WMD (mission)

"Big Eye 6, this is Kilo 1 requesting tactical recon."

- Kilo 1


 * For the similarly named multiplayer map, see WMD.

WMD  is a mission in Call of Duty: Black Ops set in Mount Yamantau where Kilo 1 is told to find codename Nova-6.

Overview
The player (as Mosely) is approaching an SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft which sits on a runway in Beale, AFB in California. Whilst approaching the vehicle, the player's view is somewhat obscured by the high altitude flight suit helmet. The player can see personnel rushing to their positions or saluting Mosely and Neitsch. After approaching the vehicle, Mosely and Major Neitsch shake hands before boarding the aircraft. After requesting permission for takeoff, the player is told, "You have the sky" by the control tower. Captain Mosely is then prompted to press a control to engage the SR-71's afterburner, and then pull back on the thumb-stick (or equivalent) to begin the ascent. After a short cinematic of the Blackbird (Codename: Big Eye 6) in the air, the screen cuts to a first person view of the rear cockpit, the player now acting as Major Neitsch.

The view is that of a thermal screen where the four man CIA commando team can be seen prone in the snow. As Neitsch, the player must assist the commandos in safely navigating past enemy Russian patrols. After successfully issuing the team an order, the screen fades, and the player assumes control of Hudson, one of the members of Kilo 1 below. Throughout the beginning of the level the viewpoint switches between Neitsch and Hudson as the squad combats the Russian patrols with suppressed weapons.

thumb|left|300px|Start of "WMD" in the Blackbird

After the commando team reaches the end of the access road, the player, now Hudson, is found laying prone in the snow with his squad-mates on his flanks under some fallen branches, now armed with a crossbow. At that moment, a group of Russian soldiers on patrol slowly creep by north. Luckily, the squad is not detected and the troops continue on their path.

The objective is to proceed to a Russian communications sub-station, disable short-range comms, and locate and seize evidence of weaponized Nova 6 gas. Making their way down the snowy trails, Hudson's team is met by their first enemies. Using the crossbow, the player must pick off any targets while maintaining stealth. Continuing further down, the player is then required to hook up and manually rappel down the steep face of a mountain onto the metal roof of the sub-station. Rappelling a second time through the facility's windows with suppressed AUG prototype rifles, the CIA team is immediately met by a horde of Russian soldiers. Once the substation is taken, the objective is updated and the player is required to move to the "com-stat," the base's satellite ground station.

Going further down the mountain, the squad soon meets a group of enemies that require a bit more firepower. Using explosive-tipped crossbow bolts, the enemies may be quickly eliminated; or can be dispatched without alerting others by using regular crossbow bolts on single-man patrols and then using suppressed weapons to quickly eliminate groups. After taking out the enemy troops and taking the storage shed, the player must continue to the power room.

Switching to an assault rifle, the player heads towards the power room. Moving behind their teammate, he opens a door and is immediately faced with an enemy, quickly silenced with a throwing knife to the neck. If stealth has been preserved up to this point, no alarm will sound until you assault the control room. Opposition is heavy within the control room. After fighting their way through the Russian soldiers, the player finds the comm-relay and yanks the fuses from the box, rendering the station useless.

Once Hudson and his squad have cleared the mountain and completed the objective, the player follows the team out of the building and across a metal catwalk. A Russian soldier fires an RPG at the catwalk, causing Harris to fall to his death. Hudson must sprint jump over the gap. The detonation also causes a large avalanche. As the snow rushes behind, the CIA SAD team have no choice but to BASE jump down the mountain. With the aid of their parachutes they survive the jump.

The team will land just outside the main compound, but not far away, Russian personnel are burning documents in the open in an effort to eliminate evidence of research. The Kilo 1 must take care of them, and then fight their way to the control room. The room is rigged to blow and Kilo 1 are sealed inside, but the team is contacted remotely by Dr. Steiner - calling from the Rebirth Island research facility to make a deal for his life, in exchange for information on how to crack the numeric code that Dragovich uses in his sleeper cell broadcast. Steiner tells the player he is located on Rebirth Island. Once Steiner finished talking, the control room is unlocked and the player has 3 minutes to escape before detonation. The player must fight out and man a truck-mounted DShK machine gun until Weaver can hot-wire the truck to outrun the blast zone and the ensuing avalanche about to bury the facility.

