Tides of War

This is the mission where a US convoy gets attacked by a swarm of enemy PT boats.

Help welcome. I'm sunk.

They are surprisingly nasty aren't they. One secret is to direct fire on a single boat at a time. Argon was the first guy (as I recall) to formulate an effective strategy. If you have played the PT's in the patrols, they sure don't seem to be that hard to kill.

--East

Argon was the first guy (as I recall) to formulate an effective strategy.

Please copy verbatim the detailed notes of his captain's log here.

I would, but Argon doesn't keep a log (can't write)... instead he leaves a trail of blown up things. Power stations usually

/bux

PS Just tried this mission and I agree its tricky. I was going for a perfect score - zero merchants lost - when 3 torpedos hit me in succession

I've come back from escorting the Bolo convoy off the coast of Canada to tell you the tail of the heros aboard the DE USS Carter Bull.

The moment the mission starts, when the view from the bridge appears on screen, press the P key to pause the game. This will give the game more time to load into memory, giving you slighlty less lag at the start of the mission after you unpause the game. I recommend doing this at the start of every mission. It also gives you time to read the initial messages without worrying about precious seconds going by. While paused, you can bring up the BTAC as well.

You'll likely feel lag in this mission, even with good specs, because of the number of units in the mission.

Now unpause the game, issue the DEFEND DECK GUNS command and set your TAC's range to 8km. You should see a swarm of enemy MTB torpedo boats heading your way fast.

Set engines to flank and move slighly portside, being careful to stay clear of the merchant ship approaching on port. Set your torpedo tubes to point to port. You may or may not have a chance to fire them. I wound up not using them because of the risk of hitting friendly ships.

The Carter Bull is not a great ship for fast manouvering. My general logic was to avoid getting too close to the attacking MTB pack and let the other escorting CVs take the brunt of the offensive. I flanked parallel to the CVs and used them as cover to prevent MTB launched topedos from reaching me, which they did anyway.

As soon as possible, set the TACs range to 4km, select the nearest target and issue the ENGAGE order. Keep doing this to other enemy boats after the current target is destroyed, usually by your CVs. During all this time, you'll have to manouver hard to port and starboard to avoid the numerous torps and small gun fire hurled your way. As it was, the Carter Bull took two fish and small gun fire, leaving its hull surviving by the skin of its teeth. After the second torp hit, I retreated hard to starboard to distance myself from the few surviving MTBs, which the CVs finished off.

At this point, some planes will be heading in from the west to attack the convoy from the rear. If your hull is in bad shape like mine, stay clear of them by keeping to the front of the convoy. In any case, the convoy ship's AA guns easily shot them all down.

We lost one CV, an oiler and a merchant, with 10 convoy ships and a CV surviving to continue the journey.

The mission took a while till it declared a success. At first I was worried that there was a bug in the mission where the end wouldn't trigger but it kicked in after a few minutes of escort duty.

USA Surface Mission 6
(USS CARTER BULL)  Bolo has strayed into Canadian waters.  Keep an eye peeled for RNE subs.  Protect the convoy.  There are 12 ships in Bolo.  Keep at least 8 alive.

18:01:12 - Mission started at 43.12.41N, 55.9.59W

18:01:19 - Spotted a League sub hunter at 43.13.55N, 55.10.6W

18:03:22 - Taking fire from a League sub hunter

18:03:31 - CV33 destroyed by a League sub hunter

18:05:42 - M3 destroyed by a League sub hunter

18:06:26 - Destroyed SH23 with a 4in deck gun round WNW at 1100 meters.

18:06:55 - OL12 destroyed by a League bomber

18:16:32 - Mission completed at 43.13.25N, 55.9.3W

Planes Destroyed: 0

Ships Sunk: 1

Total Tonnage Sunk: 77

Good work.  Pleased to hear how well Carter Bull performed against the MTBs the Royals threw out there.  You're doing very well for someone new to DE command.  Very impressive.

enigma!:

Not to sound cocky but why is everyone has troubles dodging Torps. I understand the amount of MTBs in that mission but I still have yet to be hit by a torp in that mission. It's usually me missing the torps that makes me lose the mission (They end up hitting the convoy).

Just can't get past this one. I've tried this mission about 30 times using all sorts of different tactics, and usually get the convoy blown out from under me. Any other ideas or tactics????

I did it without advice from this board, generally I charged straight into the swarm of PT's and that made them turn their torpedoes on me. That means manouvering like hell, and it probably took me atleast 20 goes to complete it but on the last attempt I wasn't hit by a single torpedo due to some skillful manouvering. I took one bomb hit from the planes and some AA fire from the PT's but otherwise I was in pretty good shape.

The key to it is making your AA guns attack the PT boats, if you don't you're main gun just doesn't have the firepower to take out all the PT's, so zoom in your Tactical map and specifically aim your AA guns for the PT's.

Right into the pack, dodge like hell and all guns to bear. Thanks.

If its any help fellas, the upcoming patch addresses this missions specifically. The placement, quality, and quanity of ships is addressed. Plus the convoy's starting formation is very pretty.