Stupid Jetpack Hitler! Let's Play Silent Storm!

The year is 1943. The war continues to rage on in Europe, tanks and bombers roaring across the battlefield. But there is also a quiet war, one fought with subterfuge and guile. One that the Allied nations cannot afford to lose, and only a select group of individuals can be chosen to weather this Silent Storm.

Silent Storm is a 2003 isometric turn-based squad combat game developed by Nival Interactive and JoWood Entertainment. With gameplay reminiscent of X-COM and Fallout Tactics and a string of excellently-designed missions, it’s one of the unsung diamonds in the rough for tactical gaming. The game’s been out of print for a while, having sold incredibly poorly in most markets – but it’s now available via gog.com for only ten bucks.

So here we go with a playthrough! Some ground rules to make it interesting:

• If a teammate dies on a mission, that’s it for them. No automatic resurrection back at HQ. (Incapacitated teammates can still be carried out at the end of a mission, though)
• Field a realistic team (no six-sniper death squad, which is a disgustingly easy way to get through 90% of the missions)
• No retrying missions! If an objective is missed, then we drive on without it!

We will follow the exploits of “Mighty” Nute, an American officer who will be heading up our squad of operatives – but first he needs to survive a botched mission behind enemy lines, where he and his commanding officer are the lone survivors of a German ambush…







Looks like the Colonel’s passed out, fat lot of good he’s going to be here. Just me and my rifle and my wits to get us out of here. I hide in a grove of trees and await the enemy – it isn’t long before I’ve got eyes on one of them and can hear his buddy right behind him. Time to take some careful aim…





First two are down. I manage to grab one of their rifles – not as accurate as mine, but the higher caliber packs a bit more of a punch. To make a long story short, I use Fritz’s own rifle against him and zero out the remaining Krauts. Time to go get the Colonel…

…who’s still unconscious. Guess who’s going to have to carry his ass all the way back across friendly lines?



Lay off the crumpets, Colonel.


Later, back at the secret Allied headquarters…



So I guess I’m going to get really familiar with this place. Infirmary, Armory, and Operations. I’d prefer to avoid the first as long as possible, but it doesn’t hurt to make friendly with the people who are going to be providing my bullets and bandages. To the Armory, then…



Wonderful. A drunken Aussie running a glorified pawnshop out of a few lockers. He lets me know that if I bring him back gear from the field, he’ll fix it up for me and try and skim a few choice bits off the supply orders that come through. For a country populated entirely by criminals, I suppose the Australians have their uses. I leave my gear with Oz and head on over to the infirmary…



Hello! This little British chippie seems to want to get me on the table for an exam in a hurry. I make it a point not to mix business with pleasure, so business can take a hike!



THAT’S the kind of attitude I like to see in my support personnel! I’ll get back with you later, Susan, let me go check on the Colonel…

That is NOT the kind of attitude I find appropriate in a commander, sir!



All right, let me see these dossiers…




A forty-five year old grandfather? Who is apparently a jinx to any ship he’s ever been on? He comes highly recommended for handling the machine guns, though, so Gator – welcome to the squad!



Six kids back home? Oh man, you’re obviously not long for this world. Except for that knife thing. Okay, fine, my squad needs a designated murderer and I have it on good authority that the Spaniards are pretty good at that sort of thing. Lieutenant Ramos, fall in!



My god, man! This is supposed to be a covert squad and you give me this man the size of a cottage! Another grandfather, as well? I’d pass him up but then I look at his war record – how is this war hero only still a sergeant? All right, Nessie, time to continue that legacy of heroism. You’re in.



Our scout is not only half Nessie’s size, she’s half his age as well! But she joined the British paratroopers at 19, so that’s got something going for her, and she’s an officer at barely 21… well, she’s not going to take up much space and she seems pretty sneaky if she can keep her trap shut. I'm not too keen about having a dame with us in the field. They're nothing but problems. Grudgingly, Elf is approved.



We’re going to need someone to stitch up this motley crew in the field, because I am not letting any of these swinging dicks near my Susan. I mean, Captain Norris. So, a medic. This Frenchman comes highly recommended, despite apparently having some weird pacifist leanings. However, he’s the best shot we have (after myself, of course) so it’s time to turn Yves St. Pierre into our own angel of death. In!



We see Oz to get everyone outfitted – even with my spoils from rescuing the Colonel, we don’t have enough rifles for everyone. So before we try taking on an official mission, I suggest taking the squad on a shakedown patrol to see if we can’t rob some Nazis blind.

