Over the past four or five years I’ve been living in a bit of a cave when it comes to a lot of the sims we fly. I tend to pick up a module, fly it for a few months, learn some of it..then shelve it and take a break and wash/rinse/repeat a few months later. So I rarely do much more than do the training mission and occasionally some of the module included campaign missions. I have only in passing noticed some of the amazing posts by @smokinhole and @jross about some of the more advanced capabilities of DCS World as it pertains to making for a more immersive experience.
With a little bit of time to kill the past couple of weeks with poor weather dominating the Carolina area, I started poking around and discovered Leka’s Foothold dynamic mission. Apparently it is an upgrade to Dzsebkab’s original Foothold missions. I don’t know much about Foothold other than what I read on the Discord channel:
It sounds intriguing…but I don’t even know if it is possible to “win” the mission as a single-player. Once I get some experience with it, I’ll set-up a Mudspike server on home box and maybe we can tackle a map together. What I think it interesting about it is the wide variety of missions and “quests” I guess that I think have a wide range of appeal and make the sim feel more like a game..which I don’t think is a bad thing. Some of the features:
- Dynamic Spawn
- Dynamic zone disable to have a better performance.
- Mantis aka Skynet on some zones with Scoot’n’shoot, Meaning Shorad aka Sa-15, Sa-8 etc will fire and move.
- CTLD. Capture zone with Troops dropped fr om helo. Drop Hawk Site or build a farp with persistence.
- Welcome Message upon entering the unit with Wind, active runway, QNH and altimeter.
- When zone is captured, you’ll get notified that ATIS is now available for that zone if airfield incase you want to land there.
- Balanced AI, both Red cap and red ground units.
- Escort for A-10, F15E, Hercules with built in radio menu: “Orbit here”, “setup reacetrack”, “Rejoin” “RTB”, “Patrol ahead”
- Custom purchase menu with the usual + Jtac 9 Line.
- Ability to destroy bought CAP
- AWACS and Tankers will progress
- Kneeboard with Cords.
- Hotstart available.
- Support For Chinook and many more.
Leka updates the missions weekly-ish and apparently they stay compatible. We’ll see about that.
What I DO know, is that my first mission in Foothold - Persian Gulf was a fantastic one that made me appreciate the gameplay value of a mission like this.
Here is the beginning state of the war. “Foothold” implies just having the barest presence on the map. It reminds me somewhat of some of the old EECH campaigns like Taiwan where you start with just a tiny piece of the island. Dynamic spawn slots are available and you can choose to start from I think the carrier, a land base, or a FARP.
My first objective is to head east across the map towards Al Ain with a speedbump in the path at Al Khatim.
Initial start statistics. I’m not sure quite what to do with the credits..but perhaps I’ll figure that out as I go.
Having just “graduated” from JF-17 school…it’s time to put some of that (minimal) knowledge to the test. I figure a good bet is to carry some LD-10 anti-radiation missiles out to the east and try to tamp down some of the (unknown) SAM threat.
Who decided to launch a mission into the rising sun. 
I can’t see a thing…
As we approach Al Khatim we get our first customer..an SA-15 starts emitting so I put the LD-10 in passive mode and fire one off…
Unfortunately my first foray into battle is short lived as another unit lights me up. Pretty sure it was an IR MANPAD perhaps.
Now..here is where the fun really starts. Yes, exchanging a JF-17 for an AA vehicle isn’t a great exchange rate..and I’ll try to do better in the future. BUT..at least I was able to eject…and in this mission, an ejected pilot can be rescued! From the F10 map I give the ejected pilot (uh..me..) a waypoint to start making his way to the west to get a bit further away from the threat area.
The only helicopter I have any recency of experience in is the OH-58D..so I’m going to assume I kicked the CP/G out of it to make room for…myself…
So off I go out to the east to rescue myself. Staying low and whipping over the trees and across the villages I could hear an occasional warning on my RWR. Was I going to get targeted? Was an enemy aircraft going to spot me? I don’t know. The tension was real..and it was awesome.
After about 15 minutes of flying..I get a message from..uh..myself (yeah..this is going to be awkward..)..
Pop smoke!
I land and pick myself up..and head back to base at low altitude..
I’m awarded credits earned but I’m not sure why I don’t get credited for the SAM kill. I think the mission does stress actually landing back at base so I’ll have to figure that out.
Anyway..the most fun I’ve had in a DCS mission in a long time. I do realize that I might have to get somewhat adept at a couple other modules in order to fulfill some of the mission tasking such as resupply or landing troops to capture a zone. This is where a dedicated group of Mudspike friends will come in handy. I’ll keep you posted on when that might happen.
