A brief guide to the weapons available or encountered in the game. Many of these appeared in the original Hidden & Dangerous, but there have been plenty of changes - the most striking of which is the introduction of the "iron sights" function, which allows you to aim the weapon using a sight picture rather than the pointing cross.

One-hand guns have very limited value in HD2, but now and then they do have their uses. You may, for example, want to provide a sniper with a handy backup weapon in case he gets involved in a close-quarters situation. Effectiveness seems rather inconsistently modeled: the enemy can use a pistol with great accuracy and kill you with one shot, but try using one yourself at any range beyond arm's reach and you'll find it about as effective as farting in their general direction.

Simple, well-made breaktop revolver, standard issue to British troops during World War II, though later replaced with the Smith & Wesson .38 and the Browning 9mm. Not very powerful. Not much favored by the SAS.

In The Game: Appears only once, in the hands of a crashed RAF pilot in the first campaign, and he doesn't get to use it unless you've really made a mess of things. No reason you or any of your men should have occasion to use it.

Big, powerful, reliable semiautomatic used by the American military for most of the twentieth century; still regarded by many as the finest combat handgun ever made. Quite popular with the SAS, who appreciated its stopping power.

In The Game: Available in the weapons menu, and if you do have occasion to give someone a pistol this is the only one worth bothering with.

The famous German 9mm. semiautomatic of World War I fame. By World War II it had largely been supplanted by the greatly superior P-38, but was still in widespread use. Despite its graceful appearance and pleasant feel, it was not a very good combat handgun, being prone to jamming, and its trigger pull was terrible.

In The Game: This is the pistol carried by both Germans (correct) and Italians (severely wrong) in HD2, so you'll encounter it often, and now and then in certain situations it could be worth picking one up for temporary use.

A very badly designed semiautomatic pistol in use by the Japanese in World War II; unreliable and clumsy to operate, it fired an oddball 8mm. cartridge with little stopping power. Except for prisoners shot execution-style at contact range, anybody who got killed with one had a right to feel ill-used by fate.

In The Game: Found only in the Burma campaign, mostly the second mission. Far more lethal there than it ever was in real life, but that's only in enemy hands; don't bother picking one up.

Soviet semiautomatic of crude appearance but excellent reliability, firing an amazingly powerful 7.62mm. cartridge (I happen to own a Czech pistol that fires the same round; I can attest to its awesome capabilities).

In The Game: Appears only in the last phase of the last mission, in enemy (!) hands; no reason you should ever be shot at with one, and no chance of getting to use it.

These are the weapons you'll most commonly be using in most missions. Along with the sniper rifle, they form the basis of your arsenal. Indispensible in close quarters and street fighting, though limited in range and accuracy in open country.

In The Game: Much better in HD2 than in real life, because it doesn't jam. Lightest of the available submachine guns, and therefore useful when you're having to watch the weight. As I say, the SAS seldom used the Sten, but then some of these aren't really SAS missions.

US military adaptation of the older "tommy gun" of Twenties gangster notoriety. Reliable and very powerful at short ranges, but both gun and ammunition were quite heavy. The SAS and other commando-type units were very big fans of the Thompson and used it extensively. However, the M-1 version is wrong for the earlier missions, as the British at first used the old Edward G. Robinson version, often with the St. Valentine's Day drum magazine.

In The Game: A great weapon for short-range fighting, historically authentic, and fun to fire; however the weight of the .45-caliber ammunition can be a problem in an extended campaign, and the 20-round clip is a bit short for really intense situations.

Standard German submachine gun throughout World War II. Excellent weapon, very reliable, good rate of fire, decent accuracy. Popular with the SAS, who made considerable use of captured weapons.

In The Game: You're going to get shot at with a lot of these, sometimes at pretty hard-to-believe ranges. Very likely you'll also wind up using them quite often, as a readily available replacement when your original weapons run low on ammo, or when you're operating in disguise. Or just because you prefer the weapon to any of the Allied equivalents, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that; it's a hell of a good gun.

Not a submachine gun at all, of course, but close enough for our purposes. Actually the first true assault rifle, and a very advanced design for its time, firing an intermediate-power cartridge combining adequate hitting power with reduced weight and recoil. Introduced late in the war and never in widespread use; mainly issued on the Eastern Front.

