Whiskey Hotel (level)

"So when are we goin' to Moscow?" "Not soon enough man. But I know we're gonna burn it down when we get there." "When the time is right, Corporal. When the time is right."

- A Ranger, Corporal Dunn, and Sergeant Foley

You start where you left off in "Second Sun." From the bunker, your team emerges onto the South Lawn of the White House and meets up with Colonel Marshall. The Col. explains to Sgt. Foley that they're looking at the "high ground," seeing the American flag still up on top of the White House, which has been severely damaged and fortified with spotlights and machine gun nests. With power still in it, the squad should be able to talk to Central Command if they can retake the building. Sgt. Foley leads his team over the left flank to reach the West Wing. The machine gun fire will make it difficult to advance, especially on the harder difficulties, but destroying the searchlights does help make the gunners less attentive to you. Hearing from a speaker behind a painting in the Oval Office, the team has just 2:00 minutes before the Air Force initiates the "Hammerdown Protocol" and flattens the city in order to take out the Russians. The strike will be aborted only if green smoke is spotted on the roof of the White House. You then fight your way through the building and successfully reach the roof in the nick of time to pop green flares signaling the Air Force to abort the fire mission. As you look out at a burning Washington D.C., you see other buildings marked with green flares as the sun sets behind the Washington Monument. The battle for D.C. may be won, but the war is just beginning.

Tips

 * Shooting out the spotlights placed throughout the outdoor portions of the level will cause enemy machine-gunners and snipers to be much less effective.
 * Take lots of cover and try to pick up powerful weapons. The area given has heavy resistance.
 * There is an ammo crate at the end of the bunker; if the player wishes to switch out their weapons for something different(such as the SCAR-H), he/she can return here for a full resupply.
 * Although there is no visible timer for when they initiate the Air-Strike, it IS there. Make haste!
 * During the assault to retake the White House there will be a mounted machine gun on an upturned tree, manning this gun will leave you resilient to almost all enemy fire.

Intel Items
(1/2 Intel) Soon after exiting the oval office and engage in fire-fight, face west, it's on a leather couch.

(2/2 Intel) After winding up the last stairs and soon after you enter through a blown out wall, immediately turn north.

Trivia

 * After you enter the Oval Office the Russians on the White House and Colonel Marshall will disappear.
 * Whiskey Hotel is the military designation using the NATO Phonetic Alphabet for White House".


 * The White House apparently sustained heavy damage, as parts of its facade are bombed out, the South Lawn is a mass of craters, and a MiG-29 almost crashed into the West Wing.


 * The fate of the President is unknown, and it is implied he evacuated the city, as Foley and the squad come upon the Presidential Bunker, which is completely destroyed and empty. Since the EMP was observed to take out all air transportaion and probably ground transport, if the President was not evacuated earlier, little hope for his life remains in fast transportation, although it is thought that Air Force One is resistant to EMPs.


 * The Washington Monument is shown to be in line with the White House's South Lawn. It is actually to the southeast of the White House, so if one were to look at its location in game from the White House's South Lawn, it would be actually be slightly to the left.


 * An explosive of some sort apparently barreled through the White House's roof, as the staircases and ceilings have collapsed and there is a gaping hole in the roof.


 * If you run ahead of Sgt. Foley, Col. Marshal will not move until Foley gets there.


 * Even when there's no timer appearing on the screen towards the end of the level, you do need to get to the roof within two minutes (at lower difficulties). If you take too long on Veteran difficulty, you will be killed by the Air Force fighter jets. You don't need to pop the flares yourself once you've got there, as there is always another friendly AI soldier who is also popping flares.


 * Your flare is scripted to force your view upwards around the time the fighter flies overhead, as long as you pop it soon after the prompt shows up. If you pop the flare after the fighter passes, you will look up at empty sky.


 * The "Hammerdown" radio broadcast mentions that if the listener is able to receive the transmission that means he is currently inside a "hardened high-valued structure." If the HQ already knows about the earlier EMP this means that the "hardened high-valued structures" are immune to EMP detonation. Some structures designated that appear to be the U.S. Capitol Building, the Smithsonian Museum, Washington Monument, and obviously, the White House.


 * In the previous level, Second Sun, Ramirez's uniform and wrist-GPS have been heavily damaged, but now they are back in a pristine condition. Even if Ramirez had had the chance to change (which is very unlikely considering this level picks up where the last level ended), his wrist-GPS should not be working because of the EMP's adverse effect on all kinds of electronic devices.


 * In Second Sun, you go through the Eisenhower Building to the President's bunker on the east wing. In a real map, the Eisenhower Building is actually west of the White House, whereas when you start you somehow come out east of the White House when the previous level you ended to the west.


 * The ending to this mission bears a strong resemblance to the climax of the movie The Rock in that the protagonist must pop a green signal flare to abort an incoming airstrike.


 * "Hammerdown Protocol" is an Easter egg and a reference to Cloverfield. Definition: "a planned series of military offensive tactics in which a target location such as an area, political region like a city, town, state or even a country is completely destroyed using highly explosive detonation devices such as tactical nuclear weapons or napalm bombs." The names do not actually exist, as protocols in DEFCON wouldn't have names like that.
 * There is no briefing at the beginning of this level.


 * You can find a mounted M249 SAW in the beginning of the level.


 * In the conference room, you can see the phones all say "COD4," a direct reference to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.


 * There is a glitch on this level. When you go through the broadcast station, look at the first door on the right. Then smash the first two windows on the bottom and crawl through it. Then you're outside and can run through the ground.


 * For a very brief moment it is possible to see the green flare's weapon name, "Tactical Insertion."


 * If you pause the game and look at the map, it has "snow" on it, presumably because the EMP knocked out the mapping system.


 * Although Col. Marshall explains that there is a way to talk to 'Central Command', since there is power in the White House, none of the team or Ramirez attempt to contact Central Command. It is assumed that they do so afterwards, or someone else does it offscreen