1 Skyranger1 has landed in Washington City Centre after a large UFO set down there and the citizens were attacked. Here you see the soldiers' Tank which is firing a rocket down the street. The tank is an invaluable piece of hardware and bolsters the soldiers' morale tremendously.
There is nothing better for the soldiers to see than a rocket being fired by the Tank at enemies coming their way.

If you note the end graphic in the display there, you will see a figure "7" and this denotes the amount of rockets left to fire. The graphs show 34 which is time units remaining, which is probably enough to fire another rocket and 100 in orange is the ENERGY level, if ENERGY goes to 0 the vehicle cannot move forward no matter how many time units remain, 59 in red is health of the vehicle and finally 100 in purple is the morale. These things really apply far more to the soldiers than to the Tank but they are still valid here to an extent.

2 Here we see the Tank rocket on target for a carnivore REAPER, which is a huge two legged "Lion-Bear" which will eat soldiers for breakfast if they get a chance. There were two of them in that location, if you cast your eyes a little higher you will see the body of the first Reaper.

It actually looks like the Tank rocket is going to go past the Reaper and strike the building wall. If this is the case it wil probably cause a huge explosion and take the Reaper out anyway. Reapers don't have much intelligence and seem to simply obey the commands of the Floaters who bring them along on many Terror Attacks to devour soldiers and population alike.

3 Wow what a shame! The Tank rocket misses the building by about a foot and roars along the street for another 100 yards going who knows where, what a miss! OK, back at the Skyranger, troops are still disembarking into the action area. Henri Pecheaux has got out of the Skyranger and is surveying the scene

He is a complete rookie soldier, as denoted by the R next to his name but check out the state of the art firepower that Henri is packing! He has a HEAVY PLASMA weapon which uses anti-gravity technology and is one of the most powerful weapons that X-COM soldiers can use. Soldiers have a choice with this weapon of AIMED SHOT, SNAP SHOT or AUTO SHOT.

An AIMED SHOT will very likely hit even from far off but such precision is not necessary if the soldier is just 5' away from the enemy. In that case a SNAP SHOT will very likely succeed using far less time and effort. If the soldier thinks that a succession of 3 shots in a row would benefit his situation he can use AUTO SHOT which uses slightly more effort than SNAP SHOT and far less effort than AIMED SHOT

4 Christel Meyer has just disembarked from the Skyranger. She is just at the left hand edge of the picture with an ARROW over her head showing which member of the crew is selected. To her left is the body of a floater, killed in previous action and inside the building a terrified civilian who is just standing there in shock. Further around to her right are bodies of two REAPERS killed in previous action. MEYER is about to walk to the location where the cursor on the screen is, so she is going to join another soldier for the next part of the mission, which at this time, is going pretty well

As you can see, MEYER is also packing a powerful HEAVY PLASMA weapon and all soldiers are wearing the superb POWER SUIT which provides a 100% increase in protection over the old PERSONAL ARMOUR. It's not surprising then that all crew are experiencing 100% morale just now.

5 Meanwhile the Tank has fired another rocket - a floater has appeared and the Tank launches ROCKET NO.2, will it hit this time? Floaters are terrifying creatures, half creature half machine actually! The lower half is a device which looks like a rolling ball but in fact enables the creature to rise up in the air and "float" at any level, hence their name.

The tank is in very good shape at this time, showing maximum health and still has 6 rockets ready to launch. The soldiers love to see the tank in action and this really helps - both physically and psychologically. What happened to the second REAPER? It was here a few minutes ago, but is now nowhere to be seen and the body of the dead reaper seen there, was present before.

6 The rocket hits and a huge explosion litters the area with debris. Amidst it all a loud screaming roar is heard and it is very likely the floater has been taken out. A direct hit this time I think, what a great result for the Skyranger team.

As the dust settles - there is the body of the floater and some damage to the building is evident. Luckily no civilians around here as any civilians killed by X-COM action is a huge blow to the mission but sometimes this presents a terrible dilemma situation for the soldiers.

Tajeri: "Spotted the second REAPER further down the street with a floater! VALENTINE take 'em out with a grenade!"

7 Squaddie Jill Valentine is up on the roof of the shops - how the heck did she get there? Well Valentine has the supreme FLYING SUIT which offers maximum armour and the ability to rise up into the air just like floaters. Why don't ALL soldiers have "flying suits"? I hear you ask. The reason is that the various suits of armour - PERSONAL ARMOUR, POWER SUIT and FLYING SUIT all cost money and time to produce back at base. Each one costs proportionately more than the previous one, so FLYING SUITS take a long time to make and cost a fortune. Valentine has been given it as she is one of the best squaddies on the team .... as she is about to prove.

She primes a GRENADE and gets ready to throw it off the top of the shops. It's got to be 60 or 70 yards away, will she throw the grenade on target?

8 There are the floater and the Reaper that Tajeri spotted 60 - 70 yards down the street by a post box. Valentine aims for an area just over the roof of the shops so that hopefully the grenade will drop down just where the roof edge ends. The Floater and the Reaper are positioned under the roof of the shops on a 'sheltered walkway' so Valentine tries to drop the grenade down as close to them as possible.

No, the throw is not going to work - Valentine realises that with a throw from the top of the shops - the grenade will go too far over and be ineffective.
Tajeri: "Enemies at the end of the street, I will try a PLASMA SHOT"

9 As Tajeri fires off a PLASMA SHOT from 300 yards back the Tank launches a rocket at the REAPER. It's a bigger target so worth locking onto. The tank is still in prime condition and has already taken enemy fire and luckily just shrugged it off. The vehicle has 5 rockets left yet and is absolutely proving it's worth on this mission, a good decision to bring the tank along without doubt.

The "poles" that you can see there in the street are actually lamp posts in the road but because only 'ground level view' is selected only the lower level of the lamp posts can be seen, the icon of two diamonds with a figure 1 next to them shows the button that allows 'all views' or next view up/ down to be displayed.

Note the blacked out areas: Soldiers simply have to explore "the black areas" which will then 'light up' as you get closer.

10 Sheesh, the rocket has taken out the REAPER alright - nothing of it remains, if you look hard you can just see the remains of the floater and wait up! The rocket has taken out the back half of the shop too! No wonder both creatures were killed. Grey smoke swirls across the whole area and plumes upwards into the sky.

That red globe that you can see, just adjacent to the cursor arrow is the targeting icon that confirms you are in FIRE MODE. It is still there after the rocket was originally targeted on the REAPER and can now be shut off, as the tank has too few time units to fire at anything else.

The mission is going extremely well at this stage.

11 Tajeri: "The TANK fired a rocket, wiped out the second REAPER and the floater too, who's getting them in for the tank when we get back to base?"
Valentine: "Tajeri it's your round but I don't think the bar has what the tank drinks anyway mate"
Meyer: "Coming around the back of the shops"

Pecheux: "MEYER wait for me, I'm coming too"