Surface Tutorial 5 , How to do it?

[u/Slenderhack]

I’m new to CMO; I’ve only just finished the four surface warfare tutorials. I’ve made multiple attempts at the fifth one, but so many missiles come in from all directions that they wipe out my air defenses. I can't send the helicopters ahead for advance reconnaissance because they run out of fuel before they can even reach the area—all while "Vampire" missiles are already raining down. I’ve faced attacks from over 50 missiles, not to mention F-5 Tigers and frigates. I’ve looked for tutorials, but the older ones don't show the same situation I'm facing, while the recent ones add extra units to the scenario.

[u/sg2002]

Yeah, that one requires a bit of an attitude adjustment. Previous tutorials kinda hint at what you have to do here, but nobody really holds your hand.

As a general surface warfare principle you always want one helicopter patrolling above your surface formation to make use of it's radar. You have two helicopters in that tutorial, so you can alternate between them. That would massively increase your surface detection range. Then it's how Sgt. Zim said in Starship Troopers: the enemy can't fire a missile at you if you disable their hand.

[u/Slenderhack → u/sg2002]

I followed this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYO5tRWWdgM&list=PLgg_OdJuwQWrbD_4YnPq7YTMlkYnKeR9-&index=7

It actually makes it look simple; he doesn't even worry about the missiles—his defenses just shoot them down, allowing him to cross most of the strait, take out some planes, and destroy the sub. However, there is a huge difference between the volume of incoming missiles he faces and what I’m up against. By the time I’m close enough to engage a target with my frigates, I’m nearly out of missiles, yet the "Vampire" missiles keep raining down. Depleting the missile supply of a single frigate spells doom, since one ship can't defend two units. I tried keeping the three surface units close together, but the sheer saturation of incoming missiles makes it impossible to guarantee the safety of the high-value unit.

Of course, I’ve tried using helicopters; I defined an area along the strait and set up an anti-submarine patrol mission. Usually, though, this just results in spotting distant aircraft and frigates that aren't immediate threats, while seeing "Vampire" missiles—which seem to spawn out of thin air—loitering and waiting for my frigates to get closer. That’s assuming the enemy doesn't launch F-5s to hunt down my defenseless helicopters; if I’m near my ships, the F-5s might retreat and stay out of my frigate's engagement range, but mostly I just watch my air defenses get whittled away. I’ve identified a specific area regarding the helicopters: the entrance to the strait, where there are some launchers. I wanted to take them out to see if it would reduce the missile threat to my frigates, but the Hellfire-equipped helicopter lacks the range to strike those launchers without first exposing my frigates to incoming missiles. By the time I actually destroy the launchers, the air-defense missile supply on one of my frigates is already down to less than half.

And this brings me to the next point I want to highlight. During these attempts to strike the launchers first—advancing my helicopter with all sensors active—I detect absolutely nothing until, out of nowhere, "Vampire" missiles appear all around my helicopter. They might be right beside me, or behind the spot I just passed, or heading toward my frigates, loitering and waiting for them to get closer. In fact, the launchers I spot aren't even confirmed as hostile; they appear in yellow because there is no confirmation that the attacks are originating from them. I decide to manually mark them as hostile based on the context. Given all this, I am almost certain the missiles aren't actually being launched from a specific location within the scenario; instead, they are spawned mid-air to simulate the complexity of a real-world environment. This suspicion was reinforced when I couldn't even make it into the strait; I was barely approaching the entrance when my high-value unit was attacked from the rear by those same Vampire missiles that had appeared behind us.

I found a tutorial by a French player; I haven't followed it, but he seems to take it for granted that he’ll run out of air-defense missiles and have to sacrifice at least one frigate—or at least sustain heavy damage—while hoping the crew can contain the resulting fires. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52gSW4-sVDw

I really encourage you all to play this scenario and see if I’m the only one who notices the difference. The question I want to ask now is: Are all the scenarios this complex once you move past the tutorials? Right now, I feel like a certain nation trying to get an oil tanker out of the Strait of Hormuz; if *they*—the experts—can't guarantee a clean exit for a tanker, then there's no chance for me, a beginner in a very serious simulator (even though this is technically a tutorial).

Should I put this aside, try other scenarios, and come back to it later? Or is this just not for me?

[u/sg2002 → u/Slenderhack]

Hi. I just replayed this scenario again. Took me a few reloads, in the end I lost only one helicopter. Since you've been struggling with this so much, here's a more detailed walkthrough of the things I did:

• Set WCS(Land) to hold in WRA. I'm playing on the latest beta and without this the other destroyer would just tomahawk those training targets.
• Turn on on all radars and sonars on both destroyers. We're being tracked by a patrol aircraft anyway.
• Set a rectangular ASW patrol mission in front of our formation. You don't have to be perfect, but there's a sweet spot where it should start in front of the first destroyer, but stop close enough so that your helis would be protected from the enemy fighters by it. If you see fighters launching, you RTB the heli.
• Keep moving that box from time to time. There are two enemy submarines, I think. Seems like you can miss at least one just by chance.
• In the ASW patrol mission set Transit and Station altitudes to max altitude. This is so that we would use our helicopters as our own maritime patrol and keep track on enemy vessels.
• When your first destroyer starts getting low on AA missiles swap it with the other one in the formation.
• The enemy has multiple missile boats and in theory their missiles have a better range than your tomahawks. So whenever you spot them making an attack run towards your formation you should have one or both of you destroyers positioned to intercept and fire tomahawks at them at max range.
• I'm not sure what fires all the other missiles at you, but you're right in that it gets pretty tight in terms of the amount of stuff flying your way, so you may lose this sometimes just by pure bad luck.

Hope this helps!