Scorched Earth
Previous level	Stronghold
Next level	Down the Rabbit Hole
Game	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Character	Derek "Frost" Westbrook
Team	Delta Force Bundeswehr (German Military)
Weapons	ACR with Hybrid Sight, and M14 EBR Scoped
Place	Berlin, Germany
Date	October 13th, 2016 - 10:18:37
Objective	Rescue Alena Vorshevsky [Failed]
Enemies	Russian Military Inner Circle
Console codename	sp_berlin
Multiplayer map	Arkaden
Special Ops	Little Bros and Invisible Threat

For the achievement/trophy, see Scorched Earth (Achievement).

"Granite Team is going after the daughter. We're going to watch their backs."

— Sandman to the rest of Team Metal.

"Scorched Earth" is the sixteenth mission of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. The mission takes place in Berlin, Germany, as Delta Force, assigned to rescue the Russian President's daughter from the impeding attack by the Ultranationalists. Delta is supported by a column of German tanks from the Bundeswehr.

Contents 1 Characters 2 Plot 3 Video Walkthrough 4 Weapon Loadout 5 Gallery 6 Intel Items 7 Trivia 8 Achievements/Trophies 9 Transcript 10 References

CharactersEdit

• Derek "Frost" Westbrook (playable)
• Sandman
• Grinch
• Truck
• Overlord
• Granite Leader (K.I.A)
• Alena Vorshevsky (P.O.W.)
• German Tank Commander (presumably K.I.A)

PlotEdit

The mission starts with Frost lying on the ground, voices can be heard but are muffled, gunfire and explosions are sounding in the background also. Frost looks down at his hands and soon looks up to see Sandman running over to help him. The pair then starts moving past injured soldiers until they reach a collapsed building, where the screen fades. Twenty minutes prior to this event, Frost is on a MH-6 Little Bird, flying into a war-torn Berlin where many American troops and German tanks advancing through the bridge across towards Alena's present known location. While flying towards their destination, one of the Little Birds is hit by RPG fire and crashes on the streets below.

Frost's ride lands on the roof of a building and Frost and the rest of Team Metal get off and start engaging hostile Russian forces. Once Team Metal has eliminated all threats on the roof, they move inside to the office areas. After clearing the first floor of offices, they ascend the building to reach the second floor. Here they fight off more Russian soldiers before reaching a staircase. This staircase takes Team Metal onto a rooftop, where the Russians have constructed a makeshift mini-base. After all the enemies here have been taken out, they signal Team Granite to start their assault on the hotel.

At this point, Frost and Grinch provide overwatch for Team Granite. This is where the player will need to use their Scoped M14 EBR for sniper support. Once all the enemies are down, Team Granite lands on the roof, but more hostiles suddenly appear from inside the hotel, and the player must kill them with their sniper rifle. As soon as all the enemies are eliminated, Russian tanks arrive in the streets below and begin firing on the hotel using their cannons. Using a pair of binoculars, the player must target the tanks for a strafing run by friendly A-10 Thunderbolts. After all the Russian tanks are destroyed, Team Granite rappels down to to a floor below. However once they land on the floor, the door they are about to enter is suddenly breached, but Team Granite is luckily able to take them out before the breachers do so to them. They then proceed to enter through the door, making them no longer in Team Metal's line of sight, giving them no further sniper support. But this sadly becomes their downfall as they are ambushed  as soon as the round the corner through the door. The player then starts hearing gunfire and yelling on their radio as Team Granite becomes overwhelmed. An explosion suddenness goes off as the player hears it on the radio and sees it through the doorway, the radio goes static, Granite Team is gone.

With Granite Team eliminated, the team that was supposed to rescue Alena, Team Metal 0-1 informs Overlord of the situation. Overlord understands and approves of them taking over the responsibility of securing Alena. The player must then rappel down the building he is on along with the rest of Team Metal. After landing on the street, Team Metal goes through a back alley, where they meet the remains of the dead Team Onyx, until they reach the river bank, where they assist a German tank column to repel enemy Russian forces on the main street. Frost then destroys a Russian T-90 using an RPG-7 and Team Metal moves up the street with the German tank column. However once they reach the end of the street, a building rigged with explosives detonates, sending the building crashing down on the American and German forces.

Soon the player regains consciousness and wakes up in exactly the same place he had started the mission. He then follows Sandman through the ruins of buildings, until the hotel is visible across the street. Team Metal then battles Ultranationalist troops as they advance into the hotel and up flights of stairs to rescue Alena. When they reach the room Alena is being held in, they prepare for breaching. But before they can, the door explodes, sending the player to the floor. Frost takes Sandman's pistol and kills two Russians. After recovering from the explosion, the enemy helicopter takes off with Alena on board. Grinch tries to take a shot, but Sandman stops him, saying that it's too risky and that their objective has failed. The mission ends with Sandman relaying the bad news of the Ultranationalist capture of Alena to Command.

