Iron Nest Mission 2: Fire and Light - Solutions

Worked example: Bearing, range, charge and elevation figures below come from a sample playthrough. Enemy spawns and your Iron Nest’s position vary each run — always measure on the map and follow the in-game ballistic calculator.

Mission Critical Strategy: The Bearing You Were Given Is Not The Bearing You Fire

Fire and Light is where the campaign stops being a calibration exercise. It is the first mission with a hostile target that you cannot see from Iron Nest, and the first one that punishes a perfectly reasonable assumption.

The trap is built into the briefing. It hands you two bearings — 094° from Spotter 1 and 048° from Spotter 2 — and the instinctive reaction is to dial one of them into the turret. That is a guaranteed failure. Both figures are observer bearings: they describe the direction from an observation post to the enemy. Neither one describes the direction from your turret to the enemy, and the turret is somewhere else entirely.

The only number that matters is the point where the two rays cross. Plot both bearings from their respective spotters, mark the intersection, and then measure a new line from Iron Nest to that intersection. In this mission that line resolves to roughly 65° at 13.8 km — a full 29° away from the bearing the briefing shouted at you.

[!WARNING] A ray from a single spotter is a line, not a position. One ray tells you the enemy is somewhere along that line; it cannot tell you where. Only the intersection of two non-parallel rays collapses the line into a point. Any solution built on one ray is a guess wearing the costume of a measurement.

Night conditions change what “confirm” means

Darkness removes your only direct verification channel. Normally you would watch the impact and adjust; here, the target area is invisible and the hostile infantry is dug in. That is what the STAR shell is for.

The STAR round is an illumination round, not a damage round. Its value is that its airburst lights the sector and lets the forward spotters visually confirm the enemy gun crew, which converts an inferred position into an observed one. Once that confirmation lands, the geometry is settled and the destruction phase is almost mechanical.

The practical consequence: in this mission, the STAR round is not optional garnish. It is the mission’s only confirmation step, and it has to be fired before the H salvo — not alongside it, and certainly not after.

GEOMETRIC TRIANGULATION: SPOTTER RAYS VS TRUE TURRET VECTOR

RESOLVED: ~65° / 13.8 km

Pre-Calculated Firing Solutions

Spotter rays (map plotting)

Station	Ray Bearing	Meaning
Spotter 1 (OP-A)	094°	Direction from OP-A to the hostile position
Spotter 2 (OP-B)	048°	Direction from OP-B to the hostile position
Intersection	—	Hostile position; both rays must cross here

Turret solutions (Iron Nest)

Phase	Ammunition	Turret Bearing	Target Range	Powder Charges	Elevation (θ)
1. Illumination	STAR (Illumination)	~65°	13.8 km	3 Charges	52.32°
2. Destruction	H (High Explosive)	~65°	13.8 km	3 Charges	52.32°

Step-by-Step Operator Routine

Phase 1: Plot the Two Rays (No Timer)

1. Open the map and locate both observation posts, OP-A and OP-B.
2. From Spotter 1, draw a ray along bearing 094°.
3. From Spotter 2, draw a ray along bearing 048°.
4. Confirm the two rays are cut at a wide angle rather than running almost parallel. Here they cross at roughly 46°, which gives a well-conditioned intersection.

Phase 2: Resolve the Turret Vector (No Timer)

1. Mark the exact point where the two rays cross. This is the hostile position — not a guess, not an approximation.
2. Draw a new line from Iron Nest to that crossing point. This is your firing vector, and it is a completely different number from either spotter ray.
3. Read off the two values:
   • Turret Bearing: ~65°
   • Target Distance: 13.8 km
4. Cross-check the result against the briefing’s expected figures. If your intersection produces a bearing wildly different from ~65°, the plotting is wrong — most often because one ray was drawn from the wrong post.

Phase 3: Illumination Shot — STAR (No Timer)

1. Take the 13.8 km range to the charge table: this distance requires 3 Powder Charges.
2. Set elevation to 52.32° and confirm with the in-game ballistic calculator.
3. Load 1 STAR Shell plus 3 charge bags.
4. Traverse the turret to ~65° and verify the bearing indicator.
5. Fire. Watch for the airburst.
6. The forward spotters will report the hostile gun crew exposed under the flare. That report is the mission’s confirmation gate — do not proceed until it arrives.

Phase 4: Destruction Salvo — H (No Timer)

1. Do not re-measure anything. The geometry has not moved: the target is still at ~65° and 13.8 km.
2. Keep the turret bearing at ~65° and the elevation at 52.32°.
3. Load 1 High Explosive (H) Shell plus 3 charge bags. Keep the charge count identical — swapping in a different charge count would move the elevation, and the elevation is already correct.
4. Fire for effect to clear the sector.
5. If the crew survives the first H round, repeat the same solution. Do not chase the target with a fresh measurement; the position was confirmed by the flare and recalculating only adds a new opportunity for error.

Phase 5: Confirm and Cease (No Timer)

1. Confirm the sector is clear and no hostile crew remains under the flare.
2. Stand down the gun. Note the pair ~65° / 13.8 km / 3 charges / 52.32° in your own reference notes — this is the first full triangulated solution of the campaign, and later missions reuse exactly this sequence at greater range.
3. Recover the lesson, not just the result: two observer bearings produced one turret bearing, and the two figures did not resemble each other at all.

[!IMPORTANT] Operator Rule: In Fire and Light, never dial a spotter’s bearing into your turret. A spotter bearing describes where the enemy sits relative to their post, not relative to your barrel. Plot both rays, find the intersection, and then measure your own line to it — the turret only ever fires the resultant vector.