Captain Fluffy

Interesting about the Boat ending... though, technically if you've abandoned your position, the Russians have beaten you back. I had many of these problems over the course of my many tries to complete this mission. Strategy after stategy each different have appeared here. To me, ther most enjoyable way to play is with captured equipment. A single Carl Gustov fired just right into a T80 will kill the driver and (not in all cases) render the vehicle with minor damage only, you then shoot the crew as they get out. While I was unable to capture any of the BMP's or T72's I was able to capture the 2nd T80 that comes from up the road where you were initially ambushed. I've not been able to get the first one in many attempts. So, with me as commander I order two others into the T80, the rest are in the Vulcan and Bradley, who have survived by hiding amongst the houses. If you head up the road towards that town the convoy was going to you should notice a realatively undamaged M60A1 parked in the town. I crewed it with my posotive head count. Next, I head back up towards the coast and notice a T72 patrolling near a Fuel Station, loading a heat round I fire into the drivers compartment at 400 yards. Killed the driver, the crew jumped out and I gunned them down. Unfortunately, the magazine exploded so I wasn't able to recover that tank, another T80 was on my right perched near an M113, the Bradley TOW, my T80 Sabot and the M60 Sabot took it out in one salvo. At this point I have a Vulcan, T80, M60 and the Bradley. In formation I drive all over the map and take out another 4 T80's and at least one BMP along the way, many infantry are engaged but the Vulcan makes short work of them. I'm not too sure about all this court marshalling you are all speaking about as I have yet to get that status. It is a frustrating mission, but after completing it once I've played it several times again to better my score. I've been focussing on keeping my guys alive as I tend to lose one or both of my APC's before I get to the Hostital. Laying mines can help but I've been albe to succeed with all men at engage at will and me sitting near the ammo crates with a Carl G in my hands. I hide the Bradley and Vulcan to the right in the house that is sort of an L shape (near rear AT barricade), this provides frontal and right flank (Hind entrance point) protection. So far, when ordered they have taken the Hind out as it flies over their heads, usually the Hind doesn't get the chance to turn around and the crew eject over the water or too low to survive. You have to be quick with the rockets though or the T72's stroll into town and waste your APC's. And yes, the M21 and LAW are the best two starting weapons. After liquidating the BMP's I go get the CG AT rocket. I've not needed the AA so far and the Russians that arrive a bit late on each side of the town are quickly dispatched by the Vulcan, though I assist by taking out the RPG troopers first. The heavy grenadiers are a real pain, they fire so many grenades if your guys are clumped together, they're toast. Also, as noted by other posts, I have found out first hand that although you only need a gunner and driver in a tank to operate it, they are at least 50% slower in responding to orders and will typically not take the initiative to "engage at will" without a commander. Found this out with the M60, it was the last to engage and usually the battle was over, the Vulcan and Bradley had full crews and were Mapping Tool"lly helpful in most combat situations, though they tend to avoid T80 confrontations, even when ordered - perhaps smart for them, but I wouldn't mind a diversion or two so I could get a round off without getting hit in return. Oops, a bit long winded