We’re inserted into North Britain, and sure enough there’s reports of an Axis patrol in the area. We find them before they find us, thankfully…



I send Elf up to scout the opposition – sounds like more than a few of them, so once she’s in position I send Gator low-crawling behind her with the machine gun in case there’s an ambush…




Oh, this couldn’t be set up any prettier. Lock and load, Lieutenant!



End of story indeed, Gator.


We make it back to camp with some new rifles and ammo, enough to get everyone properly kitted up for our first covert mission.

Sorry about your busted car, Heinz, it’s time for us to fix it with bullets!




God DAMN it, Elf! We pull off a great flanking maneuver and then you miss your target? He didn’t miss you, it seems. Don’t go calling for Frenchie just yet, you’ve still got most of your blood in you! Sheesh, dames…





…well, as I was saying about the dames, Elf decides to break cover, go full-auto with her submachine gun, and capture the German agent herself while the rest of us are picking off Nazis in the woodline. All right, fine, now you can see Yves to get stitched up. Passable work, Elf. Let Ramos carry him out, let's go.



“Passable work” he says! Did I not capture that Kaufman git all by my lonesome?

Oui, chere.

AND I carried half the German weapons out as well!

That you did, little lady.

AND I snuck up on that patrol quiet as you please! Well, up until…

Look, I done apologized for that. Ain’t easy to sneak around with a couple hundred rounds of ammo in yer pack…

Enough arguing, mi pequena conejo de muerte, we have won the day. Now, who wants tapas?

Bah. Historical inaccuracy. Because this game gives you fake asskickers, and because it's that time of year, I'll give you real ones.

Lieutenant Randy tells me that we've got a turncoat feeding information to the Germans, and the Colonel wants me to take SE-2 (that's our designation, it seems) and go check him out at his big country estate. Espionage and scones!



The trip to the Major's estate is uneventful, despite a few Axis patrols trying to infiltrate the British countryside. Plus, Ramos has brought along these delicious fish pastries.

They are, how you say, the duck, senor.

Ramos has brought along these delicious duck pastries. Ramos, if you weren't so good at shooting people in the face, I would recommend you be transferred to the mess hall. Oh, we're here?




Wait a minute, "warned"? How did Newhouse know we were coming? And why does everyone around here smell like sauerkraut?



Sweet Betty Grable! It's an entire manor house full of Nazi spies! There's no way we have the drop on them, it might be time to --

Oh hell no! I came here to shoot Nazis and drink Ovaltine, and I am plumb out of Ovaltine!

We all follow Nessie's lead and open up full-auto on our captors, exploding them like blood sausages. We do miss one guy on the landing, though, who blasts down at us full-auto, clipping Elf (AGAIN!) and blowing a hole in the floor before Yves puts a bullet in his neck. We're reloading when Nessie thinks he sees some barrels of fuel oil in the basement, and the hole's big enough for him to crawl through...





Holy mother of Mickey Mantle! Nessie lobs a potato-masher right in the perfect spot to bring down not only the ground floor but the floor above it!




Since we can't go forward, we turtle up and go defensive. Yes, that is our medic Yves ready to snipe those Jerry bastards trying to sneak around the left. We clean house - an easy task when most of the Nazis seem to have met with a severe case of explosive dismemberment. Nessie combs through the wreckage and comes up with not only a top-secret communique for Lieutenant Randy to interpret, he finds Major Newhouse out cold in the rubble.

I still didn't get any scones, though. Nessie blew up the kitchen. Of course, he's the only enlisted man on the crew, how can one expect him to know the proper protocol in these situations?



Any time, Randy! You point us at more spies, we'll cause massive amounts of property damage! Wait, why is the colonel calling us into formation and asking for Nessie...?



I... but... wha... he threw a grenade! I was the one who ordered him to go down that hole! Do you know how hard that was on me? Oh how the chains of leadership weigh heavy on my shoulders. All right then, chin up, it's good to give the enlisted ranks a bit of cheer now and then.

(They gave him a medal for that! I am writing my Congressman as soon as I find out who he is!)

Side note - oh, if you're going to quibble about historical inaccuracy now - let me just say you ain't seen nothing yet.

I did some Googling, I'm bracing myself for it.

This is amazing.

I was promised Jetpack Hitler and I expect this game to deliver.

Okay, enough with the faffing about in friendly territory. Now it's off to Hanover to try and infiltrate the German Intelligence Headquarters.