Video WalkthroughEdit

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 - Campaign - Scorched Earth(14:11)
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Weapon LoadoutEdit

Starting Loadout
ACR w/ Hybrid Sight M14 EBR Scoped Add a photo to this galleryAdd a photo to this gallery

Found in level
AK-47 P90 PKP Pecheneg SPAS-12 M14 EBR Scoped RPG-7 M4A1 G18 Add a photo to this galleryAdd a photo to this gallery

Unobtainable
Five Seven, used in the breaching sequence at the end, but cannot be used again due to the mission ending. Add a photo to this galleryAdd a photo to this gallery

GalleryEdit

Intel ItemsEdit

MW3 - Intel Locations - Scorched Earth - Mission 14 - Scout Leader Achievement Trophy guide(01:37)
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37. Once dropped off by the helicopter, head into the building, go up the stairs, fight your way into the office and find the intel on a desk in a cubicle.

38. In the same building, on the roof, the intel is located behind the fences of a short platform with three air conditioning units, near some short metal stairs. The laptop has its back turn towards you, so look carefully as it blends in with the background.

39. After rappelling down the building, enter the bookstore. The intel is easy to find on top of the cash register.

40. Once you made contact with German tanks, locate the Teknik Deutsch building on the left side of the street. Head inside the lobby and look for the intel beside the elevators.

41. Near the end of mission, after fighting your way into Von Werde Hotel, you will reach a staircase with brown door. Wait for sandman to open it. Find the intel on a black coach beneath the stairs.

