Another tough and gritty little operation in the Ardennes campaign. Not quite as realistic as the previous one, but still not totally farfetched; and no really goofy stuff involved. Pretty difficult, but then you wouldn't want it to be too easy, would you?

MISSION: You're supposed to be trying to locate some American prisoners taken by the SS. Not liberate them, necessarily, just find out what's become of them. In practical terms this means you have to get to the top of the hill where (for mysterious reasons) they've been taken. Then you have to make your way to the exit. The briefing tells you you have to escape by the main road, but this is entirely untrue; you have to escape by a very short stretch of the main road just before the exit, but otherwise you can get there any way you like.

CONDITIONS: Daytime. Snowing. Visibility not very good but not blind.

THE OPPOSITION: Thirty or more Germans spread around the area; I don't know exactly how many because I've never run this mission in such a way that it was necessary to kill or even engage them all.

The biggest concentration is located on top of a high hill - the one you have to climb, of course - but there are also several along the main road, including one pretty tough little group in a building near the bridge down below the big hill.

Tanks - at least two, I think three - but only one you have to do anything about. Mines in some areas, but not nearly as many as the briefing would have you believe. One fixed MG emplacement.

PERSONNEL: For this one you better march out your top guns: McGatt, Vanguard, Stirling, guys like that. They're going to have to shoot fast and hard and straight on several occasions, and there will be no room for error or failure; any man who drops the ball will have his shot off.

EQUIPMENT: One bazooka, three rounds, or equivalent number of Panzerfausts. (You shouldn't need but one, but misses do happen.) One scoped rifle. MPs for everybody, and plenty of ammo - MP-40s or MP-44s are better for this than Thompsons or Stens because they can use ammo picked up off dead enemies. A few grenades.

AT THE START: You're standing around the jeep on the main highway. There's a side road to the left and a small bridge up ahead.

PROCEDURE: Immediately pull up the map. You've got to move everyone and a follow-me won't do. Some guys are going to come up that side road and you need everybody in position to deal with them.

Zoom in on the area where you're standing. Off to the left of the road, see where there's a kind of low cliff or rock face, sloping down toward the side road? Using map commands, get your people over to the area next to the low end of the rock face, where they can cover the north end of that side road. Have them lie or crouch and give them Guard on the side road.

Fold the map and take off with them. Find a good firing position and get down. Watch the side road, as far up as you can see. Three men are going to come up the road toward you. Get them with your MP. You'll probably take them out before the others can fire but that's OK; two more men are going to come running across that field on the other side of the side road, over by the bridge, and they're the ones your boys will take out. Notice how many of them there are; there should be two, but if there's only one then make a note of it for later.

Once the firing stops and the bodies are on the ground, pull up the map again, fast, and delete the Guard commands and get everyone back on their feet and issue movement commands to take them back to the jeep. You don't have to be precise, just get them out of the area where they are, it's about to become very unsafe. While you've got the map open, check on the present location of that tank coming up the side road.

While they're taking off, stand up and turn around and run back along the base of the cliff. A short way along, you'll find a spot where there is a kind of very shallow crease or fold in the rock, running up at an angle from left to right. You can run up this to the top. Do so, quickly.

At the top take a second to reload your weapon if necessary, and then run through the snowy woods to the southwest, keeping out of sight of the side road. Switch to the bazooka. Use third person to check on the tank's progress up the road.

Don't panic about the tank. It's not going to charge around the corner and blow your guys up; it's going to stop before reaching the corner. How long it'll stay stopped I can't guarantee, but the point is you've got time to do this, so don't do anything hasty and get yourself killed.

Try to come up to the edge of the bluff in a position angled a little to the rear of the tank, using third person to get yourself lined up. Then step forward until you see the tank and aim at the turret and fire. You should be rewarded by a very gratifying explosion. If you blew it, try again, that's why we took extra rounds and you won't need the bazooka again this mission anyway.

As soon as the tank blows, switch to your MP and be on the alert for a man crossing the road and coming up the hill toward you. There's only one place he can get up to you so it's not all that hard to get him before he gets you. This will happen if only one man charged across that field on the other side of the road. If you guys definitely got two of them, in addition to the three who came up the road, then you're probably OK, but be alert just in case.

Make your way down to the road - careful, it's very precipitous and of course in H&D even a jump-trained SAS commando can be killed by the most ridiculous little pissant fall - and cross it, watching the area by the bridge. On the other side of the stream, just beyond the bridge, you'll see a man crouched down and waiting. Use the MP or the rifle and end his wait. (Now and then he decides to charge in the direction of the jeep; if he does you can easily blow him away.) There may be a second man over there too. Go and check it out; you're going to need to have this intersection clear later on.

