Mission 09: Faceless Soldier

Operation Flush

You’re not required to destroy all other targets. Some of the target radar sites are above the cloud cover so having long-range air-to-ground Missiles will reduce the time you’re exposed to the satellite. If you’re forced to use your standard missiles, make sure that you have a clear shot and hit your afterburners to approach the target then quickly dive down to the nearest cloud cover to break the long-range missile’s lock.

The radar site on top of the mountain to the northwest is the most dangerous because of high turbulence around the area and little cloud cover. You have to move fast and make your shot count to avoid exposing yourself. I recommend saving this site for last since destroying all radar sites will instantly disable the satellite’s view and long-range missile deployment. After destroying the last radar site, you’ll have a few more seconds available to destroy other nearby targets.

After the cutscene, you’ll have to evade the Missiles coming from “friendly” fighters. You can’t do anything about it for now so you have to wait and evade them until Tabloid tells your other allies to form up behind you. Another short cutscene will take place and this simple formation will allow your AWACS to distinguish friend from foe.

You’re now free to engage and take out the hostile F/A-18F. However, this won’t be a simple dogfight; the Arsenal Bird will be firing burst Missiles from off the map. Stay away from the red circles that will appear in your radar to avoid getting damaged by the HELIOS missile’s blast range. Helios missiles have smaller area of effect in lower altitudes so make sure to dive as low as you can in case you don’t have enough time to get out of the blast zone before the missile impact. Keep shooting down all enemy bogeys to complete the mission.

Mission 09: First Playthrough

ACE

Hans Weber “SPIDER” F/A-18F

Destroy at least half of the enemy forces other than your radar towers (TGT). SPIDER will spawn near the middle-western side of the mission area and can be hard to spot. Make sure to destroy the choppers as early as you can so that you won’t get confused of the aircraft blip in your radar. You also have to shoot it down quickly since you only have a few seconds of window before the powerful anti-air missile catches you off guard while you’re away from cloud cover.

RANK S TIPS

This is a tricky mission to S-rank since it requires a combination of speed and number of targets destroyed. You’ll have an easier time to get rank S when you’re not trying to achieve the conditions to spawn the ace of this mission (SPIDER) and focus destroying TGTs and the surrounding hostiles as fast as you can. You can still trigger his appearance but you’ll be pressed with time, depending on your Accuracy and how fast you can kill targets.

Use a fast, stable aircraft with homing air-to-ground weapons. Focus on destroying targets and hostiles as you go; minimize the times you have to loop back to finish the job. Multi-target air-to-ground weapons like 4AGM is perfect in this mission. I’ve used the SU-30M2 since it has the said SP weapon, has great speed, mobility, and agility. Here’s the mission result to get an S-rank in Normal difficulty to serve as reference.