Found in level
The following weapons can be found with and without attachments.

Trivia

 * If one looks and listens closely, the NPC characters wield unsuppressed AUGs but when fired, it sounded as if they were silenced weapons.
 * When using the Semtex, the player can hear that the exploding sound before the detonator's click sound.
 * After dispatching the enemies in the comms room and disabling their antenna, if the player can sprint ahead of everyone else and exit the door first, then it will instantly close and lock behind him. This causes Brooks and Weaver to suddenly spawn on the other side of the bridge, and for the RPG to hit instantly, sending the player flying onto the bridge, where Harris has just spawned to die.
 * Also, in the mentioned bridge above, after Harris falls, if the player dives to prone to the other loose end of the bridge it will "appear" to fall apart from the bridge. But, if the player looks down he/she will be standing on thin air.
 * WMD stands for "Weapon(s) of Mass Destruction." and is a term used for very destructive weapons such as nuclear, biological, or, in this case, chemical weapons: Nova-6.
 * When you are on the ground with the crossbow, the enemy troops passing by you disappear instantly when you look back at where they went.
 * The achievement "Pathfinder" is acquired by safely guiding the squad to the relay outpost, and not (as Hudson) dying once in the two firefights that occur before reaching the outpost proper.
 * The achievement "MR. BLACK OP" is acquired by making it to the comsat undetected, this achievement starts when you are told by Brooks to take out the guards with your crossbow.
 * While directing the squad, the enemy will not see a soldier when dug in, even if they are in the road. They will simply pass very close and not notice the soldier.
 * No matter how many times you shoot the window with your AUG in the rappel, it will not break until you kick it.
 * When Brooks tells you then in position to breach the comsat, go back to were you shoot the hinges and you will see Brooks and Harris are still there, they appear to just spawn at the windows in mid-swing.
 * This mission seems to bear a similar appearance to the Multiplayer maps "Summit", "Array" and WMD.
 * When the player triggers the alarm at the com-sat, its sound is similar to the Tactical Nuke countdown alarm in the multiplayer of Modern Warfare 2.
 * This the first level in the Call of Duty series where the player controls three characters in a single level. (Hudson, Capt. Mosely and Maj. Neitsch)
 * When told to pull back to take off (while piloting the SR-71), if player doesn't, the game automatically does it after a few seconds at max velocity.
 * The usual practice for SR-71 pre-flight preparation is done within shelter, then taxi to runway for takeoff. As this level begins, the preparations are preformed on the tarmac.
 * In the cutscene before WMD, Mosely's profile is shown beneath Hudson's. However, it is stamped "CLASSIFIED" and everything besides his nationality and build is blacked out.
 * The TAC control joystick is actually in-tune with the player's operating instructions, including moving the camera and the zooming in or out.
 * According to Bashkir Language (Main language of Bashkortostan in Russia), Mount Yamantau means Bad or Evil Mountain. It's used by the Red Army and Russian Army as a nuclear test facility.
 * The Russian troop carrying the RPG cannot be killed until he blows the bridge, even if an Explosive Bolt is directly shot into him.
 * Mosely's character model is never seen in normal gameplay.
 * In the beginning when you are watching enemy soldiers pass by you, the vibration of your remote vibrates in the rhythm of Hudson's heart beat. This happens again during the base-jump.
 * After rappel-breaching through the window, if you look on the desk in the middle of the room facing the window you breached through, you can see a piece of paper with all of the continents but North America.
 * After Weaver killed the patrol after shooting the door hinges, sometimes the patrol's eye will move as if he was still alive. This can be done by making physical contact just before the patrol dies.
 * This is the only mission where a throwing knife is seen. It is used by Weaver to kill a patrolling Russian. The hatchet then replaces the throwing knife for the rest of the game.
 * The patrol mentioned above is the only one to be seen, however, the SR-71 tells you that there are TWO tangos in the room.
 * The patrol after the safehouse will be killed very quickly when you order the squad to, and likewise, the patrol will kill the squad extremely quickly if the squad does not kill them first.
 * This is the only mission in the game to have an attack dog in it
 * There is a glitch that after crawling out of the hole; if the player runs to their teammates, when the soldier and the attack dog come out of the hut, the player should get their attention, then let the attack dog attack them and kill it when it gets on them. When the player gets up they will have no weapons, and will have to wait until the solider is killed and then repels down for their weapons to reappear.
