Norway Campaign escort mission seemingly impossible.

[ScientistMan96]

Playing the 1.0 beta, and the Norway campaign missions seem to be impossible.

By the time they take place (~1940) You're still using the Type II sub which only has 5 torps total. You have to deal with several waves of warships, more ships that you can possibly have torps for, even with a perfect 1 shot 1 kill (Which isn't likely due to the old torps of the time.)

I've even tracked a tiny group of 2 corvettes, figured the escort destroyer would be able to cover the troopship. No need to waste torps on such small targets, and the Type II doesn't have a cannon to use.

I was wrong. The German destroyer missed every shot then simply gave up, stopped firing, and sailed away, continuing on the planned route and leaving the unarmed troopship to be sunk by the corvettes, failing the mission.

A previous attempt had a similar thing happen, where a warfleet of 2 corvettes and a destroyer were on the path to attack. I intercepted, torped the destroyer (took 3 torps, 1 dud AZ fuse that hit the ship and alerted them, 1 evaded, and a final MZ fuse once the fleet calmed down.) Left the remaining corvettes for the escort destroyer. After a few miles, I thought the troopship was moving weird, so I went back to check. Found the troopship sailing alone, no escort or enemy in sight. Went back to my escort position out in front, keeping track of the troopship with hydrophone.
Several miles later, with no new contacts or SOS reports, I noticed the troopship had stopped moving. Go back to check it again, and find it sunk, with the hydrophone contact I had been tracking sailing south. Track that down to find a single British corvette just sailing away.
Never got a mission failed from this, despite the troopship having sunk, and the destroyer gone AWOL.

[Blind Faith]

I didn't have such a weird experience as you but found a flotilla of three DD's and a Corvette. it was in beautiful weather during the day so I had to line up from a distance (about 1.5 km) not to be spotted. Lined up the four torps (Type V11B) - one struck home and sunk a DD, one dud and two misses once the ships were alerted. By the time I escaped and manged to catch up with the flotilla again, they had found my troopship and sunk it. I can't think how i can do it differently except staying further in front of the convoy, leaving it open to attacks from the side or rear, so i can have a couple of digs at the ships.

[cato]

I did the mission 1st time without any issues in the IIA. I patrolled ahead of the convoy on the surface at full speed then dived at night to listen.

Guess I got lucky as no ships intercepted but it was very cool following the ships into Bergen harbour.

[er.tz]

For me usually come about 10 warships. It has to be a combination of 5/5 good torpedo hits (one at each warship), crazy 20 mm gun attacks, to sunk 2-3 solitarie warships, and our destroyers with luck can kill another couple of them.

I hope developers fix the balance of that kind of missions.

[akluke]

I managed this in the old game in a VIIC but have no idea how you could achieve this in a IID ... may just have to accept the loss ....

[tombargo]

I just did that mission just yesterday (Type IID) and had to deal with 3 Flower class corvettes, in heavy fog. Due to weather I could only surprise torpedo 1 Flower and very scarily fired another torpedo frontally into an approaching one, which i miraculously hit (I do have the first torpedo research completed). Like the OP, I assumed the surface escorts could deal with a single corvette. Alas, the corvette actually sank the troopship and apparently got away.

I mean sure, the German surface fleet historically didnt do much, but that result seems very exceptional - and yet doesn't seem to be a unique occurence.

[skaudus]

If you're in a type VII you can just fight the corvettes on the surface.

If you get T5 torpedoes then it's trivial since they home in, but if you don't, playing chicken with the deck gun is pretty sustainable. You might lose a sailor or two but you'll come out on top.

[Blind Faith]

Originally posted by skaudus:

If you're in a type VII you can just fight the corvettes on the surface.

If you get T5 torpedoes then it's trivial since they home in, but if you don't, playing chicken with the deck gun is pretty sustainable. You might lose a sailor or two but you'll come out on top.

I agree, fighting Corvettes with the deck gun isn't much of an issue as they only have one gun and aren't always accurate. I have sunk quite a few corvettes that way. DD's are a different story as they can have up to 8 guns (Tribals). That's a bit more scary.

[Alex Paen (ljekio)]

Game either need to not send Type 2 on this mission, or change something, making our destroyer more dangerous. Shooting from a flak at corvettes is outrageous nonsense.

[Youji Itami]

I totally agree.

Yes, I understand that the submarine is to serve in this mission both as a scout and to try to sink enemy warships.


But, if I attack an enemy formation, sink two destroyers, two corvettes, and have three Isles-type corvettes left over, then I would expect the escorting destroyers to be able to handle such a remnant handily.


Just by the logic of the thing, one German destroyer has firepower that exceeds that of three corvettes. But for one corvette to be able to sink three German destroyers seems a bit odd to me. Moreover, maybe it's just my feeling, but the only thing I saw my destroyers using was light shells from the main guns and then only 20mm guns. They used neither main guns nor 37mm guns against the corvettes.

But maybe that's just my feeling.

[DECAFBAD]

That mission was absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, lol.

Sinking the first group was an accomplishment.
The second group gave me some headaches. I drew the corvettes to the convoy, but the destroyers refused to engage them.
Then the third group appeared... Yeah I ended up ordering an artillery battle in pretty heavy seas, 1 U-boat vs 4 corvettes. Totally cheezy.

Can't imagine what the poor souls sporting the Type II have to go through!

[ClodBone]

A quick Google search shows that this mission is broken, and has been for years! I don't think the devs are gonna fix this, if they were the mission would be fixed by now (even though it prolly only would take a couple of lines in the code to make the German DD's not completely re**rded)... When you're in a Type II with 5 torps total, you gonna have to trust the destroyers to be able to handle a couple of corvettes - but, how about NO... It's plain stupid, I ran into 3 destroyers, followed by a wave of 5(!!) Corvettes and yet another single destroyer not long after, like wtf dude??..

What they HAVE fixed is aiming for the AI, I've tried to YOLO the Corvettes with my mighty AA gun as some say can work, but i get absolutely shredded in under 30 secs (running high difficulty (only external cam enabled and hardcore torp aiming disabled). Might just have to cut this mission as a loss, its impossible.

[ClodBone]

Quick update for those who might be interested. I reloaded a save back to port (I always do a save before starting a mission in case of game crashes etc), and this second time doing the mission i got NO interceptions whatsoever, no Corvettes, no DD's. The mission was a breeze, so it seems that you might get really screwed by RnG on this mission. Sp if you get overwhelmed with resistance on this mission, rinse and try again. As a bonus I encountered a convoy on my way back to port counting ~20 ships, got my tonnage quota for the day :p

[Soap]

Originally posted by ClodBone:

... I've tried to YOLO the Corvettes with my mighty AA gun as some say can work, but i get absolutely shredded in under 30 secs ...

why are you still trust the 20mm AA gun, i had said in the forum after the mighty patch 11 that sinking a simple empire merchant ship with this junk need around 1800-2000 HE per ship on average of 3 ship including a tanker (unable to lit on fire). While seeing streamers still AA gunning corvette with it but failed so hard with leaks, broken AA gun and dead officer and sailors.

Type IIA/D is basically done and horrible to play as patch 11 come out. The gun can only now fight an incoming bomber plane that is good enough to let you hit them and you dont want to do that either. so it is just a decoration on Type IIA/D in the game now.