All right, now the preliminaries are out of the way we can get on with the mission.

Load everybody into the jeep and have them drive down to the intersection and turn up the side road, past the demolished tank. Let them stop and pick you up - you might want to pause to scavenge up some extra MG ammo, you're going to need lots and lots of it; some of the stiffs have those nice German grenades too - and then everybody motor on up the side road.

Not very far, though. (Actually you could just leave the jeep and walk, it's not that far, but this way is easier to keep everybody together.) Go slowly and watch for a place where the road starts to climb a little rise. Off to the right the ground will be rising in a good-sized hill; just past the rise is another low rock face. Don't drive that far, though. Stop and park the jeep before you reach the top of the rise.

This is something I don't quite understand, but it seems to be one of those triggers: if you drive on down to the next intersection, there will be a guard patrolling in an area that will create major problems for you. If you stop here, he never seems to show up. Don't ask me.

Anyway, everybody out of the jeep. Leave them there and run up the hillside to the right of the road, moving southwest, toward the top but staying to the left of the crest. Moving cautiously, and using third person view, find the machine gun post at the edge of the cliff overlooking the main road. Don't do anything about it yet, just note the location and then back away. You won't be spotted; they're facing toward the main road, backs to you.

Get down and move southwest, across the more or less level space toward the little clump of trees. Still using third person, you'll see that there's a path leading up to the machine gun post, and that it's dug into the snow so that it forms a kind of trench. See if there's anybody in it. There shouldn't be, but if there is, wait and see if he goes away.

Assuming the coast is clear, bring your men up by the same route you took and have them lie down at the end of the level area, near you. Make sure they're where they can't see anything at all.

Once they're all on top of the hill, crawl them down the slope to the southwest and deploy them so that they're covering the bend in the snow trench. Assign Guard to each of them for that area. Now go back up to the top and shoot the machine gun crew in the back.

Immediately reload and run back down to join your men, staying low and being careful of course. Actually you probably won't get there in time. As soon as anybody fires a shot up here, these four Germans from the building across the highway come running up the path toward the top, and as they come around the bend your people will take their heads off. It will only take a very short time and then there will be a row of four bodies at the bottom of the snow trench.

All right, back up. What if there was a guard in that trench? Obviously you can't move your men into position while he's there; they'd get him but things would get confused and they need to be in position to take out the guard detail.

I was only in this situation once, but what I did was ignore the machine gun crew for the moment and grenade the fool in the trench, and then pull up the map and use it to hustle my boys into position before the guards showed up. It worked, but just barely.

Once the snow trench has been cleared, delete all Guard commands and then wait a little while; now and then a stray German shows up from God knows where and your men need to be free to deal with him.

When it's all quiet, take two of your men, including your best shot, and go up to the machine gun position, leaving one man to cover the slope against unexpected visitors. Put your best shot somewhere near the sandbags and give him Guard on the main highway where it intersects with that little side road to the north. Have the other man take over the machine gun and give him Guard on the same area.

Now move off to the right of the MG position a little way, and out near the edge of the cliff - careful, careful - and get out the rifle. Over on the far side of the main highway, beyond the intersection, is a two-man German guard detail. You'll have to do some hard looking to find them, but eventually you'll see one of them. Shoot him. The other one will dash across the road with the intention of climbing up and attacking you, but your guys will get him.

When they do, the easy part of this mission is over. From here on it gets dangerous.

Take everybody down the snow trail and across the footbridge to the other side of the highway, and gather by the wooden building. Now move your men one by one into position a little southwest of the house. Make sure they've all got full clips in their weapons. Have them crouch or lie down facing southwest, looking past the rock face on the right. See at the end of the rock face, where a snowbank forms a kind of ramp from the hillside down to the level? Give them all Guard on that point. Take your time on this. In fact you could move yourself down to that point - it's safe, if you don't go any farther; just stand there by where the rock face ends and the snow begins - and use yourself as the aiming point for the Guard commands. Take your time and do this right, because this mission will fail or succeed depending on how well you handle this part.

Right, now for the scary stuff.

Run down along the base of the rock face and turn up the hill - turn right just as soon as you can get up there, don't go any farther than you absolutely have to. (There's a bunch of guys out in the field farther along the highway and if you go much farther they'll come after you.) Go to third person, so you can see ahead better, and move yourself up the hill, going due north. Get down in a crouch as you move.

You're moving toward the hilltop, where there's a big concentration of SS thugs who have just murdered a bunch of American paratroopers and would like to do the same to you. As you progress up the hill, eventually you will reach a point where you can see them, in third person view, up there against the skyline.

Take a moment to study their arrangement. Usually they'll be all bunched up, just a few of them visible from where you are. Now and then there'll be one or two standing guard off to one side, closer to you.