 * When the player breaches the com-sat building, a scientist wielding a shotgun can be seen. He is quickly dispatched by Brooks and Harris who breach through the windows.
 * The suppressed M1911 used by Hudson (before receiving the crossbow) has a maximum capacity of 7 rounds, rather than the standard 8.
 * Before entering the SR-71, the sounds made by the SR-71 are identical to the noises made by the Harrier from Modern Warfare 2.
 * It is possible when breaching the window to use a Crossbow instead of the AUG by pressing the switch weapon button.
 * On the platform before the player rappels a second time, the player can shoot Weaver an infinite amount of times without being punished for friendly fire. The player can even shoot Weaver with the Crossbow Explosive Tip.
 * Before rappelling down the second time to breach, look off the side of the roof to see the platform that Brooks throws an enemy soldier off of after exiting the breached room. There is no soldier on this platform or anywhere on the stairway below leading to it. No enemies exited out the door either as you breached, as it was always closed. The soldier only spawns during that scripted moment.
 * At the part where you must shoot the hinges on the door to breach the room, if you shoot the hinges before the hinges glow and flash yellow it will not do anything.
 * The air traffic controller you hear before entering the SR-71 mentions an at the base.
 * If you switch your AUG for a Famas before rappelling into he window, you will use it instead of the AUG when rappelling through the window.
 * Sometimes, after rappelling through the window and killing all of the enemies, the game will glitch and not allow the player to proceed beyond that point.
 * When you start the mission, it is possible that you will not see the helmet outline worn by Mosely and Neitsch, instead, it will appear when you control Hudson.
 * Sometimes after clearing the barracks, before the player puts the Semtex on the power box a random invincible Russian will spawn and attempt to kill the player. He will try to melee the player with an invisible gun.
 * During the second breach through the window, if one watches Hudson's left hand throughout the sequence, his left thumb clips through the rope he's holding on to.
 * At the end of the level when you get locked in the room while listening to Steiner, you can actually avoid entering the room. There is a pause between when the scripted material starts and the door locking. If you trigger the scene, you can leave before the small room locks.
 * After silently taking down the guards, before the player must shoot the door hinges, an enemy will be down there. If the player is to sneak up behind the guard, Hudson will do a neck-snapping, garroting, or a chest stabbing animation instead of knifing, none with audio. Doing a stealth kill may have originally been scripted, but later removed.
 * When breaching the barracks (Where you detonate the Semtex) sometimes an enemy will drop an unusable Famas Flamethrower, With IR scope, silencer and Dual Mags.
 * The Gorillaz song "White Flag" contains the same siren noise as seen in this level, it even has the same pitch and treble.
 * When Hudson is told to shoot down the relay dish, he can't break the glass in other way than using his scripted elbow.
 * WMD bears quite a few similarities to the Modern Warfare 2 mission, Cliffhanger. In both missions, a small team is inserted into an enemy compound on a summit in a mountain range. Both missions involve the option of stealth to progress further into the mission or the option to raise the enemy alarm and fight your way to the objectives. Both missions occur during a blizzard of some sort where there is zero visibility(In WMD, a blizzard rages during the SR-71 part of the mission), however, the blizzard clears in later parts of both missions. Both missions involve a friendly NPC breaking into a small room and killing the lone enemy inside with a knife. Both missions involve the small team entering a warehouse via side door to find an important item, only to find to themselves caught in a trap and must fight their way out of the warehouse's main door. Both missions involve the player blowing up an objective with a small charge. Both missions involve the player working together with a friendly NPC to stealthily shoot & kill a pair of enemies at the same time(In Cliffhanger, this happens in the beginning of the mission. Soap tells Roach to take the one on the right while he kills the one on the left. Then again a few feet past the first pair. In WMD, this happens when the player leaves the substation and finds 2 soldiers chopping wood. Weaver says "Pick one." When the player is given the option to stealthily kill the soldiers with the Crossbow, the player will kill 1 soldier while an NPC will kill the other soldier standing next to the player-killed soldier.). Finally, both missions involve the small team escaping enemy forces via an enemy vehicle.
 * Instead of the player climbing up a cliffside by use of ice picks like in Cliffhanger, the player climbs down a cliff by use of ropes.
 * In the screenshots of Weaver above, he is missing his eye-patch. It could be that Treyarch added Weaver's eye gouging late in the game's development.