I took a Hind from the nearby base and that was when I found out you could fly over the house to take the documents, though I had planned on landing... To get the Hind, observation of base personnel movement is important. You will note all of the guys in the base appear to be near the Shilka and parked Hinds at one point on their little walk about. Now this is a little hard to explain, but this is basically what I did... Creep up the the one corner of the base that conveniently has no guard tower, walk along the wall to the base of the hill-side tower (manned) and set a sachel charge, now double back and using your map, wait until you are in line with the Shilka, stop and plant a charge against the wall here too, now go along the wall behind the Choppers, plant a charge close to but not right beneath the unmanned guard tower. Now get back to a safe distance but one where you can quickly get up and charge... If you time it right, you can nail almost 100% of the base personnel with these three charges, thus taking down the walls and severely damaging or destroying the Shilka and the Hind you don't want to steal, most likely the crews will be killed as they are walking about anyway. I had to try this several times to get it just right, but I took out all the infantry, the pilots and the Shilka crew with sachel charges alone, the only resistance was the guard tower near the base entrance, he was too far away, but I was on the opposite side of the chopper when I got in so he was unable to target me. I was in the air before any other units could respond to the explosions. Interestingly enough, you should take the Hind closest to the barracks, the one in the corner appears to actually be 2 Hinds sitting on top of each other (and could be heavily damaged by the explosion). In one of my attempts, some of the crew survived and after I took off I was wheeling around to make a pass only to see this Hind take off while leaving another one in its place. Strange but true. The Shilka on the beach is not alone, there is a Russian Patrol Boat on the shore nearby. I was also finally able to get into the house and out again without setting off the alarm. You have to crawl. I set sachel charges in the bushes on each side of the house and the third where the BMP stops behind the house. After I got the documents I went into the woods, waited for the BMP to stop and blew the charges, I got pretty much everyone around the house in one shot, I could have done that first and then gone into the house unopposed, but I wanted to see if I could get in and out undetected.

If you don't get into the chopper right away they will shoot you. I was able to complete the mission with dash and grab technique (do a 180 and run behind the house and grap a PK) but it took me several frustrated tries to get it right, the easiest was to steal the chopper, once you're out, just sit still for about 8 seconds, look around and you will see most of the Russians have their backs turned, run to the chopper but make sure you run around to the far side, they are less likely to hit you. If you get the copper, kill what you want and head south, there is a small base with a US Army Jeep and some troops. Once you land and get out the final cut scene will appear, you will have skipped over the Cold and Hungry at night sequence. I completed it in 9 minutes in a replay after I had initially completed it. There are some Shilka threats, I think I counted three all together on my flight path. The gunner only really helps you aim the cannons. No gunner makes going up against another Aircraft a problem, speaking of which, if you head due south along the same coast line the town you escape from is on, you will probably run into another hind, it was best for me to go over the hills inland to the opposite side and then head south following the shoreline. But hey, there are dozens of ways to complete this mission.

One more thing to try, is on the waypoint you want the men to unload in, place an invisible H, this will designate to the chopper where to "drop it's load". I was attempting to get a Chinook to do a similar thing, and it would come in, touch the ground and then fly off without dropping anyone, after placing the invisible H with the appropriate transport unload, everything worked.

Make sure you are in advaced mode not the easy one, you'll see this in the top right of the screen. Then you should be able to place an empty anything on the map.

Run half way up the hill with the lighthouse on it, wait for your Eastern friends to show up near your base (not too near mind you), then fire a flare in the air, enjoy the next few seconds as they realize something's not right and hit the dirt, now they are slow easy targets, fire down on them and you win. Of course I didn't know you could do more until now, I did see the M2 but the Hind flew by and out of range before I could do anything. Or, you could go directly to the sea and get them outright, that way you have time to do the other things. So many of the OFP missions are fun I can't figure out which one is my favourite.

When I did this I got a -2000 score. I nailed everything I could find. But I think what did it was I took one of the hinds and then ordered my men to take the other two. The three of us assumed formation and the one enemy Hind airborne wasn't much of problem. Once we cleared the base and a few targets here and there, we landed in a field next to the extraction point. Not wanting to leave three hinds sitting there, I blew them all at the same time with my three sachel charges, I think the game assigned these choppers as friendly units once I took it over, though it was not listed as a friendly kill. No other idea comes to mind why I'd have a negative score. Incidentally, I was unable to get my guys to land. So here I am on the ground with 3 guys in 2 choppers hovering over me in "V" formation. What to do, what to do, ah ####, "All, eject!". Three chutes and two choppers that survived a 100 foot fall. That's when I blew them all up. And I just woundn't be me if I hadn't picked an LZ with a bunch of Infantry hiding in the woods. They almost got us.