Primary Objectives
- Rendesvous with the recon plane
- Sink the Naichi
Secondary Objectives
- All your ships must survive
Hidden Objectives
- Sink all enemy cruisers
- Sink all enemy warships
Quite possibly the hardest ship challenge in the game, Hunt for the Cruiser makes it seem as though you are hunting for the cruiser. More often than not, (especially in Soviet Russia) the cruiser hunts you. All you have are two Fletcher class destroyers and a single Clemson class. Good luck keeping a Clemson alive against a heavy cruiser.
Hunting with a Catalina
This section of the game makes it almost seem like an RPG. You have to rendesvous with a recon plane in order to find the Naichi. Essentially, it gives you the quest. Then you have to hunt down and kill the big bad monster with a trio of woefully armed warships.
It should be noted that the enemy warships have randomized spawn points, so you may end up finding different ships in different locations each time, making it difficult to draw up a constant winning strategy each time.
The good news is that your opponents, for the most part, are Minekaze-class destroyers. Comparable to a Clemson, these ships might cause a bit of damage against you, but ultimately you'll cause more damage against them. As always, be careful about torpedoes. Destroyers are generally quite strong against them, and can pump out a lot of water, so chances are you won't have much trouble with them. The tactical map, fully zoomed in, allows you to track these underwater missiles easily.
Try to engage the enemy warships quickly before they can meet up and cover each other. As with most multiplayer maps, united they stand, divided they fall, so sink the enemy ships as they appear. Just be careful around the Kuma-class cruisers especially. You'll want to save your health for the Naichi. You'll also want to be careful around the Hayashio - it isn't a battleship (fortunately), but it is a Fubuki-class destroyer, which means it has about the same firepower as a Fletcher. Fortunately that's the only one you have to deal with, so sink it quickly and move on.
Once you've met with the Catalina, it flies around to try and find the Naichi for you. Typically it's south of your position, but it can change.
Naichi vs Destroyers
The Naichi is, as you learned just one challenge mission before, is a Tone-class cruiser. It is, in fact, the same one you commanded. Therefore you can exploit its single major design flaw - its lack of rear guns. Get all your ships behind the Naichi as soon as you can and pound it from this safe spot. Fortunately destroyers are much faster and much more manoeuvrable than heavy cruisers, so you shouldn't have too much trouble staying here. The trouble arises in trying to keep your allies alive so you can accomplish all the objectives, which is made even harder from their duels against all the other ships.
The Naichi has longer range than you, so you want to close with it as quickly as possible. Whatever you do though, don't stay in its broadside. You will be easily eaten alive at this point. Make frequent trips to the repair screen so you can plug holes and put out fires as necessary.
Once you're in about a single nautical mile of the Naichi, start unloading torpedoes at it. Fire them in a wide spread in front of the cruiser so you can increase your chances of a hit. Save a few torpedoes on your flagship and switch ships to put even more torpedoes in the water. Torpedoes will cause a lot more damage to the Naichi than your cannons will, so fire away. Aim for the engines and try and shut them down so they'll be a sitting target for a torpedo salvo.
Sink the Naichi and you're done!