Chambois

The Falaise Pocket was the final (15th) mission of the American Campaign of Company of Heroes.

Background[]

The American Forces led by General Patton, British and Canadian Forces led by General Montgomery and the Free Polish Forces in the West were circling the German 7th Army stationed in the Falaise Pocket. Able Company was tasked by Lt. Conti to close it and stop the German Opel Blitz Trucks carrying supplies.

Walkthrough[]

First, have the engineer to build tank traps, mines and machine gun emplacements on the road to the first two bridges. This will slow the axis convey from escaping. Then, get the fighting squad (one M4 Sherman, One M10 Tank Destroyer and two Riflemen) to capture the first two bridges and clear the enemies from the area.

Tips on medal[]

In order to get this medal the player must inflict specified number of Axis casualties, which is an awkward requirement. Put it in another way, the more efficient the player advances, the more likely the medal will be missed. Another deterring factor that will disrupt the pace is the AI-controlled Canadian forces will automatically capture vital control points. Once all primary points are captured, the timer will stop prematurely and the number of remaining enemies will be finite.

So basically, to get the medal:

Intentionally slow down the advance and intercept as many convoys as possible
Use more kill-with-high-certainty units like Snipers and AT guns
Explore the entire map to kill stationed enemies scattered across the map
Establish a kill zone to maximize the damage and increase the efficiency.
Bottleneck the withdraw route to at least middle section (Which means you need to capture north and south bridge roads to seal off their retreat, allowing you to focus on one kill zone.)
When necessary, force fire on Canadian Allies to delay their advance! Bombing their base turns out to be really effective...

Additionally, while the Canadian allies like to capture territory, their AI seems reluctant to capture the actual bridge control points. Since their base is on the opposite side of the river from yours, if no bridge points are captured it is impossible for the territory to be linked and the objective to be completed prematurely. Thus, holding off on capturing any bridges until you are ready allows you more time to clear the map and farm german convoys. This will likely lose you the secondary objective, but makes getting the medal easier. (You can also capture the two southern bridges, as long as you leave the german forces in the middle right side of the map alive to block your allies from extending their control down the right side to link with your territory. This allows you to force the convoys to take the two northern bridges for easier farming.)

Medals[]

Medal of Honor[]

Awarded for inflicting significant (actual number varied with difficulty) German casualties.

American Campaign Medal[]

Awarded for finishing the Normandy Campaign

Trivia[]

The Canadian Forces in this level are shown using American equipment, as there were only two factions ("Allied" and "Axis") in the vanilla game. In Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts that published a year later, the Canadian forces would use British equipment to better reflect historical reality.
Anachronism: the cutscene used the Maple Leaf Flag to represent Canadian forces. In real life, this version of Canadian flag was not adopted until 1965.
Inconsistency: while the medal description page says the MOH is awarded for "inflicting 500 German casulties", however, the actual requirement is 300 on Expert and less for lower difficulties.
There is no penalty for friendly fire on "Canadian Allies".
All the above may indicate the final level might have been hastily designed to meet production deadline.