You'll find yourself facing an Italian officer. DO NOT SHOOT HIM OR THE MISSION WILL FAIL. In a second a little video scene will begin.

When it's over, shut the door behind you, crouch down so you can't be seen through the window, and go over to the desk where his cap is lying and pick up the key there; you'll want it later. Now go back across the corridor, moving silently - a bullet may zing through the door but just keep moving - and into the big room on the east side of the corridor. There you should see a big book lying on one of the tables: the "documents" you're after.

If you didn't run into the officer in the corridor, you'll see him now, over in the corner with his back to you. Don't kill him, but don't try to capture him here and now, he'll resist arrest. You can get him to surrender by spraying a pattern around him but it's tricky shooting and easy to inadvertently kill him. Better to just tiptoe back out after checking for the documents; you'll have to flush him out later, if he doesn't eventually leave the room on his own.

If he's not there, then shut the door behind you, go pick up the documents, and look for a guard outside the windows to the east and shoot him. Run over to the western wall and crouch down by the little table there and cover the doorway. You may see the top of a head go by outside. The door will creak open and one or two bastards in the blue aviation coveralls will come in. They may rush in or creep in; be ready either way and be quick. They may be followed by an infantryman with a scoped rifle, who's come down from up on the roof. There's a rather loathsome little man out in the dunes with a pistol who just may put in an appearance as well.

When the bad guys stop coming - and take your time and make sure they have stopped; the one with the rifle in particular tends to arrive late - check cautiously through the door. You just may get a surprise.

Now and then you meet up with another surrender monkey, sometimes right in the doorway. In that case he presents a real problem, since there's no way to get past him or over him unless you shoot him first. You could do that, once you get his uniform, but it may or may not fit you. (Sometimes a given surrender monkey can only change uniforms with a given SAS man.) So you may have to just capture him and leave him there. You can still leave the room by climbing out the shattered window where you shot that guard.

If the officer is in the room, though, you can't do any of that or he'll get in on it and you'll have to kill him. Instead you could go up the back stairs with the scoped rifle and try to get the two men on the roof. Shoot the one in the blue coveralls first, he's more dangerous; the rifleman over by the machine gun is slow and you can swing around and get him before he turns to face you. Once they're down, switch quickly back to the MP-40 and run like hell back down the stairs to your hidey-hole in the supply room - and watch out for a man coming down the hallway from the front door.

Either way, stash your man somewhere safe and go back to the rest of the team. Take the sniper - or have one of the others borrow his rifle - and hop in the Jeep and drive back the way you came, around the eastern and then southern borders of the map area, past the place where you took out those geeks in the bunker. Just past the pass where you first came in, there's a long and sizable dune with a dirt road running along behind it. Park the Jeep and get out and move up to the crest of the dune.

From here you can do some useful things with the scoped rifle. Before you begin, though: if that officer from the hallway ran out here, take a minute and locate him. Probably he'll be standing over near the parked planes and the storage tanks. Make a note of his location so you don't hit him by accident; and don't leave any of your men unattended anywhere they can see him, or they'll kill him.

Now watch for that little bastard creeping around in the area of the storage tanks and pick him off. When you start shooting there'll be some fire from the main building but the range is long and you shouldn't be at too much risk if you're careful about taking cover.

There's a guy on top of the main building, or rather that shed built onto the side, standing up there with an MP-40, if the inside man didn't already kill him. Get him too; it's a long shot but you can do it. There may be a sniper on the roof with a scoped rifle, if he hasn't already been killed, so use maximum available cover.

Now move the sniper on around to the west of the building, staying down low and crawling when necessary. If you can see the tank, check to determine which way it's facing (the tac map is valuable for this) - the machine gun in the bow is pretty dangerous, but you're fairly safe from the big gun. There should be three Italians in the area along the western wall of the building, under an awning or holed up back inside that archway. You'll have to move around some to pick them all off.

(This is, frankly, a gamble. Sometimes one or even two of these guys will turn out to be your surrender monkeys. If the tank isn't in position to cover that end of the building, you might want to leave them for later. However, there's at least one rifleman around there who does need to be killed; in fact anybody you see with a rifle is shootable. If you see an officer with a pistol you might try putting a round past him and see how he reacts; if he shoots at you, go ahead and kill him.)

