Mission Three: Battle for Pine Valley

Secure The Gas Station/Eliminate the Soviet Sniper

Your first goal here is to secure the gas station from the enemies that hold it. To do so, call down a few vehicles. Two Bradleys and a repair tank are your best bet here, although you can afford more stuff. Infantry might wind up slowing you down, so you may want to just stay mechanized.

The sniper in this tower is not long for this world.

The optional objective here is to eliminate the enemy sniper in the tower near the gas station. Doing so is easy enough; just wait for the enemy waves to subside, then move your Bradleys over and start firing TOWs at it. It'll fall eventually.

With that done, move the Bradleys towards the gas station and start attacking, using the repair tank to repair them and itself when you take damage. As soon as you get ten tactical points, you can call down a light tank to bolster your squad; you can call as many as five of these guys, so nab a new one after every ten points you gain.

Clear The Way Into Pine Valley/Clear the Strongholds ASAP

Three new control points for you to take here, each with fortifications. You only have ten minutes to clear the fortifications if you want to complete the secondary objectives, so move forward with your armor. If you have a few light tanks, you should be able to roll over the first couple of objectives without too many problems: simply get close enough to fire on your foes, pop smoke, then let loose with the TOW missiles. Keep your repair tank in a separate group from your offensive vehicles, and you should be fine.

The third objective is a bit more compact, since it'll be surrounded by buildings. Again, though, rushing it and popping smoke should let you quickly overrun it, especially if you have all five light tanks on the ground by this point. Just be sure to deploy them manually or they'll probably get a bit confused in the tight streets.

Secure the TV Station/Eliminate the Soviet Forward Observer

With the town secure, you need to eliminate the Soviets at the TV station. This is easy to do; simply move your squads away from the beach towards the hills to the south and wrap them around to approach the TV station from that direction. You should see the artillery spotter when you arrive; take him out, then destroy the buildings with TOW fire before moving into the area and capturing the buildings.

Defend The Supermarket/Help Captain Bannon With Repairs

Get your troops over to the supermarket here on the double, using any infantry you have to occupy it and the vehicles to occupy the control points. You'll need to manage two fights here; send one of your repair tanks over to Bannon's front, where a single tank (marked with the circular target symbol) is in need of repairs. While it's tasked on the tank and repairing it, keep your concentration on the supermarket and use your command abilities to soften up the enemies that come your way (you can also fire on the tanks near Bannon, if you like). You'll get an M1 tank for repairing Bannon's vehicle.

Retake the Southeastern Approach

When you hear your captain calling out that artillery is coming towards the supermarket, immediately move back to the south towards the center of town. The supermarket will be destroyed, but no big deal.

Take your time to repair your units and nab some new ones through the drop menu at this point. When you're ready to roll, retake the southern control points and start fortifying them.

Hold The Southeastern Approach/Destroy the Enemy Mortars

Not too hard. Dig in, split your forces into the two control points, and repair your tanks when they get damaged. You'll get more airstrikes here, so use artillery and tankbusters when needed.

Daisy cutters are no joke, dogg.

Eventually the enemies will set up mortars to fire on you. You can't see them from the control points, but you can see where they're located if you move your view out to the hills. Use heavy artillery barrages on those locations to destroy the mortars; if for whatever reason you happen not to hit the mark, send out a few tanks to finish the job.

Hold this position for a bit. If you destroy the mortars you get the daisy cutter bomb, which deals a vicious blow to enemies caught in the blast. You can use it to destroy the forests near your position and aid your sightline a bit, then start pounding the enemies with heavy artillery. You will have to deal with a pretty heavy assault before this phase ends, so be prepared!

Defend the Town Square/Aid the Artillery

When Bannon retreats, start pulling back yourself; a huge horde of enemy tanks will start rolling down the highway where you were positioned. If you can time it correctly, a daisy cutter will take out the bulk of them. Otherwise, use tank buster tracks to eliminate as many as you can.

When you reach the town square, you'll get a secondary objective noting the presence of friendly mortars that are going to be overrun. Leave three friendly units in the control points to secure and fortify them, then run a few tanks and Bradleys over to the building where the mortars are to rescue them. Doing so will give you three mobile mortar vehicles. They won't be too useful here, but hey; they're units.

With the mortar in tow, head back to the center of town and start defending yourself. Watch your map for enemy offensives and use tankbusters and heavy artillery barrages to bust them before they reach you. With your repair tanks (you should have at least two or three by now), you can repair any damage your units take before things get out of hand.

Break the Soviet Offensive

When the Missouri arrives, you've basically won, but you need to seal the deal. You need to use the guns of the ship to fire artillery on your targets. You have three guns on the ship, which fire in a small area, but which only take a few seconds to come down. Zoom out and try to find the small blips of enemy units coming your way, then lead them by a few seconds with your ship fire. Keep in mind that you can use the number pad's 1, 2, and 3 keys to automatically select these firing abilities here.

When you manage to hold off the Russians for a few minutes, you'll win the mission.

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