I've already expressed myself at some length about this mission, and particularly the end of it. It detracts so much from the enjoyment of having finished the game that I advise against running it at all. You won't be missing anything; it's not particularly difficult and for the most part not very interesting.

But you're going to do it, aren't you? And I can't blame you. These games cost a lot of money, after all; might as well try everything you paid for.

Well, it's not a bad mission, in the sense of being impossibly difficult or buggy or anything like that; in fact it's pretty easy, especially with a man in disguise. (And not all that much harder without.) The first part is fun, too, in a silly-ass sort of way.

German bunker, of the large concrete semi-buried kind, located on a rural hillside. Radio transmitter operating from a truck just up the road.

Shut down the radio transmitter. Take control of the tank parked nearby. Enter the bunker and obtain (oh my goodness, can it be?) SECRET DOCUMENTS. Defend against attack by allied units.

Equipment for this one can be pretty basic; in fact a couple of the men strictly speaking could go in unarmed - by the time they need small arms the ground is practically carpeted with them - but of course you don't want to do that. The MP-44s are fine for this job; your #1 might want to carry a knife too.

A couple of sniper rifles would be worth taking, and a few clips apiece. If you've got any grenades left you might take a couple. If not don't worry about it.

You start out on a hillside looking down at the German radio station, which consists of a truck surrounded by barbed wire and a Panther medium tank parked next to it, all on top of a little hill. As #1, run down the road, angling toward the left side of the hill; if you keep moving nobody will get a clear enoguh look to blow your disguise. Come up the north side of the hill and take over the tank.

Now you can have some sadistic fun. The Germans will scatter in panic as you fire up the tank, but you should be able to get into position where you can switch to the machine gun and wipe out a bunch of them. What's really fun, though, is running them down. Kind of like Grand Theft Auto.

When you've got them all suitably deceased, either by gunfire or heavy metal, you can bring the other men down from the hillside to join you. One man before boarding the tank needs to go up to the radio truck - careful of that barbed wire - and turn off the "switch" located at the right rear corner. It's a little hard to find; look down, it's not at eye level.

(You have to turn it off by this means. You can put half a dozen cannon shells through the door of that radio van and it still won't show that you've silenced the radio until you flip that damn fool switch.)

Now off down the dirt road for some more cheap fun. Order the man on the main gun to hold fire, so he doesn't waste the few shells; you'll need them in a minute. Germans will appear ahead and on both sides; swing the tank from side to side to give the machine gunner a shot at them.

Turn off the road to the left and run over the fence and clean out that encampment. (Very sturdy tents, they'll stop a Panther tank.) Then swing back the other way, toward the bunker, and let the machine gunner suppress opposition there. Take over the main gun long enough to blow up those two 20mm. flak guns.

Move the tank up near the barbed wire barrier and very carefully aim the main gun at the three machine gun positions in the front of the bunker. (Right; major fortification and the total fixed defensive armament consists of two machine guns.) One is located inside that small doorway, one is to the left of the big main entrance - a dark square - and the other is on the other side of the small door and very hard to see. Hammer those positions with the main gun till you run out of shells and it wouldn't hurt to empty a few belts of machine gun ammo into them too.

When the machine gunner can't find any more targets it's time to get out and walk. Don't try to drive the tank up the road to the bunker; the gap in the barbed wire is heavily mined and while it's possible with patience to find and defuse all the mines - I've done it - there's no real advantage to be gained by doing so.

Leave the machine gunner till last, so he can help provide cover if more Germans show up. #1 gets out first, and looks around to see if there are any surviving Germans in the area, before going through the gap in the wire and up into the woods to the west of the road. Bring the other two men up to join him.

Now it's #1's cue. Run down to the road and up across the log bridge; don't bother crouching, it just slows you down. The machine guns may or may not be knocked out by now but in any case you're in disguise. As you run you may hear gunshots but don't stop. A German or two may have shown up - often there's one up on the roof of the bunker - but your posse should take them down easily.

