A little, fun mission inspired in various videos of the ongoing conflict regarding Russia's invasion of Ukraine. This is also the first I designed and my first contribution to the DCS community.
I tried hard to match the vehicles, soldiers and such. The ingame scenery is Mozdok, a city next to a river and with a bridge next to it to try match the real Kherson's features.
This mission features drone assisted urban combat where you command the blue coalition in an effort to liberate the city. You can pilot a tank, multiple BTRs, command artillery and give orders to the drones. The only module it's required to play this mission is Combined Arms.
The mission has 2 endings (and half). The bad ending takes place if your ground troops die. For the the good ending you have to follow your orders and destroy the enemy troops and survive. In the third ending everything explodes and then you fail the mission (because you explode too) OR the mission is completed if you survive and kill the enemy
It is encouraged to set the F10 map to "Fog of war" because the information of ground objectives comes from the observations that the drone takes.
The mission should be played from a ground vehicle's point of view, move carefully through the city to feel the sensation of being underpowered, watch the corners.
If you need a little more firepower, you can spawn a second drone. Remember that it's not cheating if you are having fun. From my experience, I completed the mission multiple times with only one drone and spare munition so it can be done.
There is a reason why the northern group is the only one with a tank.
And the last tip: the mission is easier if you don't rush it, go slowly and take your time to think your steps, there is multiple ways you can do it. You want to lead the assault while driving the tank? Sure. You prefer to drive a more agile vehicle? Sure, better go pilot any BTR. Stick with one of the vehicle groups? You can lead one and use the others as "extra lifes". Or maybe you want to jump over vehicles and use the third person view a lot to enjoy the scenery, well you can do that too as long as you have fun.
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Now, the Briefing
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READ THIS INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY.
It's our time to recapture the city of Kherson, now that we managed to set a strong defensive line.
The city have russian presence in the form of BMPs, troops and tanks. We are attacking from 3 directions: north, east and west.
The north entrance is heavily defended by a line of T-90 main battle tanks assisted with light vehicles and fortifications, and must be taken out first using a combined effort of our artillery and drone attacks.
The east and west roads are not that heavily defended as they moved their tanks to other regions of Ukraine, but there is a T-90 guarding each of those roads.
Inside the city they have deployed Spetsnaz to cover their vehicles, some of them have anti-armor rocket launchers, so beware of ambushes.
An enemy T-90 tank was hidden in the other side of the Dnieper river and has been spotted moving to reinforce the back part of the city and the bridge. Another main battle tank is hidden somewhere close to that sneaky T-90 but we don't know its position just yet. Keep an eye open or better: save an extra missile in the wings of the attack drone just in case it decides to reinforce their back.
Our forces consist of:
-Artillery units at the north, far away from the city to project attacks on the enemy north tank platoon.
-Combat groups: West, North and East: Consisting on mainly BTR-82 and we only have one T-80U tank (north group only).
-Combat and spy drone: We managed to get a drone armed with laser guided bombs and missiles. Use it wisely.
As you can see, we don't have enough armored firepower to battle against their T-90s, but we have the drone to perform that task. I suggest you to use the artillery to destroy the first tank line and the drone to kill the remaining T-90s before pushing into the city with the BTRs.
The goal of our mission is to neutralize all the russian presence in the city. Destroy their tanks, BTRs and troops. After that, you are expected to settle your forces in the GOAL zone marked in the map to guard the bridge.
Thanks to the spy drone, we detected unusual russian activity on the bridge, as they seem to have planted some kind of electronics on it. Analysts says that it may be some short of automatic attack device that triggers an unknown set of attacks over the bridge, the city or our assets. The effects of triggering such electronics is unknown at the moment and we are investigating the matter. Meanwhile, the next rule is in effect:
DO NOT CROSS THE BRIDGE.
Extra information may be sent to you as the mission progresses.
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BLUE GOALS
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Destroy all the russian tanks, BTRs and troops in the city, including the first tank line of defense and its support vehicles.
Proceed to the reunion point, marked with green GOAL in the map, next to the bridge.
DO NOT CROSS THE BRIDGE.
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Had fun? Comment so I can notice! Also criticism is always good as I am by no means an expert creating with the mission editor.
Edit: fixed a blue testing vehicle I forgot to delete.
