Sniper Elite III | Ep. 11 – Save Churchill Part 2: Belly of the Beast DLC

⚠️ Into the Belly of the Beast

Our mission to protect Churchill continues with Part 2 of the Save Churchill DLC, “Belly of the Beast.” We had been warned before going in that this mission could involve a lot of death loops. Naturally, we took that as a challenge.

Apparently, this level can be completed in about ten minutes. An hour and a half later, surrounded by exploded vehicles, empty ammunition reserves and the lingering memory of a grenade-related sandbag incident, I feel we may have approached things slightly differently.

🎯 About Sniper Elite III

Sniper Elite III is a tactical third-person shooter set across the vast battlefields of World War II North Africa, combining stealth, open-ended objectives and some extremely satisfying long-range ballistics.

Or, as we know it on stream, Plum Hunters.

Huge open maps give you plenty of opportunities to plan the perfect shot, sneak through enemy territory and carefully dismantle enemy positions. They also give enemy snipers plenty of opportunities to shoot you from somewhere you absolutely cannot find.

🗺️ Where We Are in the Journey

We’re now deep into the Save Churchill DLC, with “Belly of the Beast” being the second of its three missions.

After completing this absolute marathon of a supposedly ten-minute level, only the final chapter remains. That means next week we’ll be finishing the Save Churchill storyline before continuing our completely sensible approach to the Sniper Elite franchise: playing the games in whatever order seems funniest.

💀 What Happens in This Episode

Tonight saw us return once again to Plum Hunters — or Sniper Elite III, as it is more commonly known — for Part 2 of the Save Churchill DLC, “Belly of the Beast.” We had already been warned that this particular mission had a reputation for death loops. Apparently, it can also be completed in around ten minutes.

Those two pieces of information should probably have told us exactly how the evening was going to go.

We started in a relatively small area right on the edge of the map, with only a handful of enemies between us and whatever horrors were waiting further ahead. Surprisingly, they went down without too much trouble. There were some nice early shots, the first celebrated plum hunting of the evening, and one unfortunate enemy ended up dead in a position that preserved neither his life nor his dignity.

It was all looking remarkably professional.

Then we reached the edge.

Below us stretched a huge valley, with a long ramp leading down into enemy territory. Every instinct acquired through years of video games immediately screamed that if we went down there, there would be absolutely no coming back up. So rather than blindly marching into the valley, we decided to use our lovely elevated position and snipe as many enemies as possible before committing ourselves.

This was an excellent tactical plan with one minor flaw: they could shoot us, but we couldn’t seem to shoot them.

Every few minutes another collection of enemies appeared to come charging up the map, while a distant sniper developed an alarming enthusiasm for removing our head. The promised death loops had officially arrived, and they were wasting absolutely no time making themselves at home.

Eventually, after repeated attempts, we managed to get rid of the sniper who had been causing most of the trouble. That finally gave us enough breathing room to start picking off the remaining enemies through the windows. With the immediate threat reduced, we carefully made our way down into the valley.

At this point the sheer size of the level became apparent, so there was only one sensible decision: if we were going to spend all evening trapped in here anyway, we might as well do all the secondary objectives too.

That eventually took us through a previously sealed door and into the next section, where we discovered what appeared to be an entire collection of torture or interrogation chambers crammed together. We grabbed the secondary objectives and stole every useful piece of intel we could find as we moved through.

This, naturally, triggered another death loop.

Fortunately, the enemy had developed a tactical doctrine even more questionable than ours. Soldiers kept charging out of the same room and directly into our bullets, allowing us to tuck ourselves into the corner of a corridor and deal with them as they appeared. They were practically coming out two at a time. Had we thought to have a grenade ready, the entire situation could probably have been resolved considerably faster.

Once the corridor finally went quiet, we were able to continue looking for the next main objective.

Which we had already walked past.