The big front door doesn't go anywhere but it makes good cover while you let your disguise come back up, if needed. Then around and into the small door, crouching down in case that machine gun is still in action, which is very possible; the shelling doesn't always get them.

Watch the entryway to your right; somebody may come out and present himself for shooting. If not, inch your way around till you can see into the front room and shoot somebody.

Pull back and wait; with any luck another German or two will come through the door. Damn fools, didn't anybody ever tell them not to take a pistol to a machine gun fight?

Once one of them tried to surrender. I shot him. I already had a disguise; what would I do with a second one?

Go on into the front room now and shoot anybody who's still alive. Check the machine gun position to the left of the entryway and kill the gunner if he's still on his feet. Open the door on the right side of the entryway and kill the other machine gunner in the big room there. Watch the front room; a man will probably come out of that little side room with the barred door. A minute or so later another one may come through the big door on the far side of the front room.

When things are quiet in the entrance area, go back outside and around the front of the bunker to the west side. Keep going and you'll see a place where the barbed wire comes almost but not quite up to the concrete. You can get through there if you get down and crawl.

On the other side, keep on going up the hill and around the back of the bunker till you get where you can climb on top. Admire the view for a moment if you like and then move over to the northwest corner, where you will find a hole - not a hatch, just a hole, must get pretty wet down there when it rains - with a ladder leading down.

If you've got any grenades on you, drop a couple down the hole. If not, just go on down and shoot the two men in the small room. Go back up the ladder and down the hill the way you came, through the wire and back into the front room of the bunker.

Now it's safe to bring up the rest of your team. Leave yourself there and get one of your men waiting over in the woods, and bring him over the bridge and then to the left, up alongside the bunker and through that gap between the wire and the concrete, up onto the roof and down the ladder into the hole. Have him take over the machine gun there.

Bring the other two men in through the front entrance and put them on the two machine guns on either side of the entryway. If one of your men is something of a weak link, put him on the one at the doorway; his targets will be right in his face so he can hardly miss.

Now #1 can get back to work. Go through the door on the far side of the front room. There may be a German in the room beyond though probably not. There are two doors on the far side; use either of them, it doesn't matter. Go up the passage a short way and you'll see a guard. Shoot him or knife him, recharge, and move on, following the rails. Up ahead the passage narrows and then widens again, and there you'll see another guard on your right. Don't shoot him; run on past him and get over to the right, out of his sight. There's a third guard down at the end of the passage, crouched down behind a hand trolley.

Shoot him first and then go back and get the one in the passage. Now back to the end and you'll see two big doors. Go through the far one - the northern one - and look ahead and to your right. There's a big open doorway to the next room, where three Germans are waiting for you. Get where you can see the one next to the door and shoot him, and then wait for the others to come after you.

Sometimes one of them hangs back and you have to go in after him. Anyway go on through that room and look for a doorway on your left, with a short flight of steps. There's another German in the room up there; you may even be able to see him from where you are.

Back out into that outer room where you came in, and look toward the north wall; you'll see a door. Open it and look up the hallway. You should see a guard, probably in the room at the end though he may be walking the hallway. Bust him and get back out of sight.

There are three more guards in a room off the one where you just shot that guy. They may come around the corner into the hallway where you can shoot them. If they don't, though - and they probably won't - you'll have to go get them. There are several ways you could do this, but the crude and simple way is to pick up a Panzerfaust (there are a couple lying quite near the door) and go up the hall and open the door and fire a rocket in among them. Run back down the hall, switch to the MP-44 and shoot any survivors when they come out.

There's also an officer down a side corridor to the right; he may decide to get in on the action. If not you'll have to go look for him after you're done with the guards.

For God's sake save the game right now.

Because you're about to take those documents off the officer (at least they're not lying around on a table or a filing cabinet this time) and when you do all hell, to coin an original phrase, is going to break loose.

