IRON NEST Counter-Battery Mission Guide

Phase 1 — Plot the opening battery

Goal: Enter the timed phase with all three opening artillery targets solved.

Inputs: Your current Iron Nest location, three spotter reports, and the artillery bearing or distance information printed in the opening order.

Actions: Plot each target, draw its final line from Iron Nest, and record a complete solution. Assign every card to a gun or reload slot. Check the shell, charges, selected gun, bearing, and elevation before firing.

Success signal: Three unambiguous cards match three prepared shots. You can identify which gun fires each solution without relying on memory.

If it fails: Use reconnaissance to resolve an unclear intersection while the opening CBT has not started. Never repair uncertainty by copying another run's coordinates; the available full-release recordings show different geometry.

Phase 2 — Destroy the three opening artillery pieces

Goal: Remove every active opening gun before the Counter-Battery Timer overwhelms the Nest.

Actions: Fire the first shot, rotate to the second solution, and use the first shell's travel time to fire or prepare the next gun. Continue into the third card without engaging ordinary targets. Keep every card paired with its gun side, charges, and elevation.

Destroying artillery adds time in the observed mission flow, but the available evidence does not establish one reliable current-build starting value or a fixed number of seconds per kill. Plan around confirmed targets, not an assumed timer total.

Success signal: The teleprinter reports the opening counter-battery assets destroyed, the current timer ceases, and four ordinary hostile units remain across the river in the two observed runs.

If it fails: If the timer continues, check whether all three artillery pieces received destruction confirmations. Ordinary hostile units do not control this phase's stop condition.

Phase 3 — Reduce the remaining force and wait for the new warning

Goal: Advance the mission until the secondary artillery actually enters the operation.

Actions: Clear obsolete markers and build new solutions for the ordinary hostiles in the latest reconnaissance. In both observed runs, destroying the first two produced a warning that additional assets were ranging, no actionable fix was available, prior reconnaissance was unreliable, and Star Shell was authorized.

Success signal: You receive that secondary-artillery warning. This is the point at which the new guns are relevant to your search.

If it fails: Do not search old photographs for artillery that had not spawned when those photographs were taken. Confirm the first two ordinary targets were destroyed and read the newest teleprinter pages before spending more reconnaissance.

Phase 4 — Locate and destroy the secondary artillery

Goal: Find the two randomly positioned secondary guns observed across the river/right side and stop the second CBT stage.

Actions: Check whether a fresh strip covers the likely area. If not, Demo-era developer guidance recommends using a Star Shell for yellow correction information, then sending a scout plane along that direction. Current player reports support this distinction, but it is not officially confirmed for build 1618. A plane must cross a spawned target to reveal it.

Create a new solution for every discovered gun. If a strip is empty, cover a non-overlapping area. Move old kill tokens or lines if they obscure the map; this was an acknowledged Demo issue, but its current status is unknown.

Success signal: The teleprinter reports Counter battery is ceased or that the secondary assets are destroyed, followed by two ordinary hostiles remaining in the observed runs.

If it fails: Verify that the secondary warning has appeared, that the photograph crosses the target area, and that you found both active guns. A stopped search is not proof of a bug.

Phase 5 — Clear the last hostiles and stand down

Goal: Complete the mission after the artillery pressure has ended.

Actions: Read the latest order, locate each remaining ordinary hostile with current information, build a separate firing solution, and wait for every destruction confirmation. Do not reuse a secondary-artillery card merely because the final targets lie in a similar direction.

Success signal: The teleprinter reports All hostile assets destroyed, Sector is clear, and orders Iron Nest to stand down. This—not Counter battery is ceased—is the Campaign completion state.

If it fails: Re-read the current order and inspect the remaining target icons. The most common mistake is treating the end of the second timer as the end of the mission while two ordinary hostiles are still active.