TriviaEdit

• In the cutscene before the level begins, Alena Vorshevsky's last name is misspelled as "Vershovsky".
• This is the first campaign mission in the entire Call of Duty series where the encountered German army is friendly, as opposed to the Wehrmacht and SS of the World War II-era titles.
• Sandman calls Alena "Athena," which is actually Alena's codename for the operation, due to the fact that HVI's names are never given over airwaves.
• This is the last mission in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 that the player plays as Frost or in Delta Force.
• The way Frost looks at his hands in the beginning of the level and before the flashback shares similarities with two characters in the Call of Duty series. The first was Dimitri Petrenko when his hands were burnt from the singed wood when he tried to move it in the level "Vendetta". The second was James Ramirez when he looks at his tattered gloves after his team's helicopter crashes in Washington D.C., USA in "Of Their Own Accord" and "Second Sun".
• Oddly, it seems that the two Leopard 2 tanks seen are not supported by any other German infantry; rather they are supported by American infantry.
• After the building collapses, Grinch is wearing a Ranger uniform, rather than his usual Delta uniform.
• The Player will receive friendly fire warnings even after Granite Team is killed if the player shoots the two friendlies on the road on purpose. However, the player will no longer receive the warning once all of the Russian soldiers withdraw from the road.
• After the German tanks are destroyed and before entering the destroyed building, a dead Delta member that wears Metal's uniform may be found.
• The A-10 cannot perform strafing runs more than 20 meters long even if Frost marks a target longer than that.
• In this mission, the scoped M14 EBR has the ADS speed of an unscoped one. Furthermore, during the animation of aiming down the scope, Frost appears to be looking not into the scope, but through the iron sights.
• On a couch in the lobby of the second destroyed building, there is a teddy bear.
• If there is an enemy soldier present once the player reaches the top of the stairs of the building after they landed and with Sandman ahead of them, Sandman will charge up to the soldier and push him off the building instead of firing at him.
• At the very end of the mission after the breaching sequence, the player's FOV is decreased massively. To insure the player sees Alena being taken away. 
• The Hind that takes Alena away has a unique paint job. Unlike most other Hinds, which are painted with gray camouflage, the Hind in this level is painted with a tan and green camouflage.
• When marking targets for the A-10, there are four friendlies on the road that are not part of Granite Team. It is unknown how they got there, although it is possible that they are part of the metal team whose Little Bird is shot down by an RPG-7 fire at the beginning of the mission. They can be killed without being given the friendly fire warning after Granite Team is killed.
• Strangely, the friendlies on the road will not fire at the Russian soldiers once the player is no longer able to use the A-10, and they will let the Russians withdraw from the area, though the Russians can and usually will kill all of the friendlies. The player can take out the remaining Russians themselves, however.
• The objective to use A-10s to clear the road is failed if all the friendlies on the road are killed.
• Strangely, the weapons Frost wield do not reset or refill after the building collapses. Note that in the same scene after the building collapses during the beginning of the mission before the actual flashback, both weapons are full of ammo, while the ones after the building collapses during the progress of the mission aren't. The weapon the player posses will be kept after the building collapsed, despite the loadout given at the start of the mission.
• This is the only mission where the ACR 6.8 is usable in the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 campaign, in contrast to the ACR's extensive presence in the in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
• This is the only level in the game where the player doesn't actually breach a room when told to and takes a friendly unit's weapon from them.
• Before the helicopter is shot down by an RPG rocket, the player can shoot the enemy, killing him, but not saving the Little Bird.
  • A random event occurs in this point wherein the player can be shot by the enemy RPG, dealing a heavy amount of damage just at the start of the mission.
• Changing the FOV will make Frost's whole body visible without a head when trying to breach Alena's room.
• In the destroyed building, one can find a sledgehammer on the floor. A reference to Sledgehammer Games.
• The PMC's spawn theme is heard during this level.
• If the player goes to the far end of the building (Near the beginning of the word "Reisdorf" on the roof) after Granite breaches the room, it is possible to see one of the members who did not get cut down by gunfire stand there and not fire.
• There is a crate with an emblem of Shadow Company on the roof of the destroyed office building.
• This mission's title is a reference to a quote made by Joseph Stalin in World War II when he said, "We will make Germany nothing but scorched earth".
  • "Scorched Earth" is a military tactic or command that orders all assets or objects potentially useful to the enemy (Such as weapons, bombs, supplies, and sometimes even animals or people) while retreating or advancing through an area to be killed, destroyed, or otherwise deactivated. The title of this mission may be a reference to the term.
  • In this case, the Russians blocked off an entire street with a giant building to deny passage for the German tanks.
• One of the German Tanks can be seen in the destroyed building.
• One of the Little Birds that had been shot down by RPG at the beginning of mission is from Onyx Team. The player can see the destroyed Little Bird in the alley, along with passengers from Onyx Team.
  • Via noclip, it is possible to see that the crashed Little Bird model is already on the ground, even before the crash.
• After the German Tanks cross the bridge, five or six US Army Rangers will appear and take cover behind some barriers on the bridge. These soldiers will have German names, such as Sgt. Bein.
• It's possible to kill the tank machine gunners outside the lowest floor of the building Alena is in.
  • It is also possible to destroy the tanks with RPGs.
• If the player go's near the tanks outside the building Alena is in, the player will be killed instantly.
• After rappelling down the building, if one walks a little bit and then turn around, there is a poster of a bakery, featuring a person. The person in this poster is wearing a Delta Force helmet.
• It is possible to stay on the Little Bird at the beginning of the level. If the player pushes against the helicopter where he was sitting, he can stay on the Little Bird until he jumps onto another building, in which case he won't be able to return to the starting building. It is also possible to stay on all the way to the edge of the map.
• Trying to jump to the bottom of the building, instead of triggering the scripted rappel cutscene, will result in an instant death that is caused not just due to extreme height, but can also happen due to explosions occurring in the windows of the building. The explosions will only occur when trying to jump off like this.
• Grinch never physically attaches a scope to his MK14, as it appears to just come out of thin air. The same applies to when it disappears.
• The pair of binoculars Frost uses to target Russian tanks for a strafing run seem to be electronic instead of normal ones.
• It's very mysterious on why the Russian army didn't rescue Alena even though some are outside and three Russians ambushed your squad
•                  This might look that the other Russian soldiers are working for Makarov           

Achievements/TrophiesEdit

Bad First Date (10 / Bronze trophy ) - Complete "Scorched Earth" on any difficulty.

This is the End (25 / Silver trophy ) - Complete "Scorched Earth", "Down the Rabbit Hole" and "Dust to Dust" on Veteran difficulty.

Nein (20 / Bronze trophy ) - Kill 9 enemies with A-10 strafe runs in "Scorched Earth".

TranscriptEdit

Main article: Scorched Earth/Transcript

ReferencesEdit

v • d • e Campaign Levels in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Act 1 Prologue • Black Tuesday • Hunter Killer • Persona Non Grata • Turbulence • Back on the Grid • Mind the Gap • Davis Family Vacation Act 2 Goalpost • Return To Sender • Bag and Drag • Iron Lady • Eye of the Storm • Blood Brothers Act 3 Stronghold • Scorched Earth • Down the Rabbit Hole • Dust to Dust