Hi Frinik,
There's one Panzergrenadier platoon in the mission to help out with the village, or rather, you should help them,
Set the 'formation' of your platoon to 'none' when crossing the river, I'm sad to say the AI isn't very smart regarding this.
As for the weather, let's just say, it took a turn for the worse... and you can expect more such 'bad weather' for the next couple of missions