First To Fight

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The USS Khe Sanh has stopped 30 miles off the southern coast of Chernarus. On board, the marines of the 27th MEU stand ready. Mission Description

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First To Fight
Time	03:10 PM
Date	08-10-2009
Location	USS Khe Sanh, 48 km off the coast of South Zagoria, Chernarus
Next	Into The Storm

First To Fight is the first mission of ArmA 2's Operation Harvest Red campaign.

Overview

The players control the four operatives of USMC Force Recon fireteam callsign Razor. The 27th Marine Expeditionary Unit (27th MEU) has liberated the island of Utes. The primary phase of Operation Harvest Red; the invasion of South Zagoria, can now begin in earnest.

Roles/classes:

• Matthew Cooper
  • Specops / Grenadier
• Randolph Sykes
  • Specops / Marksman
• Chad Rodriguez
  • Specops / Heavy Gunner
• Brian O'Hara
  • Specops / Corpsman

Default loadouts:

• Matthew Cooper
• Randolph Sykes
• Chad Rodriguez
• Brian O'Hara

Initial:

• Primary weapon: None
• Secondary weapon: None
• Equipment: None
• Backpack: None

Initial:

• Primary weapon: None
• Secondary weapon: None
• Equipment: None
• Backpack: None

Initial:

• Primary weapon: None
• Secondary weapon: None
• Equipment: None
• Backpack: None

Initial:

• Primary weapon: None
• Secondary weapon: None
• Equipment: None
• Backpack: None

The briefing loadout menu is not available for this mission.

Objectives

Primary

• (1) Survive
• (2) Follow Shaftoe
• (3) Report to WO Maddox

Optional

N/A

Mandatory

• All members of Razor must survive
• Do not harm your fellow Marines
• Remain on the ship

Walkthrough

Primary 1: Survive

You begin as members of a CDF squad trapped inside the ruined church at Strelka for this "dream" sequence.

There's not much you can do other than attempt to kill as many of the ChDKZ insurgents assaulting your position. Once the tank rolls into position, it will fire a barrage at the church and instantly slaughter every survivor. Alternately, you'll all be killed once a jet drops a bomb onto your position. Either way, the "dream" will end once everyone has been killed.

Primary 2: Follow Shaftoe

Once you regain control of your Marine, follow Captain Shaftoe to the ship's briefing room. You will have the option of asking one out of three questions when Shaftoe prompts at the end of the briefing.

Primary 3: Report to WO Maddox

You are now free to explore the rest of the ship, take part in training exercises or do target/manoeuvring practice at the improvised courses.

No matter your decision, speak with Lieutenant John Maddox (your team's transport pilot) when you are all ready to proceed with the next mission. The ending cutscene will also begin if time passes 1900 hours (7:00 PM).

Trivia

• It is not possible to survive the "dream" sequence even if you use scripting commands to become invincible or spawn anti-tank weapons, as the CDF survivors are scripted to die at the end.
  • Invisible barriers also surround the church, making it impossible to leave the ruins unless the players resort to scripted methods of relocation.
• Third person view cannot be toggled for the duration of the briefing (it will be re-enabled after it finishes).
• The USS Khe Sanh's escort ships - the Fregatas and Destroyers, are simply decorative props with no crews manning them. They do possess roadway LODs which will allow the players to (theoretically) walk on them assuming they were somehow able to get aboard.
• Maddox's UH-1Y uniquely features a cabin light that only appears in the ending sequence where Razor Team departs for their next mission. However, this light is purely scripted and cannot actually be "toggled" in regular gameplay (a point light is simply attached to the flight cabin by script).
• When ArmA 2 first launched, First To Fight suffered from a range of bugs that either caused training courses on the Khe Sanh to not function properly or would result in soft locks happening due to cutscenes never finishing.
  • A prime example was training on the shooting range. The training would never end due to a bug in the mission script, thereby soft locking the player both in singleplayer and co-op until they restarted the entire mission from scratch.
  • Bizarre glitches would also happen in the ending sequence if the campaign was being played in multiplayer. For instance, if one or more of the four players were in a different vehicle at the time of the ending sequence (e.g. a player was driving the Towing tractor), then they would still be stuck on the Khe Sanh while the rest of the players would properly be boarded into Maddox's helicopter.
  • It would take several patches to correct some of these problems, namely Patch 1.02 and Patch 1.04. However, a few other bugs (like dying early in the dream sequence resulting in a game over) continued to linger long after these patches for pre-Operation Arrowhead versions of ArmA 2 until the release of CorePatch, which finally addressed the majority of First To Fight's remaining bugs.
• A brief excerpt of the ending sequence's music track (15: Morning Sortie) is reused in the intro cutscene for ArmA Tactics' second campaign, Operation No Deal.