Operation: I WHIP MEIN HERR BACK UND FORTH




Lovely burg, this Hanover. Cafes, pastries, a fellow could get to like it here if it weren't for all the goddamn Nazis.



As usual, we figure that a covert daylight mission in a German city means "dress like Allied troops" because they would never suspect that. TACTICAL BRILLIANCE.




There's our target, we're tasked with retrieving any data we can find about whatever "Loki" and "Hel" are up to. We could go straight up the west side of town, but I'm betting that's going to be rather guarded, since that balcony there looks right out over the only avenue of approach. So the plan is to circle around the south end of town, up the alleys on the east side, through a small park, and try to effect entry sneaky-like.

Okay then, Elf goes first to scout the way, hopefully without being seen.




Goddammit, Elf.

Well, her three new friends start opening fire. As you do. Nessie is the closest one with a clear line of sight, so he provides some covering fire while Gator and Ramos run around, planning to cut through the small cafe in the central square and get behind this patrol...



Another patrol coming in from the square? I am beginning to think disguising ourselves as Allied troops was not the brightest covert action plan.

Fuck it, plan Bravo - SHOOT THE SHIT OUT OF EVERYONE THAT SMELLS LIKE SAUERBRATEN.





Yes, that is ONE grenade from Nessie that took out two Nazis and the entire corner of a building. He's a credit to his people.

What does he mean, "his people"? Crack-ass cracker officer...


Chin up, Sergeant! No dissension in the ranks! We've made a bit of a ruckus, so we'll try a sprint up the west alley and use what cover we can find, then try a direct assault through a side door where we can bottleneck the Germans into a counter-ambush.



OR... we could run right up on another patrol with rifles and the high ground.

This is bad on so many levels...

Bugger it, faint heart never won fair... mission. Once more into the breach! Sergeant Nessie! Get up there and unleash hell and shrapnel!



Oh.

There's quite a lot of them, it seems.

Brave Sergeant. Oh, my brave Sergeant. Rest assured that your sacrifice will not be in vain.




HOW IN THE WORLD ARE YOU STILL ALIVE, YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD?

Despite tripping over his own feet right into an ambush, then getting shot multiple times, Nessie is somehow still mobile (although bleeding out) and with the help of our sharp-shooting medic, clears out the crowd of Jerries at the top of the stairs. The rest of us are right on Yves' heels sprinting to try and provide backup.



For every Nazi we drop, another one shows his ugly face. Yves is trying to bandage up Nessie, and the both of them are getting peppered with Mauser rounds. The wily Frenchman seems to be using his comrade as a human shield, bandaging Nessie as quickly as the Nazis can give him his daily allowance of lead vitamins.

Sous-lieutenant St. Pierre? I do not think medicine works the way you think it does.



Of course, now Yves himself has been perforated rather severely, so Nessie takes his turn returning fire. Elf sneaks through the building and does one Nazi officer execution-style in the back of the head, while Gator and Ramos sprint like mad across the avenue to try and lay down some covering fire.



Duly bandaged, Nessie rushes up again to provide grenade support, and it seems that the entire staff of the German Intelligence Headquarters has mobilized to defend their assets. By this point we've ALL taken a number of hits, so we're the walking wounded trying a ridiculous Round Top style charge. We few, we happy few, we band of buggered...



One final Nazi commander is giving us grief from the front, so Gator sneaks up and unloads on him with the BAR. Not fatally, but enough to get the Kraut to turn his back - just long enough for Elf to drop out of the shadows with a Ka-Bar combat knife and liberate all his German blood from his neck.

Wow, that's a lot of blood. Gee whiz.

We turtle up in the lobby and do some careful two-man recon through the halls... the place is abandoned, save for some civilian employees cowering in the stacks. We rifle through desks and safes, in the process discovering that among all his tools, our medic has a lock pick set that he's rather handy with.

Alors, it is merely the product of a, how do you say, "mis-spent youth". Oh, zee wild times in Paris, zee artists in zee Montparnasse, and oh la la, zee women... eh, tiens, zere is still a war going on, le romance must wait...

Right, if Frenchie is done with his little reverie, we found our intel!





Mimir? Sinbad? The Urals? I don't like the Urals, it's cold there!

Oh well, duty calls.

No medals issued for this mission, despite our heroic perseverance in the face of overwhelming enemy action. Perhaps levelling a third of the town in the course of our "covert activity" may have been a bit... indiscreet.