The sniper can now go back and get the Jeep and drive back to rejoin the others. Pause near that bunker where you grenaded the three geeks, and pick off that lone fool in the isolated bunker to your northeast, just to have him out of the way.

When you've got the area around the main building clear of enemies, you can go after the tank. By now I hope you've acquired at least one prisoner and got one man in disguise; that will make this much easier. However, if that officer is standing out there in the open and the tank is in a position to cover him, don't go out and try to capture him or you'll both be blown to shit.

Even without a disguise, it's not really all that difficult. The tank's field of vision is very restricted. The big danger is that machine gun in the front of the hull. (Tanks in HD2 don't have co-ax turret MGs, and be glad they don't or they'd be a lot harder to take out.) If the main gun is pointing in an inconvenient direction, it's usually possible to distract it - often you can just have one of the men out in the dunes bounce a rifle bullet off its armor and it'll swing around in that direction. Just get down and crawl, using whatever cover you can find, and remember to sneak up from the side or rear - where the smoke is coming from the exhausts - and don't get in front of the damn thing. You can crawl right up to it and place the explosive charge you brought, and that will be that.

Now we're getting down to cleanup operations. This can be very tough, though. By this time I hope you've got at least one surrender monkey, because you're going to have to have at least one man in disguise to complete this mission. There are two men in the hangar building and while one of them can be shot from the door if you're quick, the other one is nearly impossible to get without being hit and probably killed. But with a disguise you can just walk in and do the job.

In fact I would go so far as to say that if you've eliminated everybody except the two in the hangar and still haven't got a prisoner, you need to go back and restart the mission or at least go back to your last save, and try again until you do get one. There are anywhere from one to three possible surrender monkeys in this mission so you ought to be able to get at least one of them. And you're going to need that disguise later in the campaign anyway.

Assuming you've got one, though, have a man in disguise go down and settle accounts with the two in the hangar - remember, shoot the first one through the doorway and then wait for your disguise to recharge before going in after the other one - and then check your mission status. It should show success in eliminating all resistance; if it doesn't then you'll have to look around for one you missed. Check all those foxholes and bunkers for holdouts. Remember, a surrendering man is only counted as eliminated when you've actually captured him; standing around with his hands in the air doesn't count.

You can also climb up on the roof and use the machine gun to blow up the storage tanks and some of the parked planes. Or use the Jeep's MG instead, as you prefer.

Remember that the captured uniforms are no good without the appropriate weapons. Each of your costumed lads must get himself an MP-40 - they're lying around all over the place; the Germans especially carry them - and there should be two scoped Mausers on the premises. One of the Thompsons should be discarded and replaced with an MP-40. (Even if you only scored two disguises in this mission, do this anyway because you're going to have a chance to pick up another one in the next.) Go around ghouling up ammo off your collection of stiffs, concentrating especially on Mauser clips because you've got a lot of rifle shooting coming up in the next two missions.

Make sure you've got the documents - if they weren't in that big room, check the hangar, occasionally they're in there. Go back to the supply room and use the key to open that barred section; there are a couple of supply boxes, only one of which works. Use it to resupply the man with the Springfield, since he can't get any off the cadavers.

Oh, and you might like to go do something about that DAMN RADIO.

That's pretty much a wrap, except that you could blow up the planes if you like. Use the Jeep's machine gun on the parked ones; there are some explosives in the supply room you can use on the ones in the hangar.

Now all that remains is to get everybody on board your escape vehicle. Send somebody to go get the Jeep and everybody get in. Or you can use the German AA truck parked behind the main building; it does have some advantages in the next mission (which is the last time you get to use either vehicle) as it has a better all-around field of fire, but it's slower and less maneuverable, and the cannon, while powerful, has a lower rate of fire and generally isn't as suitable for quick antipersonnel work as the Jeep's machine gun. And the Jeep's more fun to drive. You can do it either way, though.

There, now. Didn't I tell you it was a hell of a mission?

The next one is merely a mission from hell. Oh well.