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| “ | After losing his Tactical Nuke Silos in the Amazonas Rainforest, Yuri plans to create a makeshift rocket loaded with a nuclear payload, and launch it from a city in South America against the Paradox Engine. Alerted, the surviving American forces from San Juan quickly react to the threat. | ” |
| —Mission description |
Operation: Gridlock is an Allied Special Operations campaign mission.
Contents
Briefing
To no one's surprise, Yuri is desperately trying to get the Paradox Engine out of the skies, as even after we disabled the nukes in the Amazonas Rainforest he still has more tricks up his sleeve. Our intelligence operations have reported that Yuri has a small rocket launching facility in Sao Luis, Brazil. What its original purpose was will remain a mystery for the time being, as now Yuri seems to be converting the last shuttle he has there into a makeshift Tactical Nuke, by loading it with materials from his Nuclear Reactors. Fortunately, the conversion of the Rocket doesn't seem to have been completed yet, so we have some time to strike left. The amount of Reactors in the city is worrying though; one false move and everything might be scorched to the ground.
The forces we have extracted from Puerto Rico recently are in transit for Brazil now, where they will attempt to neutralize the Rocket before it can be deployed against us. Additionally, now that they're back from their successful missions in the Amazonia and on the Virgin Islands, Tanya and Norio will be assisting you, once their weapons are locked and loaded. Get rid of this Rocket, Commander, so that the Paradox Engine can roam the Atlantic without a nuclear threat looming over once again. Just don't blow the entire city up in the process.
Objective 1: Escort the MCV to the designated location.
Objective 2: Capture the Rocket Control Units.
Objective 3: Destroy 3 Iron Curtain Devices.
Note: Capture or destroy Reactors & destroy Kamaz to delay the launch.
Events
Establishing bases
The US and Pacific Front forces from San Juan cleared a landing point under the cover of the navy and deployed ground forces there, and quickly advanced to the two predetermined locations. They defeated the nearby PsiCorps and the controlled Latin Confederation forces, while the two commanders' MCVs were sent to the coast by Voyagers after more reinforcements were chronoshifted there. When escorting MCVs, they carefully chose to destroy the Marauders who had the greatest threat to MCVs, and then let their troops escort MCVs along the designated route. Not long after that, the two MCVs were successfully deployed, the Pacific Front commander's base was located in an open space in the west, and the American commander's base was next to an abandoned stadium where he cleaned up an Epsilon outpost, including a Fake Construction Yard.
Delaying the launch
Establishing a foothold in the city gave the Allies the ability to search further for Epsilon's intelligence. They found that Epsilon had no intention of launching the rocket immediately, but they were collecting nuclear materials from multiple Nuclear Reactors in the city by Heavy Kamazs instead so that they could make their rockets launch earlier. However, to stop this crisis, the commanders couldn't directly destroy the Rocket Launchpad. Its explosion would cause a chain reaction in the city, killing all the surviving US troops, and capturing the controllers to disable the rocket was the right way. But both controllers are protected by the Iron Curtain, so the Allies must first try to destroy Iron Curtain Devices to capture the controller.
However, the Allies received another message: the Iron Curtain Devices themselves were also protected by the Iron Curtain, and the Allies could only cut the Epsilon power supply as the first task. At this time, Norio and Tanya also chronoshifted here to support the actions of the American commander. Despite destroying Iron Curtain Devices and capture the controller was the main mission, the commanders were constantly looking for opportunities to destroy the Kamazs and Nuclear Reactors to delay rocket launch time. The commanders could only try to assemble their forces to move forward, while strengthening the base defense to deal with airborne infantry and air force threats.
Stopping the countdown
After a long period of stalemate, the commander completed the assembly of the troops, Abrams Tanks, Warhawks, Athena Cannons and Rocketeers became the main force of the attack. They quickly destroyed a base on the road leading to the Rocket Launchpad and advanced to a position with two Napalm Storages. At the same time, he assembled another similar force to launch an attack on another PsiCorps base from the east and destroyed the remaining two Nuclear Reactors. The destruction of all Nuclear Reactors caused Epsilon's power supply to be cut off, but the intelligence department made another mistake: the cutoff of the power supply did not make the controllers' iron curtain disappear, but Iron Curtain Devices' own iron curtain disappeared, so the commander destroyed the two devices that protect the controllers.
The destruction of the three Iron Curtain Devices did cause the controller's iron curtain to disappear, and the commander immediately sent engineers to capture them. The engineers entered the controllers and interfered with the launch process, lifting the nuclear threat from this bizarre rocket.
Aftermath
| “ | Excellent! The nuclear crisis that has loomed over the Paradox Engine's fate for too long has finally been dealt with. We can't be too hasty to celebrate though, Yuri surely is preparing more of his experimental weapons to attack us with. | ” |
| —Battlefield report |
The Engineers who captured the controllers said the rocket appeared to be used for aerospace, but the Allies were still concerned about the safety of the Paradox Engine, they did not pay too much attention to this detail. With the elimination of the second nuclear threat from Brazil, the security of the Paradox Engine was once again guaranteed. It was getting its destination, Cape Town, closer to closer.
Difficulty changes
Casual
- Starting credits: 75000
- Missile launch countdown: 2:00:00
Normal
- Starting credits: 60000
- Missile launch countdown: 1:45:00
- Several Driller ambushes will appear when escorting MCVs.
- The ally will paradrop more infantry than in other difficulties.
- Enemy will continuously paradropping infantry to the player's base.
Mental
- Starting credits: 50000
- Missile launch countdown: 1:30:00
- Several Driller ambushes will appear when escorting MCVs.
- Enemy will continuously paradropping infantry that more than on Normal difficulty to the player's base.
- Iron Curtain Devices will be self-protected, the player must destroy Nuclear Reactors to disintegrate the iron curtains on these devices.
Easter egg
There is an easter egg in this mission, which can be achieved by completing the following four goals:
- [If you send an engineer into the nearby Warehouse], a statue just southwest of it will blow up and give you control over a camel.
- Keep the offshore drilling platform in the north and a nearby dumpster intact and destroy the drilling platform in the northwest (recommend to use Barracudas), then park a vehicle directly above the baseball field next to the dumpster. After a few seconds, the dumpster will explode and a pig will appear.
- Capture the Confederation base, deploy a Drakuv Prison Vehicle to capture an Epsilon Elite, then control the cow in the bottom right corner.
- Destroy AI ally's Construction Yard to get a dog.
When all 4 animals were collected, send them to the central obelisks, then they will die one by one, obelisks will be destroyed by the thunder, and the player will gain a T-Rex.
A video walkthrough of this easter egg can be found [here].
Behind the scenes
- In version 3.3.4, the ally subfaction was European Alliance, and one of your heroes was Siegfried instead of Norio.
Trivia
| “ | An old Soviet War Factory.. with prisoners inside. They say this rocket had a different purpose. Until recently, it would launch and return on a semi-regular basis, with an unknown cargo. Unfortunately, we weren't able to learn where it was going. | ” |
| —Allied Command report on local Soviet prisoners from a nearby Napalm Storage facility |
- If you send an engineer into the Napalm Storage, you'll be given several Fury Drones and have access to it and the Buratino in your weapons protocol.
- During development, the location of this mission was Buenos Aires, and the mission precisely has an obelisk, the landmark of that city.
 Allied  Soviet  Epsilon  Foehn |
| Missions in italics are not currently available and will be released in future updates |
