The locating route was cross-checked in August, not replayed here on Build 1705. Patch #8 scoring fixes are official; the current gold-medal route remains disputed.

Phantom Battery becomes manageable when you stop looking for one permanent coordinate. The mission can force an emergency move, old position reports can become stale, and the battery may need to be found again after the battle state changes. The useful route is to repeat the locating job whenever either side moves.

Patch #8 / Version 1.0 (1705) corrects mission 13 scoring: additional incendiary fires and the hostile battery's shots no longer affect your accuracy or count as friendly fire for medals. Update before comparing your result with an older medal route.

The locating route below comes from earlier, cross-checked player reports. Patch #8 does not establish new coordinates, shell choices, battery health, or hit counts.

A reported locating route

  1. Check for Version 1.0 (1705) before troubleshooting. Patch #8 changes scoring and Emergency Move behavior; earlier patches also repaired replay state. Check your displayed version before comparing the run with an older video.
  2. Deal with the opening threat. Player routes often use Emergency Move when counter-battery pressure demands it. Reports disagree on the exact timing, so react to the current mission state instead of copying a countdown.
  3. Find your own Nest again. Use Position Reports after moving. A range and bearing can leave two possible locations. A third report or reconnaissance is safer than choosing one by instinct.
  4. Search with current intelligence. Successful player routes use a recon plane, forward observers, or enemy spotter information. Grid references such as F1, E1, and G1 come from individual runs and should be treated as search lanes.
  5. Prepare both guns after the target is credible. Several reports describe firing a paired shot. That supports loading both barrels together. It does not establish one mandatory AP or APHE recipe.
  6. Reacquire the battery when the state changes. If the battery moves or the latest report no longer matches the map, collect fresh information before reusing the old solution.

The map and triangulation guide explains why two reports can still leave an ambiguous point and why your current Nest position matters to the final shot.

What the patches actually tell us

Patch #8 affects medal attempts. Alongside the mission 13 scoring correction, it adjusts several excessively high medal requirements. It does not identify every changed threshold. Do not repeat an old workaround that depended on the hostile battery's shots being included in your accuracy statistic.

Emergency Move received a fix. Shells fired before a move could trigger the counter-battery timer; Patch #8 lists that behavior as fixed. The note does not say Emergency Move permanently disables counter-battery fire or publish a replacement countdown.

The replay warning comes directly from Patch 3. If the same mission fails to reset on an older build, updating is the first useful test.

Patch 4 says the mission balance was improved. It gives no replacement timer, battery health value, search grid, or shell requirement. Player routes written before that patch can still reveal the shape of the mission, but their exact numbers may be historical.

Four failure patterns

Your target mark looks right but the shot is wrong. Check whether the firing solution still uses the Nest position from before an emergency move.

Recon finds nothing at a coordinate from another guide. Use that coordinate as a search example. Pair the red search area with a fresh report or another source of intelligence.

A replay behaves differently from the guide. Check the installed version. Replay state was patched, and the mission balance changed again afterward.

The first salvo does not finish the battery. Confirm that the impact registered and check whether the target moved. The available reports do not support a universal four-hit rule.

Why does my gold medal still fail?

First compare the displayed version and your current medal text with the result screen. An October 2–3 discussion reports a remaining no-recon medal problem, while a reply gives a successful-run screenshot and a different interpretation of counted kills. Those conflicting accounts do not establish a guaranteed workaround.

Keep your own reconnaissance, kills, accuracy, and friendly-fire results when reporting a mismatch. The official scoring correction applies to additional incendiary fires and the hostile battery's shots; it does not declare your own direct hits on friendlies harmless. See the medal guide for the patch changes and an attempt checklist.

Sources

Patch #8 and the recent medal discussion were checked on October 4, 2026. The locating route was cross-checked on August 22 and has not been reproduced by this site on Build 1705. Exact coordinates, timer values, shell choice, hit count, and a reliable current gold-medal route remain unverified.