Mission 3 when loaded directly as a mission

I was playing this campaign and enjoying it. I got to the second mission and fought a couple planes and made the landing. But for some reason it didn't count it. So when I went to play it again it was going to make me fly the night mission again. I didn't feel like flying that one again so I just loaded level 3 as a mission.

That one seemed to play fine but the aircraft were invincible when I got up to them. Am I not supposed to shoot them? I know I can set planes to invincible in the mission editor when I'm making my own. Either that's how their set or the game was glitching for me. I don't know. I'm going to try it again real quick, but is this intentional? Do the missions absolutely have to be done through the campaign or they won't work correctly?

Thanks for the report. They're not invincible, but there is some funny business going on ED's end with the damage modeling for the Su-24 at this time. They tend to require ~3 missiles to kill.

Did you receive the "MISSION COMPLETE" message in mission 2? After you shoot down the hostile aircraft, and the remaining hostiles attack jets bug out, you'll be ordered to return to base by Magic. After you are ordered to return home, you should see the "MISSION COMPLETE" text prior to being given the option to divert to Kutaisi. If you only shot down the MiG-29s, you must also scare the attack jets back across the border before the mission is considered complete.

Regarding the Su-24s, the cannon seems to still be very effective. For the time being, I'd recommend engaging them with missiles to get them on the defensive, then closing in to seal the deal with the gun. We are standing by for damage model fixes, if the issue persists for more than another patch or two we'll look into scripting some alternate methods. It's difficult because if you overdo it, you'll shoot one aircraft and all four will explode due to their flying in relatively close proximity to each other.