Deploying units and Coral Sea

[demyansk]

I am trying to get past this scenario but having trouble. I have a question or two. How do you know while playing the game that you have the ability to deploy units in your Reserve?

Plus, any suggestions on the Coral Sea scenario.
Thanks

[GiveWarAchance]

On the right side of the bottom there is an info panel and it says command points for ground, sea and air. If you have 3 or more points in any category, then you can deploy a unit.
Like if there are 3 points of Air available, then you can put down 1 plane from your reserve when you push F button to see your force and click on shopping cart tab on top for undeployed stuff.
Some units take 4 or 5 command points to be able to deploy.

I haven't played Coral Sea battle yet so maybe someone else can help you with tactics.

[demyansk]

Hi, thanks for the info

[demyansk]

Holy cow, this scenario I am unable to beat. I can never get all the objectives, crazy

[GiveWarAchance]

Holy cow, this scenario I am unable to beat. I can never get all the objectives, crazy

If you want, you can post screenshots to show your battle and we can see what's happening.

In case you don't know, push F2 to take screenies and they are in my documents/my games/OOB/screenshots

[demyansk]

Hi War,

I finally was able to win this battle after trying about four different strategies. I guess I need to keep on trying while playing.

By the way, it looks like the quick save only rewrites one file.

[Klydon]

I beat this on the first try, but didn't get all the secondary objectives.

Spoiler alert!!!!!

Part of it is what you choose for your force, especially aircraft. Most carriers are 1 torpedo plane, 1 dive bomber, and 1 fighter. For my carrier that I added to the existing force, I picked 2 fighters and a dive bomber.

Part of the issue is the requirement to destroy the seaplane units to the north. This may lead many players to send aircraft up there and that is a mistake. I sent a scout plane, cruiser and destroyer from my screen and they got the job done destroying the units to meet the requirements.

The Shoho is the easiest of the Japanese carriers to destroy and is to the SW part of the map and closer than the other two Japanese carriers. You do need to send a fighter right off the bat to protect the oiler. The Japanese will send 1 plane after the oiler (probably from the Shoho) and your fighter can chew it up enough that it won't be able to get the job done on the oiler and escort.

After that, it is a fairly straight up fight between the Japanese forces and your own between the two fleets. With the extra fighter, you should win the air battle, but it compromises your ability to strike enemy shipping. In my game, I managed to sink both the Shoho and one of the other big Japanese carriers. The Japanese also lost their aircraft as well.

For the surface fight over on the western edge of the map, I basically stayed close to the port and tried to run damaged ships in to be repaired. The Japanese don't have that ability, so that should give you enough of an edge to get the job done against them.

[GiveWarAchance]

Sounds like some rock solid tactics. How many carriers did you sink? I think in the historical battle only Shoho was sunk.
How about other ships? Are there battleships and heavy cruisers?
I don't have this campaign yet so I haven't done Coral Sea.

[Klydon]

I got Shoho and one of the Shokaku's along with shooting down every plane. The other was heavily damaged, but managed to get away. The Japanese feature a lot of cruisers and a good number of destroyers, but I don't recall any battleships. You do have to be careful how close you get because the Japanese surface fleet is stronger than yours and 4 cruisers made a thrust at my carrier forces. You can also get a warning not to get too close. Fortunately I saw it coming and was able pull back in time and the scenario ended.