Many ships and land installations are either neutral or are used similarly by both sides. With only two exceptions, they are not used in-game.
Land Installations
There are several different kinds of land installations: Only two are playable, and even then there isn't much to do with them.
Shipyards
- Strong Against: Sea Attack
- Weak Against: Air Attack
Shipyards act just like aircraft carriers, only they don't move and they launch ships instead of planes. What kind of ships they launch is dependant on the level. Sometimes they can deploy only patrol boats and seaplanes. Othertimes, Battle of the Solomon Islands being the most notable example, they can deploy entire fleets, backed with cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and even battleships.
Shipyards, due to their nature, are vulnerable primarily to air attack. The hit-and-run nature of aircraft allows them to strike at odd angles and from out of reach of shipborne anti-aircraft fire.
Airfields
- Strong Against: Air Attack
- Weak Against: Sea Attack
Ironically, while shipyards are vulnerable to air attack, Airfields can repel them easily if players act quickly. As soon as an air raid is detected, if all fighters are scrambled, oftentimes they can inflict a lot of damage to the enemy formation and nullify most of its attacking power. Against enemy warships, however, particularly battleships - dive bombers and even torpedo bombers rarely cause enough damage to sink enemy warships quickly enough to save the airfield.
Therefore, strangely enough, sea power is best countered with air and air power is best countered with mastery of the sea.
Note that when attacking an airfield all that must be disabled is the hangar which spawns the planes. All other buildings, including exposed aircraft on the ground, are useless and are merely there for decoration.
Miscellaneous Land Installations
Aside from various decorations, several defencive installations appear. Since they are not controllable, there are no screenshots available of them. Additionally most of them are extremely small, to the point where getting a screenshot would be nearly impossible.
- Fortress: These buildings are equipped with powerful artillery that allows them to strike at passing warships. Counter with your own artillery as quickly as possible, or use aircraft to take them out.
- Light AA: A typical AA gun, similar to that of the rear gunner of a bomber. Never really a threat, they can be neutralized with a burst of machine gun fire.
- Heavy AA: A typical flak cannon, similar to that of a warship. Like the Light AA, it isn't really a threat and can be easily neutralized with a burst of machine gun fire.
- Heavy Fortress: Not to be confused with the normal fortress, the Heavy Fortress can put down a lot of feather - so much that it can cause considerable damage even to the American Iowa-class battleship. These are best attacked from the air with dive bombers.
Neutral Vessels
These ships are never controllable to the player, which is in fact a good thing, since this is a naval combat simulation, not a naval trading sim. There are no resources in Battlestations Midway, so these units are merely for decoration and targets for submarines.
Cargo Ship
- Armament:
- AA Weapons: 20mm machine gun x2
- Class: AK (Cargo Ship)
- Speed: 18 knots (estimate)
- Strong Against: Nothing
- Weak Against: Everything
They are weak against everything, and have no weapons themselves. All it takes is two torpedoes or a few rounds of machine gun ammo in their cargo containers to send them to the bottom. Both sides use this model of cargo ship, and they are identical in all respects. Machine gun fire to the superstructure does not damage them at all, however - torpedoes or cannonade is the only thing that can sink them there.
Official Description: The Pacific Ocean is full of cargo ships such as these, particularly now that there is a great need for large amounts of equipment and ammunition to be transported. These goods, often highly explosive in nature, are carried in the cargo holds at the front and rear of the ship. Targeting these holds often results in a devastating explosion that will sink thew ship, something that can be accomplished even with airplane machine guns.
Tanker
- Armament:
- AA Weapons: 20mm machine gun x1
- Class: AK (Cargo Ship)
- Speed: 18 knots
- Strong Against: Nothing
- Weak Against: Everything
These ones are even worse than the cargo ships. Carrying oil, their huge decks are prone to flame, and all it takes is a few machine gun rounds right in the middle to cause a catastrophic explosion. Fortunately you'll never have to protect them, nor will the game penalize you for their loss. Some players intentionally destroy them just for fun.
Official Description: Both sides require large quantities of fuel oil to sustain their war efforts, and this is transported around in large tankers. Unfortunately, oil, especially the light yellow East Indies crude, is extremely flammable, which makes these ships extremely vulnerable to attack of any kinds: even machine gun fire can start a potentially fatal blaze in one of the storage tanks.
Troop Transport
| File:Battlestations Troop Transport.JPG | |
| Armaments | AA Weapons: 5"/40 flak cannon x1, 20mm machine gun x3, 28mm quad machine gun x1 |
|---|---|
| Class | AK (Cargo Ship) |
| Speed | 18 knots |
| Strong Against | Nothing |
| Weak Against | Everything |
The toughest to destroy of the above cargo ships, troop transports can still be sent to the bottom via machine gun fire, but only to their decks. This makes them immune to machine gun fire from sea level, as well as anti-aircraft. They can easily be sunk by a PT boat's twin torpedoes, however. Enemy invasion fleets, most notably in Defence of the Phillipines, contain a few troop transports coupled with LCP landing craft and the larger LSTs for landing armoured units. Troop transports are never a threat to any kind of warship, however.
Official Description: Both the U.S. and Imperial navies have co-opted a large number of civilian cruise ships for the purpose of transporting soldiers over long distances. When close to a landing zone, the troops then disembark into landing craft such as the Higgins boats or Daihatsu barges to reach the shore. As these are civilian ships, they are not armoured, which makes them easy targets. However, they are usually fitted with some light armament to give them a chance against attackers.