Lfn - Surface Mission #7

It's the mission where you command a destroyer and have to singlehandedly take on a US submarine, three German bombers and two German destroyers.  I CAN'T DO IT!!!
I have attempted this mission no less than 34 times (no exageration I swear!)

The nearest I have come to winning is to have taken out both enemy destroyers and all three bombers.  The only way I can find to kill the destroyers is by using high speed passes at short range and firing a volley of 8 torpedoes at once.  That way you can sink one destroyer immediately and hopefully wound the other.  Your guns can do the rest.

The trouble is by that time I'm so damaged that I'm not maneuverable or fast enough to kill the submarine and it torpedoes me to death! 

The best situation I've had so far is when the submarine killed a destroyer for me before I engaged, but even then the same submarine eventually torpedoed me! 

CAN SOMEBODY GIVE ME SOME HINTS FOR THIS MISSION AS IT IS DRIVING ME CRAZY! 

I don't deny that I cannot use depth charges at all - I don't understand how you are supposed to use them when you have no idea how deep the submarine is.  It seems that the charges must explode within a couple of metres of the sub to do any damage yet I can quite easily drop my entire load of charges on a sub and consistently hit nothing.  I't really annoys me.  I'm used to playing Destroyer Command where you are told the approximate depth of the target sub (within a bracket of 50 metres or so)...

Finally beat the mission on the 40th attempt!  Same tactics as usual, high speed close-in passes against the destroyers - killed them with torpedo volleys.  Finally played cat and mouse with the sub until it was forced to surface (air or batteries I guess), caught him with several broadsides and sank him!
Hurrah!

Please, help me.. I guess i?m on my 25th time now

This is a very difficult and frustrating mission... It took me many attempts before beating it. There is another hint thread on this mission on another page, but here's what I did:

As soon as the mission starts, I use my radar to find where the sub is, and where the German destroyers are. I then set my throttle to the lowest or second-lowest setting. Why? Because I want either the sub to sink one of the ships, or better still, have the ships sink the sub for me! I say that the latter is preferred, because I managed to sink both ships on 3 occasions, only to have the sub suddenly do a crash surface and fire a full spread of torpedos in my face. You are always so damaged that all it takes is one torp from the sub to sink you, so let the Germans do the nasty work of getting rid of him. By hanging back, you most often also avoid the air attacks.

OK, assuming that the sub has been sunk, I then accelerate for the closest German destroyer. Often, this is when the 3 bombers will come out after me, and I normally have time to dispatch them before I get into gun range of the ships. (Make sure you turn when the aircraft appear so that you don't give them a straight-line target, and that you can bring all your 40 mm ack-ack guns to bear against them.) As soon as I get into gun range of the ships (as announced by my own guns as they begin to shoot, having enable the auto-shoot switch), I turn 90 degrees to them, slowing down in the turn (this allows me to maximize turn rate). Once I'm at 90 degrees, I accelerate to full speed again. By using the "deck" view, I "eyeball" a lead angle on them (they'll turn to intercept you), and fire a full volley of torpedos, spaced a second or two between each. Cut power to nil again, and full rudder towards the enemy. I want to parallel the path of my torps, and this seems to draw the ships into their path. I'll accelerate up to about 3/4 speed so that I don't outrace my torpedos, and that they have time to reload for another volley. Next, I normally get to watch at least one of the ships eat them up! Turn hard again to launch another volley with appropriate lead angle, and keep turning to avoid getting into the path of the enemy's torpedos (they'll try to parallel you in the opposite direction to nail you with their torps).

Whew! Longwinded, but that's how I finally beat this bloody level. Hope that helped...

Tnx for the tip =) I guess I had luck because the submarine destroyed one of the DDs and the anotherone destroyed the sub so I hade only i DD left. The hardest mission so far

Canuck's way is smarter than mine. I'm a gung-ho crazy man and I chose to take them all on.

Here's some general hints that helped me. Firstly, I relied on my torpedoes to pull me through.

You're in luck if the sea is rough. The German ships won't be able to land as many hits on ya as you steam in flank speed. Target the farther destroyer with your main guns and blast away. Resist the temptation to make broadside salvoes, this'll just give the Germans more time to hit you with their shells.

So yeah, what I did was turn on my AA defense, and head for the german destroyers flank speed, RIGHT at them. Ignore the US sub and evade torpedoes if needed. Just steam on in. When you're like a few hundred meters away, start worrying about torpedoes. Don't forget that you have as many torpedo tubes as both of the destroyers combined. I made a last second decision to bear on him from port (opposite side of the other destroyer, so any of his shots/torps would hit his buddy) and I whacked the closer DD with four torpedoes. Make a HARD turn towards the other one and (not likely, but possible) slam the other with your remaining four. Otherwise, just make a broadside and go behind him as you hit him with your six 5-inchers. You should be able to finish him off before he gets you.

Hopefully during this time you didn't run outta AA ammo (Don't you dare waste it on the destroyers!!) and you shot down the enemy planes as you were concentrating on the DDs. Now go hunt the US sub. You'll probably be rather knocked up from the two DDs, so your turning won't be as good. But since there's only one sub, go nuts with the DC's.

So that's what I did.

This is a really difficult mission. It took me nearly 15 tries to get it right, and I won by luck. What I usually do is steam away at 180 degress from the sub at 2/3rds, and keep than 10000 yards from the DDs.

The DDs will eventually sink the sub, but hopefully not before they receive a torpedo or two.

When the bombers show up, I jump into the rear centerline twin 20mm mount and shoot them down, to make sure I have no distractions when attacking the destroyers (also by now they probably have dropped all their bombs/depth charges on the sub.)

I got lucky and saw that one of the destroyers was running 7 knots slower than the other. So I kept steaming away from both in a running battle, letting the faster DD close to 3000 yards, then matching speeds. At that range, I had 4 rear guns to his 1 forward firing gun, and managed to knock 4 knots off his speed.

Once the two enemy DDs were about 4000 yards away from each other, I closed on the first and torpedoed him with an 8-torp spread, then closed on the second and repeated.

Total damage taken -- about 50%

Toepopper, you found the strategy. The goal of the mission was to get you to use the enemy submarine to damage or destroy one of your enemy. Nice job.

Thanks East! It took forever because the planes usually kill the sub before the DDs get there, leaving htem completely undamaged.

I figured that there are just too many guns to deal with if you try a banzai charge -- you have to get _both_ DDs with one spread, and that's well near impossible given that one of the DDs usually soaks up more than 4 torps.

I'm still loving the game!

I guess I got lucky doing it my way.

Me too. I just waited shot striaght for them and torped them and some how how managed to avoid the return salvo. Then I hunted the sub. Was very close. crazy: