Barbed wire keeps the enemy out! Maintaining the fence prevents more enemies from getting into the Support Trench. You need a Wire Spool to patch a gap. You can find them here, starting in Chapter 2:

• Merchant (3 available for 25c each)
  
• Reserve Trench West
  
• Wire Storage
  
• Crate Storage, Ft. Souville

There are the locations with parapets to patch up (in priority order):

1. Reserve Trench West
   
2. Reserve Trench East
   
3. Communication Trench East (2)
   
4. Support Trench West (2)

If these gaps aren't closed, the reinforcements that will arrive through them are listed below.

Chapter 2 (after opening the cage in the Pigeon Coop):

• Reserve Trench West: 2 shovels, 1 club, 1 rifle
  
• Reserve Trench East: 1 knight
  
• Communication Trench East: 1 club per open gap

Chapter 4:

• Communication Trench East: 1 elite raider per open gap
  
• Support Trench West: 1 knight from the right gap, 1 rifle with bayonet from the left gap (after picking up the Howitzer Shell (230MM))
  
• Reserve Trench East: 1 elite raider (after picking up the Artillery Crank)

PROTIP: Be aware that there are some new enemies will appear in these areas upon returning to the trenches or picking up certain items in Chapter 4 even if the gaps are closed.

Artillery doesn't just break morale and fortifications - it's critical to keeping a path clear to the front. There one instance where this is necessary to progress (firing on Cemetery Alley from the Ruined Pasture in Town) - all of the other obstacles are optional to destroy, but doing so is to your benefit.

First, you need to find an Artillery Shell (75MM) to fire. They start appearing in Chapter 2 and can be found in the following locations:

• Merchant (200c)
  
• Arbory, Supply Trench
  
• Courtyard, Ft. Souville
  
• Blockhouse Berthe, Support Trench
  
• Gun Store, Town

Then you need a gun to fire from. There are four in the Working Artillery battery in the Supply Trench, each pointed at different targets in the Support Trench. (I've listed them in the other I prioritize them.)

1. Fire Trench (Reveals a Ruby and kills two knights, dropping the Infirmary Key. Worth it to skip a tricky early-game fight. These kills don't count against you for the Elite Trench Raider achievement and is a necessity for the Conscientious Objector achievement.)
   
2. Support Trench West (Opens up a shortcut and reveals some Handcannon Ammo. Makes this area a quicker alternative to Reserve Trench West, and make retrieving the Howitzer Shell (230MM) significantly easier as the original route is blocked by rubble after you pick it up.)
   
3. Reserve Trench East (Allows access to a room with Handcannon Ammo, a Pronged Key, and the Silver Necklace, and increases your ability to maneuver in this area.)
   
4. Reserve Trench West (Access to a room with the Revolver and the area's rat hole. Personally I prefer semi-automatic pistols and it's easy enough to avoid needing to close the rat hole, especially if you've destroyed the Support Trench West obstacle and/or patched the wire gap in Reserve Trench West.)

PROTIP: If you're doing a speedrun or trying to get an S/S+ rank, you can simplify your routing in Town by saving one of the shells you can find earlier in the game in storage until you need it.

Keeping maintenance tools close at hand is crucial for a soldier's survival. In Chapter 3 you will find two tools to help you progress through The Road: the Entrenching Tool and the Pump Handle. There are some places you will need them to progress (which will be underlined), but there are also a few optional uses for them. (Unless otherwise noted all locations are in The Road.)

Note that for both tools, once you use them at all possible locations they will be discarded.

The Entrenching Tool removes wooden boards from narrow gaps and doorways.

• End of the Road
  
• River
  
• Shanty
  
• Farm (Satirical Coin)
  
• Trench Access (Shotgun Shells, Gun Part)
  
• Residential Area, Town (Antique Pipe and the Note to Joseph file)

Using the Pump Handle on a broken water pump will flush out an item. Only one of these is necessary to progress - but the others have valuable gems inside.

• Ruined Church (Emerald)
  
• Farm (Lock pick)
  
• Camp (Emerald)
  
• Woods (Rock*)
  
• End of the Road (Sapphire)
  
• Back Door, Support Trench (Emerald)
  
• Wash House, Town (Ruby)

*If you take the Rock to the Reflecting Pool in the Support Trench, you can wash it off in the water there to reveal a gem. How valuable a gem it is depends on your difficulty level:


PROTIP: The Reflecting Pool will be destroyed in Chapter 4, so you won't be able to wash the rock off after that. If you miss your chance (or you can't spare the time to backtrack all that way) you can just stick it in your storage box for NG+, and you can wash it off as early as Chapter 2.

Forget the Hague Conventions, in these trenches it's "finders keepers", especially when you need some extra smokes.

• Silver Necklace: Reserve Trench East, Support Trench (in the room unblocked by firing artillery into Reserve Trench East.)
  
• Gold Necklace: Streets, Town (In the fountain, accessible after the water is drained.)

The necklaces can be combined with square gemstones:

• Onyx Gemstone: Mining Office, Supply Trench (inside a drawer unlocked with a Small Key)
  
• Amethyst Gemstone: Church, Town

Here are the sell values for the necklaces, square gemstones, and their combinations:

• Silver Ring: Camp, The Road (Outside the stables.)
  
• Gold Ring: Blood Wells, Ft. Vaux (in the bottom left room.)

Rings can be combined with round gemstones.

