The real battle of Carentan was a meat-grinder that cost the lives of more than 400 American soldiers—and an even higher number of German soldiers. In one famous incident, a group led by 29-year-old Lt. Col. Robert Cole charged dug-in Germans (fallschirmjaegers) with bayonets fixed, under smoke cover, taking 50% casualties but getting the job done.
Unfortunately, the COH1 “Carentan” mission is only a clumsy, scaled-way-down facsimile of that battle, and a showcase for some of the big flaws in the game.
As the player will know after having completed the Vierville mission, airborne squads have a weird superpower called “Fire Up.” This enables them for several seconds to run a bit faster (barely real-life speed) and not be suppressed much by HMG fire. At the outset of this mission, when you have a six-man squad and a four-man squad standing at the edge of a townscape filled with dozens of German troops, including HMG, mortar and Pak-38 crews, “Fire Up” is really all you have going for you—and your main feeling is going to be something like “WTF this is just stupid.”
DESTROY THE CAFE
Use “Fire Up” to run one of your squads up the right edge of the map until it is near the Cafe Normandin. The squad should throw a satchel charge into the building, and then hide to the right, against the wall. Usually, the explosion will bring down the building. If it doesn’t, you will have to try again, either with that same unit or the other one.
Note that after a squad uses its “Fire Up” ability, it becomes almost immobile, moving in slow motion, for 5-10 seconds thereafter. The retreat function also may not work well, or at all, after using Fire Up. Once the cafe building is down, there should be a German LMG available in the rubble; one of your squads should retrieve it.
TAKE THE CHURCH AREA
Using “Fire Up” and satchel charges, but as much as possible just shooting from positions of cover (though your squads often spontaneously, and suicidally, move out of cover into the open), clear out the German units in the set of buildings to the left of and just behind the destroyed cafe. The main aim here is to clear a path to the church.
Note that if your squad strengths get too low, you will have the option of bringing in reinforcements. You get one extra airborne squad automatically when you destroy the cafe, and then can bring in a max of two more pairs of squads. Over-using “Fire Up” to run directly at enemy positions is a good way to run through your available reinforcements and lose the mission.
Don’t rush to take the nearby muni point when directed to do so. Any unit that attempts to cap the point will be shelled accurately by a German mortar crew on the left side of the town square.
If you destroy all the German units in sight, and occupy the Church, but this phase of the mission doesn’t end (with the instruction to turn the church into a base), then there are still German units nearby that you need to kill. Usually this is the AT gun that lies next to a building ~50m “north” of the church. Send a unit out to grenade the crew.
After you initiate the conversion of the church into a base for reinforcement and requisition of new units, a few German infantry units will counterattack. Be ready for this. Your first two or three units requisitioned should be sniper units, and they should be set to camouflage mode to minimize their risks of being seen and shot by German infantry.
TAKING THE TOWN SQUARE
You will need at least two snipers, a mortar crew, your LMG squad, and at least one squad with panzerschrecks or recoilless rifles. (You can pick up one discarded schreck in the Take-the-Church phase of the mission, and another—between church and nearby muni point—in the second.)
Move slowly towards the square, leading with your snipers (on camouflage mode) who will do most of the work. The HMG and mortar crew on the left side of the square are your top-priority targets.
After your units (snipers and mortar, mostly) have killed several dozen German soldiers in and around the square, including all the HMGs in range, a Puma armored car will attack from the lower right entrance to the square. Destroy it with your schreck/recoilless rifle squads to end the mission.
