Barents Escort mission - is this even possible?

[Frostiken]

You lose if two surface ships are killed. The mission starts with two utterly useless targets (as that's all they are, the only threats seem to be submarines and they have zero submarine capabilities) sitting right on top of some submarines.

Every time I start the mission, in the first few seconds one of the submarines fires four or five ASMs and inevitably destroys one of them. A few minutes in, something from a hundred miles away fires a stream of missiles at the other and, with no anti-missile defenses to speak of, kills the other one and that's game over.

It's literally impossible to move any of my units, ASW helicopters, or anything in any position to detect any enemies before my two useless boats are destroyed and I fail.

EDIT: I just realize you can load up this mission and play on the Ruskie side.

So yes, one of my small patrol boats is literally sitting right on top of the enemy submarine. But what's worse is that, as a Russian, I was completely unable to detect the enemy fleet. Last time I played this on the NATO side, the frigate fired six or seven sea-skimming ASMs at my frigate... yet even with all sensors on I am utterly unable to detect the enemy fleet, except for the patrol boat my sub was underneath (and even then I had to deploy the towed sonar).

Is the AI cheating that badly and overtly that they can just fire away at things they can't even detect?

[nstutt]

When I played it I moved my one surviving patrol boat quickly back to my frigate so that it would benefit from the protection that provides. Yes one of the patrol boats gets killed practically instantly.

I managed to succeed this mission and it was a lot of fun especially when my sub was targeted suddenly by loads of torpedoes from out of the blue. The key is probably detecting the enemy fleet asap and getting your fleet into range to strike.

[Watcherzero]

Im unable to complete this too.

Mission starts, before you are able to do anything one patrol boat will be sunk by point blank missile launches from sub.

I launch the frigates copter to get some radar coverage and send it towards the sub and also redirect the patrol plane closer, I have the airbase reqequip two flights of planes with anti ship weapons (takes one hour of game time) and launch two groups to provide air cover.

At this point I will have detected two (sometimes 3) enemy patrol boats and sometimes an enemy frigate along with a bomber doing a runner (cant catch it) and a ASW copter which can be easily downed.

Enemy will now launch a large number of missiles at either my frigate or the second patrol boat, depending on how long its taken I might have got it within the coverage of the frigate in which case I can shoot down almost all the misiles though usually the frigate will take one hit.

My planes have now reequipped with anti ship weapons so I launch them, ive usually downed 3 or 4 enemy fighters by this time too. At this point the enemy launches a second wave of missiles usually from multiple locations which always kills either the frigate or patrol boat.

Game Over before I can even get any anti ship/anti sub assets within range. You do have the Anti ship missiles on the surviving patrol boat which always miss and the frigate will have just got in weapons range at the time its gameover.

[Watcherzero]

Weird attempted it again and this time the Russian patrol boats never fired a shot after the sub killed my patrol boat, so random.

[nick-bang]

BAD programming !!!

I am very close to deleting this piece of s... game because of this stupid mission.
I Like a challenge but I HATE badly programmed and heavily scripted scenarios that force you to walk as a lamb to the slaughter !

[thekordster]

I always loose one of the two smaller units in this. What I do is as soon as the game starts order them back towards the main group at full speed and move my other units forward to take the fire or to shoot down some of the inbound missiles if you can get there fast enough.

Its not a perfect solution but should get you past it, its a bit close as like you say the first missiles fly soon after starting.

Kordster

[niripas]

Run both Skjolds as soon as mission starts away (military speed). Use the jamming craft to help. And if you have missiles incoming - you have your main gun, which is pretty effective, but it cannot shoot to the back. Just did it in 16 minutes real time with no losses.

[bruns_01]

Yes it is posibble, drive them at very slow, so they look like fisshing boats. Turn around your P8 at military power, max altitude, sensors on.
You will spot them first and fire as soon as they apear.
Done it with 0 losses.