Oh, man, this is going to be great.

I loved this game...up until a certain something appeared.

Then it was all what the fuck is this???. And I quit.

So thanks for playing this, Nute...I'd like to see how ridiculous it really gets.

"We few, we happy few, we band of buggered." <3.

Ah, I remember this game! I was pretty terrible at it though.

So here's my question -- does Silent Storm still take ten years to process a single Nazi turn?

Miraculously, no! I'm playing with the graphics cranked all the way up, and it takes less than a minute to get the enemy turn done! Whatever launcher GOG uses makes very efficient use of a modern CPU/GPU to run the game.

For those following along: the game, when released, was a MASSIVE resource hog and enemy turns could take up to ten minutes at times.

Thanks for the links, Sheepherder! Some fascinating reading there...

... and I think you just discovered the website of Aeon221.

Well, before heading to the Urals, we've got a stopover in Brandenburg.



It seems that we don't know exactly what's going on in this research facility in the Urals, so Lieutenant Randy needs us to get more information. It's a simple manor house in Brandenburg - how hard can it be?



All right, we manage to sneak up close. Walled compound, that's no problem. All we have to do is sneak in.



Easy enough. Right in the front door. We've got some silenced weapons, so we can just do a little recon in-and-out before they even know we're there. The brass didn't really like the amount of sheer firepower we unleashed on the last mission, so we're going to try and do this one stealthy-like.



BALLS.

It seems that our two soldiers are not exactly light on their feet, and quickly a firefight ensues at the west gate. But we can turn a negative into a positive, because that should cause enough of a distraction for myself and Elf to sneak in the south gate and...




Okay, so it's a bloodbath over here too. At this point, we go to Plan Bravo (why don't we just make that Plan Alpha from here on out?) and switch to frontal assault mode.





After a few hectic minutes of kicking down doors and rushing through with submachine guns blazing - and as seems to be the usual, Nessie soaking up a full barrage to the chest - we've cleared most of the manor house.



Oh wait, Elf isn't done with her murder spree. Not content to unleash fully-automatic death, she whips out the Ka-Bar and starts going room to room like some bogeyman, cutting throats and chopping heads, whilst redecorating Oberst Koch's manor in a nice arterial red.



"Panzerkleins"?

While Lieutenant Randy and the brass try and figure out what that means, we come down on new orders - we're headed into the Urals to try and cut off this shipment before it can leave the factory. If it's a new weapon, we need to either capture it for the Allies or destroy it.

Once more, no medals are given out - we barely made it out of Brandenburg with our lives, right now I think our squad's teetering on the brink of a general court-martial instead of being decorated for heroism. Oh, the price of glory...

And then without much time to plan, we're air-dropped into the Ural Mountains. The trek to this isolated mountain factory is long and arduous - thankfully, Ramos has brought along more snacks that lift our spirits as well as fill our bellies. He's also brought calvados, which goes a long way towards keeping us warm and morale high.

We reach the factory shortly after dawn, but the approach is going to be difficult. A wide road leads up the mountain, and those cliffs most likely will be watched by German troops.



The snow is coming down hard now - we can only hope it will affect their visibility as much as ours. Say, with this low visibility, maybe Elf can manage to sneak in and get some murdering going on...




And she manages quite well - taking out a number of soldiers armed with rocket launchers and automatic weapons. It seems like the Nazis are prepared to hold off an armored division rather than a covert assault squad, what in the world is going on at this factory?

Elf sneaks her way in and finds out...



Rockets? Weapons in orbit? This is like something out of a pulp novel - as is the strange weapon that Elf's managed to find. Some sort of... ray gun?

What in the world are these Nazis up to...



SWEET MOTHER OF CALVIN COOLIDGE! Armored battlesuits! These must be the Panzerkleins that our intel spoke of. Ramos opens fire, only to discover that it has practically no effect. The next few minutes were utter chaos, involving Ramos and Gator using theirselves as bait to draw these Panzerkleins closer to the factory, where Elf and myself could snipe at them with these mysterious ray guns that seemed to be the only weapons that could affect them.

Until we managed to kill one Panzerklein pilot without disabling his machine, and Gator took over.

With this sci-fi weaponry now on our side, the battle was over within moments. We had captured the head of the factory, one Lev Orlov, and five Panzerklein suits for our own uses.



