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"Baltic Breakout" How long did it take you?

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Apr 11, 2007
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I am pretty sure I am doing something wrong.

After destroying 34 enemy aircraft and 2 ships, I am finally going to complete this (when I alt tab) after almost 3 hours. The AI now has probably 1-2 aircraft if any compared to dozens of mine. Judging from the fact that we can not save during a mission, I am almost certain I did something wrong. 3 hours was way too long compared to the previous NATO missions.

I am now thinking whether a full scale attack with about 10 planes with anti ship weapons followed by another 10 with anti air (to counter the enemy's countermeasures) would make this faster. Has anyone here tried it?

EDIT: Nope, unless someone can confirm the opposite, this is a very long mission even if you overuse the speed up button.
 
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Yes, it is a hard mission. Darned those S300 SAMs. You need to use all your Anti-surface fighters together; maybe relocate the Danish ones to Sweden for shorter turnover.

I have found that if I sneak up on the northern fleet from the other side of the Aland islands and fire missiles over land, the defense picks them up much later. Firing missiles at it piecemeal makes it for a very long night; you need to mass your attacks.
 
I found that overusing the speed button is a mistake here. Every move needs to be carefully planned, and the unrealisticly short range of the Gripen really does not help. I also hope we get the Gotland Sub in that mission soon. This is how I completed it, after more then ten attempts:

I scrambled ALL My Aircraft and kept them near my airbases. This baited the enemy to come and engage them in force as I left their AWACs alone. Meanwhile, I snuck a two-flight of F-35 as close to the AWACS as possible. Once the enemy aircraft was almost in range, I killed the AWACS and launched AMRAAMs at their aircraft. This made them either into burning pieces of metal or very low on fuel; giving me a window to launch Naval Strike packages and cruise missiles from the ships.

Land half your Air Combat Wings at once, and keep them down as reserve. Make sure your naval strike wings dump all their ordinance in one go, and then send them back to reload at once.

Repeat until done.
 
I finished this on my first attempt. :happy:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-breakout-boy-that-was-a-long-and-big-mission


I can give some helpful tips to help defeat this game but before even playing this particular mission you need at least 3 or 3 and a half hour dedicated to playing this. This means get comfortable, get your comfort drink with you and prepare for a long gaming time. I don' think there's a safe way to win this one fast and easy. After all it's a Russian battlegroup we're talking about and one which enjoys the benefits of strong airsupport from two supporting airfields of their own.

Some of the important tips I think would help

1. The first priority is not to send your jets to attack the Russian battlegroup but to defend and whittle down the numbers of their air support. Shoot down their planes. Do not however chase after the Russian planes into the kill range of their battlegfroup SAMs. Preserve your own planes. This also means sending the fighters in group of 2 and four to patrol the area and CREATE a defensive barrier between your most forward airfield and the reach of enemy planes. Another very important use of the fighter airplanes is to shoot down any incoming missiles directed towards the airfield or your battlegroup. This cannot be emphasized more. Hence it is important to maintain continuous fighter barrier to protect your airfield and battlegroup from incoming missiles and to shoot down hostile planes. Do not forget to kill their AWACS plane early on. Try to keep your battlegroup as stealthy as possible, mind their heading to give minimun RCS(radar cross section) to the enemy battlegroup and turn off radar emission.

2. Once you have whittled down the enemy planes so much so that they started having difficulty sending theirs, prepare for attack on the battlegroup. Use [multiple] tanker planes(air refuelling planes) to your advantage from the beginning and replace them when they run out of fuel. They are very useful to extend the patrol time of your fighters(those which haven't expended their AMRAAM missiles especially). The main attack on the battlegroup can commence when the Russian air power is largely decimated. Switch most of your jet loadout to one capable of naval strike.

When attacking attack at the same time as your naval battlegroup. Hence you're massing a concentrated volleys of cruise missiles at them to try to overwhelm the Russian battlegroup defenses. All striking aircrafts and your naval battlegroup neeed to launch their attack so that the missiles would be in the defense range of the Russian battlegroup more or less in the same time. Do not forget however to have a few air superiority fighters flying barrier still to protect your battlegroup and your airfield.

3. You could also launch a few early attacks on the Russian battlegroup(minus using your own naval battlegroup since it's going to be still out of range). However the purpose is not to sink their ships but to help deplete their SAM missiles when your main attack, as described in point number two, bears down on them.

