In this mission you will lead a flight of A-10s to strike an Insurgent command-and-control bunker at night before providing Close Air Support to an allied ground force tasked with sweeping a village in the Caucasus mountains.
A full briefing and map screens are supplied with the mission, plus notes to the player in the readme text doc.
This mission contains extensive customised voice comms and a full complement of battlefield support including JTACs, SpecOp recon teams and CAOC (Combined Air Operations Center) CAS coordination.
Randomisation of CAS tasking invites at least two play-throughs of the mission in order to receive all available target assignments.
Perceptions of mission difficuty may vary but I believe this to be an intermediate-to-advanced level scenario which, depending on specific targets assigned, will require competence in the following areas:
i. Target i/d and prosecution via JTAC LSS laser guidance
ii. Target i/d and prosecution via CDU input of L/L coordinates given in-flight
iii. Target i/d and prosecution via TAD "Mark" for locations given by reference to a flightplan waypoint (WPs are all at nav altitudes and not suitable for target i/d)
iv. Target i/d and prosecution of a moving convoy from altitude using all available resources.
This is a tactical, procedural mission designed to reflect the reality of US military operations against a well-equipped militia, not the Russian or Chinese armies in full cry. It is therefore an asymmetrical scenario in which you have extensive battlefield support and are unlikely to get yourself killed unless you screw up. This is not a mission for gamers who like to fly Rambo against a wall of SAMs. The object is to complete all target assignments (your primary plus two randomly selected on-call CAS targets) and to RTB to Vaziani with both flight members in one piece. Clearance to RTB and a safe landing constitute victory in this .miz, as they do IRL.
A hefty thank you to Apples and Panther for the voice-over radio files and to Grimes, who schooled me in the black arts of randomisation in the ME with enormous patience.
I hope you enjoy the mission, which is the product of many hours of hand-crafting, playtesting and teeth-grinding. Comments are very welcome (in fact, encouraged). Not many people seem to be making missions for SP, so if you like it, say so and I will make more.
The attached "Midnight Run" file contains the readme and adjusted versions of the .miz for both ramp and runway starts. Needless to say, I recommend the ramp start.
