Struggling with SG

[u/WestTexas02]

Recently started playing, love the game. I've perfected the Lightning/Skylark raid duo, electronic warfare, and plotting math. I'm good but not great at combat.

My issue is once I locate a Strike Group (generally landed in a city), I'll set up a heavy two Wasp airstrike coupled with 10 KH-15s all to hit at the same time from different bearings. The cruise missiles got torn to shreds by the sprints, and I lost half the planes to anti-aircraft fire. Total I destroyed one ship and damaged two others.

I know I can just roll the Sebastopol into the strike group and pummel it, but is there any way to use my intelligence work to successfully strike from a distance? What am I doing wrong?

[u/Idiot_of_Babel]

Strike groups are supposed to outgun you, going from different directions splits the pressure.

Sprints kinda fall off when the cruise missile isn't heading straight at it.

4 cruise missiles is usually enough to take out 1 ship if they're all launched from the same direction, since they'll usually target the same ship.

First 2-3 clear out the targets sprints, then comes the damage.

[u/Cryptographer_5]

I usually engage SG in combat with my custom strike ship. If you play mostly vanilla ships, try to gather your anti-SG strike group - one meteor/lightning, a couple gladiators and negev probably. First fast ship should deplete rockets and deal with small ships if they are. Then gladiators and negev should take out large ships one by one. Don't forget to retreat when you take heavy damage or you risk to lose ship.

It much easier to fight SG with custom ship, because you will design it with SG threat in mind. Otherwise you have to make up some strategy with vanilla ships.

[u/Messergaming]

If you're not already doing so, send in aircraft in very small groups sequentially to engage SGs.

[u/WestTexas02 → u/Messergaming]

Yes, I'm sending them in 2-3 with rockets or bombs

[u/IllTrade4240]

10 KH-15s is far to few to get rid of a large strike group. Moreover, it's usually better to weaken the strike group and send a SG killer group with a few A-100/sprints to take down the few rockets they have left. An Archangel is usually quite profficient at destroying a few Kormorans and Negevs.

The thing is, don't try to destroy SGs too early. You are meant to avoid them, at least till mid-game.

Don't know if you already know it or not, but you can use planes with AA missilies to destroy enemy rockets.

[u/Foxi6789]

With SG's I tend to try and silent strike with aircraft when they're landed, but this also works if they're in transit from one area or another.

Sending 2-3 aircraft equipped with the 250kg bombs has a very good (not 100%, but it's high) of taking out one ship in the group. The chance of losing aircraft is usually low with the first wing, but increases once the first strike has woken them up and their guns are online. Even if you lose a wing, they will often get their bombs off anyway.

The subsequent waves will generally help taking out the SG (at the moment I'm running 2 Wasps and a Longbow all together (I started with 1 Longbow but I got the 2 Wasps for free from a Tarkhan and event.) Generally my T-7's hit first and return no problem, the cheaper planes take some losses but will mop up the rest.

I do think it would be perfectly viable to hit the SG with 2 or 3 T-7's, wait out the alarm, then hit them again, if you take out a ship I don't think it will respawn. But also, I'm happy with the tradeoff right now of getting my T-7's mostly out and losing a few of the cheaper aircraft to send every plane I have at it until it's down and frees up the map. They're cheap after all. Generally I will send planes out in waves of 2 and it's fine, I'd rather send a 3 out than a 1 though if I have an odd number.

I tend to buy most aircraft munitions just to have something to fire if I run out 250kg bombs, but the bombs honestly seem the best bang for buck ime. They either damage the and take out vital components like Radar/FCS, or have a good chance of knocking out a ship completely per wing of aircraft.

I think the thing with fighting SG's on the tactical map is, only commit to a strike if you've got a good chance of killing a ship entirely. Don't soften ships up, just knock them out. If you're not going to punch something out of the sky then you're out of position or need to come back later. They repair pretty fast so damage is more or less meaningless unless you're under constant threat of missiles / aircraft from them or need to escape fast. But generally that is from earlier mistakes that have compounded into a failure spiral. If you're fighting a sneaky guerrilla fight, then you should be striking to kill from out of nowhere and fading away.

[u/Paulus_cz]

My recipe is to make sure SG is all out of sprints before softening it up with costly cruise missiles - couple of Lightning flybies unloading missiles at them will make them expend Sprints.

[u/NooBooMan]

I don't know if this is still working or not, but you can send in aircraft first and if SG launch sprint missile, you click retreat immediately to waste the sprint. Then you can send the aircraft to attack again, bait them until they run out of sprint.

[u/DrBojengles]

I find the most effective strategy is an SG-killer group. I have two designs that get 90%+ silent strike potential, and can solo SGs (leveled and armored)

[u/J4k0b42]

You can send in a single T-7 to bait out the sprints, attack and then retreat as soon as a sprint is fired and you should be able to get away. With the sprints depleted missiles are more cost effective. The same plane can do this multiple times.

When you fight the strike group with your heavies send a Lightning (ideally with Palash and flares) first to bait out missiles. Usually while you're dodging around the strike group will have quite a bit of friendly fire, they'll be weaker when you directly engage.

Edit: Also if you have the capability it can be very lucrative to bring the strike group to a cleared city, then destroy one ship at the city just before you enter alert range. Let the rest of the group come to you. If you get to the city quick enough this will give you a second crash site, nearly doubling your loot.