In The Game: The 44 only turns up in the last mission of the next to last campaign and then you have to take it off the enemy; and there's never really enough ammo. But it's widely regarded as the most desirable weapon in the game, and rightly so; it has tremendous firepower at close ranges. Accuracy, however, is rather undermodeled; try for an aimed shot and you may be disappointed.

Excellent short-range submachine gun very widely used by Soviet forces in WWII and later.

In The Game: Another one that only appears in the last part of the last mission, and you never even get a chance to get your hands on one until the mission is for all practical purposes over. I once came up with something really goofy just so I could try it out, and got to use it when I met up with a member of the victorious Red Army in the woods, and it performed well enough but nothing all that special. Never having fired the original, I can't say whether or not this one is modeled accurately.

Very important weapon in HD2; in many missions your sniper will be your Most Valuable Player. Unfortunately this aspect of the weapons menu is very faulty.

Very fine, outstandingly accurate rifle used by the US military for sniping as late as the Korean War - but never used by the SAS or any other British unit, with or without the scope. Despite this, for many missions this is the only scoped rifle available. Somebody should have his butt kicked very hard for this bit of nonsense, which I strongly suspect was part of an attempt to appeal to the US game market.

In The Game: As I say, sometimes it's all that they let you have. God damn it. Works perfectly well, of course. Just WRONG. And somehow they got the idea that the Springfield couldn't be topped up with individual rounds, but had be loaded with an en bloc clip like the M-1. Wrong again, and this peculiar error often causes problems in the game.

The good old British Enfield in its final version. Very accurate, very smooth to use - possibly the fastest bolt action ever issued in a military rifle - and much loved by the troops. Excellent sniper rifle when fitted with a scope.

In The Game: This should have been the standard issue sniper rifle for HD2, as it was in the old Hidden & Dangerous. (Not all the steps were forward.) Use it whenever it does become available, even if you don't care about historic authenticity, because its ten-round magazine means you don't have to pause and reload as often.

Another fine military rifle, perhaps not quite as pinpoint accurate as the Springfield or the Enfield, but plenty good enough all the same.

In The Game: Scoped Mausers occasionally turn up in enemy hands in certain missions; not as frequently as in the old HD, where they were all over the place - it was really embarrassing sometimes - but still more often than was the case in reality. Definitely worth picking up whenever the opportunity presents itself; the scope is easier to use in poor light, and you can use ammo taken from any German rifleman.

All three of the above rifles also occur, or are available, in non-scoped versions. There's no conceivable reason you should want to issue an iron sighted Springfield or Enfield, but now and then you might want to scavenge up an ordinary Mauser to hit a target out of range of your submachine gun.

Good quality if somewhat clumsy infantry rifle used by the Japanese in China and Manchuria, and as a second-string weapon in World War II although by then the standard issue was the more powerful Type 99.

In The Game: Encountered only in the two-mission Burma campaign. No reason you should ever use it. Try to avoid getting shot by one. Supposedly there is a sniper version in the game but I've never seen it. But I admit I haven't looked very hard.

Standard Soviet rifle, in various versions, through both World Wars. Very good rifle of its type, except for the essentially unusable safety (as it happens I own one), but slow to operate and limited in capacity.

In The Game: Again, it shows up only at the very tail end of the last mission and you never have occasion to use one. I did pick one up and frankly it looked more like an M-38 carbine (like mine) than the 91/30, but it's hard to tell sometimes in this game.

Superb semi-automatic rifle used by the US military throughout World War II. (And later; they issued me one for a time in the early sixties.) Easily the best general-issue infantry rifle of that war and one of the greatest combat rifles ever made. Very rugged construction, very reliable, very powerful.

In The Game: At first I thought this was another one that shouldn't be in the game, but then I saw a sign at the National Army Museum in London that stated that the British forces had indeed made some use of the M-1 in Southeast Asia. So apparently it's OK for the Burma campaign, and it certainly adds much-needed firepower to the team. Only disadvantage is the en bloc loading: you have to fire the whole clip before you can reload.

