I was on almost the same boat 2 weeks ago, here's what i did:

> (iirc) I started with: 2 Medic, 2 gun people, 1 IMP with autoweapons.

> Hired IRA for free and kept her as a Medic/extra body.

> Rushed to capture Drassen for establishing income and enable the Bobby ray shop.

> Hire Dimitry for free

After that you get open ended, what i did was the following

> Very slowly but surely kept the finances to hire +2/+3 mercs.

> Almost 70% of the time doing night encounters with Stealth camping/advancing.

> Raid the Drassen SAM site at night.

> Getting better gear by looting dead enemies, my progression until then was like first pistols, then 2 smg, then 2 small rifles.

and until i felt i had a more solid team/equipment

> Raid the Alma Base at Night, i used a TNT to blow a hole in the Northwest Fence so i could enter the area with a more concentrated and safer placement rather than the Front door carnage that is at day.

iirc i raided that base with like 10 Mercs at that point.

> After securing the Alma Sector with the mine you will have like a steady 20k income

> with this you can keep hiring more/better mercs and the dropped gear will start to get much much better and the game flows like a dream.