Frontlines Cyrenaica: sinking San Giorgio ship

[Hohenhole]

I'm playing The Capture of Tobruk from UK side, but i cannot figure how sink the italian ship San Giorgio; i lowered the difficulty to the easiest setting but simply the ship regenerate fast every damage.
I killed also the italian artillery hero but this ship seems play with the god mode activated.

[Tassadar]

While this sounds counter-intuitive, simply... attack it with infantry. It will do the trick, as it's based in the port, so you will do a lot of damage this way.

[adiekmann]

Better yet, before you attack it with infantry, move your ships to block it from retreating out of the port. This will force it to surrender, regardless of how much or little damage your infantry unit inflicted.

[DefiantXYX]

Did you notice on this map, that the italian artillery does a lot of damage to your ships? I have never seen this before.

[Tassadar]

Did you notice on this map, that the italian artillery does a lot of damage to your ships? I have never seen this before.

These are lighter vessels, monitors and such for the most part, so they have weaker stats. It make sense in my opinion that it would be possible to damage them with regular artillery batteries. I would still re-balance this slightly as the seem to hit just a tad too hard when I checked this out, but the logic behind this decision is there. If anything the ship models might not represent this ideally which can be confusing compared to some older campaigns.

[deadtorius]

My only suggestion is to use your two heavy ships to attack it. You can keep just out of range of the Italian ship. You will likely need a DD to spot it. It will repair but eventually the Italians will run out of prestige (educated guess) and will not be able to repair itself. That has been my observation at least. I think the Brits have a light cruiser that has to move into gun range of the Italian ship, keep it up north away from the coastal guns. I don't think I have ever had them shooting at my ships that much. I use my own artillery to suppress them and then infantry takes them out. I have managed to sink it several times but there was one run where I was one hit point away on the last allowed turn so it survived.
I have had the Italian ship shoot back which has been pretty harmful. in that case I move in the destroyers closer to draw the AI fire while the two larger ships stay back and fire away out of range.

[DefiantXYX]

These are lighter vessels, monitors and such for the most part, so they have weaker stats. [...] If anything the ship models might not represent this ideally which can be confusing compared to some older campaigns.

Yeah, they looked like light cruisers or at least destroyer for me. Afair one ship had a range of 4/5 and was almost killed by 2-3 shoots from the artillery. Not a big problem but just strange, since I never could damage any ship without bombers and stuff like the gustav gun.

[Hohenhole]

Thank you, at the end i destroyed the San Giorgio using the ships while land units weakened the defenders.
The briefing is little misleading, when the officer uses the words "Naval blockade" i thought i should put my ships in hexes before the dock, triggering the self sinking.
Finally, a curiosity; historically the ship was hit by various British air attacks, but in the game it is not possible because the planes available to the player do not have the necessary autonomy to reach it.

[RVallant]

Thank you, at the end i destroyed the San Giorgio using the ships while land units weakened the defenders.
The briefing is little misleading, when the officer uses the words "Naval blockade" i thought i should put my ships in hexes before the dock, triggering the self sinking.
Finally, a curiosity; historically the ship was hit by various British air attacks, but in the game it is not possible because the planes available to the player do not have the necessary autonomy to reach it.

Yeah, you would have thought it would give your strat bombers an opportunity to shine, but no.

On the bright side, there's enough time to basically sweep through the north-eastern defensive line and encircle the are anyway, so the objective is entirely doable despite the layout.