US Carbine M-1

Light, handy, seriously underpowered weapon originally intended as a substitute for the .45 pistol but often used as a rifle by support troops and officers. Very popular with the SAS; in fact it's the most commonly seen weapon in SAS photos from the WWII era.

In The Game: Pretty decent weapon, I've used it a fair bit. (Which is funny because I hated the real thing when the US army stuck me with one.) Seems a bit less anemic in the game, but you still better figure on shooting the bad guys two or three times before they go down. Nice and light, sometimes an important consideration in a long mission. Unfortunately they gave it the 15-round clip rather than the larger capacity versions preferred by combat soldiers.

The silenced Sten certainly did exist and was used in the field in both Europe and the Far East. The silencer was very effective, more so than in the game - that weird little pew-pew-pew sound is straight out of the movies; in reality the loudest sound it made was that of the bolt moving back and forth. (The Japanese, who encountered them in the hands of Australian commandos, compared the sound to "rain on leaves.") Meant to be fired only in single shots, except in emergencies; full automatic fire quickly overstressed and destroyed the silencer.

In The Game: You just about have to have it for certain missions, and you just about have to go ahead and fire it full-auto - for one thing there's no selective fire in the game - and pretend.

Very odd weapon, produced in extremely limited numbers for secret operations in 1944-45. Basically a modified Lee-Enfield rifle action mated to a .45 submachine gun barrel and an American .45 pistol magazine, and fitted with a bulky silencer, the De Lisle proved amazingly accurate as well as one of the most effectively silenced weapons of its time.

In The Game: For the most part you can do the same job with the handier, faster silenced Sten. However, as you'll see in the walkthroughs, there's one mission for which it's useful to give the whole team silenced weapons, and only two muffled Stens are available. One thing I can attest from experience: the De Lisle is not an ideal choice against a charging attack dog.

Excellent light machine gun, arguably the best of World War II. Very accurate and reliable, much loved throughout His Majesty's forces.

In The Game: This was a real disappointment. I used the Bren a lot in the old Hidden & Dangerous and had great hopes for it in the new game; but no, they had to repeat the ridiculous error that crippled it in HD - you can only fire it from a prone position. Never mind that plenty of Bren gunners did on occasion fire it from the hip while standing or walking, as recorded in action reports and medal citations...and the accuracy is lousy, too. I tried it a few times in the desert campaign and gave up; it just isn't worth the weight, and the difficulty of carrying enough ammo.

Standard infantry squad automatic weapon of World War II. Sturdy and reliable, but very heavy and with several design flaws.

In The Game: The SAS never used the BAR, nor did any other British forces - why should they, when they had the far superior Bren? - so I've never put it into a mission.

I did try it once briefly in a throwaway single mission just to find out what it was like, and so I can tell you it's got one important thing wrong with it: no bipod. So it can't be fired accurately over any distance; it can only be used the same way you'd use a submachine gun, from the shoulder or pointing. But that's all moot since as I say it has no business whatever in the game.

Czech weapon basically identical to the Bren, used occasionally by the Germans. Only appears in one mission and that at a time when you no longer have any use for it, so I don't know anything about it.

Widely used by the US army on vehicle mounts. Appears in HD2 in the desert campaign, mounted on a Jeep. (Should have been twin Vickers .303s but never mind.) The way I run the campaign I never have occasion to use the machine gun, so I can't say anything about it.

From time to time you may have occasion to take over an enemy machine gun. You will find this disappointing and frustrating because there are no sights, only the little white aiming cross and sometimes not even that. (Except for the tank guns, which have ridiculously fancy sights - but then the tanks have a great many discrepancies.)

The game includes two antitank rocket launchers: the American bazooka and the German Panzerfaust. The bazooka only figures in two missions - and shouldn't be in one of them - so there's not much to say about it. The Panzerfaust shows up all the time, though; sometimes when it shouldn't, as in the North African campaign. In both cases the only thing to remember, in going up against a tank, is to aim at the back of the turret. This is realistically incorrect, but that's how it works in HD2.

Now and then you get a chance to use a knife, either the Fairbairn commando dagger (which they got right) or the "German fighting knife" (of which there was no such thing.) Curiously, these only seem to be effective from behind, and then only when the victim is standing upright. Even more curiously, you never get any blood on your hands. Hm.