Battlestations: Midway
22 Achievements
1,000
35-40h
Veteran Pilot
Complete all Plane Challenge missions
50
How to unlock the Veteran Pilot achievement in Battlestations: Midway - Definitive Guide
Chimaera36
TrueAchievements
TrueAchievements
Press RT+LT+RB+LB and X at the challenge select screen. This unlocks all challenges. The achievement pops once you complete the last challenge as, by game logic, you would have done the other two beforehand.
The last challenge is 'Attack on Force Z'. This can be very frustrating as not only do you have to contend with air cover (unlike the real-life destruction of Force Z where no carrier was present), but you have a time limit - the Prince of Wales/Repulse BBs are moving east and will leave the map.
You have Oscars, Nells and Bettys. The Oscars will get murdered by the hurricanes/AA, and the Nells are very slow. Since time is of the essence, you can do this solely with Betties, and without killing the Hermes (despite almost every guide I have found telling you to do that first, I was never able to kill it and the BBs, since the attack on the Hermes uses one of your attack 'waves' of which you only get three or so before the BBs exit the map and you lose).
Launch eight waves of three Betties each (4 from each airbase) and have them all equipped with torpedoes. Send them to meet up in front of the formation, and then have them all attack the Repulse (which is faster than the Prince of Wales and hence leaves the map first) head on. This massively reduces the incoming flak, and minimizes the AI's overwhelming tendency to miss broadside torpedo shots. If you are lucky, enough will hit to kill the Repulse. If not, restart as this only takes 5min or so.
If you got lucky, crash your planes into the ocean or order them to loiter around the fleet - the Hurricanes and AA will kill them quickly. Repeat this with the Prince of Wales. You have 30 Betties at each base, so you have enough for one more full on attack wave (which will likely have an extra plane or two dropping torps due to the loss of incoming AA from the Repulse) and a mixed Betty/Nell wave if that fails.
This may take you a few tries (took me 3), but you only need to get lucky once. Good luck!
Creech
[Single Player] Beat the Plane Challenge mission set from the Single Player menu.
Mission 1 – Shortage of Reinforcements:
You can set your supporting craft to target aircraft while you hop back to your primary plane and strafe the ships. Try to stay high except when diving to strafe to avoid flak. Pretty straightforward mission.
Mission 2 – Saving Tulagi:
Bombers will mob you from the south, so send all your fighters as far south as you can keep them. If flying them personally rather than controlling from the tactical screen, aim for engines. When the air attack is over, put bombs on everything and destroy the incoming ships. Similar to the Lombok mission in many ways, although from the Japanese perspective.
Mission 3 – Attack on Force Z:
Take out both destroyers first with dive bombers. You will need to zoom in on the tactical map to select the destroyers as they don’t typically show up on the tactical map at the default zoom settings. When they are down, dive bomb the carrier and then set 5-6 fighters to take out any of the carrier’s fighters still in the air while you launch bombers loaded with torpedoes. Focus on one battleship at a time and set your bomber groups far enough apart that you can manually fly them in and launch because the computer sucks at hitting them in this mission. Launch the torpedoes at about 0.2 distance and then crash your plane into the BB for additional damage. You have enough bombers that you can crash your whole flight and it lets you launch your next wave much sooner.