Holy Jehosaphat! These ray guns aren't just weird Nazi science for the field troops, they're planning to launch them into space and attack from orbit! This could turn the tide of the war in favor of the Reich!

We get Orlov out of there and manage to leave Russia without any further incident. For once, our covert tactics actually are successful!




Elf earns herself a medal for nearly singlehandedly clearing out the factory without a single return shot being fired, while Gator finds himself doubly-honored for both his heroic actions to draw the Panzerkleins into our ambush, and capturing one of them at significant risk to himself.



At this point, we return to headquarters to discover a new operative - Sgt. Albridge. He's a surly mechanic who can fix up the Panzerkleins and refit them for our uses. Of course, they're useless for stealth missions, but given our proclivities for less-than-covert assaults, perhaps some high-tech firepower might be what we need as we head into...

Switzerland? They're sending us to Switzerland? But none of us speak Switzer!

It bears noting that once more I find myself unlauded for the burdensome chore of commanding the gang of reprobates and psychopaths that make up SOE-2. Oh sure, Gator gets two awards for risking his Canuck neck, but not even a handshake and an atta-boy for his commander that organized the entire soiree. There will be some strongly-worded letters written to senior staff, I assure you!

"Oops, my bad."

Nute has a severe case of art imitating life, doesn't he?

Note: I will post the next mission once I can actually finish it. Stupid "if a single civilian dies, you lose" caveat when the entire building's full of red barrels of explodium...

After some incredibly rushed training, we decide to try and infiltrate this top-secret Swiss fortress via stealth. Nevertheless, we're going to need some kind of firepower so we let Gator practice a bit with one of those Panzerkleins. He's not too fond of it, but those weird ray guns blast through damn near anything, so if we're going to come up against more of these Thor's Hammer folks in the sci-fi union suits, it can't hurt to have one of our own.

We make our way across the border into Switzerland disguised as a Bavarian folk band. Train from the border through the Alps, and we ditch the train somewhere high north. It's time to crack the sealed orders and see what Lieutenant Randy has for us...



Oh, this is one of those assignments, where the Swiss are our "friends" despite hoarding all that filthy Nazi gold. If you ask me, they're all collaborators with the Krauts, but unfortunately no one bothers to ask the guy risking his neck giving all the orders in this squad. Undaunted, we head along a series of country roads, dodging patrols (Nazis in a "neutral" country, how conveeeeeenient) until we find the factory.



We're ready and armed, although no one really wants to stand too close to Gator after trekking across the countryside. Nessie asked him how he takes a leak in that tin can and all the crazy Canuck did was laugh. We'll make sure to keep him downwind.

Breaking into the nearby guard shack is easy, and with Elf and Nessie wielding silenced submachineguns, we creep in none the wiser, hiding Gator and his piss-tank by the main entrance in case we need a cavalry charge. Time to go out there and make the other guy die for his country. I told that to some jumped-up General once and he ran with it. General Pattern or something.

Across the open lot is a warehouse guarded by armed soldiers on the ground and the rooftops. All right, Elf. If ever you were going to be a death-dealing shadow, now's the time...




Well done, girl, I--



Great shades of Alexander Hamilton! The broad's killing more Huns than cholera! She clears us a way to the front door, and it's time to turn the Nazis' blitz tactics back on them!



Elf sneaks her way in and stalks the catwalks with Ka-Bar in hand, leaving corpses in her wake. Once the eastern warehouse is cleared of anyone holding a weapon, we charge for the front door.



Elf tells me she's found a good sniper's nest, so I make my way through stopping for a little copper-jacketed dialogue with Hans Scheissengrupper along the way. I have nine points for you, Hans, and they're all millimeters.



But just as quickly I find myself reversing course when Elf opens a door into a hail of bullets! We find cover where we can as the western warehouse opens up and starts pouring out Nazis like animals from the ark. Time to call Gator forward and get him to draw some fire in that tin can of his. Just as we expected, the Nazis make him their prime target, but their guns do little more than scratch the paint.



Yves fires a shot that goes in one Nazi's ear and out the other, and sparks off a fire that ignites a stack of fuel barrels - and the entire floor of the western warehouse goes up in an explosion - thankfully the lone civilian engineer on that side was unscathed, but half a dozen Germans fall to their deaths as gravity proves to be a harsh mistress.

Something's moving around down there, though, and I think they've seen us...



An entire squad of enemy Panzerkleins.

BALLS.

