Mines in damn the torpedoes

[pjdegrieck]

I'm only a few hours in (game time, not real time) and I lost my carrier and another ship to what I believe are mines near the very beginning of where the convoy starts. How do I clear them? Do I have to detach certain ships from the group and start a mission to clear mines? If so, which ships? I'm not sure the names of the equipment the ships should be armed with.

Also, I noticed a missile attack on my convoy, from what I assume are missile boats. I don't have any aircraft equipped to strike them, without rearming them which takes hours and leaves me vulnerable. What did you guys do?

I made it this far without using the editor, so I'm hoping for some tips.

Thanks!!

[Amnectrus]

I'm kind of stuck on Damn The Torpedoes as well. I managed to get the convoy all the way to the safe haven, but didn't have enough merchant ships left to get enough points for mission success.

I'm pretty sure there are no mines near where the convoy starts. However there are several subs, so maybe you're getting torpedoed. Also, I don't think there are any missile-armed enemy surface ships, but some of the subs are Charlie class or other SSG/SSGN, and they definitely launch missiles. Best defense against those seems to be jamming (OECM) and SAMs, at least for the subsonic cruise missiles that the subs fire. (Of course, finding and killing the subs before they launch is the real best way.) Note that not all your escort ships have SAMs, and those that do sometimes have only single-rail launchers, which may not be able to shoot fast enough to single-handedly kill a wave of incoming missiles.

In my experience so far, the worst threat by far is a Backfire raid from Iceland. On my last playthrough I was doing well, and then a Bear shot down the A-4 I sent to intercept it and got within radar range of my convoy (either that or the EORSAT that comes overhead periodically got a good position fix off my jamming). I had my E-1 AEW way up northwest of my convoy for early warning, saw a Backfire raid coming in, scrambled all my A-4s, and managed to shoot down most of the Backfires before they launched (if the AI had dashed them in on afterburners, I wouldn't have even been able to do that). I got a couple leakers which IIRC killed 1 merchant and 1 escort, so that wasn't bad.

But then the second Backfire raid came in, with even more bombers, and spread out more, and I was proper f--ked. The A-4s were all rearming, and my SAM-armed escorts were in the wrong place. Even with the SAMs, you can only engage targets under 1150 kts, and AS-4s don't slow down to that speed until the hit the thick atmosphere at the bottom of their terminal dive at about 6000 ft. That means if the AS-4 isn't directly targeting an escort or a ship right next to the escort, you can just forget about engaging it at all, and even if it is targeting an escort, you have about a 5 second window to launch. I lost about half the merchants and several escorts on that raid. I sunk a ton of subs and managed to make it to the safe haven without any further Backfire raids, but had lost too many merchants to win.

[FlyingBear]

This one is tricky. First attempt Backfired and I was essentially wiped out. Second time I got through, losing only a Knox from the convoy (and the Rothesay).

Since you cannot survive a large Backfire raid with the assets at hand the key is to not get detected. The hint is at the bottom of the briefing: EMCON: Alpha-limited emissions. The ships cannot use OECM or radar. Second time I did not even use active sonar, tiptoeing my way across the Atlantic to avoid detection.

[pjdegrieck]

Thanks for the replies.

I did what I said I wouldn't do. I cheated.

After spending hours of real life time, and sinking 10 subs, around a dozen backfires launched a raid. I was doomed.

I didn't follow the tip as displayed above. I had my radars and sonars pinging the entire time, causing me to get detected.

Britain decided not to turn on its radars or lend me any fighters from the mainland to deal with the backfire bombers, so I edited my convoy into the safe zone.

Sorry, I love the game, but hate the mission.

[schweggy]

I too had some issues with this scenario. Here's what I did;
1) Moved convoy south to increase distance the Backfires and RECON aircraft must travel to detect/attack me.
2) Setup AEW (Tracer) as far north as possible but in line with your convoy. Hold A-4s until an air threat is detected.
3) Liberal use of all ASW assets.
4) When multiple bogeys appear (typically an indication Backfires are incoming) launch every A-4.

I lost one Knox FFG.

[FlyingBear]

Stumbled upon this for immersion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zxKSzPxEMM

Old, but some nice footage of exactly the platforms used in this scenario going about their business. [8D]