I did it the money path and it felt like I was playing an aimbot with reload cheats. As I was frighting a 10 gun 17” mark 5 monster with up to 15.5” of armor.
I won with just 5% hp left and on my two crippled BBs out of the four I started with (Ran 4x3 15” ships as without tech boost the 15” is better)
Would recommend rebalancing the tech boost side of this mission, though I’m not sure how, though I would limit the player to 16” guns regardless of path as to make it a challenge.