Things only became stranger from there. Somewhere ahead was another sniper’s nest, although finding it proved considerably more difficult than expected. We later discovered that the sniper was effectively on the opposite side of the map from where the marker suggested, which was tremendously useful information to receive after he had already spent quite some time killing us.

There was also a small side route where I tried waiting for environmental noise to cover the sound of the rifle. Unfortunately, enemies spotted us before that plan could really come together.

Then something exploded.

At first I thought we had simply been overwhelmed by enemy fire. It was only afterwards that we realised there was a tank sitting there.

Right.

New objective: kill the tank.

We crawled back along the side route after respawning and managed to double-tap its engine with the sniper rifle, blowing it apart. This was extremely satisfying for approximately the amount of time it took every nearby enemy to become furious with us.

Cue another series of death loops.

We destroyed that tank several times across repeated attempts before finally hitting a save point at exactly the right moment. That became increasingly important because we still had the mystery sniper to deal with, and our ammunition situation was becoming genuinely desperate.

By the closing stages, we were essentially rationing bullets. At one point there were around 15 machine-gun rounds left, and suddenly every enemy became an economic decision. There was no spraying bullets and hoping for the best anymore. We were waiting for openings, carefully choosing targets and trying desperately not to waste what little ammunition remained.

Somewhere in the middle of all this tactical misery, however, the stream received a very welcome — and wonderfully distracting — arrival.

My best friend and extra-special troublemaker Royal Tea managed to spare some time and slip into chat for the evening. Royal Tea turning up is always dangerous for my concentration, because it rarely takes long before the innocent conversation disappears and the flirting starts getting considerably warmer.

Tonight was no exception.

The trouble started when Royal Tea decided that if she was going to misbehave badly enough to earn herself a spanking, she rather liked the idea of my girlfriend Jade being there to watch while I bent Royal Tea over my knee and dealt with her.

Apparently having an audience was part of the appeal.

Of course, leaving the conversation there would have been far too sensible for Royal Tea. Before long, the scenario had escalated from Jade simply watching to the rather more ambitious suggestion that Royal Tea and Jade could both end up over my knee together and receive their spankings at the same time.

Royal Tea seemed far too enthusiastic about that possibility.

In fact, the thought appeared to get my favourite troublemaker rather hot and bothered, which naturally encouraged the rest of us instead of bringing the conversation back under control. There was something particularly amusing about trying to maintain tactical discipline in Sniper Elite while chat was busy discussing exactly how much trouble Royal Tea and Jade would have to cause before I decided they had earned themselves a place across my knee.

And knowing Royal Tea, I suspect the answer would be: just enough trouble to make sure it happened.

So there I was, desperately trying to ration ammunition, locate a sniper and avoid yet another death loop while my best friend was apparently enjoying the mental image of me dealing with two troublesome ladies at once. Frankly, enemy soldiers were becoming the less distracting thing on the screen.

Royal Tea and Frodo also supported the stream with subs, Frodo dropped gifted subs into the community, and both of them donated bits. There was a point where Frodo’s generosity had me struggling to get the thank-yous out while everything on-screen collapsed around me.

For a brief and glorious period, Frodo therefore replaced Gary as the person responsible for everything going wrong.

#BlameGary had become #BlameFrodo — although Royal Tea was making a very strong case for being blamed for an entirely different kind of distraction.

Chat was fully involved in the battle as well. Sane kept trying to warn us about the sniper, Spiffy was correcting our identification of enemy vehicles, ammunition was disappearing faster than Sane’s repeated attempts to actually go to bed, and saving the game became practically a religious ritual — usually accompanied by accusations that Frodo had failed to remind me.

Meanwhile, that supposedly ten-minute mission just kept getting longer.

Eventually, persistence won. We dealt with the sniper, survived the ammunition crisis and finally cleared the remaining enemies from the map. On our way back towards the area where the tank had been destroyed, we found two more soldiers making the unfortunate decision to stand beside a vehicle.

So we blew up the truck.

Double kill.