• Ornate Gemstone: Fort, The Road (Accessible from the basement inside Ft. St. Michel)
  
• Elegant Gemstone: Vaux Weapon Storage, Ft. Vaux (Leftmost locker)

Here are the sell values for the rings, round gemstones, and their combinations:

Based on the above tables, here are the combinations which will net you the most cigarettes:

• Silver Amethyst Necklace (180c)
  
• Gold Onyx Necklace (240c)
  
• Elegant Silver Ring (200c)
  
• Ornate Gold Ring (280c)

PROTIP: This might only matter in your NG+ runs when you need smokes to buy gun parts - in a new game you might find it more useful to combine and sell the pieces as soon as possible to fund your more expensive purchases. (That said, it's not worth it to sell incomplete items - the value of individual pieces is much less than that of a combined one.)

We lose more soldiers to vermin and disease than from bullets and shells - keep clean for victory!

Thankfully I entirely missed the pre-patch era of overpowered killer rats, so while pest control is not as crucial as it used to be it still pays to prevent them from appearing as much as possible so you don't get swamped and nibbled to death. (Especially on Veteran difficulty when they instantly respawn once you leave an area!) You can tell if a corpse might attract rats if there are flies hovering around it.

Rat holes can be destroyed by using a Grenade. This prevents rats from spawning on corpses in that area (but not any other adjacent locations). Here are all the rat holes I've found - if you find more (or more are added in a patch) please let me know!

• Reserve Trench West (Not accessible until an artillery obstacle is destroyed)
  
• Reserve Trench East
  
• Support Trench West
  
• Support Trench East
  
• Emergency Control
  
• Communication Trench East

• Cave Shelter
  
• Supply Trench
  
• Supply Route

None (Rats do spawn here, though! It seems like it takes longer than in the trenches, but I can't be sure.)

• Throughfare
  
• Streets

• Central Courtyard
  
• Crossfire
  
• Subventilation Shaft

PROTIP: Here are some considerations as to whether or not to collapse a particular hole:

• Will you be returning to this area? (If not, it doesn't matter if rats spawn.)
  
• Will you kill enemies here? (If you can just run/sneak by, there will be no corpses for rats to spawn on.)
  
• How many corpses are there? (If it's just one or two it may be more economical to just burn those corpses instead.)
  
• Are you in a hurry? (It's usually quicker to just blow up a rat hole than to run around burning each corpse.)

Having a properly packed kit will make the difference between pressing on and falling back. The more you can carry with you the more options you will be in any given situation, and the further you can travel before needing to resupply at a storage box.

The number of slots you start with and where you can find Larger Bags depends on the difficult you are playing on - the more you start with, the less upgrades you can find. (If the merchant has bags to sell, they are all available for purchase at the start of Chapter 2 for 250c each.)


Here are the locations of free Larger Bags:

• Pigeon Coop, Support Trench (After getting the Souville Key)
  
• Suicide Alley, Support Trench (Accessible with Helmet Key)
  
• Residence, The Town (Accessible with Town Key)
  
• Crematorium, Ft. Vaux (Accessible with Lion Key)

The merchant sells up to 5 Ammo Pouches for 50c each starting in Chapter 2, regardless of difficulty. Each one increases the amount of ammo you can hold in a stack by 10%.

Here is how much ammo you can carry with a given number of upgrades:

PROTIP: Absolutely prioritize getting buying the Larger Bags. While Ammo Pouches are worth investing in later in the game, at maximum capacity they net you +50% ammo capacity for 250c - so for the same price as a Larger Bag you effectively get half an inventory slot (per ammo type you are carrying).

Lucky for us, German operational security is flawed. While many of the combination locks are randomized, there are some which have never been changed. I've noted each of those here:

• Sleeping Quarters, Support Trench: 1895
  
• Galleries, Ft. Souville: (A = Soldier, B = Lion, C = Medal, D = Sword)
  
• Familial House, Town: 3124
  
• Gun Store, Town 1899
  
• Vaux Weapon Store, Ft. Vaux (Middle locker): 4512

Of the randomized locks, you can often find the current combination written down somewhere by forgetful soldiers.

• Front Line (during the first raid): Found on two papers - one in a boarded-up building and the other past a movable crate in the bottom right
  
• Camp, The Road: In a file located in the basement of Ft. St. Michel
  
• Isolation, Ft. Vaux: On a paper found in Fort Communications
  
• Vaux Weapon Store, Ft. Vaux (Left locker): Found by examining the Dogtag in the Mortuary
  
• Vaux Weapon Store, Ft. Vaux (Right locker): Based on the drawings in Pierre's diary hidden in the Cellar during flashbacks
  
• Vaux Weapon Store, Ft. Vaux (Lockbox): In Pierre's last diary entry

PROTIP: Write these codes down! If it's not on a file or inventory item, you won't have any way to check what the code was later.

Thank you for checking out this guide! I hope you found it useful. If you're looking for something I didn't list in this guide, you can probably find it in Stasyak's achievement guide. In particular if you're looking for the following, you can find that information under the related achievement:

• Gaston's appearances (American Horsepower)
  
• Medic requests (Stretcher Bearer)
  
• Morphine & Stimulants (Uncomfortably Numb)
  
• Small Keys & Drawers (Wartime Looter)

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3301457433

If you have questions or corrections, please let me know!

• v1.7 - Consolidated some and renamed sections, additional formatting changes.
  
• v1.6 - Added information about the reinforcements that you can prevent with the Wire Spools.
  
• v1.5 - Added information about the Ruined Church pump, and confirmed the different gems the Rock can be.
  
• v1.4.1 - Minor formatting updates.
  
• v1.4 - Added Inventory Upgrades section.
  
• v1.3 - Confirmed that rats do spawn in The Road.
  
• v1.2 - Found another rat hole in the Support Trench
  
• v1.1 - Added information about the Silver Ring (thanks Kapdap!)
  
• v1.0 - Initial version