Ramos is bleeding out, Yves is down, and Gator's taking his sweet-ass time getting over here in that contraption. Nessie and I are keeping an eye out for anyone unarmored and putting a bullet through their brainpan, but those damned Panzerkleins make it impossible to move.

Elf's luck runs out and she takes a round right through the leg. She's not in any danger of bleeding to death, but she's slowed to a crawl. Thankfully this makes her even harder to spot, and she creeps her way to a vantage point where she can call in shots for Gator's ray guns.

After some quick zaps from Gator, the Panzerklein squad is history and we slip down into the basement. Ramos goes to drag Yves to cover and discovers a stimulant syringe in the Frenchman's kit. Taking a chance, he stabs it into our medic's chest...

ZUT ALORS FILS DU SALOPE DU CUL DE CHIEN DU TABERNAC! Where are zee Nazi cochons? I will slaughter every last one of zem! For le France! Why will my legs not work properly?

You been mostly dead 'bout ten minutes, son. Bandage up and you'll be good as new.

Bandage? Monsieur, we have not the time. I shall administer le morphine and I will feel no pain! Allons-y!

Now higher than a kite, Yves takes point as we slip into the now-vacated enemy Panzerkleins and make our advance...



The lower levels of the factory are a winding maze, with Panzerklein-armored sentries hiding around every corner. Elf and I help ourselves to some of those portable ray guns that Thor's Hammer seems to be fond of, and while our armored comrades provide covering fire, we use our enemies' hellish technology against them.

In the melee, Yves decides to crawl through a hole in the floor, having found yet another sub-level to the fortress. What he finds, however, is a Panzerklein patrolling directly outside the room he drops into.



Even hopped up on the giggle juice, Yves drops for the second time this mission. If we survive this, I'm going to have a wall-to-wall counseling session with that boy about the difference between "medic" and "scout". Let the crazy dame take the unnecessary risks!

OI! Sure and ye say that from the inside o' one o' those walkin' panzer divisions, boyo! Watch a professional at work!

Elf follows Yves' lead and drops down, ray-gun in hand. The Panzerklein picks the wrong moment to be facing the other way, and she puts a beam of emerald death through the back of the pilot's head. While the boys and I clank our way through the tunnels down to her location, she finds Yves - it seems he's still barely holding on to life, but someone's going to need to carry him out of here and get him Susan's direct medical attention. It's the point of no return now - without our medic, we can't afford to have anyone else wounded.

Bugger all that! I was growing fond of the wee little froggie! EAT LASER DEATH, YA GERMAN BASTARDS!

The Panzerkleins' plodding slowness proves to be a detriment as we inch along the ramps and hallways, while Elf goes on a murderous rampage - laser cannon slung over one shoulder, grenades flung into any open door that she passes at a sprint. We can hear some Irish war cries from down the corridors, usually followed by a muffled explosion and exclamations of "Mein leiben!" as her path of vengeance goes on.

Nessie catches up with her first, and suddenly a grate slams down, trapping the two of them in a foundry with the armored foreman of this death factory. Of course, being German, he feels the need to expound upon his plan and -

NO.


...and he gets filled full of lasers by the two heroes. Elf finds the needed intelligence in a nearby office, while Nessie wriggles out of his suit to pull the barely-breathing foreman out, hogtied like a steer at a rodeo. I ditch my suit to grab Yves, and we make our escape - surplus two new Panzerkleins.



So these Thor's Hammer folks are looking to play both sides against each other, then clean up the pieces? NUTS TO THAT. We're loading up for bear - but first we're all seeing to Yves in his hospital bed. After assuring him that he doesn't need both those kidneys, he's eager to get back into the fight, but in comes Terrence with... good gravy, that's an entire case of medals...

Yves receives the Military Medal for great (if unwise) heroism in the call of duty.
Ramos receives the Military Medal and the Military Cross for his brave actions in saving our medic's life and acting as a human shield to protect his comrade from the Panzerkleins.
Nessie is awarded the Military Cross for his single-handed capture of Berger, despite bringing the foreman in a bit worse for wear.
Elf also gets the Military Cross for racking up a body count rivaling the 101st Airborne all by her lonesome, without letting a single Swiss collaborator er, "citizen" come to harm.

But what's really important...



My legacy as a war hero is finally acknowledged. With true grace and humility befitting an officer of my stature, I accept with pride and the knowledge in my heart that I have no ambition but that of my country's glory, no thought of self only thoughts of true patriotism, that this token is not mine alone, but --

Bollocks.

