1st Jan 2012: Midnight Sun

Mission: OPERATION MIDNIGHT SUN

Operatives: Dan, Cav

The two Little Bird choppers lifted into the night, leaving Dan and I alone with 8 brain dead AI against approximately 70 Takistani regulars defending 5 valuable objectives: A mortar fire base, an outpost in a villa, a shilka, an ammo dump, and two su25s at an airfield.

We ran north, keeping to the western side of the river. Dan, toting a sniper rifle, ran for the high ground while I took the AI up the road. Before we got to the outpost we ran into two squads (8-10 soldiers) heading south. I did absolutely nothing with my m-14 glorified hunting rifle, and was anhilated with the AI in short order.

Respawning at a small US safe house on the other side of the river, I headed for the su25s. It took a long time to run to the city, but I was able to enter the airbase undetected from the east. I had high hopes of capturing the Hind gunship, but it was already airborne when I reached the hangar.
The Hind was disappearing into the distance, so I eased the su25 onto the runway. I'd barely made it a hundred meters before rockets streaked in at me from the gunship! I punched the throttle and swung a fast turn as the MG at the north end of the runway spat at me. Losing consciousness, I sped up the runway to take off, but was peppered by the Hinds guns and died on the tarmac.

Time to try the mortar base. Dan did most of the work, sniping all the Takis inside, and it seemed clear when I got to it. Two mooj ran in from the dam wall, but Dan drilled one and I got the other. I then found the two mortars, and after wasting a few shots was able to figure out how to use them. The outpost villa (so difficult in a previous game) was destroyed in single shot- BAM, objective complete! An enemy truck with a heavy gun in the back came to investigate- BOOM! death from above! A hapless soldier crept along the river- POW! Vaporised!

Unfortunately no more objectives were within mortar range. I pounded the road to the shilka, then carpeted the fertile lands between us and a known cache of weapons. Once out of mortar rounds, I satcheled the mortar base. The Hind was there in moments, whirring angrily overhead, but I scurried away undetected.

I made for the cache of weapons. Sneaking carefully into the yard, I opened the crate and lifted a stinger onto my shoulder. Now, where was that pesky Hind?
Dan directed me to the south. I ran for miles to find it buzzing around our LZ popping off the useless AI. I got a good lock with the stinger, fired at it and it vanished from the scope. My kill count didn't increase though. Still, I couldn't hear it and was out of shots anyway, so I headed north again. A minute or so later I heard a big explosion from the south.

Time for the other su25. I ran and ran, skirted the city and once more entered the airbase. I sprinted into the other hangar, leaped into the cockpit and rolled onto the runway. No chopper to stop me now! The MG flicked tracers at me, but I swung around, blasted down the runway and lifted into the air. Yes!
Learning from previous mistakes I went to select "gear up", but accidentally selected "Automatic landing".
Oops! The plane swung around.
"Cancel Auto Landing".
Cancelled, but now I was pointing at the ground.
"NOOOO!!!"
<BOOM!> Objective Complete!
FAIL.

Meanwhile, Dan had been fighting his own private war at the northernmost objective, the Shilka, so I ran to help. He'd already done most of the heavy lifting, but there was still a significant force on the other side of a farmstead. We sneaked around so the buildings hid us from the soldiers, then Dan covered while I bellied in to the objective. inching past a machine gun nest full of dead soldiers (courtesy of Dan), placed the charges between the Shilka's treads then ran back to him.

Bullets sprayed the leaves all around me- I was hit! I dragged myself into some bushes and touched off the bombs. Objective complete! I struggled to heal myself as the Takis closed in, then Dan and I ran for it.

One objective to go, the hardest one. The ammo dump was surrounded by farms and trees, there were a million hiding places. We took casualties quite a few times. At one point I reached the weapons cache, got a grenade launcher and pumped grenades onto the objective at extreme range, spotted by Dan on the other side. While I couldn't destroy the dump, I did take down some of the Takis.

At another point, Dan and I approached the dump from the east. While I slooowly bellied through the fields, Dan ran to the city mosque and climbed the tower. From the vantage point he provided intel on enemy locations, and got one of the soldiers with a fine long range shot.

Suddenly: "Danny Boy was killed".

What happened? Had one of their snipers seen him? Had a patrol passed through the city?

No, Dan had gone to lie down for a more stable shot, and FALLEN OFF THE TOWER! It took Dan ages to stop laughing.

Finally, with a lot of teamwork and talking it up, Dan had cleared a side of the dump and gained me an entry point. I crept into a building and looked out to the courtyard. Two bodies lay next to the objective crates. I put a shot into each to be sure, which was lucky because on of them had been playing possum. I felt very exposed running into the courtyard, but I put down a satchel, ran back out into Dan's cover, thumbed the bomb, and we won the mission!