Mission Description
As predicted, we’re back on the Elbe at Kiriki, watching Mozume take off in the suggestively-shaped, steam-powered, possibly coal-fired, dreadnaught dirigible, Wolfram, straight out of a Heterodyne Boys story (and possilbly a hat tip to Castle Wulfenbach). This is another three part mission: kill the Wolfram‘s defenses, kill the Wolfram‘s engines, and kill the Wolfram‘s bow cannon. That last is required because of a severe design flaw, (which makes you wonder if you shouldn’t have just thrown the Chief Designer overboard in the Lake Nabaru mission), in that the bow gun is evidently hooked up to the scuttling charges, and when you take it out, the whole ship goes down — but not before Mozume finishes his emoting.
I’ve broken the weapons and tactics discussion into three parts. In Part 2 I’ll give you the perfect formula for killing the engines. It’s not a cheat, and it’s something the designers obviously didn’t think of.
Weapons and Tactics, Part 1
Just about any aircraft will do here. You are shooting at searchlight-aimed flak units positioned at various places around the tail of the dirigible. You have to be high enough to see over the various structural bits that get in the way, but if you do that, you open yourself up to the searchlights. An attack from the rear is the most straighforward (heh) approach, but if you do that you find yourself dying a lot. Safer is to approach from the side or below, depending on the target, pop up, take a shot, and immediately dive out of the beamline. If you like, you can shoot up some of the light AAA on your way out. Keep in mind that if you do that, you will likely bump into stuff. As usual, your plane steers like a cow when you get close to your target.
Almost any forward firing weapon will work here. I usually used my wing guns.
Weapons and Tactics, Part 2
After you have killed the tail flak, you reset for a new problem. Wolfie has activated its aerial mines and rotating fan blade shield…thingies. The only way to attack is straight up the rear, says the slightly effeminate designer. You have to kill three separate smokey chimney things, which will kill the engines, except for the ones that move the ship. The first time I cleared this, on the Easy setting, I used a Senryu, because of the platform stability. The technique I used is one I am sure they intended. Fly straight in, buffeted by the wake vortex, climb up over the rotating fan blades, and take a shot. You spend a lot of time within inches of the hull, and are constantly in danger of running into the fan, or other structures, and you rarely get a clean view of the target. In addition, the need to point your plane at the target means you have to take your shot and pull out, before you hit something. With the plane, I mean. It was an exciting mission — flying in from underneath, sneaking up around the curve of the ship to avoid the light AAA, hanging on a stall in the wake vortex to give yourself a longer setup time. Good times, good times.
My second win was quicker and cleaner, and was done on the Hard setting. The weapon of choice was…bombs. Actually, CBUs (“powder bombs”). Take up station to the rear and slightly above, with your weapons set to wing guns. Come in at a reasonable speed — not max V, but certainly not near a stall. Watch where the flashing target is, and as you come up on it, switch from guns to bombs. The target markers will all go to X’s (because SCIA doesn’t believe in bombing airborne targets), but you know which is which already. Fly straight and level until the proper X enters the bomb pipper, toggle the bomb string, and wait for the [Destroyed] box. If you throttle back, you can let Wolfram pull ahead slightly while your intervalometer resets.
Weapons and Tactics, Part 3
Wolfie is hurt, but not dead. It still has its engines, and it’s making a run for the border. As far as I can tell, the only way to shoot the thing down is to find an opening in the armor, kindof like a dragon. No opening, no shootdown. Fortunately, the designer allowed for that, and he made it possible for the bow to unzip so another of those searchlight-eyed monster flak pieces can protrude and spurt glowing white shell-globs anywhere within about 30 degrees of the centerline. You have to kill the cannon, but if you try to come at it head on, it will get you, despite the slow rate of fire — it’s impossible (for me, at least) to split-S out of the way of a shell, then get lined up within 650m gun range before it fires another shot. I died many times demonstrating this. Many, many times.
What seems to work is to attack well off the nose, but clearly short of a side shot. You have to be far enough ahead that you are looking into the gun-bay for most of your attack, taking into account the forward motion of Wolfram. You can’t take too long doing this, because the Lautern fighters finally analyze your attack and realize there is a danger, and so start attacking you. Once you get your hit, the explosion flashes back down the centerline of the dirigible (hasn’t anyone heard of designing for damage control?) and the entire sausage-shaped projectile thrusts itself into the earth, spurting flame and oratory all the way. Whoever wrote this scenario must have very strange dreams.
This mission is all about the story, with Mozume declaiming his view of what the New World Order should look like. Once he’s dead, the only one left is Oroshina, and you hook up with her in Mission 17.