Oui, oui. C'est - how you say - les bollocks.

No talking in the ranks, you two! Rest up, we have a raid to plan!

All right! After some training and preparation (and no small amount of wine from Chateau Ramos)

Casa Ramos, senor.

From Casa Ramos, we are ready to make our assault on... where was it again?



Jesus James and Joe DiMaggio, that's rather... north. Probably for the better, because if we can't stop this death satellite from launching...

...we destroy it, no matter the cost.

Elf and I take along those nifty ray guns, with all the strange batteries that Ozwell's managed to rig together for us. It's a strange meeting with the Aussie as he outfits us for what might be the final time. No words need be said. He may be of criminal stock, but somewhere buried among all that Vegemite and tucker is a British stiff upper lip.

Terrence cried a little as we went to the plane. Claimed it was an old war wound.

Susan... the less said about that parting, the better. "Come back with your shield or on it, my brave Captain" she said.

She said nothing of the sort, sir. Sounded more like "You're in perfect health, Captain, I won't write you that sick note, get your arse on that plane."

Quiet in the ranks! Besides, as everyone knows, it's all in the delivery. You have to listen between the words, Lieutenant.

We fly below the radar level, over the choppy seas. Finally, we make our way to the island, and into the Thor's Hammer bunker. Gator and Ramos have suited up in their tin death machines, Nessie's carrying enough explosives to count as his own mining company, and Yves -

Bandages, morphine, l'amphetamines, extracteur des boules, and a Chateau Rothschild '09, mon Capitaine.

Sous-lieutenant St. Pierre, you are a credit to medics everywhere, you magnificent bastard. Save the Rothschild for our victory celebration. Or, of course, if we're all going to die in this silo.



A flying Panzerklein?

Oh god, oh god, we're all going to die in this silo.

The flying Panzerklein heads down the silo, and we follow - except in the tight quarters, Gator and Ramos are moving like molasses going uphill. It shouldn't be a problem since there don't appear to be any hostiles here --



BALLS.

I think Ramos might be able to get a bead on him, the rest of us are pinned down and --



Good man!

Doors open and more Panzerkleins come out. Elf and I seem to have the only weapons that can harm them - until Nessie starts throwing grenades at the gantry beneath them, dropping two of them to their doom while thankfully not destroying the entire structure or stranding our Panzerkleins.

I told you I was a professional, dammit. You don't get to be my age and keep all ten fingers by not knowing how to toss a boom-stick or two.


All right, almost to the bottom of the silo - what's that noise?



Oh, you want to fly out from the shadows and ambush Gator, huh? We'll see about that.

Orders, sir?

Light the bitch up, team.

Gator's nearly bleeding out, and the machine guns on his suit are useless, so he trudges forward to hopefully get to Yves before he bleeds out. Nessie rushes up to give some heroic distraction while Ramos, Elf and I try and set up a kill zone with our ray guns. If we can cover all sides of that rocket, she has nowhere to hide.

Nessie's grenades aren't getting through that armor, but they're making Helena take evasive action instead of firing back. The old sergeant just keeps lobbing one potato-masher after another, direct hits each time.

Wait a minute.

SERGEANT NESSIE, PLEASE DO NOT THROW THE GRENADES THAT CLOSE TO THE GIGANTIC SPACE ROCKET.



Elf and Ramos and I give no quarter, raining beams of emerald death down on the leader of Thor's Hammer whenever she tries to move from her position. Gator finally gets to a spot where he can crawl out of his suit and Yves starts patching up the bullet holes - but it's obvious that he's not going to be of much use. Yves says that if we can get him out of here, he can save the leg and maybe both eyes but the Canuck's in a bad way. But he's refusing to take cover - he can't return fire, but he can draw it.

Gator runs back towards the sound of the fight - and as expected, Hellsten pivots to try and strafe him.

Ramos, take the shot.

Direct hit.





She started the countdown! You madwoman!

With her Panzerklein belching fumes, she descends to the launch bay. But we're not letting her get away.



Because dammit, if anyone's getting the Medal of Honor here, it's going to be me. Just let me grab Ramos' suit and--



BALLS.

Okay, I just have to keep my eyes open and hold a defensive position down there until everyone else shows up.



Okay. This looks bad...

So there I was, standing in the elevator like a teenager with my gentleman's tackle hanging out with this ice-cold fraulein aiming one of those ray guns at me.

My entire career - the academy, the training, the missions - is this it?

