Hidden and Dangerous 1
Name: Hidden and Dangerous
Player: Kestrel
Scenario: Campaign 2 Mission 4 (Spoiler Alert!)
(Editor's note: My apologies to Kestrel for not keeping the suspense in guessing the game, but I think it's more important to encourage others to play the games we enjoy --J)
The rain was falling heavily, washing the lush foliage yet splashing mud on our soggy boots. We had moved to the edges of the forest road for rapid transit to our destination. Now we took cover as our lead sighted a footbridge just ahead.
Foggy binoculars revealed a foot patrol on the other side. The terrain rose to the south behind him and we suspected that the bunker we had heard about was at the top of the knoll. We were at a chokepoint and terrain kept us from detouring. There was no way around it. We would have to clear out this bunker to make it to our extraction point.
We set up a bounding overwatch with two men in the shrubbery on each side of the road. It wasn't hard to proceed to the edge of the ravine. The sentries ahead were oblivious, but they blocked our advance to the east. Even if we took them out, we would have the disadvantage of an uphill advance to the bunker. There probably was a MG 34 mounted at the top anyway.
Prone, two of us rolled down into the ravine. By going to the right, we could scout the perimeter to the south while under the protection of our team. We carefully moved about 100 yards down the creek and then started up the bank on the opposite side.
This place was like a forest fortress. We almost stumbled into a MG nest over here. They didn't see us, and there weren't any patrols over here, so we so we drifted a little further south and kept moving up. When we came out at the top we had a straight view across to the bunker.
We were out of sight behind some rocks and trees. The Romanian Nazis were protected by a trench.
We were right about the machine gun. They had it mounted to take out anything that came up the hill from the road. There was another MG at the SW corner on our right.
The middle of this side wasn't so bad. We could go back and bring the rest of the team up here and then lurk for a while to spot all enemies. Our guys could snipe from cover with their Mk. 4's letting us sprint to the trench and drop in. With the potato mashers we had picked up along the way and our "borrowed" MP 40's ready to sweep, we could probably make the bunker entrance in 30 seconds.
There was one thing we wanted to check out before we went back and brought up the team. There seemed to be a branch in the trench to our right. We wanted a little better look at any threat there, so we dropped back below the crest of the hill and moved to get a final look before executing our plan.
That's when I stepped on a mine.
End of Story --------------
I had played a lot of games over a couple years, but this was the first time I actually jumped when something happened in a game. I just sat there stunned for a while. I'll never forget that moment.