"Hostomel Heroes", "hard" level, part four

March 6, 2022, Stoyanka settlement

“Our work is not always pleasant, but someone has to do it.”

General Dekker, “Brotherhood of Steel”

The task doesn’t seem too difficult: destroy five enemy convoys. But, first of all, their spawn points are unpredictable and change after each game load. Secondly, your reinforcements’ spawn point is behind enemy lines. And thirdly, the mission may not have a timer, but it is still time-based: as soon as you deal with the fifth convoy, the mission will end.

To keep you from getting bored while waiting for the convoys, enemies will attack from different directions; they will use bombers and artillery.

So it is important that your infantry squads are equipped to the maximum: be sure to have MANPADS, grenade launchers: the anti-tank “NLAW” and anti-personnel “M32.”

We will start with them and we will finish with them.

What you should not do: get distracted by additional missions to clear zones in the middle of the map. While you do that, inevitable losses will occur, and the convoy will slip away.

Therefore, we block the roads at the northern edge of the map and wait for the arrival of the convoys, fending off the audacious enemies. Most often, convoys appear at point #1; less often at point #2 (load the game, they cannot be caught) or at point #3 (they will head north to the intersection, then turn west toward the highway, there is a chance to intercept with armored vehicles).

If reinforcements are needed - as soon as they appear, send fighters and vehicles to the left to the edge of the map and move north: in this case, there is a chance to avoid attack.

 Sooner or later, northeast at point #4, mobile enemy artillery will appear: two self-propelled guns under the cover of two to three units of armored vehicles and infantry. It is extremely tempting to capture at least one gun out of the two, but how to do it?

This is interesting!

To capture, you need to force the crew to leave a moderately or significantly damaged vehicle. Your armored vehicles instantly destroy the self-propelled guns; shots from the grenade launcher do too. Even machine-gun fire leads to ignition and subsequent explosion! I blocked all weapons from my infantry, leaving only assault rifles: still resulting in ignition and explosion.

Perhaps sniper fire or even fire from pistols would work, but the snipers were fighting with the next convoy at that time; I had to destroy the self-propelled guns. Very unfortunate...

On average, this mission takes about half an hour; it can be completed with the initial setup. But if there is an opportunity to capture enemy armored vehicles - why not take advantage of it?

Congratulations, you have completed this stage!

To be continued…