Specifically, you'll get a cut scene, and at the end you'll find yourself miraculously transported back to the entrance area - where you'll almost certainly be standing in a completely useless place, staring at a blank wall - with the Red Army trying to come in the door. Things will get very busy, and confusing, for a little while.

So do a save, and reload your weapon, and go over to the departed Superman and confiscate the documents; and watch the cut scene if you don't mind having your intelligence insulted, and then get ready to move very fast.

When the cut scene ends you will, as I say, be in a hopeless spot; probably you'll be standing in the front entryway, in fact, which isn't good at all so run back into the front room and stand where you can cover the entrance. Not that you're likely to have anything to shoot at if your men are any good at all.

Switch quickly to your three men on the machine guns and make sure they are on the MGs rather than just standing behind them - hit Use if necessary - and then return to #1 and let them do their work; they'll do it better if you just leave them to it.

When the firing slacks up you might like to take over one of the MGs. Be warned, it's not that easy; there are no sights whatever and you have to aim by watching the point of impact, which is just a little reddish flash. And the MGs don't have a lot of ammo to spare; in fact the one on the entrance has very little.

However, it's a good way to get a look outside and see how things are going; and there may be a few guys out there whom the AI didn't spot. Look over to the right in particular.

When things settle down you can take a sniper rifle to the doorway and do a little sniping at any targets that remain. Take your time and eliminate everybody you can find; even one will be big trouble when you finally have to go out there. Don't worry about the armored vehicle, it hasn't got a machine gun and it never uses its big gun.

When you're pretty sure the coast is clear, go back to the rear of the front room and pick up a Panzerfaust and head out the front door. There's no point in crouching or crawling; if there are no Soviet guns covering that bridge you'll make it, and if you've missed one you won't, regardless of what position you're in, so just get up on your hind legs and run down that path and across that bridge.

Angle off to the right and into the woods. There's a good chance one or two of your heroic Socialist allies may still be skulking around up there, so move cautiously and look carefully around and ahead as you move.

Now if you feel like putting a little interest in the job, you could dump your weapon and take two Panzerfausts - it's certainly quite possible that you'll need them, and more - and then when you get outside and across the bridge, toss one of the Panzerfausts where you can find it easily and pick up a weapon off one of the recently deceased. There are still plenty of Germans lying around, and some of them have MP-44s, but you might like to pick up a PPSh submachine gun if you can find one. I did that once, and ran into a Comrade up in the woods a moment later, and it was fun parting him in twain with the Shpagin - but of course I could have done just as well with the MP-44. It's just that there are all these interesting weapons lying around and it seems you ought to be able to get some use out of them.

Pick up another of your blokes - maybe the one on the doorway machine gun - and have him grab a Panzerfaust too, and bring him down to join you. Watch the area over on the far side of the valley, up on that little hill by that sandbagged position; there may be one or two stragglers up there. You may need to swap the Shpagin for a Mosin rifle to get the range to pick them off.

When absolutely all the infantry have been eliminated, you are now ready to attack the armored vehicle, which some have referred to as a tank. It is no such thing; it is a self-propelled artillery piece, in Red Army terminology a SAU, specifically an SU-85. Among other things this means it has no machine gun and no traversable turret, so you're quite safe walking up to it with your Panzerfaust.

Unfortunately it tends to be pretty safe from you, too. The damn thing is really hard to destroy. You may very well have to have another man come down and bring another couple of Panzerfausts; you may even wind up with a relay going on. Luckily, as you no doubt noticed, there are plenty inside the bunker.

The best place to aim seems to be from behind at an angle, just about at those cylindrical fuel tanks. Keep trying and eventually you'll hit the magic spot.

And with that you are done. I hope you enjoyed yourself and I hope these notes were of some help.

Now go back and run it again and see if you can find better ways to run these missions. I bet you can.

Smart bastard.