4. If necessary, rinse and repeat No. 2(minus the battlegroup) until the mission is completed.
 
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I was working on it but got frustrated because everytime I shoot a missile at the big fleet the game starts freezing and when it de-freezes 15 in-game minutes have passed and all my planes are dead.

So, I did not beat it. Waiting for patch.
 
Boozdeuvash said:
I was working on it but got frustrated because everytime I shoot a missile at the big fleet the game starts freezing and when it de-freezes 15 in-game minutes have passed and all my planes are dead.

So, I did not beat it. Waiting for patch.
Click to expand...

Ah too bad hope it will be fixed.

Btw how do you type that 'useful idiot'? I don't see a way to change member title.
 
Could some finish it without loosing any surface ships? I found that sacrificing that lone ship by dragging attention to him saved my task force and got one kill right in the beginning. If it wasnt for in-flight ASMs disappearing when target´s contact is lost (unbelievable), I should have finished it earlier.
 
Actually the mission is doable without loosing any ship.

I will explain. For the first encounter you do fight ship vs ship. But for the other 4 you just need planes.

Enemy AI has about 35 planes most of which you will destroy eventually. From there you can launch massive naval attacks on the enemy armada using just planes. I found out that the countermeasures are depletable and soon the AI ships become vulnerable to pretty much anything. Then the ai will go in some sort of retreat pattern which means that you better not loose their signal on the map. And from there you know what to do.

I lost 2 ships trying to keep the enemy armada countermeasures busy while my planes were attacking it, but the mission is doable without involving your ships at all in the battle. It will just take a bit longer to complete it.
 
Yannos said:
Actually the mission is doable without loosing any ship.

I will explain. For the first encounter you do fight ship vs ship. But for the other 4 you just need planes.

Enemy AI has about 35 planes most of which you will destroy eventually. From there you can launch massive naval attacks on the enemy armada using just planes. I found out that the countermeasures are depletable and soon the AI ships become vulnerable to pretty much anything. Then the ai will go in some sort of retreat pattern which means that you better not loose their signal on the map. And from there you know what to do.

I lost 2 ships trying to keep the enemy armada countermeasures busy while my planes were attacking it, but the mission is doable without involving your ships at all in the battle. It will just take a bit longer to complete it.
Click to expand...

it is doeable but if you use only the planes you're counting on depleting the enemy SAMs. If not the battlegroup should fire at the enemy battlegroup to add the volleys. I did that and it's possible still not losing any ship from the battlegroup that way.

It's also possible not to lose the lone ship, just don't turn on the radar on that ship :happy: but that lone ship is of little value once its SSMs are depleted.
 
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Just over an hour

JanH said:
Yes, it is a hard mission. Darned those S300 SAMs. You need to use all your Anti-surface fighters together; maybe relocate the Danish ones to Sweden for shorter turnover.

I have found that if I sneak up on the northern fleet from the other side of the Aland islands and fire missiles over land, the defense picks them up much later. Firing missiles at it piecemeal makes it for a very long night; you need to mass your attacks.
Click to expand...

After several attempts I found a nice tactic that seems to work. Being an airforce dude I really wanted to do something cool with all the fighters, so I made a long COMAO train of planes going out of Copenhagen to a holding area well west of the Russian ships. 4 HARM shooters (singletons, widely spaced, not in a group), 3x4-ship of F-35 anti ship (the version with most NSMs) each with a dedicated tanker (yes, I reequipped ALL fighters at copenhagen ASAP). Abeam the Swedish base I also launched 6xJAS anit ship. When everyone had reached their holding they were topped off by the tankers and all set course east. In the lead 4-ship HARM shooters (to launch Preemptive, or I guess in NWAC bearing only shots), followed by and impressive WALL of the 3x4 F35 and 6xJAS. Oh yeah, I also included a 4-ship of air superiority fighters, all shooting at max range to make the russians turn out of my way!:laugh:

As the HARM shooters were in range, so were the anti ship dudes, and I tried to lauch all my crap at once! Thats when my Macbook pro started to get really warm and I had a bit of lag, but taking into account the number of planes, missiles and SAMs in the air it was just adding to the fun! The russians kept firing sams, and the HARMs found their way(most of the at least). The russians stood no chance agains the massive amount of NSM and RBS-15 (i think, cant remember the name, the JAS anit ship thingy anyway). There were even a group of anti ship missiles left after the russians were gone!:laugh:

Also to note is that I killed the russian BO-AT furthest to the south with my southernmost BO-AT group (I told you I'm an airforce guy, everything on the water is a BO-AT.. period) while the guys were rearming at copenhagen.