Go to first person and move forward step by step until you can see them. If they're in a bunch, spray them with the contents of your clip and try to get all the ones you can see. (Which probably won't be more than two or three.) If there's one standing nearer you, shoot him but don't try for the others.

Now turn and haul ass down that hillside the way you came, just as straight and fast as you can. You should be heading due south - though it's a piss-poor time to be checking the compass - and if you do it right you'll come out at the edge of a little drop and jump off that and land on the snow trail. Turn left and keep running, on down past your men and into the shelter of the rock.

Not that anybody will be chasing you. Not yet. But just in case, get behind the house or something before reloading.

Wait, now, for a few minutes. See, what you did just now wasn't meant to kill any significant number of the enemy - though every one helps - but to flush them off that hill. They'll come down toward where you were standing when you shot at them, but at this point they won't go any farther. But they're off the hill, where they were safe, and that's the first thing. So give them time to move around and then regroup.

OK, back along the foot of the rock face, this time more slowly and carefully. As you get near the end, turn and face the rock and go to third person wide angle, so you can see up into the woods. Move slowly, little by little, until you see a bunch of figures standing under the trees a short way up the slope. Pause to shit bricks; there's a lot of them, huh?

No sweat, you're about to do something about that. Go back to first person, make sure you've got a full clip, and ease sidewise - probably you'll pass a little tree - until you can see them, or a few of them; just a few is plenty. Give them a quick squirt with the MP - don't stick around for anything more, you're not trying to inflict casualties, just sucker them into chasing you - and turn and run like a son of a bitch back along the base of the rock face, staying tight against it so that when it bends to the left you go with it, into the sheltered area where you can pause and reload.

You may or may not have time to drop down and wiggle out into position alongside your men. It'll help if you can, though. Those SS bastards are going to come running down that snowy part at the end of the rock face, in pursuit of your own precious ass, and they're going to get their Aryan nuts shot off because it's a bottleneck and your guys have them cold. Or they do if you brought first-class men.

Give it plenty of time; they'll come in ones and twos rather than in a solid wave, and you'll think it's over and here will come another one. You won't believe how many there are.

When you're sure no more are coming, reload - and make sure everybody else does - and repeat your little sneak along the rock face, and have another third person look up the hillside.

If you're lucky, there's nobody left up there under the trees but the ones you already killed. (If any.) Very likely, though, there'll be one or two still standing there beside the stiffs, looking very nervous as well they might.

Getting them is a bit harder. You don't want to try to shoot them where they are, because they're on edge and facing right in your direction; they'll kill you the instant you show yourself.

Toss a few grenades up the slope toward them. You won't hit anything - the range is a little too far - but you'll make them very nervous; you'll see them shifting and jittering around. Then try firing a quick burst into the treetops, over their heads or nearby. That usually does it; you'll see them start to move and at that point you better do the same. If you've pissed them off enough they'll come charging after the others, and of course meet the same fate.

You may have to tease them quite a bit but eventually they'll almost certainly break. If all else fails, though, you can go down the road to the northeast, down by the intersection, and turn up the hillside there, and work your way through the woods and try to get them from behind. But that's a dangerous business and I can't recommend it.

Once you've cleared them all away you can go back up the hill toward the top again. Use third person again, and stay down as you approach the crest, in case there are any more SS up there. (If so, you might be able to grenade them.) Probably there won't be, though, except for the ones you hit in your first attack.

As you reach the top you'll get a completion message. Go on and have a look, though. You'll find a number of bodies wearing the crest of the US 101st Airborne. You've found the murdered prisoners. Looking at them, you feel better about killing the ones who did it.

Now there's nothing left but to get out of there. Go back down the hill and collect everybody and move them down to that intersection where you took out that two-man guard detail. One man can now go get the jeep. It's a lot shorter if you just cut across the mountain - check the map for directions.

Bring the jeep up and get everybody in. Don't go any farther up the main road; there's nothing but trouble there - lots of tanks and infantry - and who needs it? Turn up the side road instead, to the northwest.

STAY OFF THE ROAD. THE ROAD IS MINED. Just drive along to the right of the road; hell, this is a jeep you've got there, it doesn't need a road anyway.

When you come to a crossroads, keep going straight. Some way on, you'll come to another intersection. Take the road to the left. You are now getting near the exit point. There is a tank on the main road where you have to go but it's moving on; use the map to check on its location, and let it rumble on down the highway. As soon as it's moved on past the intersection, drive on down to the main highway - still staying off the side road, but pretty close to it now; go between the road and that last tree - and turn right. Now it's OK to get onto the road. You should at this point get a completion message.

If you've completed this mission and the previous one at Hard level without losing any men, you've got something to be proud of.