Primary Objectives
- The Airfield must survive
- The destroyers must survive
- The shipyard must survive
- Neutralize the landing fleet
There are no secondary or hidden objectives for this mission.
If you've beaten Shortage of Reinforcements without any problems, you're in for a nasty surprise for this level. Your airfield is armed with nothing but Zeroes - but since all enemies come at you from the skies anyway, that's not much of an issue.
Airfield
Your first objective is to defend the airfield. Launch every last fighter you can and fly them all south. The bombers won't appear immediately, but they'll appear soon enough. Don't waste ANY time at all directing the Zeroes to the southwest and to the south, where the bombers spawn. Down all the B-17s that appear as quickly as possible. They don't have any escorts, but as flying fortresses, they have a LOT of guns. Don't let any of the B-17s through - all it takes are three to end your game right off the bat. Fortunately B-17s are really slow and easy targets, so fire away at their engines to put all the Flying Fortresses out of commission.
The trick is to never stop dogfighting. When one squad is finished with a squadron, open the map and switch to another squadron. There should never be a moment where you are not fighting.
The B-17s are easy enough. You should defend the airfield with little or no difficulties. Even if you lose here, you can always restart. Since it's the first objective, it's the easiest to reach after a restart.
Destroyers
So, you've survived the first attack wave. Next you have to defend a pair of destroyers. Why they are mission critical, no one knows - all that matters to you is that they must survive.
Change of targets this time - torpedo and dive bombers come in on attack runs from the western border. Have all your planes rush the border and take as many down as possible head-on. When aircraft drop to only one member, send them back home to replenish the air wing and take off again.
Again, as with the B-17s, there should be no lulls in the fighting at all. When one squad is done with an enemy formation, switch to another one.
Both dive and torpedo bombers are priority targets, but if you have to chase one and leave the other alone, go for the dive bombers. Dive bombers cause less damage, but dsetroyers don't have a lot of health - and they're very accurate. Torpedo bombers cause even more damage, but if you've been keeping up with all the other torpedo bombers, the destroyers shouldn't have much of a problem evading torpedoes. The destroyers are still far from invincible, although only one has to survive to proceed to the next phase.
Keep track of how many enemies there are left. When there is only one or two squadrons of enemies left, have all your Zeroes fly east, in the direction of the shipyard. Leave one squadron to mop up the remaining squadrons. You'll see why in a moment.
Shipyard
NOW is the hard part. Whether you win or lose depends on how you react after you've saved the destroyers. If, when there are three or two squadrons of enemies left attacking the destroyers, you send every last Zero off to the east, on the direction of the shipyard - you have a chance of winning. If you don't, chances are you'll lose.