Other tips I've found that work well (general):
I always set my fighters on CAP to only fire on my command and fly them high for best sensor pickup. Then if I don't need to kill anyone (just keep them away) I command one jet to fire on someone, and immediately after launch put him back in the CAP to patrol. That way one missile is lauched, the russians turn and all is good. So my CAP fighters never fly in groups. I also, if possible, launch one air sup fighter together with a tanker and put them a way back from the cap with all sensors on (assuming no awacs or similar). They can stay there forever, the tanker giving fuel, and the fighter picking up stuff (max altitude).

When hunting for subs with the poseidon I've found that if you hold the CTRL button down and START clicking out sonar buoys where you want the poseidon to drop its LAST buoy, then clicking back towards the aircraft it will actually drop its FIRST buoy where you do your LAST click... Then it will follow your click sequence until the point where you STARTED... confusing enough? Try it! Maybe not revolutionary, but I like it. Also I try to space the buoys so that they just overlay, you can see their range by clicking on the buoy, and then on the sensors section (the same way you can bring up other sensors/weapons rangerings).

I love this game!

Special thanks to JanH for all the answers on the forum! Do you ever sleep? :) You deserve a raise!
 
This mission took me 3.5 hrs :eek:o, but in the end, it was worth it!...I didn't even realize that you could equip with HARM's, good tip for future missions though, (got to remember, re-equip fighters) :blush: I'm such a "noob"! :p
 
ggrcrash said:
This mission took me 3.5 hrs :eek:o, but in the end, it was worth it!...I didn't even realize that you could equip with HARM's, good tip for future missions though, (got to remember, re-equip fighters) :blush: I'm such a "noob"! :p
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Changing the loadout is a great tool. The sort range Air-To-Ground/Surface loadouts with a tanker to support wreak havoc out there :-D Try it out in the "freebie" tutorial mission, reequip, launch with tankers and try to make the strikers range as long as you can.
 
Just did it on about the fourth attempt. I only lost seven planes in the end, splashing 30+ Ruskie planes, sinking the sub, five ships, and damaging one other.

The first thing I did was to refit all my Air to Surface planes as Air Superiority, and had them defend against the missile attacks and waves of Flankers T-50s and Backfires. Meanwhile the Poseidon went after the sub. By the time the sub was dead so were most of the Russian planes. So I refitted most of the Grippens back to anti-ship, along with the Poseidon, and then whittled down the fleet. The S300 is hard work to get past, I just kept at it until he'd run out of ammo.
 
I finally beat it, the HARM really made a difference. Managed to blow up the Kirov class with just 8 of them. The rest was easy and I didnt get any lethal freeze after the Kirov died. Game was shaky and freezy though. Its most likely a memory leak because this shakiness continued after I succeeded and moved on to the next mission. even during briefing. Restarted the game and it went fine.

I blame Unity.
 
It took me about four hours in game (about three hours real time), but hey, I did take out the entire Russian Baltic fleet and only lost one aircraft (an F35 that got slightly too close to the battle group).

One question though, what were all those T-22's doing sneaking across the north of Sweden up to? I managed to take a few out (after a long tanker fueld trip for a couple of F35s), but the ones that got past never came back...

I can also add to the reports of slowdowns in this mission. I almost beat it on saturday, until I launched my last strike package and the game just hung, three hours wasted. :(
I turned off the 3D view and it played a lot better after that (a few slowdowns and stutters when many weapons were being used at once though).
 
Is this good?
x2aot.jpg


It was rather annoying at the start, I launched about 3 waves of aircraft to kill the single ship near my fleet, but I kept losing sight of it so the missiles just disappeared. To kill the big group, I just grouped all my anti surface fighters together and launched repeated strikes. I kinda wiped out the enemy fighters quite quickly, and also killed their AWACS. They ran out of SAMs at one point so finishing them off was quite easy with all the Harpoons on my fleet that I had not yet used.
 
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