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How to beat the Semi-Dreadnought


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Hey guys. I have tried to beat the Semi-Dreadnought with varying configurations of BBs and CAs now. Only time I ever came close was when my CA somehow managed to get close enough for firing two torpedoes that both hit. But before the enemy BB went down it basically shredded my CA and the enemy CLs finished me off. My own CLs, that are not under my command, are basically useless. Could someone tell me what the hell I am doing wrong?

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the 2 CL should be under you command too, just click on them, or make sure you didnt acccidentaly clicked the "give command to AI" button on them in the orders bar.

this is hands down one of the more poorly balanced and hardest missions right now.

i beat it by basically cheezing the AI:

after a lot of failures, i noticed the enemy BB is ALWAYS full aggro on your big ships: he never fires on your CL no matter what, except with his useless secondary guns when you get close, but never with his main guns.

so what i did was keep the 2 CA that i build relatively far away and made super sure to keep them angled so they bounce as much as possible, then with my 2 CL i just sailed right in his face and torpedoed him at point blank. :x lol

the hard part was the 2 Enemy CL: you NEED to sink or at least cripple them right away, even before you start hitting the BB, otherwise, they will chicken out as soon as you start dealing heavy damage to the BB, and you will fail the mission because they are faster than you, no matter what. so i Focused main guns of my CA on their CL (while tanking the BB shots as explained above), and with my CL, i sailed right to the ennemy BB but also tried to torpedo their CL (who were infront of the BB) on my way there. (don't worry their CL are also full aggro on your big ships and wont target your CL either).

i managed to torpedo one of their CL destroying his engine, and got a lucky critical engine hit on the other one with my CA. they started runnng away but they were too slow. i sunk the BB pretty quick after that with my CL with torpedoes at point blank, and then i finished their CL with gunfire and torpedoes from my almost dead CA's and CL's.

make sure you put a lot of torpedo tubes on your BB or CA that you build, you'll need them more than guns: you can fire those torps on their CL when tanking the BB shots, and also can use them to finish the BB if your CL crippled it but didnt sink it...

hope that explaination makes sence, it was quite hard and took me a lot of tries. also, if at the start of the mission you see the auto-build CL they gave you dont have any torpedoes (it happens rarely), quit and retry.

 

Edited by Accipiter
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Another advice is to slow your ships to full speed for the aiming bonus and you should start landing hits. I don't know about the above advice but I've had the enemy fleet completely focus on my CLs making them good to bait leaving my B unmolested. (Also check their speeds of it's 18kts restart as they can't do anything)

If your using a BB only use 12" and above. You can fit these guns on the battleship hull by rotating it with the R key. But just as above you must knock out those CL because right when you start landing hits on the B the entire enemy fleet will run. Worse case scenario you cripple the semi-dread but due to damage model shenanigans you aren't able to land a killing blow because your shells keep hitting the destroyed sections. This will give the CLs time to escape and the enemy B has a rather significant chance to land a hit that will slow your ship and that's when you restart.

Edited by Tankaxe
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57 minutes ago, Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf said:

"Could someone tell me what the hell I am doing wrong?"

Hitting 'Start Mission'? 😁

I don't know how Accipiter managed because I've had the BB focus-fire on my CLs multiple times now.  Trying to torpedo the thing has been a suicide run every time I've tried it.

Edited by WafflesToo
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51 minutes ago, Tankaxe said:

Another advice is to slow your ships to full speed for the aiming bonus and you should start landing hits. I don't know about the above advice but I've had the enemy fleet completely focus on my CLs making them good to bait leaving my B unmolested. (Also check their speeds of it's 18kts restart as they can't do anything)

huh... this is strange, i've literally NEVER had the BB target my CL with main guns until after they landed hits on it with torpedoes, that causes it to start targeting the CL, but at this point its too late you already crippled it. it's possible their CL targeted my CL, i'm not even sure because small guns dont do anything anyway, if they did target them they didnt do anything lol.

maybe if you do the mission with BB instead of CA that changes the AI's targeting priorities?? not sure, it's weird.

Edited by Accipiter
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This is a tricky mission. One time the BB had 13.3" of +80% armour, and my CLs were generated with no torpedos, making this mission essentially impossible.

But, assuming you get something a bit more reasonable generated, I've beaten this mission a couple of times by using the biggests guns I could + heavy shells + as much armour as I could fit, then keeping my ship super well angled, while I get in close with the CLs and torpedo the BB. I think you stand a better chance with a single Battleship III - you can fit a 13" gun on he back (not the front though) if you pick the firepower techs. An then hope your CLs aren't useless and the BB isn't crazy OP.

Oh, and forget about secondaries, right now they are worthless.

Now, if anyone can tell me how to beat the DD vs TB mission, that would be amazing!

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Alright. The solution was: Bigger guns, more armour. Fine by me, I am German. xD Maxed out armour on the BB, went for 2x2 12" turrets and a load of 4" (gimme those 8.8cm, yeah!), weathered the enemy fire to blow the enemy BB up with the fifth salvo at 6km. Ok, let's be honest, this was pure luck. Finished off the CLs easily after that, despite them managing to slam two torps in my poor BB, they didn't even come close to sinking it, all hail Kruppstahl!

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I used 2 x CA's with biggest guns

Dont bother with secondaries. Stay at distance and have enough angle and armor to avoid being one shotted. you have to keep both CA's alive.

HE spam him, and once his tower is damaged it is a bit more difficult for him to kill you. I do think it does depend on the ship you are up against, so maybe check at the start once you identify him.

Edited by lokii
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I had 5 Armored cruisers with heavy armor and 2 10 inch guns per ship. I used the guns to destroy the smaller ships and then Torpedoed the semi-dreadnought, and pre-dreadnought. I used mostly AP at range to avoid damage, I took light shells to prevent over-pen on them.

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3 hours ago, Cairo1 said:

I had 5 Armored cruisers with heavy armor and 2 10 inch guns per ship. I used the guns to destroy the smaller ships and then Torpedoed the semi-dreadnought, and pre-dreadnought. I used mostly AP at range to avoid damage, I took light shells to prevent over-pen on them.

ah yes. That is using the exta funds option? I used the Gun optimisation for 2 CAs

 

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