Ghost Recon (Original) Eager Smoke

Tbilisi, Georgia April 24, 2008 02:15: Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group, the “Ghosts” are deployed to the South Ossetian Autonomous Region to assist the government of Georgia in dealing with rebel forces operating on their border with Russia. In this mission the Navy has been flying sorties against rebel positions from its carrier battle group in the Black Sea.

Last evening the rebels managed to shoot down one of the F/A-18 Hornet strike aircraft and capture both the pilot and weapons officer who managed to bail out. The mission briefing goes into some detail as to where they are being held, a farmhouse that is near the crash site. The primary mission is to rescue both the pilot and the weapons officer and escort them to the extraction zone.

The secondary or optional “X” objective is to destroy the avionics package by planting an explosive charge on the downed airframe and detonate it before the rebels can bring in technical assistance to sort through the wreckage and extract sensitive equipment. This requires a demolitions expert with a C4 kit be brought along on the mission as well as the direct action operators.

The briefing details panel: the mission narrative does a good job in outlining the requirements.

The platoon setup panel: several of my soldiers have available combat points to be assigned which I apply to the weapon category. I also have a new specialist available from completing the first mission: W. Jacobs, a rifleman equipped with an OICW system with a grenade launcher.

I have a primary assault team, a demolitions team and the lone marksman for the maximum allowable force of six soldiers (the game would have rocked allowing nine to be taken on a mission).

My force starts in the northeast of the map. Directly west is the F/A-18 Hornet crash site and the location of the option “X” objective. Approximately southwest of our position is the farmhouse where the weapons officer is being held, to the south is where the pilot is being held. The extraction zone is at the same location as the insertion zone.

Bravo Team (the demolitions force) provides overwatch as Alpha Team (the primary assault force) crosses a stream leading up to the farmland area containing the downed aircraft.

With Alpha on the opposite bank, Bravo leapfrogs past and infiltrates the crash site, taking down several hostiles along the way.

Scott Williams applies the demo charge to the airframe which triggers the optional “X” objective to be achieved.

Alpha is brought up off of the bank and moved through the concealment of the tree line to approach the farmhouse where one of the hostages is being held.

The team probes forward and takes out several patrolling rebels guarding the farmhouse.

The perimeter of the building is sanitized, however there are still some enemy forces preset within the structure itself that must be eliminated.

I could not find a way to get into this building so I had to circle around it several times to get a line of sight on the soldiers inside such as this one in a second floor window.

This soldier covering a first floor window almost took me out as I passed by.

With one of the buildings secured, I order Bravo to advance towards the location of the other hostage.

I take Alpha towards the farmhouse and encounter some harsh resistance.

This is one of several enemy troops inside the farmhouse with the weapons officer (sitting on the chair) making a grenade (launched or thrown) attack not feasible.

This little bastard hiding behind a door killed one of my men.

Another enemy up in the rafters took out another Ghost.

The weapons officer is secured at the cost of two Delta Company operators: this mission suddenly swung the cost benefit meter in the wrong direction.

Bravo is brought forward to assault the final hostage location.

Several enemy combatants come out to engage Bravo in a quick firefight.

Alpha joins in and both teams clear all enemies from the map which automatically tick off as achieved the remaining objectives.

This triggers an end of mission cut scene where the F/A-18 Hornet is destroyed by the C4 charge I placed on it earlier.

After-action Report

Damn it.

Two dead Delta Company Ghosts lost to rescue a Navy pilot and weapons officer. I know these sacrifices are made in real life (sometimes never to be heard of in the media), yet in a game environment it is still a bitter pill to swallow.

Post Mortem

Picasa Web Albums continues to wash out my images however it is not as bad in this mission as the action takes place at night. If this image alteration continues, I am going to have to go with another option for my blogging image repository other than the default system Blogger uses.