At that point, the end of the mission was close enough that restraint no longer seemed necessary. If something looked remotely explosive, we were going to blow it up. Trucks went up. Giant fuel tanks went up. Anything that looked as though it might produce a satisfying explosion was immediately promoted to an objective.

There was, however, one final lesson the game wanted to teach us.

While waiting for enemies to come around a corner, I decided that throwing a grenade from behind the sandbags might be a clever solution. What I had not adequately considered was the aerodynamic behaviour of military fortifications.

Sandbags, it turns out, are not particularly bouncy.

The grenade came back.

We blew ourselves up.

Another death loop.

Eventually, with the enemies dead, the vehicles destroyed, the fuel storage burning and the canyon looking considerably less structurally sound than when we entered it, we finally reached the exit and completed “Belly of the Beast.”

The final statistics told the story beautifully: 62 kills. 14 deaths.

And that ten-minute mission?

An hour and a half.

But this was Plum Hunters night, and finishing Sniper Elite III never means we’re actually finished. As tradition demands, we jumped over to Marbles on Stream for a few rounds with the community.

Those went about as well as everything else.

The final map was an absolute massacre. Almost everyone death-looped and not a single player managed to make it along the track, meaning Mr V wasn’t able to reclaim his win streak this week. When the surviving results were counted, I somehow claimed third place, asmith501 took second — otherwise known as first of the losers — and SpiffyMango1274 emerged as this week’s champion.

With the chaos finally exhausted, we wrapped up the evening by raiding over to Ashens for what has now become our traditional Wednesday raid.

Tomorrow brings something completely different with Bayonetta Origins on the Switch, but Plum Hunters will return next week for one final outing as we tackle the last mission of the Save Churchill DLC.

Apparently, that mission is supposed to take about 45 minutes.

After watching a ten-minute mission consume an hour and a half of our lives, I think we all know better than to believe that.

📺 Watch the Episode

If you want to see the death loops, disappearing ammunition, misplaced snipers, exploding tank and the tactical masterpiece that was throwing a grenade at some non-bouncy sandbags, you can watch the full episode here:

Watch Sniper Elite III Ep. 11 – Belly of the Beast

You can follow the entire adventure through the Sniper Elite III playlist, and don’t forget to visit the Dr Ravenholm YouTube channel to like, comment and subscribe if you’re enjoying the chaos.

🔴 Join the Adventure Live

Recorded episodes show you what happened. The livestream is where you get to watch the plans disintegrate in real time.

Come join us on Twitch or YouTube, where chat can warn me about snipers, remind me to save, provide moral support during the death loops and occasionally become the reason I’m distracted when somebody shoots me.

Royal Tea, Frodo and everyone hanging out with us made this particular disaster much more memorable, and there’s always room for another troublemaker in the crew.

🌐 Community & Links

The mission might end when we escape the canyon, but the community carries on long after the last explosion. If you want to stay connected between streams, there are plenty of ways to join the wider Dr Ravenholm network.

Live

When the next mission begins, you can be there as it happens. Join us live on Twitch or catch the action through YouTube.

Community

For conversations, stream updates and general troublemaking away from the battlefield, join the Discord community.

Socials

You can track my movements across the rest of the internet through TikTok, Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, Threads and X.

Support

If you’d like to help keep the operation running, you can visit the Dr Ravenholm merch store or support the stream directly.

More

Beyond the streams, you can explore the Transparent Aluminium Business Centre, download the service brochure, learn more about me or venture into the Transparent Aluminium blog.

💥 Until the Final Mission

“Belly of the Beast” promised ten minutes and delivered an hour and a half of snipers, tanks, ammunition shortages, explosions and death loops.

Next week, we finish the Save Churchill DLC. If the estimated completion time says 45 minutes, history suggests you may want snacks.

Until then, keep your rifle loaded, save whenever Frodo remembers to remind us, and never trust a sandbag with your grenade.

— Dr Ravenholm