Wade Jackson’s campaign is filled with intense fighting both on and off the ground – he might not have access to the most overpowered weapons, but there’s a lot of action – just like in the other missions such as the one where you need to reach the windmill.
Arguably the toughest to knock out of the park is The Battle of Midway mission, especially bombing the two carriers.
Historically, dive bombers played a huge part in USA’s victory in the battle, and this mission is a great homage to their impeccable tactics and skill. The damage these bombers inflicted on the Japanese aircraft carriers is often cited as a tipping point in the pacific theatre of WW2.
However, with so many things going on at the same time, it’s might not be easy to keep your focus and bomb those two carriers on your first try.
Here is how to bomb the carriers in the Battle of Midway mission in Call of Duty: Vanguard.
Keep Your Direction and Avoid Fire
The first challenging thins is to avoid fire from AA guns on the carriers so they don’t shoot you down. You can do this by moving your Right Stick left or right, as you see tracer bullets coming your way. You can gauge the trajectory of the incoming bullets and tilt your plane a little to either side to avoid fire.
If you don’t do this, you might get shot down while diving towards the carrier.
Another thing to note here is that you need to keep your direction and don’t stray too far away from the carrier. That means you shouldn’t move your Right Stick up or down too much, or you’ll completely miss the target. Only tilt left and right to avoid bullets since moving up or down will make it harder to get in a good position to drop bombs.
Drop the Bombs to the Designated Area
You can’t just release the bombs anywhere on the carrier. For some reason, you need to aim directly at the highlighted part of the carrier to complete the mission. Dropping bombs anywhere else will result in Wade crashing the plane, unable to pull up.
You should also drop the bombs as soon as you see the instruction on the screen. Doing it any later won’t give you enough time to pull up and you’ll crash into the carrier.
If you’re wondering how to release the bomb in Vanguard, aim towards the target area, which will turn green. From there, you need to have your crosshair focused on it and release the bomb instantly by tapping R1 (PlayStation) or RB (Xbox). Don’t worry about aligning your crosshair perfectly with the highlighted area, it can be a little off.
Pull Up
Finally, hold your Right Stick up (or down, if you’ve inverted your controls) to pull up and fly away.
You need to do this as soon as you drop the bombs or – you guessed it – the plane will smash into the carrier. Pulling up is probably the easiest part of the whole maneuver, and it seems like things are set up almost to pull up automatically when you do everything else right.
Sometimes, Wade won’t be able to pull up the plane so you might feel like you’re doing something wrong. I found that this has nothing to do with holding the Right Stick properly but with dropping the bombs on the highlighted area of the carrier. If you don’t do this, the mechanics are set up so that you crash into the carrier instead of pulling up, going around, and having another go.
Once you manage to bomb the first carrier, you’ll then need to bomb the second carrier in Vanguard to complete the mission.
If you’re still not quite sure how to complete this mission, go ahead and watch us do it on our YouTube channel below:
Final Word
Bombing the carriers in the Battle of Midway can be tricky if you don’t go through all the steps with precision. It requires precision and strategy similarly to when you had to take down the Stuka.
The most important part is controlling the dive and targeting as close to the highlighted area as you can. Once the on-screen notification to drop the bomb shows up, tap R1/RB instantly and you’ll be in the clear. Pulling up is a formality if you did everything right. In fact, you don’t even have to pull up after bombing the second carrier because a cutscene will start as soon as you release the bomb.