If it is, then what is it that the enlisted grunts say at times like these?

Oh, right. Fuck it, drive on.



We draw and fire.

And we both miss.

She and I both go to reload... neither of us has any more batteries. She reaches to her hip for her Mauser. I unsling my rifle. Whichever of us can get the shot off --



Double-tap to the head. Never hesitate.





I get to the launch control room - we can't stop the launch. But there's an intercom. I get the rest of SE-2 on the horn and tell them to head for the surface and try to make it to the shore. That should be out of the blast radius. I can't stop the launch, but I can disable the motors that open the silo doors. I can only hope it works.



I find an access ladder, and I climb.

I climb for ... glory? Honor?

It doesn't matter any more.

My rifle is slowing me down, so I drop it.

I climb.

I can hear the rocket engines behind me.



I get to the top of the ladder and push on the hatch.

It doesn't open.

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and--

I woke up to Terrence standing at my hospital bedside, explaining that they'd fished me out of the North Sea after the explosion. Because of the classified nature of the mission, he explained, they couldn't give any medals to me or the soldiers who officially never were part of any SE-2 secret missions squad - if one had ever existed on paper.



The official story would be that a volcano erupted on a small island in the North Atlantic. The world would never know how close it came to destruction.

I never saw the other members of SE-2 again, since I spent the rest of the war in that hospital bed. I was handed a medical discharge and went home. They asked me to teach at West Point, eventually. The next generation of officers, but in each of their faces I saw the next heroes. The next Gator Ferguson. The next Ramos Ortiz. The next Yves St. Pierre. The next Erin Farrell. The next Nessie Nelson.

Our war was over.

We had weathered the silent storm.


EPILOGUE:

Samuel "Nessie" Nelson was honorably discharged from the Army at the end of the war, and returned home to his family in Chicago. Nessie passed away in 1967 at the age of seventy, surrounded by his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
Ramos Ortiz rejoined the French Foreign Legion after V-E Day, serving in the First Indochina War. On September 30, 1950, his convoy was lost in an ambush along Route Coloniale 4 in one of the bloodiest battles of that war. He rests in honored glory, a soldier known but to God.
Yves St. Pierre married shortly after returning to Paris after the war. And again after returning to Nice. And again after returning to Montparnasse. And again after... well, you get the idea. He's French. I traveled to Paris once in the winter of 1955 and thought I saw him in a cafe across a city square. It may have just been a trick of my memory, though.
After filling countless German graves during her wartime service, Elf went back to the family business of carving tombstones. I'm told that Her Majesty's government eventually found a specific use for her... unconventional skills with a new agency. She eventually found a diplomatic posting in Belgium, married a Flemish local, and probably raised an entire brood of little red-haired assassins of her own.
Garnet "Gator" Ferguson never recovered from the wounds he received in battle at the Thor's Hammer headquarters. Cared for by his wife and family, he wrote a book about his experiences in the war and became something of a minor celebrity in his home province, even serving a short term as MP for his riding. Gator passed away in his sleep on April 2, 1971 at the age of seventy-four.

The existence of the covert operations squad designated SE-2 is not confirmed by any official sources in any Allied government.

The terrorist organization designated "Thor's Hammer" is considered to be a failed propaganda project of the Third Reich.

Any inquiries concerning the reports contained within are to be directed to Brigadier Randy Scott, United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, Mount Snowdon, Wales.

Some notes from playing:

1) This is by far the most accidentally efficient I have ever been playing this game. And to be totally honest - this is the first time I've beaten it! Usually I get bogged down on a particular mission in Hanover - but that one never popped up this time. I think by NOT going my usual route of "three grenadiers, two snipers, one medic" and destroying every free-standing structure, I actually progressed more efficiently.

2) At the same time, I have NEVER needed to use a medic as much as I did in this playthrough. Limited ammunition also became an issue, I found myself often taking captured German weapons on patrol just so that we could acquire more ammunition for them.

3) In everyone's skill tree, there's a skill for Panzerklein Operation. It's easiest for engineers to get to, but due to getting to the endgame so quickly, nobody in my squad had the skill. Hence why they were so goddamn slow in the Panzerkleins.

4) I can see where a lot of people got disillusioned once the PKs make an appearance. They completely change combat. A soldier in a Panzerklein just wipes the floor with any unarmored opponents unless they're a sniper with the laser cannon. Which, thankfully, I had.

But seriously - very fun game. It's cheap on GOG.com, and comes highly recommended.