I think my biggest issue with the Osprey was range. I've been running almost every mission with the Skyraider. I run 2 fire teams of 5 each with 3 infantry, 1 medic and 1 heavy in each fire team. It works great even for large numbers as long as there aren't 10 or so in the open. I could have done the manor using cover and smoke if not for the reinforcements and their free turn. They rendered the map impossible. This was in an uncluttered map.
You should build bases in other continents (at least 2-3) which have at the very least a hangar, storage (preferably two) and living quarters. Then you can fly-transfer (or even regular transfer) osprey there and go to the mission that way. Almost all the early game missions have a rather long duration and you can deal with these this way. I have not usually even built skyranger. After a while, you get kitsune and you no longer need the transfer hack (or sky* at all).
If you don't have enough bases or transferring the osprey to some location seems too big an issue at the moment, you can just use a private car to go to any far-away mission and abort. Almost all abort penalties are very small compared to despawn penalties. I certainly haven't bothered with all the missions.
Where are you getting the strength to carry all this stuff? Do you carry medical, extra clips, flash bangs, motion sensors, stun clubs?
Enough explosives for 60-70+ enemies? How?
Infantry: Rifle, 2-3 clips, stun club, first aid or healing spray, smoke, frag, flashbang, motion sensor.
Medic: Rifle, 3 clips, stun club, medipak or healing spray, smoke, flashbang.
Heavy: Grenade launcher with 5 HE, pistol with 3 clips, stun club, smoke, flashbang.
At this point, all the agents participating in the mission should have about 60 strength. If you equip some with heavy tactical suit for safety, you'll lose some though.
For missions that require a lot of gear, you should research and manufacture healing gel. It's very lightweight and then you don't need medi/traumapacks.
You don't want grenade launcher in these missions at all. If you use it, the snipers start sniping and grenading you. With BO sniper/auto-snipers, you require at most 1 extra clip.
If the main purpose of the missions is throwing a LOT of grenades, dynamite and hi-ex, the "specialist crew" approach is not really the way to go.
For example, you could equip each agent with 1 hi-ex, 1 or 2 dynamites and the rest would go for grenades (maybe 6-7 each). So the team will then be carrying 10+ hi-ex, 15-20 dynamites and 50-70 regular grenades.
Well-placed hi-ex could kill 10 enemies in one go. Usually, if the manor house is nearby, sooner or later you blast open its wall and the enemies come pouring at you. With big explosives you could end up killing 10-20 enemies per turn.
I have access to both BO snipers but I like the 4 attacks per turn the Galil affords. The 105% aimed shot is enough for a trained soldier to hit 100%+. I get lots of kills with it including in the manor. Of course the damage is only around 35-37 so it won't work as well against armor.
That's precisely one of the big selling points of BO sniper/auto-sniper. They have good damage and also have sufficient armor penetration so that you can harm essentially anyone regardless of their armor. Also you can also shoot two snap shots quite far.
Well, the Technomads don't tell you about Cyberweb Batteries, they just allow you to start researching them when you find some.
Oops, I misread the tech tree once again.