Death From Above (Call of Duty 4)

"This is going to be one hell of a highlight reel."

- AC-130 Navigator

Death From Above is the eighth level in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, in which the player controls an unnamed United States Air Force Thermal Imaging TV Operator on an AC-130H Spectre.

Plot
Death From Above carries on from the previous mission, Hunted. The player, assuming the role of a gunner on an AC-130H Spectre, protects Captain Price and his team (including Soap - one of the player characters) as they make their way through an enemy-controlled village, clearing out enemy defenses and offering some powerful close air support as the SAS commandos make their way to the extraction point by foot and by truck. Arriving at a local junkyard, the SAS team must hold off a considerable enemy assault with the aid of the Spectre until they can be rescued.

Tips

 * The 40mm Bofors gun is best for killing groups of enemies and vehicles as the explosion is small and controllable.


 * Careless use of the 105mm M102 howitzer can easily wound SAS characters, thus ending the mission. It is good for clearing buildings with enemies however.


 * Although the player's character cannot die on this level, he can still fail the mission by harming members of the SAS squad, or by firing on the church or the drivers of the trucks the SAS squad commandeer.


 * Friendly soldiers and vehicles "strobe" or flash, unlike the enemies which will be a solid color. This is easier to see on WHOT mode.


 * WHOT and BHOT means which color is warm and which color is cool. In WHOT, warmer objects are brighter and cooler objects are darker. In BHOT, warmer objects are darker and cooler objects are brighter.

Xbox 360 Achievements

 * Straight Flush is obtained by killing five enemies in one shot on this level.


 * Death from Above is obtained by completing this mission on any difficulty.


 * The Escape is obtained by completing both the previous mission and this one on Veteran difficulty.

Trivia

 * This is the only mission in which the full form of MacTavish is visible in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, although the team simply appear as white/black silhouettes, making it difficult to determine which one is Soap. He is one of the characters who must be protected. However, his full form is shown in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.


 * In the end of the previous level, Hunted, when Captain Price calls for the AC-130, he designates the AC-130's callsign as "Warhammer", however in this level the AC-130 is designated by the callsign "Wildfire".


 * The AC-130H in this mission is actually an AC-130U, because the AC-130H doesn't have the 25mm Gatling gun in real life.


 * The cutscene before Death from Above starts shows the gunship with TWO 25mm Gatling guns, even though you only get to use one in-game.


 * There is actually no AC-130 in this mission. By enabling the "noclip" cheat in the console (available only in the PC version), you cannot see the AC-130 that you are riding. The sounds of the plane and the guns are purely cosmetic.


 * You ended the previous level Hunted with 5 soldiers in your party: Soap, Price, Gaz, Nikolai and a randomly named soldier. You left 3 dead at the crash site, Paulsen and the 2 pilots. You begin Death from Above with a party of eight soldiers running along the road to the extraction point. Somehow, from the beginning in Blackout, the group has doubled in size and a force that initially required one chopper to evacuate now apparently requires two CH-46s.


 * This is the only mission where you hear the player's character speak.


 * This mission is the easiest to complete on Veteran, as it is impossible to die.


 * During the credits, you can watch a slightly modified version of the level being played out (possibly) by Infinity Ward.


 * Though you have to restart from the last checkpoint if you kill the civilians when they get out of the cars or while they are in them you can get away with leveling civilian houses.


 * You can blow off the roof of small buildings with the 105mm M102 Howitzer.


 * The water towers, as well as many other buildings (such as the U-shaped one) cannot even be scratched by the 105mm howitzer.


 * When the SAS team hijacks a civilian vehicle, you can see the civilian run off across a nearby field. Wildfire describes the personnel as "unarmed". However, if you zoom in on the civilian, though, the civilian appears to be running as though he is carrying a weapon in his hand (this is best seen when zoomed in with the 25mm).


 * When the civilian cars are hijacked and you see the civilians getting out, look closely at their features. They appear to have the same model as the ultranationalists, complete with a ski mask. It is possible that Infinity Ward did not want to create separate skins for characters only seen for a few seconds in the game.


 * When playing on Arcade Mode, this mission is one of the best for racking up a lot of points, especially on Veteran, where it is easy to achieve a score of over 1,000,000.


 * In arcade, shooting even uninhabited houses give you a load of points despite being empty of Ultranationalists.
 * This mission appears to be inspired by this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OkoWEMCnLQ . Some specifics; the AC-130's callsign is Wildfire, they start firing around a Mosque, and some dialogue was taken from it. It is still quite different though, in the game friendly forces are being extracted and in the video they are attacking a meeting of some kind and the video is from a UAV and not the AC-130.