Planning and flying the raid in Operation Absolute Resolve

When you can plan it

Plan the raid stays greyed out until three things are true: the amphibious ready group is on station in the central Caribbean or off La Guaira, the assault force is embarked on it, and the special operations helicopters are embarked on it. Hover over the button to see what's still missing. The Desk lists it too.

The plan

• The target and a fallback. Tonight's intelligence report says where the target is likely to be, and how sure it is.
• H-hour. Just after midnight the city is still awake: more people about and a quicker reaction. In the deepest part of the night the city and the guard are asleep. Go late and the city sleeps, but first light comes two hours after the landing. The plan shows how many minutes you have before first light.
• The way in and out. Choose a route in and a route out, or press Draw and drag the white points on the map to make your own. Each route shows what's known along it: radars that would see the helicopters and batteries that could fire. What isn't known isn't shown.
• Blind them. Give the jamming packages the radars along the way. A radar that sees the helicopters raises the alarm, and the city wakes.
• Or strike. A strike destroys a site if it's where intelligence thinks it is. The first bomb wakes the city, though, and in a built-up area it can kill people who aren't fighting. Sites you haven't found aren't in the plan, and a battery that has moved is struck where it used to be.
• The landing zone. Reconnaissance teams can walk one beforehand, from the Ops tab.

More than the house

Below the assault you can add a diversion over the port or Fuerte Tiuna, hold the road from a barracks, strike the command centre's communications, or send a second team for a second official. Each helps and each costs something: a strike package, troops, an earlier alarm. Read what they take before you add them.

Launch and live orders

Check the target, the fallback, H-hour and the landing zone, then press Launch. Once it's under way you can:

• Abort while the assault force is inbound;
• Withdraw now once it has landed;
• change the way out;
• send a reserve strike package.

The assault

When the assault force lands, you can lead it yourself: a close-up of the house where you give the teams their orders, door by door, while the night's clock runs on. Or let the assault force carry it out.

Aircraft down

A crew on the ground is a mission of its own. Soldiers or police are on their way, and the panel shows how long the crew has. Send the QRF, the escorts to cover them, or whoever is nearest.

The debrief

After the night, the map shows what was really there: where the target slept, which sites were manned, which you missed and where the vehicles went. The Debrief tab says what each choice did. From the end screen you can start a new campaign from 15 November or go back to the start screen.

See How to play for the build-up.