The mission starts with your basic setup. Two shady terrorists bomb a section of the Alaskan pipeline. After receiving your mission briefing, you need to equip your team with the best possible equipment for the mission. As mundane as this task may seem, this is one of the most crucial parts of any mission. Choosing loud, heavy machine guns may mean that your team has more power, but it will also blow your cover in infiltration missions. On the flip side, arming your entire group with silenced weapons will ensure stealth, but their lower power and fire rate won't hold up in a firefight. In addition to firearms, you also choose grenade type weapons (frag grenades, smoke grenades, flash grenades, etc...)
Since this mission was primarily a recon mission, I chose to equip my team with silenced weapons for their secondary weapon, and machine guns as primary weapons. While in the mission briefing screen, you can also look at surveillance photo maps detailing mission parameters. Things such as guard tower, munitions, hostage and contact locations are outlined here.
