Mission 2--Burning Village

The village of Sgt. Mere Eglise lies astride a highway that the Germans will be using to transport troops along the rear area of the D-Day beaches. In order to prevent them from rapidly shuttling reinforcements to the landing zones, you'll need to take the village from the entrenched Germans and hold it until the invasion forces have advanced far enough inland to relieve you.

The quest begins in a narrow corridor through a cow field, which is bordered on either side by mines. There are three machine gun emplacements in the buildings to the west of your starting point, and the cow field itself will take a few mortar rounds as you head through, so stay away from the craters in the ground.

There are two ways to proceed along the cow field. First, you can head up along the right flank of the soldiers, use your M1A1 Carbine to snipe out the rightmost machine gunner, and then jump over the broken fence to kill the other machine gunners in the building nearby. At close range, they won't be able to let go of the machine guns quickly enough to prevent you from unloading your Browning in their faces.

Leaning out from behind the tree gives you an excellent opportunity to take out this gunner.

Alternately, you can head up along the left side of the cow field, hide behind one of the trees near a crater, and then use your M1A1 to snipe the rightmost machine gunner, as well as the gunner in the upper floor of the building ahead. You may have to wait until he's aiming at one of your teammates, however, since he's an awfully small target when he's firing at you.

After the first building is cleared, Cpt. Foley will call to your squad to begin moving up the street. Take note of the halftrack down the road with another machine gunner perched atop it. You won't be able to kill him until you've cleared out the second building to the south, along with the other Germans that will rush you from the burning church here. After there's a lull in the fighting, bring out whatever ranged weapon you have and lean around a corner to get a good shot at the machine gunner's head. When you spot a flying helmet, you'll know that it's time to move on.

Now that you've arrived at the village proper, the number of German troops increases dramatically. They'll fill most of the windows and doorways in the buildings across the street, and there'll be another machine gunner off to the north of where you'll turn the corner. Your best bet is to chuck a grenade or two into the buildings across the street, then run across to the small bit of cover afforded by the bend of the brick wall directly to the south of the first building the Germans occupy. From here, you can proceed along the building, filling any Germans in the windows with lead, and using your grenades to send the rest of the troops scattering. You'll probably be running low on ammo for your Thompson, so if you haven't already, this is a good time to ditch it in favor of a German MP40.

Another difficult sequence occurs immediately after you cross the road, as you make your way across the small set of buildings in the courtyard of the church and attempt to take over that building. If you're having trouble with this area, you can simply proceed far enough into the courtyard until you trigger the scripted advance of the Germans, then just lie prone beneath a fence until your teammates advance beyond your position. They'll do a fair job of killing the Germans for you, after which you can bust out whatever ranged weapon you have and dispatch the machine gunner in the church.

When you're in the clear, head into the church and kill off anyone left inside. There's a hole in the western end of the building, which forms a nice little roost from which you can kill off the Germans manning the machine guns and the mobile flak cannon outside. Do so and head back to the courtyard to find a passageway leading to the AA vehicle, then use your explosives on it and get around a corner before it blows.

That's a hefty gun, but these Germans are about to find out that it isn't much use against an incoming grenade.

There are still two AA vehicles to destroy, so don't get cocky yet. The next one is a ways past the first, and is covered by a half-dozen or so Germans behind the destroyed wall of a building. Let your teammates proceed around the corner ahead of you; you can either follow them around and attempt to flank the Germans from the right, or just use whatever cover you can get to lean around and snipe the Germans from the left of your teammates' defensive position. Whichever method you prefer should work.

When the German threat has been eliminated, you may wish to root through their corpses to find an FG42. This scoped rifle is capable of automatic or semiautomatic fire, and has a zoom distance much, much greater than the M1A1 carbine, or indeed any of the rifles that you've encountered so far. It and an MP40 make a fine pair of weapons that will serve you well in any combat situation.

Destroy the flak cannon here and move through the small passage to the west to begin your trek to the village square. Another flak cannon is parked in the corner of this small road, but don't run directly toward it; there's a machine gun set up across the way, hidden behind a brick wall so that it's difficult to spot from most of the street. You can attempt to circle around the machine gunner by heading up the right side of the street, or just bust out your FG42 and snipe him when he comes into view.

After the crew of the last AA vehicle has been dispatched, grab any ammo from them that you require and blow the vehicle. Cpt. Foley will call a little meeting right in the middle of the street, which doesn't seem very wise, but it does end the mission.