Walkthrough
Operations walkthrough
IRON NEST runs six operations — four tutorials that teach the full gunnery toolkit, a relaxed sandbox, and a timed challenge. Play them in campaign order; each one introduces something the next one assumes you know.
Everything below is drawn from the mission data on this site, not press copy. For release date, price, co-op or VR, see the FAQ — those answers track developer announcements, not extracted files. For the operation structure at a glance, see the campaign map.
Suggested play order
Run operations 1–4 sequentially. They share the same core loop — read orders, plot targets, pick charge, fire — but each adds a system. Chill is the pressure-off practice mode; Challenge: FDC is the score attack once you are comfortable with counter-battery pressure and AP bunker work.
Operations at a glance
- Hospital False Flag (Tutorial) — Calibration fire — High Command gives you a target grid and expects HE on it. Learn traverse, range readout and powder charge without spotters in the way.
- Ceremony & HE (Tutorial) — Triangulation and HE discipline, then a STAR illumination phase over the palace. Wrong shell type halts the mission; recon photos teach adjustment fire.
- Requisition & Scout Plane (Tutorial) — Requisition console, three spotters, incomplete intel on some targets, and your first Scout Plane sortie over an ammo cache. AP required for hardened targets.
- Artillery & Counter-Battery (Tutorial) — Enemy artillery across the river, counter-battery timer on first impact, and a hidden second wave. Use the dedicated walkthrough — most players stall here.
- Chill (Relaxed) — Relaxed free-fire on Cartagena — no counter-battery clock, mixed soft and armored targets, underground caches that need AP. Good sandbox after the tutorials.
- Challenge: FDC (Challenge) — Timed challenge — counter-battery starts on first hit, columns converging on a crossing, underground FDC bunkers that pause hostile ranging when destroyed.
What to have open alongside the game
- Firing solution planner — from Operation 2 onward, when reports use spotter bearings instead of a single grid coordinate.
- Firing table or calculator — charge lookup once you know range.
- First firing solution — the written version of the tutorial loop if Operation 1 still feels opaque.
- Counter-battery walkthrough — keep this ready before Operation 4; the in-game briefing does not spell out phase two.
After the tutorials
Chill lets you experiment with mixed target types and requisition economy without a counter-battery clock. Challenge: FDC stacks counter-battery, armor and time pressure — destroy underground fire-direction centers with AP when you need breathing room to plot the next salvo.
Mission briefings, enemy rosters and reward breakdowns for every operation live on the missions database.
More guides
- First firing solutionTurn a spotter report into bearing, range and powder charge — the core gunnery loop.
- Counter-batteryOperation 4 made solvable — triangulate, survive the timer, find the hidden guns.
- How-to guidesQuick answers: load and unload shells, restart the engine, measure on the map, aim the Scout Plane.
- ControlsDefault keyboard and mouse bindings, how the mouse-operated valves work, and the settings to change first.
- Campaign mapThe operation structure at a glance — the tutorial spine, the two free modes, and each op's briefing and rewards.
- All guides →
Top tools
- Firing plannerSpotter report in, bearing · range · charge solution out.
- Ballistics calculatorRange ↔ powder charge with live arc and game-extracted speed curves.
- Firing tablePowder-charge range card — scan the bracket, dial the charge.
- Loadout guideWhich of the 9 shells to chamber for each kind of target.
- All tools →